Death in the family

　　Irena’s POV

　　I stood face to face with Fabian Ruiz, the man who had given me so much grief and had been the source of a week’s worth of rage and frustration, only he wasn’t a man anymore.

　　It was something else, something less than human or Vampire but stronger than both.

　　A harbinger of chaos whose sole purpose of existence is to deliver all who stand in front of it to death’s doors and then bash the door down using their faces.

　　This was no mere creation of the dark arts, this was a true killing machine and it had its eyes set on me.

　　But this is what sets me apart from anything else it has ever faced. I am the most powerful vampire that walks the earth, a queen, and one pissed-off bitch.

　　“You might not be Fabian Ruiz anymore, but you’ve still got his face, a face I’ve fantasized stomping on for days, so please, step forward and meet your end, monster!” I gestured with my fingers for the creature to come towards me, and it did.

　　It lunged at me mindlessly as a monster would.

　　“You’re just a simple animal aren’t you,” a powerful Annika yes, but a simple one nonetheless.

　　And I might be in the mood for mindless monster meat.

　　The creature growled and kept trying to claw and bite at me, I had to avoid his hands, the pitch-black fingers, whatever they’re made of, they hurt more than silver and I have to assume that his teeth are the same as they also share the pitch-black color.

　　The area on my arm where he simply grabbed me is yet to heal, I can’t suffer any more damage from that area of his body, it’ll be hard given how fast he is, but I’m just as fast.

　　I dodged attack after attack, but the creature just kept coming at me, unrelenting, without sign of fatigue, completely undeterred by the fact that I was substantially damaging him.

　　It had no game plan, no plan of attack, it lunged and it missed so it lunged again.

　　I, on the other hand, couldn’t afford to fight this creature like that, I couldn’t be sure what would kill him, I could move in for a killing blow and fatally would it only to find the creature still undeterred by my efforts and this could be very consequential as I could find myself wide open to an attack from quite possibly the most dangerous monster I’ve ever faced in terms of raw power.

　　We fought for a long time.

　　I carefully and gracefully dodged the creature's mindless but dangerous attacks and the creature took all my light blows and just powered through to keep attacking.

　　It was frightening, I had never taken on such a creature before, there was no end in sight. I was beginning to slow, to tire, the culmination of a week’s worth of stress, travel, frustration, fighting, and surviving a fucking plane crash.

　　It was all getting to me, taking its toll.

　　I could feel myself getting slower, perhaps this was the enemy's plan, to distract me long enough for them to create their monster and in the process, weaken me enough that the creature would pose a threat.

　　But why?

　　At first, I thought it was just to hurt me, spite me, for revenge, which was the whole thought process behind kidnapping my loved ones, but it’s starting to seem clear to me now that this is purely political.

　　Someone is planning something big, and they wanna knock me off the board as early as possible.

　　But who is it, and what are they planning?

　　These are questions I couldn’t possibly answer in my current situation, dodging the death blows of a chaos harbinger.

　　As I dodged and spun out of the way of the creature’s attacks, one of them caused its finger to graze my shoulder.

　　I jolted backward, wincing in pain.

　　The creature saw an opening and lunged at me once again, I couldn’t dodge out of its way so I met its attack head-on.

　　I held the creature by the arms right under the wrists and through brute force, managed to push the creature back.

　　It was at this point of the exchange that I noticed something interesting.

　　I pushed the creature's arms backward causing its hand to get closer to its face until the creature’s thumb brushed against its cheek under the eye.

　　I saw the skin on that spot rapidly burn off and for the first time, I noticed the creature felt pain.

　　It winced at the touch and dislodged from the stance we had locked ourselves in and retreated backward.

　　It wasn’t much, but it was a start, a sliver of hope that this creature could be beaten.

　　And so I thought up a strategy to kill the creature or get the creature to kill itself, but that’s when the unimaginable happened.

　　Carlos and Monica had tracked my movements and along with Magnus, showed up to offer their help.

　　They open the doors to see the creature Fabian Ruiz had been turned into.

　　Carlos and Magnus were shocked, but the ever battle-ready Monica maintained a defensive stance as she had no idea what she was up against.

　　Suddenly the creature’s attention shifted from some and was focused on Carlos who never saw it coming.

　　The creature threw itself at full speed with its hand outstretched to form some sort of organic spear monster.

　　Before any of us could react the blood had spewed everywhere and the smell of melting skin filled the air around us, a vampire had just been killed.

　　My heart shattered at the scenes, I couldn’t believe it, one of my children had just been killed.

　　But I had no time to breathe, before this kill completely burnt to ash, the creature was already hungry for another and set its sights on me, resuming our fight.

　　“How could this happen?” Magnus was puzzled and distraught.

　　Carlos screamed out in agony at the loss of his sister, Monica.

　　She was the only one battle-ready and as the creature rushed forward practically flying through the air, she was quick enough to put herself in between her brother and that creature and so the creature's makeshift spear was plunged through her heart, killing her on impact.

　　Magnus and Carlos, exhumed rage, and a desire for revenge joined me in my fight against the creature, taking a stance that saw us trying to surround it and corner it from all sides, this was the end for this monster.

　　We all charged at the creature at once, it had no problem with that, it swung its black fingers at us trying to claw us open with no fear of being hit from behind by the other vampires attacking it, a mindless killing machine through until the end, which drew closer and closer.

　　The creature continued to try and claw at us but we managed to evade all its attacks as we drew closer, covering the space and cornering the creature, Magnus kicked the creature behind the knees shattering all the bones in that leg, and even though that didn’t seem to hurt it, the creature was incapacitated for the time that leg had not healed, I followed suit and kicked the other leg, my kick didn’t shatter the bones, however, it was a clean break that caused the broken bone to stick out of the leg, now the creature was down on the floor and couldn’t move about with no legs underneath it to stand on, but it still swung its claws at us.

　　Magnus and I timed the creature’s attacks so that we wouldn’t get hit by it and grabbed it by the arms just below the wrists holding it down, it struggled and roared and screeched throughout the time it took for Magnus and me to pull at its arms in opposite directions, while Carlos repeatedly punched the creature in the face. Finally after some time of tugging at this tough piece of shit, so long in fact that it had almost completely regenerated its legs and was getting ready to stand and resume fighting but just before that happened Magnus and I managed to pull hard enough that we ripped the creature’s arms off as it shrieked agony and its blood scattered all over.

　　The creature stayed there on its incompletely regenerated legs, the process of ripping off its arms had seemed to halt its legs from healing.

　　I wanted my revenge, the cure for all my frustration, payback for everything I had been put through, but Carlos needed to kill this creature more so than I now, so I let him, it wouldn’t bring her back, but just dice and revenge is always a step in the right direction.

　　We handed the arms to Carlos who plunged them into the creature's heart and chest which caused it to wail in pain for a while before finally dying.

　　It took some doing, some help, and even a sacrifice, but this ordeal was finally over.

　　I turned over to Magnus, I was very happy to see him after so long, but I can't show him, we'd just lost a dear friend and the mood in the atmosphere was somber, Carlos shed tears in front of the ashes, where his sister had given her life for his, Monica was gone forever.

　　It seemed surreal, I was looking at the ashes of someone who I considered my children, and another of my children balled up and cried as a result.

　　There was nothing to do but to let Carlos mourn his sister in peace for as long as he needed.

　　I, on the other hand, had a lot to think about, who was the main orchestrator behind my misfortune of late.

　　Who’s pulling the strings?

　　Calling the shots?

　　And who was going to pay for Monica’s death?

　　I had finally confirmed the safe return of Magnus and Alexey, but there was more to think about than that.

　　Who had taken them to begin with, what motive inspired, the move, why they hadn’t revealed themselves and so many other questions that lay unanswered and I left with no strength to put into finding answers at that moment.

　　There was nothing left to do but gather Monica’s ashes and go home. We'll give her a proper goodbye later when we're all rested. I started to head back to my house where I had been told I had Alexey waiting, I would finally see him for the first time in a week.

　　I probably have a lot of explaining to do.

　　Maybe it’s time to reveal everything to him.

　　This whole crazy world we live in, my life as an immortal vampire queen.

　　I don’t know if I would decide that later but first, I’ll get a nice long healthy sleep. One thing I’ve missed out on in the past week is a good amount of sleep, and I will finally get it.

　　The drive back was quiet and awkward, not even Magnus said a word.

　　I was driving and Magus sat in the front passenger seat and Carlos sat at the back, clutching his jacket which he had used to gather his sister’s ashes because there was nothing else he could use.

　　There was nothing I could say or do for Carlos, who had just lost his twin sister. He would grieve, and he would feel this pain for some time, probably for a long time, but not forever.

　　And whenever he decides to open up, however long that takes, I’ll be there.

　　That’s the best I can do for him, that’s the best we can all do for him, as a collective, as a family.

　　The silence on the way back didn’t subside and it didn’t seem to be helping anyone, so Magnus turned on the radio and the news on there was shocking, but it explained so much, all the empty streets and cars, all the usually busy places were devoid of all life.

　　Apparently, something has been killing humans in their millions across various countries all over the world and draining them of all their blood.

　　Governments have enforced curfews, banned all international travel, and are equipping themselves to fight a war against vampires.

　　“What the fuck?” Carlos exclaimed leaning in at the sound of the news.

　　“Irena?” Magnus called out to me for stability as the news had left him light-headed.

　　And I had gone completely speechless, humans bled dry, curfews, no international travel, and a war between vampires and humans.

　　It’s just like in my dream.

　　All of this, I had seen it all and ignored it in the paintings from my dreams.

　　Those dreams were prophetic, I can see the future.

　　I saw this future, this is how it all ends.

　　This is not just any war, this is a mass extinction event.

　　We have to prevent this.

　　But with everything I saw in my dreams slowly coming true, I couldn’t help but wonder;

　　Is this the end?