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Sundown (Halloween Havoc no. 7)

by Sigma

I

"So here's the deal, buddy," Texas Star said, looking across the lonely stretch of road. She raised a quarter in her gloved hand and the other hand hovered near her holstered pistol. "I toss this into the air, we go when it hits the ground. Got it?"

A man in a suit, cowboy hat, and aviator sunglasses stood across from her, his own hand near a holstered gun. He simply nodded.

Texas Star nodded back and tossed the coin in the air. It glinted in the sunlight. It landed with a metallic ping. Two gunshots went off. One body hit the ground.

Texas Star held her smoking gun, twirled and holstered it, and then picked up her coin before walking through a chaotic scene of bullet-riddled cars and dead bodies. She stepped past the man she just shot dead. "Sorry, buddy. Guess it just wasn't your day."

She walked toward her car, a classic muscle car decked out in the colors of the Texas flag. Bullet holes peppered the body, most of the glass was shattered, the tires were flat, and smoke drifted through bullet holes in the hood. The busty gunslinger frowned, took off her hat, and placed it over her ample tits before bowing her head. "I'm sorry, baby. Mama couldn't protect you this time. I got the fuckers, though..." she said, looking at the dead aggressors. She then sighed and put her hat back on before grabbing a duffle bag from the back and knocking on the trunk.

"Hey, Alma! You alive in there?"

When she received angry, muffled yelling in response, Texas Star smirked and opened the drunk. A tall, lean, curvy Mexican woman with dark brown hair glared at her, her wrists and ankles bound and her mouth gagged. Texas Star pulled her out of the trunk and made her stand up. Her backless blouse clung to her body thanks to the heat making her sweat.

"Your damn cartel buddies shot up my ride!" Texas Star pointed.

Alma looked around and then laughed in her gag.

"Yeah, yuk it up, sister. It means we're walkin'," Texas Star told her. "Now, I got enough food and water and survival gear that we'll be all right out here in this desert 'til we either reach the border or the next town, but you try anything funny and I will put a bullet in your ass and leave you for the coyotes, missy," Texas Star promised before turning the woman around and kicking her in the rear. "Now git!"

Alma muttered something and started walking. Texas Star followed, eyeing the large tattoo of a spider on Alma's back as they went.

II

Night had long settled over the desert when Texas Star and Alma reached a small convent well off the road, several miles away from where the shootout happened. Desert critters sounded in the night as Star knocked on the door. "Hope we ain't wakin' anyone up..." she said. Several moments passed before someone answered.

A kindly looking nun in her 50s stared at the two women. "C...can I help you?"

"How ya'll doin', ma'am?" Texas Star tipped her hat. "I'm in a bit of a bind. See, I'm here apprehendin' this criminal to stand trial back in the States, and her buddies nearly cooked my goose a few miles down the road. Ya'll think I could use your phone to call the authorities and have them come get us?"

"Oh I'm sorry, dear, we don't have a phone. You are more than welcome to shelter here for the night, however," the nun told her. "We were just sitting down to dinner, in fact. Why don't you girls join us?"

"Why I think that's a mighty fine idea, ma'am. Thank you kindly," Texas Star smiled before pushing Alma inside the convent.

"Oh, where are my manners? I'm sister Millie," the nun introduced herself.

"You can call me Texas Star," the gunslinger responded.

***

Texas Star and Alma joined five nuns at the dinner table, with Alma being untied to feed herself, save for her right wrist, which was bound to the arm of her chair. Dinner was a simple but filling roast chicken and vegetables, and over the past hour, Texas Star had come to learn her hosts were sisters Millie, Gloria, Ines, Rachel, and Cara.

"This is delicious!" Texas Star said of her dinner. "Could use some hot sauce, but I love it."

"Thank you," Sister Rachel, a thin brunette in her mid 20s, smiled. "Sister Gloria and I do all of the cooking. I'm glad you like it," she smiled.

"Forgive me if I'm being too intrusive, as I know your journey was a long one," Sister Cara spoke. She had a thick Irish accent, and her skin was a pale as snow, with bright red hair poking out from under her veil. "But who is your uh...?" she pointed at Alma with her fork.

Alma stared at the woman and chewed her dinner.

Texas Star laughed and slapped her shoulder. "This here's Alma Vasquez, known to the authorities as "La Araña", The Spider. The deadliest assassin to ever come out of Mexico."

Some of the nuns gasped.

"I came down here cuz the feds back home wanted to have a chat with the girl about some killings in Texas and over there in Delta City I linked up with a crew from Policía Federal Ministerial, but...well, spiders are apex predators for a reason. I'ma make sure those men and women didn't die in vain, though."  

The nuns whispered among themselves while Cara smirked and listened intently.

"So many interesting characters over here," Cara said. "When the church sent me all the way here from Dublin, I thought it was going to be a pretty uneventful posting. The Lord had other plans, it seems."

"I can't speak for the Lord, but I do thank him for puttin' you ladies in our path," Texas Star said.

"Where are the other nuns?" Alma asked. The room fell silent and everyone looked at her. Her dark eyes scanned the table before she turned back to Cara. "This table has 20 seats, but there are only five of you. This convent is pretty big, too. Where is everyone?"

Cara steepled her hands in front of her slim face and eyed Alma up and down. The other nuns looked to her, but before she could answer, Alma winced when Star drove an elbow into her rib.

"You hush up, missy. You wanna add bein' rude to servents of the Lord to all the other stuff you're gonna answer for once I get you to Texas?"

"It's all right, Ms. Star. We're big girls. We can take care of ourselves," Cara told her before standing. "Sister Gloria."

"Yes?" Sister Gloria, a black woman in her 30s, looked at Cara.

"Show our guests a room please, so they can rest."

"If it doesn't bother you ladies, I wanna stay in the same room with this one," Texas Star said. "Need to keep an eye on her. We'll be outta your hair in the mornin'."

"Of course. Until then, what's ours is yours, Ms. Star," Cara told her.

***

"There's something very wrong with this place..." Alma said. She was bound with rope to a chair in a small room, with Texas Star laying on the only bed with her hat over her face and her arms behind her head. Moonlight poured in through the small window and Alma eyed the door. "Gringa! Listen to me. I don't trust these nuns."

"Godless monster like you, I don't doubt it," Texas Star muttered.

"I believe in God, perra estúpida! But I'm telling you, something is off here." 
 
"What in the hell are you cryin' about?" 
 
"I grew up in an orphanage run by nuns. They would not be up at this hour, never mind just sitting down for dinner. Everything shuts down when it gets dark." 
 
"Pipe down and go to sleep. We got a lotta walkin' to do tomorrow." 
 
"That's the other thing. I didn't see any vehicles outside when we got here, and they never once asked how we're getting to the next town. And I don't know if you noticed, but I haven't seen one cross, bible, or religious icon since we've been here. They didn't even bless the food!" 
 
"They probably did that as we were walking up. Go to fuckin' sleep, Spider!" Texas Star growled, rolling over. 
 
"I'd tell you not to swear on holy ground, but I think this place has been tainted." Alma told her.
 
Alma fell silent, hearing only the sounds of nocturnal desert wildlife and Star's light breathing. A half hour passed by and she called out. "Star...gringa...oye, dog fucker...!" 
 
She didn't get an answer, and with that, Alma lifted her long leg over her head and a dinner knife that she managed to hide slipped from her boot and into her bound hand. Within minutes, she was free and on her feet. "I'm out of here. You can deal with whatever these weird nuns have planned for us on your own." 
 
She snapped to attention when someone walked up to the door. Thinking quickly, Alma jumped onto the bed with Star and spooned the busty Texan, pretending to be asleep. 
 
The door opened and light footsteps sounded. Alma felt someone hovering over her. 
 
"Ah...Cara was right, there's something special about these two..." a woman whispered. Alma heard a Mexican accent, but it wasn't sister Gloria, so it had to be Ines, the only other nun among the group who was from Mexico. Alma clutched the knife as a slim, cold hand touched her skin, caressing her backside before sliding up her exposed back. 
 
"I bet they taste delicious..." Ines said to herself. "If I just have a little taste now..." 
 
Alma winced slightly as a nail scratched her back and she felt a trickle of blood run down it. She then heard Ines suck her finger. 
 
"Oh...oh my goodness," the nun gasped. "This is delicious. Who are these girls?" 
 
As Ines took in the moment, Alma leapt up and jabbed the knife in the sister's shoulder, causing her to reel back and scream. Alma then hit her hard in the face and she went tumbling across the small room. 
 
In an instant, Texas Star was up with her gun cocked and in hand. "What the hell is goin' on?!" 
 
Alma stepped back as Ines stood up and ripped the blade from her shoulder and tossed it aside. She then wiped her mouth, revealing a mouth full of blood-caked fangs. 
 
"I knew it!" Alma declared. 
 
"Oh this ain't good..." Star said, leveling her gun. Ines came at her and caught two bullets for her trouble. She staggered against the wall and collapsed and Star darted out of the room. "Come on, Alma!" 
 
The two of them ran into the wall and stopped just outside the room. The other four nuns stood on either side, cutting off both paths of escape. 
 
"Evening, ladies..." Cara said with her hands entwined in front of her. She stayed where she was while sisters Millie, Gloria, and Rachel approached the pair. They all had bared fangs and extended nails on their fingers. Behind them, sister Ines emerged from the room with two bullet holes in her habit. The wounds had already healed. 

Star and Alma stood back to back, Star with her gun raised and Alma with her fists, as the vampire nuns closed in.

"A fine mess you've marched us into, gringa," Alma growled.

"You shoulda said somethin'!" Texas Star aimed her gun.

"I fucking did!" Alma yelled as the vampires hissed and swarmed the two of them.

***

Both Star and Alma had been stripped and hung from a wooden beam by their wrists. A draft of cool desert night air wafted through the chapel, a room that had fallen into disrepair with a partially collapsed roof and destroyed pews. Their bodies bore dozens of shallow red scratches, the result of the nuns taking their sample tastes after the women had been captured.

Cara walked up to the two of them, her green eyes going from one lithe, naked body to the other. She broke the ropes holding the naked prisoners in place and let them fall to the dust-caked floor.

"This is so much better than feeding on drifters, and outlaw bikers, and college kids. I knew if I stayed here long enough, someone interesting would eventually stumble into this place,"

"Who the hell are you?" Alma asked.

Cara smirked. "I got here a year ago after a fight with a vampire hunter freelancing for those pricks in Sentinel didn't quite go my way. I had intended on just hiding out until I healed and then moving on, but some nun discovered my nature and she had to go. Sister Rachel, what was that busybody's name?"

"Sister Antonia," Rachel answered.

"Antonia, yes...anyway. I offered her power and she rejected me, so I found four others among the sisters who would be more...accepting," she said, motioning to the others. "Then I let them feed on the others so they would know what true power tasted like. You, my dear, are very perceptive," she said, touching the tip of Alma's nose.

"So what, we're just gonna be your after dinner snack now?" Texas Star said.

"One of you, yes," Cara nodded. "For the other, I offer that same power."

Alma and Star looked at each other in confusion.

"You two are both Aphrodites..." Cara said, walking around them. She touched their naked bodies, her hand caressing ample curves and soft, supple flesh. "I had only ever heard the tales, never met one myself. I always wondered what you women tasted like. Now that I know, I want more and I want one alongside me."

"What are you getting at?" Alma asked.

"You will fight each other," Cara told them. "The winner will be given more power than she has ever known. The loser will be food."

Texas Star and Alma both stared at Cara and then each other for several long seconds. And then Texas Star's head snapped back as Alma nailed her with a quick hook shot to the jaw that was hard enough to put her on her ass. Before the busty blonde could get back up, Alma was on top of her, pinning her down and raining more punches on her face.

Cara stepped back and joined her sisters to watch.

The busty pair were a messy tangle of long limbs and grunts as they tussled on the ground. Alma tried raining down punches that Texas Star blocked, and eventually the blonde gunslinger managed to shift her weight enough that she rolled Alma over and pinned her down. She pummeled the Mexican hitwoman in the face with elbow blows that caused her to grunt as the two panted and fought back and forth, trying to gain an advantage. Alma then swung up and hit Star in her naked chest.

"Agh! Shit! Right in the tit!" Texas Star fell back, holding herself where she was struck while Alma got to her knees, let out a savage yell and went back on the attack.

"Sister Rachel..." Gloria whispered to her companion. "How shall we prepare the loser?"

"Well," Rachel started. "If the Texan loses, we should barbecue her. If the assassin loses, I'm thinking spicy taquitos."

"Oh, do we have any avacado to make guacamole?"

"I can't do spicy..." Millie interrupted.

"Then you will get a mild one, Millie," Rachel said, sighing and rolling her eyes. "Anyway, yes, we have avacados."

"Wonderful," Gloria smiled.

"Watch it, ladies," Cara said, stepping to the side. The other nuns shouted and quickly moved as Texas Star flew through the air and hit the wall behind them. She then hit floor, groaning and rolled onto her back.

"Looks like it's barbecue," Ines said with a toothy grin.

Alma bent over at the waist with her hands on her knees to catch her breath and then looked at the vampire nuns.

Cara turned to Star and then looked back at Alma. "Finish her."

"I thought you were going to kill her," Alma said.

"Oh, we are. What I mean is finish her the way I hear Aphrodites are often defeated."

Alma grinned and pushed past the nuns to grab Star by her blonde locks and drag her back to the center of the room. Star screamed, kicked, and protested, but went silent when Alma spread her legs and sat on her face. Texas Star kicked her thick legs and Alma leaned back, reaching an arm behind her so that she could use her fingers to brush the lips of her captive's pussy. As Alma grinded her crotch in Star's face, she simultaneously put two fingers inside Star and began playing with her, using her thumb to toy with her clit at the same time. She squeezed the sides of Star's head with her thighs. "Eat me, you puta!" she ordered, and then gasped as she felt Star's tongue push into her own pussy, long, deliberate strokes tasting her insides. Alma gasped, keeping her efforts to break Star up while she was being eaten out at the same time.

The vampires all watched, Cara with a smirk on her face while the others all had varying reactions. Sister Ines, in particular, stepped back and slid her fingers into her own habit, biting back as gasp as she began pleasuring herself at the sight.

"Agh! Fuck!" Alma cried out as Star's tongue went in and out. She gripped Star's blonde locks tight, grinding her hips and pushing her fingers in an out even faster, and then she felt the Texan scream a muffled cry. Star's juices soaked Alma's fingers and Alma gasped before jumping up and standing astride her foe. She then began fingering herself, and it wasn't long before her own juices dripped out of her and soaked the defeated gunslinger's face and naked chest. Alma then let out a deep sigh and turned to the vampires. She walked toward them.

"All yours," Alma said, her forehead and tits damp with a sheen of sweat.

Ines, Rachel, Gloria, and Millie moved past Alma at once and grabbed Texas Star's arms to pick her up.

"No! Get off me!" Star demanded, trying to fight back. Her strength was drained, and she barely had the energy to shake them.

Cara smirked and put a cold hand on Alma's naked shoulder. "Well done, my child. I'll be with you shortly to give you your gift," she smiled before going to join her sisters. Alma turned and watched them. Texas Star screamed and writhed in the collective grip of the five vampies as they used their nails to draw new, deep scratches on her bruised and vulernable flesh and drink the traces of blood from their fingertips. None of them moved to bite her yet, but it would only be a matter of time before their instincts and hunger were too strong to ignore.

Alma looked around the chapel before walking to a destroyed pew. She looked in the direction of Star and the nuns one more time before kicking an already badly damaged pew until she had two pieces of wood with splintered, jagged edges. She picked both of them up, looked at the vampires, and a smirk crossed La Araña's face as she approached them.

Sister Millie saw her first.

"Can't wait for a taste yet, huh? Wait...why are you holding those?"

Millie then screamed as Alma jammed one of the crude stakes in her chest and she fell over.  Her flesh and skeleton turned to dust and wafted away on the night air. The startled vampires jumped up and turned to Alma, but not before Gloria caught a stake in her head, just under her jaw, and Rachel caught the other in her ribs. They turned to dust and Alma stepped back when Ines took a swing. The stocky nun then screamed as she got both stakes in the chest and turned to dust, just like her sisters.

"No!!" Cara screamed, her eyes filled with fury. "You cunt! You killed them!"

"I'm an assassin, hermana. I like killing. You think I'm gonna pass up the chance to ice a couple of bloodsuckers?" She tossed a stake to Star, who had collapsed to the floor. "Stop laying down on the job, gringa. Let's get this bitch."

Star gripped the stake and rose to her feet, chuckling as she eyed Cara with a hateful gaze. Cara moved with a blur of speed, grabbed Alma by her neck and slammed her against a wall. She wrenched the stake from her hand and squeezed tight.

"You little twat. I've walked this world longer than you've been alive. I will carve my name in your fucking heart. I will devour every organ in your..." she grunted when Star stabbed her in the shoulder with the stake and turned to smack her, only for the blonde to slip out of the way and stab her with the other stake, pinning her shoulder to the wall.

Alma dropped to her feet and coughed, gripping her neck. Cara's shoulder, where the stake was still impaled, was injured, and she could barely move the arm to free her other one. Alma stumbled over to another pew and kicked out two more broken pieces to make new stakes. She then handed one to Star and pulled hers back like it was a javelin.

"On three, Gringa. One...two..."

Star smirked and pulled back her stake.

"Three!"

The two women then launched the stakes at Cara.

"I should've fucking stayed in Ireland..." were Cara's last words.

III

The early morning sun began to rise over the desert horizon, and La Araña and Texas Star sat side by side as the convent burned in front of them. Star passed a bottle of bourbon they found in a sweep of the place to her temporary comrade.

"I hate this stuff," Alma said before taking a drink, swallowing, and eyeing the fire. "You think God is gonna punish us for burning down a convent?"

"Naw, not one crawling with vampires," Star answered. She then stood up and grabbed her duffle bag, having found it and their clothes after they killed the vampires. "All right, on your feet. Like I said, we got a long walk."

Alma looked up at her. "You can't be serious. After what we just went through?"

"You're still a cop killer, missy. Get up," Star ordered, her hand hovering near her holstered pistol.

Alma sighed and stood, putting the bottle down. "This isn't right. We're basically sisters now, after that. I saved your life, Gringa!"

Star sighed. "Don't fuckin' fight me, Alma. Neither of us is in the mood for a scrap."

"You aren't going to shoot an unarmed woman. Give me a fighting chance and let's settle this old-school. With some honor," Alma said, holding out her hand.

"You got a lotta nerve utterin' that word." Star said as she eyed her, understood the meaning, and then dropped her duffle bag and opened it. She retrieved a second revolver that she gave to Alma.

Alma checked the chamber and found six live rounds. She nodded, tucked the gun in her waistband, and stepped back.  "How are we gonna play it?"

Star went into her boot and took out her quarter. "I throw this up. It lands. We go."

Alma walked backward until she was twenty paces away. "You know, in another life, you and I were probably friends."

"Not in this one, though, honey," Star said, adjusting the brim of her hat.

Alma chuckled and kept her hand near the grip of her pistol.

"Ready?"

"Do it," Alma said.

Texas Star nodded and flipped the coin. Both women kept their hands near their guns and watched the coin spiral through the morning air, glint in the sun, and begin its descent.

It landed in a puff of dust.

Guns cleared holsters.

Two shots rang across the desert.

One body hit the ground.

The End