Killswitch Kid vs. The Doctor, Act 1

His forces hadn’t been decimated, so much as grotesquely cannibalized.
Eric Flynn watched the carnage unfold before his wide, unblinking eyes, and cursed the day he began trusting his own opinion as infallible.
Artificial intelligence, his inspired brain had cried, is the future of crime.
Mechanical humans, it had continued, are unstoppable, unswayable, unbeatable.
He ducked just in time to avoid being struck squarely in the face by a severed combination arm/plasma-cannon, leaking coolants macabrely.
The undead eyes of his nemesis’ creations were now locked on him.
He could do little more than bolt, recalling the events of the last two days.

“He’s a ghost in the business, kid.”
Eric rolled his eyes and adjusted his intentionally disrespectful posture on his throne.
“I didn’t ask whether or not his operation was breathing, Kently, I want to know if he can haunt me. God, listen to yourself. You leave your watertight assurances wide open for me to poke holes in them.” He shook his head, due more to neurosis than disdain. “It’s too easy.”
Kently sighed. “He’s a corpse.”
“Ever heard of zombies?” Eric’s brow went up. “No. Of course you haven’t. You’re far too bohemian.”
“He’s nothing.”
“There we go.” Eric grinned, revealing a mouth bristling with an unusual amount of prickly teeth. “Tell me about Mr. Nothing, then. I want to be sure he’ll stay nothing until I’m burning him in his bed.”
“Not to sound ignorant, Mr. Fly-“ Beneath Eric’s sudden glare, he reconsidered. “Killswitch, but why do you need to bother the old man, after all?”
“He’s on my land.” Eric breathed, rubbing his nails on his parka experimentally. “I claimed the whole district, and he’s doing his vile work on my property.”
“Vile work, sir?”
“Just rumors, but I’ve been hearing quite a few.” Eric chuckled. “Necromancy.”
Kently took an understanding gulp of air. “I see. And given your aversions to-“
“I have no aversions, Kently, only sensibilities.” Eric snapped, sitting up in his throne. “Now unless you’d like me to have the palace drones scatter your entrails to the winds, you’ll quit with the judgments and scram.”
The manservant bowed, gazing through the panel of plexiglass that separated them. He paused before turning fully. “Are you planning on attending the slaughter in person, sir?”
“Perhaps.” Eric shrugged. “Now scram.” He narrowed his eyes after the manservant. “Scram faster. God in heaven, they told me the British were punctual.”
When the man had gone, Eric rose from his throne and made his way towards the lower rooms.
The throne room was the only chamber in the palace that possessed a separator. Out of the forty-five rooms, Kently was permitted in four. The other forty-one were glimpsed only by Eric Flynn and whatever inventions he saw fit to bestow sight upon.
Kently communicated with him through intercoms, a priviledge that Eric often thought the butler abused.
He hadn’t killed his family and caretakers simply to be pestered by one more human insufferably interested human.
Eric collapsed into his favorite office chair before scooting expertly across the room and smashing the play button on his radio.
Music, free of human voice, filled only by action.
He worked with music, supplying the lyrics in the form of the to-do lists that papered his enormous workspace.
The first verse documented the slasher-tron-3b’s various necessary tune-ups.
By the second bridge, he was musing over whether or not to double-plate the Crush-95-XV’s proton cores.

He should have double-played the Crush-95-XV’s double proton cores.
They had a nasty habit of exploding after being ripped from the robots chests and hurled into the ground.
The blast knocked him down, flattening him against the loose sand of the eastern dunes.
Eric attempted to scramble to his feet but slipped on the terrain. He could only crawl, scrambling with desperation so as not to slip back towards the hordes of oncoming Revenants.
A pair of brown loafers were staring at him smugly.
He snarled and clawed at them. They did not retreat, adding further insult to his current circumstances.
He glanced up, following the bony ankles that protruded from their tops up to a pair of corduroys in a sort of vague light brown, a blue sweater, trimmed in with a fluttered, long white labcoat, until a pale neck and head appeared at the very top.
The adversary did not seem to care enough about Flynn to glance down.
His vibrant blue eyes, nearly lost behind his thick glasses, were locked upon the battle ahead. His full lips were curled into an appreciative smile, his hands were buried in his coat pockets.
He looked like a man watching the sunrise.
He should have been old.
Eric clenched his teeth, clawing again at the man’s shoes, daring him to notice.
Kently said he’d be old.

“Well, how old is he?” Eric turned away from the intercom, but his voice would still carry through successfully as he bent over his newest project.
“Older than me,” Kently replied. “Fifty, say, sixty years?”
Eric snorted. “And he’s still alive, after all this?”
“He was quite a villain in his younger days. Some might even compare the two of you.”
“And some might be idiotic beyond a genius’s comprehension. Powersaw.” He snatched the tool from the arms of the assistant bot and lowered his welding goggles before setting it to the metalweave.
“Master Killswitch, I really would appreciate it if you’d warn me before you flood the radio with that screeching.”
“Kently, I’d appreciate it if you’d set the oven on high for my dinner and crawl on in.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence on the manservant’s end. “Will that be all?”
“No,” Eric replied, frowning thoughtfully. “What’s his name, one more time?”

“Doctor Shyam,” Eric croaked, snagging his fingers on the cuffs of the man’s corduroy pants, “I’ve beaten you.”
“Your plan was ingenious, I must admit.” Dr. Shyam replied without glancing down. “Who would have thought that all this time, you wanted to have your creations devoured before your very eyes?” His expression remained unchanged, despite his evident sarcasm. “I would have never guessed.”
“You think you’re so much more intelligent?”
“I think the answer should be obvious.”
Eric snarled again, trickling mucus and saliva into the sand. “You think you’re better?”
“Once again,” Shyam sighed. “Rhetorical.”
“You said I wanted my troops consumed.” Eric breathed.
Shyam finally met his gaze, brow raised. “I did.”
Eric’s grin was slick with conceited victory. “You’re half right.”
He slammed his hand down upon the wristband of his other hand, pushing a barely raised button.
At first, there was nothing.
And then the pops.
Too small, at first, like glass baubles underfoot.
Then louder, a whole host of helium balloons, exploding in the heat.
The carnage was incredible.
As the robot’s half-digested forms combusted within a revenant’s belly, the entire creature was consumed in a gleeful burst of bright red.
They were occurring all across the battlefield, staining the sand with gore and metal, mixed.
And still, Shyam was smiling.
Eric rose fully to his feet, throwing aside his façade of defeat, and did his best to look the doctor in the eye. The eight inches of height the man possessed over him did little to benefit his efforts.
“As I said before, Doctor,” Eric giggled. “Beaten.”
He then took great satisfaction in delivering a suckerpunch to the man’s grinning face.
Eric hated touching humans, but when such a small interaction could produce so great an amount of blood, he considered the disgust a worthwhile price.
Shyam’s nose was streaming, his glasses smashed. He lay upon the ground, struggling slowly to rise.
Eric slammed his boot into the doctor’s narrow chest and held the position, smiling down at him.
“They said you were a great strategist, doctor, and of that I have no doubt.”
Shyam’s open mouth was filling with blood, dying his teeth pink as he bared them in pain. Eric was prompted to deliver another blow, cracking several of the man’s ribs.
“You strategized, but in the end were outsmart. And now, you forfeit.” Eric shook his head, consumed by deep, odd chuckles, not unlike retching. “You’ve never learned to defend yourself, always hiding behind your silly little puppets. It’s an outdated game. My generation has no such weaknesses; we cover our flaws with work, train our bodies and our minds. We watch our backs.”
“Not very well.” The woman’s voice registered in Eric’s ears seconds after the sudden blow knocked him several yards forward, somersaulting over Shyam’s collapsed form and crashing face-first into the sand.
When he opened his eyes, she was standing over him.
Young, beautiful, and becomingly proportioned, the woman made him feel utterly hopeless.
He hated girls. They always seemed to make him stupid.
He couldn’t find the words to say.
The woman’s smile was a perfect agony. “There’s a difference between weakness and reliance, kid. The doctor makes the monsters, deals with your pathetic little toys, and, when it’s all over and you’re so sure of your victory, I protect him. I’m the guardian, Mr. Flynn,” she placed a stiletto-heeled boot on his chest, mirroring his previous postion. “And I do a damn good job of it.”
She allowed him to mentally formulate a reply before delivering a deft blow across his head, felling him to unconsciousness.
She was at Shyam’s side a split-second later, helping him to his feet.
He leaned forward, spitting a gob of blood and saliva towards the sand before he attempted to speak.
“Did you finish him?”
“Can you breath?” She asked, gently tracing his ribcage with an open palm.
“I’m a doctor, in case you miraculously forgot. I’d know if I had a collapsed lung.” He let out a deep, shuttering cough. “It’s punctured at the worst. Ah.” He let out a cry of pain, keeling over.
“You operate every single day of your life, and yet you nearly faint over cracked ribs.” She sighed. “Really, darling, I expected better.”
He nearly fell, supported only by the woman’s calm grip. It was a moment of shallow breathing before he could must his next comment. “We all know you’re the strong one, dear.”
“Let’s just get you home.” She replied.
“You didn’t answer my question.” He said, coughing again. “Did you kill the nuisance?”
“You’ll be glad next month.” She replied.
He groaned. “Darling, please.”
“You’re going to have to rebuild your army, and I know you can’t possibly avoid procrastinating with new projects unless you’ve a real reason.” She justified. “Besides, think of how much he has to learn. By the end of this, you might harvest some decent cranial matter.”
“I seriously doubt that.” He snapped. They were silent for a long while. “You do have a good point about the army, though.”
“I know.”

Wednesday.

That Wednesday night was cold, just as the last three ones had been.
As Tate made his way across the park, clumsy clouds of breath billowed from his open mouth and into his wake.
It was well past sundown, and beyond even the hours of nightfolk within the park’s grounds; he walked alone and unseen, and could neither hear nor sense any other beings in the woods.
The faint screams of sirens, the ever-present rushing pulse of the city died slowly away, crowded out by the dense foliage of the sprawling grounds.
Humming to himself, and even skipping foot-to-foot here and there, the young man passed immense oaks, desolate flower beds, and streams that, in their frozen state, had fallen silent. He gradually came to a stop, and drew his long, skinny arms inside his heavy baja shirt, and glanced up at the tree before him.
Though the park was filled with the typical American hardwoods and evergreens, the plant that twisted, misshapen, from the ground before him was a relic of a strange and distant land.
The color of its bark was deep, rough as calloused armor. Still stranger was its shape- rooted slender at the base, yet curving and twisting outwards, with hardly so much as a twig sprouting to face the cluttered sky.
Tate slowly sank to the ground before the ugly, abnormal thing, and began to speak.
“I know you probably don’t want to see me again,” he said, smiling awkwardly to himself, “but I couldn’t stay away. You’re mad, I know, and I really do understand, but I can’t imagine what life would be like without you.” He cast his eyes to the ground and began to fiddle with a dry leaf. “I’ll bet you try to think about what it’d be like without me, without all the trouble I bring.” He glanced up, running green eyes over the tree’s bizarre arcs and gnarled limbs. “I know you know I never thought that this could happen. I mean, I know that I didn’t think they’d know who you were or take you out here and trap you like this, but it doesn’t get any easier. I’m still following the order, living my life without you.” His trembling fingers tore into the leaf, ripping it into a dozen vibrant shreds. He look down at his hands, and his full lips turned inwards, forming a serious line. “I love you.”
His eyes found the tree’s stretching roots and followed them until he was once again surveying the familiar plant, reexamining every crack and twist and bend he’d come to know so well over the last year.
He smiled, slow and soft, and his eyes took on the manner of a person seeing something not quite as it was, but as it could only be perceived in the finest of delusion or wisdom.
“You’re still so beautiful.”
And now, he allowed his eyes to close, and his head to fall.
He fumbled about with his hands, removing his gloves and burying his nails in the frozen dirt and digging, pressing into the earth. Without looking again at the tree, he held his breath and gave away his pulse.
Frozen as the world about him, his blood no longer aching through his veins, Tate waited; every nerve poised, ever possible fiber of attention tuned on the world outside.
And very suddenly, it all crashed in together, and someone was embracing him.
Her skin was smooth and cold as it brushed against his face and neck, and as her hair brushed his cheek, he felt knotted tangles of tresses and leaves interwoven. Her hands came to rest on the back of his neck, her cheek pressed to his, her mouth at his ear.
She spoke, and the sound was that of the wind.
She said no words, told no stories, but as her pretty nonsense met his ear, Tate’s arms tightened around her.
And then, all of a sudden, she was gone, and Tate was whispering “I love you,” tenderly into thin air.
He opened his eyes very slowly and sat back, removing his hands from the earth.
He slipped his hands back inside his gloves and sat, frigid, looking at the gnarled tree with a solemn stare.
And so Tate spent his every Wednesday, sadly courting the tree that had once been a girl.

A Haiku.

Monster girl crawling

Grow, build, shine beneath the black

Darkling saved by light

Vigiles.

"Baeron?"

"Yeah, Summerson?"

The younger, curlier-headed gentleman sighed as he stared down the small, shoddy brick pathway to a suitably shoddy house. "I hate my job."

"We always do, the first few months." Summerson glanced back at his senior advisor and received a sunny, encouraging smile from the huge, dark man.

"I heard the paperwork only gets worse."

The strong man's smile faded a few watts. "I suppose, but you sort of just get used to it. Y'know, numb. First it's a terrible ordeal, but later on you're just sort of resigned to it and detached."

"Like hypothermia." Summerson sighed, his sharp-angled eyebrows rising incredulously.

In his normal half-oblivious state, Baeron grinned again and nodded. "Exactly. Like hypothermia. Now shut up. We have a summons to carry through."

Summerson sighed and pulled experimentally at a red-brown corkscrew lock that hung before his eyes.

"Summerson," Baeron boomed from a few yards ahead.

"Eh?"

"Did you remember the neutralizers?"

"Eh..." The young man glanced around, his eyebrows raised, his eyelids lowered. "Oh, left it in the wagon. A moment, Baeron."

"We don't have an unlimited time window," the large man sighed, his voice still level and lightly therapeutic. In a matter of minute, Summerson had returned to the shiny, dark car they had arrived in and wrenched a cumbersome silver briefcase from the back seat. Baeron straightened his sharp black suit, but did not wait for his associate to catch up, instead preferring to take long, productive strides towards the house. Summerson tottered behind and swore.

The shoddy house's door proved to be the only visually favorable piece of the entire structure. The mahogany glistened in a way that made Summerson quite uncomfortable. He was about to ask his supervisor whether or not he should attempt to neutralize any threat when the enormous man shot forward, planting his foot in the door's center, splitting the hinges and lock, and rode the now useless scrap of wood into the house's living room.

The sound was incredible, and in the piercing silence that followed such a noteworthy ruckus, the shallow, terrified breathing of someone towards the back of the room could be heard. The darkness seemed impenetrable to Summerson, who hung back, standing in the shaft of light that streamed, golden, from the door's sorry frame.

"By order of the National Association of the Legal and Just Use of Spellcraft and Natural Magics, you are the submit to the accusations and inquiries of whatever officers may be entering your homestead." Baeron took a deep breath before continuing. "Any resistance to said accusations, inquiries, or their resulting effects will be seen as the assaulting of a federal officer and will be seen as a choice to void both your rights as a wielder/practicer, your right to an intact home, and potentially your life. Do I make myself clear, citizen?"

Summerson groaned internally. He hated his job, but this was the crowning champion of hated moments involved. He knew what Baeron would say, and to what effect, before it occured.

"Accused Citizen, to refrain from answering is a form of resistance. Please answer or void your rights."

"YES." The voice cried from the backmost reaches of the room. "Yes, you've made yourself clear!" The pathetic tremble blossomed into a wrenched sob by the sentences' end.

"Very good." Baeron nodded, before turning to Summerson. "Would you please give me the citizen's file of charges?"

"Yeah." Summerson grunted, clipping open the briefcase, and pushing aside several different samplings of plants, bones, and aged papers before snatching up a pristine manilla file folder. Baeron grabbed it from his hand and strode forward into the darkness, following the shaft of light's path.

"So- Guylerus Zer-Shadiem, you have been accused of the following acts of unlawful spellcraft: On March the 23rd of this year, it was recorded that you took out a large-scale insurance policy on your only very previously purchased second house in Grecian Falls, the High City's Goblin district. You also insured your alchemy study laboratory and several other choice expensive objects that were contained in said house. On March the 27th, the house was destroyed in a freak accident that involved the raining of very large, car-sized meteorites, which were reportedly molten and flaming, into your house, and their consequential, yet inexplicable, detonation. Remarkably, all this you were insured against-" Baeron cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows before continuing. The soft weeping intensified. "You are hereby suspected of what the NALJUSNM calls Supernatural Fraud, by means of several chaos and misfortune charms. Do you have any response to these charges?"

The weeping stopped. A shaky voice stumbled, feeble from the darkness. "What, just because I'm not one of you light-dwelling races, I'm supposed to be capable of chaos and misfortune charms?" It sniffled. "Sounds like you can be suspected of what I called Supernatural Racism, buddy."

"I don't think that's likely." Baeron murmured, turning his eyes back down to the file. "Did you honestly expect us to overlook this blatant misuse of charms, Zer-Shadiem? Not only will this count as Supernatural Fraud, it's probably a strong bet towards Spellcraft-assisted Terrorism. Four were seriously injured in the meteor shower your charms induced."

"Ah-ah-ah," the voice called, patronizing, but still breaking slightly. "You're not supposed to imply ownership just yet, are you? No, you're not. I might just sue you for improper conduct towards a suspect."

"Oh, slay me." Baeron growled, and snatched the briefcase from Summerson's hands. A quick search produced a small plastic bag filled with a fine crumbled stone, a few bright orange petals, and one of the weathered paper scrolls.

"What are you doing?" The voice asked, wavering.

"Standard procedure for difficult suspects, citizen. Don't worry." Baeron grinned, emptying the stone onto the scroll, and then pressing three of the petals into the mix. The scroll suddenly exploded into a cold blaze that did not burn, but instead flew into harmless embers that fled from Baeron's touch and swilred about the ceiling, illuminating the entire room in a chilling, white light.

"NO!" The voice screamed, before lapsing into pitiful shrieks. Summerson could now see its source, a figure curled up upon a ragged couch pressed against the room's back wall. His gnarled green-brown hands and batlike light green wings were thrown before his face, and in the blinding light, the scales that covered his skin in isolated, armored patches shone.

"The light's not dimming until you tell us what you had to do with this case, Zer-Shadiem."

"Cruel and unusual punishment!" The Jinn screamed, clawing at his eyes. Summerson could have sworn he glimpsed blue-black blood slipping from beneath the armored scales and the demon's hands.

"Was your intention to collect a profit, Zer-Shadiem?"

The screaming continued for a few more moments. Baeron rolled his eyes, and began to stride forward.

"NO!" Zer-Shadiem screamed, and threw a hand out towards Baeron, pleading with him to halt. "No- I- Yes, yes, I wanted to turn a profit! I wanted to burn the damn thing to the ground and get more than I ever paid for! Just make the light go away!"

"Very good." Baeron smiled, jotting down the quote on a notebook he produced from his suit pocket. "Guylerus Zer-Shadiem, you are hereby on house arrest while we investigate these claims and file your formal charges. In accordance with this new status, we will be confiscating all means of travel from you, and placing a charm on all exits. Thank you." Baeron strode to the jinn, who continued to writhe, and kicked him from the couch, to the floor. "Summerson, come hold his hands down- I don't need any more burns from these types."

Summerson didn't move.

"Summerson, come."

Slowly, the curly-haired boy peeled himself from the wall and walked to the suspect, kneeling at his side.

"Thank you," Baeron said forcefully.

"What are you doing??" Zer-Shadiem whimpered as Baeron's hands found the armored root stalk of the demon's wings.

"Are his hands secure?" Baeron asked, and Summerson nodded slowly, all the while pondering how did he ended up in such a career. "Good."

The first wrenching motion was the most painful, Summerson would later be told by an incarcerated Dijinn. That's when the nerves start to go, but the bones only splinter. At any rate, Summerson had to apply his entire not-substantial weight to keep the demon's claws from flying up into a spellcraft symbol of damnation. He was howling at a completely new decibel. Baeron readjusted himself and prepared to pull again. Summerson pressed his weight into the demon's hands, and shut his eyes, turning his head away. As Baeron yanked, Zer-Shadiem's claws slipped out from under Summerson's hands.

Before the young operative could realize what had happened, the demon had attached himself to Baeron's chest and was clawing at the magical shielding that all operatives received before missions. Baeron tried to brush him away, but the fervor of the attacks could not be halted. The demon slashed through the first shield, and found his claws buried in another magical cover, this one purely illusion. Still, he tore on. Baeron suddenly yelled out, seizing the demon's wrists as the illusion that surrounding his head began to dwindle. As he threw the jinn to the floor, his head and face were completely changed, and where the handsome visage of a dark human had once been, a huge stag's head and antlers now resided.

Summerson had seen Baeron's true face before, but he could never be fully accustomed to seeing a man with the head of a beast appear so suddenly where a normal human had once stood.

Enraged, Baeron planted his foot in Zer-Shadiem's back and with a final, heartfelt tug, separated the demon's wings from the rest of his body. Summerson tried to not see the gaping holes from which the jinn's blood now poured, tried not to hear the final pathetic cries of a creature who had lot his purpose, but failed utterly in both. He hated his job, he hated the story that was being written for him in the recesses of his memory, hated the words, the images, the missions he could and would never forget. He walked from the house, numb, and waiting until Baeron had replaced the door in its place to instill the locking charm. As they slid into the beautiful black car, Baeron laughed.

"Sure did a number on me, hmm?" The words were strange as they poured from a beast-man's mouth. "Nevermind that, though. God, I love this job."

{MAGICAL MEN-IN-BLACK FTW!}

Ghosts.

They aren't recognizable as your loved ones at first.

Legend and fantasy will tell you that they're beautiful, a shining light in the darkness, a pinnacle of hope, separated from their decaying body, and therefore, freed.

The truth is, the spirit is allowed to decay far further than the flesh. Your soul portrays the ruin that burial and nature alike may spare your body. The ghosts of my world walk, slow and pained in their every twitching, soft movement, and from them trails the hanging, torn lengths of their tired yet persistent skins. The eyes are rarely intact, often reflecting the very emptiness that all walking spirits embody. The skull begins to show through the thin, worn skin of the face, and across their naked bodies are often present the wounds of their flesh's death, though in spirit allowed to fester, and preserved for whatever scratching, pulling, and picking the ghosts may (and often will) subject themselves to. They are not beautiful, they are not the lovely visitors of beyond, they are beasts, driven by anguish, greed, sorrow, and revenge to forever haunt the existence of all who have the great misfortune of Sight.

Predation.

{Yet another overgrown 1o1, huzzah. Jotted this one down after reading two pages of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, which I have decided is quite lovely and absolutely inappropriate. A whole page of step-by-step explosives creation, hell yeah! Anyway, please enjoy your crappy blog post.}

Perfect timing, perfect temperature, perfect darkness, and he's taking the bait.
His hand's cold and soft on the nape of my neck,
almost human.
And I'm sure my lips taste like a prayer, and I'm positive that he never expected to meet someone this amazing in the backhand dives of a sorry excuse for a support group.
Alcoholics are fun stuff. It was Genine's idea to introduce me back into the public with other addicts, but I'm not like these people, and neither is what's-his-name.
And what's-his-name was doing so well, too, but I can't go on like this, and neither can he.
"I love you," he whispers in my ear, and it's easy to distinguish the lie.
He still tastes like yesterday's bloodbath. I shift my weight into the brick wall behind us, and my hand moves to my pursue.
Brendan- his name is Brendan, and he tipped me off just by looking at me.
High cheekbones, big blue eyes, perfect lips that just sort of pull back into that gorgeous, cocky grin naturally.
You wouldn't be able to tell, normally. You'd probably just figure he was a model, some sort of catwalk man with the ghost of a swagger in his stride. Maybe just aptly confident.
But whoever did the job was clumsy, left a millimeter too many on his eyeteeth, and the rough look of the edge is completely evident to anyone truly looking. Fangs, obviously filed short, in an attempt to quell the desires.
And now I'm here, wondering if he had himself declawed, or if some big bad owner took him in for his little surgery.
He pulls away and looks at me. I do my best to smile back, innocent to the fact that I'm prey.
Oh, god, the irony stings. I'm pretending to be the little human prey of a monster that's about to be my prey, and it's been way too long.
"It's okay if you don't want to answer, because I mean, we've only known each other for a few weeks, but I love you. I'm sure of it."
You don't love me, Brendan, you love the hunter's high, and it's been too long for you to remember what that feels like. Unfortunately, I'm feeling it too.
"I love you, too." I murmur, and my hand slips out of my purse again. I can't do this to him, he's been doing so well, and it can't be right, it just can't be. I don't know who he killed yesterday, whose blood he tastes like, but he's good. Maybe he just slipped up.
But there are no good vampires.
He embraces me, and I have no idea how a human can't feel the power in his hold; designed to crush, a last resort.
"I'm sorry, Aze, I'm really sorry." He said my name like a mistake.
It's getting tighter, and suddenly, I can't breath.
Shit.
My hand's in my pursue, and in a matter of minutes, I pull the eight-inch silver spike out, and press it against his back. The sizzle's enough to shock him into loosening his grip, and I can slip out from between his arms, scale his back, and bury the stake where it should burn through a lung and shoot flecks through his bloodstream.
He really was sorry, I realize. Vocal patterns aren't consistent with deception. He really was apologizing.
Brendan's screaming and trying to pry the stake out. Unfortunately, the rate at which the silver flecks are running his arteries, converting most flesh to ash, the hand's starting to break off at the wrist.
"Aze," He whimpers, as his once-pristine form begins to cave beneath his clothes. "Aze, please."
And there it is, and I can feel it.
Accomplishment.
Brendan's head falls, breaking off at the neck and exploding into a smattering of grey on the asphalt. His body caves, billowing out through the sleeves of his t-shirt and the legs of his pants. I pick up the clothing, shake it off lightly, and begin to hum as I toss it into the nearby dumpster.
Ashes to ashes.
I pick up the stake, slightly blackened, and put it back in my pursue.
Dust to dust.
Genine's going to be so pissed.

{Geez, I really must have something against vampire men. I write about seven vampiric male death scenes everyday. I'm terrible.}