Dark Legend (39 page)

She had never expected to love him so much. And she had never expected to feel so loved. Gabriel wasn't shy about showing her his emotions. He hungered for her with an intensity she had never dreamed of. Not simply her body, but her company, her heart and soul. He liked to be in her mind, sharing her laughter, the way she looked at life. The way she lived. He had such pride in her, such a deep belief in her.

"Gabriel." She breathed his name, her body soft and pliant, molding itself to his. "Hurry back to me." She had no thought of seduction—the last thing on her mind was making love—yet she felt a terrible need for him.

Gabriel filled her mind with love and warmth as he held her to him; then he was striding away, back through the tunnel to the upper stories. By the time he had reached the kitchen, he was invisible, moving fast, a cold blast of air.

This time Gabriel streamed under the door out into the garden, taking to the sky immediately. He had destroyed a minion of the vampire, had taken one of his puppets from him. The vampire would be in a rage and easy to locate. Already Gabriel could feel the disturbing vibrations in the air. They flowed through the sky, leading him like an arrow toward the vampire.

"You go to this one's lair like an amateur. He has set a trap for you, hunter."

Gabriel continued moving. Lucian sounded far too close for comfort. If he took a hand in the battle, there was no way to know which side he would come down on.
"Do you suggest another approach?"
Gabriel replied.

"Back off. You know better than to go into battle when the enemy is waiting for you."
The voice was as soft and gentle as always, with no hint of a reprimand. Gabriel found himself smiling. Lucian's presence was so familiar to him, so much a part of him.

"
I thank you for your advice, ancient one."
The old taunt was a reminder that Lucian was older by a few minutes. Gabriel was unswerving on his path, but more alert now. He had no fear of the upcoming battle with the vampire, but his twin was a different matter,

"You are not heeding my advice."

"This one is not as powerful as those we have faced in the past."

"This one is an ancient."

Gabriel withdrew from the merge, his mind turning over the possibilities. What was Lucian up to? He shifted his course, turning in a circle to approach from a different direction, scanning below him as he went. He was over a river, where a vast bridge covered the water. Two tubes ran along the embankment, emptying their contents into the river. The tubes were quite large and surrounded by masses of reeds. He could feel the presence of the vampire. There was a dark, malevolent feeling in the air, heavy and oppressive.

Gabriel was very familiar with the foul stench of the undead. It clogged the air as nothing else could. They were masters of illusion, presenting themselves to their human prey as handsome or beautiful, but in reality they were gaunt and gray, with receding gums and sharp, stained teeth. Gabriel felt their presence like a blow deep in his gut; he abhorred the subversion of superior gifts and talents meant to be used for good.

Below him the region looked stable, but the wind told him different. The vampire was waiting, lurking in the shadows, unseen, bloated with his own power, enraged. The scent of blood reached Gabriel just before the soft choked cry that signaled a kill. The wind carried the tale, the fear and adrenaline in the blood of the victim that would give the vampire a rush, make him even more powerful.

The vampire had known he was coming, had baited the trap and waited like a spider in the midst of his web. He had human prey, kept alive and terrorized, so that adrenaline would flood the bloodstream. The rush was addicting to the undead. They believed it made them stronger and much more difficult to kill. Gabriel couldn't spot the exact location of the vampire; there was more than one suspicious "dead" spot in the air.

He took a pass over the area before settling to earth. At once the ground shifted slightly and his feet sank into a black mire. It sucked at his shoes, the grip astonishingly strong as if the bog actually wanted to drag him under. Something moved toward him beneath the surface, fast, serpentine, large, raising the reed-choked mud. Gabriel dissolved quickly into droplets of mist, merging with the heavy fog. At once a ferocious wind began to blow, striking at the molecules hidden in the fog in an attempt to scatter them and stop Gabriel from bringing his body together. A foul dark shape hurtled through the fog bank directly at the droplets.

The shape hit a barrier before it could reach Gabriel's bodyless form. It fell from the sky into the bog even as Gabriel rose sharply to avoid the dark mass. The monster hidden in the mud attacked at once, dragging at the struggling form while Gabriel shape-shifted above the scene. He hadn't thought it necessary to throw up a barrier, so he supposed his twin had once again joined the battle, inserting his body between Gabriel and the vampire. Yet Gabriel could not detect his presence. That was Lucian's skill. He could go undetected while others could not. The wind would not whisper of his presence or give him away to any seeking him.

The vampire howled in anger and pain, hurling from him the wormlike creature he'd created. He extricated himself from the mud, whirling this way and that in an attempt to locate Gabriel. Gabriel dropped from the sky, one razor-sharp talon ripping across the vampire's throat. The creature screamed in rage and at once lightning arced in the clouds and the air boiled with dark malevolence.

They struck from all sides, dark-winged gargoyles ripping at Gabriel, clawing and biting at him, landing on his head and shoulders, weighing him down in an attempt to drive him to earth and the black mire. Calmly Gabriel dissolved beneath them, streaming into the rank air toward the vampire. He shifted into his form just as he made a thrust at the vampire's chest, his feet inches above the ground.

His fist penetrated the chest wall, but the vampire was already moving away from him, his voice a jarring cacophony of sound so hideous and discordant, it hurt Gabriel's ears. To protect himself, Gabriel immediately muted the sound and turned it back on the vampire. His hand was burning with the poisonous blood coating it. He had to keep moving to avoid the gargoyles. There was no standing in one place with the creatures constantly circling and darting at him. They raked at his skin and eyes, clawing and biting to aid their master.

Gabriel was patient. The vampire had two major wounds, draining him of his strength. In the muck and mire, with blood seeping below the ground, the worm creature was becoming difficult for the vampire to control. It was in a frenzy, snapping and biting at its creator, looking for flesh and blood. Gabriel had closed himself off to pain and fatigue. His entire being was focused on the battle.

As he prepared to launch another attack on the vampire, lightning erupted unexpectedly from the sky above. Gabriel hadn't felt the surge of power, so he was as surprised as the vampire when the lash of white-hot energy whipped across the sky, a jagged streak that cleared the air instantly of the malevolent gargoyles. They fell to the muck, scorched and seared, incinerated by the blast of energy. At once the worm creature rose up to consume them. Another bolt came out of the clouds, missed the vampire by scant inches, and reduced the worm to ashes.

The stench was incredible. Gabriel struck while the vampire was reeling from the shock of the lash of lightning. He blurred his image and moved with preternatural speed, slamming into the vampire, driving hard with his fist into the same wound, this time reaching the blackened, withered organ he was seeking.

As he began to extract the heart, he felt the warning in his mind, and shifted his body weight. Something hit him hard in his side, penetrating his rib cage, breaking bones as it went. The pain 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 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 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.