Kissed by Darkness(31)

With a scream of rage, he wrenched the blade out of his chest and sent me flying across the park to land with a jarring thud next to the ship’s anchor which stood in the middle of the park. Fortunately, I landed on the grass instead of the monument itself, but it still hurt like hell.

The boys gaped at me for a minute then scattered into the night, the non-human one pausing for just a moment before following his friends. Smart boys.

I staggered to my feet pretty sure nothing was broken, just badly banged up. He was much, much stronger than I’d expected. I pulled my sword from the sheath across my back. It was made of ultra-light steel and edged in silver. It went through a vampire with hardly a hint of resistance. I was so not messing around with this guy.

His eyes flashed red in the darkness and he tossed his blond hair back with a laugh. “Stupid Hunter,” he jeered. “You think your little knife can hurt me? You are pathetic!”

“Oh, come on,” I goaded him. “I don’t know why you vampires always insist on taunting Hunters. I mean, for gods’ sake, it’s like bad B movie dialogue. Bram Stoker would have been so embarrassed.”

He hissed angrily. “Fine. Why don’t I just kill you then?” He stalked toward me. His eyes were very definitely red. Vampire should have been a bit colorless, like all the color they had in life got leached out after death. Red was most definitely weird.

“What? You mean like you were supposed to the other night?” I circled to the right, keeping my sword up and myself just out of his reach. “Bet Kaldan was mad about that.”

“Kaldan can kiss my ass,” he snarled back.

“Do I sense dissension among the ranks?”

“You can sense whatever you want, Hunter. It won’t do you any good after I’ve killed you.”

I laughed. “Right, ‘cause that’s gonna happen.”

He rushed me then, and even though I was ready, I barely missed getting taken down. I did manage to flick my sword fast enough to slice him open at the waist. He screamed. More in rage than in pain, I thought.

“Stupid bitch!”

“Oh, come now. That’s not very creative. You can do better than that, surely,” I mocked him. Taunting an enraged vampire was a dangerous business, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. If I could get him mad enough, he’d make mistakes.

He rushed me again, but this time I was more than ready. I danced out of the way, flicking the blade at him again, taking the cut a little deeper. He was bleeding. Badly. Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly enough to take him down. I had to take him down and fast, before I tired any more. So, this time, I rushed him.

I ran straight at him, my eyes never wavering from the red glow of his. I saw the triumph in those glowing eyes as he grabbed me by the throat and reared back to sink his teeth in. Then I watched the triumph turn to shock as I plunged the needle sharp neck of my brand new toy straight into his stomach, right through the cut I’d given him earlier. “I’ll give Kaldan your regards,” I told him and squeezed the bulb, flooding salt water straight into his body.

I jerked the aspirator out, and danced back out of his reach as his body froze in shock. The flesh around the wound began to bubble, then melt, and the bubbling and melting spread from the wound out over his entire body as he stood there and screamed and screamed and screamed. I finally had to cover my ears.

The stench was unbearable. Good thing most people can’t smell the undead the way I do. This would have drawn a lot of attention.

With one last scream, it was like something let go and his body dissolved into a pile of steaming gunk which slowly melted away into the grass just like demon spawn with holy water. I held the aspirator in the palm of my hand and gave it a little smile. “Way to go,” I told it. Tessalah would be so proud.





Chapter Nine





I was still revved from hunting on the drive home. Sure, I knew taking out the blond vamp would only delay things. After all, Kaldan was still out there, and if Darroch really was paying him to have his flunkies follow me, they’d just send someone else. Still, I finally felt like I was getting somewhere, or at the very least, taking control of things.

If Darroch thought I would be easy to manipulate, he had another think coming. I was not so easy to distract and even less easy to kill. The vamp attack that had changed my life three years ago had proven that. They say what doesn’t kill you made you stronger. Seriously, they had no idea how true that was.

That thought led me right to another thought I was trying to avoid. What exactly had happened out there at the Waterfront? I vaguely remembered the feel of the night all around gathering close to me, feeding me. I shuddered. Weirdness. Serious weirdness. The most worrying part of all had been that while the first time was an accident, the second time I’d done it on purpose. What the hell was going on with me?