Nursery rhymes and fairy tales, part two

Well, here is another story, sort of in the same vein. More or less, anyway.

Red
She wore a hood.
It had obviously been some bright color when it was new, a dashing scarlet or a vivid crimson, but now it was grimy, as from years of wear.  It had been a gift to her, when she was small.  She was still small.  She still looked like easy meat.  It was an impression few lived to regret.  And beneath her hood?  She supposed she still looked like a girl.  She had avoided mirrors for a long time now, a bit afraid to approach.  Whether she was afraid of looking like a monster or not looking like a monster or not having a reflection at all, she could not say.  But she had heard that the unfortunate few who survived an encounter with her could recall the moment she lowered her hood with startling lucidity, however they gibbered otherwise.  They all spoke of innocent china-blue eyes, paired with a face that was anything but innocent.  She frowned at her feet as she flexed them, unconsciously impatient.  Sometimes it was more fun to leave them alive.  Sometimes.

She hadn't been to the Old Woman's house in years, but she was spending the day here, until it was safe to venture out.  She couldn't sleep.  Not until she had accomplished what she had journeyed here for.  At least the sun was low in the horizon.  At least she had found out that he, her quarry, still lived, and still lived here, in this forest.  He was a fool not to have left long ago, to have at least tried to hide from her.  Others had, though they were never successful.

She remembered them all too, all her victims, innocent and guilty (though mostly guilty).  All through the long years since the Change she remembered them, but none so often as the ones who had made her this way.  Two of them had been dealt with.  The third soon would be, tonight if she had her way.  She squatted on her haunches to wait for sundown, nodding off occasionally and dreaming of a blue-eyed orphan who gamboled through the woods happily, thinking she was going off to be adopted by a long-lost relative.  All a lie.  The Old Woman had been no blood of hers, and the Hairy Gentleman who had escorted her to the Old Woman's house had not been a friend nor a gentleman.  Together, against all custom, they had made her what she was, and they had paid the ultimate price for it eventually.  She dreamed of that as well, and her lips wrenched into something that was either smile, or snarl, or both.

She woke with a start as the moon peeped over the horizon.  It would be full tonight.  The phases of the moon were so second-nature to her now that she never consciously thought about them.  Full was better for this kind of work.  She stood and stretched, feeling the nocturnal surges in her body that made her so much more than human, so much more even than her sires had been.  She stepped out of the house, not bothering to close the door behind her.  No one lived here.  No one would again.  What did a door matter?  Let the forest overtake the house, and be done with it.  The sounds of the surrounding woods abruptly ceased the moment she came out, as if all the little birds and frogs and insects and deer and yes, even the bears and other predators knew what she was and were determined not to draw attention to themselves.  She breathed in the fresh evening air and grinned.  Without warning, she launched into a run, her hood flying back, her dark hair streaming in the wind.  Perhaps if you had seen her running that night, you would've noticed that her silhouette changed from moment to moment, as if her very existence shifted from moment to moment.  Or perhaps you would not have noticed at all.

She could feel his presence, somewhere deep in the forest, though she could not have told you how she did it.  She ran straight and true, an arrow fired by a master archer.  She was one with the night, and it was one with her, and it felt like almost no time at all before she ran into a clearing with a tiny cottage in its center.  She was not even out of breath, if indeed she breathed.

The cottage was ramshackle, and ill-kept.  Obviously he had no woman.  She grinned; this might be easier than she expected at first.  And more fun.  Quietly, she dropped to her hands and knees and loped over to a window, silent.  Most humans could not best her, but she had not lived so long without a healthy respect for caution.  She inched up, slowly, to peer over the windowsill.  He lay, asleep, in his bed, on top of the covers, his boots still on.  He snored the deep, heavy snores of drunkenness.  And he was three decades older than when she saw him last; she forgot, ageless as she was, that he would have aged.  She studied him a moment before pulling her hood back over her face and swinging herself through the open window into the room with a purposely loud thump.  She wanted him frightened.

And he was, or startled at the least.  With a shout he vaulted from the bed, coming flailing at her like a man possessed, shouting about thieves.  All that effort got him was a casual knock to the floor.  He clutched at a broken wrist and howled, all the fight gone from him.  She frowned.  Maybe this would not be quite as fun after all.

It only took him a few minutes to recover, and roll over, panting, to look his attacker in the face.  "You," he breathed hoarsely.  She smiled at him.  It was not a nice smile.  "Me," she agreed pleasantly.  His face gave her pure pleasure.  He looked uncertain, terrified, about to sick up.  She had seen him look like that once before, nearly thirty years ago.  He had been tall and golden-haired then, and looked like a hero out of story.  But he had been no hero.  He had chanced by the Old Woman's house while the Old Woman and the Hairy Gentleman were "experimenting" on her, and had overheard her screams.  He burst in, apparently to save her, but the scene that greeted his eyes paralyzed him.  All of them, blood-drainer and shape-shifter and wood-cutter and child had paused for a moment.  A hope that she would be saved had leapt up in her heart.  Then, he had quailed, and turned and fled, leaving her to those monsters.  He had let them take her life away from her, and her away from her life.  It was only fair that she return that favor.

"Why are you here?"  His voice was unsteady, but it was not a question.  Not really.

"You know why," she said firmly, but not unkindly.  "You must have known for years that I would return for you."  He began to nod, and she drew back her hood.  Something in her face made him begin to scream, a long, agonizing scream, and she pounced, all fangs and talons and rage and hate...

A few hours later, she left, once again not bothering to close the door behind her.  Nobody lived there.  No one would again.  Let the forest overtake the house, and be done with it.  She smiled down at her hands, returned to their normal shape.  Red.  It was, after all, her favorite color.