For Billy
With a blank mind, The Queen’s gaze remained fixed out the window as the Escalade moved past the city limits. Smoke drifted between her fingers and up to the ceiling, pulled through the open gap of the tinted window and out into the night. She occupied the liminal space between the conscious and unconscious, signs of humanity flickering in and out of the edges of her awareness. Restlessness grew steadily in the back of her mind, the passing of time marked only by the dwindling number of clove cigarettes in the carton that lay on the leather seat beside her. Wordlessly she pressed the need for her driver to quicken his speed of travel, though he scarcely needed prodding to put distance behind them.
On a deserted stretch of road between the bulk of the population where streetlights were few and far between, she pressed the command to Stop into the driver’s mind. Her figure clad in close-fitting black, and with nothing but a cell phone in her pocket, the back door opened and she exited the vehicle. Silent footfalls carried her directly to a stretch of trees that separated the road from rows of run-down apartment complexes and gutted businesses. The driver knew enough to keep his distance until she came for him, moving the vehicle as needed to avoid arousing suspicion.
Something lurked beneath her skin, twisting and coiled, ready to burst. Familiarity hung as an unseen fog, though The Queen was certain she’d never been to this city. Hungry eyes cut through the dark, watching from the shadows as humans noisily passed by. Sanguine-scented heartbeats added to the symphony of crickets taking refuge in the small cover of underbrush and maples. The murmur of human thoughts drifted below this, flitting and dreamy with a hazy undercurrent of poverty-induced stress and weariness. Mind opening to the sound, she mapped where they were in the radius of her awareness--glowing dots in a sea of darkness.
When she emerged from the shadows she stepped alone under a flickering streetlamp. Cushioning her footfalls with levitation, her silent movement into the narrow alley went unnoticed by the humans tucked into doorways and sleeping by dumpsters.
In a blur of black, she overtook the closest by the dumpster, hefting him up against the wall with one ivory arm. The repulsive stench rolling off his skin was nearly enough to mask the sweet odor of blood beneath. One hand covered his spittle-flecked mouth to stifle his surprised cries, while the other held him fast against the wall despite his sluggish struggling. Her eyes glinted dangerously in the dark, meeting his terror-filled gaze before she buried her face into his pulsing neck.
The human was given no wash of comfort, no gentle caress or silky seduction.
Fangs pushed past the soft resistance of flesh, snapping like the skin of a grape, releasing a rush of red into her open, trembling mouth. Hands pushed fruitlessly against her unmovable form, scarcely interrupting her focus. He was exquisitely flavored by fear, enough to draw a pleasurable moan from her even as he bit down on the hand that covered his mouth. With a snarl and a quick jerk of her head, she tore a gash into his throat to increase the flow. She was scarcely aware of the cries of pain muted against her hand as her teeth sank deeper, the tears wetting her fingers, or the stench of urine dripping down his leg. In the periphery of her awareness came the sound of crunching by his shoulder where she held him, but still she did not stop. She took and took, well after his struggling ceased with a final grunt and the flow of his blood slowed.
The Queen pulled away, letting the body slip back to the cement with a sickening thud. For a moment her gaze fixed on the steam rising from the messy wound at his neck, drifting skyward in the cold of the night.
She took the next in the same fashion and silence, her face pressed greedily into another warm neck. Then another. By the fifth in a third alleyway, with mouth and chin sticky with blood, she became aware of a presence tracking her. Feasting had left her open to approach as her attention remained razor-sharp on her targets. She kept a steady pace in the dark, scanning the surroundings to determine the number. Two. Five. Seven. Plus another, distinctly inhuman with a puzzling scent.
These were hunters, she was sure, and if she were any younger it might’ve brought fear up from her gut. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The Queen smiled, her warm skin alight with tingling as she led the group toward a dead end. They were cornering her, she could hear them talking amongst themselves. She was tracked specifically. How had they known of her before? It was of little consequence, her fingers itched to bite at flesh.
Endlessly faster than they could ever react, she whizzed to the rear of them and saw that the group was armed with glinting silver, bows and guns. Before they’d registered her movement, she’d taken one down with a quick twisting of the neck. The first shower of cracks caught her unexpectedly in the shoulder, a handful of bullets, but she was off in a blur before the rest could touch her. They were nothing and she was well fed.
What a deadly mistake they’d made.
It was a simple matter of crushing the gun with her mind, so long as she kept moving at the same time. The one who held it yelped in surprise and dropped the heap of twisted metal to the pavement. She was upon him before he looked up from it, replenishing herself with a rapid mouthful of lifeblood before twisting his head sharply to the side. The second gun went off, cutting through the still body in her arms in an effort to get to her. But much like the first, she destroyed the gun before rushing the one who held it.
The glint of a silver knife registered to the left, followed shortly by the yell of the charging human who wielded it. The blade whizzed just out of reach, but she was behind him with a simple step, twisting his neck the same as the first. The next human succumbed to her teeth first before she twisted his neck to stop the struggle.
With an expression of merciless glee, she overtook them one by one, dodging and sidestepping their slow-motion attacks. Childsplay. A primal part of her longed for a better challenge though she did so detest being interrupted during a hunt. All the while, she kept an eye on the inhuman one, making sure she stayed farthest from him.
In her prime she was tireless, power coursing through her without a shred of caution holding her back. Her only regret was that she couldn't take them all with her teeth in their throats, draining them one by one. When the final human dropped to the ground, her forearms and hands were slicked in their blood. A single gash in the flesh of her upper right arm knit itself shut with a kind of speed expected of an ancient. The bullet wounds closed within a span of two minutes--she’d have to dig them out later, mentally or physically--but she paid them no mind.
Steadily she fixed her challenging gaze on the inhuman one, her wicked smile dark with anger, flashing her pointed teeth pink with the blood of his companions. Wet with blood smeared from her lips to her chest, she stood unaffected by the onslaught of their attack, the echo of surprised screams dying in her ears.
