Turning the Tables [ Snow Brooks]

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse laughed. It was a sinister sound, the mirth touching cold blue eyes.

"A year? If you're good at your job, then, you'd have figured out I'm a bit of a pyromaniac," he said. What did she think he was, Dracula? That he was going to erupt into flames if she burned him? It probably would have been worse if she snapped the handle and tried to make a stake. Maybe he'd have let her stab him, just to think she'd got the upper hand. Instead, he pulled the lighter from his pocket and flicked it open, the metal 'clinking' merrily as the flame danced to life. He wandered over to one set of pictures and set the corner of one alight. And then another. Better to burn all the evidence, and hope that she kept it all here. That there weren't copies, somewhere.

"Fire, though. Good idea," he said cheerily. Only when enough of the pictures were going up in flame did Jesse make his move -- he lunged for the women wielding the fiery broom, attempting to knock it aside as he went for the neck. It would be a shame to burn the place down with her in it, at least while she was full of blood. It would be a waste of a perfectly good meal. Recklessly, he decided he'd have a snack in the middle of an impending inferno.

[Snow Brooks (DELETED 8588)]

Snow would have screamed if she could.
Suddenly, she was no longer in control and try as she might the vampire seemed to possess an almost inhuman strength.
He's a vampire, her manic thoughts screamed at her, what did she expect? Fighting was no use really, she kicked and thrashed, her instincts on overdrive as she tried to escape. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate, why was the room so bright? Did she forget to turn off the lights again?
The pain that washed through her body was like being bathed in acid. She wanted to scream but her voice was nothing more than a pathetic croak, stop it, stop it, stop it! Her mind was screaming, accompanying her body in a crescendo of pain. Her feet had stilled under her predator, the frenzied little jig dying down to a slight twitch. Crazy legs, she thought.
Snow could feel the heat on her face and the bile in her throat. So this was what it felt like to be dying? So helpless, so pathetic, so very vulnerable. The most tragic part of everything was that no one would know. Hell, she lived out in the middle of nowhere, a dirty little slum where her only neighbors were the condemned buildings that loomed up like dead giants. Someone would call the police eventually and they would send out one patrol car, (probably), to discover a burnt out husk of a building, and her? If they bothered to search through the remains, would her body be there? Or would they find the cremated corpse of some unfortunate nobody?
You were right, Dani,Snow thought, your sister is going to die a pathetic nobody. Doesn't that make you so happy?
The darkness was closing in on her vision and the images around her had started to blur. Snow prayed this would be quick. It sure wasn't painless but she could feel herself slipping into a blood loss induced state of unconscious.
Good, maybe when she woke up, this would all be a dream...

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse could taste the fear. It had become one of his favoured tricks; to terrify a person before feeding from them. Some decried the taste of fear, thinking it bitter and tainted. That kind of fear was only present in the cowards, in the lily-livered who would give up rather than fight. Most chose to fight. Most gave in to their natural instinct to survive. Their bodies were fuelled by pure adrenaline, and it was that which Jesse liked best.

This woman was no different.

As the apartment went up in flames around them, Jesse thoroughly enjoyed his live meal. His eyes were closed to the destruction as his jaw clamped tight to the tender skin, arms snake-like and constricting around the body that struggled until it lacked the strength to do so anymore.

Until the building shuddered with a resounding boom, and Jesse’s grip loosened, blood spilling over his chin and the body dropped as they were both sent flying backwards. The gas lines had caught, and it was only a matter of time before the whole building came falling down. Reckless and confident, Jesse left the body where it had fallen. If he hadn’t killed her, the fire would. Immediately on his feet, Jesse headed for the fire escape, leaping out the window to land on the pavement below like a cat.

Cool air kissed at his skin; it was hot, burned by the blast of heat. A mere surface wound that was almost healed already. He stood and meandered across the road where he stood, arms crossed over his chest. He always like to watch them burn.

[Snow Brooks (DELETED 8588)]

No!
Snow didn't know if the scream was her own voice or some fevered part of her brain, desperately trying to cling to humanity. How come it was so hot? Did she leave the heater on again? These were the mundane things that ran through her mind, even at the doors of death, she was clinging to a small shred of life. Everything, everything was falling.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, I've fallen down. The pain in her side was unbearable. What the hell had that ******** been carrying? She had read somewhere that there were toxins in vampire saliva but who the hell cared about toxins right now? Dying kind of took center stage so that everything else seemed absurdly irrelevant. Like having beans for dinner. Or having all her work burned. That took me a whole year, she wanted to scream. A whole damn year!
That thought more than anything fuelled her. She would at least have to pay this Jesse back in kind. A nice little knee up in the gut should do it.
Snow staggered to her feet, her whole body feeling like it had been poisoned. Her mind was fevered, her skin was burning but she wasn't going to die here.
Hell, no one was going to make a charred corpse of her. Dani would just have to stay disappointed that her dear little sister wasn't dead. There would be no one at the funeral anyway. No one to send her down the river. Why did this seem particularly funny?
It really wasn't.
The window. Get to the ******* window! It was like some twisted video game. Snow raised one arm to her nose and sucked in her breath. If blood loss didn't get her first, suffocation would.
Oh, the horrible ways you could die!
The window was burning, the glass already scattered around the frame and down below. It was one of two windows in the room. The one in the kitchen was rusted shut. Another way to die.
"I'm going to do this," Snow muttered, but to her ears, it sounded weak and half hearted. The frame was hot, so hot it burnt the bottom of her feet when she tried to stand on it. She gritted her teeth, feeling cold instead of hot now.
Three...Two...One!
Snow jumped, never mind the apartment was a fair way away from the ground. Glass ripped at her palms, snagging her dress along the way.
I'm going to bleed out on some filthy patch of concrete, naked and cold. Why is this happening. That was the last thought, the one that seemed to join all else together before she hit the concrete. There was a loud crack, bones breaking before the building exploded behind her.
I guess I must be dead, she thought calmly, everything dimming out.

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse expected to see the building collapse from the inside. The wooden beams would be turned to ash, all support for the building crumbling. The roof would cave in, and all that would be left behind would be the charred bones. What he did not expect was to see the body he had left for dead climbing out of a window. It was a healthy drop to the pavement, and even from the distance he could hear the crack of bones.

She was willing to break herself in order to survive.

If he left her where she was, the building might collapse on top of her. She might already be dead, given the lack of blood and now the fall. But she might be alive, too. The authorities might arrive, the police, the ambulance, the fire brigade, and they might rush her off and fix her up. She might live. After everything that she had seen, he couldn’t let her live. He couldn’t take that chance. With a curse under his breath and a several quick strides, he was back where he had started. Crouching down, he reached out a hand; he had every intention of snapping her neck.

And yet, he realised it might not do much good.

She was dead. And yet she wasn’t. It was that sixth sense; that remnant of feeling. Once upon a time, he had been addicted to it. Once upon a time, this feeling had been life or death. Now, it didn’t mean so much to him. But he was intrigued. If she could throw herself out a window to survive, would she be strong enough to survive the chance?

Only one way to find out.

Instead of snapping her neck, he instead scooped her broken body up off the pavement. While all the evidence burned behind them, he carried her away. He carried her all the way back to the lair; it didn’t matter what looks he got. He stared straight ahead, and didn’t say a word. He’d come back for the bike; he couldn’t exactly carry an unconscious body on the back of it.

Inside, on the second floor of Third Circle, he took her to the same bed some of the others had been confined to. A bed she would be confined to for a week, give or take. Give if she survived. Take if she died from the process.