"Who?" she asked, jerking her chin in a taunt.
The man closest to her pulled out one of those silver spikes. "I don't think she realizes there was a hunter there."
"Fuck!" Dahlia spit, trying her best to act like she didn't. "Girl can't even get a drink in this place, huh?"
"And we were starting to think you were gone," the third man taunted as he pulled out his own clavum. "You're pretty dumb for a vamp, aren't ya?"
And broke, she thought. Because that was the only reason she hadn't gotten out of this place yet. Clearly, the inquisitors didn't realize that the world didn't make financial exceptions for the undead. If she wanted to leave without drawing a map on how to find her - in blood - she had to use money just like everyone else.
But what she said was, "I'm not the one picking an unfair fight. Not really hungry at the moment, but I'll never turn down a snack of inquisitors."
The whole time, the men were lining up shoulder-to-shoulder. Each of them carried one of those spikes, and Dahlia had just seen that they kept a spare on them somewhere. That meant knocking them away didn't necessarily disarm these fools. Slowly, she backed up, luring them deeper into the alley. There was still one more man in the truck, sitting in the driver's seat. He was probably calling for backup, which meant she needed to make this quick.
Then the guy on her right breathed a Word. The power slammed into her, knocking her on her ass. Immediately, the other two rushed in. Dahlia rolled to her feet, ignoring the ringing in her ears, and lashed out at the first man to reach her. Her hand found his throat, and she pulled, yanking it away from his body. Flesh tore. Blood splattered, and the man dropped.
His arms flailed, pawing at the gaping wound she'd left, but it had been enough to make the second one stop. Dahlia just leaned in, calling her own powers to the surface. One down. Three to go.
"That's for the Word," she snarled, throwing the fistful of gore at the priest.
The man before her shifted his weight, ready for her attack - or so he thought. In the back of her mind, Dahlia was counting the seconds, trying to guess how long she had before their backup arrived. Two minutes? Five? She had no real way of knowing, so she didn't want to dawdle.
"Drop the spike and live," she warned the man before her.
Her voice held the echo of the Abyss now. Her eyes would be a portal into the afterlife. Once, she'd thought that meant the halls of her gods, but they'd long since been forgotten. Now, she knew better. The Abyss was the only thing that was eternal, and she intended to make sure these men knew what it felt like to be dead.
Of course, the fool didn't drop the spike. Instead, he rushed in. Dahlia caught him, one hand grabbing the wrist with the spike to hold it away from her. The other had his opposite shoulder. She turned, trying to get past him just as the priest spoke another Word. Dahlia flinched, ducking behind the body of the inquisitor she held, and the power hit him instead.
The man screamed as pain engulfed him. She took the chance to use his own arm as a weapon. Slamming it into his body, the spike bounced off his skin, fumbled in his loose grip. Snarling a curse in her native language, she spun him around again, burning vitality for more speed. Once he was facing away from her, she grabbed his head in both hands and twisted.
The snap of his neck was loud, and his body immediately went limp. That left her alone with the priest, and the man's eyes glowed with his power. Her only option was to run - right at him. The first Word left the priest's mouth, stealing the air from her lungs. The next slammed into her like a hammer.
Dahlia staggered, but she was not ready to face her true death yet. Forcing herself forward, ignoring her body's need to breathe, she kept going. The priest began to back away. His eyes were wide in fear, but she didn't care. Dahlia was pissed. The fucker wanted to see her suffer? Well, she wanted to know how much he liked it.
Pain ripped into her shoulder, pushing her to the side. She barely heard the pop of the gun, and the wound wasn't going to stop her. Guns wouldn't kill more than her body. It was only the damned spikes she was worried about - or the Words that might incapacitate her long enough for someone to put a spike in her.
Lunging as hard as she could, Dahlia surged at the priest. Another shot slammed into her. This one in her waist. It allowed her to gasp, her lungs once again able to fill just as she tackled the priest to the ground. Then she shoved her face toward his neck and her hand deep into his chest.
Her finger hit a rib, snapping the man's bone from the force she used to pierce his body, but it didn't matter. Her teeth sank into the side of the man's neck only a second later. She managed to get one full gulp of his blood before her fist squeezed his heart hard enough to make it pop, and then the priest was dead.
Another bullet hit her side. Slowly, she looked up, her eyes finding the last idiot who should've been running instead of fighting. Using the back of her arm, she wiped the blood from her face and pushed herself to her feet.
"You fool," she snarled at him. "My body is nothing but dust that I force to obey my will. What will a bullet do to that?"
"But you bleed," he breathed, scrambling backwards.
"I just wanted to live!" she roared at him. "I want to be left alone. I don't want to kill, but you leave me no choice!"
"I'm sorry," he breathed as his back hit the side of the SUV. His hand desperately flailed to find the door handle, yet he couldn't pull his eyes away from her.
"Name?" she demanded.
"Brice," he breathed.
Dahlia pushed her face right into his. "Do you know why I'm here, Brice? Do you know what I want?"
"N-no," he stuttered.
"I just want to be left alone. I want to go out for a few hours and not need to look over my shoulder. I want to sleep with men and women, let them think it was nothing more than a good time, and blush when I see them later. I want to live, Brice. How about you?"