Vampires. Fucking Vampires. I hated the motherfuckers. They were cold and lifeless, as if they had no soul of their own. That was a good thing when it came to killing them. But then again, that was what made them so dangerous to us humans.
I'd been hunting vampires for about six years now. Six years of blood-soaked nights spent in the dark, tracking down these soulless creatures whose only desire was to suck out our lives with their sharp, needlelike teeth. I knew my enemy; I knew how to kill them. And I always got the job done--whether by stabbing their cold dead hearts or cutting off their heads, putting an end to their existence once and for all.
I was assigned to hunt down a particularly deadly vampire who had been terrorizing the streets of New York City for months, slaughtering everyone she came across until there was nothing left but a bloody trail of bodies. It took me weeks to track her down because she kept moving from one place to another. She moved around like a ghost, changing identities every few days, never staying in any one location for longer than a week. What surprised me most was that she didn't drink blood. Instead, she drank the life force from people through sexual intercourse.
She was a succubus. A demon who fed on the energy of human beings during sex. The thought of it turned my stomach. When I finally caught up to her, I found her at the top of the Empire State Building having sex with a man who worked in the building. He was just beginning to climax, pumping his seed into her, when she spotted the glint from my crossbow. Fuck.
I pulled the trigger, but missed. By the time I fired again, she had already dropped her victim on the floor and taken off running. Her speed was inhuman. She could move faster than eyes could comprehend, leaving only an afterimage of her presence behind as she fled back down the stairs to street level.
The demon bitch didn't think I was prepares. My STALKER suit has a built in parachute. As a STALKER, part of my initiation was to take an injection that heightened our senses, improved reaction times, and increased our overall durability. We were not normal hunters. Our job wasn't to shoot them from afar with high-powered rifles; it was to close in on them, fight hand-to-hand, face to face, and destroy them before they got a chance to retaliate.
I leaped off of the building, pulling the cord that would activate my chute just before impact. But the damned thing malfunctioned--it either failed or snapped, I was in no position to diagnose the issue. I fell like a rock, straight down towards the ground. Before impact, the blur of the vampire went through the air and she caught me. She held me by my shirt collar and lifted me above her head. The wind from the fall whipped against my body, tossing me about violently until she set me on the ground. She knelt over me for a moment, studying me with those cold dead eyes. Then she spoke, her voice dripping with contempt.
"I'm impressed," said the succubus. "You are so fucking stupid."
She brought up her foot to crush my skull. I braced myself as best I could, trying to prepare for death at her hands. I knew it was coming, I'd seen enough of this monster to know that nothing was going to save me now except luck or divine intervention. Suddenly she stopped. A smile crept across her lips. It was an eerie expression. Not even a hint of joy or satisfaction. Just emptiness. And then she leaned down and kissed me. On my forehead. That's right, just a kiss on the forehead. My whole life flashed before my eyes in one instant: my father leaving my mother, my first time holding a gun, pissing myself in my elementary music class, all the fights and fucking with my ex wife, becoming a STALKER, killing vampires, all of it seemed to come crashing back into my mind in that brief second between breaths. She pulled away from me suddenly.
I was able to position my wrist dark launcher that was part of of my suit and fire a dart into her. The dart contained a specialized serum that dampened unholy powers. I watched her shiver and convulse as she took off running at a slowed speed towards the subway entrance. She disappeared down the steps as I shook off the whiplash from my fall. I collected myself and made chase, following her underground into the bowels of the city, my breath heavy as I ran.
We went down a series of stairs leading below the streets. As I reached the subway platform I noticed it was empty. She slipped into the doors of a waiting train and I caught the doors just before they closed. We were still inside the station, but we had nowhere to go. We were alone inside of the train car, and I saw her breathing hard, weakened by the dart that had injected her earlier. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders like water; her eyes glowed red with unbridled hunger.
"You're not what I expected," she said. "I'm impressed."
Her voice was melodious, yet deep and raspy at once. It sounded almost musical, though with an undercurrent of sinister tones beneath each word. A faint chill raced through my body at the sound of her voice. It sent goose bumps up my arms and across my neck. It reminded me of death itself--cold, lifeless, quiet...
She smiled again and cocked her head to the side slightly. For a moment I thought that she actually might be amused or enjoying this little game we were playing, but then it struck me: maybe it wasn't a game after all. She let out a low chuckle that carried with it a trace of madness. She wasn't afraid, but she knew I had the upper hand. A loud hiss sounded from the train as she floor slightly shook as it took off. Fuck. This was my moment. I fired three more darts from my suit that landed into her flesh one after one. She screamed in agony and convulsed as if having a seizure before falling limp.
A succubus class vampire is typically killed on sight. It's not worth the risk as they are far too dangerous. Normal hunters normally don't accept them for assignments and STALKER class hunters know to not fuck around, less they find out. My job was to hunt down this monster and destroy her, so there was no need to drag this out any further than necessary. I pulled a blade from my belt and held it tightly as I went to plunge the STALKER issued holy dagger into her heart. The blade sizzled on the skin as I inched it into her chest when I had noticed a number tattooed onto her collar alongside a STALKER emblem. The same kind that I had. My eyes widened in shock and confusion. The serum that STALKER's take when initiated makes them immune to turning. I knew it would be dangerous but I had to interrogate her.
I pulled a rope from my bag and covered it in blessed lamb blood which is what we fill our darts with. It's what blocks their unholy abilities and saps their strength away. With the amount that was just injected into her, I figured I needed to prepare before she rose back into consciousness. Before long, she began groaning softly, waking up as the blood injection ran its course and wore off. She looked at me, still trying to shake off whatever the hell was happening inside of her body. Her breathing slowed as she tried to pull herself together. When she finally came out of it enough, she opened her mouth to speak:
"Fuck you."
She said those words calmly yet viciously, spitting out each syllable like a curse or an insult. I brought the knife up to her throat and asked "Were you a STALKER? Before you turned...well... into this?"
She scoffed in response. It took everything in my power not to shove my blade through her neck right then and there--but I didn't want to kill her until after questioning. If she really was a former STALKER before turning into one of these monsters, I had to find out about how it happened and report it to HQ. That way they could take measures against any other possible STALKER hunters that may be infected. The combination of our DNA poses a serious threat and there is no way of telling how dangerous one could possibly be.
I continued with the interrogation while holding my weapon close by.
"Speak. Before I kill you right here. Now tell me who made you like this,"
Her voice cracked with agony as my hand tightened around the hilt of my dagger. She looked at me with her glowing red eyes as her hands reached up to touch her wound, where two of the darts were sticking out of her chest. She hissed and began to laugh at the pain she felt. This seemed to excite her more than anything else. Her whole body convulsed in uncontrollable laughter before she stopped herself abruptly and let out a deep sigh.
"Oh, sweet little boy... You think you're strong now? Put your toy away. I'll talk. But you must promise me something first..."
I was taken aback and slightly confused by her demand. It was a momentary distraction from what I was doing but it gave her an opening to break free. I decided it was worth the risk. A vampire like this one was very difficult to kill as she had all sorts of tricks up her sleeve to fight back. And that would have been enough of an issue on its own, but she wasn't even trying to escape yet. She just wanted me to show some faith and lower my knife. What did that say about her? Was she actually scared or simply playing mind games with me?
"My pockets," She started. "Reach inside them."
I hesitantly obliged. The pocket was small so there wasn't much room in there for a weapon, and the only thing I found was a pack of cigarettes.
"Whether you kill me or let me live, at least let me have a cigarette. I'm dead anyway, I might as well fuck over the man who made me this way. All I ask of you is that you give me one smoke before you cut my throat."
