No Life Kid 19

The word “fast” was vague.

There was a good reason for that, of course.

All subjective things had excellent reasons to be vague, because to be subjective means that it was always a matter of perspective. Unfortunately, “vague” met its limits pretty easily, just like the word “fast” as a descriptor.

Fast was a sprinter. Fast was a speeding car. Fast was a baseball thrown by MLB professional pitcher Randy “Big Unit” Johnson. 

This was a displacement of mass, air and everything else in between.

Two bodies, one dense as marble and both fast enough to shame a sports car, met and the space around them suffered for it. The collision shuddered a building not meant for this level of force. A shockwave rippled through rotting timber, decades of packed sawdust shaken loose from the rafters and falling like filthy snow. 

The nomad grappled with the vampire boy, both a blur of limbs moving at speeds that would have turned a human brain to jelly just trying to track them.

Zander grit his teeth as James made another pass, the weight of the last four hours weighing on him as he caught a blow against his forearm. Speedy bastard. James was quick on his feet, yeah, but normally, it wouldn’t have been anything Zander couldn’t have managed against, even without much practice.

Hell, Edward was faster than the drifter.

Almost twice as much even.

Thing is, though, running as fast as he could manage for a whole evening while the desert sun beat down on him for a full hour didn’t exactly lean things in his favor. Fuckin’ h-!

Zander’s head snapped back from a snap blow he could barely track, the taste of red filling his mouth as he swallowed his own blood. Hell! It wasn’t the quickness that was the real bitch, though.

James was just that good.

Blue eyes darted from side to side, catching a blow for a split-second before James slithered free. He hunted vampires too, so… It was like fighting a slower Edward that kept his reflexes, with a chunk of Emmet’s roughness, and an extra helping of Jasper levels of skill, and that was way more annoying than it had any right to be. 

Like a fucking mountain lion that did a line of white. Flawless and ugly at the same time, there was almost no wasted motion for how manic James moved.

The old lumberworks groaned in protest as James darted back from a swing, the hunter flitting behind between two belt assemblies as he used the machine husks as both shield and distraction.

Blue eyes narrowed. Where’d you think you’re go—

A heartbeat later, the air whistled. 

Zander twisted back, a hiss nearly escaping him as something tore at his side. He looked down for a split-second, three claw marks deep into the leather of his jacket. He missed m—

The thought vanished to nowhere as Zander ducked on instinct, the sound of shrieking steel enough of a warning, as a swinging rusted hook swung down like a wrecking ball and missed his skull by inches. Unfortunately, his hat wasn’t so lucky. Motherfucker!

“Well, damn.” 

Blue eyes snapped toward the ceiling, dreadlocks swinging loose and free, as Zander stared at the nomad high on a narrow support beam at least twenty feet up. He was already moving, still pacing even from on high, and doing his best to circle. 

“You know…” James’ drawl carried easily, acoustics of the old mill doing the dusty hitchiker-looking vampire a ton of favors audio-wise.  “After this, I think I’ll go drink your little pet.”

Without another word, the drifter shot forward off the beam — momentum, gravity, and his own force turning him into a vampiric missile. 

Zander twisted, boots grinding against the ground as a blur of dirty blond hair and tattered denim rushed past him. Leather tore like wet tissue paper against diamond-tipped fingernails and blood — bright, red, and warm — splashed the sawdust-caked floor. He closed his eyes, pushing down the pain as he focused on the feeling of warm blood pouring free, and the rest of it still roiling in his gut and flowing in his veins. Okay…

“I caught a whiff earlier,” James smiled as he slunk around the rusted frame of a conveyor belt, metal between them a shield. “Nothing I smelled was worth keeping around for more than an evening. But no sense letting it go to waste when you’re gone, you know?”

He surged forward, a clawed hand held out and aimed straight at the open throat in front of him.

Bright blue eyes snapped up, Zander’s mouth opening.

“What the-!”

Blood flew free from his throat, dark and congealed and corrosive.

A screaming James’ raked fingers through empty air as Zander rushed forward as fast as he could. Red eyes went wide as a hand clamped around his collar, a grip of dozens of tons of pressurized rage doing its part. With a roar, Zander spun on his heel, James’s own lunge adding to the momentum, and let the other vampire fly like a javelin.

James sailed through the air, arms in front of him, as his back met a support beam.

It didn’t hold.

The pillar exploded into splinters around him, crackling like gunshots as James’ spine punched clean through rotting foot-thick timber and skidded across the floor, a trench of dust in the wake of his path. 

James rolled to his feet, amusement on his face sliding away as he wiped away the dark blood from his face. The nomad looked down, the liquid sizzling where it dripped to the floor and steaming against the wood.

“…what… what was that?”

“Not really sure, exactly?” Zander raised his shoulders and let them fall. “Don’t really have a name for it.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Blood Magic didn’t really feel like the most creative thing to call it. “Any ideas?”

James’ lip curled into a snarl. “Not exactly.”

Zander’s fingers clawed at his side tightened into fists as his teeth bared. “Alright, then.”

They collided again.

Fist met fist, the sound like two wrecking balls seeking each other out. Zander threw out an elbow aimed to crush James’ temple, but the blow shaved past. A chunk of blonde hair tore free even as the hunter spun around a dangling chain, momentum adding power and speed to a brutal heel kick.

A starburst of pain exploded across Zander’s jaw, head snapping back and the lower half of his face shifting sideways with a sickening crunch.

Zander didn’t stop. He didn’t even flinch to check if his jaw was actually broken. Laughter just tore free, a wet rattle swallowed up as his face clicked into place with a wet snap. 

He pushed forward like a freight train; a relentless grinning wall of pressure forcing James back through the maze of machinery as Zander threw fast hands, ugly blows, hooks and uppercuts meant to batter and break.

James darted back, pushing his speed for all it was worth as he rebounded off a rusted steel column. He lunged hard again, claws flashing low with a hiss. “Do!” Zander swatted the strike aside, impact bruising his forearm, and answered with a brutal front kick. “Better!” 

His boot caught James dead-center in the stomach, air rippling from the blow.

The nomad flew again, launched backwards into a wooden shipping crate and caving the whole thing into splinters. With a roar, James flipped backwards and landed in a hard crouch, fingers gouging into the floor as he skidded to a slow stop.

“How?” Red eyes narrowed as James pushed himself back up, sweet-smelling venom sealing the few shallow wounds across his skin. “How can you do that?” The blonde tore forward again, moving even faster as he abandoned the hit-and-run bullshit and let desperation bleed into his speed. 

Zander felt the wetness before the sound hit.

Four crystalline fingers met his neck and blood exploded out from the severed jugular. High pressure  spray that splattered the rusted machinery behind them, the dull brown iron splattered with a bright crimson arc.

James’s grin returned, all white teeth and feral satisfaction.

Only for it to shrink down slowly as Zander’s went the opposite direction.

He stood there, head tilted back, the blue glasses reflecting the moonlight as blood poured freely down his chest. Always itches.

Healing was a thing he had to get used to every time it happened. It was better than being dead, but every single time it happened, it was almost like the first time.

And right now, as his neck began to put itself back together, it was no different.

Skin knitted together blink by blink, muscle fibers reattaching and severed arteries fusing flawlessly. Nothing at all like the grinding creeping effort of venom resetting and sealing marble skin. Blood still dripped from his collar, soaking his black shirt and blue tie both, but the flesh under all that… pristine.

James’s grin vanished completely, confidence shattering from his face. “HOW?”

“Fuck you, that’s how!”

A hand lashed out, the stone-hard vampire held tight around the bicep. Dark fingers sunk into vampiric flesh with hydraulic pressure as Zander spun.

Wood burst apart in a thunderous crack, James’ body meeting the nearest wall and plowing clean through. Rotten planks, drywall, and collapsed beams, nothing slowed him down as he crashed from one room of the mill to another, a storm of dust and splintered lumber all around him. 

James staggered against the wall, still on the floor as a pair of blue leather dress shoes stepped through the wreckage behind him. The vampire looked up as Zander looked down, the younger of the two brushing wood chips off his shoulders and adjusting the collar of his ruined coat like nothing had just happened.

James’s eyes widened, predator patience nowhere to be seen.

“You’re—”

“Different.” Zander finished for him. “But you already knew that.” He tilted his head, grin widening even further. “That’s why you’re here, right? Because I’m different?”

James roared, the vampire leaving words aside as he burst to his feet. 

But not forward.

Up.

Blue eyes followed his path as James moved like the hunter he was, scurrying up a support beam in a blur just to kick off from rusted steel.

Zander twisted aside as claws flashed for his eyes, more red misting the air as the strike tore across his forehead instead, slicing through the eyebrow. Blood poured down Zander’s face in thick fat streams, enough to make him blink.

He laughed.

James vanished into the machinery again, darting through the narrow lanes between belt frames and broken conveyors. A ghost, striking and retreating, he didn’t allow himself to stop for a single moment — not like before.

A slash tore across Zander’s ribs, enough to part both leather and skin.

A rake dragged his shoulder and tore muscle.

Another lunge for the throat, carved deep into neck-meat a second time.

Every hit landed.

Every wound closed in seconds.

Zander just kept laughing, pain fading to the background as James got more desperate and more sloppy with every hit that seemingly did nothing.

He dropped his guard as James’s fingers carved deep across his chest, tearing through shirt, flesh, and muscle all the way down the bone…

And Zander stepped right through the pain.

The shredded meat of his chest was a distant second as he closed the distance, stepping into James’s personal space, and grabbing the wide-eyed nomad by the ponytail.

The first punch doubled James over. The second forced a gasp from unbreathing lungs.

Third, fourth, and fifth were just for fun.

The sixth came with full force, Zander’s fist detonating into James’s ribs like a bomb.

The vampire’s entire torso caved inward, the crack sounding loud through the empty mill like a cannon shot. James tore back and through the floor, sawdust and splinters flying as free and uncontrolled as his own body.

“This… who… what… ” James gasped again, fingers gouging into metal for handholds as he pulled himself up to his feet. Perfect crystalline features marred by a spreading crack across the bridge of his nose, venom leaked freely from the fissure as sweet as maple syrup and half as thick.

“Come on, Jamie.” Zander stepped forward. “Use your words.”

“What are you?”

Zander took in a breath, holding it for a second as he stared at the ‘predator’. 

An instant later, he blurred forward as fast as he could manage in a single burst of free movement, the sonic boom shattering what few windows were left in the building. James didn’t have time to move before a hand clamped around his throat.

His feet left the floor.

Dark red smoke was blown out in James face as Zander let go of that one breath. Another few drops of blood. He wasn’t sure of the exchange rate on the Blood Magic stuff, but it was a bitch to deal with. Just like shapeshifting, it required skill and control he just didn’t have yet, but that wasn’t going to stop him from getting it down.

Still, though, it could come in handy.

Like, right now.

James’s eyes widened, mouth falling open.

Zander did the same as his grin stretched wider and wider and even wider still, laughter bubbling free while his jaw hung loose. Every single one of his teeth lengthened and sharpened until they were no different from his fangs. “Oh, you know…”

His grip tightened, the marble skin of James’s neck cracking under the pressure.

“A REAL FUCKING VAMPIRE!”

James clawed at Zander’s face with one hand, only for Zander to catch the wrist mid-strike.

Bone cracked like dry kindling as Zander snapped it without a thought, the diamond-hard limb hanging at the wrong angle. 

James snarled, the sound more panicked than enraged as he tried to kick free, leg whipping up toward Zander’s jaw with enough force to send a human’s head a mile high.

Zander caught that too, free hand clamping down on the ankle as it folded the wrong way.

James roared.

The sound went nowhere, stopped short as Zander dropped him to the floor and drove a heavy knee right into James’s chest, ribs giving in immediately. The break punched the breath straight out of the tracker’s lungs.

James writhed on the floor, limbs twisting and grinding audibly; bone dragging against bone, venom-laced healing doing its best in trying to pull the shattered structure back together.

Trying.

Zander laughed the entire time. 

For the first time since the fight began, James stopped struggling as he lay there in the dust.

Red eyes met blue.

And both understood.

Zander crouched down, both hands grabbing the broken vampire’s face as blond hair hung loose, chunks of hair and skin missing from where fists had torn it free.

“So,” Grin still plastered across his blood-smeared face, Zander didn’t bother raising his voice past a normal tone. “For wasting my time. For making me run across three states.” His fingers tightened on the jawline.

“And for making this waaaaaay more annoying than it had to be…”

James lunged one more time, either his last plan or just desperate instinct. His good arm swung up fast, two fingers stabbing right for the glowing blue eyes looking down at him.

Zander’s head snapped forward as the sound of James’s screaming filled the air, actual screams of pain bouncing off the rusted machinery. The eternal teenager raised his head again, showing off two crystalline fingers clamped tight in his teeth as he smiled around them.

With a crunch, Zander tossed his head back and both of them disappeared into his mouth. The sound was like glass and rock shattering against each other inside a meat grinder but they sounded like music as his jaw worked the marble digits down to nothing.

Finally, he swallowed. “Mmmm.. rock candy.” Maybe it was venom, or maybe vampire flesh was just sweet on its own, he’d have to do more tests later on.

“So, yeah…” Zander sighed, wiping a smear of blood off his cheek. “I’m going to kill you now.”

“Nononono,” James slurred out of a broken jaw. 

“But before that,” he smiled wide, showing off a horror-movie mouth, “I’m going to drink your venom.”

James’s eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror. “W-why?”

“Because and… no homo here,” He clicked his tongue. “But you taste really good.”

Zander slammed his head down as harp fangs met eternally hard skin, piercing a diamond throat with the force of a hydraulic press.

“Ngghhh!!!!”

Zander drank as James thrashed, a broken doll jerking on the floor as pure vampire venom flooded his mouth straight from the source. Oh… It was sweet, spicy, and just as good as he remembered as it burned down like liquid fire. Just as good as the last two times he’d had it that first night in Florida.

That first night of his new life and this one; both with a high-octane nightcap of concentrated soul-stuff. All of it burned all the way down, liquid adrenaline settling in his dead heart with a satisfying heat.

So good… At least fifty times better than drinking from any regular person. 

At least.

He drank deep and long.

Until the thrashing stopped.

Until the vampire body beneath him was just a husk.

…ah.

Zander stood up, pulling back as he let James motionless body drop to the ground with a dull thud, drained of life and everything else. I could get addicted to this shit. He wiped his mouth clean of the venom with the back of his hand, a grin still buzzing on his face.

Still two more to find, though. He knew he wouldn’t have to wait all that long, anyway. They’d find him soon enough. Both of them.

Still smiling, Zander reached into the interior pocket of his blue coat.

Out came yet another oversized Deagle, a twin to the one he had used on James just a few days ago. While the V1 Breaker had a five-pointed star engraved into the slide, this one had a sun etched into the black metal.

V1 Burner.

Zander aimed the hand-cannon down at the pile of broken marble at his feet.

He pulled the trigger.

The round struck the body and lit up immediately, not with concussive force like the Breaker, but with a white-hot flash of thermite. Walter, you really are the best. The flames caught the dry tissue, spreading rapidly and turning the broken vampire into a bonfire of chemical flame.

In no time at all, the pieces burnt down to white ash, the smell of burning sugar filling the air.

Zander sighed. Finally.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the green Motorola, the screen lighting up immediately. Walter: 2 Missed Calls. Jessica: 19 missed calls. Jessica; 29 unread text messages.

Zander stared at the screen, burning vampire at his back casting a dancing orange light across the plastic shell.

…well, fuck.