Yin Lee

“Is a dog Zen?”

The wry question echoed through a dingy alley, which smelled strongly of piss and faintly of fornication, both of which cast patches of algae in a dubious light. Bass vibrated at precise intervals, hinting at the sweaty bacchanal roiling inside the nightclub beyond.

Back in the relative quiet, the voice continued. “Are you aware, Dog? Do you look to the past or the future?” A bald woman wrapped in something like a patchwork sheet stopped, turned, and bent at the waist to look a miniature poodle in the eye. “Do you follow because you remember what it is to be alone, or is this our only moment? Is your affection entwined with fear?”

It licked her nose, tail wagging and paws shuffling in excitement.

She sighed, then hoisted the dog into her arms. “We admire your brevity. We must step away. Remember, there is no fear in a moment. Live in the moment, Dog.” With that, the monk pushed up the lid of a dumpster, glanced over its contents, and then dropped the poodle inside. Confused eyes peering upward were quickly enveloped in black.

The woman smiled as the lid pressed closed, humming a monotonous tune beneath her breath.

Suddenly, a shadow blocked the moonlight. Its legs terminated at a brick shithouse of a man standing at the end of the alley. A tight, expensive t-shirt showcased his toned physique, and tight, expensive jeans that showcased something else. He evaluated the vagrant, then turned his attention to their surroundings. After a quick scan, subtly unusual eyes returned to her with razor-edged focus.

She, on the other hand, just let her weight drop back, holding herself by the dumpster’s handle. Her neck lolled loosely to look at him. “Oh, you look thirsty. Did the bouncer reject you? Too much body spray? ”

His lips split halfway between a grin and a snarl. He started walking. “Think I just got lucky.”

“Ooo we aren’t that kind of girl. What kinds are we?” The ragamuffin released the handle and fell backwards only to roll over her right shoulder and land on her feet. The movement was so effortless as to obliterate its impact, rendering it less memorable than the fall. She brushed the dirt from her shoulder, then pointed to one side in a wide, sweeping gesture. “Consider that direction! We are not that kind of girl. Prey, we mean. We strongly recommend against ourselves.”

His smile broadened. Fangs glinted in the ichorous alley-light. “You don’t get to decide that, sister.”

“Do you allude to nuns or kin? Do you harbor incestuous fantasies? Did it start with siblings?” She moved towards a fire ladder. “Or not? Oedipus, is that you?”

“I’m not …”

“In any case, you can’t eat me. I’m a vegetarian.”

“Wait…” After a long pause for confusion, the vampire dragged a hand down his face. “Christ, just shut up.”

She hummed. She hummed as she climbed and a wave built behind her and his muscles tensed. She released the rungs just in time for a preternatural predator to slam into the ladder she’d just occupied. (His impossible leap had been too fast to properly see.) Once again, the nomad brushed herself off from a comfortable roll. “Do you ever wonder why the scorpion chose to be ruled by its nature? We should all strive for more, but was his sting the fulfillment of a scorpion’s dharma? Have you seen Twilight?”

She moved again, precise and conservative. The hop was still in progress when a furious mass of fangs and muscle crushed her still-settling footprints. “Shut up, kine!” Confusion sharpened his words.

“Oh, that’s rude. We’ve not utilized any slurs.”

Once again, he moved with inhuman speed, and once again, she moved an instant sooner. He howled, shaking the hand he’d jammed against a dumpster. (The dented steel yelped in terror.)

“Unless Twilight is considered a slur. Is it? We apologize for our ignorant rudeness if so.” She bowed deeply.

“I wasn’t going to kill you, you know. I’m not really that guy. Now? I’m going to rip parts off while you drain.” A preemptive move once again thwarted a blurred one. Her head was tilted. He roared. “How the fuck are you doing that?!”

“Oh! Are you familiar with the non-mind? You have achiev-” she leapt. The graffiti behind her shattered. Splinters of colored brick exploded in every direction. One cut her cheek. “Do you often ask questio-” this time, she dropped into a combat roll, skidding before finding her feet to avoid a sweeping punch, “and attack before your master responds?”

“You’re no master of me, bitch!”

“Well, obviously. Not with h-nnk” The ragged little woman had jumped again: straight up. Enough to keep the jerk from instantly breaking her neck.

The vampire grinned. It was not a nice grin. His hand fit comfortably and completely around her slender throat, and the pulse against his fingers was all but maddening. “You’re just another bloodbag.”

Talking was hard. Individual syllables strained out in sporadic rasps. Unsurprisingly, that did not deter the mouthy vagrant. “We implore… this… bad idea… vegetarian…”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head. His other hand rose to reposition his meal.

That’s when everything went to hell.

Hardened fingers pinched deep into the arm holding her, just above the elbow. They kept him from crushing her throat when a sharp elbow crashed into another pressure point, cutting off his shriek. As the vampire flinched down to protect his core, an open-handed strike slammed into his ear. Just like that, he was stumbling aside and the unassuming immigrant was on her feet.

“An ass, a cock, and a lion walk into an alleyway. You are the ass. Zhè ge… but then, we must be the lion, and this does not feel right. Perhaps you are a dog, and I am an oyster.” One knee raised to the human’s core as she spoke, arms raising opposite one another into a single line. A calloused hand formed a delicate point behind her. “The dog does get to eat the oyster, however.”

“Bitch!”

“This is also not right. Hm…”

As his muscles bunched, hers sprang. When her quick spin was two-thirds complete, arms outstretched like wings and torso dropping, the furious vampire launched into a sprint that blurred beyond the realm of the naked eye, arms opening for a bestial pounce that would crash through her like a bullet train.

Instead, he caught a tennis shoe in the throat. The angle of her kick allowed his momentum carry her leg after providing the blow's power, spinning the foreigner like a weather vane in a typhoon. One, two, three rotations before she regained control and flung herself after her would-be murderer, seizing her first opening with single-minded purpose.

A hand pecked viciously into one pressure point on the stumbling man’s back, then another. Blinding pain drove him to his knees. Just as quickly, warm hands seized the sides of his head and dug in beneath the jaw. (Her nails drew blood.) “A hungry lion chanced upon a lamb. The lamb said, ‘oh no, you won’t like me.’ The lion pounced anyway. So,” she leaned close behind his immobilized ear to whisper: “the lamb devoured him.” She smiled a genuine smile that closed her eyes. He tried to withhold a groan of pain. The bass still thumped, and a small dog barked furiously amidst its own, metallic echoes.

Blood trickled over her fingers.

“How?” The word seethed with murder. “You smell human. Not one of Gaia’s goddamned ‘chosen,’ either. What are you?”

She shrugged dramatically without releasing any pressure points. “Oh, ‘we are only human,’ as the platitude goes. Did you ever stop to wonder how you can move so much faster? Have you considered how much faster signals must course from toe to brain? Zeus in your head, hurling bolts…oh! We imagine you are uncomfortable. We will strive towards canine brevity.” Her hands clamped down harder, inspiring a half-hissed moan. “A vampire’s nervous system is a beautiful, amazing map of his person! So dense. Such bandwidth. Much wow. Behold the true information superhighway! We lost our brevity, but find our point…” Her voice dropped low and content. “Our combat style is especially effective against your kind, whose nerve endings are objectively more powerful. So long as we remain one move ahead—and, though you are both faster and stronger, we will—we can grind you back to stardust. Find another meal.”

Her hands released abruptly. She stepped back.

The humiliated vampire growled and took a moment to rise. As before, he dwarfed her when he did, fists clenched and expression dark. He didn’t turn around. “Self-important kine bitch. I don’t give a shit if you’re some kind of hunter. I’m going to eviscerate you with your own splintered bones. Kill your fucking dog, too.”

The Tibetan woman’s smile widened. She was standing on one foot again, head tilted. Her bloody fingers slipped into her mouth as he turned towards her, a scathing glare gouged into his face. “I recognize you, now. You’ve been staying at the Crazy House. Heh. Wonder what the other powers-that-be will think of that gay lunatic having a pet hunter?”

Her smile fell immediately, eyes sharpening. (He smirked.) “We are not a hunter. Predator. Predators are often gored by prey animals. We are a quick-hooved wildebeest. Or a hippopotamus.” She paused, stare drifting off. “What sound does a hippopotamus make?”

The vampire’s stance had been misleading. A bluff. He’d thought to spring without warning, but his intentions had blazed to anyone with proper eyes. Her hand disappeared into her robe a second before his muscles began to tense. This time, he came fangs-first. Unmitigated ferocity left no room to notice the wooden stake she produced. The monk was faster than before. Stronger. The weapon jerked up and braced just in time for his momentum impale him. Tearing, cracking, and a series of sick pops were individually discernible.

He trembled in place for a brief forever, clutching her arm and trying to understand what had just happened.

Yin shook her head. “You should not have said that,” she observed, quietly. “We promised we would not make trouble, you see.”

Her hand jerked free with a sucking sound and subsequent spurt of black-red, leaving the stake behind. He hit the ground. Blood burbled in arterial spurts that happened to keep time with the thrumming bass. The musical coincidence was just the thing to alleviate a sour mood, and the human’s smile returned. Several cuts on her hand—broken bones could be sharp—closed slowly with the help of stolen vitae.

She reached into the same pocket that had contained the stake. Given her recent habit of vampire-watching, an emergency kit had seemed prudent. This time, she withdrew an underwater flare, inserted it into his chest cavity just beneath the heart, and struck it, humming the same monotonous tune as before. A dainty foot flipped him to his face to let him burn from the inside out.

Just like that, she was done. Yin brushed some blood away from her eyes as she walked back to the angry-sounding dumpster. The echoing barks solidified when she lifted the lid. “Hello, Dog. Just this moment. We are here, yes? At least, we suppose we are. We perceive being here. We perceive you.”

The shorn poodle backed into the wall, growling at the approaching, blood-soaked hands. The moment he caught a familiar scent underneath was obvious. The teeth disappeared halfway, growl dying. His tail wagged a couple of times. It looked begrudging. Yin picked him up beneath the forelegs without incident. By the time he was cradled to her chest, his tail waved.

A concerned tongue licked at the blood on her jaw. Yin wrinkled her nose, drawing back her head as much as possible. “We would not recommend that. We can imagine the trouble you could find all full of vampire blood. Hm.” She held him out again to look the dog over, tilting her head, before returning him to her chest. “You are correct, however! We both need to bathe. What do you think about rinsing off in salt water, hm?”

Yin hummed as she and her charge made their exit. The club’s music boomed in the background, ignorant and unperturbed, but the stench of urine was now overpowered by blood and burning meat.