From: BuffyWntrs
(Not a post, folks.
) She had been stalking this particular vampire for a few weeks, now. Well, not stalking exactly, but she knew where he was. His prescence had been shining on her, sort of like the winter sun only warms whatever part of your body happens to be facing it. In that way, she had alway been attuned to where he was. He was a strong vampire, rather old. She could tell, by the way her skin constantly seemed to crawl in his direction. At first, it almost
drove her crazy, constantly raising the hair on her arms, creeping across the back of her neck. But she had learned how to push the sense to a corner of her mind, to only pull it forth on a whim, when she felt like checking to see where he was. She felt a kind of bond with him, for teaching her that.
A few mornings earlier, Buffy had run across one of his victims in an alley that ran perpendicular to a cobblestoned street near the Red Dragon Inn. The corpse was a seedy looking fellow, with a pockmarked face and tiny squinty eyes screwed up in a grotesque expression of fear. He had clutched a rusty, battered knife loosely in one hand, and in the other, a lacy lavender money purse that was quite obviously not his. A thief, then, was her first
assumption, and as such, she was not in a hurry to track the killer down. The puncture wounds on the neck, the coldness of the corpse.. she knew it was a vampire, but the abscence of blood around the dead man's lips indicated he wouldn't be rising anytime soon. But she staked him once, through the heart, just to make sure. She also confiscated the purse, since it wasn't his in the first place. It contained a few gold, some silver, and some
coppers. A fairly nice find.
The vampire had stuck to the same rabble over the next few days. A thief here, a thug there. She found a murderer one morning, sprawled over the body of his victim, sucked dry. For these things, she made concessions to the vampire, prolonging her hunt, granting him reprieves that grew by the day. He was doing a sort of service.
Concessions had become a part of her life in RhyDin, though she didn't like to admit it. When she rose, when she slept, she was constantly aware of the undead that creeped, crawled, and openly walked the streets of the city. It was too much for any Slayer to worry about. So she tried to look after her little corner of the sprawling land. The corner was just her friends, her almost family, that she took a liking to. And she chose random corners
of the city sometimes, when she was especially agitated. For those nights, she would wait outside the Inn, or the Bar down the street, for the vampires to come out with their intended victims, having seduced them with a kind word or flashy compliment. Then she would ambush them as they ambushed their victims. It was satisfying.
The one she hunted now was somewhat of an enigma. Which wouldn't save him, but merely made her curious. For 8 days, she found rabble. On the 9th, she found the body of a little boy. The vampire's signature was all around, and she knew beyond a doubt it was him. Buffy felt pangs of guilt, not having hunted the vamp sooner, but she knew that RhyDin was a harsh place, and she forced those feelings into another corner of her mind. It did, however,
prompt her to action.
This was how, a day after the last body, she found herself loitering in the shadows of a building that lay across the street from a grand Victorian looking house in the first hours before dawn, as the gently lightening sky gleamed rosy above the rooftops. Idly cleaning her fingernails with the point of her stake, she waited until first light had fully revealed itself, and strolled up to the house.
RhyDin had made her somewhat lazy, it was true. It wasn't difficult to find vampires, or to locate them during daylight hours, and simply stake them in their beds. She preferred the straight approach, a fight by night, seeing them before they made their kill. It was easier, and more satisfying. They were more... bestial, then, and not a human as when they slept. But ones such as this one, who's work she had seen, and as powerful as she sensed,
well, she wasn't taking any chances.
Buffy walked up to the front gate and regarded the padlocked chain. She wrapped a hand around the chain, and snapped it with a sharp yank. Sometimes people forgot about the Slayer's strength. With a snap of her gum, she walked up the front walk, and twisted the knob on the front door. It was locked, so she pushed the heavy metal through the back of the wooden door with a splintering crash.
The house was dark inside, all the heavy, musty drapes drawn tightly shut. She crinkled her nose against the smell. It was silent. She turned her head slightly, listening for the noise of any servants. Not a sound. Vampires tended to work through servants fairly fast. People had a tendency to be skittish, knowing they could be the next meal, if the master came home hungry one night. The young woman padded silently along the carpet down the
main foyer, disregarding the sprawling staircase that curled up to the side. She was looking for the basement, since the second floor was usually too close to the sun to be of comfort to them.
One door was slightly ajar, a faint flicker of light leaking around the edges. She stood at it for a moment, listening intently. Then pushed it open with a light touch of her slender forefinger. The door creaked, and swung open into what apparently was the library, as bookshelves stood two stories and more high, filled with dusty tomes. The shelves were split by a balcony that ran the length of the room, accessible by a ladder on the right. On
a pedastal, in the center of the room, was a large, red-bound book, flanked by two candlestands. It was open. Buffy looked around carefully. There was no sign of the vampire. She shook her head, looked at the book, and gently shut the door behind her as she exited. She was curious, but was here for an entirely different purpose.
Roaming around the lower floor of the house, she finally stumbled upon what appeared to be a closet, set just off the kitchen. Buffy had seen this particular setup too many times. She removed an apron from the back of the closet, off of a simple wooden peg, and felt around. With a click, the back of the closet swung inward, a set of stone steps leading down into the dark. She twisted on the tiny mag light that hung from her keychain, slid out
her stake, and made her way down the steps, still moving silently in the pink sneakers.
Everything was just like she thought. The dank cellar, the sculpted bed, burnt out torches, the works. Blowing a silent bubble, she walked over to the bed, and pulled back the curtain. Vampires of RhyDin seemed to have done away with the whole coffin thing. They converted whole rooms into coffins, in a dark parody of how they lived when real blood actually coursed through their veins.
She paused, and looked, as she always did when she made 'cold' kills. He was plain, not handsome, not ugly, merely the figure of a once middle-aged man. Maybe a shopkeeper, with a wife and family, friends, birthdays... She shrugged. He had killed a little boy, after all. She raised the stake, one hand covering the other. Buffy let out a brief yell, from some unfathomed instinct, and brought the stake down viciously. His eyes snapped open, his
mouth bared fangs, his hands convulsing on his chest as the stake drove through his breastbone and pierced his heart. His fingers hooked in an odd way, was the thought that ran through her mind. An explosion of ice, a fan of tiny particles, erupted from an area right above his chest and slammed into the top of the bed. She instinctively threw herself backwards, away from the bed. The top of the canopy abruptly crystalized into heavy ice, and
crashed down on top of the dusty pile that had been the vampire. The bed collapsed, unable to support the weight.
Buffy blinked, a little dumbfounded. She had seen vampires explode in fireballs, if they were old enough, and powerful enough. Mostly they just collapsed into little piles of dust that she scattered about with her sneaker. Never, never had she seen one freeze. Squatting down by the side of the bed, she poked her stake into the ice and tangle bedthings. Dust sifted down onto the floor. He had disintegrated then. She frowned prettily, standing
up, placing a hand on her hip. The ice had fanned out from above him, anyways. Magic, then.
She shuddered, and the room seemed to go slightly darker. Magic. That was worse than vampires with swords. Normal vampiric magic, the hypnosis, the seduction.. those didn't worry her. But offensive magic? Throwing ice? Yow. That would be a bummer.
With a final look at the bed, she spun on her heel, and walked back upstairs. Buffy went directly to the library, to the middle of the room, and to the book. She slammed shut the book, and looked at the cover. It was unnamed. She peeked inside. It was quite readable, and the topics were fascinating. She grinned quietly to herself, and scrounged around the house til she found a sack. Dropping the red leather tome into the sack, she shouldered
the thing and left the house. Who said thieves were all bad?