by Derek Slaton
“Now who has seen this woman?” He slammed a photo down on the wood, causing their beer glasses to clink dangerously. “Anybody?” The picture had come from Baptiste, a printout of one of a candid shot somebody had snapped of Rose. She was in a pale yellow sundress and white flip flops, superstar sunglasses perched on her head, holding back her long red tresses from blowing in her face.
The men glanced at each other in a panic, none of them knowing what to say or how to deal with the situation. TnT snatched up the photo and held it up to the bouncer’s face, hauling him closer by his now very sore nose.
“Alright pencil dick, do you know this woman?” He demanded.
“I… I duddo her dabe…” He stammered, voice impeded by the little torpedoes blocking his airways. TnT removed them and shoved the bouncer down with his surprisingly strong foot, holding him to the wood floor. “She’s been coming in here the last week and drinking alone. A couple of nights ago she met some well dressed dude.”
“Who the fuck is he and where do I find him?” TnT asked, leaning forward on his foot, slowly crushing his opponent’s throat as he did so.
“He never told me his name!” The guy croaked. “I’ve seen him around town. He’s been renovating some office over on 3rd. I always see him when I’m driving home from my shift!”
“Driving home?” TnT narrowed his eyes. “Who the hell does office renovations at night? Wouldn’t people be complaining?”
“Man I swear, I don’t know,” the bouncer pleaded, dark eyes wide and glassy. “This town is dying, so people are probably just happy there’s money being put in. Or hell, man, maybe the neighbors are already gone.”
The midget stepped back, leaving the bouncer to clutch at his throat and nuts in the fetal position. TnT humphed and snatched up one of the glasses of beer, opening his throat to down the entire thing in one fell swoop. He slammed it down on the table, pocketed the photo, and then stepped over the moaning man on the floor.
As he swept out of the bar, the one of the men at the table stared at his empty beer glass in disdain. But he glanced down at the floor; he knew better than to protest this little firecracker lest he end up like the broken bouncer at his feet.
That evening, TnT hopped out of the car outside of the offending office building. It was a ghost town over there, and he thought maybe the bouncer had been right that the neighbors had already left. Well dressed guys doing renovations in a ghost town office building only at night did not bode well for anyone. And there was no way that things were as they seemed in this situation. Especially with enemies that had managed to pull one over on one of the Agency’s top elite.
He popped the trunk and dug through his duffel bag. He selected a wild west holster with two slots, and filled them with his two ten inch mini chainsaws. He rummaged until he found his multi-purpose medium sized chainsaw and strapped it to his back. With a series of zzzzzt’s and clicks, he was suited up and ready for his mission.
He glanced around, and regardless of whether or not the owner of this building was really here for renovations, it was clear that there had been actual construction going on at some point. There was caution tape, broken walls, debris and workbenches all along the inside of the fence, and that was just the outside of the building. He didn’t think this equipment was all for show.
He stayed low and skirted the building, finding a few guys casually guarding the front entrance. TnT shook his head at their uselessness, and slipped through an opening in the gate to reach the side door he’d spotted earlier. Upon examining one of the work benches and noting a thin layer of dust on one of the wrenches, his theory about the tools not being props confirmed.
The inside was a disaster. There was plastic sheeting hanging everywhere, and more benches full of tools along the walls. In the center of the wide open space he’d walked in on there was a giant hole in the cement, with prison bars across the whole top. That definitely wasn’t standard office fare. He knelt at the edge, squinting down into the gaping hole, and wondered what the hell anyone needed to keep in there.
He swept the hole with a flashlight; no sign of Rose.
There was a shuffle and a sigh and he pressed himself against the wall, peering slowly through a doorway. Moonlight streamed through the window to dimly light the area, and he caught sight of a woman sitting on the floor in shackles. She was clad in jeans and a dank looking blouse, with a matted but very familiar shade of red hair.
TnT scoured the area with his eyes, making sure they didn’t have company, and then rushed into the room. He skidded in front of her, and she simply blinked, the only indication that she was at all surprised by his arrival.
“Holy shit girl, I always had my suspicions about how kinky you were, but I never thought you were the chained to an office wall type,” he joked as he reached up to examine her wrists.
“Get away from me!” Rose snapped, and he froze.
“Whoa, what’s wrong?” TnT asked, brow furrowed. “Is it rigged to blow or something?” He realized upon thoroughly examining her expression that her eyes were wide and full of trepidation. He’d never seen this hot shot Agent ever look even remotely close to afraid, and his stomach knotted up.
She tilted her head to the side, revealing two perfectly round puncture wounds in the hollow of her throat. The knots in the midget’s stomach turned to dread and he sank down into a squat. There was only one creature that could create a mark that pristine without killing their host.
“He turned me into a vamp,” Rose said thickly, and he stared at her for a moment, dealing with the shock of it.
“But… wait,” TnT shook his head, thinking harder about the situation. “If you are a vampire, then why aren’t you trying to rip my throat out? Did they just bite you now?”
“No, a couple of nights ago,” she replied, eyes hardening in anger. He could easily identify the flames of rage building in her expression.
“Well it’s obvious it didn’t take, then.” He reached into the side pocket of his pants and produced some lock picking tools. “So we’re going to get you out of here and figure this shit out later. Sun’s about to go down and I get the sense we don’t want to be here when it does.”
She nodded reluctantly, and resisted the urge to just close her green orbs while he worked. Instead she kept them peeled, knowing that it was up to her to be her rescuer’s eyes while he was occupied freeing her bonds.
He got her left wrist free and with surprising gentleness, and lowered it into her lap before getting to work on the other.
“Vamp!” Rose hissed as a shadow passed over the doorway, and a low growl reached TnT’s ears. He dove out of the way just in time, and sprung up to his feet, drawing both his mini-chainsaws. He sent one skittering across the concrete to Rose, who immediately fired it up to work at the chain still binding her.
TnT grinned maniacally at the vampire, wielding his hunting knife sized chainsaw as he hooked his fingers in a come hither motion. The vampire, unused to people standing up to him, let out a roar and lunged towards the midget, making attempts to grab at him. TnT ducked and slashed at every turn, the little chainsaw making tiny cuts all over the demon’s body.
The vampire finally tried to come down on his tiny opponent overhand, but screamed in disdain as the little chainsaw ripped down his arm lengthwise, leaving him with two tattered dangling limbs in his shoulder socket.
TnT lashed out and grabbed the vampire’s ankle, upending him, and then wound a fist in his hair. The chainsaw made quick work of the demon’s neck, and TnT tossed the vampire’s head to the side. It hit the concrete with a squelch, and the midget turned quickly back to the woman he’d been sent to rescue.
“You ain’t gonna murder me, are you?” He asked quickly as he helped Rose to her feet.
“Only if you try and cop a feel, you perverted little freak,” she shot back.
“There’s the woman I know and love.” TnT grinned.
“Come on, we have to get out of here before Kyran shows up,” she urged, gree
n eyes still darting all over the place. She took a defensive stance and clenched a fist, clearly on edge by the mere mention of that name.
“Who the fuck is Kyran?” the midget asked.
“That would be me,” a velvety male voice said, and an impeccably dressed man with jet black hair rounded the corner. “Where you do you think you’re going, my dear?”
“Yeah sorry bro, she’s spoken for.” TnT squared his shoulders and raised the mini-chainsaw in his hand.
Kyran chuckled pretentiously. “I’m impressed you have such a large voice for a man of such small-” He looked down at the expertly thrown little chainsaw that was now sticking out of his chest. He casually pulled it out and slid it back across the floor to the midget and the redhead. “You appear to have dropped this.” He smirked, lips curling in a surprisingly elegant fashion. But one didn’t live so long and so successfully without poise.
“That could be a problem.” TnT looked down at the seemingly harmless weapon so carelessly discarded by the tough as nails vampire. “Thankfully though, I have a solution.” He whipped the chainsaw from his back with a flourish, starting it up with a magnificent thrummmm. He let out a primal scream and lunged forward, slashing and stabbing at the vampire with excellent speed and accuracy; had it been a normal opponent.
Kyran was too fast. He dodged every slice with apparent ease, not even a single hair slipping out of it’s shiny style.
Rose threw her mini chainsaw like a ninja star, and Kyran plucked it out of the air with yet another smirk. That moment of distraction, however, was all that TnT needed, and he managed to get his saw almost all of the way through Kyran’s bicep before he stumbled out of the way.
The vampire looked down at his arm, hanging by just a few tendons, as unconcerned as if brushing away a fly. He turned to the workbench behind him and flopped his arm down onto it, pulling a staple gun from a smattering of tools.
The Agents stared as the vampire stapled his arm back on without even the smallest grunt or grimace of pain.
“We have to go,” TnT said, “right fucking now.”
“Agreed,” Rose replied, and they bolted out the door.
Kyran finished his stapling job and lifted his hand in front of his face, wiggling his fingers as if they’d never been severed. He strode to the exit, just in time to catch a glimpse of the Mustang peeling out down the road.
“What kind of blood sucker was that?” TnT asked as he drove, speeding down the sparse streets of Struckerville. “Usually when they get cut, they scream like… well like they got cut with a fucking chainsaw.”
“I don’t know,” Rose replied, shaking her head. “He’s different from any vamp I’ve ever faced. When he jumped me the other night he was way faster than he should have been.”
“Was he the one that bit you?” The midget raised an eyebrow from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, he was,” the redhead sighed.
“We gotta talk to the Boss,” TnT said firmly. “Something is up and it’s not good.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Rose, it’s good to see you in one piece,” the Boss said jovially, and the redhead saluted him with only a hint of sass. She’d managed to get a shower in while TnT set up his computer equipment in the seedy motel room the Agency had procured for them.
She towel dried her hair and adjusted her seat on the bed next to the midget, the two of them sitting within view of the laptop’s camera. They’d set the computer on the end of the bed, lacking any surface in the room big enough for it.
“Not exactly in one piece, boss,” she tilted her head so that he could see the bite wound.
“Did that just happen?” He gasped, and she shook her head, tossing the damp towel onto the floor.
“Been almost forty-eight hours now,” she replied.
His brow furrowed in concern, and he hit the call button on his desk phone off screen. “Carol, can you please get Baptiste on the line?”
“What are you thinking, Boss?” TnT asked, concentrating on the laptop screen instead of the peaks of Rose’s nipples sticking through the thin fabric of the grey tank top he’d loaned her.
“I worked a case damn near 30 years ago where a woman was bitten, but didn’t immediately change,” the Boss replied. “It was not pretty. What can you tell me about the man who bit you?”
“His name is Kyran,” Rose said, though she wasn’t sure how much her information would help. “He’s a suave, well spoken individual.”
“And the motherfucker doesn’t feel pain,” TnT added. “Damn near lopped his arm clean off, and he staplegunned it back together. Didn’t even make a fucking peep.” He mimed stapling his own arm for effect as a smaller window appeared in the corner of the laptop screen, revealing Baptiste’s face.
“Good to see you, TnT.” He nodded. “Miss Rose.”
“Alright Baptiste, work your magic,” the Boss instructed. “We have a name, Kyran, a woman who has gone forty eight hours after a bite without turning, and a vampire that doesn’t feel pain. Compare that to the Garvin case I worked back in ‘86.”
“I’m on it, Boss,” Baptiste promised, and his gaze shifted from the camera to his own computer screen.
“TnT talk to me, what do you need?” The Boss asked while his researcher worked.
“Man, we gotta take this asshole down,” the midget replied. “Can you get Silky out here?”
The well groomed man on the screen shook his head sadly. “He and Kerr are taking down a demon hive.”
“What about Nantz?” TnT asked.
“Undercover recruitment operation,” came the instant reply.
“Christ, is there anybody?” The midget scrubbed his hands down his face.
“You and Rose are it.” The Boss shrugged. “Only warm bodies that could be of use in the field are the recruits you started training yesterday.”
“Man, those kids would be cannon fodder.” TnT sighed. “The only way I’d want them out there is if we were in a worst case scenario situation.”
“You’d better get them geared up then, because it looks like you’re facing off against an Ancient,” Baptiste spoke up, and both Agents drew in deep breaths.
“I’m not well versed in Ancients, but I’m guessing if you earn a title like that, it’s not so good for us,” Rose put in.
“No, Miss Rose, it is not,” Baptiste replied. “In a nutshell, they are stronger and faster than your average run of the mill vamp. They are also a lot harder to kill.”
TnT pursed his lips, leaning forward. “How much harder?”
“Your usual tactics like beheading or a wooden stake won’t do the trick,” came the reply. “Don’t get me wrong, it will certainly slow him down, but you’ll need to get a little more creative.”
“Creative, like throw him into a wood chipper?” TnT asked, and Rose raised an eyebrow at her companion. He shrugged as if to say what?
“I’m afraid that would just piss him off even more.” Baptiste shook his head. “No, you’ll have to inject him with a special UV serum that I will include in your care package. Basically, it’s highly concentrated liquid sunlight. It won’t kill him, but it will be enough to permanently paralyze him. Once you do that, we can put him in storage.”
“What about me?” Rose cut in. “How do I not become a blood sucker?” She needed to know what the hell they were going to do about this. She refused to become the very thing she’d devoted her life to hunting. A chill ran up her spine at the thought.
“Your situation is a bit more complicated, Miss Rose,” Baptiste said reluctantly. “Usually when you kill a head vampire, it releases his underlings from the curse.”
“But we can’t kill this motherfucker,” TnT argued.
“This is true, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for you, Rose,” the researcher said.
“Goddammit, how can this not be a bad thing?” She was starting to get frustrated with all of this back and forth. There had to be some kind of clear path here. A mission to complete. A plan.
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nbsp; “Well, according to my research, an Ancient will arise from their centuries long slumber to find an incredibly strong willed and powerful female to turn into a breeder,” Baptiste said, and then set his mouth in a thin firm line.
“Oh yeah, that sounds so much better,” Rose said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “What, this asshole wants to put a little fanged beast inside of me?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He nodded with a grim expression. “That’s why the transformation has taken so long. His bite is strengthening your body so that you can survive the pregnancy. Over the course of seventy two hours or so, your body will become stronger and… um. I’m not sure how to put this exactly… more fertile?”
“Oh, fuck me,” Rose cursed.
