Page 13 of Mad Hatter Vampire Prince

Screams to my Bleeding Ears

The humans screamed and ran towards the back of the village as the vampires silently paraded towards us. They circled us, outnumbering us vastly. Smoke billowed into the night sky as the village caught alight from the one barrel of oil and open fire I kicked over upon entering. I smiled in glee. What a disastrous vision in all its glory and I was in the center of it all.

A bell rang in the distance to alarm all soldiers that me, myself, and I, was here–oh, and Sasha as well of course. She held steady preparing for the vampires to make the first move but the showman in me wanted to peacock how amazing I truly was. I planned to kill majority of them before she even delighted in the taste. I wanted to tease her in foreplay without offering her the real bite. Her pupils began to dilate in and out, threatening to dissolve into all black. A sign and trigger that she would surely lose control. My little mutated human had already tapped into the hatred she felt towards my species. She was utterly sensational and a beauty in all her glory.

Disappointed that no one offered a personal invite to die first, I blasted through the first row with a vengeance. I swiftly rifled through the masses avoiding their obvious attacks and began extracting hearts and decapitating them one by one with a wicked smile. I bit down on my lips reveling in the taste of my own blood as I swept through them with something that transcended arousal. This was my very essence at its core being set free. I was on fire with everything else around me and free to dance to the tune that was a constant echo in my head. Hickory, Dickory, Dock.

Swords, nails, and teeth came at me. So primitive and predictable. I dodged them with ease wondering if this was their first day of training. So sloppy. Perhaps this would be over a lot sooner than I anticipated. A gun shot went off and the bullet darted towards me. I stepped to the side, to dodge it by inches. The bullet broke into tiny fragments and tiny bits of silver punctured all down my left side. My entire left side was riddled in fragments of silver. Each individual wound felt like it was set alight as my body tried to push out the foreign object that offered me such pain. Pleasurable. It reminded me that even I too could bleed like a broken man.

Another two gunshots went off. I couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the bullets as my left side staggered its pace. Now this was slightly more exciting. I grabbed one of the vampires nearby with my right arm and used him as a shield. The swell of pain was phenomenal as my blood attempted to push the fragments out before my body regenerated with them still inside. Mother fuckers found a new gun, how lovely.

A vampire from behind jumped above me to slice his sword through me. I quickly considered my options. I could shift slightly but probably have my left arm amputated. It would regenerate but would take a few hours which didn’t help me now. My second option was to shift in the other direction but would have to take another bitchy silver bullet. And this time it might even hit my face. Goodbye left arm, you have to go! I anticipated the sharp blade to slice through, angling myself enough so I could go for his throat afterwards.

The animalistic growl that came from Sasha was intoxicating. She deflected the sword and slashed at his face. The vampire howled and clutched at his face. My arm was still entirely intact. She hoisted me under my shoulder and jumped us out of the way from the barrage of dispersing silver bullets.

She found cover behind one of the burning buildings, resting me on a beam that had not yet gone ablaze. My body began to push out the tiny scraps of silver. Painful bastards. They tinkled on the ground, piece by piece. The sound was like a rainfall of shrapnel, glittering amongst the thriving flames.

Her eyes were totally enveloped in black and then the strangest of things happened. She smiled. Like the little monster she was. She actually dared to smile and mock the very monster that I had always been. She had just saved my ass and her inner monster found that hilarious.

She confronted the vampires that came around the corner of the building, striking them down one by one in powerful sweeps. Be damned that I would let her hold saving the amputation of my left arm over me. I had been caught off guard by their new guns but wouldn’t make that mistake twice. The whole ordeal had been momentarily thrilling. I swept around her with monstrous speed that she could never match. I wiped out the three vampires that she had prepared to take on. I smiled cockily over my shoulder. Sasha’s nostrils flared as a low snarl came deep from her belly. She was not at all pleased that I had taken her kill. Another gunshot went off. And like a puff of smoke I was gone and in front of the very fucker that had shot me last time.

Bang. The second one went off, but my hand was already directing the gun towards the night sky. The vampire’s fangs were larger than most of those around us. His uniform indicated that he was one of the instructors who had real warfare experience. I wanted to embarrass him in the greatest possible way. I dove my fangs into his neck, ripping savagely into him. His gurgling roar satisfied me as he clawed at my face trying to push me off. He tasted like utter garbage. I ripped out the side of his throat and upper cut my fist through his rib cage and held firm onto his heart.

“Those nasty bullets hurt,” I said to him and ripped out his dead heart. I pitched his heart at an oncoming vampire. It slapped onto his face and I laughed. Waves of vampires swept in and encompassed us. I killed some efficiently and others comically, smiling like the devil I was.

“Kyran!” I recognized the voice and turned to face the man who dared to interrupt my fun. I tore apart the small vampire in my hands. Limb from limb. He had the audacity to latch onto my arm. Ghastly little thing. I placed my hand oh so gently in his mouth and broke his skull apart, ripping the top of his face off from the hinges of his jaw. I stared down the vampire who had shouted out my name the entire time. I remembered him. He was one of Oppollo’s finest warriors and overseer. He had been introduced to my father as well. What was his name again? “We had a treaty!” He seethed “What is this?”

The vampire that I held from the hinges of his jaw, gargled with his faceless body dangling in my hand. I looked between the bloody pile in my hands and looked back at the vampires whose name I didn’t care to remember. “I call this self-explanatory.” I said discarding the hideous vampire that was marring my hand with black blood. “I thought it couldn’t be any clearer than this.” His fellow vampires stopped momentarily, waiting for his signal. I circled, pointing at the decaying bodies around me. Were these not his students he was so proud of? “I mean… unless you need me to spell it out for you?”

Sasha skidded to my side, dirt flicking up in her wake. She was ravished to kill more. Her face was slick with black blood. She had a few cuts, scratches, and bite marks. I could see black venom oozing from where she had been bitten. Filthy mutts had tried to paralyze her by injecting their venom. I was enraged that the filthy mutts had the audacity to taste what was mine.

She was eyeing the overseer in center of their formation. “No. The big one’s mine,” I said chastising her. She growled at me in response. I didn’t even know if my Darling Sasha was of human mind right now. “Now,” I said to the good for nothing overseer who liked to talk too much, well aware that I had done most of the talking. I charmed an elegant smile. “I’m wanting to get this over and done with before dinner, so if we could carry on, that’d be swell.”

A creak from beneath us sounded before I could sense the movement. I grabbed Sasha under the legs and jumped high and out of the way from the silver trap that snapped shut beneath us. Hundreds of tiny thin teeth snapped shut on thin air. Well that could’ve been delightfully messy. A silver net shot at us from the guard wall as we suspended in the air. I twisted sharply to avoid its harpooning speed and dove my hand into the brick of one of the buildings. We drifted down only inches and hung on the side of the building. Gun fires shot in our direction. I released my hand, so we dropped towards the ground. Sasha kicked against the building, shifting our position to avoid two bullets that began to splinter into silver shrapnel. Only a few pieces punctured into my arm but not enough to affect my mobility like last time. Her senses were keen. We danced in perfect harmony on the battlefield. I was right to bring her along with me for fun. Her mother certainly wasn’t lacking in vision when it came to experiment on her own daughter.

I let Sasha down gently as our feet touched the ground. There must’ve only been fifty vampires left. They had tried to rely on their machinery and failed. I didn’t want to stretch this out for much longer. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of having to hide outside the wall if the sun reached us before we made it back to Grand Klaus. It was time to finalize this very clear message.

Humans huddled in the corner of the village screaming. A few vampires stood in front of them as if to protect them. I’d make sure to kill them before we left and leave the humans to remain shaking in their inability to protect themselves.

Some humans had been caught in the crossfire. Some had even attempted to fight alongside their masters. Human blood and vampire decay mixed with the aroma of billowing smoke. The entire village would soon entirely burn to the ground. It was time to end this game.

I locked eyes with their overseer and ran at him. His remaining soldiers rallied and split separate ways. If any of them got in my way, I disposed of them quickly. This was only his and my grand theatrical stage now. I wanted to spike him in the center of this village still gaping and bleeding out alive. By the time King Oppollo arrived, his overseer would be gasping for forgiveness and unable to unhinge himself.

Respectively, instead of using any weapons he approached me using himself as the tool. I could appreciate a fellow vampire who believed in the monster that he was instead of the weapons that came from the humans’ original knowledge. I punched at him and he dodged. He kicked at me and I avoided it. We were simply toying with one another and testing each other out.

He snarled and lunged into a full tackle, a very confronting maneuver but one that I appreciated. He evidently didn’t want to play games for too long. He was as boring as his King. He lifted me up and slammed me through the bricks of a burning building. We smashed amongst the billowing smoke. Neither of us were affected by the black smoke or inability to see. I pushed back his shoulders with force. His nails scraped along my back and across my ribs before taking sturdy steps back. Oh, how I was aroused by the smell of my own blood during a fight. Hickory, Dickory, Dock.

I charmed a smile letting him bear witness to the fangs and malicious face that would be his demise. Whether he seriously thought he could take me on or not was irrelevant. This would end the same even despite his optimism. Sasha guarded the building we had broken into. She fought off vampires who tried to enter and help their leader. She wouldn’t let anyone interfere with my victory.

He lunged for me again. I blocked his sharp nails that dove for my chest. He kicked at my leg but I avoided it by stepping back. It didn’t take me long to assess his form and pivots. When he struck again, I purposefully stepped into the punch that punctured my collarbone. His nails clutched at the bone and shattered it to pieces. I didn’t balk or cry like he might’ve anticipated. He had been aiming for my heart after all.

I held onto his arm that was still penetrating my collarbone. I slashed across his face. His hand blocked majority of the strike. My nails were still in reach to puncture and rip out one of his eyes. He squirmed only for a second still trying to take his hand out of my shoulder. I held onto his arm firmly so he had no such luxury. I would not return that hand. I placed my foot behind him and pushed him over. He kicked his legs into my stomach in attempt to roll me over. I held my grip on his arm that was still interlocked with my collar. His nails twisted. My bones shattered and squirmed as it began to distort. The pain was a pleasure.

I pressed my knee to his face to keep him down before he could get back up. His arm was oddly jarred as I kept it pinned within me. I twisted his arm, snapping it in half but not enough to tear it off. He grunted and tried to swing his legs back up. I headbutted his knees to block him from swinging over and back onto his feet. My head split open and began to bleed out, immediately dripping down my face and chin. I looked over him with a smile.

“You’re a failure,” I said and plunged my hand towards his throat. He grabbed my wrist and with all his might pulled away from its grasp. My smile widened as the blood from my forehead began to drip onto his face. Inch by inch I continued to apply the pressure and grasp my nails into his throat. My nails dug in with uncontrollable excitement. No one could match me on strength. I was a monster unleashed. I continued to press down as he tried to take his arm out of my collar but I held his grip firm. He had nowhere to go. My collarbone was shattered. But that was irrelevant. I had already won. Every other part of him bucked and clawed at me, ripping apart bits of my body that I could dispose of. I wasn’t the one about to eternally die.

With one final push of pressure, I crumbled my hand through his throat and the back of his neck. Pop. His head split across the room and into the billowing smoke. His body went limp around me. I looked down at his decaying hand that was twisted in my collarbone. “Ewww,” I said detaching it. “I didn’t put much thought into that,” I considered. Ew, Ew, Ew. Dead man’s hand in my shoulder. I was disappointed that I didn’t stick to my original theatrical plan to prop him on a stick in the village center but was satisfied with the end result.

---