Fiends

1

    The outlaw women, wailing and shrieking, fled from the encampment. All but one, who stayed to fight.

    She stood by the campfire, a sleek arm reaching up to pull an arrow from the quiver on her back. She stood alone as the men began to fall beneath the quick fangs of the dozen raiding vampires.

    ‘She’s mine!’ Jim shouted.

    None of his fellow Guardians gave him argument. Maybe they wanted no part of her. They raced into the darkness of the woods to chase down the others.

    Jim rushed the woman.

    You get her and you get her.

    She looked innocent, fierce, glorious. Calmly nocking the arrow. Her thick hair was golden in the firelight. Her legs gleamed beneath the short leather skirt that hung low on her hips. Her vest spread open as she drew back her bowstring, sliding away from the tawny mound of her right breast.

    Jim had never seen such a woman.

    Get her!

    She glanced at him. Without an instant of hesitation, she pivoted away and loosed her arrow.

    Jim snapped his head sideways. The shaft flew at Strang’s back. Hit with a thunk. The vampire hurled the flapping body of an outlaw from his arms and whirled around, his black eyes fixing on the woman, blood spewing from his wide mouth as he bellowed, ‘Mine!’

    Jim lurched to a halt.

    Eyes narrow, lips a tight line, the woman reached up for another arrow as Strang staggered toward her. Jim was near enough to hear breath hissing through her nostrils. He gazed at her, fascinated, as she fit the arrow onto the bowstring. Her eyes were on Strang. She pulled the string back to her jaw. Her naked breast rose and fell as she panted for air.

    She didn’t let the arrow fly.

    Strang took one more stumbling stride, foamy blood gushing from his mouth, arms outstretched as if to reach beyond the campfire and grab her head. Then he pitched forward. His face crushed the flaming heap of wood, sending up a flurry of sparks. His hair began to blaze.

    The woman met Jim’s eyes.

    Get her and you get her.

    He’d never wanted any woman so much.

    ‘Run!’ he whispered. ‘Save yourself.’

    ‘Eat shit and die,’ she muttered, and released her arrow. It whizzed past his arm.

    Going for her, Jim couldn’t believe that she had missed. But he heard the arrow punch into someone, heard the roar of a mortally wounded vampire, and knew that she’d found her target. For the second time, she had chosen to take down a vampire rather than protect herself from Jim. And she hadn’t run when he’d given her the chance. What kind of woman is this?

    With his left hand, he knocked the bow aside. With his right, he swung at her face. His fist clubbed her cheek. Her head snapped sideways, mouth dropping open, spit spraying out. The punch spun her. The bow flew from her hand. Her legs tangled and she went down. She pushed at the ground, got to her hands and knees, and scurried away from Jim.

    Let her go?

    He hurried after her, staring at the backs of her legs. Shadows and firelight fluttered on them. Sweat glistened. The skirt was so short it barely covered her rump and groin.

    You get her and you get her.

    She thrust herself up.

    I’m gonna let her go, Jim thought. They’ll kill me, and they’ll probably get her anyway, but…

    Instead of making a break for the woods, she whirled around, jerked a knife from the sheath at her hip, and threw herself at Jim.

    The blade ripped the front of his shirt. Before she could bring it back across, he caught her wrist. He yanked her arm up high and drove a fist into her belly. Her breath exploded out. The blow picked her up. The power of it would’ve hurled her backward and slammed her to the ground, but Jim kept his grip on her wrist. She dangled in front of him, writhing and wheezing. Her sweaty face was twisted with agony.

    One side of her vest hung open.

    She might’ve had a chance.

    I got her, I get her.

    Jim cupped her warm, moist breast, felt its nipple pushing against his palm.

    Her fist crashed into his nose. He saw it coming, couldn’t believe it, had no time to block it. Pain exploded behind his eyes. But he kept his grip, stretched her high by the trapped arm, and punched her belly until he could no longer hold her up.

    Blinking tears from his eyes, sniffing up blood, he let go. Her legs folded. She dropped to her knees in front of him and slumped forward, her face hitting the ground between his feet. Crouching, he pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his belt. Blood splashed the back of her vest as he picked up her limp arms, pulled them behind her, and snapped the cuffs around her wrists.

2

    ‘That one put up a hell of a scrap,’ Roger said.

    Jim, sitting on the ground beside the crumpled body of the woman, looked up at the grinning vampire. ‘She was pretty tough,’ he said. He sniffed and swallowed some more blood. ‘Sorry I couldn’t stop her quicker.’

    Roger patted him on the head. ‘Think nothing of it. Strang was always a pain in the ass, anyway, and Winthrop was such an atrocious brown-noser. I’m better off without them. I’d say, taken all round, that we’ve had a banner night.’

    Roger crouched in front of the woman, clutched the hair on top of her head, and lifted her to her knees. Her eyes were shut. By the limp way she hung there, Jim guessed she must still be unconscious.

    ‘A looker,’ Roger said. ‘Well worth a broken nose, if you ask me.’ He chuckled. ‘Of course, it’s not my nose. But if I were you, I’d be a

    pretty damn happy fellow about now.’ He eased her down gently and walked off to join the other vampires.

    While they waited for all the Guardians to return with the female prisoners, they searched the bodies of the outlaws, took whatever possessions they found interesting, and stripped the corpses. They tossed the clothing into the campfire, not one of them bothering to remove Strang from the flames.

    Joking and laughing quite a bit, they hacked the bodies to pieces. The banter died away as they began to suck the remaining blood from severed heads, stumps of necks and arms and legs, from various limbs and organs. Jim turned his eyes away. He looked at the woman. She was lucky to be out cold. She couldn’t see the horrible carnage. She couldn’t hear the grunts and sighs of pleasure, the sloppy wet sounds, the occasional belch from the vampires relishing their feast. Nor could she hear the women who’d been captured and brought in by the other Guardians. They were weeping, pleading, screaming, vomiting.

    When he finally looked away from her, he saw that all the Guardians had returned. Each had a prisoner. Bart and Harry both had two. Most of the women looked as if they’d been beaten. Most had been stripped of their clothes.

    They looked to Jim like a sorry bunch.

    Not one stood proud and defiant.

    I got the best of the lot, he thought.

    Roger rose to his feet, tossed a head into the fire, and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.