Homepage About Books Blog The Yellow Sun Press Store Contact

Unnatural Disaster

The city was unusually still in the deep darkness. The multicolored, fluorescent lights that lit up the buildings flickered a few times before they left the city nothing but large dark shapes carved out in the blackness of the night. With the moon hidden behind the ebony clouds there was nothing but the soft glow of a few headlights of drivers who were still trying to make their way home in this State of Emergency. The rain was still falling heavily and the wind picking up.

A tornado alert for New York City was beyond unusual, or so Raven thought as she stood atop one of the tall buildings. She looked down over the city, then took a deep breath, breathing in the cold fall air. All was going as planned. Sure, the storm was big but it was nowhere near what a tornado was. The ‘gale force winds’ were enough to blow around a few of the metal trash bins out into the street but otherwise the entire disaster had been man-made.

The Administration had a few friends in high places, and if the city could be made safer by turning the power of the city off for just a few minutes so be it. Of course, the not so holy powers that be would only allow a three minute window. And as the final lights went out Raven hit the trigger on her stop watch.

She immediately started her descent from the top of the building, the thick tether attached to an iron anchor. The light bungee material would make for an easy escape if anything went wrong, and the charm around her neck that was oh-so conveniently hidden under her skin-tight black attire would keep the vampires from feeling her aura.

She lowered herself to the window of a large, penthouse apartment, the harness keeping her steady, or at least steadier than she could have been on her own. She pulled a small diamond razor from a pack at her side and cut a large fragment out of the window, pushing it inward. The sound of the heavy crash left no reason for her to be stealthy anymore. She slid in through the new opening she had created and instantly pulled her gun.

She didn’t expect this particular vampire to just attack, he was too clever for that. She kept her wits to her as she started to inch around the apartment, her shoes barely leaving prints on the soft off-white carpet. Alexander would be have been so angry if she had left any marks.

She should have stepped in mud first.

As she rounded the corner she heard a soft sound behind her and started to turn, but suddenly the vampire she was looking for was right in front of her. He hadn’t come from behind and that had caught her off guard.

He grabbed her wrists, knocking the gun from her hand and shoved her against the wall. She kicked back off the wall and flung her body over his head, landing behind him and slamming him into the wall where she had just nearly been pinned.

“Alexander,” she greeted him lightly, like an old friend.

“Mirth,” he smiled back to her despite the pain racing up his arm and into his shoulder. He cringed a little as she twisted his arm further. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t like that name, do you?”

“Not much,” she said lightly as she pulled her spare gun and put it to the back of his head. “You’re off your game tonight, sweetheart,” she pointed out as she wrapped the tether around his wrists to hold him as she readied her gun. The kickback could have knocked her aim off if she didn’t steady with two hands.

He shrugged lightly, he didn’t seem very concerned with the gun pressed against his occipital bone. “It’s been a bad week.”

“Awe,” she pouted, “Then let me end the week for you with a bang.” She pulled the trigger and he yanked at the cord. Wrapping his wrists in the cord that was attached to her had been a stupid move that she normally would not have made if she hadn’t been in such a rush. But that three minute limit was putting her on edge.

The sudden pull forward by the vampire was worse than the kickback from the gun would have been and the girl hit the floor hard, banging her elbow off the ground, but she somehow managed to keep a hold on the gun. Alex yanked the cord again as she took aim. The bullet whizzed past him, high off target and dug into the ceiling.

The little alarm on her wristwatch went off, letting her know she only had thirty seconds before the power came back on, and the alarms with it. Raven struggled to break free of the harness, if she could kill Alexander she could reattach it somehow later. Rig it up. Anything was better than letting him live. The vampire was over two thousand years old and was a pain in the world’s ass for just as long. As if having a slave trade and a drug ring wasn’t enough to get every vampire hunter within the city bounds after him, the way he targeted out hunters and their families had earned him even more of a reputation - and even more of a bounty on his head.

Alexander’s aura whipped out at Raven suddenly, pushing her back toward the window. The buzzers suddenly went off, an emergency system that the entire building had set up went off, sending shrill high pitched echoes through the room. The noise caused the vampire to stammered, his eyes dilating suddenly as he stumbled backward. Raven took the moment. She readied her gun, aimed, and fired, but it bounced back. The charms were a double edged sword and she hadn’t realized it. Sure, he couldn’t sense her aura, but she couldn’t sense his either. He had kept it up as a shield just in case she decided to attack during his sudden weak moment.

The sounds of security guards headed for the door echoed in the hallway. Gunshots in a high-society building were a call for alarm after all. The vampire looked toward the door, then back to the hunter. He smirked a little. He shoved her with his aura again, back so she was just clinging to the open glass at the window, the sharpness of it digging into her hand, slicing it as she clung to it, suddenly thankful that she hadn’t managed to get out of her harness, it was the only real thing keeping her from falling. And then it hit her. The only thing that was keeping here there was - Alexander smirked and held his wrists up, the cord tied around his wrists. It wouldn’t have made sense if he were human, his weight holding her there, especially not with his smallish build, but being a vampire gave him more unseen strength.

“I’ll see you later,” he laughed as he pulled his wrists apart, giving sudden giving enough slack for Raven to fall out of the forty story building.

Her body pulled forward for a split moment as he created the slack, but she fell backward before she could grab onto anything solid enough to keep her there. She closed her eyes and clung to the tether - the only thing she had near her to cling to, as she plummeted toward the streets. The city was back alive, the lights flying past her as she fell, but when she hit the twenty fifth story her bungee kicked in and slowed her fall. when she hit the ground softly she looked up in shock, she had expected the vampire to cut the rope and let her die. She had thought he already had.

He looked down at her through the window and waved a little before he finally cut the rope with her safely on the ground. He disappeared back into his apartment, leaving the hunter puzzled on the street below, the words caught in her throat finally able to escape: “What the Hell?”