The school day had been hectic. Maria had no idea why teenagers got so worked up before big events like Homecoming. It was just a football game followed by dance. Sure, they got to get all dressed up and pretend they were fairy princesses, but aside from four hours gyrating awkwardly in a humid gymnasium there wasn’t much else to it.

Depending on what clique you belonged to there were other activities.

The stoners would be playing cat and mouse with the chaperones while trying to find places to get high. The cool kids would be trying to sneak the booze they’d liberated from their parent’s liquor cabinets into the punch. The jocks would be looking to get laid, and some girls would be looking to screw the jocks. She’d been in one variation or another of high school for nearly a decade and those things hadn’t changed.

The football game wasn’t particularly good. Their team sucked, it was still humid despite fall being right around the corner, so she spent most of it just chilling with some of her “friends”. No one was really her friend aside from her half-brother – who was also a teacher and one of the chaperones. Granted, she didn’t spend any time watching the game. Her eyes were entirely on one of the cheerleaders.

Maria hated Vicky for a multitude of reasons. Her being a Soulless bitch was only one of them. Vicky had perfect skin, a body that made boys drool, and the adoration of the masses. She was a lock for Homecoming Queen. Maria didn’t care about half of that, but she was only human – well half human. She envied the evil bitch’s good looks. She’d been stuck in puberty for twelve years. Aging slowly sucked ass for a young Nephilim. Her family told her it would get better once she was older, but it was tough seeing the light at the end of the hormone and pimple tunnel.

After the game people went home and got changed into their dresses and tuxes. Maria didn’t have much of a reputation, and the little she did have she didn’t give two shits about. There was no way she was wearing a dress. Not only were they stupid, but they reduced her maneuverability. Wearing a dress and high heels would literally get her killed.

Her dad didn’t argue with her. He knew what she was, and he wanted his little girl to be safe. Even if that little girl could beat his ass by the time she was ten. When she walked down the stairs in the female version of a tuxedo he still said she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She didn’t believe him, but it was still nice to hear.

“You look gorgeous.” A second voice appeared out of nowhere.

“Mom?” Maria couldn’t hide the smile.

Ava looked like she always did as she wrapped her child in her arms. “I wouldn’t miss this.”

“Picture.” Her father insisted. He wasn’t great with electronics, but with help he figured it out.

She was sure that was going to go on the fridge. They didn’t have a lot of family pictures for obvious reasons.

After a quick word with her father, Ava pulled Maria aside. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in Maria’s response. “I’ve been watching her for months. I know how she acts. I know how she thinks. I know what to do.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ava said patiently. “You’re about to kill something for the first time.”

“The operative word there is ‘something’, Mom. Vicky isn’t a person. She’s a heartless, soulless bitch who treats everyone like crap and made me do all of her math homework this semester.” It got personal at the end.

Ava gave her a hard look before slowly nodding. “You have my blessing, but no human can know what is happening. If you cannot accomplish the mission discretely then you may not proceed. Do you understand?” The last sentence was unyielding.

“Yes.”

“Good. Gabriel will be there as back up. Don’t be headstrong. Use him if you need to. It’s more important that you live then you kill the Soulless. You are worth a million of them.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” Maria was confident. She’d done her homework.

“Ok.” Ava leaned down and kissed Maria on the head before vanishing.

She looked back at her father who always looked sad after her mother’s short visits, but he put a smile on his face and shoed her out the door. “Go have fun.”

Homecoming wasn’t going to be fun. It was going to be an opportunity to put everything she’d learned to good use. The tuxedo she was wearing was baggy for a reason. She had a pistol in a shoulder holster. The bullets were tipped with Divine Steel etched from her mother’s blade. They would cut down any Soulless in their path. She only had twelve rounds, so she needed to use them wisely.

Her blond hair was held in place by two steel rods that had been doused in bottle sunlight. They were perfectly obscured, and would be an unwelcomed surprise to anyone that got stabbed with it. Lastly, twin silver daggers were strategically placed on her person. She was more than a match for a Soulless in terms of strength and speed.

She double-checked herself in the mirror one last time before heading for her beat up old Nissan.

Of course, parking was a bitch. Everyone and their mother was at the dance, and she found herself walking toward the door with a group of junior girls who kept shooting her looks and muttering, “lesbian”. Maria didn’t pay them any attention until they reached the door.

“OMG it is freaking beautiful in here.” The lead girl, who looked like her padded tits were about to fall out of the too-small dress, gazed around the room.

The moment Maria stepped through the door she felt the tingle of magic all around her. The reason for that was the girl sitting at the entrance table selling tickets.

“Hi!” Vicky beamed at everyone including Maria. “Hey, Mary.”

Maria knew there was no way she could be getting her name wrong after this long.

“We need your tickets, and if you want you can buy raffle tickets from Tiffany. Half the proceeds are going to the local SPCA. We don’t want any of those cute little puppies to get put down. We need to find them their forever home.”

“Yeah.”

“Of course.”

“That’s so noble,” were the variety of responses to the vampire’s statement.

“Mary, so nice of you to come.” Vicky was just as pleasant to her as everyone else – somehow she was able to talk without ever removing the smile from her face – but Maria caught the fashion critique.

Like Maria, Vicky hadn’t opted for a dress, and that seemed to have altered the status quo for all females attending the event. Vicky was in a one piece of flowing fabric. It ruffled around her when she moved, and clung with every step to her perfect-ten figure. Maria could read the minds of half the girls in the room.

Maria avoided throwing up in her own mouth as she showed her ticket and paid ten bucks for the puppies. Vicky might be evil incarnate, but those puppies didn’t do anything to hurt anyone. Unable to withstand the smiling anymore, she quickly made her way into the room and scanned for Gabriel. He was standing not too far from the door watching everything. She gave him a quick smile and then tried to figure out where the best place to lay her trap was.

She could feel the magic lingering everywhere.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much privacy. The only places not under the strobing lights of the DJ were the two locker rooms that branched off the gym, and those were guarded by vigilant chaperones. It was an option, but she filed it under plan B.

She didn’t want to look too conspicuous, so she walked around and talked to a few of her acquaintances. They said a few vaguely polite comments about her baggy tux, and she returned them with half-hearted gestures toward their dresses. That about boiled down the last six months of her life: vaguely polite and half-hearted while she got close to the evil in their midst.

Vicky was on the move, and she was heading straight for the locker rooms.

Maria watched as the chaperone stopped Vicky, they had a quick conversation, and Vicky was allowed to pass. On top of that, the chaperone went to the other chaperone, and they both walked away.

Maria looked around the room, caught Gabriel’s eye, nodded to the bathroom, and started striding forward with a purpose. She hesitated at the door long enough to unbutton her blazer and grab her pistol. She moved quickly once she opened the door. She brought her gun up to eye-level and scanned from left to right. There was about fifteen feet of brick wall decorated in the school’s colors before a second door. That door opened into the locker room.

Maria advanced down the hall quickly. Her senses were heightened and focused. She could feel the vibrations in the air from the DJ’s gear. She could smell the cologne of the dead that permeated everything about Vicky. She could even smell the lingering sweat from the cheerleaders changing after the game. She wanted to gag at the last two, but she held it together. Without everyone in the gym watching her she was able to go through the second door like a boss. She practically kicked the door off its hinges and stormed into the room.

“Hey, Maria.” The lockers stood between her and Vicky. The vampire was at the sink washing her face. “Can I help you with anything?”

It barely even registered that Vicky had finally gotten her name right.

“Yeah. You can die.” As far as threats went it was a really bad one.

Vicky even thought so because she straight-up laughed. “Funny. She said once she got herself under control. I was about to say the same thing.”

A man appeared out of the locker’s shadows and charged her. If it wasn’t for her training, Maria would have frozen. She didn’t sense than man standing perfectly still until he moved or smell his scent. He’d been masked by Vicky.

As far as ambushes went, it was the first she’d experienced and seemed pretty close to perfect. Still, she pivoted, adjusted her aim, and pulled the trigger. She always wore ear protection on the range, so the sudden, jarring BOOM that echoed through the confined space made her jerk enough that the second round went high and to the right. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The first was on target. The Divine Steel tipped round punched into the man’s chest. Momentum carried him forward as he began to disintegrate, which showered her in his ashes.

“Oh gross!” she yelled.

She could hear screams coming from the other room. A gunshot at a school was probably the worst thing imaginable, and that had suddenly become a reality.

It was sheer luck that she was focused on her hearing because she would have missed the footsteps coming toward her. Vicky flicked on the lights and three other vampires came into focus.

“I’ll give you a choice. Come quietly with me or have tremendous pain inflicted on you before you come with me anyway. Your choice.”

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, but Maria could make lemonade out of dead-bitch-lemons if she had to.

She took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings. With the lights on she had a complete view of everything. One vampire was between her and Vicky. He was a tall, older looking guy, and the way he hovered protectively near Vicky said there was some sort of relationship there. The second vampire was a short, female to her left. She just looked fast, so Maria pegged her as the most dangerous. Lastly, there was a bulky vampire to her right. He’d been hiding in the shower area.

“Option three, I kill you all.” She didn’t wait for the Soulless’ answer.

She fired on the one to her left, and she was correct. The woman was fast. She ducked under the bullet and vaulted up and over the lockers out of range. The guy to her right took advantage of the distraction and went for the tackle.

Maria spun but she was too slow. The guy got under her gun and hit her with his shoulders. It didn’t hurt much. The guy might be big-looking, but he must be a new vampire because he wasn’t that strong. Maria drove and elbow into his spine and the guy crumbled to his knees. She picked him up under the armpits and threw him at the lockers the quick vampire had vaulted over. He hit them with a bang and the whole contraption came tumbling down on top of him. He was slow to get up, and she ended him with her fourth bullet.

She turned and almost had her head chopped off.

The third guy was there with a fucking sword. Her instinctive jerk backwards saved her head, but it caught her hand. The plain metal didn’t slice deep into her half-angel skin, but it cut deep enough to knock the gun from her hand. The guy whipped around for another strike, but she had both of her daggers out and ready to counter.

She crossed them and caught the guy’s overhead chop short of splitting her skull. She pushed up, using her superior strength and drove the man backward. He stumbled, but turned it into a backwards roll before her blade found him. She would have pressed the advantage, but the quick girl showed back up with twin daggers of her own and they went at it.

It was a whirlwind of steel and silver as Maria and the small Soulless danced around the room. Both were exceptionally skilled. The little vampire even got in a slice across Maria’s thigh, but that was because she let her. Her dagger was knocked aside by the preceding blow, and while the vampire went for the strike Maria’s hand went to her hair.

As the blade raked her flesh the steel hair piece that looked like a short chopstick cleared her gold hair and shined its diluted brilliance on the vampire. Time had made it less effective, but it was enough to rob the little vampire of her strength and speed. When the same hair pin plunged down into her throat there was nothing the Soulless could do but scream and thrash as charred blackness spread through her until she fell still.

Even before the injured vampire gave her final death wheeze, Maria had the other hair pin out. Vicky’s last defender braved the lights exposure, but it didn’t do him much good. With his strength and speed cut in half he wasn’t able to touch the Nephilim. She dodged his feeble attempt and planted her foot in his chest. He flew backward, cracked the brick wall on impact and slumped onto the ground.

She took one satisfied look at Vicky’s paler-than-normal face as she found her gun and put a round into the man’s head.

“What was that you were saying?” Maria asked with the confidence of a woman who’d just killed four vampires with minimal injuries. “Come quietly with you or suffer tremendous pain?” Maria was basking in her moment. She knew she should just shoot the bitch, but she wanted to savor everything.

It cost her.

Maria could tell something was wrong when Vicky’s frightened look turned smug. Maria whirled around to target whoever was behind her, but she wasn’t fast enough. Something hit her hard in the chest. It felt like a train that didn’t even bother to break. She felt her ribs crack as she was picked up off her feet and thrown backward. The brick wall didn’t stop her like it had the other guy. She went through it and straight into the guy’s locker room.

“F…F…Fu…” She couldn’t even get the work out. Her chest and back were on fire every time she tried to take a breath.

She tried to sit up but something slashed across her face. It cut deep, splitting her upper lip completely open, and taking out one of her eyes. She couldn’t tell where the pain stopped and she began. Everything seemed to be on fire. She thrashed and destroyed more of the locker room, but somebody grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her out through the locker room and back into the gym.

Her remaining eye was clouded by tears, but she could see students rounded up into one side away from the doors. More Soulless stood between them and the creatures at the center of the room. She immediately knew they were creatures and not men and women from the stench permeating the air. It smelled like sulfur, and the magical tingle that Vicky had given her felt like the full-body itch of a persistent rash now.

“Ah, Maria, glad you could join us. Thank you, Jezebel.” A man stood at the center of them with another man hoisted up by the neck.

“Fuck you.” Maria tried to spit but it hurt her sliced-open face too much.

“If we have time,” the man replied calmly, “but first.” He hoisted the man in his grasp up even further.

Maria blinked away the tears enough so she could see who it was, and then her heart stopped.

Gabriel hung before the man beaten to a pulp and barely conscious.

“I wonder what will happen to his soul?” the man mused as he gazed back and forth between Maria and Gabriel.

“Don’t you fucking…”

With a mighty twist of his wrist the man snapped Gabriel’s neck and dropped him limply to the ground.

“What were you saying?” He stalked toward her.

Maria was speechless. This wasn’t the older Nephilim’s first rodeo. He’d been doing this for nearly a century. How could he be dead?

“I believe my associate gave you a choice before.” The man moved aside and Vicky came into view. Her confidence was back in spades.

“She chose to suffer.” Vicky smirked before she drove her foot into Maria’s knee.

Something tore, another thing cracked, and all Maria could do was scream in more pain.

“Enough of that.” The man seemed annoyed at her agony after a few seconds.

He reared back his first and the last thing Maria saw was his fist rocketing toward her face.