Prince of Pierce - Act 4
Niki ducked low as the blade split the air above her head. She dashed to one side and took an experimental swipe with her stake. Pierce was out of the way before any of her force was really behind it and she had time to abort the move before it threw her off-balance.
She lifted her leg to allow the blade to sail under her knee, bringing her elbow down into the vampire’s shoulder. He snarled and shoved her close body off his own and followed through with a wide swipe with the sword. The slight resistance to its flight told him he had cut her, but her torn shirt was all that was injured.
She feinted left, then right and finally ploughed into him head on, driving her knee into his stomach and seizing his shoulders for a head-butt. He saw it coming and, since his blade was wrong way up, jarred her jaw with the hilt. She staggered back and found herself in the arms of the vampire in black. He was grinning.
“You’re all alone now,” he said with a kind of glee. “They’re all gone... no one to come to your rescue.” With a fierce brutality, he shoved her off-balance back towards the sword-wielding vampire.
She swung high, making Pierce duck, and scissor kicked him in the face. He staggered back and nearly dropped the sword. In less than a second, however, he had regained his balance and came at her full force. She caught his arm and was about to transfer his momentum into a face-first collision with a tree, when he grabbed the collar of her leather jacket and brought them both tumbling to the ground.
With a snarl, Pierce tried to shove her off of him, but she pinned his one arm above his head and the other was pinned behind his back, with the blade clutched in it. This wasn’t going as he had planned. He smelled anger on her. Frustration with the hint of hopelessness, but not terror. Not a trace.
“Kill her,” he hissed to the vampire who stood in the shadows. Pierce struggled admirably, smashing his forehead into the Slayer’s face, making her bleed, but she would not be moved.
The vampire in black walked casually from the shadows and bent to speak into the Slayer’s ear. “They’re all happier, you know: without you.” He drew his lips back over his perfect white teeth. “They all have the lives they wanted before they met you: before you fucked them up.”
Niki grated her teeth. Holding down Pierce left her no free hand to punch this creep in the face. Punching him now, perhaps playing her favorite game with him was something she looked forward to. Letting go of Pierce, however, was not.
"Addison doesn't have to put up with your attitude," the vampire grinned. "Logan is finally happy with his family... and Pearce. Pearce has the life he's always wanted. The life he'd lost."
“Just kill her,” Pierce hissed, his struggles lessening as he found himself unable to move. This was terribly embarrassing. He felt his face returning to normal and Niki found herself looking down at the face of Pearce. The Pearce she had shared drinks with, shared a career with and shared her considerable drink-induced troubles with. For the barest moment she flinched.
That was all the Prince of Pierce needed. With a titanic shove, he threw her onto her back and leapt upon her, sword-tip first. She rolled and the sword pierced only the ground, but both were soon on their feet.
“Are you here to help me or not?” Pierce demanded, glancing occasionally to his supposed ally in the shadows. The vampire said nothing.
A smile flashed onto Niki’s lips. “He can’t help you,” she grinned. “He’s all talk: just like you. You’re nothing.”
Pierce’s face morphed and with a sneer he brought his sword in a series of descending arcs, catching the leather of her jacket and flinging sparks into the night as he struck a metal zipper. Her grunt and sudden lack of agility signaled he had cut flesh.
“All talk?” he laughed. “You’d be nothing without me.” He raised the sword and she just barely jumped out of its way as it carved a wedge from a large maple. “All you have you owe to me. All your victories you owe to me! What do I get for it?” He swung the blade so fast it was invisible in the darkness. She was backing up now, further and further, her hand clutching her bloodied shoulder. “Jokes! Pity! Betrayal!” He snarled and advanced on her, determined and unstoppable. Pitiless. “For this!?” he shook the silver bracelet with contempt.
“They’re all gone,” the vampire in black said from behind the Prince. The two of them advanced on her together. The puppet and the puppeteer. “To help you, they’d be abandoning their happiness for someone unworthy of the title Slayer.” He chuckled. “You’re a disappointment.”
Niki’s jaw tensed. She’d heard this speech before. She didn’t need to hear it again. “No I’m not,” she said no louder than a whisper. With a fiery gleam in her eyes she twirled the stake in her hand and brought her arm back for a pitch. She’d taken on hundreds of vamps before. Two was a walk in the park. “I get the job done,” she said, baring her teeth. The stake flew from her arm so fast she had trouble imagining how far it had actually gone.
Pierce howled and looked down to the ground where he had dropped his sword. His hand was anchored securely to his left thigh where the stake had pierced him. He stumbled back with considerable pain and the Slayer took his moment of weakness to act.
Moving as quietly as the wind, she rushed him and took his throat and threw him like a doll onto the ground. With a growl of pain, he tore his hand from the stake in his thigh and then tore the stake from his flesh. He leapt to his feet but as soon as he put weight on his leg he staggered sideways in pain. His face melted back to its human features and he groaned in pain. He looked over to the vampire behind the Slayer with a look bordering on betrayal. “Kill her!” he hollered.
The vampire smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “Unlike her— you’re not alone.” He stepped back into the shadows and disappeared from sight. But he was quite correct. Pierce was not alone.
From the shadows of the trees, forms emerged. Vampire forms. They formed a large circle around the Slayer and the Prince, shoulder to shoulder they were impenetrable and daunting. One of them stepped forward and grinned. “Hello, boss,” he said with a grin.
Pierce’s eyes widened. They then settled on Niki with a practiced look of greedy hunger. The look was easy to wear and felt comfortable like a glove. There would be terror aplenty tonight. “Fetters,” the Prince licked his lips. “Good to see you again...”
The vampire known as Fetters laughed and found the kenjutso sword in the grass. He brought it over to the Prince with a kind of reverence. A kind of respect. Pierce kept the smile tight on his lips. They were all here: Fetters... Mault... Smitty. All of his old gang.
“We’ve got ourselves a god damned family reunion here,” he laughed through forced good humor. All of them were here. The rage boiled up in his throat. His entire life as a prince could be summed up with the people who now stood in the circle around the Slayer and him.
Fetters knelt and presented the sword as Pierce kept all his weight on his right leg. His smile hid his furiously working jaw. His hand gripped the sword from the vampire’s outstretched hands, his knuckles white: The only thing he hated more than the wish which had made him impotent was the gang which had betrayed him because of it.
With his eyes glinting off the reflected light of the bloodied blade, Pierce clenched the blade in a fist so tight he could barely feel it. Time slowed as it always did in moments of perfect vengeance. The cold air filled his lungs and he let out a savage cry of fury, swinging the blade through the cold winter air, taking his kneeling subject’s mocking head from his body. Never again would he laugh at a Prince. With a turn faster than thought itself, he took off the head of the startled Mault behind him. Before the two piles of dust had registered with the others, Pierce had vaulted painfully into the center of the circle of traitors next to the astounded and confused Slayer. With little more than a glance to her, he handed her the stake covered with his blood and turned his back to her, readying his blade for more beheadings.
“Okay,” he said just loud enough for her to hear. “We’ve had our fun: worked off a little aggression, but these fuckers mean business.” With a snarl he spat at the nearest vampire. Slowly, the circle of the most deadly vampire gang in the city was closing around the bleeding Slayer and the injured vampire.
Niki took the chance that he had just irreparably alienated himself from his former gang and decided to save his dusting for later. She gripped the stake and widened her stance, glancing uncertainly between the vivid looks of death which closed in around them. Time to play...
“We’ve taken worse,” Pierce said encouragingly. “There’s only... two or three dozen of them...” The Slayer and the Prince circled back to back inside the noose of vampires. If there was terror here, it was not in his enemies’ eyes.
Niki looked around, searching for something... anything. “This would be a good time for the cavalry...” she hissed, putting on the fiercest face she could. These creatures were in no hurry as they closed the distance between predators and prey.
“Assuming they’re not coming,” Pierce said with a gallows humor smile, “that is to say; that you’ve done a better job in alienating your gang than I just did mine, shall we get a few things settled?”
“How many things do you think we have time for?” she answered, feeling the very breath of the gang now mere meters away.
“Well, first of all, I really respect you as a person–” Pierce said with a wry smile.
Niki shuddered to think where this was going. “Fuck it,” and she jumped into battle.
Pierce laughed triumphantly and launched himself at his traitorous gang. Tonight was as good a night as any to start building a new set of ‘good old days’. Tonight was an excellent night for revenge. The Prince’s blade lived up to its owner’s reputation, impaling many of his former allies before dusting them with a hack to the neck.
Niki killed her share of the fiercest gang in the city before a fist caught her injured shoulder and she was dragged to the frosty ground. Boots slammed into her stomach and face and the stake was pulled from her hand. So sure was she that this was the cold and bitter end that she could have sworn a light was ready to take her away. But the pain of the beating didn’t fade, as she expected it should in death.
Pierce howled in fury as he was overwhelmed and pulled to the bottom of a knot of vicious cheap shots. He felt a great deal of attention being paid to his injured leg, as his old gang took particular pleasure in exploiting his already immense pain. Then he felt the white hot flash he expected from being decapitated. But the pain in his leg didn’t end suddenly and he still felt remarkably undusted. With a frown, he didn’t notice at first as his assailants abandoned him.
The bright light moved into the midst of the two clusters of attackers, striking out with bolts of unleashed energy as only a small claims lawyer could unleash it. As the vampires fell here and there, smoking and then bursting into flames, Logan’s power quickly waned and he shouted something that no one but the necessary deities could hear.
With an ear-tearing explosion, everyone still standing was flung far from the center of the fray, the light of the energy driving them into fiery oblivion. Some were able to get back to their feet and took off into the concealing darkness of the deeper shadows, but within seconds, those who had not were dust on the frost.
Logan collapsed onto the suddenly dark ground and fell face first into the grass. Niki was on her feet and at his side as soon as she realized what had happened. Pierce took slightly longer to recognize his continued state of undeath.
Looking about himself with a nod, he clapped his hands together with satisfaction. “Well, that takes care of them.” He walked nonchalantly to Niki and the prostrate man in the black turtleneck. “I was wrong about you,” he said with a nod. “You’re not alone.” He nudged Logan’s arm with his toe. “You must be really good in bed—”
In a flash, Niki had seized her stake and drove Pierce up against a tree, her arm across his throat, her stake pressing painfully into his ribs. “Give me one reason not to kill you,” she said venomously, her eyes thin slits, her breath hissing between her teeth.
“Ugh,” Logan groaned and raised himself to his forearms.
Niki glanced back at him and pressed all that much harder on Pierce so as not to lose the advantage. “One reason,” she hissed.
The vampire felt her anger. Felt her righteous hate. Unlike terror, which was like a good strong whiskey, one which he could drink all night long, her anger was like a warm blanket and without meaning to, she had wrapped him in it and he had never felt more secure. “One reason?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. Just because he felt safe, didn’t mean he wasn’t moments away from death.
“What’s going on?” Logan croaked from behind them.
Then Pierce caught something in her scent that sent a spike of fear up his own spine. The smile dropped off his face. All thoughts of joviality dissolved like his former gang. “You will not kill me,” he said with complete seriousness, “because I forbid it.”
Niki squinted. “What?”
“You will not kill me,” he commanded. “This fight is over. Take Logan and go home.”
Niki Valtaine stepped back with a look of complete confusion. What was he talking about? Despite her all encompassing desire to drive the stake through the non-existent heart of his, she found herself picking Logan from the frost covered ground and helping him back toward the cold streets of the city. What the hell was he talking about?
Pierce watched them go with a creeping sense of dread. No matter how she felt about him... She was bound to obey him. All this time, since Addison had left... She had obeyed him. Not because he was her Watcher...
Pearce held the cold air in his lungs for agonizing minutes as the two disappeared into the darkness of the night. “Because I infected her.”
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