Dragon's Fire Read Free Page A

he was an inexperienced fighter. If I had to guess, I'd say he tried to act tough and macho around his coven but, in reality, he only picked easy marks when he was trying to prove how big and bad he was. It sucked for him that he'd thought I'd be an easy kill.
     
    “You bitch,” he snarled as he spun around.
     
    I flicked open my blade and settled into my usual fighting stance. “You're really going to wish you'd left like I'd asked you to.” I amended. “Well, at least until I kill you.”
     
    I felt the unease ripple around the younger vampires as they looked to their sire for instructions. This would be the tipping point. If Mullet decided that he'd rather be cautious and lose face than take me on alone, the odds would no longer be in my favor. I could kill a coven of five fairly young vampires, but it wouldn't be easy. I was counting on Mullet's arrogance to outweigh his common sense. Fortunately for me, he proved me right.
     
    “I was just going to bleed you quick,” he growled. “But now I'm going to fuck you while I drain you nice and slow. It'll take days.”
     
    I knew of one way to guarantee his head wasn't in the fight. I gave him a sceptical look. “I don't think you could last that long.”
     
    My words did the trick. With an animalistic roar, Mullet charged me. This time, I didn't spin out of the way. Instead, I took a step forward to meet him, my knife hand outstretched. His momentum allowed me to plunge my knife straight through the heart. He had a moment to look surprised before he fell to the ground. I yanked the knife from his heart and turned to face the remaining four vampires.
     
    “How – how did you do that?” The youngest one, a timid-looking young man who couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen when he'd been turned, was staring at me. “I didn't think a knife could kill us.”
     
    “Let me guess,” I knelt next to their sire, all the while keeping my eyes on them. “Mullet here told you that you just had to watch out for sunlight and wooden stakes, right?” The nervous glances they gave each other told me that I'd hit the mark. I ripped open Mullet's shirt. “FYI, the sunlight part's right. Wooden stakes, well, that depends.” I plunged my knife into his chest. “Any weapon that's been marked by symbols of faith, if it pierces the heart of a vampire, will stop it until the weapon is removed. Then the vampire will start to heal. Oh, it takes them an hour or so, but they can recover.” All four of the vampires visibly paled – which is saying something – as I carved into their sire's chest. “But, if I take the heart or the head,” I stuck my hand into the warm, wet cavity and pulled. “Well, let's just say that vampires can't re-grow missing parts.”
     
    I'd never seen a vampire throw up before, but two of them darted into the bushes with their hands over their mouths. The other two couldn't seem to stop staring at the muscle I held in my hand. I set it on the ground and proceeded to slice it in half. Mullet hadn't fed in the last couple of days. That was good. Less blood for me to get on my clothes. Pretty much everything I owned had blood stains on it, but if I could avoid more, I tried. I heard a rustling sound and when I looked up from where I was dicing the heart into little bits, I saw that I was alone.
     
    “Let's hope they learned their lesson,” I muttered to myself as I finished. I picked up the pieces and began throwing them into the woods. This part was so much easier out here than it would be in a city. Vamps can't put a heart back together if it's been eaten by a dozen or so wild animals. It was rare, but if all of the pieces were stitched back together and put back into a vampire's chest, they could heal. Granted, it took a very powerful, usually very old, vampire to do something like that, but it was always better to be safe than sorry when dealing with these types of creatures. Oh, sorry, we're not supposed to call them 'creatures'