Predator's Predator 10 - the rescue.
Apr. 7th, 2005 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessAAaaaaaaaand ACTION! Is it just me, or is combat tiring to write?
And difficult to write for that matter. How do you make action packed actiony stuff all fluid and actiony without making it seem all wordy and cluttered?
Maybe if I cut down on all the excessive adjectives I use. Not needed. Bad adjectives! No punctuation!
It was over an hour after dawn when Ian arrived at the warehouse. Late enough to be sure that most vampires would be resting, early enough to be sure that most humans would want to be.
The warehouse was large, at least twenty thousand square feet and four storeys high; though most of that was taken up by an open space filled with lumber - and construction supplies. Ian wondered how much of the interior they had managed to alter in the short time they had taken possession of the building. Now way to guess really, it was amazing what miracles could be accomplished if there was enough money involved.
Still, a careful circuit around the building revealed no obvious changes. The electricity lay out appeared to be much the same; the fuse boxes were in the same place - at the back of the warehouse. There were a few people walking around, whether guards or legitimate warehouse staff who were kept on to provide cover (or, Ian supposed, to actually keep the business going. Even vampires couldn’t pull money out of thin air). Either way, he doubted they would appreciate a stranger moving in off the street carrying heavy bags full of weapons.
He looked at the mountainous piles of lumber on all sides, some wrapped in loose tarpaulin, some not. He smiled, making sure no-one saw him would not be difficult.
He took a note of the security cameras. Impressively intimidating but not especially effective - but then, they were installed for a timber warehouse. Most people don’t worry over much about people stealing several tons of timber. Only one would impede his progress to the fuse box. Ian sidled easily under the nearest camera. He hoisted himself up on the nearest pile of wood and disconnected the camera. A decently paranoid security team would report it, set everyone on high alert and have a crack squad investigate.
A normal security team would just curse and call an electrician - or even just write it down for someone else to sort out later. In Ian’s experience, most people were depressingly normal.
Getting to the fuse box was easy. There were few staff working at such an early hour, most of them in the busy offices upstairs and even those few who were dragging themselves around were more interested ins securing a necessary cup of coffee than they were with any actual work - let alone tracking down stealthy intruders. The fuse box itself was incredibly old fashioned, like most of the building. The big, blocky fuses could be removed with a great deal of wrestling and wrangling, perhaps using a crowbar or a blowtorch in the case of the more stubborn ones. Such treatment would scream human meddling, however. Ian teased out a few wires and put them together in new, interesting ways. There was a spark and all the lights went out. There, that would just scream human incompetence.
Ian drifted deeper into the warehouse accompanied by the sound of curses and blundering in the gloom - these old fashioned really did need more windows for natural light.
He made his way to where he knew the basement would be. In his experience most nefarious activities took place in basement. There was probably an arcane rule that required vampires to do evil tings underground. Besides, the plans Father Michaels had obtained indicated that the rooms upstairs were a series of small offices which seemed to be heavily used during the day - not the kind of place where you would want to keep kidnapped young women. He pushed open the door that lead downwards to the basement, there were two doors with large windows in them facing each other across the short corridor that lead to an ominous set of stairs.
“Hey, you! What are you doing down here?” Ian made himself turn slowly to look at the tall man who was glaring at him from the now open door one of the offices. Sunlight streamed in from the office window behind him, turning him into n ominous silhouette. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. He grinned, sheepishly.
“Look, me mate said there was a job going down here, what with you changing and everything. I came to see if there was any chance, but then the lights went out and I got kinda lost…” He shuffled his feet nervously.
“You’re up awful early, kid.” There was a hint of amusement in the corners of that suspicious face, though.
“Well, yeah, me dad always said that I had to go to a place early to get a job.”
“Well, kid…”
“Sorry, I’m Ian,” he pulled off his right glove clumsily and held out his hand, blushing as if he was embarrassed to have forgotten. The dark man took the hand, amused at the awkward child.
Ian’s eye caught the surprised flinch in the man’s eyes as their hands touched. The knife was in his left hand as his hand closed over the other man’s. By the time he’d pulled his hand away, the knife was already striking upwards. He noticed it and opened his mouth to yell just as the knife reached his throat. The yell died, choked on a flow of blood. Ian pushed the dying man back, knocking him back into the office. The blood sputtered up from the severed artery, coating the office ceiling. He dropped to the floor, the grey carpet quickly staining with the pulsing flow of blood from the gaping throat wound.
He bent and retrieved the knife, wiping the blade clean on the man’s clothes. The knife shined, far brighter than steel. Silver to match the ring round his finger. These vampires did have shapeshifter allies, it seemed and shapeshifters weren’t worried by the sunlight that forced the vampires into hiding.
With the office door closed there was no sign of the body. Ian had acted fast enough to keep the blood confined to the office. It would be of little help if a shapeshifter came by - even Ian could scent the blood in the air, faint at the edge of his senses, but definitely there. A predatory shapeshifter would have no trouble. Best to hurry, he may have little time.
He crept down the long, sturdy concrete stairs to the basement. They looked new, far wider and deeper than was necessary for a human - wide enough to move the construction equipment that he found at the bottom of the stairs, half seen, menacing shapes in the flickering light of the battery torches.
New tunnels were being bored underground, the tunnel on his right, still under construction, looked like it would stretch under the river. Another two tunnels branched off to the left, heavy with rubble and dirt - still being extended. Ian could picture these tunnels spreading under the city. All the tunnels were angled downwards, plunging deeper under the city, under the sewer systems and basements of other buildings, but Ian could easily see them stretching up access points throughout the city.
There was a door that looked much older than the current construction. Ian sneaked towards it in the shadows to put his ear to it. Nothing. He grimaced inwardly, a closed door could hide a multitude of problems, and they were underground where the sunlight would be no help against the vampires.
He squatted, low as he could and to one side of the door - as far away as possible from the entrance and still be able to reach the doorknob. He turned the knob with one finger and gently eased the door open. The corridor within was lined by four doors either side and another at the end. Its seemed to be populated with nothing more menacing than shadows. Nothing that Ian could see anyway - the shadows were thick and some vampires were adept at using them as a mask or cloak.
He crept into the corridor, his feet making no sound on the concrete floor. He moved as fast as he dared from door to door, listening for anything beyond. Silence, silence, a faint humming - battery powered machinery? - low conversation. Ian stopped, listening hard. He could make out the voices but not the words. Two voices. Two people talking.
He couldn’t afford to wait any longer, he wanted to be leaving here before they managed to fix the fuse box and before they found the dead shapeshifter. He took two steps from the door, centred himself then charged through it.
He had less than second to take in the room - but it was enough. Too often his life had depended on him knowing who was in the room before he’d even run across the threshold, he had honed the skill to an art. He ran into the room, one of the large bags of weapons he was carrying flew from his hand to hit a man heavily in the chest. He staggered back, falling over the chair he had been pulling himself out of. Ian didn’t pause to see if he had hit, but continued moving forwards, the other bag falling form his hand as he rammed his fist into the face of the second man who was still gaping in surprise. He turned his whole body and momentum into the flow, turning his fist as he hit to cause maximum damage. He heard bones splinter as the man tumbled backwards from his chair. Ian rolled and was running back the other way. The man he had hit with the bag was just getting to his feet as Ian’s first kick took him in the second. His second kick hit him squarely in the face, forcing him to straighten up again, his head forced back. Ian’s hand snapped out, a dagger like motion, the fingers stiffened stabbing into the man’s throat. Again he turned, running half way across the room to vault over the third chair - to which a terrified girl had been tied - he kicked out with both legs against the chest of the man with the broken nose, forcing him to stagger heavily into the wall. Ian followed the motion, letting his momentum drive the man backwards. Fleetingly, he noticed a sickly green glow pulsing around the man’s left hand. Something bout the colour of it raised nausea in his throat and made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He grabbed the wrist, twisting the arm behind the stunned man’s back. Holding the arm lock with one hand, he grabbed his hair with a second to ram his head into the wall - three solid hits and again Ian heard bones crack. The other man had collapsed to the floor, his face an unpleasant bluish colour. He had never found breath to scream.
He kept moving, time was of the essence now. He pulled a knife from his bag and cut the bonds that held the girl to her chair. He noted fleetingly that she was tied in the middle of some kind of magic circle, surrounded by runes he didn’t recognise, not that he knew anything about runes. There was a fiercely burning censor at four points around the circle, each on purchased on a strange, finely carved, wooden pedestal. The hot, tall flames were blue and green, flickering through to orange and threw their eerie colours in an arcane kaleidoscope across the walls.
He pulled the girl to her feet, sharply motioning her to be quiet. Her brown eyes were too wide with panic and her breath was too fast but she nodded, a lot stronger than she looked. He smiled reassuringly, and hurried her to the door. Slowly he drew her out into the dark corridor, back towards the exit.
The end door creaked open, damp had swelled the wood, causing it to expand and stick. It gave Ian that second extra warning he needed. All fluid motion, he moved between the girl and the door. One hand pulled the cylinder of incendiary liquid from his collar, his other flicked open the lighter he always carried. The door flew open just as Ian threw the cylinder past the threshold.
Heat washed over Ian and the girl as flames spewed to light, consuming the vampire in the doorway and driving any behind it back in feral terror. The sudden light pushed the deep shadows back and making them writhe and jump. Ian blinked, the shadows moved wrong. He didn’t stop to think, he thrust the still burning lighter into the strange shadows. The vampire hiding in the murky depths recoiled from the flame. Ian grabbed one flailing arm, turned and, using his whole body as leverage, threw the vampire into the room where he had rescued the girl. He heard the splintering crash as the vampire collided with one of the censors. He didn’t stop to check, didn’t stop for anything, just grabbed the terrified girl and ran for the exit.
They made it through the door without anyone chasing them - or at least, no-one Ian saw. The girl was panting desperately. In willed her to stay calm, not to panic. He was already impressed, she just needed to last a little longer. He lead her gently past the offices, heading to the warehouse.
A rat leapt from the skirting board. He was paranoid, he knew he was paranoid, but it usually saved his life. He threw her to the floor and leaped backwards away from it. The rat expanded in mid air. Bones cracked and muscles popped as it exploded outwards into a giant, black furred rat man. The whole change had taken a second, but seemed to leave the rat creature disorientated, confused by missing its prey and the speed of its change. In Ian’s life, paranoia was a life saver. Fats reactions a close second, before the rat man had cleared his head Ian was already pointing the can of pepper spray at the creature’s distorted face. The shapeshifter’s eyes widened in surprise - which didn’t help it at all when Ian sprayed it directly in the face. It reared back, a long chittering screech of agony seemed to cut right to Ian’s bones. The heightened senses of shapeshifters could be used against them if you knew how. He brought a sharp knee up into the rat man’s groin - even as a half man monster the creature was still male. It sagged, legs folding, bringing it’s face down close enough for Ian to spray it directly with the pepper spray again.
The girl screamed, Ian fell to the floor, rolling out of the way, not pausing to look at what she was screaming at. He felt the wind of the vampire’s passage as it soared over him, fangs bred and snarling. Ian continued to roll from the crippled rat man and the snarling vampire until he came up against the office door. He kicked out with both legs, splintering the door catch and slamming the door back so hard the frosted glass window in the wood shattered. Rich morning sunlight shone through the opening. The vampire’s scream cut even louder than the wererat’s, it’s skin beginning to blacken and even melt. It blurred back down the stairs, instinctively fleeing the sun. Ian rolled to one side, just winning clear of the vampire’s fear fuelled flight, pulling himself to his feet as quickly as he could. It was instinct as much as anything that had him jump back. The wererat, made clumsy by the agony it was suffering, lashed out at him with one dagger-clawed hand. The claws missed his flesh by inches, but no human was fast enough to avoid the devastating backswing. Only a back hand slap, but backed by the preternatural strength of a shapeshifter, it hit his shoulder and sent him spinning across the room to crash heavily with the opposite wall. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to hurt. His mind was stunned, blank by the force of the impact. Instinctively he was already reaching for a weapon, training taking over while his brain still reeled in shock. It wasn’t enough, he was too slow.
The wererat came at him in a blur of speed, it grabbed him by his shirt in one huge, clawed arm, pulling him up to its massive fanged maw. Ian’s head cleared by a sweet rush of adrenaline in the face of death, the fog pushed further back by the wash of fetid breath that washed past the creature’s yellow incisors. He had a brief second to stab the creature - hope he could cause enough damage to kill it before it killed him. Hope that his luck would hold...
Never trust to chance against the monsters. He twisted and brought both feet against the creature’s chest, pushing away from its grip, fighting its strength. It blinked for a second, then laughed, a chittering, high pitched animal sound that still managed to sound enough like a human to sound cruel. It was far stronger than him, it pulled harder, to jerk him to those hungry jaws.
The shirt ripped down the seems. Ian made a mental note to thank Lakshmi for her excellent work on them - sturdy enough to hold his weight, but weak enough for his clothes not to be a trap. The wererat was left with a tattered remains of Ian’s shirt. Ian was on the floor, falling hard to keep the knife in his hand. He threw the knife almost before he hit the floor. The impact shook him, throwing off his aim, burying the silver knife in the wererat’s right shoulder rather than the throat. Ian rolled, moving to the wererat‘s weak side, not wasting time to get top his feet or recover his breath, he was already drawing another knife from the sheaves at his side, all the faster for not having to battle past his shirt. The wererat turned, fighting against the limited movement in its right arm. The second knife hit the creature’s bestial face, spiking into the creature’s cheek up to puncture one eye. Ian had another weapon drawn before the echoes of its scream had died. The creature was too close and grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip, again bringing his face up to its yellow fangs. Ian didn't fight it, he tucked his feet under him and thrust upwards adding his own momentum to the wererat’s strength. An almost surprised expression crossed the malformed face before the knife in Ian’s other hand surged upwards, backed by the strength of his whole body and the wererat’s grip. The knife went into the creature’s neck just as it met the throat, severing arteries on its way up to the base of the brain. The wererat’s clawed hand jerked open, nerveless. Ian dropped and quickly and calmly put on the ruins of his shirt and collected his weapons.
He took the girl’s hand, spared her shocked face another smile of reassurance, though he suspected she was beyond a mere smile at this point, and headed out into the warehouse.
Pandemonium ruled above. The power was still out, a man lay unconscious in front of the fuse box, suggesting that someone without proper qualifications had tried to fix the mess Ian had left behind without disconnecting the mains first. Well meaning first-aiders were doing their best to help him, hindered by an efficient security team who had come down from their operations room to check why one of their cameras had gone off line. They weren’t helped in this by the now considerably number of employees from the warehouse floor and the offices shouting at them for worrying about a camera while a man lay dying. Through this multisided argument and worrying ran many people asking what all the noise downstairs was - several actually blundering through the dark to go and check. The security team stopped them, of course - which only added to the number of people shouting at them.
Ian watched from the sidelines in the gloom for a near minute taking the whole confused in and finding the best escape route. A smile played across his lips, he wouldn’t have dared hope for a better exit.
He carefully guided the girl past the confused mass of shouting, angry, scared people. Leaving the chaos behind, they walked out into the sunlight, heading back to Father Michaels’ church.
Ian was amazed. He’d never expected to come out of that one alive. Perhaps there was such a thing as miracles.
And difficult to write for that matter. How do you make action packed actiony stuff all fluid and actiony without making it seem all wordy and cluttered?
Maybe if I cut down on all the excessive adjectives I use. Not needed. Bad adjectives! No punctuation!
It was over an hour after dawn when Ian arrived at the warehouse. Late enough to be sure that most vampires would be resting, early enough to be sure that most humans would want to be.
The warehouse was large, at least twenty thousand square feet and four storeys high; though most of that was taken up by an open space filled with lumber - and construction supplies. Ian wondered how much of the interior they had managed to alter in the short time they had taken possession of the building. Now way to guess really, it was amazing what miracles could be accomplished if there was enough money involved.
Still, a careful circuit around the building revealed no obvious changes. The electricity lay out appeared to be much the same; the fuse boxes were in the same place - at the back of the warehouse. There were a few people walking around, whether guards or legitimate warehouse staff who were kept on to provide cover (or, Ian supposed, to actually keep the business going. Even vampires couldn’t pull money out of thin air). Either way, he doubted they would appreciate a stranger moving in off the street carrying heavy bags full of weapons.
He looked at the mountainous piles of lumber on all sides, some wrapped in loose tarpaulin, some not. He smiled, making sure no-one saw him would not be difficult.
He took a note of the security cameras. Impressively intimidating but not especially effective - but then, they were installed for a timber warehouse. Most people don’t worry over much about people stealing several tons of timber. Only one would impede his progress to the fuse box. Ian sidled easily under the nearest camera. He hoisted himself up on the nearest pile of wood and disconnected the camera. A decently paranoid security team would report it, set everyone on high alert and have a crack squad investigate.
A normal security team would just curse and call an electrician - or even just write it down for someone else to sort out later. In Ian’s experience, most people were depressingly normal.
Getting to the fuse box was easy. There were few staff working at such an early hour, most of them in the busy offices upstairs and even those few who were dragging themselves around were more interested ins securing a necessary cup of coffee than they were with any actual work - let alone tracking down stealthy intruders. The fuse box itself was incredibly old fashioned, like most of the building. The big, blocky fuses could be removed with a great deal of wrestling and wrangling, perhaps using a crowbar or a blowtorch in the case of the more stubborn ones. Such treatment would scream human meddling, however. Ian teased out a few wires and put them together in new, interesting ways. There was a spark and all the lights went out. There, that would just scream human incompetence.
Ian drifted deeper into the warehouse accompanied by the sound of curses and blundering in the gloom - these old fashioned really did need more windows for natural light.
He made his way to where he knew the basement would be. In his experience most nefarious activities took place in basement. There was probably an arcane rule that required vampires to do evil tings underground. Besides, the plans Father Michaels had obtained indicated that the rooms upstairs were a series of small offices which seemed to be heavily used during the day - not the kind of place where you would want to keep kidnapped young women. He pushed open the door that lead downwards to the basement, there were two doors with large windows in them facing each other across the short corridor that lead to an ominous set of stairs.
“Hey, you! What are you doing down here?” Ian made himself turn slowly to look at the tall man who was glaring at him from the now open door one of the offices. Sunlight streamed in from the office window behind him, turning him into n ominous silhouette. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. He grinned, sheepishly.
“Look, me mate said there was a job going down here, what with you changing and everything. I came to see if there was any chance, but then the lights went out and I got kinda lost…” He shuffled his feet nervously.
“You’re up awful early, kid.” There was a hint of amusement in the corners of that suspicious face, though.
“Well, yeah, me dad always said that I had to go to a place early to get a job.”
“Well, kid…”
“Sorry, I’m Ian,” he pulled off his right glove clumsily and held out his hand, blushing as if he was embarrassed to have forgotten. The dark man took the hand, amused at the awkward child.
Ian’s eye caught the surprised flinch in the man’s eyes as their hands touched. The knife was in his left hand as his hand closed over the other man’s. By the time he’d pulled his hand away, the knife was already striking upwards. He noticed it and opened his mouth to yell just as the knife reached his throat. The yell died, choked on a flow of blood. Ian pushed the dying man back, knocking him back into the office. The blood sputtered up from the severed artery, coating the office ceiling. He dropped to the floor, the grey carpet quickly staining with the pulsing flow of blood from the gaping throat wound.
He bent and retrieved the knife, wiping the blade clean on the man’s clothes. The knife shined, far brighter than steel. Silver to match the ring round his finger. These vampires did have shapeshifter allies, it seemed and shapeshifters weren’t worried by the sunlight that forced the vampires into hiding.
With the office door closed there was no sign of the body. Ian had acted fast enough to keep the blood confined to the office. It would be of little help if a shapeshifter came by - even Ian could scent the blood in the air, faint at the edge of his senses, but definitely there. A predatory shapeshifter would have no trouble. Best to hurry, he may have little time.
He crept down the long, sturdy concrete stairs to the basement. They looked new, far wider and deeper than was necessary for a human - wide enough to move the construction equipment that he found at the bottom of the stairs, half seen, menacing shapes in the flickering light of the battery torches.
New tunnels were being bored underground, the tunnel on his right, still under construction, looked like it would stretch under the river. Another two tunnels branched off to the left, heavy with rubble and dirt - still being extended. Ian could picture these tunnels spreading under the city. All the tunnels were angled downwards, plunging deeper under the city, under the sewer systems and basements of other buildings, but Ian could easily see them stretching up access points throughout the city.
There was a door that looked much older than the current construction. Ian sneaked towards it in the shadows to put his ear to it. Nothing. He grimaced inwardly, a closed door could hide a multitude of problems, and they were underground where the sunlight would be no help against the vampires.
He squatted, low as he could and to one side of the door - as far away as possible from the entrance and still be able to reach the doorknob. He turned the knob with one finger and gently eased the door open. The corridor within was lined by four doors either side and another at the end. Its seemed to be populated with nothing more menacing than shadows. Nothing that Ian could see anyway - the shadows were thick and some vampires were adept at using them as a mask or cloak.
He crept into the corridor, his feet making no sound on the concrete floor. He moved as fast as he dared from door to door, listening for anything beyond. Silence, silence, a faint humming - battery powered machinery? - low conversation. Ian stopped, listening hard. He could make out the voices but not the words. Two voices. Two people talking.
He couldn’t afford to wait any longer, he wanted to be leaving here before they managed to fix the fuse box and before they found the dead shapeshifter. He took two steps from the door, centred himself then charged through it.
He had less than second to take in the room - but it was enough. Too often his life had depended on him knowing who was in the room before he’d even run across the threshold, he had honed the skill to an art. He ran into the room, one of the large bags of weapons he was carrying flew from his hand to hit a man heavily in the chest. He staggered back, falling over the chair he had been pulling himself out of. Ian didn’t pause to see if he had hit, but continued moving forwards, the other bag falling form his hand as he rammed his fist into the face of the second man who was still gaping in surprise. He turned his whole body and momentum into the flow, turning his fist as he hit to cause maximum damage. He heard bones splinter as the man tumbled backwards from his chair. Ian rolled and was running back the other way. The man he had hit with the bag was just getting to his feet as Ian’s first kick took him in the second. His second kick hit him squarely in the face, forcing him to straighten up again, his head forced back. Ian’s hand snapped out, a dagger like motion, the fingers stiffened stabbing into the man’s throat. Again he turned, running half way across the room to vault over the third chair - to which a terrified girl had been tied - he kicked out with both legs against the chest of the man with the broken nose, forcing him to stagger heavily into the wall. Ian followed the motion, letting his momentum drive the man backwards. Fleetingly, he noticed a sickly green glow pulsing around the man’s left hand. Something bout the colour of it raised nausea in his throat and made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He grabbed the wrist, twisting the arm behind the stunned man’s back. Holding the arm lock with one hand, he grabbed his hair with a second to ram his head into the wall - three solid hits and again Ian heard bones crack. The other man had collapsed to the floor, his face an unpleasant bluish colour. He had never found breath to scream.
He kept moving, time was of the essence now. He pulled a knife from his bag and cut the bonds that held the girl to her chair. He noted fleetingly that she was tied in the middle of some kind of magic circle, surrounded by runes he didn’t recognise, not that he knew anything about runes. There was a fiercely burning censor at four points around the circle, each on purchased on a strange, finely carved, wooden pedestal. The hot, tall flames were blue and green, flickering through to orange and threw their eerie colours in an arcane kaleidoscope across the walls.
He pulled the girl to her feet, sharply motioning her to be quiet. Her brown eyes were too wide with panic and her breath was too fast but she nodded, a lot stronger than she looked. He smiled reassuringly, and hurried her to the door. Slowly he drew her out into the dark corridor, back towards the exit.
The end door creaked open, damp had swelled the wood, causing it to expand and stick. It gave Ian that second extra warning he needed. All fluid motion, he moved between the girl and the door. One hand pulled the cylinder of incendiary liquid from his collar, his other flicked open the lighter he always carried. The door flew open just as Ian threw the cylinder past the threshold.
Heat washed over Ian and the girl as flames spewed to light, consuming the vampire in the doorway and driving any behind it back in feral terror. The sudden light pushed the deep shadows back and making them writhe and jump. Ian blinked, the shadows moved wrong. He didn’t stop to think, he thrust the still burning lighter into the strange shadows. The vampire hiding in the murky depths recoiled from the flame. Ian grabbed one flailing arm, turned and, using his whole body as leverage, threw the vampire into the room where he had rescued the girl. He heard the splintering crash as the vampire collided with one of the censors. He didn’t stop to check, didn’t stop for anything, just grabbed the terrified girl and ran for the exit.
They made it through the door without anyone chasing them - or at least, no-one Ian saw. The girl was panting desperately. In willed her to stay calm, not to panic. He was already impressed, she just needed to last a little longer. He lead her gently past the offices, heading to the warehouse.
A rat leapt from the skirting board. He was paranoid, he knew he was paranoid, but it usually saved his life. He threw her to the floor and leaped backwards away from it. The rat expanded in mid air. Bones cracked and muscles popped as it exploded outwards into a giant, black furred rat man. The whole change had taken a second, but seemed to leave the rat creature disorientated, confused by missing its prey and the speed of its change. In Ian’s life, paranoia was a life saver. Fats reactions a close second, before the rat man had cleared his head Ian was already pointing the can of pepper spray at the creature’s distorted face. The shapeshifter’s eyes widened in surprise - which didn’t help it at all when Ian sprayed it directly in the face. It reared back, a long chittering screech of agony seemed to cut right to Ian’s bones. The heightened senses of shapeshifters could be used against them if you knew how. He brought a sharp knee up into the rat man’s groin - even as a half man monster the creature was still male. It sagged, legs folding, bringing it’s face down close enough for Ian to spray it directly with the pepper spray again.
The girl screamed, Ian fell to the floor, rolling out of the way, not pausing to look at what she was screaming at. He felt the wind of the vampire’s passage as it soared over him, fangs bred and snarling. Ian continued to roll from the crippled rat man and the snarling vampire until he came up against the office door. He kicked out with both legs, splintering the door catch and slamming the door back so hard the frosted glass window in the wood shattered. Rich morning sunlight shone through the opening. The vampire’s scream cut even louder than the wererat’s, it’s skin beginning to blacken and even melt. It blurred back down the stairs, instinctively fleeing the sun. Ian rolled to one side, just winning clear of the vampire’s fear fuelled flight, pulling himself to his feet as quickly as he could. It was instinct as much as anything that had him jump back. The wererat, made clumsy by the agony it was suffering, lashed out at him with one dagger-clawed hand. The claws missed his flesh by inches, but no human was fast enough to avoid the devastating backswing. Only a back hand slap, but backed by the preternatural strength of a shapeshifter, it hit his shoulder and sent him spinning across the room to crash heavily with the opposite wall. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to hurt. His mind was stunned, blank by the force of the impact. Instinctively he was already reaching for a weapon, training taking over while his brain still reeled in shock. It wasn’t enough, he was too slow.
The wererat came at him in a blur of speed, it grabbed him by his shirt in one huge, clawed arm, pulling him up to its massive fanged maw. Ian’s head cleared by a sweet rush of adrenaline in the face of death, the fog pushed further back by the wash of fetid breath that washed past the creature’s yellow incisors. He had a brief second to stab the creature - hope he could cause enough damage to kill it before it killed him. Hope that his luck would hold...
Never trust to chance against the monsters. He twisted and brought both feet against the creature’s chest, pushing away from its grip, fighting its strength. It blinked for a second, then laughed, a chittering, high pitched animal sound that still managed to sound enough like a human to sound cruel. It was far stronger than him, it pulled harder, to jerk him to those hungry jaws.
The shirt ripped down the seems. Ian made a mental note to thank Lakshmi for her excellent work on them - sturdy enough to hold his weight, but weak enough for his clothes not to be a trap. The wererat was left with a tattered remains of Ian’s shirt. Ian was on the floor, falling hard to keep the knife in his hand. He threw the knife almost before he hit the floor. The impact shook him, throwing off his aim, burying the silver knife in the wererat’s right shoulder rather than the throat. Ian rolled, moving to the wererat‘s weak side, not wasting time to get top his feet or recover his breath, he was already drawing another knife from the sheaves at his side, all the faster for not having to battle past his shirt. The wererat turned, fighting against the limited movement in its right arm. The second knife hit the creature’s bestial face, spiking into the creature’s cheek up to puncture one eye. Ian had another weapon drawn before the echoes of its scream had died. The creature was too close and grabbed his wrist in a crushing grip, again bringing his face up to its yellow fangs. Ian didn't fight it, he tucked his feet under him and thrust upwards adding his own momentum to the wererat’s strength. An almost surprised expression crossed the malformed face before the knife in Ian’s other hand surged upwards, backed by the strength of his whole body and the wererat’s grip. The knife went into the creature’s neck just as it met the throat, severing arteries on its way up to the base of the brain. The wererat’s clawed hand jerked open, nerveless. Ian dropped and quickly and calmly put on the ruins of his shirt and collected his weapons.
He took the girl’s hand, spared her shocked face another smile of reassurance, though he suspected she was beyond a mere smile at this point, and headed out into the warehouse.
Pandemonium ruled above. The power was still out, a man lay unconscious in front of the fuse box, suggesting that someone without proper qualifications had tried to fix the mess Ian had left behind without disconnecting the mains first. Well meaning first-aiders were doing their best to help him, hindered by an efficient security team who had come down from their operations room to check why one of their cameras had gone off line. They weren’t helped in this by the now considerably number of employees from the warehouse floor and the offices shouting at them for worrying about a camera while a man lay dying. Through this multisided argument and worrying ran many people asking what all the noise downstairs was - several actually blundering through the dark to go and check. The security team stopped them, of course - which only added to the number of people shouting at them.
Ian watched from the sidelines in the gloom for a near minute taking the whole confused in and finding the best escape route. A smile played across his lips, he wouldn’t have dared hope for a better exit.
He carefully guided the girl past the confused mass of shouting, angry, scared people. Leaving the chaos behind, they walked out into the sunlight, heading back to Father Michaels’ church.
Ian was amazed. He’d never expected to come out of that one alive. Perhaps there was such a thing as miracles.