A Hero of Realms(21)

He lunged forward with the stake. I ducked, narrowly missing being gouged, and swept a leg beneath his feet, knocking him to the floor. I motioned to grab his weapon, but he was too fast. His arm shot out and he swept it from the floor a split second before my hand closed around it. Still lying on his back, he swung it in front of him, pointing it upward and forcing me backward as he threatened my midriff. Grabbing a particularly sharp shard of glass from the windowsill and ignoring the way its edges cut into my palms, I was about to launch myself at him when a second vampire slid through the window.

He too wore a mask, though, as with his companion, it didn’t hide his alarm on seeing me. Enough of his face was visible for me to see that he too hailed from the Orient. He slid out a stake from beneath his own cloak and brandished it at me.

I was hoping to avoid killing someone here, but as he plunged the stake toward my heart, it was clear that they would have no qualms about murdering me… which meant I had to give up my own qualms.

I hurled the shard of glass toward his head like a dagger. He yelped and staggered back as the glass dug into his right cheek.

The first vampire scrambled up from the floor where I’d knocked him. Leaping behind him, I held him in a choke and twisted his neck until it snapped. He sank to the floor, paralyzed.

That left me with one vampire to deal with. He’d yanked the glass from his cheek—which was now healing fast—and launched at me once more, his stake aimed at my heart. I dodged, causing him to miss my chest, but not the edge of my shoulder. The stake’s sharp tip sliced a gash in my bicep.

Angered, I leapt upward and grabbed hold of one of the wooden beams in the ceiling. My right leg hurtled toward the vampire and I kicked his head against the wall. His stake thudded to the floor. I leapt back down and wrestled him into submission beneath me. Then, extending my claws, with one swift motion I dug my right hand deep into his chest and tore through his heart.

Panting, I stood up and gazed around the wrecked, blood-splattered guest room. I swore beneath my breath before rushing to the bathroom. I rinsed off the blood from my body as best as I could before covering myself with my cloak. It was a good thing that I was wearing mostly dark clothes.

Someone in this guesthouse was bound to have heard all that—I wouldn’t have been surprised if the struggle was audible to supernatural ears even from down in the noisy bar. I stepped out of the room into the thankfully still-empty corridor and shut the door behind me. I found myself scanning the ceiling and walls instinctively for CCTV cameras before reminding myself that I wasn’t on Earth. Perhaps they had some other kind of surveillance system that wasn’t detectable to me. Whatever the case, there was only one thing I could think to do now.

I raced down the stairs to the sixth level and swept along the corridor until I stood outside Room 67. I heard soft breathing through the door. It sounded like Julie was asleep. I rapped against the door, loudly, but not loudly enough to sound desperate to neighbors on either side—or so I hoped.

A mattress creaked and soft footsteps moved toward the door. The handle turned and Julie appeared in the doorway. Her cropped black hair was tousled, and she was rubbing sleep away from her eyes as she looked at me, squinting from the corridor lighting.

Her lips parted to exclaim in surprise, but before she could, I clamped a palm over her mouth and pushed her back through the door. I pulled it shut behind me.

“What are you doing?” she gasped as I let go of her. She backed up against the wall, extending her claws.

“Is your surname Duan?”

She froze. “H-How do you know that?”

“Two men just broke into your room,” I said in a voice barely louder than a breath. “They were looking for a Ms. Duan.”

Julie’s jaw dropped. “Two men?” she asked in a choked voice. Her breathing grew fast and uneven. “Wh-What did they look like?”

I described their appearance as best as I could from what I’d seen around their masks.

“Oh, God.” She clasped a thin hand over her mouth. “They’re after me.”

“Who is after you?”

“What happened? Where are they now?”

“One paralyzed, one dead on the floor of your room.”

“Oh, no. No. No. No. I-I have to leave,” she stammered. She appeared to be in a state of shock as she grabbed her shoulder bag and began stuffing into it the few personal possessions she had placed on the mantelpiece and bedside table. She dashed into the bathroom and when she came back out, her face was stricken with terror. “I have to leave,” she repeated. “And you have to leave, too. You have no idea of the punishment The Tavern would deal you for slaughtering a person. We both have to get out of here!”