Impy Goodness
“How did Benny and James get themselves killed, exactly?” the Matron asked. She wasn’t an imp, like the rest of them. She was an aristocrat, a powerful and rare kind of vampire. She looked after Luke and the rest of the imps, and it was through some of her connections that they had discovered the fun to be had in Midwel.
“Um, um, um,” stammered Luke, “There was this woman, with this nasty sharp knife, and when we tried to grab her she cut them real bad! Then she cut me and Benny and James weren’t moving so I ran away!”
The matron – who’s name was Cora – sighed. Luke was one of the less fortunate imps. He was about sixty years old, but physically, he was still only about twelve. The natural innocence and inquisitiveness of the age did not mingle well with the playful sadism of most imps, and generally resulted in very hard to interact with individuals.
“Okay, Luke. Now, I want you to talk me through everything that went on starting when you first saw the woman, alright? I need to figure out if she’s a threat,” Cora asked.
Earlier that night, the three imps had been sent out with a fairly simple mission – find people, kill them in the right way, then bring them back to the hotel Cora had taken over to arise as more imps. They’d made a few trips before they saw the woman.
She was walking with her young three children along an abandoned suburban street, her eyes constantly searching for any kind of threat. The imps were still inside a house (they’d decided to vandalise it) when they saw her, so they waited until she was right outside before creeping out.
She spotted them almost immediately, but with them so close and her children tired from the brisk pace she had set, she knew she could not outrun them. She drew a long, sharp kitchen knife from a makeshift sheath, and levelled it at the approaching imps. “Stay back! I don’t care who you are, I’m just passing through!” she said, forcefully.
The imps laughed, and continued approaching, encircling her and her children against the road. Benny made a move to go around her, to get to her children, but she turned to face him, ready to strike. “Mummy!” her daughter said, scared.
“Just stay behind me, and run like I said if they attack, okay Molly?” the woman said, her eyes flicking between her three assailants. After a few seconds, James lunged at her, but the woman dodged backwards, shoving her children away.
As her children ran together across the road, their mother sliced James’ throat as he stumbled, and then kneed him in the face. Benny ran in and leapt on her, but as they hit the ground he stopped moving, the sharp end of the knife sticking through his neck just below his skull.
The woman shoved Benny off, and got to her feet in time to see James straighten up, blood from his throat wound making his shirt gleam in the moonlight. He grinned, flashing his many sharp, spinelike teeth at her. She ran at him, and his surprise gave her the opportunity to slash open his gut as she rammed into him, dragging him to the ground. He grabbed hold of her, and threw her off, but before he could regain his feet she was on him again, stabbing.
When he stopped moving, she calmed down and looked for the smaller one. When she couldn’t see him, she was relieved for a second, before she realised that her children were also nowhere to be seen.
She ran up the road, after her children, hoping that they had remembered the directions correctly. When she reached the first turn, she turned to see the shorter monster looking at her, her three children lying around him. Blue light flickered, showing a young face covered in blood, twisted by a sick smile.
She screamed in rage and ran at him, and managed to catch him with a slash as he ran off into the night. She didn’t chase him; instead, she slowly walked back to the bodies of her children, crying, and cradled them to her.
The Matron groaned as she coaxed the final details out of Luke. “So now we have someone out to kill us all, to avenge her dead children, because you ran after an easy meal instead of helping Benny and James?”
“Y-yes Matron. But she’s just human! She can’t hurt you!” replied Luke.
“Just humans have done a lot of things, Luke,” Cora said, “and people are full of surprises.”
Later that day, when a fuel truck slammed into the hotel and exploded, killing Cora and most of the other vampires inside, she was proved right.
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