Catch You Later

TW: Swearing, sucking blood and speeding.

The undead poser typed in the numbers on the ATM slow enough for her to see.

            “Withdraw as much as you can,” Esmerelda ordered, gun aimed at his balls.

            “And you’ll let me go, now that you have the card?” He was a pitiful excuse for a vampire. Nothing like the kung fu masters that seemed to spring up in Sunnydale. It was almost too easy.

            “Sure.” She watched the money pouring out of the hole in the wall. “Start running, titch.” Her eyes followed his break for freedom. He can’t fight, but God damn he can run like an idiot. Arms flailed around; the legs bent off in weird angles. “Learn something new every night.”

            She grabbed the cash and pulled out the card. Banks had updated their software. Her usual trick with stolen cards wasn’t working.

            Head twitching to be sure she wasn’t taken by surprise, she checked all around her Lamborghini Diablo before getting in. No neighbourhood creepy-bitey was going to jump out at her from the back seat. There was no back seat.

            “I missed you, gorgeous,” she said. She rubbed the steering wheel affectionately. The push start engine purred into life. She clipped her phone into the Sat Nav holster and activated the tracking chip she’d planted on the vampire. She’d go for a spin around the neighbourhood while he took his sweet time going home. He’d bought himself an hour or two at most.

            Speed limits were a suggestion for people who didn’t drive a divine beauty like Kitty. She’d named it after Kitt from Night Rider. Michael Knight came third only to Sam and Dean Winchester on her fantasy bucket list.

            Flashing lights behind her made Esmerelda grind the fillings in what was left of her original teeth. She pulled over to the side of the road and reached into the glove compartment. Ignoring the gun, she pulled out a small tobacco tin. If she could, she was going to do the childish thing and knock out the cop with the miniature blowgun. If that didn’t work, she’d have to flirt even harder.

            She stepped out of the car with the tiny tube and dart hidden behind her hand. An officer in a uniform which must have fitted him when he received it a decade before strolled towards her.

            “Do you have any idea how fast you were going ma’am?” He asked. He had a drawl that was less about accent and more about a lack of effort to enunciate.

            A pornstache, are you serious? Where’s the baum chicka wawa guitar? Danny DeVito looked better in Friends. “Hey there handsome,” she greeted him with a wave of her free hand. “You know how it is, you have a fast car. Sometimes you just want to ride her hard and fast right?”

            “The limit on this road is 60. You were doing 98,” officer sourpuss told her with frown lines on his brow.

            You need to wax those caterpillars over your eyes before they spin cocoons. At least you don’t have a monobrow. Frieda Kahlo could pull that off. You’re a poorly packed sausage in an old uniform. “Is there anything I can do to convince you to let me off with a warning?” She unzipped her jacket slightly. Just a little closer. “Anything?”

            “I take my job very seriously ma’am,” he said.

            “Just not your personal hygiene.” Shit. Did I say that out loud? She smiled all her veneers and the gold tooth at him.

            “Excuse me? I need to see your licence and registration.”

            “Right away officer.” Dickhead. Why couldn’t you just be a perverse prick like the last one? So much easier to sedate and mind wipe. Leaning through the window of the car she pulled the documents from behind the pull-down shade. All of which were faked anyway.

            He stepped up to her and held out his hand to take the documents. She dropped the fakes, grabbed his wrist, and yanked it towards her. She blew the gun. He stumbled into a dart to the neck. She gave him a hook to the temple. One second in total.

            Officer down. Her grin was the smug smile of a kid showing off in class.

            As he groaned, she opened the trunk and pulled out her hex kit. It was the most useful spell she’d ever learned. To magic users, it was known as the roofie spell because it was overused by creepy guys at bars.

            Whispering the Latin, she threw the dust in his face.

            “Are you alright?” She asked, putting a vial of smelling salts under his nose.

            “Where am I?” He asked with all the awareness of a toddler caught in the bright light of a parents unexpected midnight bathroom break.

            “Exactly.”

            Getting back in the car, she drove away. Esmerelda was careful to stick to the limit for a few miles.

            Back to business, she refreshed the location of the tracker. Her immortal benefactor had silly walked his way double time to an abandoned abattoir just ten miles away. The speedometer snuck over the legal limit under her watchful eye.

            Show Me How to Live by Audioslave was blasting into the pierced ears of a happy bunny. Kitty ripped down black tar, asserting its dominance. “I fucking love you, girl,” she told the car.

            Turning off the music before she arrived, she flipped off the lights as well. Custom wheels stopped in thick mud and overgrown gravel. A gate in the chain link fence hung wide open. Wind whipped the black silhouette trees around her. It whispered death through the grass. A shy moon wore clouds to hide its naked form from the world.

            Double checking the wooden tipped bullets in her magazine, she put a fresh clip in her pocket. Some hunters were advocates of tech like night-vision goggles. She preferred the old-fashioned way. Her trunk had many useful things in it. Chains. Padlocks. Rope. Ammunition. Spare guns. Spell ingredients. She packed what she needed into a gym bag.

            Using the rubber coated (for stealth) chains, she locked the first door she found. A place like the slaughterhouse had many doors. She didn’t want anyone getting away. The next door had no way to lock it from the outside. She had a solution to that. Emergency exits open out, she put rubber doorstoppers in the gap beneath the door. It wouldn’t last long, but it might help.

            After a full circuit of the property, she entered through the last door. Locking it from the inside with another chain, she dumped the bag. Her boots crunched on broken glass. Stepping painfully slowly, she made no more noise than the wind outside. Blue light from a glancing moon slid through broken windows. Shadows caressed the red bricks of the ruin. Weeds blessed the opportunity to grow where the roof had leaked.

            Two hands on her gun, she stalked through the shadows of the decrepit building.

            Groans in the dark guided her.

            They were feeding.

            Sharp teeth in soft skin.

            It was a young girl. High school or early college age. Brown hair matted to her with sweat. Top stained red from a flow of blood from her neck. How she was still alive was anyone’s guess.

            Esme took aim at her bank card donor. Honey, I’m home. She fired.