“Shh.” Foxx held his hand up, slipping into his bloodline powers. He hissed, grabbing hold of the arm of the illuminated figure inches from him. At that moment, the illusion shattered.
“What the fuck?” Harlow cursed behind him.
The heartbeats were indeed fake. For all ten of the vampires they’d come to kill were splayed out around on the hardwood floor, bodies twisted at odd angles, coated in blood. Their eyes empty, some locked forever in shock, others in horror. Most of them were currently separated from their heads. While blood splatter coated the floor and walls.
The other vampire hissed, jerking from his hold and jumping back.
They stared at each other silently for a moment. The other vampire was…eighty years younger than him. Her age would make her a pain in the ass. Yet…the proof that the illusionist line was struggling to reach their full potential due to lack of knowledge had been really driven home. How could a vampire, even at this age, not be able to maintain their powers? A minor loss of concentration and the illusion had been broken.
“Old, but lacking,” Foxx mused. “Harlow, stay back. She is too strong for you.”
“What?!” the human barked, sounding offended.
“Stay. Back,” he growled, sprinting towards the other vampire. The woman met his attack, claws drawn.
There would be no simple snapping of life lines here. It wouldn’t have worked, even if he tried. The vampire was too old. One’s lines strengthened with age, becoming harder to break with each year lived. The ability to kill with a snap of a thread all depended on how much older one was compared to their victim. There needed to be at least a hundred years difference, if not more.
They clashed again and again. As their claws met, instead of blocking her right hand, he took that moment to grab hold of her wrist. Twisting, she cried out. Foxx spun her around, yanking her arm hard behind her back, and rammed her forward into the wall, blood spurting from her nose as it collided. She struggled, and he intended to break her arm, but was forced to release her and jump back to avoid her claws when she grew them out in an attempt to pierce him with them.
He was about to re-engage, but a shot rang out. The female vampire dodged it as if it was nothing.
“Harlow!” Foxx snapped without looking back.
“I’m bored,” Harlow said without emotion. He fired again, and again. Each time the female vampire dodged the bullet.
“She’s too old for bullets, Harlow!” Foxx snapped with irritation.
“No one is too old for bullets. All it takes is one wrong move.”
Foxx snorted and crossed his arms, leaning against a support beam, just watching as the situation turned ridiculous. Bullet may hurt, but they could never kill a vampire this old. Though, regardless of age, killing any vampire with a gun wasn’t… Well, it just wasn’t the ideal weapon of choice—took too many bullets.
Harlow drove her back against the far wall with his firing. For a brief second, he saw her eyes bounce between them, and then by the next shot she was crashing through the window.
“What the hell?” Foxx rasped.
He made it to the window first, but Harlow wasn’t far behind, even with his human speed. Foxx had gotten there just in time to witness her disappear into the dense woods.
“Well, fuck, now what?” Foxx sighed. He glanced up at the human. “I am not chasing after her in the snow.”
“I mean…she wasn’t on our list anyway… Even if this is mildly concerning.”
Foxx listened to see if maybe she was sneaking around, and instead of her heartbeat, he heard an odd ticking noise…
He frowned and breathed in deeply, catching a new scent he hadn’t noticed before.
“What? What’s wrong?” Harlow asked, brow raised.
His eyes went wide the minute his brain put the scent and sound together. Glancing around rapidly, without a second to spare, Foxx shoved Harlow back, right before the bomb went off.
Harlow drew in a gasp of air, eyes jerking open as his consciousness came rushing back to him. His vision swayed, even as he laid there, a high pitch sound ringing in his ears. The throb in his head pretty much spread throughout his body…the aches blending and beating in time together. Despite all the pain, his thirst was somehow still able to make itself known. His mouth felt dry as a desert.
Harlow laid there for a moment, staring blankly as he tried to take stock of himself. Nothing felt broken. Things hurt, some more than others. But not broken…maybe. His head and back hurt like all hell, and… Harlow groaned as he pushed up into a sitting position and glanced down.
He sighed at the sight of his torn pants and the long, heavily bleeding gash along his right leg. Yep, that explained the stinging and wetness.
Why did it always have to be his right fucking leg? Did he not have enough scars and old injuries there? For once, could it not have been his fucking left? And fucking fuck, what the hell was with all the explosions lately?!
The floor underneath his hands was cold to the touch, and definitely not wooden. Harlow glanced around, taking in the destruction, and the fact that he was now in the basement. The first floor above was barely hanging on. While he could see sections of the floor above near the front door hanging down, the door frame itself was gone. The upper floors of the house seemed to be held up by a few spare wooden beams that had survived. Through the rising smoke, he could see that the ceiling of the second floor was sagging dangerously, obviously minutes from collapsing. Yet…it didn’t look damaged, other than it had lost most of the support beams holding it up.
