Free Mania and the Executioner by A. L. Bridges

Cole? We might have a bit of a problem here. Three guys are making a beeline for this building and something is off about them.” Cheza thinks while sending me an image of them.
    I see three swirls of color, but it is midday and they aren’t sparkling. The one good piece of news is greatly eclipsed by the bad. How are they outside though? This is confusing…maybe vampires are just nocturnal and the legends are exaggerations from when some vampire went outside and said “AH! The sun bright! It burns!” like some people I know…
    “Cheza, those are vampires and th ose swirls of color you are seeing are their auras. Now, they are most likely after you.” I think calmly.
    “What swirls of color?” Cheza asks. I guess she can’t see them.
    “ Never mind; I need you to go down the beach away from them. When they pass by the building, I’ll come out and kill all three before any of them know what is happening.” I think.
    Since you can’t slice off the heads of three people in broad daylight, I’m glad I hav e my badge wi—…not with me; it’s on the bar counter next to the key to the room. Oh well, I can deal with that later.
    I can feel Cheza’s heartbeat as though it were in my chest, while her heart rate suddenly skyrockets.
    “COLE! They are going in the building!” Cheza exclaims. What!? Did Jason…
    “Cheza, please call Tia and tell her that I need her to get down here with my badge.” I think to Cheza as the vampires walk in. I notice that their skin looks pretty red…maybe the ‘bursting into flames’ myth comes from the fact that they’re so pale that they could get a sunburn while watching fireworks.
    “Hey, boy, hand over the package!” One of them shouts. Did that fucker just make a crack at my appearance? Wait, some of the gods have been doing that too! I had just assumed that it’s because of the r elative difference in our ages!
    “Give us the package!”
    Even Dagda had called me boyo! Wait, wouldn’t he have used ‘lad’ if he wanted to call me boy? Can boyo be used to address any male person regardless of age?
    “Please give us the p ackage?”
    Can lad be used to address any male person? Wait, is lad Scottish?
    “WE’VE BEEN TELLING YOU TO GIVE US THE FUCKING PACKAGE! ARE YOU DEAF!?” One of the vampires shouts.
    “Hey, do you guys know if the word ‘lad’ is Scottish?” I ask as I put the package back into the locker. I receive three completely perplexed looks and then three thoughtful glances upward. “Oh, fuck it. I can Google it later.”
    I stand , pull my gun, and fire three JHP rounds (because I neglected to switch back to the WFNGC rounds after last night) into each of their guts because I might not get a kill shot if I shoot them in the head. I sprint forward as I draw my Sic blade, realizing that I’m in the rare situation where I don’t have to dispatch these guys quickly. Time to try some of those flashy kill moves! Yay!
    I pull off a wall run using the wall to my right, behead the vampire that is closest to the wall, and land on the ground near the door. I jump up, plant both feet on the doorframe, and kick off it, shooting myself towards the back wall as I cut the middle vampire in half. The vampire closest to the lockers, and ten feet from me, has almost recovered so I am going to have to make my final move quick. Is it possible to cut someone vertically in half? For a human: no. For a human with godlike strength?
    I run up the lockers and do a backflip off of the top. As I’m coming off the rotation, I swing down as hard as I can. So, can a human with godlike strength slice someone vertically in half? It looks like I can, and it makes me feel all warm and tingly…or it could just be the blood coating that I’m currently wearing; probably about fifty-fifty.
    I stand straight and do the ‘I stuck the landing!’ pose that gymnasts use. However, I can only give that performance 9 out of 10 because I wasn’t able to cut t he vampire perfectly in half;