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At the end of the hallway, I find drops of blood. I examine them long enough to get a feeling for where to go next, and I’m off again, fighting to breathe past my screaming panic. My mind chants `Not again, not again’, wiping out any remains of reason I might have had as flashes of my parents drenched in blood dance through my vision. Past a spiraling staircase, through a roomier hall cluttered with rotting and rusting furniture. Right through Asha’s line of sight.

Her shot whistles past my head and I do a flying shoulder roll, ducking on instinct, cursing breathlessly.

She is lying on her back behind what is left of some kind of bar, gun in a two-handed grip as she stares at me wild-eyed, bloody, and hyperventilating. She’s clutching something in her right hand, pressed against the grip of her weapon like her life depends on it. Blood covers her chest, spots of it soaking into her shirt just above her belly button, and her ponytail is a mess. Something ripped right through her jacket and the leather holster she wore beneath it, leaving her shoulder half naked and riddled with gashes and teethmarks. Her face is almost as pale as her fingers, both hands clenching her gun so tightly, her knuckles have turned white. She meant to hit me, I can see it in her eyes. Which means, whatever attacked her is still alive and kicking, and somewhere in this building.

I have to save her. I move over to her on autopilot, the eyes of my parents still haunting me. My mouth moves faster than I can draw breath. “We have to move,” I snarl at her, reaching down to pull her up.

She stumbles before she catches herself, coughing dryly. I watch her pat herself down out of the corner of my eye, but mostly I keep both entrances to the room in sight. The item in her hand disappears into her pants pocket, nothing but a faint metallic glint hinting to its identity.

“Fucker got me good,” Asha growls and drops both jacket and broken holster. “I’ve never seen a vampire move like that. He’s fast, Gideon. So fast.”

I flick my eyes over her neck and naked shoulder before I turn back to watching the exits. The vampire mauled her, and had she not worn the holster and the jacket, she’d be one arm short of whole. Probably shot the vampire off her at the last possible moment. Her human-slow reflexes cost her; as pale as she is and with this much blood on the floor, she shouldn’t be able to stand upright. Yet there she is, shoving magazines into her pants pockets, face contorted in pain, jaw set.

I back into her, counting on her to control the exit I slowly push her towards. It’s not the one where we came from; were I a vampire, I would sit just there and wait for the mindless, panicked blood-bags to stumble by in their bid to make it to the door. I’m not mindless, and I refuse to be a snack for another vampire this week.

Asha falls into her training easily. As soon as my back touches hers, she moves, gun half raised, keeping a constant pressure against me as she moves forward. I keep my gun raised. I’d rather have my arms become cramping noodles than meet the vampire who beat Asha’s quick-draw skills. It’s enough of an effort to follow Asha’s guidance blindly already, especially with her stumbling and huffing, fighting the blood loss and increasingly flagging. Don’t need to add ‘raising a gun’ to my lists of tasks.

We make it around a corner, pass through a door and follow another hallway. Both of us are tense as we point the guns where we look, flinching at every nook and cranny. No amount of preparation will ever win out against fear and adrenaline, but we’re not shaking yet. That will come later. The hallway gets increasingly darker, though, and it does nothing for my frayed nerves.

When we take another turn into yet another hallway, I snap. “Where are we going?” I whisper through clenched teeth, scanning the shady corners in the rooms we pass.

Asha hums, feet sliding forward carefully, feeling for holes and obstacles instead of using her eyes. She needs those to survive. “We’re following the vampire,” she whispers back. “I hit him before he ran off. Look down.”

I do, a quick few glances every second step or so. A trail of smeared blood drops leads down the middle of the hallway, almost black against the greenish stone tiles. Technically it could be Asha’s blood, but it’s already congealed in the dust, much too old to come from her wounds. “Are you fucking crazy? You’re in no shape to fight,” I hiss a little too loud.

“Stop whining, puppy. This is our job, and we’re damn well gonna finish it before he can skitter away like the roach he is.”

We haven’t stopped moving through our little spat, which is why we suddenly find ourselves in another wider hall. And we’re surrounded.

A SHOUT, THE ratcheting of guns being readied, and I know we’re fucked. Guns means thralls. I’ve never met one, but I know enough about them to realize what kind of trouble we’re in. They may be technically human, but what little brain they had at some point has been bleached out of their heads by vampire blood and venom. Easy to kill, but incredibly dangerous. They have nothing to lose, and they are loyal to the grave. Typical junkies.

I’m counting seven of them, spread out across the debris-filled room as if they were guarding something. They look surprised at our sudden appearance, swinging around in startled hops as they shout warnings.

It takes us only one breath to get into formation. Asha goes down on one knee, swinging her gun right. I whirl along Asha’s back until I’m on her left side, pointing my Glock before I’ve finished the move. We squeeze our triggers as the first rifle muzzle points at us, blasting the room with fire, light, and noise. My shots hit in groups of three, stomach, chest, head, and I miss only once. Three of the blood-bound men fall, dead as they hit the ground, before I have to reload. I do a shoulder roll behind a cluster of boxes, making room for Asha when she follows clumsily.

Bullets whine over my head, biting into the marble pillars above us before the shooter aims lower. Another wave of shots clatters along the floor, ricocheting off the tiles and blasting holes into the boxes we use as cover.

Asha pops up and takes down two more, but her aim is off. She’s a much better shot than me, but her hands are shaking badly and getting worse by the minute. Most of her shots go far off target, and when her gun clicks empty, she sobs a frustrated curse. Her face is white as a sheet from blood loss.

This isn’t good. We’re shit out of luck and I can’t take them on alone. “Tactical retreat,” I call to her, half expecting her to show me the finger for ordering her around.

But the tough, veteran huntress is gone, leaving behind a bleeding, scared person with a gun. Panic kills people, and I really don’t want to die here. “Run back to where we’ve come from, I’ll cover you,” I yell over the rattle of automatic rifle fire and nod my head back.

Asha turns to do just that, flinches back, and screams. Two fucking vampires are right there, right at the door we came through. The closer, female vampire is staring at her with a mad grin on her pus-covered face. She’s tall and thin, her pale skin covered in broils and greenish veins, the skin of her arms flapping like empty sacs where muscles have rotted away. Her shirt and pants are drenched in fluids I don’t want to examine any closer, barely keeping her sick flesh in place. And the way she eyes Asha makes my skin crawl with alarm. Like she doesn’t just want to eat her, but hear her scream until she’s finished eating.

The other one is just as tall, blond and broad-shouldered, looming behind her like a general. He is dressed in not quite formal but expensive clothes, the collar of both his burgundy turtleneck and the white shirt beneath ripped to expose a discolored throat. A dark stain on his chest is the only sign that Asha’s shot hit him, and he doesn’t even seem to notice the wound. He doesn’t look as nightmarish as the woman, but dark lines are blooming on his cheeks and neck, surrounded by a greenish-gray hue that makes me think he isn’t in a much better state than the other one.

Our eyes meet for a moment, and he frowns at me, almost as if surprised by my existence. Then his gaze flits to Asha, and he puts a hand on the rotting lady’s back, shoving her forward. He says something to her, but it’s too low for me to understand. The rotting vampire snarls and charges like a well-trained dog, and Asha shrieks and starts running. There goes that escape route.

“Left, left, left,” I yell, pointing to another, smaller door off to the side. Machine gun fire follows her from across the room, and I use the shooter’s distraction to pick him off with two quick shots.

Panicked gasps and the scrabbling of nails against wood tell me that Asha has reached the door. A squeak of dry hinges follows, almost swallowed by the ratatat of the last few shots the dying thrall squeezes out of his weapon as he falls. She slams the door behind her, bullets biting into the wall where her head was a blink ago. She’s safe, thank god.

But that leaves the vampires. With me. With nowhere to hide. Fuck. I whirl around and wave my gun as I look for them, but the room is filled with gunpowder smoke and whirling dust and I can’t see shit. The less rotted man is gone, nothing but empty space left where he stood a moment before.

The other one isn’t. A snarl and the screech of claws against concrete make me turn to the side door, gun wavering as it builds momentum, but I don’t want to lower it just to have to lift it again.

There the creature is, punching a hole into the wooden door that Asha disappeared into, roaring as she shoves her arm through the tiny gap she made and peeling off parts of her skin. The stench wafting from her slashed arm is incredible. Quite literally breathtaking. Sweet, rotten meat, pus, and that unique smell of dying from sickness, all bundled into one cloud of odor. I didn’t know vampires could even get sick, but if that creature is still immortal, I’ll eat my shoe. But immortal or not, she’s almost through the door.