Blood of My Blood

Blood of My Blood

She screamed like a banshee; caught in the trap I had so carefully laid for her. The high, piercing wail of agony and frustration ran through my ears like shards of shifting glass. I had to cover them before my eardrums burst. The suddenness of the quiet returning, warned me that she was either dead, which was unlikely, or she was working on the escape plan used again and again, over the past twenty-four hours. The same twenty-four-hour day I had just lived through, to the same point in time, every time, without a minutia of difference. This meant I would be dead in another three minutes.

My throat would be slashed open, and my limbs decorated with my own eviscerated body contents. Not a thing a mortal should have to endure, let alone relive, over and over in some kind of evil time loop. We just don't have the stomach for it, unless you can count the gut spilling, I was about to experience.

I waited for the inevitable massacre.  I felt the same terror and frailty, as I was about to face my termination, yet again, at the hands of Beatitude La Pierre. I would again be a witness to my own gruesome slaughter by the beautiful Bloody Beady, as she was known to the exclusive club of her slavish minions. 

I usually call her "Bloody goddamn Beady"!  She had a bounty on her lovely golden head, of one hundred thousand sutans.  Enough to buy my own stellar city and roam the universe until I was several more centuries older.

The High Order of Orleans Paranormal Policing, (or Hopp as I thought of the jumped-up lot…) had every available agent hunting for Beady, sending them out to every remote corner of the planet. Me, I'm what was romantically called a mercenary at one time.  Now, that's just plain "merc". Makes no difference, the label, I'm a hunter, and I make a damn good living bringing back the quarry, dead or alive.  More often dead, because I hate listening to all the squawking, but the curses hurled at me and my progeny for eons to come, really tends to unsettle my temperate nature, causing me to over-react occasionally. Not that I have any progeny, or even the potential for any, but it doesn't make hearing the threats about baby monsters appearing on my family tree any less worrying.

Since I'm a female of the species, I have a distinct advantage over the mostly male agents that go on a hunt. Their sole purpose is to subdue the twisted demon spawn and haul in the evidence in a garbage bag.  Me, because I have a female's tender hardheartedness, I at least make an effort to capture a paranormal nightmare, so they can be studied by our docs.

Many of the demons we bring in, have already contaminated some of the mortal population with their attacks. There's no "Once bitten, twice smart" either.  Once bitten you are dead meat on the roadside.  And now, I was waiting once more to become another road kill to Bloody Beady.

This unending nightmare, began when I discovered she was holed up inside a caved in building, used in the Bleak Bygone for those stiff-winged flying machines, called air-O-planes.  None of the other Paranormal trackers would think to look for Bloody Beady here, because like all the others air-O-ports still dotting this planet, it has long been swallowed by the ever-encroaching jungle, and claimed by wild beasts.

These ancient sites proved perfect breeding grounds for creatures slowly mutating, adopting to the pollution the machines spewed unchecked into their breathable atmosphere.  In our times, without interference from my own species, these jungle denizens, have grown into huge, and very lethal creatures. 

Any fear I might have of the four-footed beasts was forgotten, however.  I was certain Bloody Beady was using this over-run structure as a perfect camouflage for her home base.  From here, she could infiltrate the outside world of mortals, as easily as slipping out of her skin. Knowing where to find her was simple for me to puzzle out.  I looked over the numerous maps distributed by the High Order to all hunters, and quickly discovered what they had over-looked.  The past holds little interest to most creatures, unless they use the past to learn from. They are constantly looking ahead, trying to peer into an unpromising, uncertain future. I like to view the world in reverse, so I won't be caught in traps that had been successfully employed in the past. I learn from yesterday, so I can live today and maybe into tomorrow.

Sitting on the rusted, vegetation engrossed engine of one of the flying machines, I listened as the silence filled the space around me. I knew it was almost time to die again. This was becoming too repetitive by far, to continue.  I caught the movement of the same huge beetle I'd been seeing over and over, and had a eureka moment! 

Jumping off my perch, I decided to interject one small thing into the continuous coil of actions and reactions. I reached into my backpack lying on the ground beside me.  Instead of shooting the unarmed bug, as I'd been doing endlessly, I used the laser knife and made a quick pass over my thumb.  It bled like a dark fountain because the cut was deep. Pressing around the wound, I made it bleed even more profusely, catching fat drops with my index finger, I drew the totem symbol of my clan on the bicep of my left arm, the quick movement of my hand sent sprays of droplets flying into the heavy air.

With the rush of frigid wind, like countless hundreds of times before in this damnable, endless web of time, Bloody Beady made her appearance. I stood in the same position she always found me, only now, the long incisor of the Saber Tooth Tiger was clearly drawn on my arm.

Beady lunged at my throat, teeth bared and sharpened to fine points.  Before she could tear out my jugular, I whispered, "Blood of my blood!"

I could smell her fear as the circle of life in this moment was shattered. I raised the laser I held in my palm, and shot a bolt into her chest.  Pulling back, I watched as the hole spread and I could see her beating heart.

Our clan had protected a wealth of secrets over the eons, most relating to our lineage and powers. I knew there were family members who ranged the many galaxies, plundering other life forms in their lust for blood. We were, after all, Vampires. 

My branch of the family tree had taken a sort of spiritual purge, ridding ourselves of the need for blood drinking from unfortunate innocents.  Instead, we survived by seeking out a bounty hunter’s bloodletting to quench our blood lust.

Bloody Beady was my distant Aunt on one of my clan’s far-flung branches. She ruled an underground Vampire colony for centuries, in the conclave of Old Orleans. She had used its decrepit collection of burned-out buildings and hovels as her own fiefdom. All living creatures owed her blood, taken over endless years of torture during their servitude.

Surely incredible to her now, she was looking down at her throbbing, black heart; seemingly fascinated by its mechanical workings. I took this self-absorption as an opportunity to speak.

"You are mine now, dear Auntie, and since you know of our relationship, I will need to stop your tongue before it can divulge that truth to the High Order.”

Her lovely blue eyes began to shed tears as fake as her silky skin transplants, but the laser quickly spoke once more, and she no longer wept. As she dropped away from me, I thought I saw some dark marks on her right shoulder, but she fell too quickly for me to study it, and I was too excited with my success to think on it.

The bounty money was assuredly mine.  I began to pick up my pack from the ground, when it disappeared into a mist that rose from the ground and quickly began to obscure everything around me. Out of the unnatural fog I heard the voice of Bloody Beady.

"Blood of my blood, are you ready to begin?"

As soon as this cycle ends, I must find my mistake. Something small and insignificant no doubt. The mark on her arm? But for now, I must prepare to die yet again, knowing I have inadvertently stretched the time loop by several painful minutes. Her golden head is leaning in and I can feel her teeth graze my throat. It won’t take long…at least this part won’t!