Sandu gave a small, courtly bow. “I have not had the pleasure of an actual introduction, although I know you by reputation, Abascus.”
Abascus quickly glanced, with satisfaction, both right and left. His lesser vampires had not let him down. Both rose with grim smiles to face the ancient hunter as well. They took their cue from Abascus, acting civil, when neither would prefer to face such a skilled hunter.
“I fear you chose a bad night to pit your inexperienced pawns against Lucian. He has several visitors.” Sandu waved his hand. “My friend Benedek. He wishes to try his ancient techniques against one of your best. And Petru. You must have heard of him. He has been around for centuries. His fighting skills are legendary. Petru will be more than happy to engage with your good friend.” He nodded toward Ambrus.
Sandu didn’t wait. The scent of the battle was on him. A thousand years. Two. Time no longer mattered. Only this. There was only this in his world, the destruction of pure evil. The power moved through his veins. The inching of glacier ice. The ice burned white-hot. So hot it turned blue, like the densest glacier. That blue turned to a flickering flame. The flame smoldered in his eyes, glowed there in the dark, going blue to red, then fiery red. That same flame moved in his veins, slow, like that sluggish burn of magma in a volcano. He welcomed that burn, felt that fire spreading.
Abascus was a master vampire, and as such, he would not be easy to defeat. Sandu was close, and even as he nodded toward Ambrus, he stepped right into Abascus and drove his fist into the master vampire’s chest as the burn inside his veins turned into a fiery explosion. Black blood coated his fist and forearm. Acid burned skin away as his fingers stretched, reaching, his nails lengthening into sharp talons, digging for the wizened, blackened heart.
Abascus screamed and slammed his forehead hard against Sandu’s head—only at the last moment, Sandu changed the composition of his forehead so that when Abascus struck, he hit pure steel. Black blood erupted from Abascus’s head, pouring over his eyes, and with it, tiny white writhing parasites burst out of his skull.
That red fiery hell in Sandu demanded he keep smashing that steel block into Abascus’s forehead, obliterating all flesh until it was all white jagged bones and leeching brains, volumes of black acid and those tiny writhing parasites. All the while, Sandu continued digging deep until his nails found the heart and grasped it. He began to extract it from the body.
Abascus contorted, desperate to shift, but Sandu would not release the heart, not even when the vampire slammed his own fist into the hunter’s chest in order to try to get to his heart. Sandu was prepared for just such a move. He had fought master vampires for centuries. Once this close, there were only so many moves one could make. The fist came up against that same composition of steel, smashing all the bones in the hand.
With his free hand, Sandu’s nails lengthened, and he dug into Abascus’s neck and throat with razor-sharp talons, slicing through flesh to get at arteries. Acid poured from the master vampire along with the wiggling parasites. Sandu shoved his hand through the throat to the back of the neck, reaching for the spinal cord as he closed his other fist around that blackened, wizened heart.
In desperation, Abascus shifted his legs to that of a large cat, using long claws to rake at Sandu’s thighs and groin. Sandu continued to withdraw the heart, feeling the first rake down his left thigh but turning his body to keep the vampire from scoring his groin. In truth, he was caught up in the red haze of battle, beyond all feeling, by the need to rend and tear the despicable evil creature in front of him, intent on inflicting the most damage possible as he took the heart of the undead. The claws tore at his thighs in desperation, but Sandu changed the composition of his body to break the nails on the talons. He had been at this too many centuries not to know every trick the vampire knew. Now he had the heart out of the body.
Lightning cracked across the dark sky. Abascus took a step back on the boulder, his face contorting into a mask of fury and terror. Sandu brought one foot up and kicked him square in the chest, driving him backward over the falls. As he did, he tossed the blackened heart into the air and with one hand directed the lightning bolt straight at it. The white-hot spear hit the blackened organ, reducing it to ash instantly and then arcing down the rocks straight to the body of the master vampire, where he sat in a daze staring up at Sandu in confusion. The flash of light consumed him instantly, leaving nothing but ash behind. That slowly disappeared from the rocks, washed away by the water pounding down from above.