Make it Hurt
***Begin Adult Content: Violence***




Grace was going to have to figure out something. She had a week, seven days to decide what she planned to do about this business with the government poking their noses where they didn't belong. It had occurred to her that she could just pull up stakes and leave Vegas, but this was her city now, hers as much as anyone else's. She'd carved out a niche for herself, and she wasn't giving it up now.

Grace looked down at the foot traffic from her vantage point on the roof, crouched down with her hands folded together under her chin. She had the urge to fight, but she didn't even know who she'd be aiming her frustration at. Couldn't go back to the hotel yet, being indoors made her feel even more restless.

Christ, she hated being interfered with. Before the change, it had been different, she'd usually just resent things in silence, but now? Now being interfered with put her in a killing mood. The vampire pushed herself to a standing position, stalked to the stairs leading down to the street. Maybe she'd find somebody that needed killing down there. This was just going to be one of those nights when that was what she needed to stay her version of sane.

Blood caked on Samantha’s face, three red streaks adorning each cheek. It wasn’t as much a mess as it was the Slayer’s way of being now, something Atia once called “wearing genocide.” It suited Samantha, particularly as she hunched over her latest victim, a heroin addict in the middle of a damp alley who’d been looking for nothing more than her next fix.

Instead, Samantha wound up gutting the emaciated woman, breaking her neck before slicing open her gut and letting her bleed to death. For Samantha, death was no longer the ultimate goal; suffering was. And as she watched the addict bleed, the Slayer’s smile grew with every yelp and scream of pain.

The alley was so deep, and ran in so many directions, it was unlikely any human ears would be able to hear the girl’s cries for help. As the last of her blood flowed and death slowly swept over her, Samantha dipped her fingers in the warm vitae, wearing no emotion on her face as she smeared the liquid on her face.

Somehow, the blood went perfect with the ripped and stained t-shirt she wore, the jeans even more worse for wear. Samantha no longer cared for how she appeared; one needn’t be stylish when bringing suffering to those who deserved it. And everyone deserved it, whether they’d personally screwed Samantha over or not.

The Slayer would no longer suffer in isolation.

It was like a smell, or maybe a sound wave, some form of sonar Grace used when she was trolling particularly hard for someone to smear into a bloody pulp. Whatever it was, she felt the back of her neck prickle as she passed the open mouth of an alley. A moan, a whimper, like a kitten mewling, and the vampire's boots crunched over shards of broken glass as she peered into the badly-lit space. Blood, blood and lots of it. Had she eaten tonight?

She tilted her face up into the slight breeze, separating the scent of blood from that of car exhaust and spilled beer. Nope, her stomach was empty. Served her right for going to that meeting beforehand. That just made her madder.

She moved closer, extracting her straight razor from her jacket pocket. Maybe it was a mugging. If so, there was going to be one dead mugger when she was through. She wondered how many razor cuts it would take to bleed them out slowly.

It should have given her pause when, in the sudden weak light of a single bulb over an open dumpster, she recognized Samantha Blanchard finger-painting with what was still leaking out of a gaping hole in what lay crumpled on the dirty pavement, but it didn't. If she had had a heartbeat, her pulse would have been racing. She flipped the razor open, palming it sharp-side facing outwards. The better to slit your throat, my dear ...

"Well, Goddamn, lookit you, all growed up. Finally grew a pair and decided to do your own killin', did ya?"

The Slayer raised her head and snarled. Her gaze narrowed, eyes squinting as Samantha finally laid eyes on the one she’d been searching for since Atia allowed her escape from the metaphorical womb. Everything Atia did for the Slayer – and to the Slayer – was for this moment, for the chance Samantha had to take out Grace and avenge the vampiress taking away her son.

So no words were uttered as the Slayer lunged forward, tackling Grace to the damp concrete. Nothing needed said; Samantha wasn’t here to talk the vampire’s ear off. She was here to reduce this redneck bitch to the dust pile she deserved to become.

Pinning Grace to the ground, the Slayer’s fists bashed in her nose, breaking blood vessels – and hopefully bone. Samantha’s eyes were nearly as red as the smears on her cheeks, what little humanity remained slowly giving way to a primal animalism, a hunger for nothing short of violence and decay.

Personal safety be damned; Samantha would have hers, even if it killed her.

Caught by surprise, Grace landed hard on her back, and she was unable to dodge the first few blows. But it didn't take her long to get her feet back under her, so to speak, and she punched Samantha in the throat with her other hand. Bitchy McBitch didn't want to talk? Fine. She could play that game all night long.

She'd lost the razor, so she hit the Slayer above the right eye with her fist, then pushed outwards with both feet to shove the blonde away from her. Fuck, you stink, good thing I don't need to breathe.

Her shoulders rolled as she got to her feet, and her eyes were a molten yellow as she set her stance. Fuck with me and die.

The Slayer took a few moments to gather her breath, her palm rubbing the sore spot on her throat briefly. A few coughs and Samantha was back to the land of the breathing, the punch above her eye having cut skin and left a trail of blood trickling down the side of her face, mixing with the marks she’d left on herself.

Samantha smiled as she watched Grace’s face shift from human to demonic, relishing the thought of exacting her revenge on this monster in its truest form. Not that Samantha herself was anything more than a monster of late, considering how willingly she took lives anymore. Killing at random, needing no reason other than an inexplicable bloodlust and the desire to see others suffer as she had.

She was particularly proud of the family she tormented the night before, eviscerating their young children in front of them. First the seven-year-old girl, her insides splattering on the kitchen floor, then the four-year-old boy, hanging my his intestines from the ceiling fan.

She didn’t kill the parents. She merely left them to wallow in the aftermath.

The Slayer grabbed a ceremonial blade from her left ankle, gripping it tightly in her hand. The steel shone under the moonlight, and Samantha was glad she’d sharpened the wooden handle, so she’d be able to attack with either end and deliver the final blow when she’d sufficiently broken the beast.

But she was going to have some fun first.

Deciding another front-on assault probably wasn’t a good idea, Samantha began pacing laterally, looking for any opening she could find. She swooped in from the right, slashing her blade along Grace’s arm before stuffing it in her foot.

The heavy leather jacket protected her from most of the knife's slash, but the Slayer caught a lucky break on the second try. But Grace was a brawler who was used to pain, and her uninjured foot shot out to catch Samantha in the left kneecap. She brought her hands together and brought them down on the Slayer's shoulder, wanting her to lose the heavy blade, then clouted her with her still-clasped hands on the side of the head.

A full-on tackle brought them back right into each other's bubble, down in the bloody mess the blonde had made of her victim, and Grace forced the mortal's knife hand down until it was flush against the concrete. If she could break her wrist, all the better.

This was ... this was fun.

Now smothered in the addict’s drying blood, Samantha grunted as she struggled against Grace’s grasp, somehow keeping her blade in her hand. Her shoulder throbbed in pain, but the Slayer felt a surge of adrenaline because of it, too blinded by rage to care about the things the vampire had done to her body.

“You’ll pay … disgusting whore …”

Those first words came with Samantha’s free hand grabbing the back of Grace’s head, fingernails digging into her scalp and pulling out hair. The Slayer pushed Grace’s face closer to hers, head-butting the vampire before sitting up and biting into her shoulder with a growl.

Using what strength the adrenaline afforded her to push herself from Grace, Samantha came away with a chunk of dead flesh clutched in her teeth, her primal expression growing darker as she licked off the blood and tossed the flesh back at the vampire.

Oh, so that was what the attack-first policy was about. Baby got her life flushed down the toilet. It came to Grace in a flash as the head-butt sent stars spinning in front of her eyes, and she felt flesh tear loose from her shoulder before she broke the Slayer's wrist and wrenched the knife out of her grasp. The blade was heavy and ornate, and she pondered the best place to stick it so that the blonde wouldn't get up from it.

"That what yer on about, you fuckin' loser?" she sneered, driving her foot into the other woman's solar plexus. "Me makin' an example out of your useless ass?" She slammed Samantha back to the stained concrete, using her full bulk to try and pin the other woman down. Her empty hand grabbed for the mortal's throat, the thumb questing for her windpipe.

"Here, lemme help you. You might learn somethin'." The point of the knife found the Slayer's right thigh, and Grace punched it through fabric and into flesh an inch at the time. Then twisted the hilt when experience told her it had punctured muscle.

“Example?” Samantha grunted, wincing as she felt her wrist snap into three different pieces. Oh, it hurt, but for some reason, the adrenaline didn’t really let it register.

“You think … you think killing Gerald and framing me so they’d take my son away was making an example of me?” Samantha wanted to hear the reasoning behind this – really, she did. Laughing was something she hadn’t done since they threw her in jail. The most she ever managed in Atia’s presence was a deranged cackle.

But instead of laugh, Samantha screamed as the blade bore its way into her leg, tearing and twisting through her muscle. The Slayer’s body shook, her windpipe constricted as her fingernails dug deep enough into Grace’s wrist to draw blood. Movement was almost impossible given their position, but Samantha, lips stained with the vampire’s blood, spat in the bitch’s face before using her free hand to pull out a large chunk of hair and shove it down Grace’s throat.

Grace pushed down harder on Samantha's trachea, spitting hair out of her mouth even as her other hand shoved the knife in deeper, almost using it as a metal phallus in search of a mate. This bitch was in her world now, if the way she was acting was any indication, and she had stepped into her world on a night when she just so happened to be really fucking pissed off. Bad mistake on her part.

"You wanna know why? There is no why. Because you were there. And because I felt like it." The blade slipped in deeper, and the vampire added more pressure before yanking the haft of the weapon in the other direction.

"I'm sure he's happier without ya. Safer, hmm?" Twist, yank. And the Slayer's breathing must be rapidly shutting off by now. Because Bitchy McBitch was exactly like the government fucks, always trying to get her on a leash. Grace, calm down; Grace, behave yourself; Grace, listen to reason. Fuck that shit.

"'Sides, all I was gonna do was kill ya a little. Now I gotta make it hurt."

Breathing grew tougher, and even as the Slayer felt herself about to black out, she mustered up as much strength as she could and jammed her free fist into Grace’s side, smiling when she heard the tell-tale crack of ribs. At least two were broken, and if Samantha had her way, she’d yank them out of Grace’s chest and gouge out her eyeballs with them.

But for the time being, she’d settle for other ways. Choking and sputtering in a gasp for oxygen – unlike her nemesis, Samantha was still tied down by the constraints of mortality – the Slayer grabbed the wrist choking her, tugging and twisting to the right until yet another crack echoed in the alley, Grace’s wrist broken much the way Samantha’s was.

The blade in her leg was a hindrance, but amid the rage and adrenaline, the Slayer paid it no mind other than realizing that particular leg couldn’t move.

If Grace didn’t need a reason, then neither did Samantha.

Grace felt her wrist break, and the hand that had been playing Pin the Tail on the Slayer made a fist and punched the blonde above her left eye, making contact with her forehead with a blow that threatened to crack bone. Tucking the injured limb against her compact frame, she circled left, watching the blood drip out of the mortal's leg wound. Maybe it wasn't that bad that she hadn't eaten tonight. She'd never tasted Slayer before.

"It’s a little harder when you're pickin' on someone your own size, ain't it, girly-girl?"

It occurred to her that this could be her first unofficial act of public service, and she let that amuse her while she made a feinting grab for the knife as if she meant to tear it free of the Slayer's thigh. Just a little distraction while the wench tried to get her air back, that was all she needed.

“You fail to realize,” Samantha began, starting to get her breath back, spitting blood out of her mouth. “All your effort to hurt Samantha, you already succeeded.”

The heroin addict was still fresh in the Slayer’s nostrils, only feeding her already-raging adrenaline. Samantha remained pinned to the ground with her injured leg, but that didn’t stop her from using her good arm to clock Grace upside the head, scratching a chunk off her ear and breaking the skin of the vampire’s cheek.

The Slayer silently wished she’d brought one of her other weapons, as the only one she had on her was currently lodged in her thigh. Removing it was out of the question – particularly as Grace appeared ready to do just that – but the Slayer squinted with rage and wore a wicked grin.

Being framed for Gerald Watkins’ murder sucked, as did getting thrown into the slammer. But when Cory was taken from her, that was when a large part of Samantha Blanchard died. So, in a way, Grace killed the Slayer. For everything Atia did for and to Samantha, it was the loss of her son that ultimately led her down this path.

“Samantha doesn’t live here anymore …”

"You're right. She doesn't."

Grace took the blow from the Slayer's arm full in the face, then grabbed the limb just below the elbow and used it as leverage to yank the blonde closer for a punishing head-butt. With such proximity having been established, the vampire went for Samantha's throat, getting good purchase on her jugular vein as fangs tore through flesh and the blood started to flow.

It was like fire pouring into her mouth, and Grace battened on harder, latching her fingers through the ones on Samantha's usable hand to keep her pinned even as the new position of their bodies caused the knife in the mortal's leg to change its angle. Grace thought she heard metal grating against bone. She was in up to the gumline, drinking for all she was worth, tasting copper and something oddly sickly sweet under that even as she felt the Slayer's heartbeat thundering in the confines of her ribcage. Heavenly Slayer ambrosia ...

She wanted to die? They could fix that shit up right here and right now.

Samantha didn’t scream. Partly because she didn’t want to give Grace that satisfaction, but mostly because it didn’t really hurt that much. Not that the Slayer particularly enjoyed having her neck torn open and her heart now serving as a keg, but it wasn’t something she was going to scream bloody murder over.

But the Slayer did grunt, flinching at the first break of her skin. There was an odd rush feeling her blood forced from her vein and down the vampire’s throat, and for the moment, the throbbing pain in her leg died down. The pain was still there, but Samantha didn’t pay it as much mind.

Grabbing the back of Grace’s head, Samantha decided she’d had enough of her little snack. A tuft of hair squeezed into the Slayer’s head as she yanked back, staring at Grace’s monstrous gaze and the blood staining her lips and teeth. With barely a smile, the Slayer reached forth and grabbed one of Grace’s fangs, tugging and pulling it out.

Tossing the loose tooth to the ground, the Slayer cackled as the blood trickled down her collarbone and over her chest. She was weaker than moments before, but not necessarily near death.

“Always wondered what that was like …”

Oh, that was it. It was like something snapped way down deep, and Grace's good hand went back around Samantha's throat to press down on her windpipe again even as she pinned the blonde's undamaged arm with her knee. She lifted her up once, slammed the back of her head down hard on the concrete, then went back to cutting off her air.

"You know how much that's gonna cost to replace?" Her knee made contact with the knife's hilt, and the weapon tore the wound open wider. Maybe if she was lucky, she'd hit the femoral artery. A quick bleed-out would put an end to this shit.

"This is what you wanted, remember? For the pain to stop?" Gaining more leverage, Grace got a better grip on the blood-slick flesh on the Slayer's throat, pushing her fingers into the still-bleeding wound there as her thumb made a deep imprint on the other woman's trachea. Needing to breathe was a bitch. Her knee ground down on the back of Samantha's hand.

She bashed the blonde's skull against the filthy pavement again, then again. Doing her a favor, putting her out of her misery.

Where most people would grunt or scream in pain – or even lose consciousness – Samantha just laughed. It a was a dark sort of glee, interrupted only by the jolt of pain that came from the blade being pushed even further into her leg. Consciousness wouldn’t last much longer if she didn’t do something, which was when Samantha realized she still had one good leg.

Lifting the leg as much as she could, the Slayer gave a growl, pushing back against Grace’s abdomen, pushing her off. Samantha sat up, coughing as she got her breath back, coating two fingers in her wound before taking a lick herself. With a shrug, Samantha wondered why vampires always pined over Slayer blood.

Didn’t seem like it was that big a deal.

“What I want?” the Slayer choked out, her eyes again growing dark. “What I want is to dance on your dust pile.”

Grace laughed at her, a gruff, barking sound as she made sure not to stumble over the pathetic remains of the Slayer's last victim. "You can't kill shit," she said, blood that was both her own and Samantha's drooling out of her mouth. "And you've been rollin' in somethin', haven't you? Maybe playing on the other side of the fence? I knew I remembered that smell."

She lunged forward, and that time she did yank the knife out of the Slayer's thigh, ripping flesh and causing fresh blood to pour down the other woman's leg. A wound like that, bleeding to death wasn't an impossibility. Hopefully there'd be some left so she could get another taste.

"Hard to dance with only one good leg."

“Who said anything about dancing?”

Pushing off her good leg, Samantha lunged forward, tackling Grace to the ground. She pushed the vampire on top of the woman she’d killed moments before. The blood running down her bad leg was starting to make Samantha a little light-headed, and if things didn’t wrap up soon, the Slayer was, at best, going to wind up unconscious.

So her options were to either finish the job or find a way to get the hell out of Dodge.

Too bad she didn’t have a stake. Or a blade strong enough to cut the bitch’s head off. So the whole running away thing was probably the smart play. Which was hard on only one good leg.

Wresting the blade out of Grace’s hand, Samantha shoved the blade into the vampire’s chest, feeling it hit concrete on the other side. It wouldn’t kill Grace, since Samantha didn’t use the wooden handle, but it would keep her in place long enough for the Slayer to hobble away.

And if the Slayer was lucky, Grace would be pinned until sunrise.

Besides, if Samantha managed a getaway, she’d still be able to have her vengeance. One couldn’t get revenge if they were dead.

"Chickenshit ..."

Blood bubbled out of Grace's mouth as she felt the knife pin her down, and she grabbed for it with her good hand. If she could pull it loose before the bitch did a Houdini, she at least stood a chance of hitting her in the back with it. To give her another puncture, maybe hit a lung, that'd be nice.

"Cuntface buttlicker." The heavy blade scraped against a rib, and the vampire tugged harder. It gave, stopped, gave some more. "C'mon, you whoremother ...!"

Gone. The slut was gone. "FUCK!" There was a wet tearing sound as Grace pulled the knife out of her chest, but the Slayer was out of reach. So typical. They started it, and then they couldn't finish it. Bitch ought to be careful about who she came at like that.

Grace worked herself into a sitting position against the wall, still tasting Slayer blood on the back of her tongue. She'd come back later. The stupid ones always did. The knife was a nice souvenir, though.

Next time she was going to cut the cunt's head off with it.



***End Adult Content: Violence***