Cristofor laughed and leaned down to scoop up a handful of snow to lick at the droplets, savoring the taste of pure Carpathian blood. Not just pure-the slayer was Ivory Malinov, from one of the strongest Carpathian lineages possible. He followed the arc of blood, saw her forming a few feet from him, closer to the tree line, and satisfaction made him cackle.
Ivory saluted him with two fingers, touched the thin line running across her neck and put her finger in her mouth, sucking off the blood. «Nice score. I did not see that coming and I shall have to apologize to my wolves for scolding them. But Cristo, if you believe your partner back there in the woods is going to help you after slaying my wolf pack, you are doing some serious underestimating of your own.»
She ran forward again, her hand low, drawing and throwing the small arrowheads, snapping them with tremendous strength so each buried itself deep into his body, in a straight line from belly to neck. The vampire roared and tried to shift. His legs disappeared, melting into vapor. His head swirled and disappeared. Fog drifted in from the trees in an attempt to help conceal him, congealing around his body, forming a thick veil. The torso remained, that straight, damaging line from belly to neck exposing his heart.
Her sword sank deep, her body weight, strength and momentum from her run driving the blade through the body right beneath the heart. The vampire screamed horribly. Acidlike blood poured from the wound, sizzling over the sword and splattering across the snow. The metal should have been eaten through, but the coating the slayer used protected it, as well as prevented that portion of his body from shifting. She turned her body in a dancer's spin, sword over her head, still stuck inside his chest so that she cut a circular hole around his heart.
Ivory withdrew the sword and plunged her hand deep. «I showed you my secret,» she whispered. «Take it to your grave.» She withdrew the heart and flung it away from her, lifting her arms to call down a sword of lightning.