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ground. Blood flowed in rivers from a wound to her shoulder and what Jax
thought had been the pattern of her dress, he now saw was in fact blood,
streaks of it painting her bare arms and her legs, staining what was left of
her clothing. They were circling her like hyenas, taking it in turns to dart
forwards and bite her. Jax’s stomach turned. What were they doing? It was like
they were just playing with her. Suckers liked to kill yes, but they weren’t
usually sadistic about it.  
    Jax had seen Suckers
feasting before. He had disposed of bodies that had been feasted on – not
that there was ever much left to dispose of. When Suckers fed they were like jackals,
tearing people limb from limb, ripping out intestines and eating organs while
they still pulsed. They didn’t just drink blood, they ate the entire body, gnawing
the bones to dust. But this girl, they were toying with her, torturing her for what
looked like fun. Were they trying to infect her? It was possible, given the
bite marks. But the amount of damage they were doing make it unlikely. When
they infected someone they just needed to bite them once.
    The saw blades
Jax was carrying cut into his palms. He eased his grip. The last thing he
needed was for them to smell fresh blood. He was itching to start throwing them
already. Where the hell was Ariel? Why was she taking so long? He couldn’t
stand there a moment longer, watching them taunt the poor girl, listening to
her screams. She was as good as dead already anyway. She’d been bitten. Within
twenty hours she’d succumb to the virus. The kindest thing he could do was put
her out of her misery. He brought his arm back, sliding a circular saw blade
between his thumb and middle finger and took aim.

 
 
    Ariel stared at
the pile of dead bodies off to one side feeling bile rise up her throat. From a
distance it had looked like a pile of driftwood but as she drew nearer and had
caught a waft of decaying flesh, she had realized it wasn’t a pile of litter at
all, but rather a mound of discarded limbs and blood-spattered body parts. The
screams of the girl cut through her horror-struck trance. Ariel dragged her
eyes away from the fly-ridden pile of human debris and turned back to the
circling bloodsuckers. The girl they were toying with had struggled to her
feet, and was now spinning around, one arm hanging limply at her side, trying
uselessly to defend herself with a piece of wood.
    A Sucker close
to Ariel threw his head back and brayed loudly and Ariel caught the iron tang
of fresh blood on the air mixed with the toxic scent of panic. The girl’s
heartbeat was a loud thrum, her pulse ragged. It was driving the Suckers wild. An
Emo-looking girl with bright red hair that was flaming like a halo around her
head moved in a blur and took a bite out of the girl’s shoulder. She fell to
the ground with an agonized yelp and the Sucker turned to Ariel, blood smeared
across her face, looking elated.
    Mother sucking
bastards, Ariel thought as she merged with the shadows and slipped between the
ranks of jostling Suckers. The first one, the braying one, went down with a
blade between his ribs. Ariel pulled it free and dragged it across the neck of
the red-haired girl who let out a bleat of surprise before hitting the sand
face first.
    By then the
others had figured out something was happening, that something was in their
midst, but they still couldn’t see her. Ariel slid beneath an outstretched arm,
punching her blade through the heart of the next one and then the next. That
was four down. In five more seconds she had taken out another three. Panic was
sown. The Suckers started running up the beach in Jax’s direction, just as
she’d planned.
    The beauty of
killing Suckers was that it didn’t matter where you hit them, so long as you
sliced through their flesh with silver. Silver killed the Sucker virus. Once
the virus was destroyed the human host body died instantly. It was kind of fun
to watch and made killing