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I turned. Feet wide, back humped, he stood stiff, facing the wall of green that surrounded Centennial Park. His hackles rose, his black lips drew up revealing huge white fangs, and out came another growl.
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
I set the wings on the curb and reached for Slayer. My fingers touched the leather of the saber’s hilt.
Like a handshake with an old friend.
The vampire slunk low to the ground.
I surveyed the trees. From the massive roots to the tops, etched against the garish orange and gold of the sunset, the dense mass of green looked impenetrable.
The first reeve sailed over the green, her translucent skin bathed in red, her hair flaring like enormous black wings, ready to smother.
No smothering today. The tech was up.
Her twin followed. Another, and another. Five. Six, more…How many could the Shepherd drive at once?
They were still in the air when I charged. The first reeve came at me, legs pumping, arms flung wide, gliding as if she didn’t have to touch the ground.
“Mine!”
The vampire smashed into her, knocking her out of the way, and leaped on her back. The sickle claws hooked the reeve’s pale neck. The vamp pulled and tore off her head with a single muscle-ripping jerk.
“They’re poisonous!” I yelled for Derek’s benefit and aimed for the second reeve. She whipped her hair at me, but I had room to maneuver. I dodged the black mass, and struck diagonally down, guessing there was flesh under the hair. Slayer connected and sliced into meat. It was a textbook slash—I had pulled the entire length of the blade through the wound. Her head drooped, connected to the stump of the neck by a thin strip of skin and meat. She crashed to the ground.
To the left Derek dug into the back of the third reeve with an enormous clawed hand and ripped the shard of her spine free with a brutal heave.
The vampire dashed across the field and beheaded another reeve.
I kept running. The next reeve met me head-on. I slashed again, an almost identical diagonal stroke but coming from the left. She dodged, but I reversed the blade and struck sideways instead. Slayer cleaved the flesh and broke free. Grayish blood sprayed in a fine mist. She toppled over and then another reeve fell on me. Claws scraped the heavy leather protecting my chest, ripping through it. A wall of hair clogged my view. I thrust myself closer to the reeve, right into her teeth. The stench of fish guts washed over my face.
She had expected me to pull away, and her surprise cost her a precious half second. Cocooned in her hair, I hugged her like a lover, and thrust my saber straight up into the soft flesh under her chin. She rocked back. To the left Derek raised his bloody muzzle from the ruined back of the fifth reeve.
“Don’t bite!” Dumbass. Perfect wolf for you—isn’t happy until he’s got poisonous shit smeared all over