Catching Rodrigo

There is a reason I do not go out. There is a reason I am never seen, except by those I kill. It is night now, a time when my...features...are not as noticeable. I hear a heartbeat; it is abnormally fast. And I know it is not my own. I crouch down, extend my claws, stretch my muscles and jump on top of a crypt. I crawl along and peer down the other side. Indeed there he is. Rodrigo. He has blood on his mind, I can feel it in the air. It is thick... He wants to eat.

I launch myself off the five metre high roof with my exceptionally powerful muscles – one of my features, along with my claws – and plant said claws deep into his shoulders. Blood immediately gushes from the deep wounds. He falls face first to the ground and I am pulled down, as my claws are still embedded in his flesh. He rolls over and my breath is promptly snatched from me and released into the cold night air. I see it hang in the air momentarily then vanish.

I unearth my claws from the pink flesh and throw him off me; he is sent flying a good twenty metres and lands – rather painfully I must say as I hear his cry – on top of a tombstone. In less than a human heartbeat I am by him, having pushed myself off the ground with my legs. A graceful, feline bound. He falls off the tombstone and I do not give him a chance. I seize an arm of his and yank him up, he tenses his muscles and knocks my legs out from beneath me. Anger passes through me: he had been merely pretended to be in pain. How could I have fallen for his act?

He does not give me a chance to get up. I am grabbed, roughly, by the neck and flung through the air, crashing through the door of the crypt. Shards of glass slice my skin open, blood oozes and leaves little crimson pearls behind me as I walk; a trail. He follows the trail as suspected to a tomb. But I am not crouched beside it, hiding. I am on the ceiling, limbs spread to hang on. More blood falls and he looks up, just as I let go.

My claws, lethal and sharp, distort his handsome face and he retaliates by strangling me. I gag, breathless, and wrap my fingers around his wrist. My talon-like nails curl around his wrist, I try to wrench his hand of my throat unsuccessfully. However, a kick to his groin, and I am let free. Lying on the floor, I cough as air returns to my lungs, along with unwelcome dust. He kicks me while I am down and I groan. “Not so tough now, hey Tahlia?” he says. I picture a sneer on his face and narrow my eyes.

“I would not make assumptions, if I were you, Rodrigo,” I mutter, still fighting for air. He crouches down and a tan hand of his grabs my chin. He pulls me close to him; I gag, repulsed.

“Tahlia,” he says with a sigh. “You're a great fighter, but way too uptight. What are you? A thousand years old? You're only fifteen, you need to relax.”

I loathe the way he talks to me, as if we were friends. “Do not touch me, and if by 'relax' you mean kill people like you do then I would rather never relax,” I hiss out the last few words. “I could never be as cruel as you.”

“Cruel?” he says. “Me? I am shocked,” he says in mock horror, and then, just for the sake of irony, he picks me up, lifts my body above his head and throws me onto another tomb. Between the two tombs are a good twenty metres, yet he has thrown me forcefully enough for the tomb's surface to break. I feel the stone crumble; if I do not move I shall fall in. Possibly on top of a corpse. The idea disgusts me and I jump off and run out of the crypt.

Rodrigo follows me. And others join him.

As I run, I count how many heartbeats and footsteps I hear. I realize that I cannot fight them as they are far too many for me. I leap over five tombstones and push my legs harder, desperate to go faster. I may be “uptight”, but I am not deluded. I know my own power, limit, strength. Rodrigo may think I am weak to run away, but Rodrigo is hubristic.

That is what one day will be the death of him.

Alongside my killing him.

Having pushed myself to beyond my limit, I have escaped. My muscles shall ache for days, but this is of no importance. I hone my senses... Where is Amelia? Movement. She is atop a building; I join her and wince in pain.

“Tahlia,” she says in her ever-present English accent. “I'm guessing you've found Rodrigo?” She smirks at my wounds, as if she would not have gotten injured.

“Yes, I have,” I reply smoothly, unwilling to let her think me incapable of a simple hunt. “But then others turned up. Six, including Rodrigo. What fool would have stayed there?”

“You callin' us fools?”

I jump and turn around.

“William, how did you come here without us hearing you?” I ask him.

Why had I not heard William arrive? He is usually noisy, a consequence of his clumsiness. I frown as I think about it, but then hear Mark's voice. Ah, that would be the “us” part.

“Because I'm here.” He strides towards us, in absolute silence. Most of us are very stealthy, but Mark was the best. His stealth extended in covering the noise of others, such as William's.

“I couldn't have done it without you,” William says.

“Nobody can do anything without me,” he says arrogantly, but jokingly as he walks to Amelia. William laughs, while I simply smile.

“Mark.” Amelia greets him with a hug. “Where were you?”

“We were–” Mark starts, letting go of Amelia.

“William, what did you mean by me calling you fools?” I rudely interrupt.

“Tahlee, first of all, you know I hate being called William, and second of all, we... Well... We kinda stayed there and fought 'em.”

“I will call you Will if you don't call me Tahlee. Because you know I hate being called that.” I am not one for nicknames. I then notice their clothes, ripped and caked with dirt and blood. “You fought six of them?”

“Yeah.” Will grins proudly. “We each took on three of them. Wasn't easy. Didn't take long 'cuz we had the advantage. They weren't expecting us. But I think I broke a couple of bones. Most of 'em mine, some of 'em theirs.” He grins again and I smile.

“Pfft, I took on four of them,” Mark says. “You let one of them get away. Rodrigo. I tried to fight him, but then he got away. Again.” He turns his head to me. “Don't worry, we killed the other five.”

I nod curtly. “Do you have any major injuries?” They both shook their head. “Good.”

“So, should we go after–”

Once again, I interrupt Mark. “Shush. I heard something.”

“I don't,” William says loudly.

“That's because I have the best hearing, now hush.”

I walk to the edge of the building; there. A body is retreating into the shadows of an alleyway. I smell the air, breathing in deeply, but we are too high up. To determine by scent who it is, I would need to get closer. I suspect it is Rodrigo, yet cannot be certain. It could be another, a friend of his, an accomplice.

“It's Rodrigo,” Amelia announces, standing to the left of me. “I can smell him.” She inhales through her nose for confirmation, then nods. Her best ability is smelling.

William stands on the very edge of the building, to the left of Amelia, now. “Come on then, if we hurry up we might catch him.” Then he drops into emptiness. I hear him howl in pain; I had almost forgotten he had broken a few of his bones. He is a fool, Rodrigo might hear him, and to jump off a building with broken bones... Mark and Amelia follow him. I am last. I clench my teeth and suppress a groan. My muscles ache. Quickly, I follow William into the alley.

“You shouldn't have jumped off with broken bones,” I whisper to him.

“I know,” he replies.

I hear a grunt, Mark's. He falls and catches himself by sticking out a hand. I hear a snap as a bone breaks from his weight. Amelia punches Rodrigo. Both stagger backwards; Amelia had managed to kick him. I walk to Rodrigo, and William spots another one; surely a friend of Rodrigo. Meanwhile, Rodrigo starts scaling the side of a building, I jump up after him and let my claws slide down his back. Blood spatters me and Rodrigo falls back, crushing me down. Again. But I can't let him get away. Not again, not this time.

Amelia picks him up by his neck with one hand, but he shoves her against the wall of the building he had just tried to climb up seconds earlier. He only punches her once before I get up and fling him backwards against the opposite wall. Or rather, through the wall. I wince, hoping nobody lives in there. I glance at Amelia. “Amelia, this is no time to dust yourself off.”

“You know how I hate dirt,” she says.

I frown disapprovingly at her and focus my attention to Rodrigo. I tense up and grind my teeth. “Amelia.”

“What?” she asks, sounding distracted. I turn around to face her; she is looking at her trousers. There is a small hole in the left leg. She looks up at me, then past me. “Oh. Rodrigo's gone.”

“Well his friend is gone too, but in a different sense of the word,” Mark says. I had almost forgotten he and William were still here. “He's gone off to the spirit world.” He grins at both of us.

I allow myself a small smile, then stiffen. Rodrigo.

“Damn, you heard me.”

Instinct taking over, I look around me, muscles tight, claws bloody and extended.

“Up here, and I'm not alone.”

All four of us look up; a fatal mistake. I groan in pain as someone's foot comes in contact with my face. I almost allow myself to fall, crumple. That would be dangerous. I cannot allow myself that relaxation. So I fight, willing myself to stay alert. It is hard, but I shall do it. For Amelia, Mark and William.

Between blows, I try to find out how many there are. I count eight, not including Rodrigo. I give a final punch to the one I am fighting, and it almost rips his head off. Eight left. Someone behind me kicks me, and I fall forward. I stretch out my arms instantly, hissing as the ground grazes the palms of my hands.

I hear William shout in anger, or perhaps another emotion, then glimpse him fighting harder than ever; some kind of new strength seems to be raging throughout him. I wonder why? The middle of a battle scene is no time for wondering, so I plough on. I only have time to kill one other. The last five are mutilated by William and Mark. Mostly William, I notice. And Rodrigo has once again escaped.

Where is Amelia? I frown. Did she run off? She is not the kind to leave in the midst of a fight. It does not fit. It does not make sense.

Her body, inert, her blond hair tainted with blood, her face pale and lifeless, that makes sense. I swallow my emotions and realise that Rodrigo has gotten away. Again. I curse myself; third time in less than an hour. “We have to go after Rodrigo.”

“I don't want to leave her,” William says. “I won't.”

“We have to,” I reply. “We have no choice.”

“But we can't just leave her body here.” His voice tightens when he says the word “body”.

“We have to, Will.” I make an effort to use his nickname. “We have no other option. Look, I will make a call, someone can come get her body. But for now we have to get supplies and catch Rodrigo.”

Mark intervenes. “Don't you want to catch the bastard?”

“I am not leaving her here alone!”

“William, I do not give a shit.” Mark is slightly stunned at my use of a swear word. He had not known me capable of that kind of language. “If you stay behind then there will only be Mark and I to fight and kill Rodrigo. We will not be able to win. We need you."

“Anyway,” Mark says, finally recovered from my vulgarity, “Don't you want to be the one to kill that worthless piece of–”

“I... I don't know! I never told her how I felt and I jus' dun wanna leave her here alone; it's bad enough she never knew...” William looks at his feet, biting his lip. Tears slip down his face and onto his shoes.

I am taken aback. I had never known, never suspected, that he had feelings for Amelia, feelings that went beyond friendship or the kind of love between brother and sister. It softens me, but that is not the behaviour I need at the moment. “William, if Rodrigo gets too far away the blame is on you. Mark, call Liam and Lily. We will need them. And call the local clean up team. Who is it in this area?”

“The Cooper siblings, three brothers and two sisters,” Mark replies.

“Tell them they need to clean up this alley and the cemetery.”