III
There was never any hound dog with a keener sense of smell than what Jack enjoyed. It was a matter of minutes before he was back on her trail.
She was home now. Her parents had died years ago, leaving her to raise herself. That was how she had come to find the cloth.
When the EMS crew carried her parents away they had been dead for over six weeks. It was their advanced state of decay that had prompted the disposal of the very cloth she now wore.
Jack stood outside her door, arrogant and clueless. She knew he was there, and why he was there. She also knew that his time was over.
With a wave of his hand the door blew apart and he entered. She stood silent as he approached her, her calmness causing him to pause.
A surge of familiarity coursed through his body, weakening his knees so that he stumbled backwards trying to stay on his feet. In the single most undignified moment in his centuries of living, Jack fell, landed on his butt and stayed there.
Jack was in trouble. Who was she? How did such a wilting flower become so powerful?
He rolled to his left just in time to avoid a direct hit from a woman who not only was not a high school student, but could fly. She crashed into the wall next to the gaping hole where the front door used to be, laughing as studs splintered and wallpaper burst into flames.
" What is this? You forgot me, Jack? Shame on you!" He must have, he had no idea who his "prey" could possibly be.
She was laughing again. It was a sound that made a man sick to his stomach, a man who has been feasting on human flesh for over 400 years, a man whose taste for blood seemed to have no end.
Now he knew what a fish felt like right before hitting the red hot skillet.
Jack managed to stand up, with help from a sturdy roll top desk that had escaped destruction. It took a full minute before his eyes stopped spinning long enough to focus. Then he saw her.
She was about 15 feet away, her feet 6 inches off the floor.
There had never a moment of fear in Jack, but now he seemed to be made of it. It got worse when he saw her shoes.
They were his mothers.
" Who are you, then," he said, trying to regain some sense of dignity, "why are wearing my mothers shoes?"
" Because she gave them to me, when she told me how to destroy you."
Not 2 hours ago he had been looking forward to her torture, dismemberment, and death. Now, Jack just wanted out.
The fire was now eating through the living room, growing by the second. Jack decided to leave any way he could. He found his escape blocked, not by fire, but by the bracelet that had fused his wrist with the desk. The bracelet itself had changed into a solid piece, tight enough to cut circulation from his hand. Then it cut his hand off completely.
Jack screamed as the blood poured from his wrist, but was silenced by the shrinking necklace, one single sharpened tooth tearing into his throat.
He was dying. Jack, the Grand Leader of the BloodLust Group was dying. His substitute, the one who did the killing, was standing in front of him, enjoying every minute.
She was no longer wearing the dress. It had been replaced by an outfit that might be worn by the COO of a large cosmetics company. She chuckled when she saw the dismay on his face.
The dress, the old ragged dress, was finished; burned and tattered. She reached down and pulled a thread loose and held it up for Jack to see.
"Strong thread, right Jack? Strong enough to make a necklace and bracelet with, wouldn't you say?"
Jack felt his necklace tighten in response.
As the fire continued to destroy the house around him, Jack learned how it was her parents he had destroyed to gain house leadership, how his own mother had grieved over the treachery of her son, and how she knew he had to be exterminated. The last words Jack would ever hear, as his head separated from his body, were these:
" And I'll have a beautiful mantle built, just for your ugly head!"
Six months later, She walked into the Group headquarters and smiled.
" Hello Jack! Had another great party tonight, you should have been there!"
Jack had no response whatsoever.
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