The Vampire's Requiem [malexmale]

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve (Newell)

This was unbelievable.

Out of all the creatures in the world that were currently hunting me down to skin me alive and sell my corpse on the black market, I was captured by a human.

A simple minded no good filthy rotten human cattle. A human that blasted a racket called blues, a man with a raspy voice singing a long, mournful song that echoed through the air around us in an alley just buried next to the abandoned subway station. I cringed at the odor of barbeque ribs and old corn chips as I stood against the old cement wall that was ravished by horrid graffiti. Xed stood behind me, looking mildly annoyed with the fact that he too was pinned down by a human.

After all, Xed could take down hordes of creatures on his own, but judging from what we'd seen the human use on the oni, we weren't going to take chances of that working on us. So we stood against the wall in aggravated silence as the human sat across from us on the hood of a sleek black '65 Mustang that looked well taken care of.

"Huh," Hunter muttered, his voice the same thick Cajun drawl the same as the man who had led us out of the yakuza hideout, confirming my suspicions of who he was, "I expected something a little more... Complicated. They're offering over six hundred grand for both of you?" I frowned at that.

"Six hundred grand," I echoed, then glanced at Xed sourly, "They didn't raise the price on my head, they dropped it. I'm upset." Xed gave me a weird look, but Hunter laughed at that, his voice a deep throaty laugh that reminded me of the blues singer he was listening to.

"Well, they offered an even higher price if I could get you both alive, and look what I did." He gestured to us and I raised an eyebrow at him, folding my arms over my chest.

"Who's they by the way?" I asked calmly. Hunter shrugged innocently and I rolled my eyes in disgust at him as he kept one gun aimed at us, his other hand reaching for a bottle of Budlight from a cooler nearby. He popped the cap off with something on his key ring, then took a deep swig of it before placing it on the hood of his car.

I frowned at that, staring at the bottle curiously. I could vaguely remember something that kept trying to come up past a fog in the back of my mind. I could remember seeing a bottle of blood wine in my hand, but for some reason, every time I tried to reach out to the memory, it hid back behind the fog.

Of course, now wasn't the time to take a trip down memory lane. Now was a good time to get ready to take off. Alaric was bound to be wondering where we were and if we were late, no doubt he'd take off running with his tail between his legs.

I shifted, only shifted every so slightly when Hunter pulled the trigger and I hissed past clenched teeth as the bullet shot right past my ear and into the wall behind me, falling to the ground at my feet. I glared at him warily as he raised an eyebrow in challenge. I could see a tic forming in Xed's jaw out the corner of my eye and he looked really tempted to rip the human open and devour his organs slowly and painfully.

"Hey, now," Hunter warned him, then looked at me, "You two ain't goin' nowhere until I figure out why you two are wanted more than Osama Bin Laden." I scowled at him.

"You captured us without knowing why we're wanted?" I demanded. Hunter scoffed, cocking his gun at us for a moment before letting his arm rest on his leg, the gun still pointed at us as he took another swig of beer.

"I really don't care who I kill, so long as I get paid for it, catin." He answered smoothly. I curled my lip at the Cajun term meaning doll. He was slowly working his way to the top of my hit list. Right alongside Vladimir, of course.