Bathe In Fire - Shadows of the Night 2

Chapter 24

I settled on the second street to my left, kitty-corner from where I came from. I forced my feet to move on and on, my lungs pumping oxygen through my blood system rapidly. The noise behind me was suddenly there. Instincts had me turn around. But I was human. I was slow. Too slow.

A vampire crashed against my shields, making me stumble back a few feet, the shields still intact. He snarled at me, his face a mask of stirred deadness. Extracted, long fangs contorted his face into the visage of a monster.

I stretched out my left hand, palm facing him, and sent a shock wave of compressed air in his direction. He evaded it and vanished from my sight. I turned and turned, peering into the veils of night around me. I found myself alone in the street. The drum-like sound was coming from inside of me. It was deafening and it was getting faster by the second. On the outside, however, I was surrounded by silence. Unknown darkness and danger seemed to be lurking in every shadow.

In all likelihood I had just met our murderer. My senses stretched and sharpened, brimming with electric-like attention. I let the air become my extended hand, running my mental eye through all the particles in the air, trying to see what could not be seen.

The vampire lunged at me from behind. I never had a chance. Flesh met asphalt, pain exploded, as I nosedived into the street. He was in front of me, above me, before I could even breathe. I raised my hands instinctively. The sphere of power burst from my palms like an explosive bomb. The vampire evaded it without missing a beat, coming at me with the force and speed of a freaking tornado in fast forward.

A blur of colors and darkness; a gust of wind. That was all I perceived at first – before I saw it. The head vampire himself had made his entrance into the fight. Before I knew it Alexander was holding the vampire, his white fingers curled around his opponent's neck. White flesh upon white flesh. The vampire's feet were dangling in the air, his two hands closing around Alexander's arm. An intricate interplay of emotional deadness and sparks of hatred marked the unknown vampire's face as he tried to pry his opponent off.

Alexander, meanwhile, was unfazed by his 'comrade's' attempts at escaping.

"You are not one of my subjects and I do not remember having ever seen you," he said.

His voice seemed to darken and deepen as the sentence stretched and lengthened. If I had to make an educated guess, I would have said he was fusing it with some sort of undead power.

"Who sent you? Tell me." Alexander shook him violently, the other vampire's eyes bulging.

"Fuck you!" he growled.

Alexander's eyes bled to a dark aquamarine. I felt the first stirrings of his power. Common sense made me re-erect my shields and search the darkness around us for other attackers. But there was nothing. No one. Just the three of us. My head snapped back to the two vampires when I heard Alexander's voice bursting with quiet hollowness – his most effective tool of intimidation he possessed. The silent whispering he performed held more threat than any human's roaring could have.

"You will tell me who sent you to kill the human, or I will rip you apart ... piece by piece."

I had lived through some of Alexander's tantrums, but the way he was acting at this moment was worse. This was the true nature of the undead. The unknown vampire, however, kept his mouth shut, contempt written all over his visage.

Alexander raised his other arm and drew back. Held by unknown forces that could have been cowardice, sick fascination, or shock – or maybe even an amalgam of all three, – I found myself incapable of moving. I watched and stared. Was the head vampire going to torture him?