CHAPTER 56: 56: REVENGE III

"What... what... are... you going to do with me?" Dennis’s voice trembled, his eyes locked on the sharp, glistening fang that peeked past Isobel’s lips. His breathing came in ragged bursts, shoulders stiffening as a cold shudder rolled down his spine.

"Us, you mean," she corrected with a slow, deliberate smile, her voice almost playful despite the danger dripping from every word. "Not just you... I’ll be doing it to the lot of you."

She didn’t give him time to speak again. In a blur of movement, she lunged forward. Her fangs sank deep into the side of his neck with a wet, puncturing sound. Dennis gasped, a choked whimper escaping his throat as the warmth left his body, his heartbeat slowing with every greedy pull of her lips. Strength surged through her veins — raw, intoxicating, and addictive — as she drank, each swallow making her muscles coil tighter with power.

When his pulse became a faint echo, she pulled back, crimson staining her mouth. Without ceremony, she pressed her wrist to his lips, forcing him to take her blood. His body convulsed at the first taste, his eyes wide in terror — and then she snapped his neck with casual finality. The thud of his body against the floor was drowned out by her steps toward the next hunter.

She repeated the process again and again — a predator working with precision. No hesitation. No mercy. Each one fell, drained and turned, until the floor was littered with the still, pale bodies of those who would rise under her will.

"This night is going to be long," Isobel muttered to herself, wiping stray blood from her chin before turning to the flickering computer screens of the Association’s control room. Her fingers danced over the keyboard, pulling up the encrypted database. Names, addresses, and classifications appeared in rapid scroll — hunters, guardians, every single enforcement operative stationed within the city limits.

One by one, she logged them into her mental kill list.

The next step was simple but absolute — she jammed the city’s communication signals, her influence reaching through the Association’s systems until every line, every transmission was severed. Phones went dead. Radios fizzled into static. The city became a sealed cage.

The workers who weren’t awakened — the harmless clerks and assistants — she compelled into a deep, dreamless sleep, sending them home with vacant smiles. She couldn’t risk her soon-to-rise army waking to an easy feast before her plans unfolded.

With the Association locked down like a fortress and her new children safely contained, she slipped into the night.

The hunt was methodical.

Hunter after hunter fell to her — stalked through alleys, caught in their own homes, ambushed in the open streets. Each was drained until they teetered on the edge of death, then fed her blood, compelled to march themselves back to the Association and end their lives there. Her work was silent, surgical, and by the time dawn crept over the horizon, the last name on her list was crossed out.

Over a thousand now lay in transition, their bodies moments away from awakening into something new... something hers.

With hours still to burn before the city’s first scream of bloodlust, Isobel decided on a detour.

She had... family matters to settle.

---

"Dad. I’m home."

The door creaked open as she stepped into the modest house, the smell of dried blood still clinging to her clothes. She didn’t bother hiding it — didn’t care to.

"Isobel," her foster father said from the couch. His eyes locked on her with a strange calm, though something dark churned beneath it. "Where’s your mother?"

His voice was even, but his knuckles whitened around the armrest. He was holding himself back — at least until he knew what had happened to his wife.

"Well... that’s the bummer, father." She tossed herself onto the couch opposite him, exhaling a long, tired sigh. "She’s dead. Only wish I’d been the one to kill her."

"You—! What happened to my wife?!" His voice snapped like a whip. He surged to his feet, rage contorting his face as he raised his hand to strike her.

The sound that followed wasn’t the slap he’d expected.

"Aaaarghhh!" he screamed, staring in horror at the clean stump where his arm had been. The severed limb lay on the carpet, a grotesque, still-twitching reminder of the last second.

"Don’t be like that, father," Isobel said softly, eyes tracing the ceiling as if counting invisible patterns. "Pathetic and stupid. I’m not the weak girl you used to know. So... restrain yourself."

"You bitch! How dare you do this to me?! Do you know how much you freeload off this house—"

"Please," she cut in, finally looking at him with a tired, cold smile. "You were the one freeloading. Living off my parents’ money. Treating their child like trash. Some bastard you turned out to be."

He lunged forward, roaring, "I swear to God I will—Aaaarghhh! My arm!" The second limb fell to the floor, blood splattering between them.

"Threaten me again," she said with a faint shrug, "and I’ll make sure I actually get pissed."

Her voice dropped, words like venom. "You know, I never thought I’d be rid of you. But thanks to your wife — dragging me into that alley to punish me — I got the sweetest gift. Freedom. And the chance to make you suffer. I almost wish she’d lived just a little longer... but no. Not like she died easy."

He panted through the pain, his face pale.

"She didn’t have a good death," Isobel continued casually. "Neck ripped open, blood drained, organs devoured. I might have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t so startled at the time. But enough talk. I’ve got things to do."

Her eyes slid over his face. "You ugly old man... I’ve lost my appetite for torturing you. Don’t want to make you uglier than you already are — that would be gross." She feigned a gag.

"But," she added, pricking her finger until a bead of blood welled up, "I can let you taste your own medicine."

Her blood hovered in the air, curling like smoke before sliding between his lips. He hadn’t even realized she was speaking until the burning began.

"Urgh! Aaaarghhh! What did you do to me?! Make it stop!" he wailed, thrashing as the blood tore through him.

"Come now. Be a strong man and hold on a little longer," she said, her tone dripping mockery. "That’s what you used to tell me... remember?"

The corrosive taint spread, eating at his blood, his organs dissolving from the inside. His screams rose to a pitch that almost rattled the walls.

"Isobel... please... help me..." His voice broke into sobs. His eyes were red, brimming with tears and pain.

"That’s the point. That you die."

She rose, turning for the door.

"Wait! Where... where are you going?!"

"To make sure my army feeds," she said without looking back. "And to take what’s mine... starting with this city."

She stepped out into the early light, leaving the house silent but for the wet sound of her foster father’s body collapsing into a puddle of corrosive blood.