I guess it would have been a great idea to gather all my weapons before I left the mansion, instead of grabbing my bow and few left arrows and leave everything else behind. Or maybe it should have been even a brighter idea to borrow one of the cars from the driveway I've passed through on my way out of the werewolf territory. Hell, even hitch-hiking on the old highway that passes on the north side of this forest could have been a better idea, than wandering into the woods alone and unproperly armed.
But no, Aline Thrussell just loves putting herself in a great amount of unnecessary dangerous situations. When I've proudly declared myself a trouble-lover, I didn't mean that I adore putting an unhumanly great amount of effort into trying to keep myself alive through all the messed-up situations I end up in every single god-damned day. I meant that in a fun way! But wishing to bungee jump from the stratosphere is not on the same level of dangerousness like trying to survive a den of thirsty vampires with three sticks in your arrow bag and a butter-knife dagger in your right boot. I don't know if I'm mentally disabled enough to put myself voluntarily in this suicidal situations, or if I'm fate's favourite person to torture, but it doesn't even matter anymore.
I've been too many times in this kind of do-or-die situations to recognise one where neither fleeing the scene neither fighting my adversaries won't ensure my survival. It's just the end of the line for me, and I've fully accepted it. I've exceeded everyone's expectations with surviving so long as a hunter. I may have received the best training and excelled into becoming a hunter as good as my older brothers, but my mother always assured me that I'll die before my term. Since I woke up today, I knew she foresaw my future that day. And although I've survived two Lycans and a pack of werewolves, my luck can get me this far.
I've just run out of cards to play.
"She seems really familiar..." speaks one of the vampires, analyzing me like I was some kind of 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I hate those puzzles, I always get bored before I even finish a quarter of it.
"Because she's one of those young, troubled hunters who was sent to clean up after the bloodbath we left last Ash Wednesday," declares another one, remembering his friends about their greatest hit yet.
And indeed, it was a veritable unholy day. A den of vampires murdered and turned an entire church on Ash Wednesday, during the evening service. It's hard to describe the gore and the woe we found inside the church. The vampires were already gone, scared by the hunters that arrived at their crime scene, but they left their masterpiece for us to find. Headless bodies, transitioning humans, children weeping over the bodies of their parents, a whole bloody canvas of loss. For me, the most frightening part was not the scene before me, because unfortunately I was used to the gloom work of these unearthly scourges; it was the way they succeeded into turning a holy place into a hellhole that gave me the chills.
Although the superstitions are not true in the way we know them, because vampires don't die from exposure to sunlight neither tremble in the near presence of garlic or crosses, there is true within them. Vampires are weakened by sulphur and UV radiations and can be, indeed, killed by stabbing their heart with a piece of wood. And although there are light-based charms that keep them away from homes and other places, people started to forget the true words and changing the spells to their liking. Of course, it only made the charm ineffective and the place a safe bet for a vampire. Usually, hunters make sure that sanctuaries are properly guarded, but this church was just built and was supposed to undergo its ritual of fortification the evening after the service. Of course, that never happened and the place is now a safe haven for homeless and street dogs.
"I remember her being more vivacious while cleaning the mess we made," talks the first vampire again, approaching me, "she even appeared unimpressed by our chef-d'oeuvre."
"Is that right, little huntress?" Another vampire approaches me and I grip my bow, ready for the oncoming fight. "Tell me, what is your most frightening memory? What keeps you awake at night? What demons hunt this beautiful head of yours?" I observe him quietly, recognising the trick he was trying to play. He was trying to compel me.
"You really want to know?" I ask him, acting like I was affected by his low-class ability.
"Of course, baby." He approaches me even further and I keep myself still. He is just a few steps away from falling into my trap.
"I can't tell everyone. I-I'm..." I falsely make my voice to tremble, which feeds the ego of the vampire before me. I was dying with laughter in the back of my mind, but I was keeping my acting up and going. Although I will surely die here, I can at least have some fun while going down. "Can I tell only you?"
"Whisper it to me, baby. Tell me all your deepest fears, I want to know all about the darkness that's consuming your light," he tells me in a wanna-be flirtatious voice, but which only makes me want to puke my last-night dinner.
"Come closer..." I ask him, my voice light as a feather and catching him under my spell like the heartless siren that I am. The moment he is close enough, I stick the end of my bow into his chest, stabbing his heart and smirking at the shock that crossed his face as he turned grey and fell like a marble statue on the ground before me.
I hear the other vampires hissing at me and I offered them a smile, before killing two with a single arrow. I strike another one, but I'm unable to retrieve the arrow from the statue laying at my feet because one of his friends decided to be a douche and attack me from behind. I reach to my dagger, cutting his throat so deep that his head was nearly falling off. I snapped it and throw the head directly into the arms of a vampire that wanted to attack me. The monster remained stunned by the way his mate's head ended in his hands, which gave me enough time to stick the headless vampire with an arrow and have him falling dead on the ground. I use the same arrow to kill the horrified vampire holding his pal's head and I run to retrieve it.
I'm pinned to the ground and I try to kick the monster off of me, but he weighs a ton and a half. I groan in exasperation and I try to stab him with my bow, but he manages to take it from my hands and broke it in two. I gasp and he giggles, tossing my destroyed bow aside. Well, now I'm mad. "I fucking adored that bow, you bastard!" I yell at him, grabbing a rock that was almost out of my reach and hitting his head really hard.
The vampire falls off of me, and I was on my feet the second after. I took into my surroundings and the other vampires were dragging their injured friend from the battlefield. They were angry because I managed to kill so many of them. Well, I guess they should only blame themselves: who had the idiot idea of sending their men one by one to fight with me? Didn't they know that I've mastered the art of killing vampires by the time I was thirteen?
"I thought you said that those troubled hunters are easy to take down," I hear one of them whispering to an unusually tall and gloomy vampire, "not that they are god-damned killing machines. She doesn't even have a bruise!"
"Shut it, Kevin," mutters the vampire through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off of me. "Finish her off, boys. We lost enough time with this charade, already." I watch as all the vampires make a step towards me in unison, obeying to the one I assume to be their leader. I clench my fists, as my last line of defence against the monsters before me. Although my chances are infinitesimal, I don't let even a glimpse of fear to cross my face. I really made an impression on these fools, I may as well keep the appearances.