Author's Note: Second edit pass complete! Check out my bio for details.
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~~Jack~~
Jack's eyes went wide. Half of Viktor's head was gone, just gone. The bloody gibs of brain matter and bone turned into tiny fires that faded into ash and embers before they even hit the ground.
"Shit! Shit shit, what-"
Julias put a hand against Jack's mouth, and pushed him back against the wall. "Sniper, down the path."
Jack reached up and pulled his sire's hand down. "What about Viktor!? The fuck are we supposed to do now?"
Just as he was about to start ranting, his jaw dropped yet again when Viktor sat back up, safe out of the line of sight of the alley. Half his head was still missing, but it was rebuilding itself. That dark and thick Kindred blood was seeping into the gory mess and quite literally rebuilding bone, muscle, tendon, teeth, and even his hair. It wasn't like when Julias healed from his burn; this was some freaky mutant insane healing powers shit.
A minute later, Viktor was standing and dusting his shoulders off. His hair was now undone, and the black length reached the middle of his back. "Vermin. Cowards. If they want to play as rats, then rats they shall have." He looked to his childe, grandchile, and gave a small grin. The smirk was gone so fast, Jack wasn't sure he'd seen it.
And then, as if thrown into the ocean during a hurricane, Jack had to press a hand to the wall to brace himself against the invisible. Viktor's voice was quiet, but he could feel it resonate through him. There was power there, so much power that it shook the blood in his withered insides. It only got worse when Viktor used a fingernail to slice open his wrist, and forced a large splattering of his blood to land on the pavement.
Squeaks. At first it was a barely audible buzzing sound, like a fly near the ear, but soon the rising tide of squeaks flooded toward them. When Jack looked toward the source, he could not find it. It came from everywhere. In the dark of night, it looked like the pavement had come to life.
Hundreds of rats poured over everything. They ran the corners of building and street, flowed up from sewer drains, and down the walls of warehouses, all to sip at Viktor's blood.
"Go. Swarm and devour my enemies."
King of the rats. The flood of moving fur poured past them all and down the alley. The moving carpet of teeth was met with gunfire, squeaks of death and exploding, furry little bodies, but whoever was shooting did not have nearly enough bullets to stop a torrent of claws. Within a minute, the sounds of gunfire had fallen back.xxwwxJulias went in first, his pistol held in both hands. Viktor had also drawn his pistol, a machine pistol at that, but he held it in one hand. With an almost flamboyant flare, he drew his sword and held at in his right hand at the ready. It was not some antique, but rather something clearly modern, almost more like a very long dagger.
Jack found himself suppressing a grin. He was afraid, there was gunfire, and Viktor had lost half his head, but damn if his grandsire wasn't an irrefutable badass. Viktor went in after Julias, and the two went at a full run. Jack came up behind them, and found himself drifting to hide behind Viktor more than Julias. No offense to his sire, but his grandsire was scarier.
Instead of stopping to regroup once a new set of warehouses were reached, they kept running. Fearless. It was strangely exhilarating. At first, he was terrified, and he still was, but there was something to this, hunting things in the dark. Something primal and ancient tugged at Jack's insides, that inner-beast that now lived inside him, and pulled him along like a cat chasing prey. He forgot about Mrs. Pavala, about Mary, about all the stupid shit that didn't matter then. For the moment, he was a predator.
They soon found themselves in a cross section of road, warehouses, factories, dipping ramps of asphalt that lead into garage doors. The rats were pouring down one of the ramps and under a barely-opened garage door. Then the air was filled with squeaks, hundreds, even thousands of squeaks. Dying squeaks.
Viktor held up a hand, and Julias came to a stop with his back against the wall of the opened door. Jack's sire clearly had training; he moved with efficiency and speed with his pistol in both hands. His grandsire on the other hand, walked forward as if immortal. For all Jack knew, he might as well have been. The elder Kindred stepped underneath the garage door, following the rats into the darkness.
Jack followed him in, only to have the garage door slam behind him.
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~Julias~
Shit.
Julias only had time to take two steps toward the garage door before a pair of hands crashed into him. Everything turned upside down, everything hurt, and suddenly the pavement was zipping by underneath him. He was sent fifty feet before he skidded to a stop, suit torn to bits and his pale skin ripped open all over.
His skin closed and healed itself within seconds, and he was up on a knee in the same amount of time with his gun drawn. A quick look around showed he was in clearing of street, likely where transport trucks rerouted.
"God damn Ventrue. Too damn hard to kill with bullets."
Rebecca. The redheaded bitch was wearing a wearing a black trench coat, and... a nice scarf. Damn Daeva always concerned with looking sexy. The woman had a large rifle with a long barrel in her hands, but she threw it to the ground with a frustrated groan.
"Good thing Daeva aren't so hard to kill." He'd shot thousands of bullets from dozens of different guns. His current pistol had kick, but it was nothing a Kindred couldn't suppress easily, so firing several bullets in rapid succession from the oversized weapon was easy.
Hitting the Daeva, on the other hand, would not be so easy. Rebecca moved as a blur, fast enough that before he knew it she had put a warehouse corner between them. He'd clipped her; the splattering bits of dark blood and withering ash proved it. He'd have to hit her in the chest several times just to slow her down long enough to take off her head, though.
Well, at least the place was deserted for a wide radius. No cops.
"Come out come out wherever you are." Julias stood up and started to walk toward where she'd disappeared, pistol at the ready.
"Are we going to play hide'n'seek?" the darkness asked.
"Well, you can hide, but eventually I'll give up and get back to Viktor." He poked his head around the corner, just long enough to see what waited for him. Nothing.
"Well I can't have that."
"No I don't suppose you can. You really think Tony can kill Viktor?" He really only had one direction to move in: toward the voice. Rebecca was staying ahead of him, ducking around warehouse corners and likely hiding on rooftops to throw her voice.
"What's a Ventrue without his subjects to fight for him?"
"Ah, so that's why you separated me." He kept his pistol in both hands, and tracked his gaze with practiced speed.
"Indeed!" Always with a flare for the dramatic, the serpent jumped from a rooftop. Jumped was incorrect, she'd actually propelled herself down toward him, and she crashed into him with enough force to dent the wall behind him with his head.
He was prepared this time, and Ventrue reflexes had his vitae pumping defense through his body upon impact. Physics were physics though, and he slammed into the wall hard enough to almost bounce. He pulled the trigger, several times, but all the bullets went wide. It only got worse when a punch hit his hands hard enough to knock the weapon away.
"I'm going to -- ah!" Rebecca jumped back with her hands to her chest.
Julias got back up, knife in hand and Rebecca's blood on its blade for only a moment before the red became ash. He didn't need a gun.
"You nearly killed by childe. You nearly killed me." He gripped the blade tight in his right hand with his left hand open and pointed toward the Daeva. "You really suck at finishing jobs. You wouldn't last two days in the Invictus."
"Old hags and dusty dicks who couldn't move on from dead dynasties." She paced left and right in front of him, a growl on her beautiful lips. Her hands were empty; she'd left the sniper rifle behind.
Or at least, they were empty. It was too damn hard to follow her movements, but she managed to reach into her jacket and pull out a weapon before he could move. He wasn't worried about a pistol, but she wasn't pulling out a pistol. She was pulling out a short-barreled shotgun, perfect for splattering a Kindred into bits.
He ducked in and tackled her. She was faster and stronger, but he was tougher. Her shot clipped over his shoulder and tore a chunk of his flesh free, enough to disable the arm. For the moment.
"Get off of me!"
She bashed him in the face with the weapon, but he was inside now. His right hand still worked, so he swung the knife for her guts. She raised the gun in a harsh uppercut though, straight up against the hand, blocked his swipe, and drove the butt of the gun into his face. The damn Daeva hit so hard, his knife was knocked up from his hand and away, and his head snapped back almost hard enough to break his bones.
She pointed the gun at him again, but he reached for it with his good arm while falling back. His torn up arm was taking just seconds to heal, but seconds was a long time when a Daeva was struggling to get a shotgun in your mouth, so he only had the one hand to hold onto the gun while she had a free hand. She used it to punch his chest again, and again, and again, until bone broke inward.
He didn't let go of the gun. She beat him, tore into him, ripped open his chest, but still he didn't let go. Over the seconds, his arm put itself back together with the crack of undead bone and shifting cartilage. When the arm finally started working again, he ignored the blinding pain -- his inner-beast demanded it -- and raised his free hand to grab her face. He was bigger than her, much bigger, and he put his size to use with his larger grip over her eyes, and his grip squeezing hard enough to crush bone.
He may not have had the strength of a Daeva, but she didn't have the resilience of a Ventrue. Within seconds, he felt her pale skin start to give way to his fingers, and soon the bone underneath it around her temples and eye sockets began to crack.
She screamed. Kindred were not immune to pain, and her noises made Julias grimace. Her high-pitched wail turned into a furious banshee cry as she let go of the gun, but put both hands against his assaulting hand, and ripped it off.
It was his turn to cry out. Her nails dug into his flesh, into the undead insides, and tore it apart at the wrist. Bits of bone flew out, along with a small splatter of his blood before the viscous liquid contained itself to his open wound. His hand was gone though, and the severed limb crumbled into old dust and bone on the pavement. He wasn't Viktor, it would take a lot longer than few seconds to grow an entire hand.
Rebecca threw her fist into his face, and this time he flew back only to crash into a nearby warehouse wall. With only five feet between them still, the Daeva pounced at him.
