behind a dense patch of brambles. But not dense enough. Radu whirled, aimed, and fired; Ion utered a cry of shock, pain, as the bolt zipped through fringing undergrowth to take him in the right forearm, spinning him until his feet tangled and he went down. His machete had flown from useless fingers. And suddenly he was a man alone, unarmed, against a monster ...
A shadow grew out of the night's darker shadows, and as the moon slipped behind a cloud Radu Lykan was there, his eyes like yelow lamps in the darkness.
And: 'Up,' he panted, his voice a cough, a bark, a hideous threat. 'On your feet, Ion Zirescu, or die where you lie.' He nocked the last of his bolts.
Sobbing, Ion got up, and stumbled backwards away from Radu until he backed up against a tree. And: 'Perfect!' the werewolf Radu growled, as he pointed his weapon point-blank and squeezed the trigger. The ironwood bolt shatered Ion's left colarbone and nailed him to the tree; his cry of agony cut the night like a knife, and he would have blacked out but daren't. His weight would rip the muscle of his shoulder open, or stretch and tear the ligaments there, and cripple him for life. Radu heard his thoughts and inquired, 'What life?'
'Kill me, then!' Ion sobbed. 'Get it done with, if that's what you want.' And with a bolt in his right arm, and another through his shoulder, holding him in place, he braced himself shuddering against the tree.
Radu's voice was a low rumble as he answered, 'But that's not al I want!'
'Wh-what?'
'You murdered my father, then raped and kiled my sister. Wel, Freji's paid for: Giorga paid that debt. But Magda can't ever be paid for, for she was priceless.
But you and your brother, the Ferenczys and those other two pigs, you held my sister down and took her again and again. Maybe two of you at a time ... or maybe three? I saw her body, the signs you left, your stinking froth on Magda's skin. As wel she died, for I don't think she could have lived with it. Wel, neither can I. And neither can you.'
His last words were a snarl; he hooked a hand like a claw in the front of Ion's trousers and ripped them open. Ion was caused to jerk a little, and the bolt in his shoulder dragged against raw nerves. He almost passed out, which wouldn't do at al. Radu pushed his wolfs face close, sniffed at Ion's parts and growled, That worthless thing was the instrument of your torture, your ... your pleasure?' As he closed his talon-like hand on his captive, Ion could do nothing but writhe and shudder against the tree. 'And you and the others, al six of you, you took turns to rape her of her innocence. Now it's my turn. Except you're not innocent.'
He crushed Ion to the tree, clenched his hand like a vice, used his vast Wamphyri strength to castrate and more than castrate the other. In a split second Ion lost everything, even the lower pipes of his body, dislocated, wrenched out of place, and left dangling. He lost consciousness, too, and would go on losing blood enough that he'd never again wake up. Well, and Radu wouldn't let it go to waste, not all of it.
While there was yet a pulse in his victim's neck, he sank a wolfs fangs into it to draw off the remainder of Ion's life.
And drank long and deep, giving nothing of himself but taking all from the other, even the very last dregs.
Blood ... it was what he'd needed, what his vampire leech had needed. It was the nectar of life ... it was the life!
And it was the drug that very nearly killed him, because he almost - but not quite - let himself drown in it. Because the sheer unbridled pleasure of it almost -but not quite - numbed him to everything else. Until, as if in a dream, he heard a startled gasp as someone cried:
There! But look - only look, will you!'
Radu knew the voice: Rakhi Ferenczy, the younger of that degenerate pair. Knew the next voice, too, as that of Rakhi's brother, when Lagula answered: 'I see him - and I've got the moon-crazed bastard!'
He surfaced from his delirium of bloodlust, straightened up from slaking his monstrous thirst, and shook his head -to clear his swimming senses and red-drenched vision both ...
... And moved - but not