Muscle and Blood #2
By Merz
Selena cracks a tough nut

Stuart Hobart left the dojo a little before ten thirty.  
He felt tired but exhilarated as always at the end of a 
session practicing martial arts, testing himself against 
other black belts who could push him to employ more 
advanced techniques or to improvise to counter their own 
improvisations.  He enjoyed the walk back to his car as a 
chance to begin unwinding and to get ready for trouble.  

Walking in the rundown area after dark never worried him.  
He always said any bad guys should be more worried about 
meeting him than the other way around, and most nights he 
made sure he got a chance to prove it.  He liked looking 
for trouble just to show off his fighting ability against 
gang bangers and guys in riverside taverns who thought 
they were tough.  Most nights he found just what he was 
looking for before he called it a night and headed for 
home.
  
His defensive abilities were good enough that he knew he 
was being followed within a block.  That made him feel 
even better, knowing that he didn't have to depend solely 
on violence for protection.  Anticipation could often ward 
off trouble before it started or give him the advantage of 
striking the first Ð usually the only - blow.  He glanced 
back a couple of times but didn't get a clear view of 
anyone.  Maybe someone dodged into a doorway half a block 
back, maybe that was a person ducking behind the parked 
car he had just passed.  Stuart rounded a corner, dropped 
his gym bag, and then took a solid stance, waiting.  

The big surprise was that it was a woman who rounded the 
corner and hesitated in front of him.  Stuart noticed how 
quickly she covered up her initial surprise as she 
continued walking past him, as if their meeting was 
completely natural and coincidental.  At the same time he 
relaxed a fraction, letting his shoulders drop a bit and 
his weight move back from the balls of his feet.

On that cue, the woman hit him.  He had never seen a punch 
thrown so fast or so hard.  If his trained reflexes hadn't 
kicked in at the last instant it would have knocked him 
senseless.  As it was, a grazing blow cut open his chin 
and spun him half around.  

Without thinking he hit his combat stance, braced and 
crouching, hands up at the ready.  That way he was 
somewhat prepared when his attacker piled into him full 
force, her hands clawing for his throat.  He twisted, 
caught an arm and managed to throw her over his shoulder 
onto the concrete sidewalk.  If he had been thinking 
instead of just reacting as he had been trained to do in 
the gym he wouldn't have shot out the side kick that 
caught her in the midsection as she sprang back to her 
feet.  He thanked hundreds of hours of full contract 
training as he felt the solid impact against a target that 
by rights should still be lying in a heap on the ground.  
Whoever this was was tough, fast and dangerous.  

The kick knocked her back a good three feet, but she 
landed on her feet and coiled for another spring.  That 
gave Stuart his first good look at her: platinum blonde 
hair pulled back, pale complexion, pale eyes, brilliant 
white teeth.   She wore tights and a snug top that showed 
nice curves beneath wide, athletic looking shoulders.  He 
had only a second for this all to register and then she 
was back on the attack.  A fake with her head and right 
arm almost caused him to move off his balance point before 
she leaped at him again.

He had his hands up and warded off her grab for his throat 
but her full weight crashed into him as if she had been 
shot from a cannon.  He went backward with the momentum, 
realizing halfway through the move that he was 
instinctively rolling with her, with the objective of 
doing a full backward somersault to pin her beneath him 
where he could hammer her head with his hard fists and end 
this insanity.  He never got the chance as he felt her 
continue his roll, heaving him off of her and spinning 
instantly back to her feet.

Stuart was up just as quickly, ready to meet her next 
move.  "Who the fuck are you and what do you want?"  
Adrenaline made his question louder than he intended while 
complete bewilderment made it less a snarled challenge.  
She must have weighed twenty solid pounds more than he 
expected from her appearance, and it would take surprising 
strength to toss him off of her as easily as she had made 
it seem.

She looked at her hand and he saw it was smeared with 
blood from his chin where she had managed to get a hand on 
him during the last clash.  She smiled at him, then 
deliberately licked her hand clean.  "Same as everyone 
wants," she murmured to him. "I want more."

When she licked her hand her bent arm showed a sharply 
defined bicep stretching her sleeve.  God damned body 
builder, and some kind of martial artist, he concluded.  

And definitely insane.  The extra weight was all muscle.  
She moved slowly, circling Stuart who started looking for 
an opening to make an attack of his own.  Definitely 
insane but good enough to let him feel that he had 
accomplished something when he crushed her into the 
sidewalk, he decided.  No need to look for any more 
trouble tonight.

For the third time she dove at him, this time managing to 
swat aside one of the hands he had up for defense.  She 
didn't get the solid grip she obviously wanted on his 
throat and he got in a solid shot to her body that knocked 
her aside before her shoulder smashed into his face and he 
went down.  But this time she was on him, grabbing at him, 
twisting her legs around his, fighting to get a hand on 
his throat as he tried to find a way to get her off.  

Suddenly he felt pain stabbing into his right shoulder and 
screamed for help, as much from the surprise as from the 
real fear that was growing inside him.  He twisted against 
her and realized she had sunk her teeth into his shoulder.  
She was biting deeper and deeper into his flesh at the 
same time her hands were trying to tear at his eyes and 
reach around his throat.

"Holy shit!  Somebody help me!"  A wave of panic swept 
over him as he saw a red stain spreading around the point 
where she was so firmly fastened on his shoulder.  He 
punched awkwardly at her head and drove hard elbows into 
her solid body without managing to make her stop biting or 
to pry away the strong arm she wanted to strangle him 
with.  This was not a situation he had ever practiced in 
his years of training.

He grabbed her hair with his left hand while his right 
worked to prevent her from reaching around his neck.  With 
a convulsive series of twists and heaves he felt the 
sleeve of her top ripping before he finally managed to 
flip her over his shoulder onto the ground in front of 
him.  He held her by the hair and chopped at the thick 
muscle where her neck joined her shoulder.  It felt like a 
drill where he used to harden his hands by striking a 
wooden post wrapped with rope.  As she started struggling 
to free herself and turn back face to face with him, 
Stuart threw snap kicks and hard knees into her back and 
sides.

Stuart's mysterious opponent abruptly changed tactics.  
Instead of struggling to get free of his grip on her hair 
she lurched backwards into him, then surged to her feet.  
Stuart felt himself being lifted bodily off the ground and 
then tumbled forward over the top of his attacker.  He 
took the landing smoothly on his shoulders but realized 
she now had him on his back.  Instinctively he released 
his hold and rolled out of reach just before she stamped 
hard where his neck had been.

Instantly Stuart was back on his feet, hands up and ready 
to attack.  She stood ready, her fists clenched and her 
eyes focused on the center of his body.  Blood ringed her 
mouth and Stuart felt a wave of nausea as he realized it 
was his own blood, ripped from his shoulder where she had 
sunk incredibly sharp teeth.  As he hesitated she took a 
moment to rip the torn sleeve the rest of the way off her 
top and drop it at her feet.  The exposed arm was even 
more muscular than Stuart had expected, and again he tried 
to judge her real strength based on their last two 
clashes.  

His training took over and he launched a series of punches 
while his mind was still occupied by assessing the woman's 
power and skill.  She easily swatted aside the three fast 
punches aimed at her head and chest, and ducked under the 
roundhouse kick he followed up with.  

He tried to deflect the punch she responded with and was 
doubly shocked when her fist smashed through the blocking 
hands he put up and then carried on to crash against his 
chin.  The force knocked him back a couple of steps but he 
got in two blows to her body before she completely 
regained her balance.  The hard shots didn't seem to 
bother her at all, his fists landing solidly on unyielding 
flesh and bone.  In desperation he blasted her with all 
his strength behind a final, twisting fist he usually 
reserved for demonstrations of his power to break concrete 
blocks.  That one staggered her enough that she touched a 
knee to the pavement before backhanding him right off his 
feet.  Only training and instinct got him back up in 
defensive position before her.  He shook his ringing head.

"Very good," she spoke for the first time.  "You're as 
good as I'd hoped.  Don't bother looking for a reason for 
this.  It's nothing personal and not the result of 
anything you've done.  Just because of who you are, a 
trained fighter with experience in fighting many sorts of 
opponents."

"Who the hell are you, and what do you want?"  Stuart 
heard desperation in his voice and tried to get control of 
his emotions as he looked for an opening in her guard. 

"Doesn't matter.  My name is Selena but I doubt you've 
ever heard of me and certainly never seen me before.  You 
won't see me again."  She fired another left-right 
combination, the left deflected to just graze his head 
instead of smashing his face but the right slamming 
painfully against his ribs and actually lifting him off 
his feet.  Stuart trapped her right arm under his left and 
drove his right elbow down hard on it, and then a second 
time before she managed to push him off.

With the distance opened between them Stuart spun and 
started sprinting away.  He had never run from a fight in 
his life, and held contempt for the many guys who had run 
from him.  But this Selena was killing him.  The two 
punches he had just taken from her felt like they had 
loosened teeth and cracked ribs.  She was too strong and 
too fast for him to risk more punishment.  

She landed on his back before he got five yards.  She 
landed hard, twisted and threw him crashing to the 
sidewalk.  Instead of hammering him with those unstoppable 
fists, though, she rolled on top of him and bit down again 
on his bleeding shoulder.  Stuart saw her mouth open wide, 
showing off a pair of canine teeth sharper than any he had 
seen before, and then she sank them into his injured 
flesh.  When he tried pulling her off she caught his 
wrists and forced them to the ground in a show of raw 
strength beyond even the range Stuart had feared as he 
assessed her powerfully muscled arms.  She held him flat, 
tore at his wound and then bit again even deeper.  Stuart 
screamed as loudly as he could, begging for help, begging 
her to stop, begging not to die.

When she pulled back from his gaping wound and swallowed 
spasmodically, Stuart found just enough momentum to bring 
his arms and chest up, knocking her off of him.  A trail 
of blood drops from her mouth fell across his body before 
he got her off and he saw she was swallowing deeply from 
what her sharp teeth had ripped from him.

He scrambled to his feet while Selena rose slowly, 
watchfully.  Stuart clamped his hand over the gushing 
wound, the analytical part of his brain realizing she had 
bitten through thick veins on the front of his shoulder.  
The primitive part of his brain forced him to snap out a 
fake kick and then a hard, very real one when she flinched 
slightly.  The force lifted her body and rolled her but 
she resumed rising slowly to her feet.

"Hell's fire, you taste sweet.  Sweet enough to make me 
want to really feed on you instead of just taking a 
snack."  This time when she leaped he was able to 
anticipate the move enough to get underneath her and use 
her momentum to send her crashing to the sidewalk.  She 
bounced up instantly.

"You really are good.  I've never fought anyone as good.  
I learned more tonight than I have in years."  She snapped 
a kick at him, but it was clumsy and she telegraphed it 
just as he had seen many novices do when they were 
starting to study kicks.  He avoided it, stepped in and 
used his good arm to backfist her unprotected face.

She smiled.  "I never would have believed mere human speed 
and strength could have been so effective.   You may have 
broken a couple of ribs, and nearly broke my arm.  You've 
really given me some things to work on.   And now I want 
to get even stronger than I am now, just in case I come up 
against a trained fighter on my side of the divide."

Selena edged closer again and flicked out her left fist, 
stopping a fraction of an inch short of Stuart's nose.  
"All finished?  A pity."  She circled him and he shuffled 
around so he could face her.  

"That one punch Ð that was really impressive.  It could 
kill all by itself.  Let's see.  How did it go again?"  
Stuart might not have been able to do anything to save 
himself from Selena's blurring fist even if he hadn't been 
beaten half to death already and lost so much blood to 
her.   He barely managed to start a countermove when he 
felt it crush the ribs over his heart, felt his heart 
rupture, felt the last few seconds of blood reach his 
brain before he toppled forward.

A few minutes later one derelict looked out from under his 
blankets in a doorway facing the river and blinked at what 
he saw.  A woman Ð definitely a woman he would have sworn 
later, and good looking at that Ð walked confidently up to 
the dockside, a long burden draped over her shoulder.  She 
carried it easily, so he guessed it might be some bedding 
or a rug rolled up in a plastic sheet.  She set down her 
load and walked quickly to a nearby alley.  She passed 
close enough to the derelict's doorway that he could see 
her clothes were torn and dirty.  One whole sleeve had 
been torn off, and that arm bulged as it carried a 
concrete block back to the riverside.  She quickly knelt, 
tied the block around her burden, and then lifted it off 
the ground.  Again, the watcher figured it couldn't be 
very heavy because she raised it above her head and held 
it a moment before throwing it a good ways out into the 
river where it hit with a loud splash.

"Not bad, Sensei," she spoke to the black water.  She 
rubbed the bare, white arm and watched it expand slightly 
as fresh blood surged into her muscles.  "Lucky I heal 
fast after I have a full feeding.  I'd be halfway there 
now if I wanted a tough guy like you to cross over, but I 
like my male vampires weak and servile.  I don't bring 
across the sort I or my friends ever have to fight again, 
so take this as a compliment."

She turned, scanned along the darkened doorways for a 
moment, and then started walking directly toward the 
transient who was watching her.  He tried to pull himself 
further into the shadows, although normally people could 
walk past without realizing a person huddled under this 
heap of blankets.

"I hope you don't have too much cheap booze in you, my 
friend."  She spoke directly at his doorway.  "I'm not 
terribly picky, but sometimes a load of cheap wine 
disturbs my sleep.  That's no way for us to begin what you 
will find to be a very, very long relationship."