by Zara Novak
Ansel stared at her and shook his head after a moments consideration. “I could not stop myself if I did, and to waste something as precious as you…” His words trailed off and he looked down at the table.
Kat burned with the desire to know how that sentence would end. She reached out a hand to touch him and comfort him. Her thumb had barely brushed his palm when another vision flashed across her eyes, although this one was much more vivid.
They were back in the club, about to leave. A glass dropped somewhere, shattering over the floor in a sparkle of shimmering light. She saw men in black suits. She saw a close up image of a shiny metal circle pinned to a jacket, polished and red. Light caught the barrel of a gun as it went into the air. The sound of gunfire echoed through her mind.
“Kat?”
Kat opened her eyes and found herself back in the office once more. She blinked a few times until she had a sense of her bearings once more.
“What happened then?” Ansel asked. “You kind of… went somewhere.”
“I don’t know.” Kat said softly. “It was like I saw a flash of something.”
“Come on.” Ansel stood up from the table and pushed his chair back. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve done enough soul searching for one night.”
Standing up, Kat suddenly felt her weight go off balance as the chair beneath her groaned and fell to pieces. The chair fell to the floor, and Kat slowly started to fall with it. Before she could realize what had happened, Ansel blurred through the air in a rapid move, wrapped his arms around her and caught her.
She stood breathless in his arms for a moment, pressed against his chest, staring up into his beautiful blood red eyes. One of his hands was under her right shoulder, holding her up. The other was…
“Um… I think your hand is on my butt.” Kat blushed.
A breeze of cool breath purred from Ansel’s red lips and he smiled. “Sorry. Just making sure you didn’t fall.”
Regaining her balance, Kat stood up straight and Ansel retracted his hands. An empty weight hovered on her behind, where his hand had just been. Kat scolded herself silently for not giving herself just a moment more in his arms.
“I don’t know what happened.” She said, looking down at the splintered pile of wood that was a chair only seconds before. “This is rather embarrassing though. Certainly isn’t doing anything to improve my body issues.
Blood rushed into Kat’s cheeks and she turned the color of a beetroot.
She stared at the pile of wood in shame. Why had something so embarrassing had to happen in front of Ansel? She closed her eyes wishing she was anywhere else. “I’m so fat and ugly,” She mumbled.
A finger hooked under her chin, pulled it up and lifted her gaze to his. “You are neither of those things, and I will permit you to never say them again. You are beautiful Kat Summers,” His voice burned with the timbre of hot summer coals, “Is that clear?”
Kat felt herself blushing again this time, but not out of embarrassment. A shy smile curled over her lips and she bashfully mumbled something to the effect of ‘Okay’.
Ansel pulled his hand away from her face and smoothed it through his hair.
“These old chairs are riddled with damp,” he said and looked around the room in distaste. “I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did,” his eyes came back to Kat’s. “Anyway. Come on. Let’s get out of here before the whole room comes tumbling down.”
Kat followed Ansel out of the room, locked the small office and dropped the key back into her purse. They walked back along the bare hallway and through the door, back into the madness of the nightclub. The party continued to blare.
The bass thumped, lights twisted in all directions. A sea of beautiful faces bounced up and down on the dance floor in time to the music.
Ansel turned back to Kat and whispered into her ear over the sound of the music. “I’m going to get out of here. Do you want to-”
Ansel’s voice drifted off as time slowed to a halt. Kat turned her head to the side and saw a waiter carrying a silver tray full of empty glasses. The waiter tripped and the tray crashed to the earth with a shower of glass.
“-my place?”
The sound of breaking glass startled Ansel and he jumped to look at the scene to the side of them. The red faced waiter held his hand up and nodded to the crowd as they jeered from the dance floor.
“Kat?”
“Ansel. I think something terrible is going to happen. I saw something back there in the office. A flash. A vision.”
Ansel seized Kat’s face in his hands and pulled her eyes from the sprinkle of glass on the floor. “What did you see?” He asked with a pressing urgency.
“A glass falling, just like that one and then… then there were guns. Men in black. They were shooting into the club.”
A second later, the rest of her vision unfolded.
The sound of gunfire scattered into the club from the other end of the room, and the crowd erupted in a roar of chaos and terror. The music stopped at once and people ran in every direction. Kat and Ansel stood still.
“You’re cognizant.” Ansel whispered as he stared at the gun men.
“I’m what?”
“Cognizant.” Ansel whispered again, sounding almost half shocked. “It means you can see the future.” His eyes flicked from the gunmen to Kat, then back to the gunmen again.
“Ansel we need to get out of here!” Kat panicked. From where they were standing she could see two gunmen, dressed in black suits from head to toe. They walked across the dance floor slowly, with two semi-automatic rifles pointed in the air, firing bullets into the ceiling.
The crowd had thinned considerably, and more people were running out of the doors at the front every second.
Ansel held Kat tight in his arms, but he didn’t move. His eyes were focused squarely on the two men. Kat followed his gaze and studied them too.
Both men were dressed the same, but their appearances were vastly different. One man was dark skinned with short hair. As he walked he fired into the ceiling, smiling an almost luminescent smile.
The second man was deathly pale with long white hair, which was pulled back. He wore black shades and a cigarette dangled from his mouth loosely.
Kat pulled herself against Ansel and took tight hold. The rest of the club had evacuated now, and it seemed as if the men were coming right for them. They stopped in unison in the middle of the dance floor and looked up at the platform that Ansel and Kat were stood on. The dark skinned man lowered his gun to the floor and spoke.
“Ansel Draco. My name is Victor Ugazi, and this here is my partner, Rupert Hines. Do you know why we’re here today?”
Ansel kept tight hold of Kat and laughed under his breath. “Hm. I don’t know. Gay bar is over the street though. You might do better there?”
Victor let out a loud laugh and pushed a hand to the bridge of his nose. “I like this guy. He’s got sense of humor, don’t he Hines?”
The pale vampire next to Victor spoke in a cold and refined voice. “They always do Victor. Troublemakers can’t help but crack jokes. Look where it gets them though.” He took a long drag of his cigarette and dropped it to the floor, twisting his shoe over it as he did.
“Pleasured as I am to meet you gentlemen,” Ansel said, “I can’t help but point out that I’m on a date, and your intrusion is oh-so-rude. Perhaps we could do this another time?”
“Perhaps this is a good a time as any Ansel Draco.” Victor said. “We are here as representatives of the Red Circle, and we have been assigned with removing you from the earth.”
Ansel squeezed his fingers into Kat’s arm softly. She looked up at him and felt her breath trembling as it shook from her chest.
“Well then.” Ansel said softly. “I guess we have ourselves a date, just let me move my woman friend here out the way. She’s only a civilian, this trouble don’t concern her.”
“I’m afraid it does now Ansel.” Hines said in his rasping voice. “You know the rules. Ci
vilians can’t know about our existence.”
Hines and Victor lifted their rifles at the same time and focused them squarely in Kat and Ansel’s direction. Kat stared down the barrel of the guns and pulled her face tight against Ansel’s chest.
“This is it Ansel.” She whispered. “Thank you for showing me the truth before I died. I’ll never forget you, even if it was just for a few hours.”
Ansel lowered his head and planted a solitary kiss on Kat’s forehead. “We ain’t going nowhere darling. These morons have no idea who they’re dealing with.”
6. Ruth
Ruth was scared and running for her life. One moment she had been on the dance floor with her girls, shaking away to music and enjoying her birthday.
Then she’d heard the bangs. Everyone had. All it took was for one person to scream ‘Gun!’ and the whole club folded into chaos. Ruth didn’t believe it herself until she looked across the dance floor and locked eyes with one of the shooters. It was hard to tell from where she was standing, and the low light of the club, but the man had looked deathly pale - and was he wearing sunglasses inside?
That’s when she saw the gun, and she saw the other man holding a gun up too. She was about to drop her head and run, when someone came crashing into the side of her. She tumbled to the floor and hit it hard.
She tried to get up, but every direction she moved another set of legs knocked her back down again. Someone caught her foot with theirs as they ran past, bringing a heavy weight down on to the side of her ankle and pinning it against the floor momentarily. She let out a loud yelp of pain and managed to scramble to her feet.
It had barely been ten seconds, but already people were streaming out of the club like a tide. The gunmen were walking across the floor with their guns held in the air, firing into the ceiling. She couldn’t see any bodies, she couldn’t see any blood. Whatever was happening, it seemed as if the men weren’t firing at people. That if anything, was something of a plus.
Ruth reasoned they must have been there to rob the club. She found it a little strange that they hadn’t bothered to cover their faces or at least obscure them in some way. They were a distinctive looking pair.
The sound of screaming punctured the air, and Ruth struggled to turn around as the crowd pulled her toward the door. Had Kat got out okay? Had her sisters got out?
She looked around as the ebb of the group shifted towards the exit. She was only small, and the rest of the screaming hoard towered above her meager height. She stood on her tip toes to try and see over the sea of bustling shoulders, but it was no use. Pain flashed through her heel and Ruth let out a cry of pain.
The wide throng of people came to a choke point at the narrow entrance to the club. A solitary set of double doors were at the front of the building, and they heaved under the weight of a thousand people straining to get out. Ruth tried to keep upright and stop from tumbling over again, but the force of the crowd behind her made it difficult. A wave of motion swelled across the room temporarily and she was crushed in a tight ring of bodies. The swell eased and Ruth fought for air.
The tide hit the doors and poured through like thick treacle. Ruth pushed at people all around and gasped as she tried to keep her head above the chaos. She crashed into the narrow choke point, surrounded on all sides by fists and legs. The pressure of the crowd behind continued to build up and she felt all the air leave her lungs.
A moment later the blockage of bodies burst through the door and people ran onto the street, panicked yet grateful that they had managed to escape.
Ruth hobbled over the sidewalk and into the road along with the hundreds of other people who had managed to make it outside. The chaos was just as prevalent out here, be it a little more spread out. People who had been outside the club flocked to the street to check out the commotion. All around her Ruth heard people talking frantically.
“Guns! Here in Dead Rest!” One girl shouted.
“It’s terrorists!” Another man shouted into a group. “Call the police, it’s terrorists!”
“They were shooting people.” Another girl cried into a phone. “So many people.”
Ruth rolled her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. She knew that people panicked in situations like this, but spreading lies like that wasn’t going to help anyone. She hadn’t see any bodies, and she’d only see the gunmen firing into the ceiling. The biggest danger had been the crowd, and trying to avoid getting crushed to death.
She looked down at her ankle and saw that it was starting to swell.
“Just great.” She mumbled to herself. She looked around the crowd and tried to eyeball any of her girlfriends or even her sister, Kat. They were all wearing matching dresses, surely it should have been easy?
She stood on the toes of her one good foot and tried to find anyone, but had no luck. She looked to her right and saw the tall steps of the old bank over the road. People had begun to take refuge on the steps. Ruth decided she would climb up them to get a better vantage point, and try to start finding people. She started to hobble across the street when she felt a hand reach out and grab her by the arm.
“You’re going to stay very still.” The man whispered in a low voice. “And you’re going to stay very quiet. Is that clear?”
Ruth glanced at the face of the old man behind her and almost felt like screaming. She opened her mouth to scream but the old man raised a finger and shook his head slightly. Ruth felt a sudden heaviness slip over her mind, and her jaw hung open and silent.
“You’re a pretty young thing aren’t you?” The old man said. “You remind me of the pretty young thing that I saw earlier… it’s unusual for me to take something so close to home… but it’s a special enough night I figure.”
Ruth’s breath raced from her nose as adrenaline surged through her body. She was being abducted in front of hundreds of people, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“Follow me.” The man croaked and pulled Ruth across the street toward a black van that was parked up on the side. He opened the passenger door and held it for Ruth. “Climb up. Go on. That’s it.”
Ruth’s body moved almost as if on auto-pilot. This old man was controlling her somehow, and there was nothing she could do about it. The door shut and a moment later the driver door opened and her captor climbed in. He slammed his door, hit the locks and waved a hand over Ruth’s face.
Ruth took a deep breath of air and screamed. The old man simply responded with a dark smile. He put the keys into the ignition and started the van.
“You can scream all you want. The van is sound proofed and the windows are tinted.” He pointed out at the crowd on the street. “They can’t see you, they can’t hear you.” He cast his eyes down at Ruth’s legs. “You can’t move until I say so.”
Ruth took a breath and fell silent. She was scared and she was frightened, but she wasn’t going to let this pig fucker know it.
“Why am I here? Where are you taking me?” She said with shaking breaths.
The old man started the van and pulled into the street slowly. “I’m taking you home.” His eyes wondered over her body once more and a dark tongue brushed across his lips. “You’re my birthday present.”
7. Ansel
Ansel turned to face the gunmen from the Red Circle and flared his senses across the room. In that moment his perception became extra heightened, and he pushed his awareness around him in all directions.
Time slowed to an imperceptible crawl and he took a long second to think. Both of the men had a manic look in their eyes, with their guns held high, trained on him and Kat.
Kat.
Ansel squeezed his arms around her. He might be able to dodge a wall of speeding bullets, but she couldn’t. He needed to put Kat somewhere safe. He glanced around in a split second movement and saw the staff door they had just come from. The door was ajar.
Time beat on, and the first flash came from the barrel of the dark skinned vampire. Both the men had their fingers squeezed tight on
their triggers. A tulip of flame burst forth from his barrel, followed by a small silver bullet.
Time to move.
Ansel flew across the ground with Kat in his arms. He whisked through the doorway, placed her down gently and shut the door behind her. A fraction of a second later he was back where he had been standing, just off to the side of the bullets that were sinking into the wall behind him.
He looked at the guns and rolled his eyes. The fact that the Red Circle had sent men with guns was testament enough to their ignorance. Vampires were fast, and while bullets were a nuisance to deal with, it was nothing that Ansel couldn’t handle.
Hines and Vincent both realized this too. There was little chance of hitting a vampire with a bullet, especially one as untamed as Ansel Draco, but guns were just tools that could be used to push him in the right direction. They adjusted their line of fire in unison and the snaking column of silver bullets turned in Ansel’s direction.
Thus begun a split second ballet of chaos and superhuman speed. Ansel hurtled across the club at all angles, narrowly dodging the wave of bullets as the men attempted to pin him down. Floor to wall, wall to ceiling, ceiling back to wall again. He twisted and turned in every direction in an attempt to keep out of their path.
Hines and Vincent stood rooted to the spot, turning at the hip with speed that nearly matched Ansel’s. They only paused to quickly exchange an empty clip for a full one.
To the casual onlooker, the exchange would have looked ghastly and surreal. Ansel moved across the room like a coal black ribbon blurring through the air, and the two vampires at the center of the dance floor twisted around like eerie specters as they attempted to follow him.
The air rattled with the sound of constant gunfire over the next fifteen seconds, then one of the guns stopped.
Ansel was perched up on the edge of a lighting rig when he spotted his opportunity. The dark skinned vampire’s gun had jammed and Hines was changing his clip. Ansel fell forward from the rail he was perched upon and kicked his feet so he soared down at the duo below.
