Dark Slayer Page 0,118

dangerous and they all should have known better.

"Have you considered that you are following a couple that your prince has promised safe passage to?" he asked, keeping his voice mild and nonjudgmental.

Vikirnoff shrugged, equally casual. "This is an uncertain road. We would be remiss in not guarding the prince's guests."

Gregori's eyebrow rose even higher. "I see. You don't mind if I just tag along and make certain you're all safe, right?"

Swift impatience crossed Vikirnoff's face. "I doubt we'll need protection, but you're welcome. Just make certain you mask your presence. I gave both of them blood so I will have no problem following them."

"That will be interesting. I also gave them blood. Between the two of us, we should have no problem."

Andre and Tariq exchanged a long look and then peered through the snow. It was coming down faster and faster.

"Is there something about this couple we should know, Gregori?" Tariq asked. He still held a faint European accent beneath the American one.

Gregori shook his head. "I am certain none of you would have come on such a mission without a clear idea of who you are chasing."

"A woman," Andre said. "Just a woman and her lifemate. One fairly unskilled."

Gregori followed the others through the snow. "To be fair, they did encounter a master vampire and saved four humans."

Andre gestured around him. "They play like children in the forest, while they carry a book of immense importance."

"Do they now? A book of immense importance?"

Vikirnoff glared at him. "Enough, Gregori. You choose to be amused by this situation, but you did not see the things I did when Natalya recovered that book. It is dangerous. Too dangerous to go unguarded with people we do not know and with enemies closing in around us."

"Oh, I assure you, Vikirnoff, amusement is not what I am feeling." Gregori strode away from the man before he cursed him for being bull-headed. He dropped back, allowing the others to take the lead, knowing the seven hunters were underestimating their prey. In fact, chasing the pair into their own territory was probably the worst idea anyone had had in a long while, but he refused to waste his breath.

Nicolae held up his hand and all of them crouched low, spreading out and automatically blurring their bodies to make it much more difficult to see in the thick snowstorm. A slight breeze blew through the trees so that they caught glimpses of figures up ahead in the meadow-many figures. Big. Tall. Short. Stout. Arms stuck out in strange sticklike shapes, the fingers outstretched as if seeking something.

"What is it?" Vikirnoff asked. "That's not them."

"Ghouls? An army of ghouls?" Andre suggested.

Gregori rolled his eyes. "I very much doubt it."

As they stared, trying to peer through the heavy veil of snow, the figures shifted, moving busily around, stooping, shaping, building a low structure.

"A wall?" Tariq whispered.

"It's going up fast. Too fast to be anything but magic," Mataias warned. He signaled his brothers and they separated, coming around the meadow from three different points of attack.

The hunters crept closer, using the trees to mask their presence, all senses alert. Whatever was guarding the couple gave off no scent, no spoor whatsoever. It was as if the couple was gone, and the land itself was pristine with snow.

"A fortress," Lojos hissed in warning.

The attack came swiftly. Missiles whistled through the air, a bombardment, the air heavy with white-capped balls that hit with deadly accuracy, slamming into the Carpathians, the trees, and everything else in the battle zone.

"Acid!" Tomas hissed in warning.

The men dissolved and burst onto the battlefield, each in front of one of the attacking ghouls, punching through the chest to get at withered hearts, others slicing through necks to take the heads from the vampire's puppets.

Gregori folded his arms and leaned against the broad trunk of a tree and watched the frenzied, chaotic fight, the battle raging furiously as the ghouls continued hurling the missiles and others continued rapidly building until the structure began to form a roof, now surrounding them on all four sides, confining them within its walls.

"It is a trap," Tariq warned the others. "Above you."

The seven Carpathian hunters somersaulted away from their opponents, each trying to study the structure rapidly enclosing them.

Gregori shook his head, rolling his eyes while the minutes ticked by and the ghouls grew more plentiful and the missiles doubled.

Vikirnoff worked his way across the battlefield to his side. "Do you mind helping?"

"I would feel a bit ridiculous fighting snowmen, but you go