Blood of My Blood

She screamed like a banshee, caught in the trap I had so carefully laid for her. The high, piercing sound of agony and frustration, ran through my ears like shards of glass. I had to cover them before my eardrums burst.

The suddenness of the quiet returning, warned me that she was either dead, which was unlikely, or she was working on the escape plan used again and again, over the past twenty-four hours.

The same twenty-four hour day I had just lived through; to the same point in time, every time, without a minutia of difference.

This meant, I would be dead in another three minutes.

My throat would be slashed open and my limbs, decorated with my own eviscerated body contents. Not a thing a mortal should have to see, let alone relive over and over in some kind of warped time loop.

We just don't have the stomach for it, unless you can count the gut spilling I was about to experience.

As I waited for the inevitable massacre, I felt the same terror and frailty as I was about to face my termination, yet again, at the hands of Beatitude LaPierre.

I would again be a witness to my own gruesome slaughter by the the beautiful "Bloody Beady" as she was known to the exclusive club of her slavish minions.

I usually call her "Bloody goddamn Beady"! She had a bounty on her lovely golden head, of one hundred thousand sutans; enough to buy my own stellar city and roam the universe until I was another century old.

The High Council of Orleans Paranormal Policing had every available agent hunting for Beady; sending them out to every remote corner of the planet.

Me, I'm what was romantically called a mercenary at one time. Now, that's just plain "merc".

Makes no difference, the label. I'm a hunter and I make a damn good living bringing back the quarry dead or alive. Sometimes dead, because I hate listening to all the squawking, but the curses hurled at me and my progeny for eons to come, really unsettles my temperate nature, causing me to over-react occasionally.

Not that I have any progeny, or even the potential for any, but it doesn't make hearing the threats about baby monsters appearing on my family tree any less unsettling.

Since I'm a female of the species, I have a distinct advantage over the mostly male agents that go on a hunt. Their sole purpose is to subdue the twisted demon spawn and haul in the evidence in a garbage bag.

Me, because I have a female's tender hardheartedness, I at least make an effort to capture a paranormal nightmare so they can be studied by our docs.

Many of the demons we bring in have already contaminated some of the mortal population with their attacks. There's no "Once bitten, twice smart" either. Once bitten you are dead meat on the roadside.

And now I was waiting once more to become road kill to Bloody Beady.

This continuous nightmare began when I discovered she was holed up inside a building used centuries ago, for those flying machines, called air o planes. None of the Paranormal hunters would think to look for this creature here because like all the others still dotting the planet, it has long been over taken by heavy jungle and wild beasts.

It seems these ancient sites of flying machines were perfect breeding grounds for creatures long mutated by the pollution the machines spewed every day into the air. Without any interference by mortals, these denizens of the thick jungles had grown into huge, and very lethal, animals.

I wasn't afraid of the four footed beats, however. I knew Bloody Beady would use this place as a perfect camouflage for her home base. She could infiltrate the outside world of mortals as easily as slipping out of her skin.

Knowing where to find her was the easy part for me. I looked over all the maps distributed by the High Council to all hunters and knew exactly what they had over-looked.

The past holds little interest to most mortals; they are constantly looking ahead to an unpromising, uncertain future.

I like to view the world in reverse, so I won't be caught in traps that have been successfully employed in the past. I learn from yesterday, so I can live today and maybe into tomorrow.

Sitting on the rusted vegetation shrouded engine of one of the flying machines, I listened to the silence fill the space around me.

I knew it was almost time to die again.

This was becoming too repetitive by far to continue. I caught the movement of the same beetle I'd been seeing over and over and had a eureka moment!

Jumping off my perch, I decided to interject one small thing into the continuous loop of actions and reactions.

I reached into my back pack lying on the ground beside me. Instead of shooting the unarmed bug, as I'd been doing endlessly, I used the laser knife and made a quick pass over my thumb. It bleed like a fountain because it was so deep.

Pressing around the wound, I made it bleed even more profusely, catching fat drops. With my index finger I drew a totem symbol of my clan upon my forearm.

With a rush of cold air, like hundreds of times before in the endless time loop, Bloody Beady made her appearance.

I stood in the same position as always she found me, only now the long incisor of the Saber Tooth Tiger was clearly drawn on my arm.

Beady lunged at my throat, teeth bared and sharpened to fine points. Before she could tear at my jugular, I whispered, "Blood of my blood!"

I could smell her fear as the time loop was shattered.

I drew the laser I held in my palm and shot a bolt into her chest. Pulling back, I watched as the hole spread and I could see her beating heart.

Our clan had protected a wealth of secrets over the eons, about our lineage and powers. I knew there were family members who ranged the many galaxies, plundering life forms in their lust for blood.

We were, after all, Vampires.

My branch of the family tree had taken a sort of spiritual purge; ridding ourselves of the need for blood drinking; instead seeking out blood letting as our form of blood lust.

Bloody Beady was a distant aunt who had ruled the underground Vampire colony for centuries in the conclave of Old Orleans. She had used this decrepit collection of burned out structures and hovels as her own fiefdom. All living creatures owed her blood, taken over long years of torture during their servitude.

Now she was looking down at her throbbing heart; seemingly fascinated by its mechanical workings. I took this self-absorption as an opportunity to speak.

"You are mine now dear Aunt and since you know of our relationship, I will need to stop your tongue before it can divulge that truth to the High Council.

Her lovely blue eyes began to shed tears as fake as her skin transplants, but the laser quickly spoke and she no longer wept.

The money was mine. I began to pick up the pack from the ground when it faded into a mist that began to obscure everything around me.

Out of the unnatural fog I heard the voice of Bloody Beady.

"Blood of my blood, are you ready to begin again?"