She sniffed the air, her black nose wiggling. A smell came to her, a rabbit. With a low growl, she sprang into a run. Crashing through brush, she came upon the animal, with it's eyes wide in fear, it's ears laid back. With a burst of speed, the rabbit was gone and the wolf followed, a rumbling sound coming from somewhere deep in her throat. She toyed with the frightened animal, allowing it to remain ahead of her by a few feet. With her claws digging furrows in the ground, the wolf ran, reveling in the hunt. Her brown eyes flashed in the moonlight as she sped up, catching the rabbit by it's hind quarters. The rabbit cried out as it's flesh tore, but it slipped from between the wolf's teeth. The wolf pounced on it, grabbed it's neck with her powerful jaws, jerked her head and bones snapped, the rabbit went limp.
Tearing the rabbit apart, the wolf fed. Then a scream caught her attention. Her ears swiveled forward and she growled. The wolf lifted it's head to the sky and began to grow bigger, her fore legs lengthened, her hind legs thickened and buckled. In a matter of moments, a woman was in the wolf's place, on her hands and knees. Lowering her head, Alana pulled her legs forward and pushed herself to a kneeling position. Cocking her head to one side, she listened, but heard nothing. All of a sudden she felt very much vulnerable out here in the desert, naked and alone. She crossed her arms over her breasts and hugged herself as a chill raced up her spine.
Another scream pounded at her. Her fear turned to rage as she recognized it as Eric's, her lover for the passed two years. Standing up, Alana lifted her hands into the air. She closed her eyes and screamed. A breeze picked up, then the air began to rush around her, blowing her hair about. Dust, rocks and vegetation swirled upward. The wind increased, setting her breasts to swaying and pulling bigger and bigger rocks from the ground. Alana closed her eyes, raised her face to the night sky and slowly lowered her arms, then thrust her hands out, clenched them into tight fists and screamed again. The wind immediately stopped and she lowered her eyes.
"Well, still throwing tantrums, I see." A voice said behind her.
Alana opened her hands, which were bleeding from cuts where her nails had punctured through. In each she held a dimly glowing crystal. She turned to the voice, which belonged to a tall, broad shouldered man. Her lips curled in a savage snarl.
"Leviathan..." She spat.
The man, Leviathan, bowed and grinned at her, "I see you've learned a new trick." He pointed to the glowing crystals.
"I've learned more than that..." She said, then stepped away from the man. "You killed Eric..."
"Ahhh, the human's name." He replied. "I had to get your attention, my love."
"Love?" She asked, her voice accusing, "Love? You don't love, you conquer, you command, you destroy, you devour."
Leviathan shot his arm out and grabbed Alana by the throat, "Don't you ever talk to me that way!" He yelled into her face. He slid his hand down and cupped one pale breast. Alana shuddered and he grinned. "I don't know how you changed back, Lucrecia, but you shouldn't have, now you look so...human and weak." He squeezed her breast hard and she closed her eyes.
With a laugh, he let go and stepped back.
"Yes, I don't know how you did it, but your still a vampiress...I can feel it." He looked her up and down, then frowned. "Definitely not an improvement, Lucrecia...but still you are enough to make my blood boil."
"My name is Alana...Lucrecia died a thousand years ago." Alana told him.
Leviathan laughed, "Alana is it?" He shook his head. "No, Lucrecia did not die...I know she didn't, for she stands before me...a little different, but still my Lucrecia."
"You kill the man I love and think I'll come running back to you?" She asked. "Get away from me...or you'll regret it."
"Will I?" Leviathan's eyes flashed. "Come to me, my lover." He commanded Alana.
Alana smiled, but not of arousal, as Leviathan had intended, but something dark, cold and inhuman, something Eric would not have recognized, "Sorry, Leviathan, but you can't control me...I am my own now."
Leviathan gave her a surprised look, "How? You must obey me, I am the first!"
"And I'm the second..." She said, drawing herself up, seeming to grow, till she looked as cold and regal as she must have when she was a vampiress. "You have no power over me, not any more...I am no longer one of you."
With blinding speed, Alana ran at him, bringing a hand up. Leviathan gasped as one crystal buried itself in his stomach. Alana whispered "Radiance" and the crystal flared into life, sending it's blinding light out into the darkness around, into Leviathan, who screamed. His flesh surrounding the crystal burst into flame. With a pain filled cry, he took hold of the crystal, his hand immediately began to smoke and yanked it out. Cursing and bleeding a clear liquid, he threw it to the ground and brought his foot down on it. It shattered and the light died.
"So...you have...indeed...learned much..." He put his hand over the wound, putting out the fire. "I may learn much from you...Lucrecia...I...will...come back..." He threw his hands into the air, growled something unintelligible and changed into a bat. With a screech, he was gone.
Alana ran to the camp, where she found Eric's limp form sprawled out beside the fire. She kneeled and laid a hand on his chest. He had no apparent wounds, but he had no pulse. Alana laid her head on him and cried, the tears burning in her eyes. After nearly a half an hour, she pulled away from him and wiped her eyes, then kissed his lips.
Standing, she looked blankly around her. Shuffling towards their tent, she began to sob again. Each hitching breath nearly causing her to fall. She fell into the tent and laid there, her heart pounding, her mind numb and let the tears come. After a while, she fell asleep.
She awoke to the stifling heat of the desert day. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling of the tent. She laid there for long moments, uncertain what to do. With a start, she realized, and this made her feel sick and guilty, that she had left Eric's body out there. She stood, dressed and stepped outside. She was surprised to find Eric still where she had left him, without a trace of a smell.
She dug in her pocket for the other crystal, which she gripped firmly. She squeezed, shattering it, and still kept squeezing, till she had a fine powder. She sprinkled this over him and it began to glow. She cursed under her breath.
*****
The warehouse was silent and gloomy in the weak moonlight that filtered through the dirty windows. Alana strode to the lone table, with it's creaky chairs, in the otherwise empty chamber. Almost silent footsteps behind her brought her about.
"Alana..." Yoshi said as he came towards her. "I came as soon as I could..."
"Thank you." She responded, feeling awkward about meeting this Hunter alone.
"What is it?" He asked. "I assume it has something to do with Eric?"
Alana nodded, though he probably couldn't see it, "Yes..." She quickly told him about the incident with Leviathan. "He did something to him, he's not dead, but he's not alive either."Yoshi looked thoughtful, "Leviathan..."
"You've heard of him?" She asked.
"Oh, yes...his file is especially long...and I've run across him." He shuddered. "He is most...unpleasant."
"You don't even begin to know." She said softly.
"You two knew each other?"
"A long time ago, after we became vampires, he killed my husband and took me as his wife...it was so different back then, we didn't know what we had become, what we could do, nor our weaknesses." She explained. "My husband was a weak man, and becoming a vampire didn't change that, Leviathan easily killed him...I can't say I was too sorry, he wasn't a very nice man, but Leviathan was worse, by far."
"Our files don't indicate that you two were together."
"No, they wouldn't, Eric told me that the Hunter files only go back about five hundred years, this was three thousand years ago, Yoshi, and I grew tired of being his slave, being his animal, tired of being a vampire. I got away from him nearly a thousand years ago." She said, her voice flat.
They were silent for a while, then Yoshi pulled a chair out and motioned for her to sit.
She smiled slightly and sat. Yoshi pulled another chair out and sat facing her. Her face was strained, hurt, but something else was there also, something hidden just underneath, a strength, a power. A power Yoshi could feel, one that he respected, as he did Alana herself. He reached out a hand and laid it on one of hers. She smiled gratefully at him.
"What is it you need me for?" He asked her.
"You can help me, Eric told me I could trust you." She began. "I sense something within you, you are not what you appear."
He smiled at this, "Yes, you can trust me...as to what you sense, I am not aware of it myself."
"Still, it is there..." She pulled her hand away from his. "Leviathan is powerful, probably the most powerful vampire that exists."
"You are not sure you can beat him by yourself?"
She nodded, "I'm strong, but I don't know how strong he is anymore...what has he learned over the millennia?"
Yoshi stood and walked to a wall, where he flipped a switch, turning the overheads on. In their harsh glow, Alana looked even paler. He turned to look out one dirty window. With Yoshi lost in thought, Alana put her arms on the table and laid her head on them. She closed her eyes, a lone tear running down her soft, round nose to fall to the table.
Alana's soft crying caught Yoshi's attention. He quietly turned and was shocked to see how crumpled she looked, as though her life was slowly ebbing away. In that moment he decided he would help her, though it was madness to fight one such as Leviathan.
*****
The day came and Alana stood looking down upon her camp, her home. She put her arms out and closed her eyes, more tears falling. "All I seem to do anymore is cry." She thought to herself. The morning rays washed over her and her pale skin caught up the golden light and reflected it. She opened one hand into a claw, the other she turned the palm to the ground. A crackling sound filled the air along with a smell of ozone. A sob escaped her. In her clawed hand a burning orb, almost a small sun, with bursts of flame flinging out, to fall back into it, formed.
With a savage snarl, she flung the orb into the camp. It hit the ground and exploded, incinerating everything about it. The heat of it washed over her and she screamed in frustration. Then the air rushed about her as it ran back to fill the vacuum created by the orb's explosion. Everything was gone. The ground scorched, the fire pit a jagged rend in the earth.
She turned away, with tears still falling. A hand touched her face, wiping away the tears.
She fell into Yoshi's arms. He held her, eyes wide at the power he had just witnessed. He stroked her hair, feeling strange as he did so. Like he was betraying Eric. "Why should I feel this way?
