Another Monday…and more Axes and Echoes!
When we left Alex, we’d just learned how important her mentor really was to her. Now let’s find out what a vampire hunter in a bad mood does when she’s at loose ends with a long, lonely night ahead!
Author’s Note: Axes and Echoes copyright 2012 by J.S. Wayne. Reproduction or creation of “fan fiction” or other derivative works without prior written authorization by the author is a violation of author’s copyright and will be prosecuted. Reblogging and reposting, with proper accreditation and ONLY in the work’s entirety, is permitted and encouraged. Enjoy!
Chapter Five
May13th, 2012
5:47 p.m.
One of the rules our organization had imposed rigidly and allowed no wiggle room on was that we were prohibited from taking pictures of ourselves or other hunters. We were permitted to have photos with family, but we couldn’t retain any memento which might lead either the vampires or the human authorities to our fellow slayers. Because of this, I had no pictures of Murphy with his large, strong arm wrapped comfortingly around my shoulders or the two of us kissing or mugging for the camera.
Most of the time, I agreed with the rules. As overbearing and constrictive as the strictures often seemed, I understood that all of these guidelines existed to keep the maximum number of people alive, safe, and above all secret.
Tonight I chafed under the weight of these same rules, which had denied me even a tiny photograph of my lover.
Clouds had rolled in to obscure the sky once more as I’d headed for home. By the time I parked the car, a light rain, little more than a mist, had begun to fall. Now I sat out on my balcony ignoring the chilly damp of the early evening, staring into space as I idly puffed a cigarette. To the west, the bay sparkled with stationary lights ringing the shore and slowly moving twinkles betraying the various tugs, cutters, and trawlers as they came into port or headed out into the open ocean. Between the bay and me streetlights winked on in large patchwork banks, punctuated by the warm yellow and cold white of interior lamps and fluorescent lights in buildings, as the major thoroughfares transformed from their daylight aspect of dark asphalt and lighter concrete to glowing threads of red and white.
I ground out the cigarette in the little bucket of sand next to the couch with one hand, the other tapping an idle tattoo on my left thigh. Frowning out into space, I wondered why I suddenly felt so acutely alone.
The answer was disingenuously obvious. I’d had my fill of anonymous and emotionless hookups. Every time I gave myself to a man that way the contact tamed my hunger for physical closeness. At the same time these liaisons only underscored the emotional and spiritual isolation in which I lived. I moved through life just waiting for the night I would be a fraction of a second too slow and one of my fellows would have to do to me what I had done to Murphy, filling the empty hours with activities that lent my life no meaning or definition.
I lit another smoke and blew out a plume of white. Self pity isn’t my style and to be fair I had chosen to become what I was. Whining about the paths my choices had led me down like some bitchy Goth girl who couldn’t accept responsibility for her own life only added a healthy dose of anger to the seething cauldron brewing within me.
With a final angry drag, I snuffed out the cigarette and stormed inside. As I passed through the apartment, I left a trail of clothing strewn behind me. If I’d been expecting anyone or was in any emotional state to concern myself with the cleanliness of my hamster cage, I would have restricted my stripping to the bedroom. Dimly I remembered I hadn’t closed the blinds on my way in and anyone enterprising or lucky enough to be looking through the balcony door would have a dandy view of my backside, but I didn’t care enough to even blush. If some perv happened to be looking in, I hoped they enjoyed the show.
The sarcasm-drenched thought lodged and festered, and for a moment I seriously considered stalking out onto the balcony completely nude and letting whoever cared to take a good long look. A hunter’s life expectancy was abbreviated enough I wasn’t worried about the things “normal” people stress over, like not filing taxes or little things like public indecency raps. The odds of the law catching up with me before my lifestyle did were so vanishing slim they didn’t even merit consideration.
Two things stopped me.
First, drawing that kind of attention would be like sending the police an engraved invitation to come on in and poke around my world as much as they liked. No, Officer, no search warrant needed, just tromp around and snoop to your heart’s content. What, that axe? The one that looks just a little too well-worn to be entirely ornamental? Well, ya see, it’s like this…
Second, my body was not public property. What I did within my own four walls was my own damn business.
Besides, the chill outside made the thought of standing naked on the balcony exceedingly unpleasant.
In my bedroom, I quickly donned hunter’s tactical blacks. If anyone asked, I had a job as a night security guard with the badge and identification card to prove it, so none of my neighbors had any reason to get terribly interested in where I went at odd hours or why. Should I happen to get pulled over by a bored police officer with nothing better to do, I was already in their system. My organization takes the cover of its operatives very seriously and makes damn sure law enforcement doesn’t get too curious about us.
Although I was off the clock tonight, I could still go in for a couple hours and work out in the well-equipped gym. Working up a good sweat and developing my techniques on the axe, followed by a couple hundred rounds through my revolver, couldn’t hurt anything and might actually help keep me alive to fight another night. With any luck, I’d exhaust myself enough to fall asleep at what passed for a reasonable hour without nightmares.
Before I pulled out of my spot, I plugged in my MP3 player and brought up a playlist of female-fronted metal groups, setting the list to shuffle. A screaming guitar arpeggio surged up from the speakers to meet the thundering bass drum, the singer snarling over the top about the lies of both damnation and redemption as I reversed. Shifting into drive, I mashed the gas pedal to the floor and tore out of the garage to force my way into the Seattle evening traffic.
Ten minutes later I was flying down the highway at twenty over the limit, slamming my open hand down on the steering wheel and keeping only the barest of lookouts for the law, screaming along with “Unleashed” by Epica. The lead’s voice was better than mine, but I didn’t care. What mattered was the release of my raw, angry emotions and the glissando descent into mechanical calm signaling catharsis, if I could only reach that magnificent plateau and leap over the edge.
Tears streaked my face as I howled out the song, and I let them fall as they would, loneliness and anger and terror fed into the blast furnace powering my voice. I roared my defiance of fate into the night with the increasing pressure of my foot on the pedal, the ear-shattering volume of the song, and my own breath.
If the night or its denizens paid any heed or cared to answer my challenge, it gave no sign I could readily interpret as such.
