Rise to the challenge

*To clear up previous confusion: I created my vampires to be like Bram Stoker's in that they can take on the form of the beast as well. As the heroine's major deity is Anubis, she prefers her canid form... And, I rewrote this scene because of Tsavo, and HS. I hope I was able to rise to the challenge...*



The wounded guard collapsed to the sands, his arm devoid of flesh below the elbow and bleeding heavily. The very sight of him taking air while my lover lay dead enraged me. Kahlili deserved death, and I would bring it to him. I took on my jackal form and pound the sands beneath my paws. I caught him up, my feet alighting in sand gone black and bloody with his sanguine sluice.

He screamed once as I pinned his legs beneath my paws. Then I melted toward human, my canid form falling away as I stood above his outstretched limbs. A shriek, a slap, and then silence. I dug the fingernails of my left hand into his scalp. He struggled. His lips poured out apologies, but I would not hear them. The fingers of my right hand encircled his throat, crushing his airway and stopping his blather. Through pointed predator teeth I snarled, "Nefertaten made with much less noise. Die with some dignity."

Recognition widened his eyes. "Yes," I mocked, "I took her life. I dumped her corpse in the hall…"

His pain was not enough. I lunged in and buried my fangs deep into his throat. His skin gagged me as I bit down, rent muscle and severed vessels. I wrenched free a chunk of his flesh, and spat it out into my palm. Kahlili's eyes rolled, but I refused him unconscious respite. I smacked him with the his own meat, forced him open his eyes and focus on me, his deliverer of death.

He sat mute and unmoving.

I released his scalp, and drove my hands into his chest, and up under his ribcage. Kahlili's body convulsed beneath me and I ripped his heart free of his body. "For Djosiah," I snarled, and drove the dripping sack into his mouth. Blood trickled like drool as his jaw fell and his body failed.

I left Kahlili's body there for the jackals. It was a better end than he deserved.

I took on the form of my canine desert companions, and raced across the sands. Rage spurned me to greater speeds, and on the edge of town I overtook the second guard. I dispatched him in much the same manner as his murderous cohort. Three bodies fed the sands of Egypt this night, two of them my prey and I was still on the hunt. I loosed a yowl of vengeance and dropped my nose to the sands as I tracked my half-brother's scent.

The miserable man fled straight to the palace, where I found his stalllion untethered. He was gone and the beast blocked my path. I circled the cantankerous animal. The horse whistled, and kicked at me. I launched from the sands, took the exhausted animal down. Fangs buried deep in it's neck, I eviscerated it with my back legs.

Once more, joints cracked as they turned, and skin tingled as my pelt melted away. For the briefest moment, I resembled Anubis, human body with a jackal's head. Complete, yet not quite whole, I sidestepped the horse's steaming entrails as I used its mane to wipe the blood from my face.

Stupid beast, I thought, I never did like you...