We circled each other, each looking for the perfect opportunity to insert a blade between the opponent’s ribs. My heart hammered in my chest and adrenaline surged through my veins, giving me the only high that I could find after all these years. Hunting vampires was the only challenge I had left, the only thrill when the rest of the world seemed to have faded to a sickly shade of gray.

Yet, to my surprise, the vampire pulled the blade back, hiding it partially behind his body as he took a step away from me. “We’re not alone,” he muttered, but this time the words were in English. His brow was furrowed and a frown pulled his mouth into a downward slash across his pale face. Something about our guests had disturbed the vampire.

And a quick scan with my powers easily revealed the reason. My adversary would normally have been happy to continue this fight in full view of the public since he could easily cloak us. Our world was kept apart from the human world at all times, separate and secret. Yet, I knew that the vampire feared he could not cloak us from our new companions because he could not sense them. But I could. A trio of naturi had descended upon our scuffle and I suddenly found myself caught in the middle of two separate battles.

“Naturi,” I murmured. I turned to my left, back toward the alley we had just come out of moments ago, so I could see both the vampire and the three naturi that were approaching our location, weapons drawn.

“Naturi?” the vampire demanded in surprise. He took a step backward and for a moment I was sure he was going to run. He had no problem chancing a quick scuffle with a creature he counted as simply human, but the idea of taking on three naturi at once was more than enough to send him scurrying for cover. And in truth, I couldn’t blame him.

A second later, the energy that had been hovering just at my back flowed toward my right and the vampire, who was slowly edging away from the naturi and me. The nightwalker suddenly jerked to a stop as his face went completely blank, his eyelids falling shut as if consciousness has been ripped from his grasp. To my left, the naturi halted and even looked at each other for a second in confusion.

A smile grew across the vampire’s face as he lifted his head. A red glow brightened his eyes, replacing the blue that had been there earlier. He tightened his grip on the dagger he had in his hand and slashed at the air a couple times.

Something was suddenly off here, and I couldn’t begin to guess what had convinced the vampire to stay when running was the smarter option. If he wasn’t killed by the naturi, he still had to face me, and that fight was bound to end poorly for him.

To confuse matters even more, the vampire said something to the trio of naturi in a language I had never heard before, but it was enough to cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. It sounded as if I should recognize it, that it was something my deep subconscious understood but could no longer remember. It didn’t matter, because the naturi understood it and replied with a pair of poison-tipped darts aimed at the vampire.

Jumping backward a step to put more room between myself and the nightwalker, I watched as he easily deflected both bolts from a wrist crossbow with a couple swipes of the dagger, like swatting away flies.

Two of the naturi rushed the vampire then, while the third hung back, glaring at me. He raised one hand above his head and the black, midnight sky began to churn with dark clouds. It was cold enough to snow, but that wasn’t what this wind naturi was summoning up. I had seen this too many times before. I had to kill him before lightning bolts began to plummet from the gathering storm clouds.

With sword in hand, I rushed the naturi, forcing him to stop his spell and pull his own short sword in hopes of defending himself. The blond-haired naturi was fast and skilled, blocking each one of my attacks while managing to sneak in a few blows of his own that I narrowly avoided. Blocking one blow and holding his sword trapped above his head, I slammed my fist into his face. The impact shattered his nose and forced him to stumble backward a couple of steps. I jerked my sword free of his and slashed downward, cutting through his neck, leaving his head hanging on by a thin flap of skin. The wind naturi fell dead at my feet, leaving the storm brewing overhead to slowly dissipate.

Turning on my heel, I found the nightwalker dueling with both of the remaining naturi at once. The air was thick with energy, almost crackling around them. By their broad shoulders and thick build, I was willing to bet that the vampire faced a pair from the animal clan. They seemed to be the foot soldiers of the naturi race. The first into any battle and generally the most brutal.

I was about to insert my sword into the fray when I hesitated. I didn’t need to. The vampire had this fight completely within his control. In fact, by the devilish smile playing on his lips, I was willing to bet that he was only toying with them, drawing out the fight in order to crush their hopes. But it didn’t make any sense. Moments earlier, the vampire had seemed lucky to know which end of the knife to be holding. Now, watching the vampire move was like watching an intimate dance of light and shadow intertwine. The blades flashed red in the lamplight, as he had scored more than one hit on his opponents. And then, to my complete consternation, the vampire turned to look at me as he sliced the throat of one naturi and then, in a flash, plunged the dagger through the heart of the second. The vampire’s wide-eyed, red gaze never wavered from me as the naturi fell to the cold pavement, struggling to heal from their individual wounds before death finally stole them away.

My hand tightened on my own blade as I watched the two naturi writhing on the ground. “Finish it,” I commanded.

“You’ve always been too compassionate,” the vampire said in a voice that barely rose above a growl. However, the vampire heeded my wishes. Kneeling down, he cut the heads off the two naturi, killing them. At the moment of their deaths, he sucked in a deep breath, his eyes rolling up into his head as if he was savoring the exact moment of their demise. He then looked down at the blood covering his hands and smiled to himself.

“We’re not finished, vampire,” I reminded him, lifting my sword slightly.

The vampire turned on the balls of his feet to face me and easily rose, leaving the dagger on the ground next to the dead bodies. He took a step toward me with his arms out and hands open, revealing that he was completely unarmed. But no vampire was ever unarmed. They were deadly fast and amazingly strong whenever the sun was down. I would not be drawn in by whatever ruse he was trying to pull on me.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Danaus,” the vampire said in a low, soothing voice. “You’ve been fighting a good fight for many years, my son, but you’ve been fighting the wrong side.”

“You may have helped with the naturi, but it doesn’t matter. They would have killed us both regardless. You can’t save your hide from me,” I replied. Unwilling to let him stall any longer, I lunged at him, but he dodged as easily as if I were moving in slow motion.

The vampire chuckled at me and shook his head. “You think you can kill me now. Did you not witness how I so easily destroyed the naturi? What is one mere man against a creature such as me?”

“You’re a vampire. A young one. You can be destroyed.” Again, I came at him with a barrage of moves, faster than I had moved the last time, and still he dodged me. It was like he was inside of my head and knew exactly how I was going to move, and yet no nightwalker could read my thoughts without my knowledge. I would sense their presence.

Panic began to take hold as sweat trickled down my brow and ran along the edge of my jaw. My heart thundered in my chest and I tightened my grip on the sword. He was too fast for me to kill by conventional means. Hell, I couldn’t even touch him. Something had changed in that moment when the naturi arrived and his eyes switched from a sky blue to a ruby red. I didn’t understand it, but somehow the vampire has come into possession of the energy that had been swirling about me just before the naturi arrived.