Brendon waited until well after dark and the streets were mostly empty, but no one left the ramshackle house. A male vampire had entered shortly after the female but neither of them had shown their faces since.
Brendon was beginning to believe that he may have made a mistake in thinking that this vampire was the one responsible for the deaths. If he wasn’t wrong than maybe she had just decided to take a night off from her killing spree.
Brendon pushed himself away from the wall, his muscles stiff after so much time spent immobile. He stretched out his arms and legs slowly and then was working on getting his back stretched out when movement caught his eyes from the house he’d been watching all day.
A flash of red hair was illuminated in the moonlight before being covered by the hood of a dark black cloak. He took a breath and felt that strange stirring inside of him that he had felt earlier today when he had first caught her scent of herbs and sweetness.
The stirring was new, something he didn’t understand or like. He stood up, moving like a shadow in the darkness as he adjusted his guns and knives in preparation for battle. He had a job to do.
A job he’d spent his entire lifetime doing.
He moved unseen, unheard, unnoticed through the shadows, leaping from the brick building, his black boots landing silently on the dirt alley below. He quickly rounded the corner, his long coat whipping around legs, and saw her walking through the side door of the nearest saloon as if she belonged there.
Brendon scented the air for the male vampire that lived in the home with the red haired vampire but he was still back at their house. He was awake but based on the scent coming from inside, he was otherwise occupied with at least three guests, female guests.
Brendon just shook his head. It was clear from the scent that the women were willing pets. They weren’t chained or forced to stay. They stayed with the vampires because they enjoyed being bitten and being slaves to the male vampires carnal desires. Some women would do anything for the temporary euphoria a vampire could show them.
Brendon headed for front door of the saloon. Though he didn’t much care for mortals, especially mortals who chose to spend their lives drinking, gambling and laying with any willing body, it was his sworn duty to protect them.
Some drunk man was being hunted tonight and Brendon was all that was standing between he and a pain filled death at the hands, or make that fangs, of a feisty red haired, haunted eyed, herb smelling, issue filled female vampire.
***
Ella sat at the back table, unseen in the shadows, her figure and face hidden by her dark oversized cloak.
She scanned the crowded saloon, full of drunken men lewdly calling out to the women serving them drink after drink. Touching, fondling, acting as if they had some sort of right to touch what was not truly theirs to touch.
Sure these women were here willingly but they did not truly have a choice. What other way was there for a woman to earn money? Men refused to take them seriously, refused to acknowledge that a woman could be good for something other than fulfilling their own selfish urges.
Men disgusted her. Each was more evil than the next. Even knowing that they were in danger from a killer who was murdering them in dark alleys, they still came, they still drank, they still laid with women who were forced to be whores.
Ella took a sip of the whiskey she had stolen from a side table and let the burning liquid light up a fire in her veins. Heating her blood and working to numb her senses. Remove any doubt or hint of guilt about what she was preparing to do.
The men she killed deserved their fates. She only took the worst. The ones who were beyond redemption.
A slap from across the saloon drew her attention and the feminine gasp that followed fueled her ire. A saloon girl, young, probably no more than seventeen held a trembling hand against her pale cheek while a man probably twice her age and three times her size stood over her bellowing with rage because she had spilled his beer and splashed some on his dirty boots.
Instantly a snarl pulled back Ella’s lips and a low hiss slipped from her throat. Why did men think it was their right to attack women so much weaker than themselves? Ella would teach him a lesson.
She had found her target.
She waited for a long while, watching the man drink, yell and brag. His voice becoming louder with every drink he poured down his throat. He was a big man, nearly seven feet if she had to guess. His thick beard and mustache hid his face though Ella was sure it was just as hard and vulgar as the rest of him.
Finally after what must have been hours of patiently waiting, her stalking paid off. The man moved away from the stool he’d been occupying, threw money on the bar and pointed at the young saloon girl he had slapped earlier that evening.
She was unaware of his interest as she served beers and whiskeys to a group of men playing Poker at a central table. Ella’s advanced sense of hearing picked up the conversation between the man and the bartender.
“No, my girls serve drinks and flirt. They aren’t available for anything more than that.” the bartender stated firmly. Ella just shook her head, she had heard that before. It didn’t mean the answer was no, it simply meant the answer was no until the man handed over more money.
“Will this get you to loosen them chains a bit?” the big man asked as he tossed a bit more money on the bar. The bartender looked down at the growing pile of coins and bills and then over at the girl, who was on her way back toward the bar for a refill.
He nodded in a movement so small it was barely noticeable just before he gathered up the money and stuffed it down in his apron pockets. The big man smiled with victory and grabbed the girl roughly by the arm as she neared them.
“What’s going on?” she asked fearfully.
“You and me are gonna go get to know each other a little better.” the big man replied as he leered at the girl, his small, beady eyes full of desire.
“No!” she exclaimed with terror in her voice and the big man tightened his hold on her arm. Ella could smell her fear and her pain and it only served to heighten her own anger and rage.
“You’ll have to take her outback, I don’t have beds for things like that here.” the bartender warned.
“That’s just fine with me.” the big man slurred drunkenly. He looked around the saloon, it had cleared out quite a bit in the last few hours and those that were left inside were just as drunk as he was and would offer him no resistance. “Whores don’t deserve beds anyhow.” he finished with a grin.
He led the girl out the side door of the saloon and into the dirty alley. Ella rose from her table, staying unnoticed in the shadows as she slipped out the front door.
She rounded the corner of the building and entered the alley just in time to see the big man loosening his belt and freeing his growing arousal from his pants as he held the girl against the damp wooden wall with his arm at her throat.
The girl was sobbing silently, having already given in to her fate.
“What have we here?” Ella asked, infusing her voice with the magical qualities that every vampire possessed. Qualities that made the target helpless to do anything other than fall under their spell.
It was alluring, soothing and enchanting and the big man turned quickly and eyed her with desire, though her body and face were still hidden by her cloak.
“Who are you?” the big man asked as the girl took his distraction as an opportunity to run for cover and quickly disappeared back into the saloon.
“Does that matter?” Ella purred as she pulled back her cloak and shook out her dark red hair, letting it glint in the moonlight.
“No, miss, I guess it don’t.” the man replied. He took a step toward her and Ella held him in place with only a glance and a subtle shifting of his mind.
He licked his lips as she began walking slowly toward him, swaying her hips.
“You are a big tough man.” she said breathlessly as she circled around him, her fingers trailing along the thick muscles of his chest and shoulders.
Using her powers of persuasion both as a woman and as vampire, Ella led the man deeper and deeper into the alley, further into the shadows and away from the sound of the piano and laughter coming from inside the saloon.
“You wanna see just how big and tough I am?” he grunted as his hand closed around her breast. Ella felt rage fill her and she quickly smacked his hand away.
“Hands to yourself.” she warned with a wave of her finger. He seemed to think it was a game and laughed deep in his throat as he reached for her yet again.
“You’re going to die now.” Ella informed him, her voice quiet, low and void of any emotion. “You are going to die at the hands of a woman. A woman much smaller than yourself. I think that is only fitting considering how you have spent the last hours of your life abusing an innocent girl and proving how tough you are.”
“What are you talking about?” the man exclaimed, though he couldn’t run because Ella held him in place with her mind. “What are you doing to me!?” he cried out, his voice becoming quieter as Ella gained control of that as well.
“It’s a bad feeling, isn’t it? To know that you are no longer in control? To know that bad things are going to happen to you and you are powerless to stop them?” She could sense his pulse thundering just below his skin. His blood pumping fast, hot and hard with fear.
Ella felt her fangs sharpen and she saw the man’s eyes widen and knew that her eyes were now shimmering with silver.
With one single hiss she lunged at the man, sinking her fangs deep into his neck and drinking deeply.
Her bloodlust raged to life as she continued to drink long past the time that the big man was fighting against her. He sagged against her body and still she drank and drank.
Not until she was gorged with his blood and his body was dry did she stop and let him fall to the ground.
Ella looked down at his lifeless corpse and smiled a rare smile. One less monster for the innocent to worry about.
Without a sound she pulled the hood of her cloak back over head and left the alley.
***
Brendon stood unnoticed at the back corner of the alley. He had watched the entire scene and found himself unable to move at present.
What was wrong with him? Centuries spent stopping immortals from doing just what this vampire had done and he had done nothing! He had stood here and let her kill that man.
And deep down he knew why.
He had wanted to kill the man himself.
There was a part of him deep down that the council had not yet broken. A part of him that did not bend to their wills and whims without good reason. What good reason would there have been for killing the vampire when she was in fact saving a woman from rape?
Brendon walked to the body and looked down into the lifeless eyes of the dead man. This man had deserved his fate a hundred fold and yet because Brendon had seen the female vampire commit this murder, and because he knew that she was the vampire responsible for the other deaths, it was up to him to kill her.
He should have killed her before she had left this alley so why hadn’t he?
There had been something in her eyes and something in her voice that had called out to him. Something was broken inside of her and for the first time in his life Brendon wanted to fix the problem instead of just killing it because that’s what he’d been ordered to do.
Maybe he could help the vampire? He squared his shoulders before bending low, pulling a healing serum from his pocket, made of vampire venom and sealing the wound on the dead mans neck.
He would try talking to this vampire. Learn what made her go after these men and maybe he could help her. If not then he would do as he had been ordered and kill her.
It was his sworn duty after all.