“Perhaps she’s a half demon.”

The banter floating around the room wasn’t unusual, but the undercurrent was. For a collection of humans without [i]too[/i] much in the way of supernatural firepower they’d been doing rather well up to now. Relatively few close calls, no fatalities, and measurable success. They hadn’t encountered anything last night. They were spooked, and it showed in different ways for all of them. Spooked by so many vampires cooperating, for one, but mostly by the new player on the board. A girl, though not necessarily a [i]human[/i] one, with enough of a punch to upend Washington’s food chain. And a sadistic streak to boot.

Victoria was feeling something similar to the rest but showed it differently. A deep chill had settled in her bones, a frigidity from the moment that girl had stepped out of the shadows. A chill in her blood at watching fangs punched out of the night’s usual predator, at the bloodlust etched so clearly on her face. 

It wasn’t entirely alien. Everyone felt it, a little. It was the tingle running down your spine at a good challenge, the way your pulse quickened in a fight, the euphoria of seeing the underdog win. The feeling was written into humanity’s soul, a feeling the civilized world sought through other means. Victoria had felt it herself, and she would’ve laid down money that everyone else in the group had too. It was especially potent for them; their fights, by their very nature, weren’t equal. A vampire was their would-be-predator, something stronger than them and faster than them. Every encounter was an underdog story, a triumph of ingenuity over raw power. Adrenaline pumped, pulses raced, and that victory was a primal delight. A defiance of the fate narrowly evaded.

But that wasn’t what she had seen. The girl outclassed her prey and they both knew it. The fight could have been over before it started, as it had been with most of its fellows. It wasn’t. The girl, this ‘Slayer’, drew it out. Gave a glimmer of hope. Once it had been crushed beyond repair she beat the vampire to a pulp and left him alive but beaten, all to send a message. Not just of words, but of symbol. That she had smashed her fist into its face again, and again, and again, until it had been literally defanged as well. Vampires were evil. That wasn’t an opinion, it was an objective fact that Victoria had learned very early on. Whoever they were in life wasn’t there anymore. Their souls had been lost, and whatever was left was an evil with the face of a friend. They didn’t feel remorse, they didn’t feel guilt, they couldn’t even conceptualize what they were doing as evil. Not even sympathy for the devil could make her feel even an iota of regret that the vampire had been harmed.

No, the bile rising in the back of her throat had to do with this Slayer. A creature that could supplant Washington’s apex predator and [i]enjoy[/i] it. That was aware of her strength and by all appearances reveled in it. She was an unknown; not just in what she was, but her intentions. It could be that she was an ally. Certainly she had been last night, when they stepped into a trap that may well have killed them. But what if she wasn’t? What if it occurred to her that humans were a rung on the food chain below even the vampires she terrorized?

[i]Go home[/i].

The words had deepened the chill, and it hadn’t gone away even while she slept. Her showers, already cool by preference, had paled in comparison to that cold. It was deeply unsettling in a way that she couldn’t quite put into words, stirring up feelings that humanity, believing itself the top of the food chain, had long forgotten. When she looked in the mirror she thought she could almost see the cold blue reflected back in her eyes.

These were the feelings she refused to show. She had paced the back of the meeting room with measured, feline steps while they gathered but as she began to voice her thoughts for the first time she fell still. Victoria rested her back against the rear wall of the room, surveying her friends and allies with a quietly contemplative gaze.

“It would explain how she could strongarm a vampire. And the human appearance. Whatever she is...” The teen paused a moment, taking a long sip from an iced coffee before setting the cup aside. “She isn’t like you. Or I.”

“Has anyone considered asking our friend the librarian? He often knows some things he shouldn’t. We need to talk about the fact that they’ve gotten smarter, too. Last night was definitely a trap.”