Tale of a Vampire Assassin

Chapter 9

"Wake up, Shot. It's time you got in some target practice." I groaned at the sound of York's voice.  Then the light came streaming in through my office window.  I rolled over and hid my face under Ian's arm.  He was still sleeping.  I wanted to sleep too.  I wanted blood.  I wanted Grey.

When I rolled over Mr. Top-gear-head himself smacked me on the ass.  Hard.  I moved faster than I had in days.  "Watch it!"  I growled and he laughed at me.  I couldn't stand it when he did that.  I sat up and glared at him through the sunlight that glared back at me.  I wanted to jump up and shut the blinds so I could go back to sleep.

"Come on, Shot. Get your ass up. We want you downstairs for target accuracy. Now get your nice ass out of bed and get going."  He got in close to my face and whispered, "You get to wear pants."  He was trying to convince me.  I consitered this for a moment. I hadn't been wearing pants since Max had made me put on the stupid skirt.  I needed to put on a pair of pants.  I rolled off the bed and made a beeline for the blood viles. I chugged the first one my fingers touched and shot out the door and down the stairs for the shooting range. I couldn't wait for pants and combat boots! I hated this stupid skirt and blazer. I was stripping down before I got through the door of the observation room.

"Pants!" As I said that I was fighting to get the buttons on my blouse undone and the zipper on the back of my skirt to go down.  After a minute I gave up and ripped my blouse open and the buttons went flying in every direction. I was aimed to get my skirt off next.  I was determined to get that cursed piece of fabric off my body. It was nothing but trouble.  I hated it.

"Stop it, I'll get that."  Mr. Top-gear-head himself stepped up to get my skirt off.  I froze.  What a pervert?  Oh well, knowing that I could kill him if I wanted to warmed me up to him a little.  "You really want to get your clothes off that bad, huh?"   Not funny, I thought.  One step forward, two steps back. That's always the way it was with York. Any time you tried to make progress with him he always said something to ruin it for you.  Of course I'm sure that was only with me.  It had to be.

I felt my skirt sag then slip down the length of my legs and pool around my feet.  Good.  It matched my sagging shirt.  I stripped the shirt off and stepped out of the circle the skirt made around my feet. I picked up the skirt and dropped both it and the blouse and blazer, once I had it off, on York's desk.  Then changed in front of the room full of gear heads.  Not that it mattered.  They'd all seen me completely naked when  was shot a few years back.  Not that I had wanted them too.

"Here," said Mr. York as he handed me a new gun; one I'd never seen before.  I took it from York and examined it in my hands.  I pulled the magazine out.  I pulled out one of the bullets of the mag and turned it in my hands. I sighed.

"This is for the Faye case isn't it?"  A look of pure disgust took over my face.  I was angry at my team for the first time.  I couldn't believe they were doing this!  Not to mention I was still standing there in my underwear.  I was in desperate need of vodka.

York looked at me.  He knew I didn't want to do this. "Andy, we know how you feel. We've seen the bottles." 

"Don't remind me," I say through my teeth and staring past him.  I don't want to talk about this.  It's too painful. 

Besides it isn't any of York's business in the first place.  It would be if I was Drunk as a skunk but I wasn't.  It was impossible for me to be.  The only thing alcohol did for me was took my mind off my emotions and made me focus on the thirst it gave me and the intense sexual desire that it also made any vampire feel as well as the thirst.

"Andy we need to know how the gun targets."  York's expression gave little away to what he was thinking. He was the hardest human to read that there ever was.  It was like trying to read the blank pages of a book. You got nothing out of him. 

I stare down at the gun, considering.  I know better than all of them, it will fail.  It's not even worth shooting.  The bullets made me think I was taking down a werewolf with copper bullets.  The end of the bullet was tapered down to a point from the one-inch-long base.

I bounce the gun in my hand, annoyed, and throw it down on the desk beside me.  "It's . . .That won't work.  Only a vampire can kill a vampire!"  I refused to tell them how it was done and that I didn't know how to do it.  I knew how to injure someone like me through self defense but I wasn't exactly keen on the details.  Nor was I going to tell them how to do that either.  I was glad I didn't work with any werewolves because I would have been punched in the face for not including them in the death of a vampire.  They were able to kill us too, so long as they were in the form of a wolf.

"We want to see how you trigger with the new mechanism, Shot.  We don't care if it's going to work or not.  Now get suited up and into the box."  York slammed his fist down on the table right by me.  I didn't like it when he did that.  He was yelling too, which only made matters worse.  If I didn't comply now I wouldn't be assigned a kill for weeks.  That's when I felt like I was the one at the end of someone's sight.

"Fine," I said and headed for the woman who was holding my gear.  I started yanking on my vest when someone stopped me.

"Not that one," said York.  He slid the strap of my vest back down my shoulder.

"Why?" I felt my fangs descend in anger. "This has been my vest for years now."

York motioned for someone to come forward and Ian materialized with a bundle of some strange fabric.

"What is that?"  The bundle of fabric turned into various pieces of armor as it was removed form the pile.

"What does it look like, Shot?"  I wasn't in the mood for his sarcasm.  I felt the pain of my fangs stab into my lower lip.  I stemmed my pain and squared my shoulders.  I was getting a new assignment when this one was complete.

"Put it on and hit the hamster wheel. We want to see how you move in the new armor."  I put on the armor with Ian's help and went through the door to the hamster wheel.