Playing the Reaper [Darius Andreas]

OoC: I hope you don't mind that this is short. I like to shy away from power-playing, so there isn't much that can happen until your character shows up. I'll probably be keeping the rest of my posts in here about this short, as well.

IC:

Isaiah loved the rain. He just didn’t like purposefully sprawling out in it.

Leaning against the wall which formed the dead end of an alley, he waited. Shallow breathing, slumped shoulders, and bent head lent authenticity to his death ruse. Years of training had taught him not to move, even with rain pounding at his skull, invading his ears, and dripping into the corners of his eyes. If he was to be successful tonight, his target could not suspect anything until she was upon him.

Isaiah had tracked this particular vampire to the city looming around him—a small speck in a sea of humanity which still roiled despite the rain and the dying sun. She was only one, as far as he could see, so he didn’t anticipate having much trouble. With the shadows creeping in, she would come soon. The scent of his blood trickling from a small self-inflicted wound in his arm would attract her. All he could do right now was wait.

Luckily, he was a patient and calculating Englishman.

She knew it was there... She knew it was different... She had to try it... She could smell this new kind of blood. It wasn't that of an animal, nor was it quite human. For the most part it seemed like a human's blood, but it had a scent that made something in Vixen's mind spark. It was a bit beyond her reach, so she put the thought aside, and continued down the road she was walking on. The rain was irritating her as it was making her cloak heavy, and soaking her through.

She had been walking for several minutes before the scent became strong enough to accurately pin-point it's location. Vixen ran now toward an old, empty alley. She turned the corner into the alley and stopped. At the end was a man, tall, slumped, and bleeding only from a cut. Vixen approached slowly, taking one small step at a time, and when only four feet away from the man, she drew her Keris. She wanted to be sure the man was really dead. She walked up, just next to her target, and prepared to make a quick, deep slice across the chest of this man. She didn't quite expect a seemingly dead body to defend itself.

His sensitive hearing detected the sliding of metal as the vampire drew a blade of some sort. Beneath the folds of his grey overcoat, his fingers tightened around the silver dagger he held in one hand and his pistol he held in the other. His eyes snapped open, and he sent a bullet into the vampire’s thigh. Using the shock conveyed through his sudden “resurrection” and the fact that she now had a bullet in her thigh to worry about, Isaiah sprang to his feet and maneuvered so that he was no longer the one cornered in the alley.

He took a moment to size up this vampire, since she was not giving off the energy signature he was used to feeling from so-called normal nightwalkers. The color of her skin—not quite the deathly pallor that was typical—was his first indication that something was off. The second thing of note was the fact that she was armed with several blades. He tilted his head to the side, considering. Lately, he had not been presented with many challenges, so he made a spur-of-the-moment, possibly a rash, decision.

Sheathing his dagger and holstering his pistol, Isaiah psychically freed Acerbus from his back. He grasped its hilt and let his strands of prayer beads dance lazily around him for a few seconds before releasing his mental hold on them. The obsidian sword gleamed faintly as it reflected the moonlight.

“Come, monster. Let us dance.”

"RRISSHHAAA...!" The fact that she didn't expect the bullet to strike her made the pain seem like more. But the extra pain was only from the shock, so it'd wear in a few minutes. Vixen was sliding across one of the walls, trying to stand. Her injured leg kept giving way, and soon she was sitting down against the same was as the man was moments before. Two were frozen, Isaiah waiting for the vampire to respond, and Vixen waiting for the pain to negate to a normal amount.

Finally she jammed her nails into the bullet wound, grabbed the bullet and pulled it out, despite the immense pain. She stood, still holding her Keris, and walked forward with a limp. If she pushed herself her body's adrenaline would kick in, giving her a boost, and much better resistance to pain. She never knew what it was that gave her the extra feeling, but she knew that once it came, she would soon be able to go on a Frenzy against her opponent. The downside to the frenzy was the fact that she would then HAVE to drink her victim's blood. Vixen stood, now only four feet away, and sheathed her Keris. She stood straight, put her arms and chest out, and screamed, "MEEEESHIII!" Her color seemed to fade away into a very dark brown, then she seemed to disintegrate, but this was merely her becoming an entire swarm of mosquitoes. The gun wound was now spread evenly among around one-hundred of the mosquitoes, who proceeded to fly around Isaiah, and form together again several feet away behind him. Vixen was facing the same direction as before, so she had to turn around to look again at Isaiah.

He observed now that she no longer had the bullet wound, but several cuts in various places instead. Vixen had spread the pain over her entire body, rather than in just one place. It made concentration easier, but the amount of pain was still the same as before. Vixen now unsheathed both of her Yatagan, and began to step forward, slowly. Both of them knew what was coming next... Vixen charged, and brought both blades down onto Acerbus, which Isaiah had put up in defense. Vixen again attacked, this time taking a slice at Isaiah's side. With his quick reflexes Isaiah blocked the attack. Vixen took a step back, put her blades together like an X, then brought them down again. Isaiah dodged this time, which Vixen did not expect, causing her to nearly fall on her face. The opportunity became available for Isaiah to get behind Vixen, and he did so. He took a slice at Vixen's back, which caused her to jump up and spin around defensively. It felt to Vixen like a paper cut, sharp, stinging, and very annoying. She pointed both of her Yatagan at Isaiah, and lunged at him, trying not to be backed into the alley again.

Standing his ground, Isaiah took the vampire's charge, catching both her blades in the irregular grooves of Acerbus. For several tense seconds, they each struggled to overpower the other. Though Vixen might have had supernatural strength in her favor, Isaiah had years of intense physical training and experience against much stronger foes in his. They were at an impasse, it seemed, until the hunter purposefully dropped to the ground. The sudden shift in balance pulled Vixen with him. As she fell over him, he kicked both feet up into her stomach and wrenched his sword out of the lock, sending her sprawling several feet past him.

Isaiah stood to his feet. He was content to stay on the defensive for now and analyze her attack patterns. Her swordsmanship was sloppy, lacking the elegant grace of his own. She appeared to rely merely on brute force and animalistic instincts. The desire for blood was rolling off her in metaphorical waves, and that caused her to overplay whatever resemblances of sword stances she had. He would be sure to use that to his advantage.

He began scanning the ally walls. He had broken the sword lock, but that had, unfortunately, put her between him and the mouth of the alley. However, he was far too resourceful to be left cornered. Once his eyes lighted on a rusty dumpster nearby, he smirked and beckoned to Vixen. "See if you can keep up with me."

He gained the top of the dumpster in one leap, and it was only a matter of finding enough hand- and foot-holds for him to scale the rest of the wall to the roof. Once there, he inhaled deeply of the night air and glanced up at the moon, pearlescent and full. The sounds of hissing and nails clawing at the old brick returned his attention to the edge of the roof. He raised Acerbus once more and waited.

Vixen's full two-inch nails allowed her to climb the wall by merely digging them part way in, and pulling herself up, not needing many grip points. As she reached the top she looked over the roof before actually climbing onto it, noting the location Isaiah. Once up she slowly pulled out her Keris, purposefully dragging it long the edge of the sheath the make the sound of metal grinding metal. The sound was somewhat uneven because of the curves that made up the shape blade, like a snake. The sound was annoying but it had little further effect on Isaiah. Seeing this Vixen stopped just after the blade was out of it's sheath, looked Isaiah in the eyes, and tilted her head slightly.

"Ssss... Youss... Youss are not humanss... Notss entirely, am I rightss...?" She didn't wait for a response, but ran full speed to his side seeming to be there in a near instant. "Yesss... I could sssmell it in your bloodss... I wantss it... I'd likesss to try it..." Again she didn't allow for a response, but rather shot over to the other side of Isaiah. "You huntss those like me... Exterminatess those likess me... Why else wouldss you carry silver weaponsss? Crucifixesss? Why elssse?" The final question was almost like a demand for an answer, which she again refused Isaiah. She rushed to his position like she were going to strike from the front, but twirled to his side and swung her Keris in a hacking motion at his back.

If the vampire’s show of speed was supposed to impress him, it failed. Though she had rightly deduced that he was a vampire hunter, she must not have realized that he dealt with such measures of speed constantly. Any attempts to spook him by mysteriously seeming to teleport would fall flat.

Now, she charged at him once more, seeing if she could play him on a string and catch him off guard with her surprise spinning strike. Isaiah had practically expected something like that, though. Even the most dull-brained vampires eventually realized charging him over and over again was not an effective strategy. The question had been only what she would try to add on to this charge. He guessed a shift to the left, and he was, as usual, right in his guessing. Acerbus flew to his side in a surge of silver-tinged obsidian, and the attack was once again blocked.

What he didn’t count on was her one free hand of claws flashing up out of nowhere to rake across his right shoulder. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Isaiah threw his opponent back a few paces and slapped a hand to the scratches in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Luckily, his vampire blood granted him heightened powers of recovery, and the wound was not long in sealing itself at least to the point that blood wasn’t seeping out. He couldn’t, however, do anything about the rips in his shirt and beloved overcoat.

“Yes,” he said with a touch of vehemence. “I hunt those like you, among other things. Would any other sane man feign death just to lure you in?”

"There... wasss nothingss to sssignify your... sssanity, fool." She hissed back at Isaiah, with an irritaded tone. "That," she said pointing to Lunarius Nex, Isaiah's silver colored gun. "That isss... a fansssy devissse... Yesss?" She answered her own question, speaking softly, "Yesss... It isss."

Vixen stepped back, and stretched her arms out above her head, and bending backwards until her hands touched the ground. She sprang back up, like a bent spring released, and her Keris flew out of her hand, towards Isaiah. She expected him to dodge, which he did, and so ran for a split second to catch her sword behind him. She stood a moment, her back to Isaiah, and almost immediately sensed that something was coming at her, but didn't turn to see what it was. Instead, she stepped not even a foot aside and grabbed a hold of a silver object that had been thrown at her. With it's momentum it managed to give Vixen what felt like a paper cut, but she held on tightly to this Crucifix with a blade of silver. She took it and slid the blade along the skin on her other arm, in clear sight of Isaiah, pressing hard as she did so. The blade didn't even leave a scratch, and after it had come to her shoulder, she dropped it to the ground, listening to the sweet sound of it striking the ground without an echo. She turned around to look at Isaiah, but she couldn't seem him were was was before. Her eyes widened for a moment, but she looked to the top of a chimney several feet away, as Isaiah had climbed up top of it, and ran to the bottom of it in an instant. She leaned against the wall and looked up into Isaiah's eyes, as he looked down at her.

"Ssso, yousss are... sssome kind of hunssster... I sssee... Your bagsss of tricksss won't work... yousss poor fool." Looking forward, she felt a small sting on her head. She stood up and felt the top of head, causing a finger to sting as it touched a wet spot. Isaiah had let a single drop of Holy Water down onto Vixen's head while she had looked away. Vixen turned and looked at him, hissing for a moment before the pain increased a bit. She quickly dried her finger off, then took her cloak and wiped off her hair to dray it as well. The residual pain was just a mere annoyance now, but it would be gone soon, so she ignored it and stepped back. Isaiah jumped down, facing Vixen, and drawing his Desert Eagle, pointing it at her. There was a moment of silence between the two, as Vixen anticipated Isaiah's shot, and he calculated the distance between him and the Vampire, to see if she would be able to dodge his shot.

Vixen felt a shock sent through her nerves as a silver bullet flew into her left arm and exploded inside, tearing muscle and skin. Her eyes were wide, and she fell to her knees, looking at nothing, yet staring at Isaiah. Her eyes soon focused on the gun, still pointed at her. She heard the trigger slowly being pulled, put her head down, screamed and transformed into a mosquito swarm once again. The bullet passed through the swarm, and the bullet that hit her before fell to the ground. She reformed a short distance from where she was, but as soon as she did, she collapsed. She could only look up at Isaiah as he walked closer. His gun was holstered, but he had out now a silver dagger. Vixen used every once of strength she had at the moment to flip onto her back, and put up her arm to block. The blade struck with enough force to slice into her arm, and she shrieked, forcing Isaiah to back away. Vixen jumped up, and ran to the edge of the building, now filled with energy again. Looking down she saw people here and there, nor more than ten, all looking at her. She looked back at Isaiah with a sadistic smile, and jumped from the roof, landing noiselessly on the street below. In mere seconds she shoved all the people against a wall, and forced them to stay. Isaiah saw this, and himself leaped down, using some of the building's design to get down easier. He ran to the people, pulling out his bag of salt, and sprinkling some of it in a line just in front of the group as he passed by. Vixen acted appalled when Isaiah turned around. But while he came back to the group, Vixen lunged at one of the people, grabbed her, and used her as a human shield, holder her keris at the woman's throat.

"Ssstay back... or thisss woman sshall die becaussse you... did not lisssten!" The words came out harsh, and loud, scaring the group of people. Vixen and Isaiah stood no more than five feet from each other, both waiting for something. Vixen was ready to kill this woman captive without hesitation, but she wondered what Isaiah would do, thus she simply held the woman tightly.