by Mac Flynn
I shrieked when I felt myself lifted into a pair of strong arms. "Quiet," Vincent ordered me. He held me against his chest and dashed away from the front door and through the maze of crates. We quickly reached the rear, and he turned and slammed his back into a heavy metal door that led outside. I was grateful to be able to see where we were going.
That is, until Vincent raced along the rear of the other warehouses. His speed was impossibly fast for a human. The ground sped by in a flurry of rocks, broken pieces of glass, and trash, and in a few seconds we covered a distance that would have taken me at least a minute to cross. I tried to free myself and get off this horrible ride, but he only pressed me harder to his chest. "Don't move," he growled.
I stiffened and obeyed his command, especially when I saw how many cars and people stood in front of the warehouses. There were at least half a dozen cars and twice that number of men dressed in black suits. They had dark sunglasses over their eyes, and all of them were armed. Half of them stood at the entrance to the end warehouse, but the other half was spread out between the gate and where we stood behind the center warehouse. Vincent crept up to the front of the warehouse where stood a few crates, but any further and we'd be seen.
We heard shouts from our former warehouse. The body of the wolf man had been discovered. The men who stood in front of the gate glanced in that direction, and Vincent took advantage of their distraction. He shot out of our hiding spot behind a few crates and raced to the gate. The chain-link gate was shut, but that didn't slow him down. The men in sunglasses noticed our escape and turned their guns on us. Shots rang out and bullets whizzed by our heads. Their aim must have been as bad as a Storm Trooper's because they didn't hit Vincent. At least, he didn't slow down, but my body felt pricked by dozens of pins. Then something hot dug into my shoulder as one of the men hit their mark, me. The bullet flew through my shoulder and my blood soaked my shirt.
We were ten yards from the gate when Vincent leapt up into the air. The momentum of his prodigious speed flew us over the top of the barbed wire and onto the other side. He landed with a crunch on the pavement. The closed gate slowed down our pursuers and gave us a head-start down the river road. We entered the asphalt jungle before their cars left the warehouse island, and Vincent didn't have any trouble losing them in the maze of dark alleys and narrow, dingy streets.
Regardless of the danger I was glad when he stopped us in an alley that showed off a splendid mix of dankness and squalor. My wound still bled and the pain was nearly as bad as what the ring had caused. I cried out when he set me down a little too hard against a brick wall. "Quiet," he commanded.
I glared at him. "Quiet? There's a god damn bullet hole in my shoulder!" I snapped back at him.
Vincent ignored my whining and ripped open my bloodied shirt sleeve. The blood had dribbled down my arm and chest, and covered half my body. I expected him to wrap it with the torn sleeve, but Vincent only stared unblinkingly at the wound. "Vincent?" I asked him. He didn't reply and I nervously shifted beneath his unwavering gaze. His hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder to hold me still. My eyes caught sight of his clothes and for the first time I noticed it was riddled with bullet hole. Those guys in suits hadn't missed, they'd shot him full of lead. He shouldn't have been alive, much less holding me down. My heart raced as I remembered how he'd earlier threatened to kill me. Vincent's sharp teeth gleaned in the weak light of the night, but his pallor stood out in the dark shadows of the alley. He looked like a creature of the night, like a- "Vampire!" I gasped.
Vincent lunged forward and buried his teeth into my shoulder. I yelped and tried to jerk away, but he held me tight. The initial pain of his penetration melted away and was replaced with a sensual pleasure that spread out from my shoulder. My eyes widened as my body heated, and liquid pooled between my legs. I gasped for air and my face flushed with the creeping need that flooded over my body.
My hot need was slowly replaced with lethargy as I felt Vincent pull my blood from my body. My head lulled to one side and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I thought I would lose consciousness, but a bright light shot through my closed eyelids. The brilliance burned with the intensity of the sun, and reawakened my mind and body. I heard Vincent cry out and opened my eyes in time to see him stumble to the opposite side of the alley. He hissed and snarled at my hand, and I saw that the ring on my finger was the source of the light.
However, it wasn't the only source. His own finger was lit with the same light. He clutched onto his hand and ground his long, sharp fangs together to stifle his cries of pain. His light pulsed and stretched out into a long, thin beam of light that wound its way up toward the sky. It stretched over the distance of the alley and connected with my ring. My eyes shot open and I gasped when I felt an enormous amount of strength enter my body through the beam of light. The lethargy vanished, replaced by an energy that made me feel like I was on a thousand energy drinks, and they were all working.
Vincent screamed and fell to his knees. His face turned a ghastly white and the flesh seemed to shrink and shrivel from his bones. For all his psychotic antics I felt sorry for him. The moment the emotion rose up inside me the light connecting us vanished. The world slipped back into the darkness of night. The energy in my body lessened, but the pain from my wound was gone. When I glanced at my shoulder I realized that the wound had disappeared. All that remained was the mess of blood.
