All my awareness shifted to my heart pounding in my throat. I felt as if they were staring at it, my most vulnerable point. I couldn’t see anything but a bit of light creeping around the edge of my vision and the jeans that one of the brothers was wearing. One of them struck me in the back with his fist. A wave of pain rang over me in all directions and my breath rushed out deflating me. I crumpled against the table filled with the urge to beg, to plead. I could talk with these creatures, appeal to them, reason with them. I’d just played cards with them. No arguments came to mind, but surely, they’d see. I’d leave them alone. I was not worth it. Wasn’t worth the wrath of the General. “The General,” I managed to squawk and received a slap to the back of the head that burst my lip and chipped a tooth against the table. My entire mouth throbbed, and the tooth burnt white hot with pain. They laughed again. “Thinks he’s something. You’re a snack boy, a plaything. The General must be losing it more than I’d heard to be sending a little shit like you upriver. You would have been his dinner back in the day.” A cold firm hand with sharp edges as if it were constructed of metal, grasped my wrist, and squeezed the skin against the bone. It pulled my elbow back stretching it until the tendons felt as if they would rip out, bending it backwards until my vision broke down into wavering blurry columns of light and I was unaware of what I was babbling. I saw a fleck of my own spit fly out of my mouth and lie glistening on the table, until the pain blurred it into a streak. “The General don’t hold no sway up here boy,” a voice said and pulled back further on the elbow. My teeth sank unaware into my lip. Blackness and heat washed over me, and I struggled again kicking and thrashing with the last of my energy, but my struggle quickly lost steam though and I was left twitching and blubbering. They cackled.
Suddenly a sharp crack like a rifle burst from behind me cutting through the fuzz of pain. The acute pain in my arm evaporated leaving behind only its residue and a pulsing ache. One of the brothers roared a jumble of consonants that sounded more like the roar of a charging animal than the words of an intelligent creature. I felt his spittle splatter me and their icy hands let me go. I rolled over weakly and saw Abdul standing in the door like darkness condensed, his face cool and impassive, except for his eyes dim and red like the coals of a dying fire. The three vampires were standing between us in a semi-circle facing the ambassador, Ricky hitting his fist into his palm. They looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes. Ricky to Tim and Tim to Bart. Bart’s eyes flickered back and forth and to the floor. His eyebrows were curved down around his eyes, but the rest of his face was blank and expressionless. The ambassador smiled slightly and rocked back on his heels with a look of perfect anticipation, the most natural expression I’d seen him exhibit, and then he flew forwards. He moved as if nothing else could move but him. One hand grasped Ricky around the throat before he had a chance to react, but he swung his arm in a giant arc as soon as Abdul’s hand wrapped around his neck and sank a fat fist into Abdul’s side. Abdul moaned slightly and his body flopped like rag doll with the impact. Then he jerked Ricky’s head forward and kneed him in the face. The blow threw Ricky’s head backwards and sent a quick spout of blood into the air. Tim rushed up and grabbed the ambassador from behind, locking his throat in the crook of his elbow and punching him in the side as Bart went for the rifles that were leaned up against the wall. My body felt paralyzed, a throbbing mass that was only able to watch, incapable even of running. Abdul hurled his body forward and pulled Tim over him, throwing him down on top of Ricky. He stomped down on his back and then leapt onto Bart with a snarl pulling a knife from his belt as he flew. They went down together in a frenzied mass near the rifles. The knife gleamed orange
