[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
was excruciating; it drove the breath from his body. At once the entire sky lit up, as if the world
were going up in flames. In the air was a feeling of dark foreboding. Gabriel had never felt
anything like it. The dark sky went red and orange with flames storming across the black
clouds. A network of white-blue veins sizzled and danced in the roiling clouds. All around, the
ground seemed to explode as bolt after bolt of lightning hit the earth.
Gabriel calmly extracted the heart and tossed it into the fiery conflagration, turning as he did
so to meet the threat behind him. The ancient undead had revealed himself, believing Gabriel
to be occupied with his partner. The vampire was thin and gray, his skin shrunken over his
bones. His hair was white and gray, a long tangle of frost. His eyes glowed red hot, a feral
cunning in them. He backed away from Gabriel, his gaze darting from side to side, looking for a
way out. He didn't understand the intensity of the storm raging around them. He didn't
recognize the hunter confronting him. He had lived by knowing how to avoid confrontation with
the hunters, by studying his enemies and picking his moments to fight.
There was a voice whispering in his head. At first he couldn't hear the words over the
explosions slamming all around him. He watched the hunter back slowly away from him. The
voice was pure and beautiful, moving through his mind almost gently. It was painful to hear that
voice, to listen to the tone. It had been long since the vampire had listened to such purity, and
his body cringed away from the sound.
The voice was the brush of black velvet, a soft whisper of death. The vampire didn't take his
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
eyes from the hunter now, believing he would attempt to deliver the killing blow momentarily.
He was ready for it. He had tricks, illusions, so much power. He was fresh, without real injury,
while the hunter had been weakened battling his lesser servants. The undead knew he had
scored a terrible blow to the hunter and the creatures had drained precious blood from him, yet
the hunter stood tall and straight with the black eyes of death.
Was that his voice whispering in his head? Where was it coming from? No Carpathian male
had ever exchanged blood with him. He had no connection with anyone, yet he could hear that
soft whisper calling him to his death. The words were clearer now. They spoke so gently of
death. Of hopelessness. There was no hope. This hunter would take his life. He would die this
night after surviving where others could not. "Who are you?" The vampire shrieked.
"Death," the beautiful voice whispered.
"I am Gabriel," Gabriel replied. He was leery of the firestorm raging in the skies, his every
sense flaring out to locate the one initiating the blasts. Their creator was definitely one of much
skill and power.Lucian. There was no spillage, nothing to tell where the power came from, it
simply surrounded Gabriel and the vampire, a force of great destruction.
The vampire snarled, his sharp teeth stained from years of tainted blood. "You think to defeat
me with clever tricks. No hunter has defeated me in centuries, but you, an unknown, presume
to challenge me."
All at once Gabriel was weary. He had played out this same scene on so many battlefields, in
so many countries, in so many centuries. It was always the same. The vampire was attempting
to use his voice to weaken Gabriel's confidence.
Gabriel's head went up, his dark features hardening into an expressionless mask. "You know
of me, ancient one. You do not want to know me, as I have been named legend by our people.
You cannot defeat me. The battle is already won and justice has finally come to you."
There was a curious whisper brushing Gabriel's mind. A soft note of censure almost, yet not
quite. Gabriel was not using his own voice to defeat the ancient killer as he should have been.
He was tired from blood loss; the stench of death filled his mind and heart. He was tired of
destroying his own people time and time again. He would do what was necessary, but he did not
have to enjoy it.
The vampire suddenly covered his ears and began to wail in a high-pitched tone, attempting to
drown out the insidious whispering of that velvet voice. There was a quality to that voice that
insisted on being heard. It was sapping his strength, taking his power, removing his abilities.
Shrieking his hatred and fear, the vampire played his last card, jerking his arms wide and
calling his minions to the kill.
At once the mire erupted with hundreds of huge leeches, boiling out of the mud to swarm at
Gabriel. Even as they did so, the air groaned with a sudden infestation of owls, a black cloud of
bodies that dove, talons ex- tended, straight for the hunter. The vampire turned to make his
escape and ran straight into the Carpathian. The hunter seemed to shimmer out of the air itself,
his face a mask of granite.
The vampire looked down and saw his chest, wide open, his withered heart pulsing in the fist of
the hunter. The man never changed expression, yet he seemed to be fading in and out, almost
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
an illusion. Only his fist was all too real. The vampire screamed his hatred and defiance,
lunging forward in an attempt to recover his stolen heart. He fell facedown in the muck of his
own making, the leeches finding him immediately. They covered his body, filling the empty hole
in his chest.
Gabriel had been forced to dissolve when the vampire sent his servants to attack. He had
risen high above the ground, into the clouds themselves. Now he directed the electrically
charged air in a thin whip along the ground to sear the leeches and fry the raptors right out of
the sky. They rained on the earth, their blackened bodies plopping into the bog. He could see
the vampire lying in the muck along with his minions and wondered for a moment what trick the
undead thought to play. What good would it do to pretend death?
With his superior eyesight, Gabriel could see the vampire's heart several feet from his body,
lying atop a rock.Lucian. He had definitely joined the hunt, removing all other players from their
battleground. Gabriel could see that the vampire was dragging himself forward, inching his way
ever closer to the withered heart. At once Gabriel directed the whip of lightning, reducing the
heart to a pile of ashes, ensuring the undead could never rise again. The vampire let out a
hideous hiss, a last protest just as the lightning bolt took him, incinerating his body, removing
all evidence of his existence. There was nothing left to do but clean up. Gabriel took care to
eliminate all evidence of the vampire and his work from the area. The bog would be a trap for
animals and humans alike, and Gabriel used precious energy to eradicate it. It took a long time
to extract every evil thing from that place, replacing it with good.
Whatever game Lucian was playing, it would have to wait. Gabriel's wounds were throbbing.
He kept the pain at bay, but his energy was gone. He would not attempt to pursue Lucian this
night. He could only find it in himself to be grateful his twin had come down on his side in the
battle.
When Gabriel turned toward his home, weariness immediately set in. He was tired and his
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]