#murder on my mind | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

muertarte · 1 year

Text

PARTIES: @muertarte @ronin-for-hire

SUMMARY: Fang is staking out MuertArte for a job and sees her target, Metzli, taking care of a forger. She moves in for the kill.

TIMING: Current

WARNINGS: None

People talk about monsters being frightening to look at it, and it’s a lie. Monsters aren’t frightening to look at. They just look like everyday people, like friends and family, like classmates and professors, like a painter or an art gallery owner, more ordinary than any would like to believe. Of course, Fang was thinking about the spooks that are able to wear ordinary like a mask to hide their true form, that of a hungry predator, of a senseless violent beast.

When her current employer first approached her with the job, Fang was confused. He sounded more furious that the target crippled his business by killing one of his best forgers than he was furious that the target was a monster and could come after him next. Not all men were born with intelligence, obviously, and by men, Fang meant the entire boring race, not just the inferior half of a closeminded suburban elderly housewife’s ideal relationship. But Fang digressed.

She has been watching her target, the gallery owner, for a couple of days now, and so far, no incident. Fang was almost in the mind to drop the damned thing, but she heard a tiny voice in her head, that of her late mentor, that they never drop jobs. They see them through. At least up to the point where they can confirm its authenticity. Was the gallery owner an actual vamp? Or were they just being targeted by forgers? That was what she needed to find out first.

The week had gone and went, for once behaving. And by that, it only meant that Wicked’s Rest hadn’t thrown ungodly curveballs that Metzli couldn’t catch, or even a single forger for that matter. It was strange, as they were usually a weekly occurrence. But that was fine. Patrons visited and enjoyed their time, even conjuring a few positive reviews for the gallery’s page. All in all, Metzli couldn’t complain. Not that they did anyway.

Surviving was all they could ask for, was all they needed. Years of believing it was better to have a little of something than to have nothing, that having aspirations made one take up too much space was deeply ingrained in Metzli. Complaining was futile. Weak. It was much better to go along with the direction and power the waves came. It was easier. Made surprises that much sweeter when they arrived.

So when a forger came in, at last, Metzli was more than happy to take the opportunity. They took a few liberties, forcing a chase to ensue toward the woods when the burly man made his way to his car, late at night. With the cover of darkness, they felt the embellishment for fun was justified. There was a whole week of monotony to make up for, and a hunt was the perfect treat.

Fang stalked her prey like the predator would its meal. She kept her distance, made sure she couldn’t be felt or seen, even as her only true protection was the oni facemask that concealed her identity. She’s fought, and killed, so many of them now that she knew they also had their tricks. But she had to fast, and she had to make sure she wouldn’t lose them. Otherwise, she wouldn’t get paid in full. It was all that mattered to her these days. Getting paid. What else was there? The slayer had neither a past nor a future. There was only the present. There was only this hunt.

So, she waited for the perfect opportunity. She waited for her target to finally kill a man, to confirm itself as part of the undead plague. It would’ve been horrifying to kill an innocent soul. Or at least in paper it was. Fang no longer believes in such a thing, innocent souls. Outside of the children, everyone has already done something that tainted their souls. But she didn’t deal in souls. She only handled the things that didn’t have them, the monsters in the dark, the boogeymen that slaughtered the weak and helpless and the occasional asshole. Still technically helpless in the fangs of a predator.

Fang could just save the burly man, intercept the attack, but that wasn’t the job. The job was to eliminate the vampire. If the man had to die for Fang to confirm her target, he would. There are no more innocent souls, and Fang was a firm believer that death was more of a respite from the pains of life than an actual punishment. After all, this world is already done for.

The heavy gait of the forger didn’t give him much of a chance. He wasn’t in the shape to run, his body built for immediate confrontation. Which, he was given the opportunity to stand and fight. He didn’t have to sprint away. Metzli supposed that was just nature playing its part. Instead of fight, the idiot chose flight.

All common sense left him and now he was going to face death. A slow one at that. He could beg for his life, plead for someone to help, but all he would receive would be his own voice ricocheting from the trees. It was a fun song that led the dance, but it was coming to an end. Closing in on the man, Metzli surged forward, colliding their bodies together in a roll that ended with the vampire above him. They hissed above him, a predator a breath away from its prey. Metzli wasted no time in sinking their teeth into in, letting the blood pool on their tongue and slip down their throat. It was a good kill. It was a good night, filled with screams that slowly faded to silence.

There it was. The confirmation that Fang needed. She took another moment, a few seconds more, and watched as the vampire fed on the hapless idiot. Biting? Check. Bleeding? Check. Screaming until the victim fell unconscious or probably even died? Check. With all those bullet points and more checked in her head, the slayer rushed out of the shadows and attempted to pierce the vampire through the back of the neck, where its spine connected itself to its skull, for a quick and clean finish.

Or so in theory that should happen. Fang has tried this technique before and it never went according to plan. She wasn’t yet sure if she needed to be faster or quieter, but every time she did it, the vampire, her quarry, would always find a way to survive the strike. It was a technique she’d seen her late mentor master, though because their quarry back in Japan were much larger and heavier, it could never kill with one blow. Here, Fang thought it would. Rather it should. She wasn’t able to fully master it before her mentor’s untimely passing. She wasn’t able to fully master a lot of things before the old man was taken from her. “Die, monster!”

The bliss that came with feeding on a fresh kill tended to be overwhelming. All senses quintupled and too much to acknowledge much else. But a predator’s instinct always won out. The need to protect the kill that was rightfully theirs caused the hairs on Metzli’s neck to rise when the earth was audibly disturbed and their would-be attacker announced themself. Horrible tactic, they thought. Perhaps an amateur hunter doing their duty or a noble citizen trying to do what they considered to be what’s right. Either way, Metzli countered quickly.

Metzli swiveled in their heel, slamming their leg into their attacker. Quickly, they pushed them away, dirt dragging into a trail. Metzli followed it, pouncing onto the stranger and trapping her beneath them. They pressed down on her throat for a few moments before they released her and grabbed her by the ankles. With a yank, Metzli threw the woman several feet away from them, hoping to get some sort of distance for them to assess and maybe get the person to leave before something had really happened.

“Leave or die. Have job to do.” They hissed, crouching in preparation for the woman’s answer.

“Yeah?” Fang growled with that deep Batman voice, another mask to keep her civilian identity out of the paranormal community’s grasp. She hadn’t referred to the voice as such, but this town has changed her so much. Back then, back in Tokyo and Osaka, it was just a failsafe, another tool, another weapon, with which to confuse and destabilize the monsters that lurked in the night, their occasional societies and get-togethers. Now, after watching all the Batman movies Sara had, including the one with the vampire guy, it was a paltry attempt at Christian Bale’s version. “Well, so do I!”

It wasn’t enough that Fang was unintentionally cosplaying the Dark Knight. When the vampire threw her, she did a damned flip and ended up doing an even damner superhero landing. For a moment or two, she just stayed there, kneeling on one knee, eyes narrowed at the opposite direction of where the monster was. All that was just further proof that she needed to end it. Before anyone else got hurt. Or more importantly, before it could run and deny her this month’s rent.

Fang bum rushed her quarry, feigning a direct thrust with her katana against the vampire’s chest, only to instead quickly deliver a slash on their leg. It wouldn’t do much damage. With how recent the creature has fed, it wouldn’t take them that long to heal. But that was the problem with these creatures: Being able to heal fast makes them forget to stop until they get put down. “Someone wants you dead. Someone with enough money to pay my rent.”

Well, the gruff voice was unexpected from a woman so small in comparison to the vampire. Not to mention the getup she sported to fight. Metzli couldn’t help but wonder for a moment if she was trying to be one of those underwear people they saw in books. She wasn’t displaying the colorful garments like they normally did, so they had to gather she wasn’t. Though, she definitely had the acrobatics to be one.

Metzli quirked a brow and made a mental note to warn Honey about the woman and her antics. “Urgh!” Especially if she had a pinche katana. The slice to Metzli’s leg forced them to their knee, but they had enough resolve to get back up and retrieve one of their knives. If she wanted blood to shed, then so be it. Metzli would paint the ground.

Carefully, they watched the woman zip around them and blabber on about having to pay rent. Is that all this was? A job? Metzli scoffed a little, just barely relaxing their defensive stance. Inhaling slowly, they found an opportunity and threw their knife, meeting their mark to the nuisance’s shoulder. “If all you want is paid rent then I can pay rent. Am doing my job by getting rid of idiot like him. Not my fault he choose wrong job.”

Without making a sound, Fang winced as cold steel penetrated her flesh. She tried to lessen the weapon’s impact by moving her shoulder back, not unlike a reed against strong winds, but knives weren’t like punches or kicks. Knives don’t just bruise. Knives make you bleed. Instinctively, she squinted at the vampire, clenching her jaw. She should have expected the creature to have a weapon, but knives? She expected more of the same, those grotesque but deadly fangs and maybe even the sharp nails of a familiar monster back in Japan.

But this was not Japan. And Fang could not hate the monsters of this other land as much as she hated the monsters that took her parents from her. She’s made enough of them bleed, took out as many of them as she could in Tokyo and Osaka. These things, the creatures of her new home, her temporary place of residence, they’re not the same as the ones she was taught to loathe. These ones, some were made, not born, and as much as Fang didn’t like them, she didn’t like their hunters either. She was, in every sense of the word, an equal opportunity hater.

“Go on,” Fang indulged the creature’s implied truce, a negotiation that she would have been wary long ago. Her mentor taught her never to trust monsters, but that was before she left to track down his killer, only to fail when her quarry was already taken care of by a local hunter. Most likely why she never got along with the local hunters of this town. They took her vengeance albeit unintentionally and now she was stuck here. Besides, as much as it was a terrible decision to backstab her employer, that guy did smell like rat piss. “Why are you…getting rid of those idiots?”

It was supposed to be just a simple job: Slay the monster, get paid, pay the month’s rent. But the monster didn’t seem like it was just feeding indiscriminately. It didn’t seem like it was just mindlessly satiating its innate thirst for violence and suffering. There seemed to be more bubbling underneath, and frankly, Fang was a little curious and a little more eager not to keep her routines monotonous.

Even more surprising than the vigilantism, the woman was actually hearing Metzli out. Annoyed as they may be, they understood how it looked. Had they been a worse vampire that night, attacking anyone for a meal, Metzli knew they would have met their demise. Fortunately for them though, there was more in their current kill than just a meal.

“Run gallery business. This idiot,” Metzli waved over at the dead body, “Thought he could fool me with a fake Rembrandt.” They scoffed and shook their head, absolutely annoyed with the idea. The fact anyone produced fakes irked Metzli to their core. Art was sacred, and worse, there were always seedier undergoings. Even they had to admit that forgery was the least victimizing.

“Is not that much about money. Is annoying and if you look in his pocket, there is maybe phone or note with more things to do. Much worse than me.” Metzli relaxed at last and put their only hand up to signal a truce. “You leave me alone, I pay double and you no have to deal with body. How it sound?”

Wait, fake Rembrandt? Fang squinted as it slowly dawned on her that she might have been scammed, too. Her employer, that fat fuck, had paid her with a supposedly expensive painting as a downpayment, with the rest of the money to be handed after the job. The slayer didn’t know a lot about art, but for some reason, most likely because of the man’s job, she agreed with that proposal. That and she really needed to pay her rent. Fuck.

So, should Fang just kill this vamp and risk getting scammed further by a professional scammer? The slayer warily nodded toward the dead guy’s pocket and held out a hand, gesturing for the monster to give her the phone or note or whatever was in that pocket. She kept her eyes on the creature, just in case it tried to trick her.

Fact was, however, her employer had already talked about forgers and stuff. Fang didn’t think much about it earlier since that was their business, but now that there was a much better offer on the table, despite it coming from a vampire, she found clarity in how these things always ended up, how deals with scammers always ended up. At least this vampire promised to clean up after itself.

“Actually sounds like a good deal,” Fang mouthed the amount she was promised by her employer when a brilliant thought came to mind. “You want my employer’s address, too? Will cost you extra.” Loose ends and all that junk.

Finally, the vigilante gave the vampire some grace, allowing them to pat down the dead forger for whatever his to-do list was on. Finding a wallet and a phone, Metzli plucked them both away and handed them over, a look of I told you so painting across their features. They’d been in the game long enough to know how deep organizations ran.

No one tried their hand at forgery without building up to it. You had to have some sort of money to try. If you wanted to make a decent fake at least. Not that even the best quality could get by Metzli though. Those idiots still died, much like the man at their feet.

“Okay, so deal.” But of course, there always had to be a catch. Money was always the constant motivator, but to the woman’s credit, she likely needed it for basic living if she was desperate enough to bite the hand who was feeding her. Metzli was just benefitting because she was being handed spoiled goods. They were just happy to get to the source of the filth, hopefully getting rid of them once and for all.

“Fine. Pay extra for address. How much?” Metzli reached for their wallet and retrieved the max amount of cash they kept, which was five-hundred. “What I have right now.” They handed it over, “Am good on my word. Hate lying. So trust that I will pay you in full. Just need bill.”

“Huh,” Fang dropped the Batman voice but not the oni facemask that protected her identity. Well, at least that was the theory. She was pretty surprised, as she checked the wallet and the phone, to find that the vampire wasn’t lying. At the back of her head, she had thought it was just a trick, an attempt to distract her for the escape or the retaliation. But there was neither, and that proved to her that this business was better business than the one the lying piece of shit had taken to her. She felt very glad she used burner phones for this shit.

Without saying another word, Fang typed the address of her now-former employer on the phone and showed it to the vampire, but not before taking the five hundos. “Listen, this isn’t a threat, just a fact: I know where you live,”—well, she assumed the gallery was where the vampire lived, but she didn’t really care—“...but I’d rather not show up to your gallery thing unannounced and invade your privacy or shit like that.” It just wasn’t her thing. “It’s just not my thing. So, when would be the best time for me to show up announced and peacefully get my $400?”

Fang didn’t really give a shit about the dynamics of the local slayers and the local undead. This wasn’t her home. She was just staying here. At least until she finds a reason to go back home. Well, home was an overexaggeration. She had nowhere else to go to, nothing else to look forward to, except the daily grind at the shop and making the daily payments to live another day. Why the hell would she complicate things for herself by getting involved in local politics?

“Also, as a side note, and this is for free: I’m pretty sure that guy has, like, three to four other idiots hanging out at his place. One of them doesn’t look like easy pickings,” Fang unintentionally squinted when she remembered the guy. He was pretty big but not too big, obviously athletic, probably had a military past or something that involved killing people as a career choice. “Don’t die before you pay me in full.”

Metzli blinked at the phone, which seemed like a threat despite her saying otherwise. Not a very good one either. “You show up unannounced and I punch you. Message my business and I tell you when to visit, idiot.” It wasn’t a harsh statement. More of a huffed suggestion an annoyed parent would give a child. “Not know how long it take to get rid of body, but you get money. Am not lying idiot like man who give you job.” Shaking their head, Metzli squatted down, took hold of their kill, and threw him over their shoulders in one swift move.

How much more annoying could the woman get? First, she makes “non-threat” threats, then she tells them to not die while handling a few measly humans? Metzli was more than capable. Was that not obvious? “Not die, idiot. Can handle elder, can handle stupid human men.” They rolled their eyes, adjusting the body on their shoulder a few times before turning on their heel and walking away.

“Not forget to message me.” Metzli called out, bodies disappearing into the darkness. “Will tell you when I kill your boss too.”

If this was years ago, Fang wouldn’t have taken that glib insult lying down. She would’ve sliced the monster’s head off right then and there. But this was not Japan, the creature before her was not an entity with a grander existence, and her pride had died when she was too late to avenge her late mentor. A basic slight held no true weight over Fang. That and it seemed to be a consistent part of its language. Not unlike the word “bitch.” The American language can be so…complex.

So, Fang simply nodded, stowing her katana back into its scabbard as she kept her eyes on the creature. “You’ll hear from me within the week,” that seemed doable, especially if the creature was confident enough to handle…an elder. There was zero concern from the slayer regarding the creature’s fate, as it’ll either succeed or Fang can collect her payment directly from its gallery. Chances were, her former employer would not survive it, and if it perishes during that fight, it would just be like hitting two birds with one stone. “Can’t wait to talk to you again.”

#wickedswriting #bloody ink #murder on my mind #writings #fang and metzli #fang

11 notes · View notes