My first finished effort. Constructive criticism welcomed!

Rain poured from the sky as though it meant to drown the world. It turned day into night, and the streets gleamed beneath its downpour, oil slick paths cut through the heart of an urban jungle. Rose pushed her body further into the doorway, but it wasn't the rain she was avoiding. It was the creature that lurked in the abandoned theater across the street. Though her senses were only human, her instincts were honed to a razor's edge from too many nights spent hunting the things that went bump in the night. She could almost feel him in there, taste his hunger and the sullen resentment he felt for the rain that would keep his prey safe and warm in their little houses. She saw movement at the glass doors at the front of the theater, and thrust herself back even further against the unyielding wood behind her. She was cloaked in shadows, dressed to kill, quite literally, in a black leather trench coat that concealed not only the slender body beneath, but also the assortment of weapons secreted about her person. Her jet black hair was cut short, and the ends of it curled, dripping from the rain she'd been unable to completely avoid. Her eyes were a storm colored blue, the shade of an angry sky, and it almost seemed that they echoed the sentiment of the current weather as they narrowed to track that subtle movement by the theater doors. Whatever was near those doors retreated back into the darkness of the theater a moment later, and she couldn't be sure if it had seen her or not.

She took a breath, waited for a car to stream past, and then and pushed herself out into the rain. Her black boots splashed loudly in puddles, but the rain drowned out most of the noise of her approach. She headed right for the theater doors, lifting an arm to send her elbow crashing through the plate glass...only to pause. The door was ajar. Her heart gave a sickening thud. Either she was expected, or someone else was. For a fragile moment, she considered giving up this hunt. But she'd spent weeks tracking this vampire to his lair, and she'd be damned if she'd give up now, when she was so close to getting him.

The door hinges uttered a high pitched squeal when she pushed her way in, and she rolled her eyes at the predictable sound, doing her best to shrug off the shiver that the creak had sent down her spine. Now that she was out of sight of the street, she could safely bear a weapon in plain sight. One hand slipped into one of her cavernous pockets, and she pulled out a thick stick of wood carved into a deadly point at one end. Her boots squeaked a little on the tile floor of the lobby, but became silent when they hit the carpet. The place smelled of mold and decay, and beneath that, of that neck ruffling scent that was unique to vampires. She could feel the thing watching her, waiting, and knew that it could hear the sound of her pulse quickening. But where was it? Her eyes searched upward, at the high ceiling, where an art deco frieze had crumbled and decayed almost beyond recognition. If her quarry was a shadow lurking in the darkness above, she could not tell. The slap of a swinging door against another startled her eyes down again, and she caught the movement of a theater door swaying in and out, as though someone had just run through. Scarcely daring to breathe, she stalked slowly towards the doors, the hand that held the wooden stake raised in preparation to thrust it into the chest of anything that might jump out at her. Reaching out, she stilled the movement of the door, and then pushed it open with a hard thrust. No one was there. Only rows of empty theater seats greeted the sweep of her eyes, barely visible in the gloom. She stepped through, and let the door go. It closed behind her, and reduced the shapes within the room to formless shadows. Shadows were his domain, not hers. She reached into her pocket, closing fingers around one cylinder, only to reject it and feel for another. She broke the capsule inside of the glowstick, bending its end against her thigh until she felt a pop inside it. A quick shake mixed the contents, and chased away at least a few of the shadows with a sickly green light. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." Her whiskey soaked voice was low, nearly a whisper, but she knew he could hear her. He was hunting her, as much as she hunted him.

It was the sound of two hands clapping together that drew her eyes to the front row, where one seat seemed taller than the rest. The vampire rose from his seat, still clapping, and she couldn't stop herself from taking a step back. He radiated power. She felt the spill of it over her as he turned his malevolent gaze her way. She held the stake at the ready, and swallowed hard, pushing her fear down. She took a step closer to him, as he walked closer to her, and when they met in the middle they circled each other like wolves, each waiting for a chance to pounce upon the other. "So you've found me at last, little hunter. It took you long enough." His voice was sinful, promising pain and pleasure both with its gravelly depth.

"What can I say, Sebastian? I didn't want you to think I was too forward. I've heard you like your girls sweet and shy." Her mouth curved up at one corner, though the wicked hint of a smile did not touch her eyes. Those remained fixed on him, unwavering and wary, and behind her eyes she remembered the bodies she'd found in the trail he left for her. Dead girls whose empty eyes accused her, even now.
"And yet you, Rose, are anything but." He stepped closer, and she jerked back a step, lifting the stake a little higher. He smiled, and it was filled with cruel amusement. "I've been watching you. I've seen the kind of man you take to your bed. And I heard the words you screamed, little wildcat, when your lover brought you pleasure." Rose felt heat seeping into her cheeks, and took another pace back, for the one he took towards her. Her back was to the small stage behind her. Silently, she cursed herself for a fool. She'd let him get between her and the exit. "I know what you really want." His voice deepened sensually, and rolled across her skin like a caress. She choked on a small sound, and took another step back, towards the stage. He feinted towards her, as though he meant to pounce, and she cried out, her arm thrusting through half an arc with the stake before she realized he hadn't actually jumped her. His laughter made her mouth twist and her eyes harden.

"You know nothing about me, Sebastian. You think every woman is aching to be your blood doll. That humanity is yours to consume. I've come to tell you that that's not the way it works. You will die tonight, Sebastian." She sounded far braver than she felt. The prickle of his power pushed against her skin, and she fell back another few steps, though he had not physically approached.
"We'll see who lives, and who dies, little hunter." And then he blurred, and was gone. She caught her breath, and the sound of her gasp was deafening in the empty theater. The empty seats around her gave her the creeps. He could be hiding anywhere among them, crawling like a lizard between the cover they provided. She turned to take the stairs up to the stage, her bootsteps echoing loudly on the old wood.
"Come out and fight me, then, coward!" She shouted out her challenge, hating the way her voice trembled its way over the last few words. She should have remembered to be careful what she wished for. He came like a swift wind, smacking against her back, bearing her down to the ground, her belly pressed against stage floor. His hand closed around her wrist, and he smacked her hand against the floor once, twice...three times, until she released the stake from nerveless fingers. The glowstick had already skittered to the edge of the stage, but she didn't need to see now. She knew where he was. His fingers hooked into the collar of her trenchcoat, and he yanked her up to her knees. She brought her head back hard, hoping to smack him in the nose, the chin, anywhere that might do some damage. But instead, his other hand rose to catch the back of her head, and curl in the short strands of her hair. They were only just long enough to gain slight purchase in a hard grip, but he used even that slight advantage to force her head to one side, and bare her neck. She shuddered, her arm pushing against his hands, struggling against his grip. Her other hand rose to scratch his eyes out. He caught that one, too, and brought both behind her back, curling his unnaturally strong fingers about two wrists. She struggled to see if she could slip free, but his grip only tightened. She cried out in pain at the pressure against her wrists, and ceased her struggles, her chest rising and falling on hard, fast breaths.

“Tsk, tsk, Rose. Why do you fight so hard, when we both know what it is you want?” He gripped her hair again, and pushed her head to one side once more. His sigh washed over her neck, and her eyes closed as she shivered. “I can smell your body’s responses. Your fear is delicious.” He licked at her neck, the flat of his tongue gliding over her skin in a mocking stroke. “But I can smell your desire, too. You want this.”

“No!” Her voice was a high wail, and she blushed to hear the lack of conviction in it. His laughter rolled against her ear, and she bucked and shoved at him with her body. He was like a wall, unmoved by her efforts. The tip of his tongue lingered on the scars in her neck, the ones that another vampire had put there, long ago. He scraped the points of his teeth against her, and she hissed in a breath between clenched teeth as those sharp canines sliced thin lines into her neck. Blood filled the stinging cuts, and flowed in sluggish rivers down her neck. He lapped the blood away, and hummed his pleasure at the taste of her, while she writhed in protest. Her back arched, and she pushed her shoulders back against him, but he only fixed his mouth against her throat and suckled at both blood and skin. His fingers released her hair, and his hand slid down along the other side of her neck, and claimed a breast. She moaned and shuddered as his thumb stroked against the hard tip of her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, and couldn’t stop her hips from rocking backwards against him.

“There’s the slut in my little hunter.” He pressed his body more firmly against her own. He wasn’t hard yet, because that took blood, but he still rolled his hips forward against the firm roundness of her ass. His hand dipped lower, pushing against her belly, molding her body against his own. Cool fingers tugged the hem of her shirt upward, and stroked along the bare skin of her stomach. He could kill her at any moment, she knew. He was strong enough to reach through her skin and pull out her internal organs, if that was his desire. But he was playing with her, and she couldn’t help responding. He was right. This was what she dreamed about at night, what she fantasized about when her human lovers were thrusting their cocks into her. She’d been bitten once, and the lust to feel that again was powerful at the best of times. His fingers tugged open the button of her pants, and drew the zipper down, and she struggled again, trying to pull her hands free of his grasp. His hand moved back up to her breast, and he caught her nipple between thumb and forefinger, and squeezed hard. “Be still, little hunter.” She choked on a cry of pain, and tried to writhe away from his hand. She heard him make a small sound of desire, and it speared straight through to her loins. She stilled. He released her nipple, and rubbed it gently with the palm of his hand, soothing the aching flesh. “There…that’s better, isn’t it? You’ll learn to behave, little hunter. I’m beginning to think I might keep you alive long enough to teach you how to beg.”

His hand slid away from her breast, and his mouth returned to her throat, the tips of teeth scraping to open new, stinging wounds from which he could sip at her blood. She arched again, but did not fight. Not yet. Her teeth ground together when he pushed his cool fingers down into her pants, and curled them up against her sex, caressing her through the damp cotton of her panties. “Mmm…soaked already. How long have you been planning this, Rose? How long have you been waiting for a vampire that was strong enough to beat you down?” She didn’t answer except in a small, breathy moan, as he ground fingertips up against her cunt. His fingers pushed her panties aside, and slid along the slick puffiness of her lips. “Answer me, sweet Rose. How long since you’ve been taken by one of my kind?”
“Years. Five…five years.” She bit her bottom lip as his fingers dipped deeper, teasing at the edge of her entrance, skirting around her clit in small, wandering circles.

“And you’ve been hunting us since then, waiting for something like this to happen? Poor, sweet, confused Rose. All you had to do…was ask.” His fingers pushed into her at the same time as his teeth, and she sobbed aloud as the pain and pleasure crashed against one another inside of her. She bucked her hips forward against his hand as he drank deeply from her throat, making no small cuts this time, but great, gouging holes right into her carotid artery. His fingers thrust hard inside of her, curling against that soft, tender spot within, and his thumb began to strum against her clit. Her moans became louder, ragged near-screams that bounced off of the walls, mocking her in echoes of her own surrender. His other hand eased its grip on her wrists, and rose to capture one of her breasts again, pushing under her shirt to cup the firm, tender flesh in his bare palm, kneading it. He closed his fore and middle fingers around the hard nub of her nipple, and tugging and rubbing at it. She whimpered, and he chuckled against her throat, his mouth fused about her skin to guzzle down her blood. She felt him grow hard against her, and he thrust his hips against her, pushing her own back as his fingers delved deeper into her soaking cunt.

He was too wrapped up in her, in the feel of her body’s encroaching surrender, in the taste of her blood, to notice when her hand strayed to the pocket of her trenchcoat. She captured the other cylinder that lay in the pocket’s depths, and withdrew it, barely able to keep a grip on it with her hand shaking so. Her thumb shoved the cap off of the hypodermic needle, and her grip on it tightened when she felt a hot, tight flutter in her sex. She was getting weaker, with so much of her blood flowing into him. It showed in the droop of her eyes, and the slow deliberation of her movements. He worried at her neck like a dog with a bone, and released a low growl of satisfaction at her fearful cry, mixed in with moans of pleasure. His head rose, and he licked at the wounds he’d made in her throat, sending a sting of pain through her. “Cream for me, little hunter.” He growled the words into her ear, and his fingers worked faster, deeper. Her hips thrust lewdly at his hand, and she made small, high sounds of desperation, almost forgetting her intention. Almost, but not quite. With a last desperate sense of purpose, she stabbed the hypodermic needle back into his thigh, and shoved the plunger down with her thumb.

He didn’t feel the sting of the needle, but he felt the rush of holy water as it rushed into him. His fingers jerked inside of her, and it was his turn to cry out in rage and pain. The orgasm poured over her as he nearly crushed her against him, the sound of his pain sending her over the edge. She held back her sounds of pleasure so that she could hear him, instead, and lifted her hand to stroke it along his cheek as he gaped, open mouthed and disbelieving. He thrust her away and landed on the stage on his back, his body writhing and contorting as the holy water burned inside of him. She landed hard, and pushed herself up on her arms, turning her head to see him. The glow stick illuminated him just enough for her to see his pain. She stood, slowly, her legs trembling and her body throbbing with recent pleasure. One hand lifted to rub fingers against the fresh bite marks on her neck, and she shuddered at the sting of pain that followed. Her hand lowered, and she slid it along the outside of her thigh. There, a trio of black straps held a sheath in place, almost invisible against the black of her pants. She drew the machete swiftly enough that it sang, and yanked the vampire’s attention to the naked blade. Stalking towards him, she smiled down at the wild eyed vampire, and there was nothing gentle or even human in her expression. “That was wonderful, lover. Too bad we won’t get to do it again sometime.” And raising the machete over her head, she brought it down in a swift arc, cleanly severing the vampire’s head from his body. Blood sprayed the stage, and she felt the wet warmth of it splash against her cheek. She lifted a hand to brush it away, and only succeeded in smearing it across her skin. She wiped the blade clean on the vampire’s shirt, and sheathed it again, before pulling out a book of matches. One match flared up in the darkness, nearly blinding her, and she used it to light the rest before dropping it onto the vampire’s chest. He was already drying up, and he caught on fire quickly. The theater itself was just a death trap waiting to happen. Soon the stage was ablaze behind her, as Rose, the Hunter, made her way back out into the lobby, and then into the cleansing rain.