The scent of blood sat in the air, heavy and familiar. Naga sniffed, her nose twitching. There were undertones to it. Layers. The dominant note was blood, as it dominated the walls and floor. It was a wasteful kill. But beneath that, there was other familiar scents. Desperation clung loud and that was normal for murder. The scent of sweat, of smoke, of hunger, of disease. The cloying sweetness of cheap medication. The faint burning of recent cooking. The sharp garlic she'd eaten last night. Naga bent to run a hand along the victim's pale and lifeless forehead. She could almost hear her soul screaming.
Naga's tongue ran over sharp teeth. There were signs of a struggle, plenty of signs the victim had fought for her life. Knocked over chairs scattered the room, decorated with splashes of blood. A knife was still clutched in her hand. Her laptop sat on the table, still on, still whirring away, the screen decorated with a delicate little blood splash. The body lay dead on the floor, abandoned roughly. The kill had been ugly and the killer had left calmly and unhurried. It wasn't a stalker's kill. It was one of violence. She was too late again.
The telltale marks sat in her neck. Sharp holes, cut by teeth. Pointed fangs to draw blood. Pointed markers to a dark fate. She drew the curtains back and studied the dark streets before her. The lights were out. The lights were always out here, the people who hurried across the streets with hoods up tight preferring it that way. Dark places for dark deeds.
For a moment, a flash of jealousy seized at her. It would be so nice, wouldn't it? So easy? Who was there to stop the monsters of the night.
"Me," she muttered to herself. "I stop the monsters."
The body was cold. Naga ran her fingers down its side, feeling the roiling of the flesh. Most of the blood had been drained, splattered, splashed across the room. But the knife wasn't clean. Her finger ran along it, collecting the still slightly damp blood. Crimson, she brought it to her lips and licked it slowly. It was ugly and old. The blood of something that should've died long ago. It was achingly familiar. It was almost painful. She pried the knife out of the victim's hand and gave it a long lick, the sharp edge slicing her tongue very slightly, mingling her own blood with that of the murderer. She held the mixture in her mouth, enjoying the revulsion it sent shuddering through her body.
"Alright then," she whispered. "Let's see where you went."
She swallowed, shut her eyes, and inhaled deeply. Her lungs filled and her nose fought for life. It sprung awake and showed her the world. She could almost see the action in real time, almost follow the footsteps, the delicate dance of death. She could see the killer, that hunched over figure growling as it fed. She followed it out of the door, the stench of blood on its lips, on the wound it clutched tightly to.
She opened her eyes. To her keen senses, the blood on the road almost glowed. This was the right path.
The monster crawled through the streets, down alleyways and through dark spaces. It cut through a carpark, forcing its way through a bush into yet another twisting alleyway. The sky above was cloudy, threatening rain again. The air was warm, too warm. She skipped as she walked. The blood settled nicely in her stomach, the coppery taste in the air all she could taste now. Her nose crinkled as her grin grew wider. She was often described as sharklike and tonight she proved it.
The monster had a nest in the trunk of an old car. It was rusted through, resting on bricks. The wheels had been stolen long ago, with headlights, doorhandles, anything that could be detached. Someone had scrawled a slur along the side. The windows were smash in and the scent of blood and death emanated from it, a beacon that even the uninformed could tell to avoid. Naga had no such fear. Her tongue, elegantly forked, flicked out. She hissed a little, pleased.
The monster trembled. It huddled in blankets. It was fattened by gorging, wounded by the struggle. It wanted to rest until it settled. It only burrowed deeper when Naga's foot hit the side of its car. It struggled to get away, to hide.
"Oy fucker," she said. "Up and out."
The door wasn't locked. The door didn't lock. Her hand found its throat and she threw it to the ground, towering over it. The street wasn't lit. She was a towering silhouette, almost as monstrous as the cowering thing.
The blood in its stomach roiled at her command. It rolled over, throwing up, the contents of its stomach desperate to leave. Naga stood above it, imposing and imperious. She said nothing. Just watched as it retched and retched until there was nothing left. She watched as its stomach kept convulsing, despite its depletion, as muscles struggled to remove what wasn't there at all.
Her hand found the back of its head. Her voice was quiet, low, calm. "Not so nice when it happens to you, is it?"
Before it could reply, it felt the blood in its body surge and erupt, pouring from every orifice. It ejected from ears and eyes and the nose, finding every place where the flesh was weak and pushing for freedom. It coughed once. And then it died.
Naga kicked it once for good measure. She wasn't going to eat it. God only knows where it had been.
She whistled as she walked away. She smiled. Her hands were clean. That was what mattered.