Trinity, Part 2

Trinity (Part 2 of 2)
an4@anon.lelnet.com
hunting vampires series 
    
    'Now let's not get testy. I'm not going to tell you where I live, and 
I'd rather you kept your mouth shut about that other thing. I'm trying to 
forget that I don't much like you, okay ?'
    Lisa paused, belted her stake, lit a cigarette.
    'What's our plan ?'
    Lisa drew deeply on the cigarette and without being asked, passed it to 
Monica, who copied the gesture with the sort of style a woman who'd had forty 
years to practise develops. She blew an expansive cloud of smoke and Lisa 
found herself almost entranced- and a wee bit wet- from the show as well.
    'You like that ?'
    Lisa took the cigarette back, drew again, and passed it Monica one last 
time.
    'Don't try to pull that shit on me, okay ?'
    'Which shit- the attractive female smoker shit or the vampire shit. I'll 
gladly fuck you the old fashioned way- no teeth.'
    'The plan ?'
    'You watch my back. I don't need to see him, just feel him. Once I do, 
it's back up the stairs, you set the c-4, and we run like hell. What's the 
timer set to ?'
    'Twenty seconds.'
    'That's a long time, but we'll just have to hope none of these amateur 
bloodsuckers are demolitions experts.'
    'I need time to clear the door, you know. I can't take the back blast 
the way you can- and if it wasn't for you, I'd have already blown this place 
sky high.'
    'If those three hadn't got you. You'd never have known about the one in 
the ceiling.'
    'True. Let's go.'
    Lisa's blood was racing. The blood link between them was singing in her 
ears.
    She just wanted to end this, quickly.

    Anne saw the car coming up the street. A black Honda convertible- she 
wasn't really good with cars, so she wasn't sure what the model it was. She 
saw the New York plates and sighed, hoping the car would drive right on 
through and not stop.
    She trimmed ash out the window and drew on the cigarette slowly, enjoying 
it. No reason to hide it anymore from anyone. All the turmoil she was in- she 
knew that in a day or two the fact that her life as she knew it was over, no 
family, no friends, no home- would come crashing down like bricks, but right 
now she was determined to just enjoy this cigarette and the ones that would 
come after it with no care for the rest of it. She wanted to wait until her 
sanity had caught up with the changes in her life.
    After what she'd been through, she deserved at least to be able to smoke 
in peace.
    Instead of driving past, the car pulled up behind the jeep. A youngish 
looking woman, maybe late-teens but possibly as old as mid-twenties- got out 
of the car. She was wearing an ankle length trench coat like the one Fox 
Mulder sported, dark sunglasses, and a baseball cap on backwards, which 
topped the sort of long and luxurious blonde hair that Anne had dreams about.
    Her face was gorgeous. Smart cheek bones, not sharp but refined, tight 
pale lips, and a small nose that most woman would have had to pay a doctor to 
acquire. She opened her lips in a tight, practised smile and came straight up 
to the jeep.
    'I saw that you were smoking ? Can you tell me where a girl can buy a 
pack of cigarettes. The store back there was open, but there was no one 
inside. I'm just dying for a smoke right now. I've been driving-'
    'Bad choice of words,' Anne quipped, unable to help herself.
    'Excuse me ?' the woman said, her voice smooth dulcet tones.
    'Sorry. I think the store is closed today. It's MLK's birthday.'
    'They ought to think about locking up, then.'
    'You know how small towns are. If you really need a cigarette, I can give 
you one and the next town is just twenty miles.'
    Anne reached over and passed the pack of cigarettes and the lighter to 
the woman, who smiled at her.
    'Your parents don't mind that you smoke ? I mean, you're attractive 
enough to pass for eighteen, but you can't be more than fifteen, right ?'
    Anne frowned.
    'I hope I didn't insult you.'
    'My smoking was never an issue with my parents,' Anne said quietly. 'But 
thanks for the compliment-'
    'Josie. And you are ?'
    Josie lit her cigarette, leaning into the jeep slightly to get out of the 
wind.
    'Anne. Where are you from, Josie ?'
    'Lots of places,' she answered, imitating Christopher Lambert perfectly.
    'Well, I don't mean to sound rude, but there are lots of places to go, 
too.'
    Taking a deep inhale, Josie held the smoke with her mouth closed. She 
opened it slowly and the smoke leaked from her mouth, thick and luxurious. 
Almost hypnotic. And that was when Anne saw the teeth. The incisors, pointed, 
straight cutting tools that could open deep holes in a person's neck. Her 
right hand, divorced from the rest of her body, continued to act, independent 
of thought as it found the object of its desire taped to the side of the seat.
    Josie's free hand slashed out, caught Anne by the wrist. The ash from her 
cigarette drifted gently towards the ground.
    'Neither one of us is going anywhere. Your friends won't be coming back 
for you. And I like you. You're cute, you're smart, everything I look for. 
And once you get to know me- and you will get to know me- you'll be glad to 
be my pet.'
    What she was saying was absurd, like bad movie dialog, but all Anne could 
do was stare into those deep green eyes and think about what it would be like 
to slip into the back of the Jeep with this woman and let her do whatever she 
wanted to. She wondered if-
    'Yes, pet. I can take you down there. And trust me, it works just as well 
as your neck and feels a million times better.' She thrust her tongue- her 
long sensuous tongue- between those wicked incisors and performed a video 
quality nose exhale.
    It was very hard to tear her eyes away from that wonderful tongue, but 
some thought was naggingly insistent at the back of Anne's consciousness. If 
this was a fugue state, there was still a sotto voce voice somewhere in the 
base of her skull. It was screaming, but quiet, almost inaudible, for all of 
its siren insistence. Focus was all it was saying right now. 
    Pain. She needed pain to clear her thoughts, like the grey winter clouds 
of an heavy sun clearing away the awful light of the pale yellow sun.
    Tried to save myself and myself kept slipping away.
    Pain.
    She looked into those green lying eyes and there was no promise of pain, 
or alienation or loss. There was the naked smell of sex in those eyes, the 
hint of the perspiration that ran down the back of neck and the small of your 
back when you fucked. There was something else, a promise of how blood could 
sing an endless song of desire and need in otherwise dead veins.
    There was no pain, and she needed pain, and she could not close her eyes 
to find it.
    Music.
    Starfuckers came to mind then. Starfuckers was a place in which one could 
find pain, if she could only lay down the techno track and the words and 
sense the frustration. She was tired and trying to find a way to work the 
part of her mind where memories lay like dormant seeds was the work of 
farming the frost, but somehow she grew it there and it began. The dourness, 
the angst, the anger came flooding in through the opening she created and she 
felt a distance forming.
    'Don't you know what I'm offering is the end of pain, of suffering. Of 
acne and dating and being fucked over by all the small people in the world. 
Goddamn it, you're the smart one, you understand it. They can hold you down, 
I can set you free. Help me help you. Be a part of me.'
    The hand tightened involuntarily on the wrist and Anne gasped as Josie's 
anger spilled over and gave her what she really needed, physical and palpable 
and sweet.
    'Can I have my hand back ?' Anne asked, the rage building like storm.
    'What ?' Josie asked, remarkably shocked that girl was still inside 
herself.
    'I said I want my goddamned cigarette back.' Her right hand slashed out 
and down as she pulled back with her other arm. The stake rode through the 
cold air like a burning brand and stuck bone, shattering it as it drove 
straight through corrupted flesh and into the semi-beating heart.
    Josie fell backwards, her eyes already dull and lifeless, the skin around 
her perfect cheeks contracting like melting snow. Her hand remained locked 
around Anne's wrist in a death grip, yanking the startled girl out of the 
jeep's window. They crashed to the ground and the grip released. Anne rolled 
to her feet and launched a viscous kick at the body just as it crumpled to 
dust.
    'I said I want my goddamned cigarette back, bitch.' But hers was 
crushed. Josie's lay on the ground, undamaged and still lit. She picked it up 
and took a draw.
    'The song wasn't about you,' Anne added, and climbed back into the Jeep, 
spent.
    
    Lisa reached instinctively and unthinkingly for the light switch. Monica 
slapped her hand away.
    'If you can't see, see through me.'
    Not sure if she'd said it or just thought it, Lisa did as told. She 
closed her eyes and panic swelled inside her. They were all around them, wary 
and awake. They weren't afraid of her- they were afraid of Monica, as though 
they could smell that she was their death, ready to deliver something most of 
that already expected that they escaped. Through Monica's eyes she could see 
theirs and see herself.
    Small and fragile.
    Well, she'd killed lots of vamps who thought she was small and fragile. 
    They inched forward, Monica reaching out until she sensed him. They were 
all around them now, having closed into a circle behind them as they advanced 
and Lisa understood that she was going to die here. Her confidence faded, 
vanished. This was where the dead congregated and they would make of her 
either nothing or something worse, whatever he told them they should do. She 
could see them through Monica's eyes, smell them, taste the blood singing in 
their veins, but when Monica went down, she would be blind and overwhelmed.
    The vampire's hand closed around human flesh and somehow the lukewarm, 
room temperature skin gave her comfort. Monica saw no death here. Just 
adventure, and-
    The other thing was weariness. She didn't enjoy this. 
    She loved-
    The sweet smell of sunshine.
    Lisa shook her head to clear that thought and she found herself drifting 
on her memories. Another time, another age. Vermont, a college, just after the
 Korean war. It was Monica's memory. She was running down a door hall, mug of 
beer in on hand, her bra and a cigarette in the other. But she wanted to cbe 
aught.
    And Lisa understood. This was how she'd taken her first, running from her 
victim until her caught her and paid the price. This was no different than a 
panty raid at UVM.
    Except for the imminent threat of death part, of course.
    'Focus,' the Monica might-voice said, and Lisa did.
    He was here. Mongo.
    'Come to join us, ladies ? Always room for more,' his voice, lilting and 
songrific, drifted, with the promises of passion and immortality that Lisa 
had grown tired of hearing from vampires who thought she didn't understand 
that vampires kept two sets of books, the one they told you about and the one 
written in their own decaying blood.
    'That's all we needed,' Monica said, and suddenly Lisa was being pushed 
back towards the stairs insistently.
    They mad a few metres and then the horde closed, clawing at them.
    'Jesus god, they'll crucify us,' Lisa said, panicked, as the hands tore 
at clothes and gear and hair.
    Monica cuffed her hard on the back of the head. 
    'Focus.'
    They fought their way back towards the stairs. Lisa had a stake in each 
hand now and was slashing madly with them, driving the unclean back with each 
stroke. She felt one vampire smashing up against her and then break into dust 
just as his weight was about to topple her. Fear was replaced by the 
adrenaline rush of combat. Each time she struck out the point of a stake bit 
some bit of flesh. Some died. Others staggered back. Monica swept past her 
and cleared a path. She grabbed Lisa by the wrist just short of taking a 
stake in the back and dragged her forward, throwing her up half a dozen 
stairs.
    He was right behind them as they made the landing and burst out into the 
hall. Somehow Lisa found the home made bomb, threw the detonator switch and 
began to run.
    An hand closed around her ankle and as she went down, the clock in her 
head toll sixteen, fifteen, Monica was there. She kicked once and caught 
Mongo in the face, driving him backwards and into his onrushing followers. 
Twelve. 
    Eleven.
    'Not gonna make it,' Lisa said, doing Carvey doing Bush.
    Monica didn't waste time on speech. She grabbed Lisa and threw her 
halfway down the hall, running at the same time. She caught her just short of 
the door and grabbed her again.
    Five. Four.
    Lisa was running now but she could do the math.
    At two, Monica grabbed her and leapt forward, her strength certain to be 
the last thing that Lisa would ever know. They landed thirty yards from the 
doors, after what Lisa thought felt like true flight.
    One.
    The concussion wiped away the memory of the sound. There was hot air and 
the rush of debris, the smell of vaporised plaster and burning wood mixing 
with the faint aroma of the dead grass, wet with flash melted snow. Then 
there was a second explosion, another concussive blast of air as the gas line 
ruptured. This time there was fire, true fire hot and unstoppable, burning in 
the craterous remains of the building.
    Monica rolled off Lisa, the wet ground putting out her smoldering back 
and the remains of her clothes. her eyes were closed, her hands limp and 
instinctively Lisa reached for a stake. She could end her now, bargain or 
now, this would be her final moment if that was what she wanted. She weighed 
it, lifting up the stake even as she knew she was making the wrong choice, 
and drove it deep.
    Into her belt.
    Monica's eyes opened, and their was a smile in them.
    'Honour among thieves, eh ?'
    Lisa stood up, helped Monica to her feet, pulled out her cigarettes, 
lighting two. She handed one to Monica and did nothing but smoke for half a 
minute.
    'We made a deal. That's all. Next time-'
    'Rumble !' Monica said cheerily. 'And may the best woman live to tell. 
It's been a pleasure, but unless you're going to let me eat that pretty 
young thing waiting for you, I'd best be going. The bad guys will be here any 
minute.'
    Lisa said nothing.
    'You aren't going to let me eat her, are you ?' Monica asked hopefully.
    'Get out of here.'
    With that, Monica was gone.

    Lisa saw the pile of ashes, somewhat diminished by the wind.
    She ran the rest of the way to the Jeep and there was Anne, sitting 
patiently. Just smoking and waiting.
    'Quite a little light show,' Anne said levelly.
    Lisa smiled. She looked back at the remains of the town hall, still 
burning, a sunken pile of rubble almost filling the basement.
    'Yeah. I knocked '˜em dead. You want to drive, or should I.'
    Anne got out the Jeep, kicked at the dust one last time, and walked 
around to the passenger side.
    'Why don't you. I'm a little spent.'
    'I felt the same way after my first,' Lisa said, getting behind the 
wheel and shifting into first in one smooth motion. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't 
have left you alone.'
    'I wouldn't have wanted to be where you were.'
    'What do you mean ?' Lisa asked as Anne finished her cigarette and 
crushed it in  the ashtray.
    'I could feel something. Like your fear. I hope that doesn't embarrass 
you.'
    'Are you kidding ? The only thing I feel more than fear is rage. It's 
almost a tie, every day I do this.'
    'There's no going back, is there ?' Anne asked solemnly.
    'Light me a cigarette and I'll tell you about some of your better 
options.'
    Anne did just that, handing the lit cigarette to Lisa, who drew on it 
gratefully.
    'I was about your age when I found out- and finding out and still being 
human means getting your first kill. And now, there's no going back. Only 
forward.'
    Lisa reached fifth and gave the Jeep all the gas she dared.
    There would time to feel sorry for the girl, after all. 
    Later.
    'What about the bank ?' Anne quipped.
    'Maybe next time,' Lisa said, and Anne wasn't sure it was a joke.

Previous part | Next part