Bela the Nymphomaniac Vampire Slayer

Chapter 9: Why Bela REALLY hates telepaths




Okay, so Rutley had a pretty good reason to be worried. A couple in fact.

Reason Number 1: He'd just been exposed. I have a suspicion that this was supposed to be his first job, because fuck if the poor boy wasn't hopelessly hamfisted about the whole thing. I mean, trying to use some sort of prophecy as his excuse for being here, then within the first day, upsetting Nana enough that she suddenly decided to try and talk me out of my vocation?

Not that slick if you ask me. I mean, hell, no one's ever called me subtle, but even I know that causing that many ripples in the first few days is just not how infiltration is done.

But yeah, so since I know what he is now, he's not going to be able to play any mindgames without me being onto him. I still haven't figured out (i.e. convinced Rutley to tell me) exactly why his orders seem to have been to a) figure out what the hell I'm up to, and b) to attempt to neutralise me, but I'll worry about that later. He's in a lot more trouble than I am at the moment.

Which brings me to Reason Number 2. If his superiors ever find out (and this is still likely, because let's face it, you don't stay on top of the intelligence game by giving all your operatives free reign) then Rutley Dearest is in deep shit. I mean, serious, buried up to the neck in liquid feces-brand trouble.

“Can you please not use such disgusting imagery? I can hear you from all the way over here!” shouts Rutley from where I've tied him to one of Nana's recliners.

I ignore him. He's probably bluffing.

Reason Number 3 that Rutley should be worried is that I've got one over on him, and I tend to collect. Not quite sure how, but I have plenty of imagination, and I was calling him Pretty Guy in my head for a reason...

“I am not 'pretty',” I hear him mutter. “I really do not understand why you insist on using such a feminine descriptor of me. It's bloody mortifying.”


Okay, so maybe he can hear me after all. Huh, man, this kid is sensitive. (“Damnit I'm 23! I am not a kid!”) The other girl that came through about a year back I could make blush from about three metres, but Rutley's at least a room and a half away.

I can feel an evil grin forming on my face.

Let's experiment with this.

(“Oh for pete's sake...”)

I start to remember one of my favourite liasons of all time- if only because everytime I think about it, it leaves a gigantic silly grin on my face. (“ Oh dear God...”)

We're already kissing, groping, desperately trying to get closer, skin on skin, as we stumble drunkenly down the hallway, laughing for the sheer enjoyment of it. Moonlight shines off Tao's skin, and as we knock a small photoframe to the floor I can't help but be glad my parents are watching my sister play violin at some distant eistedfodd. My jacket is on the floor a few metres back, and Tao's shirt is unbuttoned, flapping open to display his absolutely delicious chest. He pulls me closer to him and nibbles on my neck while I reach down under his waistband to cup his growing erection...

“Oh for fuck's sake woman! I don't want to see your puppy love trysts! Could you please stop!” Rutley shouts from the other room. Ooh, I must have upset him he's swearing properly now. I move to stand in the doorway, and roll my eyes at the obvious discomfort painted over his features in deep blush.

“Man you're easy. I'd barely made it five minutes into the foreplay, let alone getting to the good stuff.

“What, when his sister and a midget joined in?”

Part of me is incensed at this comment, but the rest of me remembers this one time, about two years after Tao died... ah well. Dear Rutley is just upset that I've got him tied over a barrel, his pants around his ankles and a rather large sailor of a one-man yacht named Esteban who hasn't had any in about six months lined up...

“Oh DEAR GOD WOMAN! COULD YOU PLEASE STOP THINKING IN SUCH SEXUAL IMAGERY!”

I peek around the door-frame and I can see that he's blushing fit to shame a tomato. Interesting that he seems to be more upset that said imagery is coming from me than what it contains, going by his suggestion.

“You might as well ask a vamp to stop neck-sucking,” observes a cool voice from the front-doorway.

Well about time that arrogant cocksucker showed up. I'd called Gareth for back up about a half hour ago, as soon as I had Rutley tied up, because I figured that this was a little too big a situation for little old me to deal with.

I mean, give me a couple of stakes and a roomful of horny vamps and I know how to handle myself, but espionage? Political games? Mind readers?

Not my speciality.

Not that my “back up” is more of an expert. It's just that Gareth seems to think that Tristan is slightly more “tactful” than me (I don't see it,) and if the shit hits the fan... well, more than it already has anyway, I'd prefer to have someone at my back I can trust to hold his own in a fight.

Doesn't mean I have to be polite to the asshole though.

“Hello Tristan, you sound even less charming than usual. Jez make you sleep on the couch again?”

“Bela, just because you can't go more than 24 hours without sex doesn't mean the rest of us can't,” Tristan snarks.

Ooooh, got it in one. Heh, that's hilarious.

I snort. “So she did, huh? And for your information I haven't fucked anyone since Tuesday. Observe how I haven't spontaneously combusted.”

Tristan's gape seems to be only half put-on. He really does have that low an opinion of me. It's funny, I recognised that a long time ago, but it never ceases to annoy the fuck out of me.

And it's not exactly “tactful” of him to be so fucking obvious about it. Still, Gareth has never lead me astray so far, so I guess I have to assume that I'm a special case.

To be fair, I haven't exactly endeared myself to Tristan. I'm certainly no angel, and I did drop him like a hot potato when I was done with him, but then I do that with every human I fuck. He's nothing special in that regard.

Nonetheless, I refuse to snipe in front of the mindreading hamfisted agent I have tied up. It occurs to me that he knows exactly what we're both thinking and so is well aware that Tristan and I have a... tumultuous working relationship and that the damage was done as soon as he walked in here...

But hell if I don't have too much dignity to act so unprofessional.

Unlike Mr Blueballs McGrungy-Tracksuit over there.

Going by the expression on Rutley's face, I have really got to start thinking more quietly.

“So Bela, you going to explain why exactly you tied up an agent of the Cooperative?”

I smirk. “Because I wanted him to cooperate. As it stands, I'm waiting for him to agree to a little proposal of mine...”

Tristan interrupts, “Bela don't you think fucking this guy might be a bad idea?”

Prick! Motherfucking necrotic green pig fucking cocksucking donkey dick! Ugh! Sex is not all I think about, for fuck's sake. I spend much more time thinking about vampires.

“Not in my experience you don't.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rutley,” I snarl. “It's rude to listen in on peoples' personal thoughts.”

In a calmer voice, I reply to Tristan's comment, “Stop acting as Neanderthalic as you look Tristan. Even if that was the nature of the proposal I made to this gentleman, it is not, nor will it ever be again any of your business who I choose to fuck.” I glare at him, and Tristan seems to have gotten it through his thick skull that he's pushed me just a little too far this time. Good. I'm over him being so juvenile.

“As I was saying before, I am waiting for dearest Rutley here to agree to a little proposal of mine- I'll let him go if he makes a promise to go far enough away that he can't annoy me anymore, and then sticks to it. Alternatively, I suggested that he be my offsider while I go into The Lair.”

Judging by the fact that Tristan just sat down hard in the middle of the floor, and the way his jaw seems to be flapping somewhere in the direction of his knees, I think he's just a little shocked.

Am I a bad person for thoroughly enjoying this?

Probably.

Fuck it.

I notice that Rutley is looking distinctly pale.

“What's your problem?” I snark, wondering about the mental images that Tristan is no doubt projecting at the mindreader.

Rutley's sigh seems to come somewhere from the area of his toes, and his whole body crumples into the soft cushion of Nana's recliner. I had flirted with the thought of being mean and tying him to the one with the broken springs that stick up one's ass when it's sat on, but Nana taught me better manners than that.

Besides, if I was going to torment Rutley I've already found a more elegant way of keeping him on edge. Well, in a manner of speaking anyway. Fine. Comparatively elegant. More elegant than resorting to physical violence. Slightly. Happy?

“This... isn't going the way it was supposed to.” He straightens suddenly, turning towards me, and I can't help but notice again just how pretty he is. Part of me wonders if he is going to be just a footnote in my story, or if he's going to do something a bit more interesting than try to get Nana to tell me to quit. If a very pretty man appears in a story about vampires, he has to play a major part, right?

If I was an entirely different type of lady, then I would have hated him to start with, despite recognising his obvious innate sexiness, then gradually allowed him to grow in my esteem, until he proved himself worthy of my affections.

Because initial hatred is always a sign of eventual deep everlasting commitment.

Well that's what the romance novels say, and they are always the end note in how a relationship should proceed, right? Right? I mean, I'm totally going to twist my ankle now so Rutley has an excuse to sweep me up my feet, bridal style, and play my dashing rescuer.

Pft, you should know by now that that is not how I operate. That and I'd have to work hard just to twist my ankle in those boots of mine, they're made out of pretty sturdy stuff, my work boots.

Well they are my work boots. Just because they wouldn't be seen on a construction worker or something doesn't mean that they aren't work boots. They are my boots that I wear at work.

Heh, now I have images of cross-dressing construction workers in corsets and knee-high leather boots. Making me think of that bit near the end of the Rocky Horror Picture Show with the professor now actually. You know the bit I'm talking about. Or if you don't, you totally have to see it at least once. It's a total farce, but the music is kinda funky for the most part.

“Bela, are you aware that you are the single most frustrating woman that I have ever had to deal with? And why the hell do you think in the second person?”

Well that was a little random, I think as Tristan practically falls over laughing.

“You deserve whatever mental imagery you find in my head, Rutley. Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop? Oh, and do tell me how exactly I am frustrating you, dearest Rutley,” I purr, deliberately turning his words into innuendo. “I desperately want to know.”

To my surprise, Rutley ignores this, and decides to talk, lying back again in the chair until he's almost boneless again.

“It wasn't supposed to be this way. From the information we'd gathered, the obvious move seemed to be to sneak in under your guard, flirt a little with you, entice you, keep you distracted, then encourage your grandmother to put pressure on you to quit, and then just so happen to be there to provide a listening ear and offer you an opportunity when you, dismayed by the sudden lack of support, turned to other sources. But you don't fit the profile. You're not insecure about your lifestyle choices, and you aren't naïve enough to expect people to like them. You're heavily jaded, you are well aware of the danger from killing vampires using your methods, but you just don't care. You're rude and crude, which we already knew about you, but you're also paranoid and more than capable of using people for your own ends in a way they might not suspect, which is certainly not what we expected. You let people into your personal space all the time, but emotionally? Forget arm's length, they might as well be in a separate dimension for the amount you care about them liking or disliking you. Respect matters to you, but only inasmuch as they respect your abilities. The reason you dislike Tristan so much isn't the fact that he considers you to be a whore, but the fact that you think he doesn't consider your methods to be valid and effective, despite the fact that you are one of the most successful active vampire hunters in the Southern Hemisphere, let alone the world. In fact, if you keep going at the rate you have been, you're going to outstrip Gareth. Maybe you already have, because it's not as though you make a big deal about your success, and the infamy of your methods far outstrips the general awareness of just how well they work.
“Your reasons for getting into this business are certainly not what we had previously thought. We always thought that your methods were a way of remembering your boyfriend, because we knew he'd died, but we always thought that you had sex with the vampires first and then killed them because it was a role-playing thing for you, where you re-enacted your last night with your Turned boyfriend or something in some sort of insane ritual.
“But that's not the case at all is it? You genuinely have that high a sex-drive, and you genuinely only use that to help you combat vampires because you consider it the most entertaining way to do it. You'd be perfectly capable of slaying the old-fashioned way, and you've used such methods before, but you don't consider them to be as much fun. This is in spite of the fact that you are well aware that you should probably dead or Turned by now, and in fact you keep expecting it to happen, and are more scared of the consequences of that than anything else in the world.” Rutley pauses, takes a deep breath, his expression strange. “You play the misanthrope, but you love the human race enough that you're willing to put your body on the line to protect it. You're insane. You're effective, but even amongst vampire slayers, lady, from this and that plan you are thinking about carrying out with me, you are completely and utterly out of your tree, batshit, bonkers, mad.”

Huh, seems like I just scored some free psychoanalysis from the fucking telepath, I think fuzzily.

Somehow I am more shocked than I should probably be at this point, but shit, this guy's got my number. On speed dial. Well, fuck. I've made a point of not getting close enough to anyone for them to completely figure me out for a long time now. This could prove to be annoying.

And goddamnit, he got a fuckload of info from me in a very short period of time. No wonder he's an operative for the Cooperative. They must have absolutely loved to get their hands on this guy. Fortunately for me whoever the fuck informed him about me wasn't as good as he is, or I might be dancing to their tune right now, and I really fucking hate it when people try to manipulate me. Actually, come to think of it...

I start to laugh.

And am gratified to note that Rutley looks miffed, and Tristan is staring at me like I just told him I planned to become a Buddhist nun.

“So your original plan was quite obviously not working, so you decided to try and win me over with a dazzling display of how you, of all people understand me. 'She didn't appreciate me going behind her back,' you thought, 'so maybe I can get her by pretending to be straightforward.'” I let out a derisive noise. “For someone who can see inside my head, you aren't so quick on the uptake, Rutley. I can tell when I'm being played. Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure very few people get where I'm coming from. Sometimes this gets a little frustrating, as then they act stupidly. What you don't seem to have picked up on from your little sojourn through my skull is that so long as they respect me enough to leave me be and to get on with what I'm doing, I just don't give a fuck.”

Rutley scowls and looks at his knees.

Tristan looks bewildered.

I roll my eyes.

“The hell do you want from me anyway? Why is the Cooperative interested in me? I can't imagine that I have any skill that they could need, so what the fuck mate?” I demand.

“I see no reason to tell you. It's need to know information,” Rutley replies rather prissily.

Oh, so now he clams up?

“Rutley dearest,” I smile sweetly and for some reason both he and Tristan flinch, “did it never occur to you that if you want to manipulate me into doing whatever the fuck it is you want me to do by using honesty then perhaps it might be an idea to just tell me what it is that you want me to do?”

Rutley's scowl deepens, but he answers anyway. “You're making us all a laughing stock. You slut around, servicing monsters and everyone else who you can entice to fulfil your unnatural tastes, and you still manage to single-handedly cull more of them than practically anyone else in the business. You're a fucking embarrassment!” he yells this last, and I raise an eyebrow.

Oh, I see. They didn't send a rookie, they just sent a fucking numb-brained idiotic clod. Who apparently is also either homophobic or a prude. Probably shite in bed. Come to think of it, as useful as a telepath might be for the Cooperative for Humanity guys, if he was this sort of imbecile all the time it's fairly easy to see why they might want to send the guy away so he wouldn't be able to hear and spill anything important. If they even sent him in my direction. Actually, I'm beginning to smell a retarded plan, and the Cooperative didn't get their rep for being sneaky people not worth fucking with that were pretty damn effective against vampires and other such bumpies for sending their operatives in lame-assed operations like this. Lame name aside, from what I've heard, these guys are generally pretty efficient.

Ah. Now I really do see.

Well now. Isn't this a fucking ridiculous little turn up for the books.

“You're here on your own time, aren't you Rutley.” It's not a question, and he doesn't treat it as one, merely scowling more at me. I snigger. I can't help it. Oh boy. Guy might have been near the front when looks were being handed out, but then he'd gone and skipped the brains session.
“So what, you heard about me, you were offended, you stole some half-assed psych report so you decided to come over here and emotionally blackmail Nana into telling me to retire. And then you wanted me to turn to you... why exactly?” I ask.

He mumbles something and blushes.

“Sorry, didn't catch that.”

“I said, I was going to fuck you using condoms with pinpricks in them until you got pregnant,” he snarls at me.

I blink. Wow. Just wow. How did he even... the fuck? What a complete and utter fucking brain-damaged-

“Asshole!”

Huh, I'd nearly forgotten Tristan was still here.

I turn to see Tristan punching Rutley in the face. Repeatedly. Swearing fluently enough that even I'm impressed, only that feeling is sitting somewhere near the back of my head behind a little something I like to call...

Utter bewilderment.

...the fuck?

He's defending my non-existant honour? Tristan? The guy who never fails to remind me that he thinks I'm a whore?

Am I in a fanfiction about my own life?

As Tristan pulls back for a fourth, (or is that fifth) punch, I decide to step in, and grab his elbow. I'm flattered, really, but if Tristan keeps going at this rate he's going to kill the idiot, and I want him alive.

Not to use him in my plan anymore. Fuck no. If he's stupid enough to think that a plan like that would work, then he's easily stupid enough to fuck up and get us all killed in any plan he was involved in. That and he apparently hates my guts, which tends to become a problem in any sort of working relationship, let alone that involves something as dangerous as vampire slaying. As if I could possibly trust him to do anything.

But killing a member of the Cooperative is drama that Tristan really doesn't need, and when he thinks about this later, he's going to thank me, I think to myself as I trip him onto the carpet and then proceed to sit on him.

“Bela, what the fuck?! I'm going to motherfucking blitz that cunt how dare he-”

“Tristan, please shut it.”

Mercifully he falls silent.

I inhale, and turn back to face Rutley. Wow, Tristan really did a number on him. Looks like black eyes and blood is dripping out of his nose. Boy is going to look like he's wearing a mask tomorrow.

For some reason I'm having an extremely hard time caring. Might as well let the guy know just how stupid he's been before I turn him over to the authorities, as I would hate for him to go away thinking that it was only chance that he failed.

“You are beyond stupid, you realise that?” I'm shocked at how calm I sound, when in fact I am getting to that point where I'm not sure if I'm angry enough to spit venom or amused enough to roll on the floor laughing. I dare say I might end up doing both as soon as this is all over (obviously metaphorically in the case of the venom). “You swan in with some lame-assed story about a fucking prophecy of all fucking things, flutter your eyelids at me, attempt to subvert Nana, and all for some fucking useless plan to impregnate me?” Alright, there goes the calm. Phew, I was getting worried about myself for a second there. “You've based your entire plan on some supposed profile of me, which I cannot imagine how the Cooperative would have gone about creating in the first place, no doubt based on whatever rumours there have been floating around about me, and then decided that your weapons of choice were some sabotaged condoms and your penis? Do you really hate your unconceived child that much? Are you missing the part where maybe I wouldn't let you anywhere fucking near my bed after that fucking ridiculous display at Wheels? Sex is something I spend a considerable amount of my time doing. You really think I wouldn't protect myself? Even if you used sabotaged condoms on me, I'm not only on the pill for period pain, I have a copper IUD. I'm about as close to infertile as it's possible to get without a hysterectomy. And even if your sperm somehow managed to get past all those barriers, that's what abortion is for. And failing that, that's what adoption is for. Or even childcare, if by some insane chance I actually decided to keep the damned thing after all. But that's a fucking bee's dick slim chance, seeing as I know better than anyone that I am in no shape to raise a fucking child. But ignore all that, and you still have the fact that I'd be out of action for a month or three, tops. Maybe a little longer if there were complications. If I'm an embarrassment then I assume you'd want me out of the way for somewhat longer than that.
“In short: you are a damned cretinous moron son-of-a-bitch if you thought there was even a tiny possibility that your so-called 'plan' could work.”

For some reason Rutley thought that that was a cue for him to speak.

“Well of course,” he says, his voice slightly muffled from his bloody nose. “But studies have shown that vampires prefer fetal meat above all others, and you don't have the personality to sit back and let others do the hunting for you. You would have gone tarting around as usual, and the vamp you were trying to bang would smell that you were pregnant and then rip your stomach open to get at the fetus. I was originally planning to put some images in your mind so you would not underdstand the danger until it was too late, but you know your own mind too well for that to have worked properly, so I was going to kill someone you love, like maybe your Nana or that sister of yours in Summer Hill and make it look like a vampire did it to make sure your judgement was clouded.”

I didn't think. I leapt off of Tristan and was a split second from tearing Rutley's face off when the front door busted open, and the room was suddenly full of men in suits.

Tristan, having rolled to his feet, takes hold of my arms, ostensibly so I can't attack them.

He should know me better than that. There might have been a bruise or three, but I would have only startled them.

No really.

Thwarted from my intended violence, I resort to invective.

“Who the fuck are you dickwads?”

One of them clears his throat nervously.

Good. Forget nervous, the way I'm feeling right now, he should be fucking well pissing his pants.

“Representatives of the Cooperative, ma'am. Here to take back our rogue agent, ma'am. We apologise for any inconvenience ma'am. We'll take him away from here and send you financial compensation ma'am.”

For some reason this didn't do anything to calm my rage. That was it? They were going to take this asshole away and what, slap him on the wrist? Did they have any idea about what this man had planned to do to me? To my family? They were going to let him get away with this?

“Please calm down, ma'am,” a different suit says. “I promise you that he is not going to get away with this. Not only is he not going to trouble you anymore, I'm personally going to make sure that Mr Sullivan isn't in the position to trouble anyone but his parole officer for a long time. He knew the rules when he joined us- no one from the Telepathic Division are allowed to act on any knowledge that they pick up from random sweeps unless it is directly related to their assigned cases. Furthermore, they are to report any information that they think would be pertinent for an investigation to their Supervisor, and above all they are not allowed to use their knowledge to coerce civilians except in dire need.” The man almost spat this last, giving me the impression that he has dealt with Rutley before.

Suit two nodded just then, looking directly at me.

Oh, another telepath. Wonderfuckingful.

A lip twitch and what I believe was a barely suppressed eyeroll. Must be used to that reaction then. It's not that I have a problem with telepaths in general. It's that when they choose to be complete cunts, they have this nasty habit of going beyond the pale in a way that would earn them golf-claps from sociopaths. Or vampires for that matter. I have heard of a couple of Turned Telepaths that caused no shortage of hell before someone managed to put them down.

There is a strange glint in Telepathic Suit Two's eye as he smirks at me. He nods to Tristan, and he releases my arms, and almost absent-mindedly I stomp hard on his foot as I step away from him.

Let me guess, Rutley just fucked up his last lifeline? I think in his general direction.

Another nod.

Just as well... oh shit, no wonder he told me all his 'plans', assuming he wasn't lying about them.

Fool thinks he's got nothing left to lose after however he messed up previous times.

Hang on a second. That thought didn't feel like me. I haven't used the phrase “messed up” since primary.

Why didn't Tristan swear when I stomped on his foot?

Where's Nana?

No time to think.

Drawing my hunting knife, I leap.

Three seconds later, I'm straddling Suit Two with a knife to his throat, and everyone seems to be too surprised to move.

This fucker thinks he can put thoughts in my head? The only other telepath in the room that I know of has no reason to make me think those things.

If I was upset before, now I'm really pissed off.

“Alright, if I see one of you fuckers so much as twitch, then so help me God I am going to cut your heart out and eat it in front of you. You understand me? You all understand me?”

“Please stop this,” says one of the suits, who sticks out a little as he has slightly curly hair. His voice sounds inflectionless, dull, like he's reading out lines.

“Please let him go,” says another.

The man beneath me is lying perfectly still, calm. As calm as Rutley was when I still thought he was Taylan when I was threatening him with this same knife.

Something is very, very wrong here.

Tristan is standing back with a rather vague look on his face.

Not what I'd expect from agents of the Cooperative. Most of them actually just look confused.

Like zombies really, or people under some sort of thrall...

Oh shit.

I reverse my knife and knock the man I'm straddling unconscious with the handle, then roll backwards, coming up against Rutley's chair then bounding to my feet.

Tristan and the agents are blinking, looking confused, as I knock out Rutley as well for good measure.

Okay, all known telepaths in the room out for the count.

If I'm wrong, then I'm about to be head down in a tank of deep, steaming, shit.

If I'm right...

But I have to be.

Why the hell would Rutley tell me everything? He'd been acting like he'd been given truth serum or something, which I'm sure I would have noticed seeing as I've been in the room with him for a good two hours. Why would he figure out he had nothing left to lose? He supposedly thought he was doing the right thing. And the “studies” he mentioned about vampires and fetal meat? What kind of sick fuck would do such a thing? And none of this had been apparent from his earlier behaviour. Either he was just that good an actor, or the puppeteer was having a hard time keeping their story straight, as the motivations had changed faster than a shapeshifter on meth.

And since when were agents for the Cooperative this uncoordinated in their attack? I shouldn't have been able to do half the things I just got away with. The fact that neither of the telepaths really tried hard to defend themselves clinched it in my mind.

Judging by the emerging expressions of dismay and confusion instead of me being attacked by miffed agents, I suspect that I was right.

Someone is about to dearly wish that they didn't fuck with me.