Bangarang [Tigra]

[Sadie (DELETED 9920)]

Her rings clinked against the top of the glass display case. One. Two. Three. Her pinky finger remained bare; the ring on her thumb never made contact. It was a cold, rainy day in October, and sales were down. Not for the quarter, not for the month or the week, but for the day. They’d had ten appointments scheduled for the day: Five of the people cancelled and walk-ins had been limited to two. Sadie didn’t want to go in that day, but she had no other choice. Two of the appointments had been hers, and the two walk-ins had been hers as well. Three bellybutton piercings and a nipple piercing. Though she preferred tongue piercings and surface piercings -- a specialty of hers -- she encouraged people to embrace any type of piercing, as was expected in the job description. But those thoughts only circled around and around so many times, leading right back to her current disposition. Sadie, leaning over the glass display case, tapped her fingers once more. Her friend, Tyler, kept glaring at her, until he eventually placed his hand beneath hers, blocking her rings from coming into contact with the glass.

“If you’re that bored, maybe you should ask Perry to go home,” the man suggested, referring to their boss, a tattoo-covered girl by the name of Perry Ross. Sadie considered the option, but she ultimately sighed and shook her head. “Late on the rent payment again?”

“Behind by thirteen days. If I don’t make it up this week, the old lady’s evicting me. She’s sweet, but she’s got a mean streak like you wouldn’t believe,” Sadie finally supplied. The woman stood up straight, raised her hands above her head, and cracked her back. The series of pops had Tyler scowling, but he remained quiet. “Sorry,” she apologized, though she didn’t mean it, “I know you hate it.” And he did. He’d asked her numerous times to stop, but she continued, if only just to piss him off.

“If you’re so bored, why don’t you help me sketch some of these tattoos. Mad drawing skills, right?” Tyler asked, right out of the blue. Sadie detected the sarcasm in his words, but she still nodded. She followed him back to his room. The two of them passed by the open door of Perry’s room, where the woman was working on a three-part session for a hulking guy named Ryan. He’d wanted his entire back covered and shaded. Sadie didn’t even want to think about how much the guy was sinking into such a display. Tattooing wasn’t her thing.

“How much do you think that costs?” Sadie jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, right in the direction of Perry’s open room. Tyler shrugged his shoulders, but he wiggled his hand back and forth. A decent price, his gesture signified. Perry knew the guy, so she could have been giving him a discount. Then again, he could have been charged several hundred dollars, maybe even a grand. Perry’s prices varied. She set the bar. “What do you need help with, my pet?” Sadie teased him, but he didn’t rise to the bait. It almost disappointed her.

“If tomorrow’s clients actually show up, I’ve got a tattoo of a grandmother I’m working on drawing. Then a dog. I need help with a beehive and a lotus blossom.” He walked over to his printer and grabbed several sheets of paper that had printed out. Some of them were obviously for future appointments, but he took out four pages for the next day’s appointments. “Here,” Tyler said, offering her two pages.

“Why would you take the grandmother? She’s going to look like ****. Just let Perry do it,” Sadie groaned.

“Excuse you. I’ll make that old bitty look like a damn Victoria’s Secret model,” Tyler sassed, snapping his fingers in a Z formation. The both of them laughed. “I took the grandmother because Perry’s going out of town tomorrow, remember? They’re having that expo in Toronto and she wants to get there early. I think Ryan might be going too. Who knows. I don’t keep track of her every move.” He sounded defensive then and Sadie couldn’t stop the ****-eating grin that former on her lipstick-covered lips. Pink lips parted to reveal the white teeth behind them.

“I bet you do,” Sadie said in a sing-song voice. Even as she gathered the paper to begin sketching, she kept that smile on her face. Tyler held up a single finger, his middle finger, and then got to work on the image of the grandmother. “Let me pierce your nipples.” Sadie reached across the desk between them and tried groping at one of his nipples, but he slapped her hand away.

“The **** is wrong with you? No,” Tyler said, his voice carrying out of the room and down the hall. Both of them heard Perry stop tattooing, the room going silent. They remained silent then, waiting until Perry’s work resumed. Sadie stuck her tongue out and Tyler reached over to try and grasp Sadie’s pierced tongue. Sadie retracted her tongue and snapped her mouth shut. Tyler just grinned.

“Shithead,” Sadie announced.

Nothing but silence followed for the next thirty minutes. They didn’t notice when Perry ceased her motions, didn’t notice when Perry wished Ryan a good night. Perry stuck her head into the room, her blonde hair hair hanging over one shoulder -- the other half of her head had been shaved. She stood there for a few minutes and then cleared her throat. Tyler and Sadie continued with their final touches and then glanced up at their boss. She wasn’t a bad boss, not in any sense of the word, but she ran a strict ship and they had to learn how to take her word as law. Tyler waved a hand, but Sadie stuck out her tongue. Perry flashed a brilliant smile, leaning in the doorway as if she were the ******* queen. Sadie had dated Perry, briefly, and she’d thought the blonde was a queen, until she figured out that Perry liked to shop around. The two somehow made their workplace relationship work, so whatever happened in their private lives had been shoved aside, swept under the imaginary rug.

“You guys can head home. I’ll lock up,” Perry offered.

“Nah, tonight is my night,” Sadie said, making eye contact with her exhausted boss. It really wasn’t her night. The night belonged to Kevin, but Kevin had called in. Apparently, he’d caught the flu. No one really missed him. They all wanted him gone, since he called in so many times a month, but Perry liked his work. The man was practically a god when it came to customer relations, and his tattoos looked like angels had swept in just to do them. No one could deny the guy’s talent.

“I could do it,” Tyler quickly stepped up, but Perry merely arched a brow at him. “Fine, but I’ve got tomorrow.”

The three of them took time cleaning up their stations, the final sweep of the day, and then they packed up and prepared their belongings for tomorrow’s first appointments. Sadie had two septum piercings. Tyler had the grandmother piece he had to fit on a man’s upper arm. And Perry, Perry had to leave for Toronto. As Tyler poked his head into Sadie’s room, she snapped a single black glove in his direction. The glove smacked him right in the face and she howled with laughter. He picked up the glove and tossed it into the trash bag sitting by the door. “Real mature. Twenty-three and you act like you’re four,” he complained.

“And with the body of a goddess,” Perry added, poking her head into the room.

“Thanks, muffin,” Sadie winked.

“Let’s get the **** out of here. Go, go,” Tyler huffed, grabbing one of Perry’s hands. He tugged her out of the doorway, but he poked his head back in and narrowed his eyes. Tyler really liked Perry. The poor ********.

Without the other two around, the shop fell into an uncomfortable silence. Sadie had to collect all the trash, make sure that all of the instruments were cleaned, and then wipe down the front counter. Everything else had already been done. Each person handled their own respective rooms. Sadie just made sure everything passed inspection. When she finally left, she turned out all of the lights, made sure the front door was locked and the security system was set. The panel by the door alerted her that she had a minute or two before the security system armed itself, and she used those moments to slip out the backdoor.

The night was cold. She should have worn a jacket, at least a sweater, but the day had been decent enough to skip one. As she trekked through the alley and circled around into the small parking lot, someone reached out and grabbed her elbow. A hand went over her mouth. Sadie looked down and caught side of the shiny shoes. Dress shoes, as if the person had money. Men’s dress shoes, judging by the size and shape and overall style. Sadie lifted her right foot and slammed her sneaker down on the man’s right foot. He cussed and swung out, hitting her in the side of the head. She heard a sudden ringing in her ears, and then her head knocked against the side of the building. Sliding down toward the ground, her backpack scraping against the bricks of the building, she found herself staring up at a man with a sickening grin on his face. He had a diamond tooth. That much stood out. Who had diamond teeth?

“Now listen here, princess. I’m looking for a man named Ferris, Tyler Ferris. He owes us some money. Be a good little girl and tell us where we can find him?” The man stooped down in front of Sadie and she felt her eyes burn with unshed tears. As he reached out to touch her face, she spit in his. His gentle hand turned violent and he slapped her across the face instead. She spit out blood. “Jimmy. Get the rope. Let’s take this one home, huh?” The man turned away for just a second and that’s all it took. Sadie bent her knee and sent it upward, kneeing the man right in the nuts.

“My name isn’t princess, gangster scumbag,” Sadie spat, kneeing him once more. She struggled to stand, but she did so, and then she made a mad dash for her car. The hood was up, the battery disconnected and thrown across the lot. All four tires had been slashed.

[Tigra]

W E A R I N G

“I am sorry, Miss LeChànce, but I am going to have to be firm on this. You just are not going to be approved for this loan. You have insufficient credit, insufficient collateral, insufficient income, three failed businesses, two defaulted loans, outstanding back-taxes for the last three years on those businesses, and with a divorce currently being processed in the courts, well, you can see how my supervisor might be skeptical about your ability to see a commitment through… there is just nothing that I can do for you. Your application is denied, Miss LeChànce, and until you get these affairs in order, I am afraid that any further applications are only going to hurt you, dear. I think you should take some time to get your life in order, and see if you can try again in another year or so.”

It was the same song and dance she had heard at three other banks, now. This was her last stop, her least attractive choice, and even they turned their nose up at her. And this was where she kept her account open, what little was left after Honor had skipped town, leaving her with the dregs of her savings account. It only made the whole thing hurt that much more, the sting of the woman’s callousness at her plight in her wife’s absence. …her ex-wife’s absence. That still took some getting used to. Though, without a lawyer, the divorce was stalled indefinitely, until Tigra could come up with the funds to pay someone to carry out the most painful process she thought she could endure. At least, with the paperwork floating in bureaucratic limbo, the matriarch still had a chance at salvaging her marriage, at picking up the pieces of her life and trying to fit them back together in some manner that somewhat resembled the world that had been shattered in an instant.

The entire thing still seemed so surreal, and absolutely nothing like what she had come to expect of Honor, of Chassity LeChànce. She had always been brave, and would have come to Tigra, woman to woman, and have told her that there was a problem. That something was wrong, and needed to be fixed. This… this was not her. This was just not like her, and that ate at her night and day. Something had happened to her wife, to her other half. Something had broken inside of that beautiful woman, and she hadn’t seen it. She hadn’t noticed, and now, it was going to break her, too.

Refusing to let the pompous loan manager see her cry, refusing to let anyone ever see her tears, even the tears of rage that burned at her eyes now, she lifted a hand and shoved her palm at her eye, scrubbing roughly as she glanced over the thick file that she had brought in with her. All of the data gathering, the painstaking detail she had put into the application, the financial reports, the detailed statements… it was all worthless paper to these people, to this stuck-up ***** in her fancy office chair, looking down on people like her all day long, shattering what little scraps of hope they had managed to pull together, to cut through the tiny bit of courage that most people had mustered to come in here and face her. Tigra was an entirely different animal. Holding her head up high, she scowled at the plump blonde woman and reigned in her anger, quelling the mighty need to bury her fist in the woman’s plump face.

She reminded her too much of Honor in that moment, even if she never had these sorts of thoughts about her, it was just too painful to look at her.

“I understand, Miss Devreaux. It was a long shot anyway.” She would not let the woman see her broken, even if she felt hollow on the inside, her limbs numb and wooden as she reached for her things, collecting her paperwork and tucking it under her arm. She stood, towering over the woman as she leaned over her desk, open palm laid evenly on the mahogany desk as she leaned forward, her voice a low, lethal purr. “I didn’t expect much from you or your kind, Miss Devreaux, but even with my low expectations you still manage to disappoint. You will find that it is very unwise to make an enemy of me, as you have today.” With that, the Killer gave a sweet, innocent smile to the woman as the pudgy blonde swallowed the lump in her throat, the vampire’s innocent grin disturbing in its juxtaposition with the overt threat that the woman had made plain. A shaky arm lifted, finger pointed for the door as the loan manager squeaked her response, “I think you should leave now, Miss LeChànce, before I call security to see you out.” Tigra’s eyes flashed in the harsh fluorescent light of the manager’s office and gave a hard glint of the blue that was dancing within them, a sure and proven sign that her anger was at its limits of control. “**** off, Dolores. I’m leaving, and you can go **** yourself with your pompous attitude, you useless ****.”

Without another word, the tall brunette wheeled around, and marched into the main floor of the bank, leaving the soft woman a quivering mess in her office, her face in her hands as she took a deep breath, trying to collect herself. She didn’t have but a few moments to collect herself, before her day got much, much worse.

In the lobby, Tigra set her teeth to grinding as she moved to stand in line for a teller, her fist clenched tight enough that her knuckles turned white with the strain of her fury. She was barely able to contain herself, to refrain from throwing that fist into the back of the man’s head in front of her, and snapping the annoying teenager’s neck in front of him, the incessant pop, hiss, pop of the blonde’s gum grating on her nerves, the elderly gentleman in front of her would earn a quick fist in his face, too, as he shuffled onward, holding up the line. Her already strained irritation was about to reach its breaking point when she saw the teen with the gum lift up her shirt. A strange thing to do, here in public. It was then that she saw the submachinegun tucked into the waistband of her skirt. Behind her, the everyday droning of the bank suddenly erupted into a rapid burst of thunderclaps, just before ceiling plaster fell onto her head in a shower of powdery white flakes, her ears ringing with the proximity of the blast of gunfire.

Turning, she saw a young man holding an identical weapon to the one the teen had been pulling from her skirt, an HK MP5K. A common, unimpressive weapon, to say the least, it was compact enough to carry on their persons almost unnoticed, but capable of delivering a nasty bit of firepower that was almost unrivalled in a weapon in their class. As she glanced around the lobby, it seemed that everyone had hit the deck the instant the sounds had gone off, with the exception of a large handful of other young men and women that were pulling the same sorts of weapons from their persons. It was clear that the group was either stupid, or confident, none of them bothering to cover their faces with masks.

It was then that she noticed the cameras, and that not one of them had a recording light on. Someone had deactivated the security system in the bank.

At least one of them has brains, I guess.

This, however, was the wrong day to mess with this particular vampire.

As the young man that had fired his weapon approached the teller’s counter, demanding that the young brunette behind the desk open the cash drawers and fill a deposit bag with everything that would fit inside, the blonde that had been grating on her nerves wheeled on Tigra, another round of hiss, pop, hiss, pop, hiss filling the relative quiet between them as she levelled the automatic weapon on the taller woman’s chest. “Get on your knees, you old skank, and put your hands behind your ******* head, or I’ll fill you so full of lead, you’ll sink to the bottom of the river when they toss your worthless body in the river to forget that ugly mug of yours.”

Get on your knees, you old skank…
…you old skank…
…old…

Tigra stood, confused for a moment, brows knit in a tight bunch as she tried to piece everything together. One instant, she had been standing in front of the teenage twat, listening to her chew on her ego like she was chewing on that gum, and… everything had sort of blanked for a moment. Her ears had been ringing, and she couldn’t remember anything but a red haze for the briefest second, but she stood there, staring into the wide, kohl-lined stare of the blue-eyed blonde that had taunted her only a moment before and… that was… all that was there.

Her fist was wrapped in the girl’s golden curls, and beneath the ripped flesh of her throat, jagged hunks of meat hung in a gory mess of dangling flesh. The sweater dress that Tigra wore had been a light beige, was now a dark, bloody red all down the front, and the teen’s body lay thrashing at her feet. Blood coated Tigra’s face, and her stomach had the satisfied warmth of blood pooling in its depths as the elderly man only paces in front of her screamed at what he had just seen, the head in Tigra’s grasp blinking at her in surprise as the lips tried to make words, though without lungs, they just made useless twitches until the blue eyes rolled, and it moved no more.

It only took a second for the world to erupt into complete chaos.

Gunfire chattered through the air and the sting of bullets striking her back made Tigra hiss in a fury that only seemed to build with every angry breath, the world around her turning red as she lashed out at the man that had gone to the counter. He had turned on her, and had opened fire, only to miss as she charged him, her fingers curled in a cruel claw that, in one quick swipe, slashed across his abdomen, his intestines falling from his middle in a sloppy cascade of meat that hit the floor with a wet plop. He tried to scream, and her fingers pierced his chest like knives, driving the wind from his lungs and filling them with holes, blood gushing from his lips in a blubbering whimper as he whined, clutching his middle as he tried desperately to hold his insides in, while he choked on his own blood. He fell to his knees, wheezing on blood for an instant, before he pitched forward, face-first into the pile of his own intestines, where he died in a heap of his own filth.

More gunfire erupted throughout the lobby, then, all aimed at her. When Tigra moved, dropping her shoulder to charge another man, the woman that had been standing behind the counter, filling the first man’s bag caught a round of gunfire with her face, brains exploding out of the back of her head as she slammed against the wall, before she sank down, falling onto her ***, where she remained, propped up against the bank wall, staring at the back of the counter as the gunfight beyond raged on.

The man in her sights, a stout young man, about twenty, with sandy blonde hair, had his weapon trained on her as best he could, though as he fired wildly, his bullets landed wide of their mark, many of the inexperienced youngsters unaccustomed to the automatic weapons and landing shots well wide of their mark, many of them striking the innocent bystanders that filled the lobby, their screams filling the air. The blonde man’s brown eyes went wide as he saw death approaching, and he drew back his arm to defend himself. Tigra’s teeth ripped through the arm, severing it at the elbow. The young man wailed in pain as he recoiled, and she gripped the severed appendage as it began to fly loose from his limb.

Grasping the forearm, she took the sharp end of broken bone and jammed it into the man’s fearful eye, twisting the limb sharply and jamming it down, sending the end of the sharp bone into the brain. His whole body tensed, going rigid and still as stone as he toppled over backwards, dead before he hit the ground, his own arm jammed into his skull. Behind him a red-haired girl was firing wildly at the vampire, screaming in sheer terror. Several rounds struck the woman as she advanced swiftly, closing the distance in an instant, even as the weapon in the poor girl’s hand clicked dry.

Her scream was cut short with a loud gurck, her throat clamped shut as Tigra’s teeth dug into the slender column of her neck, lifting the girl’s slight weight off her feet by the grip on her throat. Blood gushed down the vampire’s front as she wheeled around, dangling the girl’s quickly weakening, her legs kicking once, twice, and then falling into a series of twitches as Tigra took the weapon from her delicate fingers, yanking a spare magazine from the girl’s plaid skirt and jamming it into the weapon, the first hitting the floor with a clatter in the same instant. As she wheeled around, several bullets slammed into the squirming redhead’s back with a quick series of thud-thud-thuds as lead met meat. The girl couldn’t even scream in pain, the only sound leaving her as she died a weak gasp as she slumped against Tigra’s body.

Using the corpse as a sort of shield, Tigra turned her weapon on the pair of young men still collecting money from the tellers’ registers. Bullets riddled their chests and sent them slamming into the counter, one falling across the stylish woodwork while the other collapsed in a heap at the first’s feet. She wheeled the gun on the girl guarding the door, a tall, intense looking Asian that appeared older than the others. Her brown eyes went wide at being noticed, and as she held up her hands, dropping her weapon, Tigra squeezed the trigger. One bullet left the weapon before it clicked empty again, slamming between the Asian’s eyes and sending her flying through the revolving door and crashing into the street.

Opening her jaws, she let the dead redhead fall to the floor, hitting her knees with a thump before she collapsed onto her back, folded over herself. What left of the ravaged group of would-be robbers were running through the shattered door, attempting to escape into the night.

That was their biggest, and final mistake.

Stepping over the corpse at her feet, Tigra broke into a run, pursuing the quickly thinning group of criminals. They ran down the empty sidewalk, dashing across a side street and through an old lot, trying to lose her as they scrambled over an old chain-link fence that separated two halves of an alley that backed up to a tattoo parlor on the other side.

The young man that she caught up to first turned on her, and threw his weapon away. He fell to his knees and lifted his hands, begging her for his life.

She was so far past the point of forgiveness.

His tearful eyes looked up at her, even as her razor-sharp claws found his throat, cleaving his head from his shoulders in a quick sweep, sending the severed head sailing over the chain-link fence, slamming into a scrawny blonde girl that had just reached the top. She lost her grip as she caught the head, and fell backwards, landing on her back with a crack.

Tigra was sure her back was broken, the girl’s legs twitching as she wheezed, fighting for breath as the air was knocked from her lungs. Tigra gripped the fence in stride, using her momentum to toss a long leg into the brick side of the alley, and kicked herself up to the top of the fence, gripping its lip and hoisting herself over almost without breaking stride. As she came down the other side, the heel of her boot caught the blonde’s throat, snapping her neck like a dry twig. She gave one violent twitch, and fell still.

Ahead of her, the last two survivors were heading for the parking lot of the tattoo parlor.

Her dress felt like it was made of woven lead, soaked to the point of saturation in blood. She licked at her fingers, tasting the blood of those she’d torn apart, beyond her fill, she still felt the frenzied energy course through her as she couldn’t get the smell of the blood off of her. She would have to throw away the dress before she could come down off that high.

First, though, there was some unfinished business.

The last young man was running alongside a girl with long, ebony hair, tattoos clearly marking her lightly tanned arms, she would be an easy target to seek out. The man, however, with his mid-length dark hair and fearful green eyes, made a move that surprised her. He lifted a hand and shoved the girl forward, before he turned and tried to slow Tigra down.

Both of the humans had thrown away their weapons in their scramble over the fence back in the alley. This young man knew that he was going to die. Tigra was riddled with bullets, and still her eyes were wild with fury, her entire force bearing down on him like an unstoppable freight train out of control, and still he braced himself, fists raised as he prepared to throw a punch into her face as she ran through him. He moved like he was submerged in molasses. She moved around his punch like it was a child’s attempt at martial arts. Her fist rose from beneath, a haymaker blow that caught his chin shattered his teeth into a thousand pieces of bone, his neck snapped with the strain of the blow and he was dead before his body finally hit the ground, several feet away.

It was only a matter of moments before she bore down on the lone survivor, who, it seemed, had met up with a getaway crew, the small knot of them gathered around a car as the girl with the dark hair and inked arms tried to get into the car. One of the men, who had, it seemed, fallen to his knees in his hurry to escape the oncoming carnage that had surged across the lot on a wave of blood and fury, caught a set of claws through the base of his neck, severing his spine as she ripped the back of his neck to shreds, nearly severing his head as she tossed him away, the others that surrounded the car forgotten for the moment. Her eyes were only for that girl.

She was going to pay for what she had so stupidly chosen to do, for who she had so stupidly chosen to do it to.

In the haze of her fury, in the predatorial focus of her rage, the sound of a body scrambling over the chain-link fence that surrounded the lot didn’t even register in Tigra’s brain. All that mattered was the girl in front of her, even as the men that surrounded them both turned on the out of control vampiress.

Another bullet stung her as it entered beneath her ribs, catching her in the gut as she continued to close the distance between her and that girl. Another catching her leg. She didn’t break stride. She was almost upon her goal. It was almost over. Then, she could turn on the new threat.

Then she could be at peace, even if only for a moment.

[Sadie (DELETED 9920)]

Sadie watched “Jimmy” take a few steps back. The man then turned and walked toward a black BMW. Jimmy had any ugly scar from his right temple down toward the right corner of his mouth, as if he had succeeded in winning, or possibly losing, a knife fight. The ring leader, having recovered from the defensive attack, grabbed Sadie by her dark locks and proceeded to drag her along the rough, cracked asphalt toward the BMW. The vehicle's tinted windows hid two or three other men from view, as far as Sadie thought. She thought she caught glimpses of shadows, outlines of heads. “Let go of me!” Sadie cried out, her hands going toward her hair as if to fight off the man's hold and untangle her hair from his fingers. Instead, the man gave a particularly rough tug and the base of Sadie's spine connected hard with the pavement. She let out a hiss of pain and her hands immediately went to cradle her injury, but they dragged along the ground, rocks cutting into the flesh on her palms. “I'll tell you whatever you want,” she lied, knowing she'd never betray her best friend. “Don't take me,” she pleaded, “please don't take me.”

Jimmy had the trunk open on the BMW. He had his face buried in there, obviously searching through the contents for a length of rope. The leader, however, had grown impatient. Instead of waiting for Jimmy, he’d dragged Sadie to the back of the car and dropped her, rather roughly, onto the ground. Her head bounced off the pavement and she saw stars. The pain reverberated through her entire body and then centered on her skull. Warm blood leaked down the side of her face. “I can’t find it, Frankie,” Jimmy said, finally raising his head from within the trunk. “We must have used the last on that Wilford guy,” Jimmy frowned, ready to close the trunk.

“Why don’t you give her my home address to, you putz?” Frankie reached out and slapped the back of Jimmy’s head. The man had ducked though, so Frankie’s hand only skimmed the top of Jimmy’s head. Frankie shoved some things aside and produced a length of rope. Jimmy ducked his head, clearly embarrassed, and stepped away from the trunk. “Now tie her up and let’s get the **** out of here.” Frankie tossed the rope to his lackey. Around that time, Sadie recovered from the sudden drop and began to scoot away from the approaching gangster lackey. Her back ached. Her hands throbbed. But she refused to give up and let them take her, not alive. Sadie grabbed some of the loose dirt and rocks and threw them up into Jimmy’s face. Some of the dirt got into Jimmy’s eyes and he yelled out a string of profanities.

Around that time, several things happened. The doors on the BMW opened, and two other men emerged from the backseat, each holding a gold-plated handgun. Frankie drew his own pistol. And a girl, no older than twenty, came racing down the alley. The sound of a gun clattering against the pavement the only warning of her quick approach. Her clothing was torn on her knees and near the bottom hem of her shirt, as if she’d just thrown herself over a dividing fence. The girl attracted the attention of the two gangsters and they immediately pointed their guns at her. Jimmy still struggled to regain his eyesight. Frankie, however, had been temporarily distracted. Sadie scrambled to her feet, dizzy as she was, and thrust her palm right at Frankie’s nose. The man fell to his knees, cradling his seemingly broken nose -- Sadie certainly didn’t remain there to see if she’d succeeded or not. She dove over the hood of the BMW and tore open the driver’s side door.

Jimmy had fallen to his knees. Frankie had both hands cradling his face, trying to simultaneously pinch the bridge of his nose and collect the blood flowing down over his mouth and chin. The two other gangsters finally turned their eyes away from the sprinting girl. She’d jumped over the chainlink fence, her shirt once again caught on the top. When she’d cleared the lot, Sadie found herself in another predicament. A woman emerged from the side of the alley. The girl had been running from someone or something, and Sadie knew right then that the girl had been escaping said woman. Jimmy, even on his knees, had attracted the woman’s attention. In horror, Sadie watched as the newcomer sent claws right through the back of Jimmy’s neck, right at the base of Jimmy’s skull. The two gangsters near the vehicle, Thing One and Thing Two, immediately opened fire.

Bullets dug into the woman’s flesh, but she moved onward as if she were a freight train. The woman seemed indestructible, practically immortal, and Sadie noticed the way the woman seemed focused on her. Frankie finally joined the fray, shouting at his remaining two thugs not to run away, to open fire and take the woman down. He looked a mess, but he had guts. He had a spine that Sadie lacked, for she whipped the car door open and struggled to get inside. Her legs wouldn’t cooperate. Her arms couldn’t move fast enough. She had no keys. Frankie, most likely, held the keys. She lacked the talent to hotwire the vehicle. Realizing she had no chance of a getaway, realizing she would only trap herself within the vehicle, unarmed and all too vulnerable, Sadie threw herself out of the car and scrambled to her feet. She took off running toward the chainlink fence. She tried following in the other girl’s footsteps. She tried. She tried.

“Lou, get that *****! Don’t let her get away. She’s the ticket to my ******* money!” Frankie yelled, his voice muffled slightly by the injury to his nose. Every word must have hurt him even more, but he carried on. “Darrell, keep firing. This must be one of them vampires! She’s like a woman on fire. Aim for her head. No, Darrell, I said her head, you dumb ****! Head shots!”

[Tigra]

Just a graze.

The bullet ricocheted off her skull, the punch of the little metal slug against the side of her head was enough to give another rise to her rage. The sting of the rounds in her body were painful, but the ringing in her ears from the impact against her temple and along the side of her head was agony. She grit her teeth, an animalistic sound of primal fury left her throat as she turned to the man still holding his pistol aloft, the mouth of the barrel pointed for her face.

Darrell.

She would remember the name.

He was the one that had been the target of the big man’s verbal abuse, and he had been the one to draw the short straw of the few that remained in front of her. A spike of pain still reverberated down along her inner ear, her bared teeth dripping the blood of the vanquished as she curled her fingers. Long, deadly talons pressed against the soft flesh of her palms, the skin giving way, parting to allow more of her own blood to join that of her vanquished foes. She took a shallow, rattling breath as she took a step toward the man. He jumped, finger yanking back the trigger as he did his best to fire wildly into the approaching vampire’s face.

The weapon clicked empty. Apparently, he hadn’t been paying attention to the amount of ammunition he had been spraying in her direction, as he should have been.

The first click was followed by a quick succession of sharp, quick clicks, until he lifted his hand and threw the empty gun at her head, the heavy weapon flying wide and high, soaring over her shoulder as she leaped into the man, jaws latching onto his throat as he tried to scream. His wail of terror was silenced with a sickening crunch. Instantly, the big man’s body went limp in her vicelike jaws. Her arms wrapped around him, his spine snapping beneath the power of the hug, several ribs shattering in a quick, popping chorus of agony missed by the dead man with the broken neck.

She drank hungrily, like she was half starved. She had spilled blood aplenty across yards of road she would never visit again, her life spilled across earth that meant nothing. It was a waste, and she knew that it was a waste. That only made her blood boil.

When she tossed the lifeless corpse aside, she lifted a hand and wiped the blood from her chin. She turned on the man that had been shouting the orders. They hadn’t used the man’s name, but she could tell, from the way that he spoke, and the way that the others listened, that he was the man in charge. If she cut off the head of this viper, then she would have an easier time of picking apart the pieces that were left.

Their eyes met, his a smoldering hatred, hers a firestorm of fury.

His anger buckled beneath the flare of her gaze, burned away until he was left bare, charred bones of fear. Frozen in place, he could only watch in paralyzed terror as she approached, slender fingers wrapped gingerly around the butt of his pistol, slipping the weapon from the waistband of his pants. She placed her forearm on Frankie’s still shoulder, barely moving with the shallow breaths of a man in fear for his very life. She turned the pistol on the retreating girl, her original target. She narrowed her gaze, focusing her power into one eye. A faint, red glow emanated from her iris as she focused all of that energy on the back of the retreating girl, her body swaying one way and the other with her furious running.

The Killer exhaled, and for a moment, the world stood still.

Her finger slowly squeezed the trigger, her discipline keeping the weapon trained on the precise spot she intended to fire, and the weapon gave a sharp, angry bark. The man flinched at the sound of the weapon fired so close to his ear, his hand cupping the injured flesh as blood trailed down the side of his face. The bullet zipped through the air at near a hundred thousand miles an hour. The poor thing’s legs never stood a chance.

The small shard of metal pierced her back, just above the waist of her jeans, the round severing her spine and leaving her to tumble to the ground, face-first, her useless legs a twisted heap behind her. Tigra took a breath, pleased, and turned the gun on its owner. He lifted a hand to ward off the inevitable, the weapon’s second bark putting a bullet in his skull.

He fell limp, and the last man turned to run. She emptied the magazine in his back.

The gun clicked empty, and she dropped the weapon to the asphalt, letting it rest with the man that had thought so kindly to bring it along. She had all the time in the world, now. At least, until she heard sirens in the air. Then, she would be in a hurry. But, for the next minute and some change, it was just her and the bleeding girl in the parking lot, as she slowly advanced on the lame woman, her heeled suede boot crunching against the broken asphalt of the old parking lot.

“Not so tough, now, are you?”