ic Red Death Redemption (IC)

[Amelia]

GM

 

Upstairs

 

"¡PERRITO!" Little Esteban practically jumped out of his bedroom window to embrace Mutt in a full-body hug. He squirmed and climbed until he was sitting on top of the spectral hound, riding him like a pony. "I don't wanna go see ANY of my family!" he replied to Lady Horus. "Papa will find me. He'll eat them, too."

 

Downstairs

 

Dead Head wasn't the only guy in this house who knew his way around a shovel. He'd met a lot of liars in his day, and Javier Delgado was one of the worst. Every word out of his mouth was a lie. They were the kind of lies that are easier to tell because they're based on something true, but they were still lies.

 

"I'm afraid my son's already asleep," Javier Delgado assured the cops. "He's had so much trouble sleeping these past couple days, I'd hate to wake him."

 

The older cop raised an eyebrow. "...Uhhh-HUH."

 

The younger cop glanced back toward the dining room and kitchen. "Did you hear something?"

 

The older cop dismissed him. "Probably a rat. Park's full of 'em. Look, Mister Delgado, technically, the kid made a fake 911 call. I'm not gonna slap an eight-year-old in cuffs, but that IS a misdemeanor. Two-hundred dollar fine. But you can take care of it right here and now if you like."

 

Javier stared at the cop, expressionless, then replied "Of course we can take care of it now. I don't want to waste any more of the Bedlam P.D.'s precious time. I don't have that much cash on me, but if you'd follow me to the nearest ATM, I'd be happy to make a withdrawal."

 

"We'll take you," the older cop said. "But take out an extra twenty. Convenience fee."

 

The noise from the kitchen got louder. This time, both of the cops spun around, their hands jerking toward the guns on their belts.

 

"You sure there's no one else in here?" the older cop asked. Both cops were already slowly walking toward the back of the townhouse, guns drawn.

 

"No one else should be here, Officer," Javier stated flatly. "But a stray cat might have gotten in through the dog door in the kitchen."

 

The older cop turned toward Javier and raised a finger to his own lips, then kept advancing forward.

 

The younger cop, in front, saw Dead Head's hand skittering under the table. "What the...?" That saved his life, at least for the moment. Behind him, Javier grabbed the older cop's face and pulled him backward, pressing their bodies together and holding the cop's arms down with his other hand as the fangs unsheathing from his jaw pierced the skin on the cop's throat. Blood gushed and sprayed from what was left of the older cop's neck, rimming Javier's mouth in shiny red wetness. The younger cop turned around, then kept turning back and forth between Javier and the disembodied hand, pointing his gun at each in turn. "WHAT...WHAT..." He repeated the panicked shout over and over again.

 

[Avenger Assembled]

As Mutt started to describe what was happening below, Lady Horus made a snap decision - hopefully before he said anything that would scar the tyke for life. "Lo, Hound of Legba, guard the boy!" 

 

With that she vaulted out the open window and swooped around the house, not quite touching ground as she flew inside the front door. She was fast, as she always was, a blur of gold and white that shone with the awesome power of the Sunhawk incarnate. She didn't stop to ask questions about what was happening or figure out who was doing what, though she did take note of the vampire hero she knew and the unfamiliar whatever the hell that thing was over there. When she saw the man eating the police officer she brought up her ankh and stabbed him in the neck. She put follow-through behind the strike, burying the ankh up to its crossbars in now rapidly-incinerating undead flesh. 

 

Her voice rang with nigh-Olympic power through the house as she called out - "I SAY THEE NAY!"

[Amelia]

GM

 

As soon as Lady Horus's ankh cleaved Javier Delgado's head from his shoulders, his entire body, both halves of it, crumbled into ash.

 

The older cop was bleeding heavily from the gashes in his neck, staring unfocused at the ceiling while he gurgled and gasped and choked on his own blood. He was still alive, for the moment, but obviously teetering on the edge of a knife.

 

The younger cop started walking backwards, toward the back door in the kitchen, while trembling and moving his gun back and forth to point it at everyone in rapid succession. "WHAT...OH GOD...HOW...OH GOD..."

 

Outside, Little Esteban buried his face in Mutt's fur and held him close, blissfully ignorant of his father's destruction.

 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

The man in white had just dropped down from the ceiling, and was reaching to grab Javier from behind, when Lady Horus came flying through the door and chopped his head off. With the immediately threat over, he turned to the wounded cop. As he knelt down beside the dying man, he tore off a strip from his own cape, which he then pressed against the man's throat to staunch the worst of the bleeding. He started barking orders, to no one in particular. "We need to get this man to a hospital now! Trauma surgery's the only chance he's got and even that's a slim one. Someone raid the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Get me gauze and tape, or anything like it. Get the kid in here. He's got some questions to answer."

 

While he worked, he growled dismissively at the younger cop. "And someone take his gun or knock him out or do something before the idiot shoots someone."

 

[Dr Archeville]

What the-

 

Dead Head had just popped up from behind the kitchen counter, about to dive for the vamp, when suddenly there was a pile of ash there.  He made a quick assessment as his wayward hand scrambled up his leg, flipped up,  and neatly reattached itself to his wrist.

 

"Right... I'll go see to the child," his gravelly whisper of a voice rang out, and he made towards the stairs.  As he passed the younger cop, he turned just enough for the officer to get a good look at his face -- the bruise-colored skin, which was far too taut, the rictus grin, a cockroach peeking out of his ear.  The blue-green flames in his eyes flared up, and his voice took on an even more sepulchral quality.  "Drop it.  It wouldn't do you any good against us anyway."

 

And then he continued up the stairs.

 

Hey, Mutt.  Vamp's taken care of.  I'm comin' up, and gonna want t'talk to the kid.  Let 'im know, okay?

 

"Esteban," Mutt said, trying to carefully enunciate the name as best his canine mouth could, "my friend is coming up, and he would like to talk with you.  He wants to help, but he needs to ask you some questions.  You may think he looks... weird, but he is a very good person.  Is this okay?  He wants to help."

 

Little Esteban heard footsteps at his door, and a soft knock.  "Hello?  Esteban?  My name is De- my name's Burt.  I'm a, well, I like to help folks.  That's mah hound yer with.  He's a good boy, ain't he?  I'd like to ask you a few questions, about... about yer pa.  About what happened to him.  May I come in?"

[Amelia]

GM

 

The younger cop audibly gulped at Dead Head and dropped his gun. The pistol made a loud *THWACK* sound as the impact cut into the cheap fake tile on the kitchen floor. "Ssshhhould I radio for an ahhhmbulance, or...?"

 

Esteban Delgado nodded to Mutt. "Okay. You look kinda weird too, but you're nice. Can you stay with me while I talk with your friend?" He turned toward his bedroom door and cupped his hand to his face, shouting "COME IN!"

 

The little boy was startled at Dead Head's appearance, but Mutt and Lady Horus had purchased him enough credibility in advance that the child resisted the urge to flee in terror, and once Dead Head started talking, his jovial manner won the boy over. By the end of the conversation, the boy seemed to have forgotten that he was talking to a monster. His story revealed the threads of truth that his father had spun into lies.

 

According to Esteban, his parents were active in their local church, Saint Romuald's, and often volunteered at the homeless shelter it ran near Ash Street, Saint Sebastian's. They usually took turns, one going to work while the other stayed with Esteban. Last week, Javier came home from a dinner shift at the shelter with a bandage on his neck. He claimed to have accidentally cut himself in the kitchen. After that, he started calling in sick to work and sleeping all day. A few days after that dinner shift, the Delgado family car had indeed been totaled, but Javier had neglected to mention the cause of the accident, which was not as severe as he made it out to be. Javier had been driving, with the entire family in the car with him, when he had suddenly let go of the steering wheel, letting the car crash while he mauled his wife's neck. The car crashed into a nearby lamppost, but not at a high speed. After biting his wife's throat and sucking some of her blood, Javier had exited the vehicle, picked it up off the ground, and smashed it into the lamppost hard enough to topple it. The family dog, Pacho, wouldn't stop barking at him, so Javier grabbed Pacho, pulled him out of the car, shoved his hand into the dog's chest with enough force to pierce its skin, and then flayed it open over the street. He licked his hands clean afterward. Javier then got back into the car, buckled up, and waited for emergency services to arrive. At this point, Esteban, his voice hoarse and his face blue from his terrified and bewildered screaming, had fainted. He woke up at home, where he was told that his mother was in the hospital. He's been having nightmares about his father murdering his dog ever since. Earlier this day, Javier had told him "Don't worry, Mijo, we'll wait for you to grow up before we make you like us." He didn't know what his father meant, but after that, and three days of nobody believing him about what he'd seen, he finally called the police.

 

[Avenger Assembled]

Downstairs, Lady Horus had brushed the dust off her ankh and found that she didn't feel bad about killing the vampire dad at all. Must have taken out Mama first time he got hungry, poor crazy bastard. Never had a chance. She might have taken a vampire to her bed but she knew all too well that there were real, irredeemable monsters out there in the world. She took a moment to pick up the officer's weapon, eject the magazine and bullets, then step on it to to crush it with her sandeled foot - a rapid-fire series of movements she carried out while carrying on a conversation with Strix, and doing other things besides. 

 

"The dead man - be he known to you, Strix?" Lady Horus intoned. The words were sympathetic, despite sounding like a Shakespearean actress run through reverb. She was discreet enough not to ask the question any more precisely; the cop was right there after all. Before Strix could answer, she'd gone and returned with his bandages. "I can take him to yon hospital," she offered, "if he can yet be moved." 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

"No. I definitely don't know this piece of trash, and the world is probably better off without him. I just don't feel like I have the right to let him die. From what I've seen, you're faster than any of us, and definitely faster than any ambulance. Just keep pressure up on his wound, but not so much that you strangle him. And try to make it as smooth a ride as possible. No sudden stops or hard turns if you can avoid it. Take him to Downtown General. It's the closest one by far. We'll be right behind you, because if the kid's mom really is in a hospital, then I bet she's in that one, and not on account of any car accident." Strix threaded his arm under the wounded cop's legs and slowly, carefully lifted him up off the ground and into Lady Horus's waiting arms. He turned to glare with his black eyes at the younger cop, who was still more or less standing still in the kitchen. "You partner's last act in this world will probably be shaking down a parent for a bribe in their own home, with their kid in the next room. Think long and hard about whether you really want to follow in those footsteps." Then he ran upstairs.

 

[Dr Archeville]

Dead Head had just left little Esteban's room, closing the door softly behind him, leaving Mutt upstairs to play with the child.  He had not said anything about the father's fate, merely saying that he was being "dealt with."

 

He sensed Strix approach, and turned to face him, "okay, so, somethin' bit pa at Saint Sebastian's, on Ash Street, an' it made 'im a super-strong bloodsucker after a few nights.  Without him needin' t'be buried," he shook his head.  "An' he chomped down on his wife wife, after he let go'a the steering wheel an' crashed the car, then wrecked it more t'make it look worse than it was.  Dog wouldn't stop barking, so 'e tore it ta pieces.  An' he was gonna bite 'is kid, but wanted t'let 'im grow a bit first."

 

He ran his fingers through his unkempt ghost white hair, "don't know if he held off 'cuz he just wanted t'see his son grow a bit, or if somethin' else told 'im to.  At any rate, we gotta stake out Saint Sebastian's, an' find where they took ma.  'Cuz I got a nasty feelin' she's gonna be gettin' up soon, if she ain't already."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I meant the-ANUBIS'S HAIRY BALLS!" Anna normally didn't swear like that in costume but talking to kids in trouble stressed her the hell out , and if Bedlam cops thought she was a maniac that only served her purpose. She looked down at the fallen cop and reached down to adjust her back muscles. Well this is really gonna be a trip. She kicked open the front door, then bent down at the knee so she could pick up the policeman. Shooting a glare at the younger officer, she stepped out onto the curb and ran like Hell for the nearest hospital, leaving a golden trail behind her as she went. 

 

Once in the emergency room, she kicked open the door, still carrying the bleeding patient and yelled "MORTALS! A VAMPIRE ATE HIS NECK! ATTEND ME!"

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

Quote

"At any rate, we gotta stake out Saint Sebastian's, an' find where they took ma.  'Cuz I got a nasty feelin' she's gonna be gettin' up soon, if she ain't already."

 

"If Delgado was infected at the homeless shelter, then that sounds like our best lead. But I don't think the part about his wife being in the hospital was a lie, not if he waited for emergency services to show up after the fake car accident. Horus is on her way to Downtown General with the cop now. If the kid's mom is in a hospital, that's got to be the one. There's no way they took a Latina woman to Our Lady of Sorrow in Stark Hill, or a poor person to Beth-El in Stone Ridge. And if this is some kind of infection, and the timing the kid described lines up, then the hospital is the more immediate concern. Let's go."

 

[Amelia]

GM

 

Northeast of Hardwick Park and north of Wolverton, close to the gutted factories and empty warehouses of Industrial Drive, stood the century-old brown brick walls and iron-barred windows of Bedlam General Hospital. Lady Horus got there in under a minute. Like most nights, the emergency room was overflowing with the sick and injured of Wolverton and Hardwick Park. By the time Lady Horus stormed into the waiting room, the scrap of white cloth Mister Strix had torn from his cape was already soaked through with the police officer's blood, as was the gauze he had hastily taped to the man's neck. Lady Horus's shouting could barely be heard over the dull roar. One of the triage nurses repeatedly told her they would "have someone out here right away", but it was several minutes before another couple of nurses rolled a stretcher up to them and heaved the bleeding cop onto it. They pushed him into the hallway, tended to him as best they could, and then left him there, along with the dozens of other gurneys lining the walls. About half the people around Lady Horus at any given time stared at her, while the others were too consumed with their own traumas or work to even notice her.

 

Dead Head hadn't figured out yet why the natives called it "Downtown General" when it was nowhere near Downtown Bedlam. He got there just as quickly as Lady Horus. He would have beaten her there if she hadn't had a head start. He emerged in the basement rather than the E.R. waiting room. Technically, the County Coroner's office handled services like autopsies for Bedlam City's dead, but the hospitals still needed refrigerated rooms in which to store the patients who had died there, until they could be moved to the County Morgue. As far as Dead Head's gravewalking spell was concerned, that met the criteria for "a place of death".

 

Mister Strix, meanwhile, "only" being able to run as fast as a car and jump a hundred feet into the air, took almost five minutes to reach the hospital.

 

[Dr Archeville]

"Ugh... man, the deadroads here's gonna take some gettin' used to.  So much rougher'n Freedom's, or anywhere else back east."

 

He looked around, noting how stark and bleak it was.  There was no autopsy table, no sink, nothing for examinations or hygiene, just rows and rows of bodies.  Some inside small sealed(ish) cabinets, some stacked on open racks, wrapped in body bags, with bright orange tags tied to the zipper.  A gurney sat in one corner, next to a small hydraulic trolley, both ancient and barely functioning.  A few clipboards hung here and there, likely indicating who was there and when they'd been dropped off... assuming the person who left them bothered to fill that out.

 

"Well, may as well check their records while I'm down here, see if anyone's been brought in with bite marks.  Of course," he said in a slightly louder voice, "if any spirits hangin' 'bout is feelin' talkative," he grabbed one ear, pulled it off, and held it up, "I'm all ears."

[Avenger Assembled]

Lady Horus arrived back at the Delgado place to find it largely abandoned, having left the police officer in the hospital without looking backwards. What a bunch of asses. "Lo, hello small one!" she said, appearing again at the boy's window and letting herself in. "And Hound of Legba as well, well met. Listen," she said, "Bedlam town is no place for a boy such as you. I can take you to a safe place for tonight," she offered. "Would you like that? Everything will be fine there," she lied. 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

The man in white clouded the minds of everyone around him as he sprinted and bounded across the mixed-use buildings of Hardwick Park, the apartment blocks with businesses in their ground floors, through the single-story track houses of Wolverton, and into the looming darkness of Industrial Drive's ghost town of shuttered mills and foundries. He leaped up to one of the top floors of the hospital, clinging to the outside wall until he spotted the nearest of many broken windows. He dissolved himself into a cloud of mist and floated through the jagged glass and iron bars, re-materializing once inside. One by one, he started checking the charts hanging from the patients' beds in each room and the stretchers lining each hallway, scanning for Ms. Delgado's name. He spent as much time clambering up the walls and across the ceilings as he did on the ground, avoiding the many nurses and orderlies running from room to room.

 

[Amelia]

GM

 

Bedlam General Hospital, Industrial Drive

 

None of the corpses Dead Head found in the basement freezer were labeled with the name "Delgado". A series of metal cabinets were built into one of the basement walls. A grid of clipboards hanging on an adjacent perpendicular wall corresponded to each drawer. One of them listed a "Roberto Hernandez", with notes stating that he was admitted after having been mauled by a large animal of some kind, and that he'd died from the trauma and blood loss shortly after being admitted, about three days ago.

 

The Delgado Residence, Hardwick Park

 

Quote

"Lo, hello small one! And Hound of Legba as well, well met. Listen, Bedlam town is no place for a boy such as you. I can take you to a safe place for tonight. Would you like that? Everything will be fine there."

 

Little Esteban nodded emphatically at Lady Horus. "Lemmee just get my stuff!" He grabbed a small backpack and started stuffing it with a couple books and stuffed animals. "And my toothbrush!" He sauntered off to the bathroom. "Can the puppy come with us? If Papa gets out of jail and finds us, you guys can beat him up and send him back!" He stared up at Lady Horus, wide-eyed and hopeful.

 

In the hospital basement, Dead Head heard Mutt's voice in his head again, as Mutt relayed the boy's desire that Mutt stay by his side for the rest of the night.

 

[Dr Archeville]

"Gunshot... gunshot... gunshot... stabbing... gunshot... overdose... ooh, 'animal mauling,' that looks promisin'."  He shambled over to the corresponding drawer, and reached out for the handle, when Mutt called in.

 

Yeah, Mutt, y'all can stay.  Keep an eye on 'im.  He's lost his ma an' pa, he's had it rough already.  But, uh, don't mention any of that.  Best he gets that news from one'a us.  Just keep close to 'im.  Oh, wait, where is it Lady Horus's takin' y'all? 

 

Once that was done, he knocked on the cabinet door, "hellllllooo, Mr. Hernandez?  Are ya decent?"  And then he pulled open the drawer...

[Avenger Assembled]

After some quick discussion of everyone's respective abilities, another reassurance for the little boy that everything was going to be okay, and a telephone call to her home base, Lady Horus took Mutt and Esteban Delgado to school. Well, to the campus of Belcher College - often neglected, almost fully-deserted at this time of year. The wind was in their hair and everything around them seemed slowed to a pause, the sun-dappled arms of a goddess making everything better as they ran inside an empty building that turned out to be not so empty! 

 

On the upper stories of Belcher's Old Main, Esperanza Azul was waiting for them. She didn't look the part of the caregiver - and didn't sound it either. "Really?" she demanded. "A kid and a flying dog? Really?" 

 

"Aye, and much else!" declared Lady Horus, reaching up to pull off her helm. There was a flash and ripple of light, and suddenly Lady Horus was replaced by a middle-aged woman in a tracksuit. The transformation seemed to put on about two decades - and turn her voice from echoy Shakespeare to the edges of Jersey. "I have to run back and pick up the groceries, sweetie, then I'm gonna turn in. Can you help little Stevie settle down with one of your TV shows or something?" 

"I..." Esperanza looked down at Javier as if she was worried he was going to bite her, then said, "...all right. I can handle kids." She'd heard enough of the story to know somebody needed to do something for this kid. Switching to her native Spanish, she said, "<So Esteban, do you have any shows you like? I can get Univison on the set in my room, and there's some others....>" Her bedroom turned out to be her workshop too, full of half-built gadgets on several desks around the room, and a big TV in front of the bed. There was food in here too, several cases of various Grupo Bimbo snacks of various sorts, some already open, the trash meticulously stacked in a nearby can. "<Help yourself to one of my snacks, but your dog needs to stay on the->" Mutt did not stay on the floor.

[Amelia]

GM

 

Bedlam General Hospital

 

As Mister Strix was creeping through the halls, he was stunned to see a familiar face walking toward him, for the second time inside of a week: Emergency medicine specialist Doctor Adriana Aparo, his widow.

 

Bedlam General Hospital, Basement

 

When Dead Head opened the morgue drawer, he was greeted by a pair of faintly glowing red eyes. Either his knocking and taunting had woken the new vampire, or he'd already been awake, waiting. As Dead Head had expected, the thing that used to be Roberto Hernandez lunged at him, fangs bared. As he hurled himself forward, he let loose an inhumanly deep growl that echoed across the basement, a tiger's growl, a growl Dead Head was used to hearing from Mister Strix. Dead Head easily sidestepped Hernandez, who rolled as he hit the floor, landing on his feet in a crouch.

 

Hernandez was naked, and his skin was unnaturally pale. His eyes were no longer glowing, but the irises and sclera were both still completely red. Only the pupils were tiny dots of black in the center. He reeked of necromancy, just as Javier Delgado had, just as Mister Strix did. He looked up and down at Dead Head.

 

"You're not food," he hissed. "You're like me. Come on, let's go suck this place dry."

 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

The man in white was dumbstruck at the sight of his widow. He dropped down from the ceiling and stared at her as she strode toward him. His mouth hung open. In his black eyes, the rest of the world around her slowly faded into a dull grey blur.

 

Of course. Why am I surprised? We both started working here before...before...why wouldn't she still be here? Dad kept trying to convince us to apply at Our Lady of Sorrow instead, kept saying he could "make some calls", but we didn't want to work at a Mobbed-up whites-only Sixties throwback...no, we wanted to go "Where we could do the most good"...five years...she could have gone anywhere...she's still here...she's still...

 

He let a single word slip out of his mouth, almost a whisper. "...Adriana..."

 

[Amelia]

GM

 

Mister Strix's ability to cloud the minds of the mortals around him faltered. When he whispered his wife's name, she heard it. Doctor Aparo had been about to walk into a patient's room, but when she heard her own name, she stopped. She was startled at the sudden appearance of the man in white in front of her. "What the?!" She unconsciously took half a step back from him. Then she saw the blood on his hands and on his shirt. "Are you hurt? Or did you...?"

 

Strix was so hypnotized at the sight of Doctor Aparo that he was oblivious to the events taking place in the patient's room beside him, until the people inside started yelling and alarms started beeping. He glanced to the side, and saw two nurses and an orderly trying to hold down a woman as she was wracked with violent convulsions. He knew from the alarms he'd heard a hundred times in another life that she must be in cardiac arrest. Strix's keen eyes saw the blood start to trickle over her lips, from her nose and ears and eyes. He saw the tiny name on her wristband and on the chart hanging on her bed: Maria Delgado.

 

Doctor Aparo started to push past him. "I need to get in there!"

 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

Quote

Maria Delgado.

 

Oh no.

 

Mister Strix "burned" some of his stored blood, metabolizing it to activate his superhuman speed. Everything around him seem to fall into slow-motion as he grabbed Doctor Aparo's arm and yanked her out of the doorway to Maria's room, simultaneously raising his massive white cape to block the doorway.

 

It's like ebola, he mused to himself. She's crashing out. I could have saved them all, if I'd been paying attention instead of mooning over my ex-wife like some schoolboy having his first crush. Those people are going to die because I was too stupid and too slow and too sloppy to save them.

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by Grumblefloof

[Amelia]

GM

 

A fountain of blood erupted from Maria Delgado's mouth. As she writhed, as her body was jerked by a series of muscle spasms, that blood painted the room. One of the nurses who had been trying to hold her down managed to duck down beside the bed in time to avoid the spray, but the other nurse, and the orderly who happened to be in there when the woman started flatlining, were both drenched. They coughed and spat and rubbed their eyes.

 

Mister Strix had barely reacted in time to save Doctor Aparo from the same fate, jerking her out of the doorway and raising his cape as the spray moved past the doorway. A torrent of blood splashed against his cape. When he lowered it, he saw a much more pale and lean Maria Delgado standing by her bed. Her red eyes glanced at him, then around her room. She licked her new fangs with a tongue two or three times as long as it should have been, and then she roared like a tiger.

 

[Amelia]

Mister Strix

 

Too late to save Ms. Delgado. Too late to save them. This is what happens to Adriana if I fail again. No. Not again. She will make it home to her daughter tonight. To her husband.

 

The man in white bared his fangs, letting loose a growl that matched Maria's. He burned more blood, and his fingernails receded into his flesh, replaced a moment later by talons, each one nearly as long as the finger from which it sprouted. He leaped at Maria and slashed at her wildly. To everyone in the room except her, he was a white blur.

 

[Amelia]

GM

 

Maria Delgado ducked and sidestepped every wild swing of Mister Strix's claws. She was moving as fast as he was. To the mortals in the room with her, she was just a pale streak whizzing around. After one of Strix's swings left him wide open, she lunged forward, grabbing his shoulder and his mask and pulling his throat to her lips. His undead skin was like kevlar, but her fangs sliced into it like a knife through warm butter. He twisted himself free from her grip, but as he jerked himself away, her fangs tore his throat open. Black blood trickled down onto his white shirt. One could see crimson highlights if the light hit it at just the right angle.

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by Grumblefloof