The air thickened, pressing down on the group like a slab of cold marble. Jones did not rush; he stalked. His slow, heavy steps against the dry, brittle leaves were the only sound in the sudden, terrified silence. The sheer, feral confidence radiating off the man was terrifying.
"Get behind me, young masters," Elena's voice, though steady, held a rare tremor of true warning. She instinctively moved, placing herself in front of both John and Thomas. She knew a predator when she saw one, and Jones was the alpha of the species.
Behind her, John's mind whirled in a desperate, frantic scramble for a non-violent solution. "Why does this person want to kill us? This must be a misunderstanding," he thought, the idea of a simple, deadly ambush feeling utterly alien to his protected existence.
Driven by a naive but genuine desire to de-escalate, John moved past Elena, exposing himself fully. "Wait, Mr.!" he called out, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "This must be a misunderstanding. We have no beef with you. Why are you trying to kill us? Let's talk this out."
Thomas, standing his ground beside John, remained silent. Every ounce of his natural predatory instinct was on high alert, his body coiled and ready, his usual arrogance replaced by the laser-focus of a cornered hunter. He knew talking was useless, but he let John try.
Jones stopped dead, the movement of his head as he focused on John almost too quick to follow. He raised a hand, pointing a finger—long, unnaturally slender, and tipped with a dark, filed-sharp nail—directly at John's chest.
"No mistake has been made," Jones's voice was a low, gravelly rasp, utterly devoid of emotion. "You are the grandchild of Leonidas Crimson, aren't you, boy?"
"Yes, we both are," John confirmed instantly, trying to appeal to whatever sense of legacy Jones might respect, but instead sealing their fate.
The corners of Jones's mouth curled into a grotesque, chilling smile. It was a look of profound, almost religious satisfaction. "Two Crimsons are before me. This must be my lucky day. My master will be pleased."
John's composure shattered. The realization hit him with a sickening thud—this wasn't a mugging or a turf war; this was a deliberate execution. "Wait, hold up, are you an assassin? Who sent you?" His voice was thin with mounting panic.
Jones's smile vanished, replaced by a cold, hateful contempt. "Enough talking. The dead has no need for information."
The word "talking" was still hanging in the air when Jones vanished. He didn't run or leap—he simply ceased to be in one place and appeared in another, a terrifying blur of tattered fabric and motion. His target was clearly John, but Elena was already there, a blur of her own, intercepting him.
She moved with the speed of a seasoned vampire warrior, delivering a powerful, two-footed kick aimed straight at his chest. Jones merely intercepted her with the back of his hand, a casual, dismissive swat. The impact sounded like a baseball bat hitting bone. Elena was thrown violently backward, not just a few feet, but catapulted twenty meters into the dense undergrowth, slamming into a thick tree trunk with a sickening CRACK. John saw her cough up a mist of blood before her body slumped, momentarily disabled.
Jones ignored her. He was already lunging for the paralyzed John.
Suddenly, a thick, muscled forearm snaked in from the side. Thomas, fueled by pure aristocratic rage and vampire strength, delivered a devastating cross-punch directly into Jones's ribs.
A normal man would have been flattened. A normal vampire would have been stunned. Jones merely paused, a split-second flicker of surprise in his cold eyes. He slowly turned his head to look down at Thomas, the corner of his mouth twitching with a mocking sneer.
"Is that all you got?"
Before Thomas could even prepare a defense, Jones moved. One massive, clawed hand shot out, grabbing Thomas's face, crushing his jaw with agonizing pressure. With a grunt of effort, Jones slammed Thomas head-first into the ground, the dry earth exploding in a cloud of dirt and pulverized leaves.
"No!" John cried, fear finally giving way to desperate horror.
Jones stood over the downed vampire, lifting his arm and extending his fingers. The sharp nails he had used to point at John were now terrifyingly long—four curving, blackened talons, like obsidian blades. He brought his hand down in two swift, vicious arcs.
SHIIIICK. SHIIIICK.
The first slash tore open Thomas's chest from shoulder to ribcage; the second ripped diagonally across his stomach. Thick, crimson vampire blood—richer and darker than human blood—leaked, then sprayed, misting the air and staining the dry ground. John could only look on in gut-wrenching horror, watching his cousin, his rival, bleed out from wounds that should have been instantly fatal.
Jones stood up, his eyes meeting John's across the bloodied form of Thomas. The werewolf was not breathing heavily; he was merely done with his first victim.
Thomas, against all odds, began to slowly drag himself backward, clawing through the dirt, driven by sheer survival instinct. "I'll make sure you pay for this," he rasped, the promise a mangled, bloody whisper.
This declaration of defiance only intensified Jones's brutal rage. He didn't use a claw or a fist. He simply lifted his heavy boot and stomped down with full force onto Thomas's outstretched thigh.
The sound was sharp and sickening—a loud, wet crack that silenced the forest. Thomas gave a prolonged, guttural scream of absolute agony, a sound that finally shattered the silent terror of the moment.
Before Jones could finish the job, a whirlwind of motion arrived. Elena, her face grim with blood and a mix of pain and fury, returned. She flew out from the direction of the shattered tree with a high, powerful kick—a move meant to decapitate.
Jones, having finished his brutal work on Thomas, was ready. He caught her foot effortlessly in his iron grip, stopping her mid-air. With a sickening lack of effort, he didn't just throw her; he used her momentum to slam her entire body, hip-first, into a cluster of huge, jagged rocks.
The impact was even worse than the first. Elena didn't just fall—she crumpled, letting out a wrenching groan as she fell to the ground. She couldn't help but cough up a stream of pure, bright blood onto the gray stone, her struggle finally extinguished.
John stood alone. Two elite vampires, utterly incapacitated in seconds. His legs finally listened to him, and he took a stumbling step backward. Jones looked at him, his face a mask of indifferent execution. The assassin turned his full, terrifying attention back to the last remaining target, the werewolf eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
Jones turned slowly, the malevolent focus of his attention settling entirely on John. The werewolf's face was a mask of cold, predatory annoyance.
"I'm not happy about this, kid," Jones rasped, his voice a promise of violence. "But I'll make this quick."
He closed the distance in a single, unhurried stride, the casualness of the movement terrifying. He grabbed a handful of John's hair, the grip like a vice, yanking his head back to expose his throat. His black talons were positioned perfectly.
"Any last words?"
Before John could even process the question, a blur of motion slammed into Jones's jaw.
"You will not hurt the young master!" Elena was back on her feet, bleeding and barely conscious, but her loyalty was an inexhaustible fuel.
Her powerful vampire-infused punch connected squarely with Jones's face. A spurt of dark, crimson blood—the werewolf's own—leaked instantly from his mouth. Before he could recover, she followed up with a ferocious kick to the head that sent him stumbling backward. Elena didn't stop. She unleashed a rapid-fire flurry of kicks, driving him relentlessly toward the precipice. With a final, desperate heave, she attempted a last kick to send him over the edge, but Jones, with a monstrous surge of strength, lashed out. He snagged her ankle and, with a vicious swing, hurl-tossed her over the lip of the hill into the ravine below.
"No!" John's eyes stretched in horror, the raw, primal sound tearing from his throat, even as his head was released.
Jones looked down from the ridge, a look of profound, smug satisfaction momentarily crossing his face. But just as he started to turn back toward John, a heavy, wet thump landed directly behind him.
"Blood Punch!"
It was Thomas, his body a ruin of crimson gashes, somehow crawling and then leaping to deliver a final, desperate attack. His fist was swollen and glowing a deep, terrible blood-red, a last-gasp application of vampire power. The blow slammed into Jones's ribs—the exact spot Thomas had struck before—and this time, a sickening CRACK of breaking bone was audible. Jones roared in pain and surprise, staggering backward, and disappeared over the edge of the steep, rocky decline.
Thomas collapsed to his knees, his face pale and slick with sweat and blood. His severe injuries were healing too slowly; he was barely functional. He stretched a trembling, blood-soaked hand toward John. "Let's go, John! We have to escape now!"
John stood paralyzed at the edge of the drop, looking down. He could see Jones already stirring, impossibly, at the bottom of the hill. The werewolf was clearly disoriented but was dragging himself toward the crumpled, small form of Elena, who was also slowly beginning to move near the river.
"I can't," John whispered, the words barely audible.
Thomas's voice ratcheted up, strained with fear and exhaustion. "What do you mean, you can't?! We have to go!" He grabbed John's forearm to pull him away, but his grip immediately faltered.
Thomas felt it—a humming, almost liquid power resonating from his cousin. He looked up as John turned his head. In the dim light, Thomas saw the impossible: John's right eye was beginning to glow, shifting from its natural colour to a searing, vivid blood-red.
"Go, Thomas. Go back and get help. I'll go and help Elena."
"Go help the maid? Are you crazy? Leave her! She is just a maid!" Thomas snarled, the words laced with the cruel, cold pragmatism of their vampiric upbringing.
John's red-glowing eye fixed on Thomas. The air was charged with a tension that was not just fear, but a nascent, explosive power.
"She is not just a maid!" John screamed, the volume and force of the cry shaking Thomas to his core. "She is my friend, and I will not abandon her! She saved my life once, and if I die today, then so be it!"
With that declaration, John made a choice that severed him from his past. He didn't wait. He launched himself from the cliff face, running down the treacherous, tree-studded slope toward the river below. Thomas could only stare at the spot where his cousin had stood.
"Good luck, cousin," Thomas muttered, then turned, forcing his broken body to run for help.
John moved down the hill, driven by a furious, newfound purpose. He flew down the slope, dodging the dense trunks of trees, until the rushing sound of water grew louder, and he reached the riverbank.
There, the scene was playing out in brutal slow motion. Elena was fighting on instinct, her body covered in cuts and bruising that her slowed vampiric regeneration was struggling to repair. Jones had her, delivering a crushing chokeslam that seemed to momentarily knock the wind and life out of her. He then seized her by her slender neck, lifting her into the air.
As Jones's eyes shifted to a malevolent yellowish glow, his fangs fully descended. He bit down, sinking his teeth deeply into Elena's left shoulder. Her scream was raw, high, and immediate.
The sight of his friend being brutalized, bitten, and held helpless snapped the final thread of fear in John. "No!" he roared. New, blazing energy coursed through his veins, forcing his legs faster. He knew, instinctively, that even this new rush wouldn't be enough to stop the monster. His hand flew to his waist, retrieving the hidden weapon: the dagger coated with the silvereye spider's powerful neurotoxin, pulled from his storage ring.
Jones held the maid aloft, his mouth full of Elena's dark blood. He sensed John's furious approach. "The boy is coming to your rescue," he gloated, addressing the terrified woman. "I thought my chances were over when I fell down that hill, but fate is smiling upon me, delivering the boy into my hands."
Elena, her face a mask of selfless agony, could only shake her head violently. "No, young master!"
Jones ignored her warning, tightening his grip, ready to break her neck. But then, a searing, white-hot pain exploded in his back.
John had arrived.
The werewolf let out a strangled, primal cry as the poison-coated dagger plunged between his ribs. John twisted the blade with all his might. The pain was immediate and incapacitating, forcing Jones to release Elena.
"You fking ct!" Jones roared, whipping around. He didn't hesitate, delivering a blinding, furious punch that connected square with John's face. Blood sprayed from John's nose and mouth, and he felt a sickening crack deep within his facial bones.
Jones violently ripped the dagger from his back and flung it uselessly onto the ground. "You shouldn't have done that, boy."
As John struggled to lift himself, dazed and reeling from the concussive blow, Jones followed up with a vicious kick to his side. John felt his ribs groan under the impact and violently coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Time to kill you, boy!" Jones raised his leg for the finishing blow.
But he was interrupted. Elena had somehow scrambled up. She poured every last drop of her remaining power, every fragmented molecule of regenerative energy, into her legs.
"You will not lay a hand on the young master anymore!"
Her legs were visibly bulging, corded with desperate, massive power. She dashed at impossible speed, and her foot connected with a thunderous impact to Jones's wounded side. The cracking sound of his ribs was deafening this time. Elena's foot dug deeper, shattering the bone and sending the massive werewolf spinning and flying backward, where he slammed through two thick trees before skidding to a halt.
Having expended the last of her strength, Elena collapsed, unconscious. John, wiping the blood from his eyes, staggered over to her side.
"Elena… Elena, get up…"