[i]I miss you.[/i]

It was written in red. Blood red, spanning the expanse of the glass, along the top border of the mirror framed in lights of the vanity. Written in Red Blush, lipstick, with an unwavering, unshaking, hand. Certain in the message as if it came from a hand from beyond the every day, beyond life. Beyond death. Deep down, she wished. Who didn't want their dead loved one back? But that wasn't how death worked. Death didn't work as most assumed it did; she knew that. She'd known that years. Death wasn't the final frontier. Too many came back from death, like life was a dream, and the end of life a dream. But not a dream, a nightmare. Of pain, of endurance. And at the end of nightmare, like most nightmares, was a monster. 

That was the way death worked in her new reality. Monsters and nightmares. And what did a monster have to fear? What could a demon possibly fear from shadow? What, if anything, could evil fear? What that went bump in the night could even imagine fearing from a simple little human that? Demon blooded, the ancient monsters called it. Called her. Whispers in the dark of predators turned to fear by very rumor, by the idea that their hour of reckoning was upon them. When she stopped telling herself it couldn't be true, that none of it was real, when she finally accepted what it was, what she was, all that was left upon her face was a smile. A smile in Red Blush. A smile in lipstick.

All that was left was the joy of knowing the monsters feared her: a girl, a Slayer. 

With a simple message to her lost mother, Emelia Vance snuck out her bedroom window, and landed on the well groomed lawn with more silence, and better form, than a cat with nine lives left. New state, new town, new life--didn't matter. Same girl. Same Slayer. She'd go out, she'd prod the dark--shake the shadows shitless until they emptied every last bit of evil out of them. Every last monster. Red Blush lipstick, her hair freshly washed, scented Velvet Sugar from Bath and Body, tied tight into a pony tail. A single black zip up hoodie, a black tank top, and black tights with black, neon pink accented, Nikes. 

She was just a little suburban white girl. No reason to fear her, no reason to suspect her. The very genius of turning the most common of victims into the most vicious of alpha predators never escaped her. She had the visions, she had the dreams; she knew what she was. She had some vague idea of who, of what, created her. Of the nigh timeless bloodline that she continued. Fate? Chance? Destiny? Who knew what drove it, she only had some idea what created it. [i]Watchers[/i], now, they were called. 

Endlessly, it felt like, due to anticipation she waited in the largest Washington, Ohio, graveyard. It stood just on the edge of oldtown Washington, between suburbia and old pioneer mainstreet. There was a larger cemetery just outside of suburban Washington. After an hour of silence and nothing, Emy was starting to think she should've been there, instead of the current graveyard. Because nothing happened. There was not but silence. She was the most obvious of targets, the most cliche of victims. Sitting there with moleskin, and her iPhone blaring music into her earbuds. 

There just wasn't an easier target for a monster.

But nothing. Every ounce of superhuman strength and speed in her body tensed, relaxed, and tensed all over again. She was restless. She [i]wanted[/i] the violence. She wanted the thrill. Yet it was denied her. What was so different about Washington, Ohio? What was so different from Washington, D.C.? What distracted the monsters from the easy, obvious, target in the graveyard? Even her eyeliner was emo. WHAT MORE COULD MAKE HER A TARGET!?

Frustration set in like like a bright moon over a midnight field. It forced the music off, the phone back in a pocket. Her senses started firing on high, her mind began orchestrating scenarios and possibilities. Then the most exhilarating of all sounds to a Slayer pierced through the night like a dagger in the dark: a scream. It was measured, it was resilient...yet it was a scream none the less. The fear was there, reluctant as it might've been. She followed it instantly, not hesitating, not debating--just movement. 

After a moment of looking, they weren't hard to track: a group. The very heat in the air suggested they were living, and the very tracks on the ground suggested the group of living were being chased by an even larger group of cold ones. Cold ones, unbeating hearts; vampires. Monsters. For the first time in what seemed all night, the Slayer smiled. 

[i]Finally.[/i] 

Between old Washington and new Washington, between ancient, tourist, mainstreet and new, civic engineered, suburbia lay a not so fun part of town. Old neighborhoods left to urban decay, patiently waiting their turn for gentrification, vast swaths of trailer parks hidden behind shitty, crumbling, strip malls that were mostly corner stores and laundry mats and doller stores and head shops and liquor stores and pawn shops. Now she was running, sprinting. She knew in this type of neighborhood the dead thrived, and the living shrank into shadow.

Another yell; like a plea from one friend to another, one teammate communicating with another. [i]Who were they? How much trouble were they really in?[/i] In a ran down, mostly abanonded, apartment building she found her answers. Twenty, thirty vampires. There were, at most, five or six living humans. And from the sounds and smells of it, they weren't much older than her, if they were older than her at all. Kids, fighting in the dark against a darkness they couldn't possibly combat. Her head turned this way, that way, and back again after long beats of her heart and prolonged exposures to sound and smells and black night air. 

[center][img]http://i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb396/rubixon/dark-corridor_zpsslqnkjmh.jpg[/img][/center]

It was a trap. The group of humans were being funneled into the old apartment building. Her Nike'd feet took over like rubber matted lightning bursts; step, steps, leap, stairs. By the time she reached the first floor of the building, she was taking a vampire by the back of the neck, and nearly tossing it backwards into a wall. A quick stake, and onto the next one. They were so focused on their prey, they never noticed the great white shark of a Slayer that had rudely interrupted their feast. The shadow of an alpha predator lurking above the predators--ready to not steal their lunch, but fucking end their lives.

Or afterlives. 

She saw dust on the stairs between first and second floors; clearly the humans weren't helpless. But they weren't prepared for the trap laid out for them. Had a group of humans become such an irritant that the local vampires plotted to end them in a bait and switch? It seemed so, Slayer instinct told her, though personally she'd never seen anything like it before. Vampires weren't usually that smart.

Something told her Washington, Ohio, vampires were a different breed. 

There was little left in the brown brick apartment building but graffiti, rain decayed ceilings and walls, and abandoned rooms. In this maze of rundown rot was a group of humans and a lot of monsters. She kept moving, from first floor to second floor, catching more vampires by surprise from behind. An elbow, a quick sidestep, and another staked. Dust. Hissing, a counter-surge, but Emy Vance wasn't new. When your father was a former Ranger and leader of combat men, and women, he raised you proper. Guard, faint, faint, counter, stake. Sweep, stake. More hissing, as the vampires immediately aware of her began to realize there was a shark among the piranhas.

It didn't help them. They were dust just as quick as their buddies. 

She was circling, now, the gang of teens fighting their way through the maze of interior corridors and apartments with walls knocked them, at times the gang of teens knocking DOWN walls just to advance, just to keep moving, just to not get caught in the tide of bloodsucking asshats that was hot on their heels. They didn't know she was there, much as the bloodsucking asshats on their heels didn't know she was there, either. Her body ripped through old drywall and timber like a wrecking ball; she was so fast, so strong, that the sheer kinetic force her body left no sanctuary for the monsters. 

By the time the group of teens were left on the third floor with nowhere left to run, the vampires had caught up, like ink through water, squeezing their darkness into every opening of the third floor lounge the teens were in. Three, then four, then five, then six vampires with 'game faces' on and fangs out, hissing, screaming, inching forward. 

Two were dusted before the other four even had a feeling something was wrong. One more was dusted before he could even turn around. Three left; one turned and jumped for her; she took the vampire by the ankle and smashed it against a wall. The last two abandoned the idea of the group of teenagers, and lunged for her. One was kicked in midair, the other dodged with a graceful, artful, twirl. By the time she landed she was already in position to counter the one who'd been introduced to the wall coming back for more. Elbow block, step in to the body, one strike turned into five with a dizzying array of fist strikes, and a quick, sudden, stake to the heart. 

One tried to run; a dagger sharp stake whirled through the air and caught it in the back, heart-high. Dust. 

The last frenzied, ran at her. Her body dropped like dead weight, one leg catching before it's feet, the other after, a tumbling takedown that left the vampire face first on the ground. Suddenly atop it, the Slayer took a flailing right hand from the vampire, pinned it against her own body, and pulled--HARD, snapping bone. She stepped off and out, the vampire scrambled one armed to it's feet. Just in time for her to drop kick it's right knee; the bone and ligament snapped with such violence it was audible for everyone in the room to hear. Hobbled and face down again, the Slayer came to her feet looking as lost in bloodlust as the monster.

She enjoyed hurting it. She enjoyed playing with her meal. This was personal. 

The stake that appeared in her hand...was dropped. Bouncing off the ground, harmless. The vampire was in shock; not from pain, but of surprise. It didn't feel the snap of pain from the broken arm or shattered knee--but it knew it was disabled. It knew that suddenly one right leg and one left arm just weren't working. It knew it was injured. The monster knew it was clipped...and it crawled along the floor. It crawled away from the Slayer. It crawled in fear. Male, early 20s, a purple and blue teeshirt and ripped blue jeans, old boots. Whoever it had been in life, it's afterlife was suddenly considerably worse. 

She pounced, taking long oily hair with a fist, lifting the head upward...until it's pale ear was level with her Red Blush lipsticked lips. Voice low, inlaid with twisted pleasure, darker humors: "Crawl home, little vampire. Crawl to your master, whoever they may be. Let them know the Slayer is here, let them know she comes for them now. And the next time I see you..."

If a monster could squeal in pain, in fear, this one came close to it. Whatever her knees did to it's back, with her right hand pulling back it's nappy head to expose it's fanged face, her free hand coming around in a hook punch--left fist smashing once into that vampiric face, than again. Than again. Than again. It was only violent ends on the face of the pretty girl, prototypical victim, turned alpha predator Slayer as her left fist smashed into the vampire's mouth again, and again.

Until those fangs were beaten out of it's mouth.

"Tell them." Words snapped from her lips as violent as her fist strikes had been, bloodied and bruised from the assault from behind on the vampiric trap sent to kill the teens left to watch the violent display that, all told, took less than three minutes. At the beginning of the fourth minute she rose from the ground, standing and letting her dark eyes look at the human teens for the first time. She looked more drunk than angry, the grin on her Red Blush painted lips spreading as her bloody left hand went up to her face, index finger covered in vampire blood coming near her lips. 

[i]Shh.[/i]

"Go home." 

She walked out, more concerned with the blood under her nails than the looks on their faces, her mind busy new hurts, new bruises, and old scars. It was a daze; the entire walk home. She wanted to look for scouts, but she couldn't. Her heart beat so fast she felt dizzy, bloodlust coming down into a daze, like a hangover. By the time she was in her neighborhood, she was ashamed of the blood, she questioned whether she was dreaming, or awake. Even if she knew the answer to that, already. Her bathroom sink drowned in blood as she washed the night off her, pulling a fang out of her fist, tossing it in the toilet and flushing. 

She'd heal by morning. She always did. 

All that was left was her bedroom, and the vanity mirror. And the message. No matter how many monsters she struck, no matter how many demons she fought, no matter the amount of evil she faced down...it remained there like a ghost she couldn't hit. Haunting her, taunting her. [i]I miss you.[/i] Mothers knew, right? Mothers had to know. As the tears came and Emy Vance sank onto the floor, sobbing at the demon she'd become, she promised herself that her mother knew. Knew what her little girl had to become.

Knew that her little girl was a monster because she had to be. Because she had to be the monster that kept all the other monsters from the door.