Dark Demon Page 0,5

for a moment everything went numb and the sword slid out of her hand. She kept moving, spinning nearly in midair, already reaching for her guns. She drew both, rapidly firing as she raced at him, the bullets slamming into him repeatedly, driving him backwards away from her.

Henrik jerked with each bullet, staggering, but staying upright. As she reached arm's distance, she holstered one gun and drew a knife, holding it low, close to her body as she drove toward him.

He attempted to shift shape, reaching for her with contorting arms and clawed hands. She drove the knife into his chest, deep into his heart and leapt away to keep the blood from touching her skin. She'd learned from experience it burned like acid. She'd also learned vampires could rise again and again.

She whirled around and raced for her sword. The wind rushed over her, a whirling eddy of leaves and twigs. Wings beat strongly above her head and talons materialized out of the sky, dropping at an alarming rate of speed straight toward her eyes. Natalya dove for the ground in a rolling somersault, coming up on one knee, guns in both hands, tracking the huge bird. It had already dissolved into mist. The droplets shimmered and began to take the shape of a human.

She waited. It was impossible to kill a vampire without form. Already Henrik was stirring, tugging at the knife buried in his heart. He called weakly to the new arrival. She heaved a sigh. "Die already! Sheesh, the least you could do is put yourself out of your misery and get it over."

"Good evening, Natalya." The voice was hypnotic, almost mesmerizing.

"Well, if it isn't my good friend Arturo." Natalya faced the vampire with a false smile. "How nice to see you again. It's been a long time." She gestured with her gun toward the writhing vampire. "Your little sissy partner is making so much noise. Would you mind finishing him off so we can talk without the background music? If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a whiney vampire." Deliberately she continued to goad Henrik, knowing the angrier the vampire, the more mistakes they made in battle.

"You haven't changed much."

"I've gotten meaner." She shrugged and grinned at the newcomer. "I'm losing my tolerance for your kind."

Arturo glanced at the bleeding vampire clawing at the ground. "I see that. He is rather loud, isn't he?" He walked over and yanked the knife from his partner's heart and tossed it aside, nudging the vampire with his toe contemptuously. "Get up, Henrik."

Henrik managed to stagger into a standing position. He shrieked and hissed, spittle and blood running down his face. "I'm going to kill you," he snapped, glaring at Natalya.

"Do shut up," Natalya said. "You're becoming so repetitive."

"You will not escape this time," Arturo said. "You cannot best Henrik, me and the wolves. Do you hear them? They are on their way to assist us."

"You take all the fun out of fighting because you never fight fair," Natalya complained. "You have no honor."

Arturo smiled at her with his perfect white teeth. "What is honor after all, Natalya? It is worth nothing."

Vikirnoff Von Shrieder knew the moment he entered the heavy woods that something evil waited there. The warning came in the silence of the forest, the way the earth shuddered and the trees cringed. Not a single living creature moved. It mattered little. He was a hunter and he expected danger to find him. It was his accepted way of life and had been for centuries.

He took a step and stopped abruptly as the grass shivered beneath his feet. He looked down, half expecting to see the stalks shrivel. Was the forest shrinking from direct contact with him? Had it sensed the darkness shadowing him with every step, with each breath he took? Nature could very well be naming him monster-vampire, a Carpathian male who had deliberately chosen to give up his soul for the momentary rush of power and emotion a kill while feeding brought.

It was a choice, wasn't it? Had he made a decision and was no longer aware of whether he was good or evil? Was there even such a thing? The thought should have distressed him, but it didn't. He felt nothing at all even as he contemplated the idea that he was no longer fully a Carpathian male; that the predator in him had consumed all but some small spark left in his soul.

He dropped to his knees, his hands digging through