The Seventh Slayer

By Kantayra

Chapter Two

Ajaya crawled through the air vents, trying desperately to keep a pace with her savior. The black-clad woman set a furious pace, and didn’t even seem to be breathing heavily for all her efforts. It frightened Ajaya. She didn’t know what was after them – probably more vamps – but whatever it was must have been really nasty to send this woman, who handled the vampires below so easily, running.

“What are we…” Ajaya said between gasps for air, following the woman up a short ladder, “…running from?”

“No time,” the mysterious woman said in short, clipped tones.

Ajaya was now able to notice that her Bengali accent was hideous; she sounded rather like one of those American tourists who only knew the phrases ‘where’s the bathroom’ and ‘how much’. However, the foreign woman had shown a surprising depth of knowledge of her language. Ajaya couldn’t reconcile the two facts…and right now she had more important matters to worry about.

The endless sequence of turns and twists and dips and ladders finally came to an end with a steel grate. Her companion kicked the panel with enough force to make the entire corridor vibrate. The grate easily popped of, and soon Ajaya found herself pulled out onto the roof…of a fifteen-storey building.

“What are we—?”

She never got a chance to finish. The other woman tackled her to the ground instants before a high-intensity laser pierced the wall right where her head had been.

“Ohmygod!” Ajaya gasped.

“Stay low,” her companion ordered.

Her grabbed Ajaya’s hand and guided her across the rooftop, scrambling and falling just as Ajaya did. They ducked and covered behind other air vents and fans, hiding from the dark-clad figures that Ajaya only caught glimpses of during their frenzied escape.

They rounded a corner…straight into one of the men. He managed to let out a yell while her companion kicked the laser rifle from his hands. Her ninja-like rescuer knocked him out almost immediately thereafter, but the man’s cry had already alerted his allies.

Red energy beams whizzed by them on all sides, and they ran away at breakneck speed. Ajaya thought her lungs were about to burst when the woman suddenly pulled her aside, and they hid right at the rim of the roof.

“Hang on tight,” the masked woman informed her as she wrapped a rope firmly around Ajaya and attached it to the carabiner on her vest.

“What do you mean?” Ajaya asked. “What are we—?” She screamed when the woman shoved them both over the edge…

* * *

Isabelle came to groggily. At first she thought she was still asleep due to the blackness. Then she noticed what seemed like a faint, red line all around her. In fact, it almost looked like…

If Isabelle could have slapped herself, she would have.

It looked exactly like light filtered through closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and quickly assessed why she was unable to slap herself. Ah, that would be because of the chains that bound her hands and feet. She was pinned back against a cold, stone wall. She tested the chains just to make sure. Of course, they were solid. Just her luck…

Isabelle took in a deep breath of air and tried to think clearly. The last thing she remembered was fighting that last vamp…the one that had been way too powerful for her to take. She absentmindedly wondered if he was one of the ‘Masters’ her Watcher had warned her about, but that was beside the point right now.

She was pretty sure he had knocked her unconscious. However, she was even more sure of the fact that she hadn’t been fed on. That left two possibilities:

1. The vampire that had defeated her wanted her for some purpose other than her death.

2. Someone else had saved her from the vamp while she was unconscious, and they were now the ones that held her captive.

She scanned her surroundings. Stone walls with no windows, only flickering candles to light up the room… It all reeked of vampire habitation. She guessed she was probably in the ruins of some ancient castle or something of the sort. That made the first option seem the most likely.

But what could a vampire possibly want with her? Other than her death, that is…

Pretty much all she knew about vamps came from her Watcher. Evil, undead, must be killed: that was the party line. She was vaguely aware that all the news reports she’d seen reinforced this picture. All vampires wanted to do was kill humans and create more of their kind. Is that what this one wanted? If so, why hadn’t he turned her already?

Isabelle gave up. There was no way she was going to figure this out without more information. And she also wasn’t getting away any time soon.

She knew that once he came back she would probably die, but she really didn’t care at that moment. After all, death couldn’t really be that much worse than sitting around patiently waiting for death…

“Hey, you!” she yelled out. “Either let me go, or come down here and put an end to my boredom!”

For a while there was no response.

And then the door creaked open, and her captor stood before her – the same vampire that had defeated her in the park.

And Isabelle’s breath was taken away…

* * *

“Aaaaaieeeeeeeeeeee!” Ajaya screamed as the two of them plummeted from the rooftop down the thin wire that connected to a building across the street.

Hovercars whizzed by them at breakneck speed, and Ajaya shut her eye tight just waiting for them to crash into one and meet a very crunchy end.

“Shit!” her companion suddenly swore in English.

Ajaya opened her eyes and dared to look in the same direction as her rescuer just in time to see the men in black on the rooftop they had left behind snipping the line that held them aloft.

Ajaya screamed again.

Her masked companion seemed to have the situation well in hand, though. She pulled a grappling gun from her belt just as the line snapped and managed to shoot it off right as they started to plummet. It struck the underside of a car passing overhead, and a hard jerk at the sudden change in acceleration was the only injury the two women suffered.

They whipped along behind the vehicle they had snared, the line twisting as they went and sending them waving dangerously in and out of the traffic.

“OK,” the ninja muttered to herself, “not exactly what I had in mind…”

“Miss!” Ajaya suddenly shook her shoulder. “They are coming after us in cars! Look!” She pointed to where two black vehicles were in hot pursuit of the one they’d hitched a ride on.

“Not. Good,” her companion agreed as another laser blast missed them by less than a foot, their wild and erratic motion the only thing that saved them from certain death. “Oh! Wait a minute!” she abruptly looked down. “Brace yourself!” she warned.

“Wha—?” was all Ajaya managed to say before her savior dropped hold of the grappling gun and they fell downwards…

And right into the car that had pulled up below them.

The black-clad woman grabbed hold of one of Ajaya’s legs that was still protruding from the open top and shoved it into the vehicle.

“We’re in!” she called out to the driver.

The blond man at the wheel instant hit a button to close the roof, and it shut seconds before more lasers from their pursuers fired. Ajaya watched in amazement as the powerful weapons bounced harmlessly off of the roof – this was obviously no ordinary hovercar.

“Perfect timing, Nicky,” her companion said as she shuffled around in the backseat to make herself comfortable.

“I aim to please,” the man in front said, diving perilously through the oncoming traffic in an effort to evade their pursuers. “And don’t call me ‘Nicky’,” his tone turned sour.

He screeched around a corner at lightning speed and quickly ducked the car into a darkened parking lot. He hit the lights, and they waited in pitch-blackness.

Only a few seconds later three black cars flew by, obviously assuming that they were still on the road.

“I think…” Ajaya gasped breathlessly, “…that we lost them.”

“Looks like it,” the driver agreed, pulling out and taking off in another direction. “Check to make sure they don’t pick up our tail again,” he added over his shoulder.

“I got it,” the black masked woman said. “You just get us far away from here.”

“Can do,” the man said cheerfully enough.

Ajaya glanced in the rearview mirror to try to get a look at his face and froze. The mirror reflected only herself. That meant no driver…and no savior.

Her companion took that moment to remove her mask, revealing long blond hair…and fangs and brow ridges.

Ajaya screamed once again. It occurred to her that screaming was getting to be rather annoying…

* * *

Isabelle watched as the vampire sat himself down in the armchair across from where she was still chained to the wall. His eyes traveled slowly up and down her body, studying every detail with an intensity that caused her cheeks to burn.

And it irked her.

The problem was that her first reaction upon seeing him in his human features hadn’t been ‘kill’ so much as ‘yum’. He was of average height and build, but she could tell that powerful muscles rippled under the tan spanner pants and white T-shirt he wore. His hair was brown and slicked back, also somewhat average-looking.

It was his face that was so striking. It was a harsh face, sharp lines defining high cheekbones and strong jaw, but it had a steely beauty to it. His eyes were deep and blue and inescapable, and she felt as if his every look were a caress.

In short, the female part of her had to agree with the ‘yum’.

The Slayer part of her, however, was screaming that this was a powerful vampire, one not to be messed with. In a strange way, it almost made him seem sexier.

He continued to observe her in that falsely disinterested way. One of his hands reached into his pocket and pulled out a packed of cigarettes. He flicked open a lighter with his other hand with experienced grace and took a deep drag on the cigarette. She could tell from the color of the smoke that these were genuine, cancerous cigarettes, not the new substitutes with no side effects that had become so popular in recent decades.

Of course, cancer probably wasn’t much of a concern to someone who was already dead.

It was unusual, though. Isabelle had been taught early on that one of the best ways to spot a vamp was by how misplaced they tended to seem in time. The fact that the new breath-freshening cigarettes had become so common actually made it easier to spot vamps. They tended to avoid anything having to do with fire.

This one, however, seemed to have no concern whatsoever for his highly flammable state.

He took several more drags out of his cigarette with relaxed slowness. One of his legs came up to hang over the arm as he continued to just sit there and watch her blush turn several shades more red.

Isabelle finally decided she had had enough. So what if he knew exactly how to push her buttons? And, boy, were they pushed...

“What do you want from me?” she demanded icily.

His gaze turned to her face, and she was captured by those dark, sapphirine eyes once more. “What do you think I want, Slayer?” he replied unhelpfully, taking another drag from his cigarette.

“If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with,” Isabelle hissed. “I’m sure I’ve got lots of things I should be doing in the afterlife.”

He gave her a sly smirk. “You’ve got nerve,” he said at last. “It should serve you well as a Slayer.” He stood up with such liquid, feline grace that Isabelle hadn’t even registered the fact that he’d moved until he stood right in front of her. “If you live that long…” he added as an afterthought, gently brushing back a curly, auburn strand of hair from her face.

Isabelle instantly whipped her head to the side, snapping at him with her teeth.

His hand elegantly slipped out of her reach, and he gave her a delighted smile. “You really are quite the firebrand, aren’t you, Isabelle?” he smirked. “Isabelle,” he repeated to himself. “It’s rather long and unwieldy, isn’t it? Do you have a nickname or something? Izzy? Belle? No, those are both horrible…”

“I’m the Slayer to you,” her face was red with anger now. “And don’t you ever touch me!”

“Slayer’s already taken,” he said thoughtfully, completely unconcerned with her fury. “So is Red,” he gestured to her dyed hair. “Maybe we can work those teeth into it somehow… Tigress? No, not quite… Lioness!” He faced widened in a broad smile.

“What are you going on about?” Isabelle demanded.

“It fits you well, Lioness,” he took another step toward her so that their faces were only inches apart. “My fierce, little Lioness…”

“I’m not your anything!” she screeched, attempting to bash her head into his. She missed, of course. He easily ducked to the side, and the only thing she succeeded in doing was making herself dizzy. Apparently, she hadn’t fully recovered from the blow to her head yet.

“Hey, take it easy,” he caught her when she slumped.

“Let me go!” she trashed wildly in his arms.

He backed off slowly, his hands held up before him. “Just trying to help is all, pet,” he assured her.

Isabelle’s head was starting to turn. “Why are you doing this?” she asked wearily. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to have a nice chat with you,” he said cheekily, “spend some quality time together, maybe bond a bit…”

“You’re a vampire; I’m the Slayer,” she rolled her eyes. “Quit fooling around.”

“Believe it or not,” he said, collapsing back into the armchair, “I’m not fooling around with you. And the name does suit you. Do you know what a lioness does?”

“Kills things,” she said bluntly. “Look, if you’re one of those vamps with a soul that’s out looking for redemption, you don’t have to tie me up to—”

She was cut short when he threw his head back and let out a loud whoop of laughter. “A soul?” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, should’ve seen me with a soul, Lioness! I would probably be trying to feed you tea and crumpets, bloody ponce that I was.”

The phrase ‘bloody ponce’ was said outside of his flawless Spanish accent, and Isabelle was pretty sure the words were English, but they didn’t make much sense to her.

“Not a soul on me,” he finished, fixing on her again with those lovely eyes.

“Then what do you mean?” Isabelle’s curiosity was getting the better of her again.

“You’re right about the lioness,” he said thoughtfully. “She’s the one that makes all the kills. A whole pack of them get together, and they just serve the needs of one lazy male. And that’s you, baby, catering to the needs of your Watcher while he sits snug in his car completely unconcerned about whether you’ll ever come back.”

Isabelle sighed in frustration. “Yeah, well it’s not like I have a lot of choice, do I?” she retorted. “I’m the Slayer; it’s what I do. In every generation, there is a Chosen One—”

“Still giving you that old speech, are they?” he chuckled softly. “Well, I suppose it’s just like them not to update it… You’re not the Slayer, my coy Lioness,” he leaned toward her slowly. “You’re only a Slayer…”

“Fine, fine,” Isabelle batted her hand carelessly inside its cuff, “so one came before me, and one before her, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.”

“True,” the vampire agreed, “but not the whole truth. You see, even if you only look at this very moment in time, you’re still only a Slayer.”

“What do you mean?” Isabelle’s eyes narrowed.

“There are five others Called right now, Lioness. Or six, depending on your point of view…” his brow furrowed, and he seemed to be pondering something for a second before shaking his head. “Six Slayers total, luv. There’s no Chosen One about it.”

Isabelle stood there dumbfounded for a minute. Then she shook her head and laughed. “Yeah, right!” she scoffed. “Good one. You really had me going there for a minute. Six Slayers?! Everyone knows there’s just the one!”

“You mean the news media thinks there’s only one,” he countered, “and your Watcher confirmed it.”

“Well, of course,” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “And why would my Watcher lie, anyway? Especially about something like that?”

“That’s a long story,” he looked at her seriously. “There was a time when there was only one Slayer. But then she died. So another was Called. The thing was that the first Slayer didn’t stay dead. You see, she had drowned, but a little CPR and she was back in the world of the living. So, suddenly the Watchers have two Slayers.”

Isabelle frowned. The circumstance was possible, she had to admit. And even she wasn’t quite sure what would happen if such a situation should occur. “Suppose I buy this,” she said, “not that I do,” she hastily added. “Why wouldn’t that be a good thing? Two Slayers working together?”

“You’d think it would, wouldn’t you?” he replied. “Even the Watchers thought so at first, had the two of them team up and everything. The problem was when the two Slayers got together, they started working without the Watchers. They were strong, didn’t need their soggy Brit overlords anymore. It got to the point once where both Slayers had fired the Council, and trust me, kitten, the Watchers do not like to have their authority questioned.”

“So you’re telling me the Watchers kept the Slayers apart in order to control them?” Isabelle exclaimed incredulously. “Hey, they may be annoying and selfish, but they’re not that bossy.”

“Are you so sure?” the vampire asked. “How would you ever know if they were lying?”

“Well, it would be in the news,” Isabelle said after a brief pause. “They couldn’t cover something like that up.”

“And have you appeared in the news so often, luv?” he retorted. “If there was another Slayer out there, would she have heard of you?”

“Well…my kills do get chalked up to rogue demon hunters,” she said, “but that’s only to keep my location a secret.”

“It does do that,” he agreed. “It also means that no one really knows anything about where a Slayer is or what she does. For all you know, there could be one squirreled away in every country, but you would never hear about it. Just about kills done by ‘rogue demon hunters’.”

Isabelle frowned. “Wasn’t there a scandal about this a while back?” she tried to remember.

“Ah yes,” the vampire let out a frustrated sigh. “We tried to get the truth out: showed the media our two Slayers at the same time. The Watchers managed to make it look like a hoax, said we’d just pumped the girls up on steroids or magic or something.”

“And you expect me to believe you now?” Isabelle gave him an incredulous stare.

“Not particularly,” he lit up another cigarette. “I just want you to listen for now.”

“I don’t seem to have much of a choice,” Isabelle sulked.

“Do you want to know why the Slayers quit the Council?” he asked.

“Sanity?” she quipped.

He laughed. “Pretty much,” he agreed. “See, the Watchers have this little test they like to run on their Slayers. They wait until they hit eighteen, and then they give them this drug that takes away all their Slayer strength. So now that the Slayer’s weak and helpless, the Watchers throw her in with the nastiest vamp they can get their hands on. The Slayer can’t handle it, too bad, another will just get Called. Can you see why the Slayers weren’t exactly fond of this practice?”

“You’re lying!” she insisted. “Why would the Watchers want to do something like that?”

“Control again, Lioness,” he said. “They don’t want their Slayers to have second thoughts about what they’re told, don’t want them to be independent, don’t want them to grow up. So they kill them before they have a chance.”

She bit back a peel of laughter. “I don’t believe you,” she insisted.

“You go right on not believing me,” he said cheerily enough, “but just make sure you listen.”

She shrugged, and he went on.

“So, now we’ve got two Slayers and neither want to work for the Council. Luckily, one of them dies at work. Another is Called, and the Watchers nab her right up so no one knows about her. But that Slayer that died, she really doesn’t like to stay dead. There’s a bit of magical hanky-panky, and she’s on her third life. So now we’ve got one, two, three Slayers,” he counted out on his fingers as he said this.

“I can count,” she said coldly.

“No doubt about that, my Lioness,” he gave her a sly smile. “Well, right about now the Council’s getting a bit freaked. See, there are two rogue Slayers, and they’ve only got one. So they decide to create another for their side. They tell their Slayer all about her Sacred Duty and how she can aid the fight against evil…if only she’ll let them kill her for a short time.

“This girl’s been raised by Watchers all her life, so she goes along with it. So they take her, and they do the drowning thing again. Sure enough, Slayer #4 pops up. But when they revive #3, things don’t work out quite right. It seems she’s suffered brain damage due to lack of oxygen. She goes a bit crazy and has to be put down. But it’s no big deal because another gets Called after her, and there are still four Slayers.”

“That’s terrible!” Isabelle exclaimed before she could stop herself. She was surprised when he didn’t gloat over her admission.

“It was a sad, nasty business,” he said slowly. “A lot of people got hurt in that one…”

He drifted off into his memories for a minute, and Isabelle had to cough loudly several times before he returned to his story.

“So now there’s four,” he quickly came to. “Well, slaying’s a dangerous job as I’m sure you’re aware, even if you have only been at it for a little while. You get exposed to all kinds of nasty magics and such. That’s what happened to one of them. A spell got cast on her by accident, split her right in two. The caster gets killed, and suddenly we’ve got permanent Slayer twins.”

“That makes five,” Isabelle said.

“Six is a bit confusing,” he went on. “You see, somewhere around the year 4000, a sorcerer’s going to send a Slayer back in time to try to stop another demon from the future from changing history and ending the world. It’s a mess of a story, but the just of it is, the Slayer from the future gets stuck back here, and when she dies, a new one’s Called into our time.”

“Six Slayers…” Isabelle repeated softly. This was actually starting to freak her out a bit. It was an awfully contorted – and convincing – story for the vampire to come up with for the sole purpose of messing with her head.

“Six Slayers,” he agreed. “Some fight for the Council, some fight against it. Some die at sixteen, others make it past forty. Some have no lives, others do. Some work alone for their Watchers—”

“And others work for you, am I right?” Isabelle cut him off.

“Smart girl,” he gave her a slight smile. “Although they work for my employers, not for me.”

“And you want me to work for you, too, is that it?” Isabelle demanded.

“Ultimately, yes,” he agreed. “I think that would be in both our best interests.”

“And if I don’t?” Isabelle’s eyes narrowed.

“Then I do exactly what I’d do otherwise,” he said. “I give you an injection of this,” he removed a needle from a bag on the table, “to knock you out while we take you back to your Watcher. I give you our number. Then it’s up to sort it out and decide which side you want to work for.” He caught ahold of her arm and stuck the needle into it.

“I don’t…” she gasped as the sharp needle stuck into her flesh, “…believe you…”

“That’s fine, Lioness,” his voice said, drifting slowly away. “But I wouldn’t mention this little incident to your Watcher if I were you, or you might have your choice made for you…”

And Isabelle’s world faded into blackness.

* * *

“Don’t worry,” the female vampire said in response to Ajaya’s obvious fear. “We’re good vampires. Got nice shiny souls and everything, just like you humans.”

“G-Good vampires?” Ajaya said in disbelief. “Is there such a thing?”

The woman shook her head, and the planes of her face shifted, showing a petite and rather lovely countenance. “Don’t believe what you see on the news,” she advised Ajaya. “Vampires are no different than any other demons or humans. You’ve got the good right along with the bad.”

“Why should I believe you?” Ajaya shrunk back in her seat.

“We saved you, didn’t we?” the male in front turned around to look at her, and she noticed that he was strikingly handsome.

“From other vampires,” she retorted. “I don’t want to get caught up in your clan war, or whatever.”

“Actually,” the female beside her sighed, “those were Watchers that were chasing us.”

“What?!” Ajaya exclaimed in disbelief. “But they’re the good guys! Why were they…?” She trailed off, suddenly feeling very tired.

“They didn’t anticipate you becoming the Slayer,” the female vampire beside her smiled kindly. “The Watchers like to have their Slayers well under their thumb before they’re Called. It makes them easier to control.”

“But, why were they trying to kill me?” Ajaya demanded. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“That doesn’t matter to them,” her savior replied. “They’ve had bad experiences with free-willed Slayers, so they just send vamps after the untrained ones now to ‘test’ them.”

“But I never would have had a chance!” Ajaya insisted.

“That’s what they were hoping.”

Ajaya was suddenly overcome with everything that had happened to her in the past day and began sobbing softly into her hands. “I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I just wanted to be a normal girl, to have a normal life!”

“I hear you,” the vampiress said, “but it’s tough once you’ve been Called.”

“It’s impossible!” Ajaya declared. “I’ve seen the special reports…”

“Yeah, well those don’t tell the whole truth,” the vampire driving said. “There are ways to be a Slayer and have a life, too.”

“How?” Ajaya asked.

“If you’ll let us, we’d love to show you,” the woman smiled at her.

“OK,” Ajaya said softly, “but…who are you people?”

The vampiress slapped herself on the forehead at her oversight and laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “This is my Sire, Nicolas, and I’m Buffy, the Vampire Slayer…”

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