“Where the hell is she?”
The room was barely bigger than a walk-in closet, with just enough room to squeeze between the moth-eaten couch and the unlevel wooden table. A rusting bucket was tucked underneath the table, permanently stained with the blackout memories of drunkards and druggies who couldn’t hold their liquor. Cigarette smoke was so thick that the solo lightbulb hanging from the ceiling offered hardly more light than a handful of fireflies, giving the disgusting hole an even more oppressive atmosphere. Valorie smashed the life out of another cigarette in the ashtray to rest alongside the carcass of four other cigarettes, her sixth one already lit and in her mouth.
Even as the smoke stung her eyes she could still see the beautiful banquet in front of her through the haze, waving invitingly at her. She glared at the spread with a greedy hunger of a starving animal. Quinn had told her to not go big until she had gotten back, and Valorie had honored her friend’s request. She had distracted herself by organizing and stacking the smorgasbord of narcotics. First she had gone by quantity, and then by quality. Then she had mixed them all back up and organized them in order for the night. First an upper, then a downer, then another upper as long as it wasn’t one that would make her heart feel like it was exploding. The night would end, of course, with some Fairy Dust so she could have some sweet dreams, and then she would wake with something mild to ease herself back into a sober state.
An hour later, however, and she had rearranged the party favors about a million other times. She felt her lips burn and stubbed out cigarette number six, but not before lighting number seven with the dying life of its embers. Valorie’s knee bounced up and down, up and down, up and down as the imaginary clock on the wall tick, tick, ticked.
I’ll just get things ready,she thought, pulling a pocket mirror out of her bag and searching through the pile for the tiny baggie of white powder. It was easy enough to find. She sprinkled a small amount on the mirror and split it up with the card Kurtz had given her, trying her best to keep her hand steady as she cut it into lines. Another minute off the clock, another minute where Quinn did not show up.
What the fuck is she doing? thought Valorie, sighing with annoyance.
Digging through her purse and pulling out her phone and turning it on. The message from Cain flashed up on the screen. She smiled, swallowing a good amount of guilt.
“Don’t get in trouble and don’t overdo it, huh?” she muttered to herself, casting her eyes down at the person in the mirror with some disgust. She frowned and set it down on the table and slouched back on the couch, her feet almost knocking over the ashtray as she kicked them up onto the table.
“Come on, man, like saying stuff like that ever works,” she said to herself, trying to think of some clever response as the cigarette drooped lazily from her lips.
“ E pensando di lei
Mi sopragiunse uno soave sonno
Ego dominus tuus
Vide cor tuum
E d'esto core ardendo
Cor tuum”
Lediyah sat not too far from the Dirty Bath, at a grotty yet rather quaint little cafe across the street, with Hans Zimmer floating out of her headphones, and softly drowning out the lurid roaring of Santa Somabra.
Nothing goes together quite so well as the elegance of Latin, and the sweet thumping rhythms of a body ready for the kill. Lediyah grinned to herself. The rich humming of a hundred thousand beating cells, twanging with the euphoria of the hunt, flooded through Lediyah’s lithe form, as the woman slipped back into the lucid recesses of her mind, and the monster assumed full control.
She watched the movie star-like figure of Valorie’s friend emerge round the corner, presumably having come from the Dirty Bath, all curvy and Christina Hendricks-like in her cool, calm strutting movements.
Nice hips. Lediyah approved, silently.
The woman cast her glance over to Lediyah for just a split second, but that was all she needed. She formed a fist and raised the pinkie of her left hand towards the sky. A traditional gesture in the Rat’s own sign language.
Valorie’s friend gave her a slightly puzzled look, but made her way over none the less, as Lediyah muted her song, and carefully took out her headphones.
“Nice rack, Tony,” she said as she sat down across from her “When’d you become a woman?”
“The big man couldn’t make it,” Lediyah replied in her usual sweet yet scratchy manner “so you get to deal with me.”
“Sure, whatever.” she laughed dryly, pulling a fat wad of cash out of one of her leather jacket’s pockets “Anyways, my mate’s loaded, and-”
Lediyah’s hand shot forwards, grabbing hold of Quinn’s head and slamming it into the table. She was out cold in a split second, lying in a crumpled heap on the floor.
No need to kill unnecessarily Lediyah reasoned, gazing down at the woman’s unconscious form.
Fucking hell. She even looks gorgeous when she's out cold. Bitch.The Fear Gorta snatched up the cash which Valorie had given Quinn. Anyone with this sort of money was doing more than just working for the Rats. It was a short walk across the pavement, past some ugly grey slab-like buildings, and into the delinquent shit-hole that the lower rungs of Somabra’s gang culture called home, where Valorie was getting ready to go on her drug binge.
Lediyah slipped stealthily through the room, using the thick plume of cigarette smoke to mask her movements, creeping up to the surprisingly well-dressed junkie with predatory grace.
“Snitches get stitches.” She laughed aloud, unsheathing her claws and creeping out of the darkness. She should really have gutted her right then, but she wanted to see the fear in Valorie’s eyes, to know what was about to happen to her, and why it was about to happen.
Kills were personal, and intimate.
Like fucking.
"Alright Hurk, I got good news and I got bad news. The good news is your girl Valorie's easy to find. She's got a dive down opposite this bar in the Slums called the Dirty Bath. She's a budding necromancer, ain't that sweet, and she's practicing too. Was a junkie once. Rumour has it that she's going clean, working with Barrow and White, you know them, right? Anyway, most likely you'll find her there. If you don't find her at the bar, look for her friend, name of Quinn. That's her supplier, or was. You find Quinn, you'll find Valorie.
The bad news is Lediyah Gorman. She's an assassin. Extremely professional, very very brutal. She's some sorta monster the city ain't never seen before, worse than you werewolves. Currently working for the Rats, their private muscle. Anyway, I managed to dig up some...confidential information that says Lediyah is going for your girl. To silence her or some shit.
Anyway, I say get down to the Dirty Bath and get her. Fast. What I've read about this Lediyah lady ain't pretty. If you run into her there, be prepared for a fight. Expect it to be downright bloody."
Back here. The slums. Except these bits were a little more upscale than the rest. I could see the...effort? That wasn't the word. Whatever, someone somewhere sometime had once bothered to
try and make this place look nice.
Not like it mattered any more. Graffiti. Trash. Place had gone to shit fast. I could tell city management didn't really care any more.
I pulled my bike up to the sidewalk and cut the engine. The dive bar was just across the road. I pulled my jacket around myself and picked my poison. The news that this Lediyah chick was some monster worse than a werewolf troubled me. I had all manner of gear tucked away in the Lost Boys armoury, but in the end I'd settled for an automatic shotgun. Not the military grade one, god no. That thing was impossible to get here. I had a skeet shooter instead. Loaded with the biggest bore buckshot I could find. I'd stuffed that in my duffel along with a whole shit ton of shells and an extra set of clothes, for obvious reasons.
I took the duffel, slung it on my shoulder and started to walk for the bar when a commotion caught the corner of my eye.
I caught a lady walking away from a café on the corner. Another, younger lady sprawled on the floor. Small crowd gathered around her. The older lady disappeared into the same shambles block that Louie had told me about.
Valorie?
No, not Valorie.
Lediyah.
Fuck.That meant the girl on the floor was Quinn.
Was she dead?
I could barely hear someone shouting for an ambulance as I unzipped the duffel, drew my shotgun, clicked off the safety.
I couldn't let that monster get to Valorie. Not while I still drew breath.
She was my only lead to Hahn's real killer.
I slung the duffel across my back and charged forward. I heard renewed screaming as someone at the café spotted me and my gun. I didn't care.
By the time I'd reached the entrance, Lediyah was gone. I could hear footsteps nearby though. The place was oddly silent otherwise, smelled of smoke and a cacophony of drugs, uncleared waste and trash and God knows what else. I swept my shotgun across the hallway and advanced slowly forward. There was almost no light, save for the bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
"Shit."I threaded my way slowly through the smoke and stench. She...they had to be here somewhere.
The hallway was lined with doors. Most closed, some ajar, others open. I figured this place was a crack den or some other shit, full of junkies on a trip. Didn't expect any resistance if I pried open a door to peek. Didn't get any, first few doors. Some were locked so I didn't bother, but others had no one. Some had a man or woman, sometimes both, curled up or sprawled out in various states of tripping balls. I left them be.
Eventually I started to run out of doors. I knew this Valorie chick was a doozy, but did she really value privacy?
I drew up against the last door at the end of the hall. Tried it, found it open and ajar. Pushed the door open slowly with the barrel of my shotgun. Immediately greeted by a cloud of smoke. I held my breath and advanced inward, squinting past the low light to try and see inside.
I saw a female figure, standing over who I presumed was Valorie. The latter was unaware at all of this...monster looming over her. Claws out, probably laughing to herself in glee or some crap.
I got as close as I could without making a sound, shotgun barrel up towards her back. Once I got close enough to smell her, I stopped.
Then I pulled the trigger. Sent a load of buckshot her way.
How's that for subtle, bitch.
Valorie was oblivious to the things that go bump in the night slipping into her room as she tapped her foot to the rhythm of the beat on the table, humming ever so slightly to the wispy words of some American guy trying to sound English. The long fade out of an electric guitar streamed out from the buds in Valorie's ears that ended just as the woman behind her laughed ominously, finally alerting Valorie to the presence of another person in the room.
God, finally Quinn's back, she thought, rolling her head to the side to give her friend the stink eye. It was confusion, not fear, that crept over Valorie's face as she saw Lediyah standing behind her. She didn't notice the razor-sharp talons in the dark. All she could see was the hunger in her eyes. She assumed the woman was some junkie and was about to tell her off.
But then she noticed the figure creeping through the plumes of smoke behind her. More importantly, Valorie had watched enough movies about zombies to notice the crowd pleaser in the shadow's hands. The still burning cigarette fell from her mouth onto the couch. She screamed a curse that was cut short by the blast of the shotgun as she simultaneously threw herself forward. Her body smashed against the table, tossing the ashtray and the drugs to the floor as it tipped onto its side. She landed roughly on the ground, her ears ringing from the blast as the next song on her shuffle began to play an entirely ill-fitting folk tune.
What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? was the only thought she could comprehend as she grabbed for her bag, fiddling around for her stolen gun. Pulling out the old handgun that she was too panicked to understand how to use, the girl scrambled back towards the couch kicking away packages of powders and pills as she moved. Valorie pushed herself against the bottom of the couch and tried to make herself invisible under the smoke as her heart raced at a million miles per hour. Her ears were still ringing from the shotgun blast. She felt something cool brush against her hand and almost screamed, forcing herself to remain silent by almost shoving her own hand down her throat. She looked down at the object that had rolled against her: a vial of Demon's Blood. Still shaking, she smashed the vial open with the butt of her gun and began to trace a rune with it, silently praying to whoever would listen that the drug was not a misnomer.
Lediyah heard a deafening bang, split seconds before the shotgun's spray slammed into the back of her head, and blasted her to the floor. She lay there, in a gushing river of her own blood, for a long moment, as the world span wildly around her. Had she been truly human, this would have spelled the end of her. But she wasn't.
Ready to have your day fucked up, arseholes?Her limp body cracked and twisted, thrashing about on the floor as skin and bone shifted and morphed. She became withered and lacerated in appearance, as her form took on a pappery complexion. Her limbs stretched and grew, as did her claws; becoming hooked talons. She slowly clambered to her feet, hobbling on bent legs, as the thin veil of humanity melted away, and the
Fear Gorta came creeping out.
Get the one who hurt us first. Deal with the junkie later.The monster swivelled around, her aching bones snapping and crunching, as she loomed above darkish form of Christopher Francis Hurk.
"Time to feast." She flexed her claws, and
pounced forwards, forcing herself ontop of the man, and driving him into the ground. Holding him in place with one withered hand, she began to drive her talons into his chest, easing them in slowly, and grinning with rotten teeth as blood started to bubble out of the fresh wounds.
Her jaw unhinged, revealing shark-like fangs, and she inched closer and closer towards him, so that he could taste the stagnant roar of her breath, moments from taking a bite out of his neck.
"HOLY FUCK!"As the banshee pounced on him, he held the shotgun in one hand and struggled, trying to shuffle out from under it, even as he felt his body begin to shift in response to the sudden trauma. The banshee slowly opened her mouth and unhinged her jaw, and he responded by shoving the shotgun into her open mouth, barrel aimed high and straight for her brain.
"S-suck on this, bitch!"He pulled the trigger. And again. And again. Unleashing multiple loads of buckshot straight through her entire cranial cavity. Through her skull, smashing through her brain.
And as he let go of the empty shotgun and lost himself to his curse, he pushed back against its chest with hands that rapidly expanded into claws. The razor sharp edges jammed themselves into its chest as he roared and pushed back with all his inhuman might, using his feet too, jamming his toe claws into her midsection and pulling down hard. Trying to rip her in half at the waist.
"You're not gonna eat me, bitch! I'M GONNA EAT YOU!"In a frenzy, he jammed his teeth down on her face. Biting and clawing with his fangs. Gouging at her eyes, cheeks, nose, face. Ripping and tearing at any meat he could find. His claws ripped and tore and slashed from her chest as he gripped tightly onto her.
At this close, she couldn't escape. Not without losing almost everything. And even then, he'd chase her down and tear her into shreds. To destroy everything she was and more.
But Lediyah didn't want to escape. Her attacks, like those of a lycan, were best performed up close and personal, where she could inflict the most damage.
The blast of the shotgun left a good portion of her head as gooey red pulp, which trickled down the side of her face, and the werewolf's biting tore out a chunk of her jaw, but she was a phantom of famine and hunger, not a creature of the mortal realms, so such an assault, whilst painful, was not fatal.
Her waist split open, and sickly bundle of intestines came pouring out of the new gash in her stomach, spilling onto the floor.
Gritting her teeth, the monster clutched hold of a long thread of pink innards, and lassoed them around the trunk-like neck of the werewolf.
As Hurk dug into her, she began to pull tighter and tighter and tighter, her muscles looking ready to burst as she fought to strangle the life out of her opponent.
The werewolf kept gnashing at her, and she bit back; ripping into his face, as he bit at her.
With a quick flick of his claws he severed the length of guts that the monster was trying to choke him with. A pitiful attempt to try and make him surrender. No chance.
He pushed it off of himself with his feet, using foot claws to tear her legs and hips to shreds. He gathered his legs underneath her and pushed straight upward, launching her right off himself. Hurk rolled to the side as the monster landed in a gory heap on the floor. He leapt straight to his feet and moved immediately away from her, before turning to look for his objective.
In the haze of combat, he looked for Valorie's cowering form and found her drawing a rune on the carpet in blood. His nose picked up a scent that was definitely not hers, but worse in nature. Demon blood.
"Valorie Pierce?"His voice was guttural, more a growl than anything else. He made for a fearsome sight; blood dripping from the shallow cavities in his chest, hands and feet both covered in crimson that dripped onto the carpet and soaked into it. But his eyes, though now a bright yellow, still shone with semi-human intelligence. And Hurk knew what he had to do: get Valorie out of here.
"Valorie, I'm not here to hurt you. I heard that the Rats sent this monster bitch to kill you, so here I am. We need to get out of here. Now."With a growl he limped towards the door and motioned for her to follow.
"Valorie. C'mon. Just get the fuck out of her before she kills you."The girl should have gotten the fuck out of there a long time ago. The second she realized that the shotgun surgery was not meant for her (around the third or forth blast that was nowhere near her body) and the two creatures began grappling one another she should have ran while they distracted one another. Hell, she should have ran back home after her first night in this goddamn city. Yet of course, Valorie did not run. She didn't even finish her protective ward. The wet noise of flesh being torn apart was too distracting, too enticing. She had to see it. Yes, of course, it was her responsibility as a necromancer, as a student of death, to rubberneck while those two monsters proceeded to mash one another into paste.
So she had watched as the two tore at one another, her head peaking just barely around the couch to get a front row view of the violence. The clouds of cigarette smoke weren't that thick near the ground, and the added light from the hall gave Valorie just enough mood lighting to enjoy her bloody voyeurism. Her lips curled. They were really doing a number on one another; maybe they would both kill each other. That would be something. She had never practiced raising anything other more advanced than humans. She imagined the werewolf wouldn't be too different (perhaps not even difficult, if it was more canine than man), but whatever the abomination was? If she could crack that, raising humans would be no problem.
Her poorly timed necromancer fantasies were shattered the moment the werewolf tossed the abomination off of him and turned towards Valorie. Instead, they were replaced by the reality that she was in a room with two nightmare beasts that could easily rip her limb from limb as if she were a cheap plastic doll and that she really should go about finishing that protective ward she had learned from Cain. As her fingers dipped back into the Demon's Blood, however, she was stopped by the growling of her name—the werewolf was talking to her? She looked at him. Despite all of the blood and gore and fur, the beast didn't seem like the stereotypical feral werewolves that she had heard about. And what he said hit her pretty hard. One, he was right, she should get the fuck out of here. Two:
"The Rats did
what? Motherfucker," she growled, gritting her teeth.
So, I guess that's why Quinn never came back. Fine. Fuck 'em.She pushed herself off of the floor, grabbed her stuff, and stepped towards the door. However, she paused before she reached it and turned back, staring at the room. The smoke was dissipating now, filtering out into the hall's vents, so she was able to destruction to the room. The walls and ceiling were peppered with buckshot and blood, the floor was slick with chunks of flesh and guts and packets of drugs. The crumpled figure on the ground should not have been moving, but Valorie could see it was either slowly writhing in pain or pretending to be. She found what she was looking for and took off her blazer, pretending to drop it onto the bloody floor. It was pretty obvious that it was anything but an accident.
So much for my fancy new duds, she thought, scooping up the bloodied jacket—and the three vials of Demon's Blood it had covered—in her hands. She feared she'd need them. She turned back towards the werewolf and stepped his way.
"This is like the second goddamn time this has happened to me," she muttered.
Lediyah recoiled, as blotchy red carmine poured out of her tattered lower torso. She limped steadily backwards, pulling herself up to her full height, as she regarded the werewolf with a guttural snarl.
"Walk away. This doesn't concern you, pup." She spat, gnashing her jagged fangs together.
Lediyah flexed her talons, readying herself for whatever came next.
"Ask yourself this, mongrel; is this junkie slut really worth dying for?" "Honestly? Yes. But I'm still gonna run away."That said he backed out of the room slowly, still facing her. As he backed away, he swiped up his bike keys into his paw and then clamped them in his mouth. With his back, he gently pushed Valorie out of the room. Once he was fully out of the room, he stopped and spat the slightly wet bike keys into his paw and handed them to her.
"Take 'em. For my bike outside. Once we're out of this shit hole, I'm changing back. Then we're biking out of here before she can catch up."While he waited for her to take the keys, he trained his eyes on the door and the monster within. She was still. Bleeding, but still.
If it came to it, he'd fight and die.
But for now, he had to run.
"Run if you want, little doggie. I'll follow you."Lediyah stayed still for a few moments longer...
Then she
leapt forwards, charging across the room with both arms raised above her head, and her talons ready to rend flesh from bone.
[
"Then you can follow me straight to hell, bitch."Without waiting, Hurk dropped his bike keys on the floor. The monster bitch leapt straight for him and he responded. He drove his claws into her face and ripped her head in two. Hurk threw her against the wall, minus head.
If you took the head off of something, it dies, right?He panted and dropped the limp meat in his paws. The pain from where she'd stabbed him was finally pushing through the adrenaline, and it
hurt.
Hurk slumped against the wall as his body tried changing back into its human form, but he willed it to stay wolf just a bit longer. He had to last until he was sure they were safe.
"Alright...we're done. Valorie, take the keys. I hope you know how to ride a bike cause I'm in no condition to."With that, he moved away from the stiffening pile of gore on the floor, past Valorie's form. He could feel his blood congealing in his chest fur, but there wasn't much he could do right now.
I had to get back to Louie's.But as Hurk emerged out of the hovel, the blood loss got to him. His legs lost their strength and his body changed back to human.
Before long he was back in meat suit mode. Long, deep gouges in his chest, blood slowly oozing down his body and pooling on the sidewalk. Also buck naked, but there wasn't anything he could do.
When Valorie approached Hurk, he pointed to the red sports bike across the street.
"T-there. My bike. Cargo compartment. Pants. I'll put 'em on myself. Help me on the bike. I'll direct you."She followed the man's instructions as the distant shrieks of sirens echoed throughout the empty street. There was no time to argue, no time to try and find out who the hell he was, no time to crack a joke to break the mood, and, worst of all, there was no time to ogle the monster's corpse or try to meddle with its afterlife. The two hurried across the street as fast as the injured man could hobble. As the man stepped into his pants Valorie turned her back to him, slipping the vials of Demon's Blood from her jacket into her purse. She frowned; there was a bitter taste in her throat. All of that money, and she came out with three vials of a drug that almost drove her body into physically tearing itself apart.
What a goddamn waste. The thought and gravitas that came with the idea that somebody had been hired to murder her had yet to fully register, pushed back in her mind by an overflow of adrenaline.
Valorie helped the bleeding man onto the bike and slid in front of him, taking a second to familiarize herself with the machine.
Okay, sure, I can do this, she thought. For once, she was thankful of that three month period she had spent dating some creepy greaser dude.
So you turn this thingy, pull this thing, kick this thing here, and presto! The bike didn't even give a whimper. Valorie hung her head in defeat, fearful that perhaps she had just wasted a whole summer in some relationship based around dry humping, drinking shitty liquor from plastic bottles, and doing whip-its in her parent's basement. She looked back at the man and gave him a guilty smile as her finger continued to prod at buttons.
"Look, it might be easier if you just t—oh, wait, I just fucking got it," she said, the engine roaring to life as she flicked up the kickstand. Her smile transformed into a childish grin as she drove off, resisting the urge to try and pop a wheelie out of the fear of killing both of them.
Neziul,
Antlers,
CassidyTheButch,
ML,
Simply Not Real,
Cosmic,
NoriWasHere,
Blizz,
Passable Writer,
Evil Ghost Note
