Dark Song

Rotted flesh hung off skeleton bones. What seemed a fit body was no more than an illusion perfected over centuries. Ambrus might not appear to be as vain as any other vampire, but clearly he wanted to appear to the others as a mountain of a man with a muscular, battle-scarred body. That was worth noting—that Ambrus had included scarring when forging an appearance. He hadn’t made himself as the Astors had, flawless and handsome.

Instead of the long hair of the traditional Carpathian warrior that Ambrus favored, his skull had great scaly patches of some gooey substance that oozed from inside his brain to dribble in a steady stream down his head and trickle out of holes where his ears should be. His eyes were sockets of flaming red. He had no nose, only twin sunken holes, and his mouth was filled with jagged, pointed teeth so stained with blood they appeared black.

Elisabeta, in all the centuries Ambrus has appeared to the Malinovs, has he always appeared as you have seen him? With this image? He showed her the copy of a very fit Ambrus, trying to spare her the true rotted soul of the vampire.

Within the coils of the lightning whip, Ambrus began to sway back and forth, murmuring to himself, his long, bony fingers tapping a rhythm on his thin, emaciated leg.

Always.

As the coils dropped from Ambrus, Ferro flicked his hands casually toward the vampire, surrounding him with mirrors, above him, below and completely circling him. There was nowhere the vampire looked that he didn’t see himself reflected back in his true, hideous state. He stretched his thin lips in a wide protest, screaming in horror, throwing up his arms to cover his eyes while maggots and a wealth of parasites tumbled from his mouth and throat to spew against the reflective glass.

Ferro slammed his fist deep into the chest wall, breaking through the brittle bones without the armor of Ambrus’s woven muscle and dense bone he most likely threaded with other things to make it much more difficult for a Carpathian hunter to get to his heart. His fingers sought the withered organ, but it wasn’t where it should have been.

He has moved it lower, to the base of his spine.

Ferro didn’t hesitate. He withdrew his fist and slammed into him a second time, searching for the heart, fighting to get to it. Ambrus was already recovering from the momentary shock of seeing his true image after centuries of convincing himself of what he looked like. The master vampire leaned forward and bit down viciously into Ferro’s shoulder, tearing great chunks of his flesh from his body, and gulped at them, gulped at the rich, ancient blood that would give him a burst of strength.

The vampire tried to turn his head so he could sink his teeth into Ferro’s neck and get at the jugular. Ferro continuously whirled in a circle, driving Ambrus backward into the mirrors so the glass shattered, driving the shards into the bones, keeping the master vampire from being able to shift or get his bearings. Ferro was too fast and too strong, holding off the vampire’s teeth as his fist dug for the heart against his spine.

Ambrus retaliated, turning his hands into knifelike weapons, plunging them over and over deep into Ferro’s chest, driving straight for the Carpathian’s heart. Ferro heard Elisabeta’s gasp and cut off all contact with her immediately, stoically accepting the pain. It was a battle. Hunters expected to be wounded. They had to be close to extract the heart, and that meant the vampire would be able to rend and tear at their bodies. That was drilled into them from the time they were young boys. It was one of the reasons he didn’t want Josef hunting the undead too soon. The boy might have the courage and the knowledge, but he didn’t yet have the body to be torn into pieces and survive the experience.

The moment Ferro had the heart in his palm he closed his fingers around it and ripped it from the master vampire’s body, turned and flung it high into the air. Lorraine!

It would be the last thing any vampire would expect. Ambrus would try to steal the lightning from him, and he raised his hand as if wielding the whip as it blazed through the dark sky. Lorraine targeted the tiny wizened organ, impossible to see because Ferro had thrown it so high, but tied to him through their soul bond, she tracked that blackened target.