As I heard the gunshots, she moved. It was a surge of energy I couldn’t quite describe, but there was something pulsing through her body. Halfway through, her body seemed to collapse, and she went careening behind a car. She was sweating heavily, and one of the bullets appeared to have landed in her left leg. All the while all I could do was stare.
“Please,” She shouted, and it broke me out of my stupor.
There were men across the street, each dressed in Kevlar, with strange symbols inscribed upon their armor. I took one good look at the guns, and did the only thing I could think to do. I ran and jumped behind the car.
“I… I have my car keys on me,” I explained, pointing across the parking lot, “If you do what you just did, you might be able to get over there,”
“I can’t,” She was panting as she tried to explain, “I used the last of my power. Can’t you, I don’t know, do a psychic vampire thing?”
I stared at her incredulously, “A psychic vampire thing,” A bullet crashed through the window and I flinched, “Right, we’re going to talk about that after we get into my car,”
It wasn’t a matter of thinking; it was a superfluous momentum of pure panic. I grabbed her by the arm again, this time desperately pushing down whatever was trying to rise from the depths of my thoughts, and we moved. Somehow, as the bullets splattered the pavement into a horrid rain, we made it to my car. There wasn’t any talking as she shoved herself through the driver’s side onto the passenger, and I desperately peeled out.
They were still following us as we slammed onto the main road, “Who the fuck are these people?” I screamed as I swerved around a red light.
“Witch hunters,” She gasped as the swerve turned into a full-fledged turn.
I didn’t have time to decode whatever nonsense that was supposed to mean, and instead sped straight past a Sonic, and prayed as I slammed onto the opposite side of traffic, “Witch Hunters?! What the hell is that supposed to stand for!” Somehow, my mouth moved faster than my thoughts.
“It doesn’t stand for anything,” She screeched as we zoomed past a courthouse.
I heard the sound of shattering glass as my car leaped towards a bridge. Somehow, through the commotion, I managed to make out something in the distance. A pile of cars sat in a large line as if they were waiting for something.
“It’s a fucking roadblock,” I heard myself whisper as we got closer, “A fucking roadblock,” I took a deep breath as I used the one millisecond I had to think, before practically shouting, “If you’re really a witch, and this isn’t some bullshit fever dream, I need you to do something now,”
This time, there weren’t any protests. Her foot connected with my windshield, once, twice, and then it shattered. Her hand reached out, and I felt something moving through the air. For a singular moment, nothing. Then, from the bottom of her wrist a purple smoke extended outwards. Like a bullet it shattered through the air, landing on the pavement in-front of the cars before us.
A tidal wave opened up. The road stretched yet stayed the same size. In the middle was an opening, and I slammed on the gas to rush through it. I heard something hit slam against the back of the car, but with a sudden rush, everything was silent; that was until the sound of a crash lit up the early night.
I pulled over after a couple of miles and collapsed into the nearby grass. My heart was beating out of my chest, the only sound I could hear being its slamming drum. As I stared towards the mildew-wet beads, I couldn’t make myself stand up.
My stomach rolled, and without the ability to process it, I felt the contents of whatever I’d eaten roll onto the dirt. Yet even after that, I could barely stay upon my knees. That was when I heard the passenger side door being pulled open.
“What the hell was that,” I whispered, barely gaining the energy to glare.
She stared at me for a moment, expression unreadable, “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”
“No shit Sherlock,” I said with a bit more energy, “Why the fuck were they shooting you, and how, how did…” I didn’t want to finish the sentence, desperately not wanting to think about whatever she’d done to save us.
Silence was exchanged for a long, long moment, before she explained, “That, was magic. They were hunting me because I have magic, and because I use it,” Another beat of silence, “You have magic too, I assume; most vampires gain it anyways,”
There was that word again, “Why do you keep calling me a vampire,” The words were hollow, more a statement than a question.
“Because you are one,” She said with a shrug, “I don’t know how you became one, and it’s not my business either, but you can’t change what you are,”
Right. So a random man, presumably the one in my apartment, had changed my life beyond repair. If I went along with this, that meant I needed certain details.
“So, vampires have magic. Is there anything else I need to be aware of?”
“Yes,” She said with a shrug, “The first one is that you probably won’t survive for more than a week,”
I felt my blood run cold, “W-what?”
She gestured back towards Waynesville, “The people back there, the witch-hunters? They don’t compare to the Vampire Hunters. The people that hunt you are a government funded organization,”
I tried to keep my wits about me as my heart started jackhammering again, “What the hell am I supposed to do?” I practically begged as I pulled myself up, “I… I don’t want to die,”
Her face became unreadable again, before she finally replied, “You helped me, so I suppose I’ll help you. I have some ins with your people, and I’ll try to get you there safely. On the way, we can try to figure out what your ability is,”
“Ability?” I asked, primarily to keep my mind off of the impending doom.
“All psychic vampires have them,” She explained, “Something that sets them apart, that gives them an edge. It’s a survival mechanic,”
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An ability that would give me an edge, if what she said was to be believed, was definitively a priority. She hadn’t described how an ability like that would manifest, which likely meant she was keeping information from me. Why she would be doing something like that was the main question at the tip of my mind, but asking something like that would likely either put me in-danger, or create unnecessary complications.
She plugged some directions into her phone, and we started driving.
“Is this the location of the other vampires?” I asked as we finally got on the road.
“Huh? No, that’s the location of my coven. I need to gather some supplies before we leave,”
“So covens exist too…” I drawled off, not certain what I was wanting to ask.
“Yes,” She explained, “Usually to spread information, for other effects as well, but; a lot of what we knew was destroyed before Europeans settled in America. Then the last of it, well…”
Which meant that some of the witch hunts had been real. That, or they’d happened alongside the atrocities of that time. I glanced over at the GPS for a moment as we sped along a rural highway.
“Lebanon, huh,”
“Yeah,” She replied.
“Is there one in Crocker?”
“There was,” She said, “What’s left is used as setup. We learned that awhile back,”
The Witch-hunters were gaining ground then, “Have you ever tried just… driving them out? I mean, you have more power than them,”
“You think they don’t know that?” She asked with a bitter laugh, “I mean, we’ve tried. Then they bring in people like you. People who don’t know what they are, what they were turned into; they turn them on us, and your kind of people can kill us in droves. You’re faster, you’re stronger, sometimes you’ve even got more magic. I mean…” She shook her head, lapsing back into silence, “Yes, we’ve tried that,”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, or even a safer subject to turn on to, so I just kept my mouth shut. Eventually, we pulled into an unassuming house, the sort you see in any suburban neighborhood. The grass was evenly mowed, the front yard was open, no fence in-sight, and a small bird was sitting on the windowsill.
“This place is… ordinary,”
“Nobody who has magic goes around advertising it,” She replied, walking up to the door and giving a strange knock; it took almost all of my willpower to notice that it had a delay between the sound and her fist finding purchase.
The door opened slowly, and a woman in baggy jeans and a hoodie that had clearly seen better days answered.
She looked between the two of us, before glancing towards the person I’d driven here, “A friend?”
Silence was shared between the two, before the older woman nodded, “Come on in,”
The house itself was dark, and to my surprise, there wasn’t any furniture. Instead, in the middle of the room sat shapes. There weren’t any candles like I’d expected; instead, small petals from different plants were placed in seemingly random locations.
I looked imploringly towards the older lady, who took my look for the question it was, “It’s to increase the ambient mana,”
I was about to ask another question, when the lights in the room flipped on, and five other people rushed in. Everything was immediately ground to a halt. Five guns, all directly pointed at my chest.
Panic wouldn’t properly describe the emotion that wrested its way through the bowels of my stomach, and directly into my chest. Fear would never be a perfect word for the emotion that widened my eyes and threatened tears. Immediately, I stared towards the woman that had brought me here.
“Why?” Was the question that tore itself from my throat.
There was guilt in those eyes, but a hardened resolve stood above it, “I can’t risk my people,” She explained, “You could be one of them, a plant. They’ve done it before. That’s not a risk I can take,”
If I was going to say anything, it got interrupted by the shattering of glass. Thoughts disappeared entirely as I dropped onto the floorboards. Five gunshots rang in unison over my head as I scrambled away. One of the first things I saw as I stumbled to my feet was a man in a gas mask and military gear. He aimed a gun towards my head, and I dropped out of the way.
As I hit the floor again, smoke started pouring into the room. Something red slammed through the air above me, and I heard a pained grunt from my left. Desperately, I pulled myself up again, coming face-to-face with another man in military gear.
I saw the pommel of his gun moving towards me, and knew I had no way out. Something stirred inside of me, and I yanked the feeling towards the forefront of my mind.
Mist is the best way that I can describe it. I looked through eyes that were no longer there as his gun slammed through open air. As his body tripped through what was once mine, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my mind. In an instant, my body reformed, and I collapsed against the wood.
Gunshots were still wringing out, and in a delirious state I stared towards the open window. Nondescript vehicles were pulled up against the curb and in the grass. They blocked the entire driveway, leaving my car locked-in from all sides.
Slowly, like gears churning, I tried to plan an escape. Another man rushed towards me, and I just barely managed to trip him. As he fell towards the ground, I wrested a pistol from his grasp. Another man pulled forwards, and I quickly swiveled the gun towards his head.
The two of us stared towards one another; his dark camouflage gear and protective sunglasses, my shaking arms with a finger just barely meeting the trigger. That standstill didn’t last for long, as he frantically began raising his arms. I pulled the trigger before the barrel of his gun could meet my forehead.
There wasn’t enough time to linger on the body, as another man surged forwards. Instinctively, I felt my body fall apart like the building blocks of molecules had been haphazardly tipped over. The smoke that my body became surged around and over his body, and I slammed down on the other side. This time, I reformed running.
The front door met me as a startled adversary, quickly torn apart with frantic strength. I heard yelling behind me, but didn’t acknowledge it, instead shooting myself onto a neighboring roof. I was vaguely aware of my organs falling into reexistence as I forwards.
They didn’t have a helicopter. A surge of relief came with that realization. If they didn’t have a helicopter, I had a chance at losing them. I made the jump onto another roof, and nearly collapsed from exhaustion. My body pulsed with a pain I couldn’t describe, and I desperately shoved myself into the shadow of a chimney.
I took a moment to reorient, glancing over towards the house, where the cars still sat. Men and women in uniforms were stepping out of the building and looking around.
“Fan out, investigate the area. He has a Stalker Ability, presumably with full mobility,”
From my position, if I tried to run, I’d get caught immediately. I took a deep breath, and prepared to slide down the roof. There was a chance I could hide in their yard and slowly move out. Obviously it was risky, but if I didn’t take a risk, they’d find me here eventually.
“Down here,” The voice couldn’t have been more than the lightest whisper, but it caught my attention immediately.
I stared towards the woman I’d saved earlier today; she had a gash on her arm, and blood in her hair. I couldn’t help but feel mildly incredulous as I looked at her. She must know that I wouldn’t trust her after what she’d done, right? Still, she was directly in-front of where I planned on going.
With a deep breath, and a glance back towards the men and women slowly moving in our direction, I slid as quietly as I could down the roof. Just as I slipped into the open air, something invisible, like a giant’s hand, grabbed onto my body. I would’ve never landed as quietly on my own.
I didn’t notice until I landed that she’s crying. The desire to ask if she was alright waged war with the distrust running through my veins. Neither won before she described the situation herself.
“They’re dead,” She said in a whisper, “They’re all fucking dead,”
The house behind us chose that moment to go up in flames, “Let’s just… Let’s get out of here, before they find us,”
She looked at me, the fire inside of that house roaring into her eyes, “That was my family. The only people I had. Then the people hunting you show up. You better fucking promise me that you’ll help me take them down. If you don’t, I’ll finish the job that they want done,”
I looked back towards the house, and towards the men that paraded themselves as military agents; people who’d kill at random just to take down one person, “I promise,”
Without any other word, we fled under the light of the moon.