Emilia Vos & The Swipers' Tale

Part 12: Here We Go

Emilia took another deep breath. She had taken five deep breaths so far, and still, nothing had walked around the corner. Maybe, something had gone inside or just stood right outside the door. She could look, but that would be too easy. Or, would progress her too far. She didn't really want to go into this next battle just yet, right? Stop being a baby, Emilia chided herself.

"Here we go," Emilia muttered to herself.

Emilia reached into a pocket and pulled out a tube of lipstick as *NSync's Here We Go began to play in her ear. Her hand paused as she nervously applied another layer. Troy tried to harmonize while, again, using his own lyrics.

"Here we go, one the last time. All the vampires are going to die. Here she goes now. Oh yes-yes, here she goes. Emilia kills them; woah!"

"Troy," Emilia hissed. "You are one step away from being sued for copyright infringement or something like that."

The music stopped. 

"No way, 20% rule! Is that not what you needed to pump you up?" Troy asked. "I mean, it got Vijay and me grooving, but he wrote down some other lyrics. Man, you guys are really stifling my creativity here."

"Not the time for you to bring this to the group," Emilia whispered.

Troy huffed. "Okay, just snap when you're ready."

Her lips tingled for a second. Out of sheer paranoia, she hovered a hand over her lips. Emilia paused to smirk before snapping her fingers. *NSync restarted softly in her ear.

"What was that?" A female voice asked.

Someone grunted in response before a male voice responded, "probably nothing."

The lipstick slid into her pocket easily. She looked down at the watch and adjusted the settings. There was no need to be subtle now. Emilia placed her hand forward to peek around the corner and shot a light round into the hall. Bright light allowed Emilia to see how terribly gross the hallway actually was as the two vampires' screams dulled into nothing.

"Y'all really need to hire a maid," Emilia muttered as she turned the corner, adjusting the settings on her watch again while humming along with *NSync.

Once finished, she opened the door and pressed on the small trigger attached to her watch. Emilia waited behind the door as the vampires screamed in the room. She then turned to walk inside. Well, most likely strut to the beat. Emilia could feel the adrenaline of the moment turning her walk into a strut as she reached the final stage. Liv used to say it was a moment like this where you either walked away from it a badass or cursed yourself for becoming a dead-ass.

"Cut the music," Emilia hissed, and the soundtrack stopped.

A slow clap started in the corner as Bresal walked forward. "Oh, but I was enjoying it. Made me want to do a little jig while eating an open arse."

"That's graphic," Emilia scoffed with a curled lip.

I should have guessed he might be able to overhear our conversations.

Bresal revealed a small, round, brown object in his hand with a bite taken out of it. Emilia felt a small trickle of apprehension enter her veins on seeing the jaggedness of the bite. A human wouldn't create those edges. She should know he would be like the other two, but part of her hoped the human mother would make him different.

Emilia cursed her luck. Her muscles already ached, and she didn't think her current energy levels would be enough to beat this jerk. Just breathe, Emi. She reminded herself. Troy said it'd help the magic flow.