Prey

It was dark, the kind of dark where even the moon and the stars can’t shine, choked by thick clouds. The kind of dark that evil commands, where creatures lurk behind every corner and haunt every shadow. The kind of dark that Tersa longed for, but dreaded all the same.

She was dressed in black, knowing that it wouldn’t make any difference when it mattered, but still feeling safer than she would have dressed in any other colour. Her belt was strung with objects that might have looked strange if anyone was watching her; a pointed wooden stake, a small vial of clear liquid etched with a Holy Cross, a small sharp dagger. Her thigh-high boots, which she always wore even though she thought they made her look like a prostitute, concealed a long knife.

Tersa was following another headline. Newspapers all over the country were reporting numerous deaths, reportedly the work of a serial killer. The victims were killed neatly, drained of blood without spilling a drop. Two of the victims had gone missing from the morgues they had been contained in. All signs pointed to vampire activity.

Maybe tonight Tersa would find what she was looking for.

Turning a corner, she suddenly felt her skin prickling as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. A shiver ran down her spine that she knew had nothing to do with the cold night air. Slowly, she turned to stare into the shadows that bordered the edge of her vision. A face leered out at her, its black eyes, devoid of the whites that would have made them appear human, two dark holes in the pallor of its bloodless skin. The creature hissed, its lips curling to reveal elongated canines that ended in razor-sharp points.

Her reaction was instinctual. The gun was in Tersa’s hand before the leech could move, and the first two shots knocked the creature backwards with the force. In the time it took for the leech to orientate itself, she had pulled her knife from its hiding place in her boot. She gathered her strength and swung the blade with full force at the leech’s neck.

Tersa stared at its face as it died. Its head fell from its shoulders and disappeared in a rain of embers before it hit the ground. As it burned, its eyes changed, and for a moment they were no longer black pools but wide blue eyes, full of surprise, and fear... and humanity. Then the vampire was gone, leaving behind nothing but ashes, and so was the human who had suffered inside for so long.

The sense of satisfaction she had once received from saving these people had left her long ago. Every time she killed one of these creatures, these leeches, she felt only emptiness. A feeling that somehow, she’d missed something. Every time she killed a vampire she didn’t recognise, her only thought was that she’d dusted the wrong one. There was only one vampire she wanted to kill. One day, she swore, Tersa would look into the face of the leech that killed her family and watch him suffer as he died.



It was the fourth year now since her family had died, and Tersa woke in the middle of the day to the sound of her own screaming. She clutched at empty air, grasping for the stake she always kept so close, and finally her fingers closed around the smooth carved wood. She held it as she sobbed, tears of pain and loss and fear that continued until she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop.

She had been dreaming again, vivid nightmares of carnage and blood. It was the same dream as always – her violent memories of the night her whole world had been lost to her.

Tersa remembered that night with perfect clarity, even though she would have given anything to forget. The images replayed themselves like a film strip every night in her dreams. She remembered coming home from the cinema, and her confusion when she found the front door unlocked with no one answering. Then she’d gone upstairs and seen the red marks on the walls.

She saw her father lying prostrate on the ground, blood pooling from what remained of his throat. She smelt the stench of blood on her little brother, and knew he was dead before she checked his breathing. She heard her mother’s dying screams echoing in her ears, and never knew there could be a more horrible sound until she heard the sickening silence that followed.

And then she glimpsed the face that had haunted her ever since. Burning black eyes and teeth like white daggers in a thin, angular face. A face that twisted into a horrible smirk as she stared.

She had seen him three times since. Three times in three years he had visited her as she hunted, taunting her, appearing in her dreams and every time she closed her eyes. He knew she suffered. He wanted her to. He wanted her to fear him, so that when he finally killed her, Tersa would die screaming.



The next night was as black as the last. Tersa was in a new city, following a new lead. Two girls, sisters, had been found dead in the early hours of the morning. When the police went to inform their parents, both had been found murdered in their home. The girls had been Tersa’s age.

So once again she scouted the streets, hoping that tonight would be her last hunt. Maybe tonight she would find the leech she had been looking for all this time.

She passed a costume shop. A new Halloween display boasted ‘authentic Dracula fangs and cape’. It made her feel slightly nauseous, although whether it was from fear or from the tackiness of it all, she didn’t know.

Then she heard the laughter.

It was soft and low, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. And in that moment, she knew she’d found him. That laugh was etched into her memory, along with her mother’s screams and her own pathetic pleas.

A second later, she could see him, silhouetted against the glow of the street lamp, gazing at her with a horrible desire in his obsidian eyes. She froze, numb with fear, and she saw the corners of his mouth twitch in that arrogant, maniacal smirk she remembered so well. Then he disappeared, and when she blinked, he stood right in front of her, only inches away. Now was her chance.

And she couldn’t do it. Her hand, when she tried to reach for her stake, shook and froze up. She was paralysed, unable to move, or speak, or do anything but wait until he finally killed her.

He moved, closing the gap between them, and leant close to whisper something in her ear.

“Did you think you’d hunted me down at last?” he asked. “I’ve just been waiting for you. Do you know what tonight is? It’s the last time you’ll ever see me.” He paused. “It’s the last time you’ll ever see anything.”

Tersa shook. She hated to show him that she was scared, but it was as though her body no longer belonged to her.

“You fancied yourself a hunter, didn’t you?” asked the leech. “You’re nothing but prey. My prey.”

Then he pulled back until their eyes met, and Tersa found herself staring into infinity. She heard his voice, in her head rather than in her ears. “Don’t move. This will only hurt a little.”

And then his mouth was on her throat, soft, caressing, and she did as he said. She stood there, frozen in place, staring into nothing, mesmerised by his voice, his touch, his spell.

Tersa felt the moment his fangs pierced her skin. She gasped a little, grabbing at his arms as if to push him away. He held her fast, and then she felt the blood slowly draining from her body, felt her own heartbeat slowing.

She reached up for the chain around her neck. Her mother had given her that chain, and the small silver crucifix that swung from it. Even now, she could feel the effects of the vampire’s poison working on her. When she touched the cross, her skin burned. But it was not the cross she wanted. She was reaching for the second charm that she always carried on that chain. Her lighter.

She reached up, holding the lighter against the collar of the vampire’s shirt, against the ends of his thick black hair. Then she flicked it.

He paused in his drinking when he smelt the smoke, the acrid scent of burning hair. His eyes widened and he pulled away, staring at Tersa as though seeing her for the first time. She said nothing. Her life was slowly ebbing away, her throat was burning with stabbing pain, but she would not give him the satisfaction of screaming.

The vampire screamed instead. As the flames caught his skin, and flared brightly, consuming him, he howled, a horrible animal howl.

Tersa fell to the ground, not even attempting to stem the flow of blood, her blood, pouring from her neck. She listened to the leech’s screams and wondered how such a sound could be so sweet, so unlike the terrifying dying screams of her mother. And long after the vampire had burned, she heard that sound playing in her mind like music.

She died with a smile on her face.