Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades

The Beginning

Aramil Sionnodel sipped on a cold beer as more bodies filled the club, human and immortal alike. Aramil saw his companion enter, "Dominic, I'm over here!" Aramil called over the music as he raised a thin, long arm toward his friend. Dominic sat next to the tall blonde with an eerie silence that raised goose bumps on Aramil's neck.

"Sorry I'm late." Dominic's British accent carried beautifully through the air, resonating magically into Aramil's sensitive ears.

Aramil sipped at his drink and pointed at a tall blonde woman saying quizzically, "Who is she, Dominic?" he sipped his beer again, "She followed you in."

Dominic followed the glance. "She's been following me all night," Dominic smiled, "I think she means to kill me."

"A Hunter maybe?"

Dominic gave a small laugh pushing his dark brown hair back. The little curls ruffled up and it gave the appearance that he had just woken up. "I think she actually will try and kill me tonight."

"She'd be doing us all a favor." Aramil smiled saucily as a girl passed by. "You said you came up with a new card game?"

Dominic pulled out a deck of playing cards. "The game, my friend, is War." He started to shuffle the cards; tiny slices started to form on his pale hands. A pool of his blood began to form under the shuffling deck. Dominic smiled as the cuts healed and new ones broke open. Aramil was stunned but Dominic was thrilled with his invention. "These babies are diamond rimed and filled to a razor sharp pointli," a smile floated on his lips as he continued to shuffle, "They go through three inches of glass like butter, and cut steal like it's going out of style and they never lose their edge." He flipped a card out and it hit a barstool. The steel leg fell away and the man atop of it fell off and looked puzzled. "Here gent, let me help you up." Dominic picked the man up as he secretly retrieved the card. The woman gave him a cold glare and stood up to confront him. Aramil called to Dominic and he spun away, leaving the woman to brood a bit more.

"Hey Dominic, just lure her into the bathroom and…"

"…Yeah, I know the drill…" Dominic grabbed his cards up from there home of blood on the table and tucked them into his breast pocket. He looked around on his way to the men's bathroom, "Poor wretched fools, not a clue…" Dominic looked at another vampire as she lured in a man to her embrace in a dark corner of the club. The angered woman followed behind Dominic, the door closing with a soft shwoo behind her. Dominic began to hum as he looked at himself in a mirror, "Dum de dum…" The woman grinned when she saw Dominic had no reflection but that he still continued to preen himself. She hated his kind. A pocks on the world is all they were.

"I'll kill you, you bastard." She said this calmly and coldly to him.

Dominic turned and regarded her, "Tsk tsk tsk," he shook his head "A good little girl like you coming in here to kill me?" Dominic's accent was smooth and charming in the white porcelain room. "A sophisticated young man like myself-"

"Three hundred-twenty-six is not as young if you're in your right mind." She looked Dominic over and saw he was not armed with any weapons she could see. But then again, his body was a lethal weapon when you came down to it.

Dominic smiled coyly, "Well, what if I'm in my left mind and not my right?" The only answer he received was another icy look. The look made Dominic uneasy at the thought that if she was so bold as this, could she really kill him? The adventurous thought excited him and smirk kissed his pale lips.

"You'll die tonight. And if I have any trouble with you all I have to do is whistle and I'll get help."

"And I couldn't?" Dominic's voice straightened and struck the woman hard. "Your friends will die, too. Don't you know what's out there? Vampires and werewolves, love. It's a masquer waiting to happen sweet heart. Say your last prayers; you're all dead." A smile lightened his pale pink lips. Dominic's fangs jutted out; gleaming white enamel coated his teeth.

"I will kill you." The woman moved like lightning and grabbed a pistol from her leg holster. She cocked it, the echo filling the silent room.

Dominic licked his lips and took out the cards. "Come now, be civil."

"Afraid?" She fired three shots at his head. Dominic jerked back but the last bullet hit his left fang and broke it. He flipped a card at her. A red sliver streaked across her arm and then it burst open and a river of hot flaming mortal blood oozed down her arm. Red teardrops fell from her fingertips to the linoleum floor. "I'm not going to die until I kill you." A touch of venom infected her words.

Dominic looked at her very much pleased. "I'll be sorry to disappoint you." He paused and smiled again. The woman sneered and a bullet pounded through the air and hit a mirror behind Dominic.

~

After Dominic had left, Aramil tried to stop a fight between a man and his girlfriend. "Be a gentleman! Show your woman a good time." His words were met with a sturdy blow to the face. Blood pooled and spilled over the creases in his thin lips. "Oh, you'll regret that…" Aramil crunched down into a standing fetal position and he gave a feral growl.

"What's wrong with you?" The man put a hand on Aramil's shoulder.

A grating voice answered with, "I hope you're ready." A massive paw grabbed the man's throat and lifted him into the air. Aramil crushed his neck without a second thought and threw him into a crowd of people on the dance floor. Several more werewolves transformed and began to herd the humans together. The vampires ran to the already bleeding flying man. Aramil looked back to the terrified woman and said, "You're in a death trap." He advanced on her and licked her throat. He looked into her huge eyes and begged, "Forgive me, for I have sinned."

~

Dominic put a hand to his mouth and felt the broken shard of tooth left in his mouth. "Nice shootin' Tex. But that one will cost you." He walked forward and was shot three times in the chest. "Er… good Gods, bullets are uncomfortable…" Dominic took a playing card and cut open his chest, picking out each bullet individually and dropping them on the floor. "Can't we do this another way?" He smiled and was kicked in the mouth by a size eight boot.

"You wanna play? Let's play." She punched Dominic in the chest, where the flesh was growing back together. "Feel good?" She grabbed onto a scab and ripped it off.

Dominic grabbed her flying bloody fist and kissed the fingers one by one. "I could crush your hand, sweet thing." He opened her hand and licked the palm. Her blood tasted divine. She pulled free and kneed him in the stomach and then round housed him in the jaw. He lay on the ground for a moment and then began to rise. "Spunky."

"Just die." She pointed a gun at him and stood stock-still. A scream from the dance floor drifted into the men's room.

"You can't kill us all, little girl." He wiped blood off his healed chest and shook it from his hand to the floor. She shot his hand and he fell to an elbow. She pulled out a glass ball and smiled. "What are you so pleased about? Do I make you smile, beautiful?"
"Bathe in God's river." She held the glass ball over her head and smashed it on the floor by Dominic. Holy water sprayed over his body, but nothing happened. She stepped away from Dominic as he rose. "I don't understand! It should be burning you!" She pulled her gun again but Dominic was on her. She was in a strong hug. Dominic grabbed her gun hand and whispered into her ear.

"If you don't believe in it, how can it be real?" He kissed her neck. "I don't believe in God, but I know he's there. But because I don't believe in him, how can he hurt me?" He pressed her back to a wall and kissed her. "If you don't believe in ghosts, they don't appear to you."

"What if I don't believe in you?" She bit at his lips to keep him away. Suddenly, she was alone. No body was pressed to her. She stepped forward and looked around, she saw no one. "If I had known it was that easy…"she holstered her gun. A hand touched her shoulder. Spiny ice filled her limbs.

"I'm fast, not fiction."

~

Aramil bathed in human blood. He was covered head to clawed toe. Wolves were consuming the humans after the vampires had drunken their share. Gore was ankle deep on the dance floor. The song "Pressure Point" was playing and Aramil saw the irony as The Zuton's singer screamed "pressure pressure pressure!" and a wolf crushed a man's skull. It made him sick to see, but he knew it was the way things were. They all would have been slaughtered tonight anyways. All though, he was curious about the gunfire in the men's room and what kind of trouble Dominic was getting into. Aramil stood and shook himself off. A rain of gore sprayed off around him. Walking, and being careful not to slip, Aramil stalked off towards the men's room. Black spots burst into his vision and he stumbled backwards. Growling, he picked himself back up and another blow found his stomach.

"She must complete her mission." A built man stood in front of Aramil. "And I must take care of you." He began to pull out a pistol but was rushed and gored. Aramil tossed his body aside and found more men behind him.

"Screw off."

~

"This ends now." She stepped towards Dominic and punched out at his face. Her hand broke on contact and his lip burst across her knuckles.

She bent forward grabbing her hand. Dominic put his hand under hers and grabbed them cruelly. "Do you want this to end?"

"Yes."

"Then it is." He threw her against the mirror, shattering the world around her. Crawling up the sink edge she came at him again. Cuts notched her arms and grooves channeled blood down her legs. Dominic grabbed her wrist and snapped it. Screams, sobs and curses spilled. "I'll stop if you do." She tried to stab him with a knife from her boot but he slapped her in the teeth. A red dripping grin was what he met next. She lunged at him and he threw her towards the door. She balanced and took out her gun again. She slammed a new clip in and filled Dominic's chest with rounds. He pulled out a card and looked at it almost regretfully. Dominic looked up and said, "This is all I can offer to you little girl." He flicked the single card at her and she slid to the ground towards death. The card stuck into the wall where her neck had been. A vertical red sliver was on her neck. She kicked around in her last seconds of life and was several feet from the door when she finally grayed over. Dominic picked the bullets from his chest and when Aramil came in to see Dominic kicking at the porcelain wall by her head viciously. Aramil grabbed his arm and took him out but not before he grabbed the card from the wall. He crushed the ace of spades, the death card, in his hand.

"It's over Dominic," Dominic looked away. "Hey, HEY! I'm talking to you!"

In a sort of haze, he answered, "I'm sorry, I was off in my own little world there Aramil." He looked around and saw what had become of the nightclub. Gore littered the dance floor, bodies were strewn about and immortals sat and chatted as if nothing had happened. Aramil spread his arms wide open and said, "This all we are Aramil, this is all we are. A kingdom of death," and dropped his arms to his side.

The End