Generation V by M. L. Brennan

tall guys who looked eighteen or nineteen and were wearing matching Bruins jerseys and assorted ill-conceived tattoos and facial piercings had been walking about twenty feet behind me, talking to each other in that overly loud way that drunks tend to communicate in. I hadn’t thought much of them, figuring that they were just heading home after watching the latest hockey game at a sports bar, but when I crossed the street, they crossed it as well. I glanced back over my shoulder—all three were looking right at me now, and they weren’t talking anymore.
    I started walking faster. They walked faster too. I broke into a jog. One of them laughed, a high, mocking sound that made me aware of just how quiet it was, and I didn’t have to look back to know that they were moving faster now. I wasn’t even halfway to the 7-Eleven yet. The streets were empty of cars, and all the windows were dark. It hit me suddenly that I was about to experience my first mugging, a landmark of city living that I had frankly not been eager to meet.
    For once I regretted not being a true vampire, with the ability to hand out shit, or at the very least outrun people. During high school the only person I was able to outrun had been Alton Myers, who was morbidly obese and had asthma. The inevitable occurred when a hand grabbed the back of my collar and yanked me backward. I heard the tearing of cloth and felt the solid impact ofconcrete on my ass. One of them landed a kick on my side that knocked the wind out of me. As I rolled around on the ground, trying to protect my vulnerable areas of crotch, stomach, and head while the other two decided to join in on the kicking idea, I was struck with the very horrible irony that I was the one vampire in the northeastern United States and lower Canada who placed value on the lives of humans who I didn’t directly know. Now those humans were about to show their appreciation by beating the crap out of me.
    This was possibly either a life lesson or a comment on my overall philosophy. It was definitely going to leave bruises.
    “Hand over your wallet, dipshit,” one of the boys said.
    “Fine!” I said, rolling over when another foot just missed my kidney. “Just stop kicking me!” The assault slowed to a few enthusiastic nudges as I scrabbled at my back pocket for my wallet. From the sharp crunch that I’d heard from my other pocket when I first fell, I could reasonably assume that my phone had passed on to join Frodo in the undying lands, and I really hoped that the thugs would run off before checking my billfold. Replacing my driver’s license and canceling my credit and debit cards was going to be a bitch, but I somehow doubted that they would be happy to learn that my entire cash reserve consisted of three dollars and a ticket from my sandwich shop that was only two notches away from a free hoagie.
    I handed over my wallet and my luck held. At shitty. There was a pause as they all looked in, then a chorus of three voices calling me a fuck-head. I had braced myselffor a renewed kicking when a smooth, very husky, very female voice said: “Boys, why don’t you hang on a moment?”
    We all looked. The three guys from where they had surrounded me, and me from my defensive huddle on the ground. Then there was a long beat while we all tried to comprehend what we were looking at.
    A woman had come out of the nearby alley and was strolling up to us, as if this were…well, actually I’m not sure in what situation a woman would stroll up to a trio of teenage malcontents and their hapless victim with just that level of panache.
    She was Asian, with beautiful almond eyes, perfectly refined features, and a cloud of rich black hair that flowed over her shoulders. It was too dark to figure out exactly what color clothing she was wearing, but there wasn’t too much of it and it was fitting very well. A sleeveless tank top was short enough to show off her flat stomach, and her dark pants were practically sprayed onto