A small cat girl, looking around 12 in human years, slunk between hedges and under cars, her dark fur providing camouflage her as she slipped from one hiding spot to another. The scent of blood, human blood, was in the air, and she was terrified what that would mean for her target.
And by extension, her.
How many years had she been getting new scars on her back? Forty? Fifty? Sixty? Mother knew best, of course. Each scar was nothing compared to what would have happened to her if she’d acted rashly. The punishment was the only way Mother could protect her. How else could she learn?
She could faintly make out voices as she grew closer to the target’s home.
“…Told you… Reckless… Bled him dry!”
Ming’s yellow eyes widened at the words. Grass and fallen leaves rustled softly beneath her feet as she picked up her pace, barely audible above the chirping of the crickets.
Within moments, she was within sight of the sound’s source. At the edge of the neighborhood, where the grassy lawns transitioned into woods, three figures were hidden in the shadows. They were far out of the reach of the dim street lights, but Ming’s night vision let her see them clearly.
Mother had shown Ming enough photos of the other Great Families that she recognized the smallest right away. The curly red hair, pale skin, Victorian era dress, all pointed to Priscilla Dentica, the eldest daughter of the Great Family Nosferatu, as did the dark-as-night parasol with which she was beating the other two figures.
Even on their knees, the two vampire thralls, both clearly turned as adults, should have towered over Priscillia, whose undeath had prevented her from aging a day past eight years old. But between their meek cries of apology, and the mix of disdain and disgust on her face, it was hard to see them as anything but frightened children cowering under harsh teacher.
“If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” Priscilla hissed, striking her servant with the wooden, hook-shaped handle of her parasol again, “waste not, want not! Don’t drain a bloodbag when it could fill itself again!”
Off to the side, Ming could make out a body bag, occasional weak movements from within poking against the surface.
She was too late! She was too late again! Her scars were already burning as she anticipated what new ones would be added when she returned home to Mother.
She stopped. Took a breath.
She could only smell one human’s scent in the bag, probably male. Priscilla may have claimed William, but Ming still had a chance to bring Patricia back to Mother. And while she knew it was foolish to hope, there was also a possibility that the movement in the bag was proof Will was, for now, still alive… Though it could have just as easily been his death throes.. or worse, the boy awakening to his undeath. But Mother was clever. She could possibly use even that to her advantage, were Ming to bring him to her.
Either way, she would have to stop Priscilla to meet Mother’s request. She couldn’t fail again.
Slinking down into the tall grass, Ming carefully crept toward her prey. With any luck, the punishment Priscilla was meting out to her thralls would distract her, making a stealthy approach even easier.
Then Priscilla’s arm froze. She straightened up, and sniffed the air.
Luck, it seemed, was not on Ming’s side.
“I know you’re there, vermin,” Priscilla said, her voice low and dripping with disgust.
She swung the parasol, handle first, into the trunk of a nearby tree, producing a loud crack as the tree shook, its leaves dropping in droves.
“I don’t know what your business here is, but I’ve no interest in soiling my hands dealing with you. Just crawl back into whatever hole you call a home, beast, and there will be no need to waste my time, nor your life.”
Ming flinched back, continuing to lay low.
‘It’s just a sound amplification spell,’ Ming reminded herself, thinking back to the intel Mother’s spies had gathered on the Dentica family. ‘It’s just to intimidate. She hits harder than a human, but not that hard.’
“Mistress,” one of the thralls whispered. “We can take care of one beast, there’s no need to-“
CRACK!
The thrall was forced to the ground by another vicious blow.
“You have already proven your uselessness once tonight. I won’t endure it again.”
Steeling herself, Ming crept closer.
Priscilla turned toward her, sighing. “So, you’re approaching me. Do you lack a sense of self-preservation? Or are you enough of a fool to think vermin like you can cross me, and live to tell the tale?”
Realizing that stealth had failed, Ming rose to her feet, and bared her claws. She steadied her breathing, and avoided raising her hackles, doing everything she could think of to mask her fear, and appear in control of the situation. “I can’t protect them without getting close enough to claw you to shreds.”
“Protect them?” Priscilla laughed. “Oh ho ho! It seems the vermin has come to consider the cattle her pets? Or are you, perhaps, the cattle’s pet?”
Priscilla leaned back, covering her mouth as she laughed loudly at her own joke.
Ming took advantage of the opening, and leapt to strike.
“No.”
CRACK!
Ming felt her cheek forced into her teeth, and her whole body spiraling into the air in a direction she’d never intended. An instinctive twist of her legs allowed her to land on all fours, a few meters away from Priscilla.
Priscilla nonchalantly tossed her parasol into the air, catching it by its intended handle this time, revealing the metal tip at the other end had been sharpened to a fine point, which she held out toward Ming.
“I don’t know what impression your time as the pet of the bloodbags has given you, vermin, but you may NOT simply come as close as you like to your betters.” She paused. “I don’t need any of your filthy blood. This is your last chance to leave, keep your life, and spare me time to correct my servants’ mistakes.”
Ming stood upright again, taking a deep breath. “I won’t fail Mother again! I won’t let you have William Francis, or Patricia Woods!”
Priscilla tilted her head, the aggression in her eyes replaced with confusion. “Who?”
Ming feigned a leaping strike again, before going low, aiming to throw Priscilla off balance. The vampire leapt out of the way and swung with her parasol, coming just shy of giving Ming a new scar.
“Don’t play dumb,” Ming panted, as the two of them stood a careful distance from each other, eyes locked on their opponents in search of another opening. “I know you’re here for them. Everyone will be, eventually…”
Priscilla jabbed at Ming’s eye. The cat managed to dodge, but just barely, letting out a pained yelp as her ear bled.
“Everyone, you say?” Priscilla said, catching an incoming claw swipe on her parasol. With a flick, she sent Ming back. “They certainly sound important. Some sort chosen ones? Magical beings in disguise? Future di-”
Priscilla let out a pained hiss as Ming’s claws tore at the vampire’s dress, leaving three red streaks across her side.
“Phillip’s friends!” Ming said, her next swipe at Priscilla just barely parried by the parasol. “Don’t act like they’re not the reason you’re here! With one of them on our side, we can get to Phillip, and through him, the Kazura clan! And-”
CRACK!
Ming found herself flying again. She reached out to brace herself for her landing, her limbs aching as she hit the ground.
“The Kazura Clan?” Priscilla’s voice echoed in Ming’s ringing ears. “Do you mean the fox the foolish bloodbag boy ran off with?”
Ming regained her focus just in time to see Priscilla, the grip on her parasol reversed once again, wind up for another swing.
CRACK!
Was that the audio amplifying spell, or her ribs shattering? Ming couldn’t tell.
“I should have known all this fuss was over something trivial. You stupid beasts imagine that simply because over millions of years, the blind grasping of evolution caused your kind to stumble upon some glorified cantrips, and call them magic, that the world revolves around you.”
The sharpened end of Priscilla’s parasol grazed Ming’s fur, and dug into the dirt below her. Priscilla leaned on it like a cane, looming over her weakened attacker.
“Unless it would affect the health of the cattle, we don’t concern ourselves with the in-fighting of rats. Did you even stop once to ask yourself, ‘how could the Dentica family leverage the ex-bloodbag’s friends against him,’ or even ‘WHY would the Dentica family leverage the ex-bloodbag’s friends against him?’ What do we gain from it?”
Ming tried to open her mouth, and answer Priscilla’s taunts, but couldn’t find the strength.
Priscilla shook her head. “Don’t try to ask. If we DID have a reason, we’d keep it secret. But of course, the vermin, who never see need to concern themselves keeping secrets…”
She nudged a foot against Ming’s nude body with a disgusted look.
“…Or hiding anything, would naturally, loudly announce all they know to their enemies.”
Priscilla snapped her fingers, and one of her thralls meekly crawled beside her, and handed her a purse, out of which she took a small collar.
“Your pathetic ‘magic’ may offer you some layer of protection against our typical ability to dominate the minds of base beasts, but this enchantment will resolve that.”
Ming weakly tried to get up, to fight back, ANYTHING to get away from that collar. But she was in too much pain to move. Soon, she felt the leather around her neck, and shivered as its dark magic went to work.
Priscilla turned to one of her thralls. “You, bring that child back to the castle, while I exact my revenge. And if I find you’ve had more wasteful ‘little orphan snacks,’ on the way back, your head will be set on a spike!”
‘Orphan?’ Ming thought. ‘It wasn’t even William? Was this all for nothing?’
“I may not have any interest in ‘Patricia’ or ‘William,’ myself, but knowing that turning them into simple thralls will get under the skin of the vermin that has wasted so much of my time, and ruined my dress, warms my heart. Now, get up, show me to one of their homes, break into their rooms, and invite me in!”
Ming felt her limbs move on their own, even as the pain screamed at her to lie still. Each step was a new sting as she traveled to the first address Mother had told her about, Priscilla and her remaining thrall following her.
The magic kept her from letting out agonized yelps as she clambered up the house by the drain pipe, gazed into one of the windows to confirm its resident, and opened it, slipping noiselessly inside even as the desire to pass out grew.
Even under the control enchantment, and through the pain, Ming remained a master of stealth; Patricia lay still in her bed, her breath the only noise in the room.
Ming poked her head back out the window, and spoke to Priscilla, who stood in the yard below.
“Please enter, honored guest Lady Priscilla.” Each word felt like acid to Ming as the collar forced the speech out of her.
Priscilla and her thrall each took bat form and flew through the open window, before reverting to their true selves.
“Oh, doesn’t she look delicious,” Priscilla said, licking her lips. “Ordinarily, I’d bring such a healthy blood bag back to the castle, draining her a little bit at a time over the years. Let her grow, and produce more and more blood. Waste not, want not. But you did ruin my dress, so now, I’ll take a special glee in denying you your prize!”
Ming’s eyes were forcibly drawn toward Priscilla as she slowly approached the bed, an exaggerated spring in her step to rub salt in the wounds. One step away from the bed, she turned around, grinning at Ming sadistically with bared fangs.
But Ming noticed a little light above Patricia’s head. One that quickly grew larger, and brighter. Priscilla’s smile vanished as she saw the light reflected in her eyes, and she turned around, opening her parasol a fraction of a second before the ball of light let off an intense flash.
Priscilla’s thrall crumbled to dust before he could react, and Priscilla herself hissed and winced as the light slipped through a claw mark left in her parasol by Ming.
Where the light had touched, her skin looked badly burned. She backed away toward the window, her grip on her parasol remaining tight, and she adjusted her stance to minimize the light that could break through.
“Y-you!” Priscilla hissed. “Of all the rotten times… Your kind were supposed to be busy with the…”
Patrica’s eyes fluttered open, and she gasped at the sight of the cat girl, the vampire, and, above her bed, a little hovering angel girl with alabaster skin, and hair that looked to be made of literal gold.
“Wha… what’s going on? Am I… still dreaming?”
The angel turned to Patricia.
“Fear not. You are under my protection, tonight.”
Keeping her parasol between her and the angel’s light, Priscilla backed away toward the window, and slipped out of it. Moments later, Ming saw a bat fly off into the distance.
The angel approached Ming, and undid her collar.
“You may leave in peace, tonight, if you go now. But if you so much as turn to look back before you have left the city…”
Ming didn’t need to hear the rest of that threat. What intel Mother had on angels told her she had little chance against one, especially in her current state. She slinked out the window in bitter defeat, all too aware of the punishment awaiting her when she returned home empty-handed.