Stone deaf makes easy prey. (Keara, Doc)

[Sara cox]

Sara decided that today had been long enough, sitting and watching TV all day, staring at the screen in silence, the words at the bottom of the screen beginning to blur together. She didn't need to even have the volume on so the little mute symbol in the top left corner was now a permanent resident on her TV. A reminder that she should have taken better care of herself. The failure of that had cost her her job, her hearing, almost her friend! The woman needed out, the four walls were beginning to feel like a cage and without anyone to share it with, the silence had taken its toll and driven her almost to madness.

Pulling her shoes on without much care for the mess in her room, grabbing the keys from the side table before locking the apartment behind her, the weather report on her phone said it was going to rain, but when was the weather man ever right? So she ignored it and went outside in just a shirt and jeans, she needed to get out, somewhere. Anywhere. Just to clear her head would be a good start.

She had to take extra care now when out and about, crossing roads was hazardous and she couldn't hear people trying to talk to her, much less shout at her. She used to be a cop, she used to help them, now she couldn't even hear what they asked of her. The gangsters had taken advantage of this development by pick pocketing and trying to kill the ex officer. But like always, Sara had a weapon of some description, be it a knife or her old MP5 but she could always defend herself somehow and today was no different, a small kitchen knife hidden in her jeans pocket. Praying she wouldn't need to use it as she ambled along, taking in the sights around her before dropping into the nearby store, she wanted a pet fish, something to keep her occupied when she wasn't working. Something to keep her company. But alas the shop didn't sell them, they didn't sell anything of the sort! So she huffed and took her leave, returning to the streets to wander a bit more, there'd be a shop somewhere that sold fish, there had to be, right?

[Doc]

It was an average evening, with nothing to really recommend it. Cat had plans. Jacqui had plans. Cyth was still .. gone. He could go call Ruth up, but that wasn’t wise. And then there was the Gypsy. Doc sighed subconsciously, he couldn’t just call her up without a reason. Even though he had, a legitimate business proposal for her, it wasn’t polished and ready for presentation, yet. So the night was shaping up to be yet another lack luster evening.

Even as his thoughts had turned to the dour and pessimistic, something happened that immediately improved his mood. The ex-Cop Sara Cox exited a shop right in front of him. She seemed irked, as if she had been having a bad day. Doc smirked, her evening was about to get a lot worse, as his began to improve. Karma could be a ******* *****, but Karma apparently hated Sara a lot more than Doc, and he was just fine with that.

He strolled behind her at a nice distance where he could observe and watch her, without drawing attention to himself. In his mind, she still had a debt to be paid for her trespassing into Eyrie and the Den. That and he was hungry. He followed her, pausing occasionally to peruse something in a store window, before resuming his languid unhurried stride.

For her previous occupation as a police officer, one would have thought she might be more cognizant to her surroundings. Maybe it was because she was looking for something specific, but Sara led herself into the lesser popular shopping district, which was filled with pickpockets, thieves, even the occasional hitman as well as the usual gangs. Due to the area, the crowds were less populated, so it was quite easy to slip his Glock out and screw on the silencer without drawing any undue attention; while he once again pretended to be viewing an object in a shop window.

Tucking the firearm under his jacket, he easily closed the distance between he and Sara, once he was no more than three or four feet from her, Doc raised his arm and shot her point blank in the upper right back shoulder.

[Sara cox]

Two stores down, Sara checked her phone, there was only one more shop left to try before she'd deem it too late and return home. Maybe order one online, would that even be possible? You could get anything online, so why not something as simple as a goldfish? Naturally the wandering woman had taken directions that led her straight through the less loved part of the city, she'd dealt with dozens of call outs to this area, surely another riot couldn't be far off with the amount of supposed 'gang wars' that went on around here.. At least that's what they called them, a pretty good cover up for Murder One.

She didn't even notice she was being tailed until it was too late, the searing pain and numb sensation that stormed down her arm like wild fire. Her entire body fell forward with a gasp as blood and bone launched itself a few feet ahead of her, god knows where the bullet went but she wasn't thinking that, the fact she couldn't move her arm, much less feel it, had her scared. The warmth that came next only made things worse, she was bleeding profusely and she scrambled back to her feet, her workable hand shoved up against her shoulder to try and stem the flow whilst turning to face her attacker.

Mistake number one. She'd seen this guy before, once.. He'd already hospitalised her once! Now back to finish the job? Maybe.. Maybe she just passed him and he thought to use the opportune moment.. Either way it only made her fear worse, nostrils flaring as her arm shook and the dark brown orbs widened, run? Well standing to fight was suicide, he had a gun. All she had was a poxy knife that wasn't even in the right pocket! Yep run. Ignorant of the blood trail left in her wake as she fled, straight down a backstreet. If her phone map was correct, it'd lead out onto a busy street where she could hide and get help, but like everything else that went wrong tonight, her escape route was sectioned off by a chain link fence.

Mistake number two came in the form of her body shoved against the fence, maybe he wouldn't see her hiding in the dark, maybe he'd leave? She wouldn't risk it and with her remaining good arm, reached over and tried to get the knife out of the opposite pocket, it gave some grief before cutting her palm slightly, yanking it from the pocket via the blade end. Filling the air with that little extra scent of blood, as well as pained breathing and the rustle of her moving feet as she tried to remain standing.

[Doc]

Doc smirked coldly, the cop was running. How far did she think she would actually get? Her endurance would fail far before his would even feel the first twitch. He didn’t have to rush, time and her blood loss would do the work for him. Hell she may kill herself before he could finish her properly.

He followed her trial easily. Even if there hadn’t been a blood trail to follow, there was the pheromones of a highly panicked human in the air. As he closed in on her, he could even hear her ragged breathing now. She had stopped moving, was she trying to hide? Or Had her legs finally given out on her?

Doc ambled slowly down the darkened backstreet, he made no attempt to hide the sound of his foot steps. Quite the opposite, he made sure each foot step resonated clearly as he closed in on her. She was the nosy little cop that invaded Eyrie and the Den. The last time he had seen her she was pretending to be deaf. Even if she were deaf, and she couldn't hear him closing in on her, the wait had to be wear on her, with every ragged breath.

And there she was. Like she was waiting for him, knife in hand. Doc’s smirk grew, she wasn’t going to go easy. She wanted to fight. That was fine by him. He holstered his gun, and pulled his own blade. His dwarfed hers by almost double its length and breadth. But he would be magnanimous, he would let her make the first move.

There they stood, facing one another, a mere feet apart, Doc smiled at her.

[Sara cox]

Sara couldn't hear the encroaching footsteps, but she'd met this fellow a few times prior and he was a sadistic bloke, hospitalising her twice for trespassing in a tree house and a place she admittedly shouldn't have gone, but looking for proof of a creature that shouldn't even exist took her into areas of the city that other officers warned her would be dangerous.

"please no... I didn't do anything this time!"

The deaf woman pleaded and begged with him, hoping he had some kind of human side, she couldn't hear herself and thank god for that because she sounded ridiculous, a grown woman begging for her life through tears and pained breathing, she didn't want to die here, hospital maybe if she really had to but to die? She had a family to return to, a girlfriend waiting at home for her and a list of job applications to work through. She saw him so close and sighed, clutching her knife tightly in one hand as her shoulder poured blood with each tiny movement.

[Doc]

Doc snorted derisively, “Didn’t do anything.. ‘this time’..?” He knew she was deaf, and probably couldn’t read lips yet, either. It didn’t stop him from taking her to task. His lip curled contemptuously. “You were a cop. You abused your position as a cop to invade my homes. And I am supposed to ..” He paused in order to enunciate it slowly and clearly, so that maybe she might just get it, “ Forgive and forget?”

He gestured with his blade in a negative fashion. Once more he slowly said, “I do not forget.” Forgive maybe.. in the right circumstances. But this cop knew too much, and she delved too deep into things that did not concern her, and now, he had to protect the masquerade. She was an ex-cop, she still may have friends that would believe her fantastic tale of underworld creatures and vampires. He couldn’t take that risk. Ex-officer Sara Cox had to die. And if it was painful, and in a disgusting dirty alley, all the better. She should have never fucked with his kind in the first place.

Doc smiled coldly at her. Her chest was heaving, she was panicked. That meant her heart was racing, and with each racing pump, vital blood left her body via the gunshot wound. But it just wasn’t leaving fast enough. Her color was still too rosy. He would have to help it along.

He spun the blade in his hand, as he debated how to kill her. The knife she brandished didn’t even phase him. Say she got lucky and was able to stab him in a vital area, it would only nick at best. She didn’t have the strength needed to push in and connect with anything that could debilitate him. Hell, he might even let her connect, just to show her how stupid she had been by playing her games with his kind.

Closing the distance between them, his left hand clamped about her neck, as he lifted her off her feet to dangle in front of him. The blade in his right hand sliding effortlessly between the fifth and sixth rib in an upward diagonal motion.

His smile widened as he abruptly left go of her neck, the downward motion of her body attempting to find its feet, causing his blade to be impaled deeper into her chest cavity. He felt the tell tale puncture of the diaphragm as the blade had traveled deeper and deeper. She was dead, she just didn’t know it. He absently pulled the blade free and stepped back.