Chomp

“My god—are you two okay?” Bryan rushed me and Agnes through the door as soon as he had it opened. “Anyone hurt?”

“We’re fine,” I answered, taking a seat at the kitchen table. Agnes pulled the chair beside me, her face paler than usual. “W-What even was that?”

Bryan shrugged nervously as he walked over to us. Despite my reassurance that we were both unharmed, he still examined us both. I didn’t mind, though; his big brown eyes were filled with a parent’s worry, and it wouldn’t do any good to chastise him for it.

He placed a dark hand on the top of Agnes’ head. “Have you phoned your parents yet?” he asked her. “I’m sure they’re worried sick. I can if you’d like. I’ll give them the address and our phone number if they need.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “It’s fine,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?” Bryan asked, taken aback slightly. Admittedly, I was a little shocked that she didn’t want to even drop them a text. Then again, Agnes had never mentioned any sort of family to begin with.

She nodded. “It’s all good. Thanks, though.”

“Everyone get in here!”

The three of us whipped around to the sound of Tanya’s voice coming from the living room. The soft buzzing in my ears told me she had the television on, and it was a safe bet it was the news. Sure enough, as the three of us rushed in there, she was tuned to CNN with a terrified on-the-scene reporter.

The woman stood in what looked like the downtown core, only it seemed as though a bomb had gone off. If the banner at the bottom of the screen didn’t identify her location, I would have guessed it to have been a war-torn country. As she tried to deliver her report in as sturdy a voice as she could manage, people screamed in the background, darting in and out of camera-shot. Off to the one side, a couple of shops were on fire, corpses littered in front of them.

My stomach did a sickening flip flop. Watching a TV show was one thing; but those had been actual people. I looked away from the background and back to the bespectacled brunette trying her best to remain calm under the circumstances.

“—peaceful protest in the square turned out to be a nightmarish attack. A man—claiming to be a vampire—by the name of Yacob—”

My heart sank as another loud explosion rang through where the reporter was, causing the microphones to screech slightly. The reporter squeezed her eyes shut as the camera shook.

Yacob said this would be a peaceful coming out. But as gunshots rang in the background and the reporter screamed, it was clear he either hadn’t thought the plan through or simply lied through his teeth.

“Someone’s shot the reporter,” Tanya whispered, her voice shaking. I glanced over at her. She looked positively horrified, just as Bryan and Agnes did, their increased pulse catching in my ears.

I could hear my own pulse pounding, no doubt just as terrified as they were. Only they had nothing to be ashamed about. I felt my nails bite into my palms, and then a warm, wet sensation.

“I need to head out,” Agnes announced, getting to her feet.

Tanya jumped to her feet. “Like hell you do, young lady!” Agnes was taken aback, to say the least. But she didn’t back down, either.

“You don’t understand; I need—”

“I don’t care what you think you need. Your safety is far too important for you to risk something like that. Please…”

Agnes glanced at me long and hard. My heart pounded in my chest as she tried to appeal to me for backup. This was what she was built for, something she felt responsible for despite her age.

“Mom,” I said slowly.

Tanya squeaked, her large blue eyes buggy and just as worrisome as Bryan’s were. She huffed and fell to her knees. “Don’t you ’mom’ me, young man—not now.”

“But Agnes is—”

“I can help,” she interrupted, pulling Tanya’s attention away from me. “I have something that can help with all of this.”

“I’ll go with her,” I said, my tone a lot stronger than I felt. Surprisingly, Agnes didn’t protest.

Tanya, on the other hand, started shaking her head wildly. I had never seen her this frantic before, even with the dog situation. “No, y—”

Bryan gently but firmly placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders and knelt down beside her. He whispered something into her ear that sounded a bit like ’can’t die’ and ’be safer,’ which seemed to calm her if only slightly.

His guess was as good as mine when it came to mortality; whether or not I could die was certainly up for debate as it wasn’t something I had ever tested. Personally, I leaned more toward the side that it was possible, simply because Agnes killed vampires when she wasn’t in school.

But now hardly seemed like the time to bring it up to him.

It took a bit more convincing to let Tanya allow us to leave—all three of us begging—until finally Agnes explained the truth.

“I have a weapon that can kill vampires, and easily,” she explained, hands on her hips as Bryan handed Tanya some water. I was surprised that he was holding up so well; if I had to pick from the two, I would have guessed the worry wart would have fallen apart in the times of crisis.

My parents were able to hide the fact that they knew about vampires when Agnes explained she was a hunter. Their acting job came across as flawless, their expressions everything that they should have been when my friend explained that these blood-sucking beasts of myth were actually just as real as the news claimed, and that she was an expert at killing them.

“Then… Go get the weapon. But you come right back here, you hear?” Tanya rasped between panicked breaths. “Check in here before you go back out again.”

Agnes paused for a moment, her confidence wilting slightly. Evidently, she had never come across a worried parent before—that in and of itself was cause for worry. Finally, she nodded. “Fine.”

Turning to me, she threw her thumb over her shoulder. “You ready to head out?”

No, not at all. “Yeah.”

“You’re going back for your scythe, right?” I asked, following Agnes’ large strides along the sidewalk. Thankfully, this part of town seemed empty; no rumbling, and not a single living thing in sight.

Agnes nodded but didn’t look back at me. “Yeah. And Sabre.”

My heart sank as I remembered the poor, handicapped dog. “Understandable. And this scythe—you think it will really help?”

She smirked. “It’s a bio-engineered weapon made specifically for killing vampires. Do I think it will really help? Of course it will!”

“Huh?” I stopped dead in my tracks. Immediately, I regretted it and had to catch up to her. Despite her shorter frame, Agnes could definitely move faster than I gave her credit.

“I never told you—anyone—this, but my dad was a… He was a scientist of sorts. He made Toulouse, my scythe, for my mom,” she explained, still keeping at a decent pace.

The name reminded me of something, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

I followed and listened closely as she ducked into one of the back alleys. “A-Are they…?”

“Dead? Yes. Which is why Toulouse was entrusted to me.” Of all the names she could have picked, why did she pick one that sounded so unfitting?

“It has a special venom in it that counteracts the vampire’s and can kill them with a slice. Doesn’t even have to be a fatal blow, as long as it gets in their bloodstream.”

My heart pounded. As I followed her bouncing orange curls, I was suddenly glad we never had practiced with her scythe. But Agnes’ whole persona was starting to make a little more sense. I didn’t have to ask under what conditions her parents died; the burning fire in her eyes whenever we talked about vampires seemed to be enough.

“That sounds pretty… useful,” I replied wearily.

We emerged from the alley onto another street. This one was just as empty as mine had been, only far messier. Garbage and other debris littered the streets, no doubt left behind in a hurry.

“It is. And if all goes to plan, I’ll continue to make my folks proud by chopping off the heads of every blood sucker out there,” she piped, trotting across the road. There was a determined smile on her face, one I didn’t want to ever have her lose.

But I had to ask.

“What… happened?” I hoped it was a car accident caused by some vampire—something plain and boring. But I knew the answer was most likely far from being that impersonal.

Agnes didn’t answer right away.

She looked down at her black boots as she walked, her features dark. “Mom traveled for work. The organization she worked for specializes in the eradication of beasts like that. She was put in charge of taking down some lunatic vampire that had been deemed high-priority in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. It was supposed to be a long recon mission.”

I stayed silent, watching her muted expression. Part of me direly wished I hadn’t asked, but the other part begged to know.

“She watched him for a couple of months, getting intimate with his schedule so she could finally make the move. The house he lived in was pretty segregated from even the small town and it was impossible to know what was inside, but she figured she was okay. But when she went in for the kill, he wasn’t home. But he had blooded a woman and some little kids, the disgusting pig.”

I curled my lip. Even in the vampire world, it was frowned upon to blood children and the very elderly; neither of them survived the transformation, as Jess had implied.

But I did.

I shook myself. This and that were two very different things.

“Anyway, like any good hunter should, she disposed of them,” Agnes continued, taking a left down the next side street. My blood ran cold, but I didn’t say anything. Vampire or not, they were still just kids. “But then…”

She stopped, looking at her boots a little solemnly. Perhaps it was the wrong word though; Agnes’ emotional state wasn’t generally complex, but at that moment, her expression was exceedingly difficult to read.

“Then?” I asked quietly.

“The vampire she was hunting tracked her down within the week. He slaughtered her and my sister—she was only a year old. Said something about a child for a child—that’s the only reason he kept me alive,” she spat bitterly. Her pulse quickened and I could see her clenching her hands. “So when the Organization found out, they put me and my dad under protection and sent out forty agents to take him down, of which I think… What, six, came back? But they returned with enough biological material for my dad to fabricate a Holy Weapon, at least. Toulouse was named so that we could both remember the monster that took my mom away from us.”

Toulouse.

A tiny cottage in the middle of a sea of wheat, far away from anyone.

Huh?

Was that image from Agnes’ thoughts? Why was it being forced into my mind’s eye?

I shook my head wearily to let it pass.

“Certain vampires have really anomalous adaptabilities—that is to say, they can somewhat shape-shift. Not many, of course, but I think it’s just in their blood from way back when, hence why newly-blooded people grow fangs.

“But whatever kind of monster Toulouse was when he was alive—” the sound of the name struck a chord in me, but I couldn’t figure out why, “—my scythe has a lot of those abilities too. Nowhere else will you find a scythe that big that can fit in your pocket, or one that can excrete a powerful antidote for bites. Among other things, anyway. Just wait ’til I get my hands on it and show these leeches who’s boss!” she cried, shoving her fist in the air.

“Leeches, you say?” a gravelly voice grumbled from somewhere behind us. We both whipped around to see a man emerge from the shadow cast by the streetlight near a café. I didn’t even need to smell the air to know what he was; he had excreted enough hunting hormone that I should have been able to pick him up ages ago, had I not been so distracted. It was concentrated, and the smell of fresh blood hung about his mouth.

I cursed under my breath.

Agnes observed him, her eyes scanning him up and down with pursed lips. “Yes,” she answered finally, putting her hand on her hip. “Leeches.”

“W-We don’t want any trouble,” I began feebly. “We’re just—”

“Just what, boy? Walking through my neighbourhood with slurs like that?” the man demanded. He didn’t even bother to hide his fangs, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. If Yacob had reached out to our group, he more than likely reached out to others. Vampires weren’t going to be hiding any longer.

To my surprise, Agnes hid her fear well. Though her pulse quickened, she held her head high and raised her fists in a fighting stance. “So what if I am? Got a problem with it?”

No, no, no.

I let out as much hormone as I could, hoping to at least distract him long enough for us to get away, and it came out like a gasp.

The man laughed, a throaty and guttural sound that echoed through the empty street. “Well, what do we have here? A little girl protecting a little boy. How cute.” He took a step forward, then paused to sniff the air. “What’s this…?”

I released more hormone into the air, as much as I could muster. He sniffed the air again before his eyes fell onto me. “Really?” he asked sarcastically. “I don’t believe in sharing. And I was here first.”

He took another step toward us, his massive body casting us in his shadow. Shaking, I reached out to grab Agnes’ hand, making sure to keep the shaggy man in my sight at all times. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sam?” she spat, looking away from the man briefly.

A half a second was all it took.

The man lurched forward, coming at us both with an incredible amount of speed. Without a second thought, I yanked Agnes’ hand to my opened mouth and sunk my fangs into her palm. Her warm blood spurted into my mouth, my tongue in bliss from the fresh salty flavour; my instinct was to suck, but I fought it and placed my tongue over the wound to immediately stop the bleeding.

It was enough to make the man stop in his tracks. “You thief!” he snarled, exposing his fangs. I didn’t answer. My mouth was still pressed to my friend’s hand, still pulsing out the hunting hormone so she was covered in it from the inside out.

The saliva he spat hit me on the cheek. As he turned on his heel, he hissed something about ’his prey’ and ’dirty leftovers.’

I sent a surge of a healing draught through before removing her hand gently from my mouth. Her skin sealed far more quickly than any doctor could have managed, and I placed it gently at her side. Her blood remained on my lips, and despite every fibre of my being telling me to lick it all up, I wiped it on the sleeve of my hoodie before looking at her.

Her face was a mix of so many emotions that it was hard to tell where to start.

Fear; she was definitely afraid. No doubt she had always had a fear of vampires, even before being a hunter. Disgust; her brows furrowed and her lip curled just at the thought of a creature in human flesh daring to touch her.

But most clear of all—and what certainly stung the most—she was hurt.

Her shoulders didn’t sag in the way an animal’s did when they felt safe. She snatched her hand away from me and backed up a few steps.

“You…” she hissed, her eyes flashing.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, panicking. Adrenaline coursed through me; I wanted to run, to be anywhere but here. The hate in her eyes was clear as she took another step toward me. “It—It was the only way I could—”

Her fist collided with my jaw and sent me sprawling backward into the café’s brick wall. The hit snatched the breath right from my lungs. “When did it happen?” she demanded, stepping forward. She pulled a small, needle-like knife from one of the bones in her corset and I struggled to get to my feet. “When?!”

“I—”

A resounding boom interrupted us.

The sound roared through the streets sounding like someone shot a bullet through a megaphone. Back pressed against the wall, I clamped my hands over my ears as they rung uncomfortably from the loud sound.

Within a few seconds of the eruption, another detonation went off alongside what sounded like a barrage of bullets. A siren drew closer, adding to the ringing in my ears. Suddenly, I felt the bricks supporting my back give out, and before I knew what was happening, I was falling backward.