Bela the Nymphomaniac Vampire Slayer

Chapter 16: Why only twits and vampires monologue (outside their heads)

It's times like this that I think that someone out there must be trying to fuck with me.

I mean, here I am, paranoid Bela who decided it was too dangerous to go home because it'd been compromised due to a vamp coming to my fucking front doorstep in broad daylight. So I go to Nana's place. There aren't any vamps that know about here, I thought to myself. It'll be nice, and safe, and quiet, and I'd get a decent sleep for a change, because I knew for sure that no vampire would ever think to come here.

Except of course for the one who happens to be my ex-boyfriend, who chooses tonight of all nights to finally act on the information he's had since before he was turned. I'd fucking forgotten, and now I'm eye-deep in the shit, since not only has he literally caught me with my pants down, but I don't have my usual arsenal to work with, because no, Nana's place is the much better option. What with it not being kitted out with the hidden knives, improvisable stakes, holy water, etc that I spent so long setting up in my room, back at my place...

Yeah, I feel pretty fucking stupid right now.

“Aren't you going to at least say hello? I'm cut Bela, right here,” he says, one hand negligently brushing over his chest. I wish he was.

Cut around the heart region that is. Then he'd be a pile of dust, and not in my Nana's bedroom with unarmed me, lying on the bed. All I need is a fucking white billowy nightgown and I'd be Miss Quintessential Victorian Vampire Victim.
At least I'm not swooning.

“After all that fun we used to have, really love, that's not very welcoming of you...”

I just can't catch a break this week, I really can't. I mean fuck, in between crossing paths with cock-blocking extraordinaire “I-wear-too-much-black-can't-tell-the-difference-between-vamps-and-albinos-stalker” Coutt, that stalker vampire that figured out where I live and tried to read me bad poetry, “Too-sexy-for-my-shirt-but-in-serious-need-of-a-tinfoil-hat” Taylan and his brainbefucked mind-rapist brother Rutley, Cooperative flunkies, and Tristan and Sam being their usual charming selves...

Come to think of it, this week's been so FUBAR that if my vampirized ex hadn't shown his anaemic face it'd have violated Rule 1.

Things can (and will) always get worse.

After all these years, Tao picks the one night that I wasn't prepared to track me down.I don't have the home advantage, and this isn't some vamp I picked up at a bar who thinks I'm going to be an easy feed. I'm bone-tired, wearing nothing but a shirt and some underwear, and my stilletoes are not on my feet.

At least I didn't say, “well at least it isn't raining”. Just think of the trouble I'd be in then.

“I must say, I didn't think your nom de guerre was particularly good.” He steps in through the open balcony door, slowly, calmly, not looking down at his feet to make sure that he won't trip over the ledge. Looks like he's less clumsy as a vampire than he was as a human.
Shit. As if I needed another disadvantage.

“I mean, sure, I remember a time when people called you Iz, but to move from using the beginning of your name to the end of it... hardly made it a challenge to figure out who you were. Honestly Bela, I'm a little disappointed.” Vaguely I notice that he's covered in rainbows from the crystals in the lampshade. They go well with his all-black ensemble. I never got that about vampires. Is there something about drinking blood that gives one a leather fetish?

Hey, don't look at me. Leather's practical for my version of my line of work- not only is it near-impossible for anyone to take me seriously in that getup, vamps have a hard time biting through it.

What I wouldn't do for some leather right now...

As though he can tell what I'm thinkig, he smirks at me. He never used to smirk. He used to beam, to grin, to smile that shy smile of his when he was about to kiss me. He was far too nice, too modest to be the type to smirk... Just in case I needed another reminder that this isn't the boy I fell deep into puppy love with all those years ago...

He smiles at me, a mockery of his old smile, the smile that used to captivate me when I was years younger, when I thought that I would be with him forever.

Not like this. Never like this.

Fortunately, one thing about him hasn't changed over the years.

He still loves the sound of his own voice.

“I hear that you've been busy Bela. Word gets around when a suspicious number of vampires disappear after being seen in the company of a buxom wench in a corset and heels.”

I think my mind's finally got too tired to deal with this shit. Despite the danger in the situation, I crack up.

“Did you in all seriousness just call me a 'buxom wench'? What the hell kind of walking fossil bloodsuckers have you been hanging with?” I ask him between snickers.

His brow creases.

“Would you prefer 'large-breasted whore'? I was attempting to be polite,” he tells me.

He wants to eat me, and he's 'attempting to be polite'.

...

When I graduate from snickers to laughing hysterically, he looks confused.

“What the devil are you cackling about?” he demands, baring his canines as thunder crackles in the background. What was that I said about the rain?

The vampire is my ex-boyfriend. He's wearing all black, he's covered in rainbows, a storm's coming in, he's been monologuing and he just fang-flashed me.

Oh god, I'm going to be killed by a walking cliché.

I should really stop laughing. I should. I know I should.

But this is just too fucking ridiculous for words.

Tao looks particularly perturbed. “Tell me! What are you laughing at?” flashing teeth again he snarls at me.

I'm in pain now, holding my sides as the tears stream out of my eyes, but I can't stop.

Oh god, this is horrible. I'm going to die laughing. Tao's starting to lose patience. He's advancing on me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something glinting on the bedside table. Is that... Oh man, it is. Okay. Now I've got a plan. Now let's see if I can stop myself from getting killed long enough to execute it.

Slowly, I stop laughing, and ease myself into a sitting position, and Tao stops advancing, just out of arm's reach. He knows he has the upper hand, but he's still treating me like I'm some kind of dangerous beast.

The irony doesn't escape me.

Leaning back against the headboard in a provocative pose, I let a smirk of my own cross my face. This may be one of the stupidest plans I've ever had, but it's one that's worked for me before. If it gets me killed, I'm going to be pissed.

“So Tao, what say you that we have one last fuck for old time's sake?”

Tao looks at me, calculatingly. Crocodiles have friendlier, more docile eyes. Hell, I reckon your average velociraptor would seem like a kindergarten teacher in comparison to the demonic coldness he's exuding. I shiver despite myself, and if I'm completely honest, it's not just out of fear.

I know, I know. I'm fucked up. But if I wasn't this way, right now I'd just be fucked.

Then he smirks again, and I know I'm in with a chance.

He climbs onto the bed. Slowly, langorously, prowlingly. He has all the time in the world, and he plans to use it.

“Oh Bela, we were always so good together,” he says as he climbs beside me, and starts to massage my left breast. I moan a little for him, and draw him into a deep kiss, while my other hand gropes for the thing I saw glinting on the bedside table.

Tao starts to pull away, but stops when I bite his lower lip savagely, 'passionately', and start to massage his growing erection with my free hand.

All those years of fucking vampires has taught me a skill or two in keeping their attention.

My fingers close on something hard, and I've got it. The thing that might just save me.

No it's not Tao's undead penis giving a whole new meaning to rigor mortis. Get your mind out of the gutter. It's the thing from the bedside table that I was reaching for.

For the first time in my life, I wish Nana was the type to knit with aluminium needles or somesuch, but no such luck.

I move away from Tao's lips and start to trail kisses across his jawline, until I'm kissing him below his ear. I remembered how sensitive he was just there. It's lucky I remembered, because it's keeping him facing away from the thing in my hand, and paying his attention to what I want him to see, which is anything but.

Stage magicians have got nothing on me.

I roll on top of him, taking my time as I rub myself up against him, causing his loose black shirt to rise up to his ribcage, baring translucent skin, the paleness exaggerated against the contrasting black shirt.

He wants me, I can feel it, but Tao was always a patient guy.

“So beautiful... you will make such a gorgeous queen for me when... I turn... you,” he gasps as I suck on the dip above his collarbone.

Oh you had better be fucking kidding me. On the other hand, if he's saying things like that then he no doubt assumes that he's got me.

“Since when have you been a king?” I ask him, affecting a teasing tone as I run my nails down his sides.

Tao grins toothily at me. “You've been decimating the ranks quite nicely, darling. You and your other little slayer,” he practically spat the word, “friends are quite good to younger vampires like me with an interest in climbing the social ladder. And since I hear you took care of Giuseppe tonight, I only need to kill Valerie in single combat, and I'll be fr-”

I've heard more than enough, and so before he can finish his statement, I pull his shirt over his face then headbutt him hard in the nose before I roll off him, across the floor and into the ensuite bathroom, from where I kick the door shut. I scramble to my feet and have the door bolted before Tao has finished yelling in pain.

I look down at the silver device in my hand and thank god that Nana has a cordless phone. I hit the third number on speed dial, and move over to the cabinet under the sink to see if I can find anything that could be used as a weapon.

By the shouting and thumping on the door, I think Tao's a bit pissed at me.

Three rings of dial tone, then a drowsy voice answers.

“Nana Isabela? What time is it?”

“No, it's Bela.” I whisper. Hopefully the vamp's making too much noise to hear me. “I'm trapped in Nana's upstairs bathroom with a fucking vamp hammering on the door, and I need back up pronto.”

“You're shitting me.”

“Motherfucker! Do I joke about this kind of shit?!”

“Okay, I'm coming. I'm twenty minutes away. Hold tight.”

Dial tone.

Son of a bitch hung up.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! The door's already starting to splinter. No fucking way is it going to hold for another twenty minutes.

The cabinet has nothing in it but cleaning fluid and some spare toothbrushes and soap. Nothing I can stab with. Fucking typical.

Okay, don't panic. You can get out of this. You just need a plan.

A plan. Right. What plan?

Goddamnit!

Think Bela, think!

I look at my surroundings. Orangey brown tiles with sheaves of wheat and little farm girls in modest dresses surround me. It's your typical ensuite bathroom, really. Tiles on all surfaces, with a tiny window that I know for a fact has a five metre drop beneath it, with a spiked fence to helpfully break my fall. I'll give myself another five minutes before I use that option. Better impaled than resembling the Impaler. Though if I get a choice, I'd rather impale the Impaler descendent.

Sorry about that- that joke was punishingly bad.

Focus Bela!

Okay, tiles, window with little curtains, toilet with pink toilet brush next to it, sink with blue liquid soap, bathtub, shower curtain on rail patterned with happy cartoon sunflowers...

Shower curtain.

On rail.

The thumping on the door isn't ceasing, but there are longer intervals and harder-sounding thumps, that make the whole door shake. It sounds like Tao is running across the room and throwing himself at the door, using himself as a battering ram.

Huh, maybe I underestimated how much I pissed him off.

No time!

I yank the rail out of its sockets and thank god that Nana has never felt the need to update her bathroom as I let the shower curtain fall off in front of the door. The bloody thing is that see-through plastic vinyl stuff, and slippery as hell when wet, so I detach the hand-held showerhead and spray.

What am I forgetting?

Oh yeah.

Grabbing the liquid soap from the sink, I squirt it over the shower curtain, to decrease the friction even further.

I still need something more. If he slips, then I'll have a second, but I need something more just in case...

I look back in the cabinet and spot the caustic soda drain cleaner, and then I know I'm in with a chance.

I back away to stand in front of the toilet, shower rail in one hand, open bottle of drain cleaner in the other. I don't have enough room to hold the shower rail horizontally, so I prop one end next to my foot, and hold the other up so that it's about level with my chest height.

I look down at the time on the phone. It's only been three minutes since my phonecall. I look at the door. Cracks spider-web from the handle. I'll be lucky if it holds for another three.

I listen to Tao run against the door again.
Twice.

Three times.

Four times.

Five.

The anticipation is going to kill me before he does.

Fuck this!

I wait for the next lunge, then unbolt the door as I hear him moving back from the next run.

I brace myself, ready for when he crashes through the door.

It's only when I hear the silence that I realise that he must have heard me unbolting the door.

Oh Bela, you are so FUCKING STUPID!

I barely have time to realise I've made a mistake, before the door slowly opens, and things start to move in slow motion.

Tao. Pokes his head around the door. Blood is running from his nose. Brown blood. Dead blood. He looks at me. Sneers. Starts to step inside the tiny bathroom.

“Oh... Bela... Such... A... Shame... We... Could... Have... Been... So... Good... To-”

I kick the door. Hard.

Time speeds back up again.

The door hits Tao in the shoulder, and he loses his balance, takes a step forwards to steady himself, and steps on the soapy-water-covered shower curtain. I throw the caustic soda in his face, and he falls back, clawing at his eyes, making a banshee-shriek of a sound that I just know is going to feature in my nightmares.
Both hands on the shower rail, I lift it up, then stab downwards for the heart.

Tao shrieks louder, showing all too clearly that I missed the fucking heart!

I try to pull the pole back, but it's stuck, lodged deep in the tissue between two of Tao's ribs.

Okay, fuck it. If you're going to be like that...

I use the pole to vault over Tao and out the door. I hear a sickening squelch as the pole sinks deeper into the vamp's body, but no time to think about that. I run to my pile of clothes, and grab my knife.

“Why Bela? How could you do this to me?” Tao moans, hands scrubbing at his eyes. “I would have turned you, made you into my eternal lover. It'd be like back in the old days, remember Bela? When we used to sit together in the moonlight? Why don't you want that anymore?”

I step back towards him, holding my knife in a firm grip.

“I love you so much, Bela. Even though you hurt me, I love you so much. If you apologise Bela, I'll forgive you. Don't you still want my kisses? Don't you remember when we used to make love?”

“I remember,” I whisper.

Then I swing my machete and cut his head off.

A few moments later, there's nothing but a desiccated skeleton lying on the shower curtain.

There lie the remains of my first love.

I loved you Tao.

I hope now you can finally rest in peace.

I sit back against the wall, draw my knees into my chest, and start to cry.