Dream Slayer Chapter One

"Speak up when you answer your father," Brian yelled, suddenly on his feet and coming toward her fast.

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut and screamed yes with all her might. Her voice cracked as Brian reached her and grabbed her arm roughly. Startled, Natalie looked up at him with horror and the world faded as her mind sought protection and comfort in a dream.

 The living room morphed. The paneled walls faded and were replaced by a backdrop of oak trees, shifting in the breeze. The sofa and chairs were replaced by paisley flowers and tombstones. Off in the distance, birds chirped and leaves rustled with the wind. The air was sweet like a morning rain.

 Natalie herself changed. She lost her glasses and about sixty pounds as she grew taller. The hair that framed her face grew past her shoulders and shined a silky blond; not a single strand out of place. Her features were more petite with a small button nose and her eyes shone a radiant blue, a far cry from the muddy brown they were a moment ago. Her bland and mismatched clothes being replaced by hipper threads were the last remnants of her former self. With those gone, so were the memories of who she was moments earlier.

With no idea she was nothing more than a dream, this other Natalie took in the dark figures that encircled her. Their eyes were black and their facial expressions varied from slack-jawed to unrepentant anger. They held no weapons. Their teeth were weapons enough and she, the damsel in distress, was the perfect size for a midnight snack.

Yup, creepy, scary vampires; and if two years ago someone told her vampires could go out in sunlight and it would be her job to kill them, she wouldn’t have believed them. After a year of doing just that, Natalie found herself in a constant need of money to replace the soiled jeans she ruined in the service of her town. Most of the time she didn’t mind that much except for the smell; if someone asked, what do you get if you cross beef jerky with stinky gym socks, this would be the answer. Yuck.

What was supposed to be just a basic stealth maneuver around a mausoleum landed her in the clutches of the enemy. Now, disarmed, all Natalie had was her intelligence and bare hands to manage an escape. They had her stake, she was separated from her sidekick, and her arms were bound in front of her so she could barely even separate her fists.

How was she going to get out of this one?

“You wouldn’t maybe let me get a retry, would you? Or a ten second head start?” Natalie asked.

The answer came not from the vampires, but from a demon on the rooftop of a nearby mausoleum. He was the one holding the leash to these beasts; a demon master. Nearly all monsters whether of the green, or the undead variety, answered his call and were happy to subjugate themselves as his servants. Morach the Great, he called himself. Every supercharged hero needed an arch nemesis; and Morach was hers.

His face was dark, green like a common demon, but was anything but.  He was and he always wore colorful suits; that night it was a nineteen-twenty gangster number in deep lavender. Natalie was used to the work of the Joker, but c’mon, this was a little over the top even for him. “Well, well,” he twiddled his fingers together with glee, “we snared the beautiful slayer in our trap. I vote we kill her by pulling her limbs free and use them to bash in her torso. We haven’t used that one in ages.”