The air thickened, pressing down on the group like a slab of cold marble. Jones did not rush; he stalked. Each slow, heavy step against the dry, brittle leaves was the only sound in the sudden, terrified silence of the forest. The sheer, feral confidence radiating off the man was suffocating, a weight that seemed to dim the sunlight filtering through the canopy.
"Get behind me, young masters," Elena's voice, though steady, held a rare tremor of true warning. She instinctively moved, her sturdy leather boots digging into the dirt as she placed herself firmly in front of both John and Thomas. She knew a predator when she saw one, and in this moment, Jones looked like a predator who could not wait to shred his prey to pieces.
Behind her, John's mind whirled in a frantic scramble. Why does this person want to kill us? This must be a misunderstanding, he thought. The idea of a cold, calculated ambush felt utterly alien to him, a nightmare leaking into his reality.
Driven by a naive but genuine desire to de-escalate, John moved past Elena, exposing his white hoodie and defenseless chest to the stranger. "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 stood his ground beside John, his body coiled like a spring. Every ounce of his natural predatory instinct was on high alert, his blue eyes sharp and fixed. His usual arrogance had been replaced by the laser focus of a cornered hunter. He knew talking was useless, but he remained silent, letting John try his way while he prepared for the inevitable.
Jones stopped dead, the movement of his head as he focused on John almost too quick for a human eye to follow. He raised a hand and pointed a finger directly at the center of John's chest. The finger was long and unnaturally slender, tipped with a yellowed, bone like nail that had been filed into a lethal point.
"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. He was trying to appeal to whatever sense of legacy or respect Jones might have for the Crimson name, but he was only 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 and brittle with mounting panic.
Jones's smile vanished, replaced by a cold and 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 murderous motion. His target was clearly John, but Elena was already there, a blur of her own as she intercepted him.
She moved with the precision of a seasoned vampire warrior, stepping in close to deliver a sharp, powerful punch aimed directly at his head. Jones didn't even bother to block properly. He merely intercepted her strike with the back of his hand, a casual and dismissive swat as if he were brushing away an annoying insect. The impact sounded like a heavy club hitting bone.
Elena was thrown violently backward, catapulted six meters through the air into the dense undergrowth. She slammed into a thick tree trunk with a sickening crack that echoed through the forest. John watched in horror as she coughed up a mist of blood before her body slumped against the roots, momentarily disabled.
Jones ignored her. He was already lunging for the paralyzed John.
Suddenly, a thick and 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 appearing 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 and grabbed Thomas's face, crushing his jaw with agonizing pressure. With a grunt of effort, Jones slammed Thomas head first into the ground, the force of the blow sending a dull thud through the clearing and kicking up a small cloud of dust and dead leaves.
"No!" John cried, his 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. They had transformed into four curving, blackened talons that looked like obsidian blades. He brought his hand down in two swift, vicious arcs.
The sound was a wet, jagged whistle as the talons found their mark.
The first slash tore open Thomas's chest from shoulder to ribcage. The second ripped diagonally across his stomach. Thick, crimson vampire blood, which was richer and darker than human blood, leaked and then sprayed into the air. It misted the light and stained the ground in a dark, spreading pool. John could only look on in gut wrenching horror as he watched his cousin 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 and ready for the next.
Thomas, against all odds, began to slowly drag himself backward. He clawed through the dirt, driven by a raw and primal survival instinct. "I'll make sure you pay for this," he rasped, the promise coming out as 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 and 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 and echoed through the trees.
Before Jones could finish the job, a whirlwind of motion arrived. Elena had returned, her face grim with blood and a mix of pain and fury. She flew out from the direction of the shattered tree with a high and powerful kick, a move clearly meant to decapitate the monster.
Jones, having finished his brutal work on Thomas, was ready. He caught her foot effortlessly in his iron grip, stopping her mid air as if she weighed nothing at all. With a sickening lack of effort, he didn't just throw her. He used her own momentum to slam her entire body, hip first, into a cluster of huge and jagged rocks.
The impact was even worse than the first. Elena didn't just fall. She crumpled, letting out a wrenching groan as she hit the ground. She couldn't help but cough up a stream of pure, bright blood onto the gray stone, her struggle finally extinguished by the sheer force of the collision.
John stood alone. Two elite vampires had been utterly incapacitated in seconds. His legs finally listened to him, and he took a stumbling step backward, the fabric of his white hoodie rustling in the sudden quiet. Jones looked at him, his face a mask of indifferent execution. The assassin turned his full and terrifying attention back to the last remaining target, his 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 and 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 and unhurried stride, the casualness of the movement terrifying. He grabbed a handful of John's hair with a grip like a vice, yanking his head back to expose his throat. His black talons were positioned perfectly against the pale skin.
"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. She was 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 and 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 and desperate heave, she attempted a last kick to send him over the edge, but Jones lashed out with a monstrous surge of strength. He snagged her ankle and, with a vicious swing, hurled her over the lip of the hill into the ravine below.
"No!" John's eyes stretched in horror, the raw and primal sound tearing from his throat even as his head was released from the assassin's grip.
Jones looked down from the ridge, a look of profound and smug satisfaction momentarily crossing his face. But just as he started to turn back toward John, a heavy and wet thump landed directly behind him.
"Blood Punch!"
It was Thomas. His body was a ruin of crimson gashes, yet he was somehow crawling and then leaping to deliver a final and desperate attack. His fist glowed with a very faint light red color. The technique was clearly incomplete and unmastered, but it was enough, a last gasp application of vampire power. The blow slammed into Jones's ribs at the exact spot Thomas had struck before. This time, a sickening crack of breaking bone was audible.
He staggered backward, his heels catching on the loose earth at the ridge. With a final, guttural snarl, he disappeared over the edge of the steep and rocky decline, plummeting into the exact same shadowed ravine where he had just hurled Elena.
Thomas collapsed to his knees, his face pale and slick with sweat and blood. His severe injuries were healing far too slowly. He was barely functional as 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 into the ravine. He could see Jones already stirring at the bottom of the hill. The werewolf was disoriented but was dragging his broken body toward the crumpled, small form of Elena. She was also beginning to move slowly near the edge of the river.
"I can't," John whispered, the words barely audible over the sound of the rushing water below.
Thomas's voice ratcheted up, strained with fear and exhaustion. "What do you mean, you can't?! We have to go!" He lunged out and grabbed John's forearm to pull him away, but his grip immediately faltered.
Thomas felt it in that moment, a humming and almost liquid power resonating from his cousin. He looked up as John turned his head. In the dim light filtering through the trees, Thomas saw the impossible. John's left eye was beginning to glow, shifting from its natural black to a searing and 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!" Thomas snarled. The words were laced with the cruel and cold pragmatism of their vampiric upbringing.
John's red glowing eye fixed on Thomas. The air around them was suddenly charged with a tension that was not just fear, but a nascent and explosive power.
"She is not just a maid," John said. His voice was quiet and unnervingly calm, but it carried a weight that shook 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."
John tightened his resolve, glancing back at the path they had come from. "Now get moving. Run back as fast as you can and bring help."
With that declaration, John made a choice that severed him from his past. He didn't wait for a response. He launched himself from the cliff face, running down the treacherous and tree studded slope toward the river below. Thomas could only stare at the spot where his cousin had stood, feeling the lingering heat of that strange energy.
"Good luck, cousin," Thomas muttered. He turned away and forced his broken body to run back toward the estate for help.
====
John moved down the hill, driven by a furious and newfound purpose. He flew down the slope, dodging the dense trunks of trees as the rushing sound of water grew louder. Below him at the riverbank, a desperate struggle was unfolding.
Despite her broken ribs and the blood matting her hair, Elena was refusing to stay down. As Jones lunged for her, she met him with a blur of desperate strikes. She landed a sharp kick to his wounded side and a palm strike to his throat, her movements fueled by a frantic need to stay alive until the young master was safe. Jones growled in frustration, his superior strength allowing him to weather her blows like a storm hitting a cliff. He retaliated with a heavy, backhanded strike that sent her reeling against a moss covered boulder, but she scrambled back to her feet immediately, her eyes wide with a defiant and feline glint.
The exchange was a brutal dance of shadows near the rushing water. Elena managed to duck under a lethal swipe of his talons, countering with a strike that drew a line of dark blood across the werewolf's cheek. However, the gap in their power was too great. Jones finally timed her movement, catching her mid strike and delivering a crushing chokeslam that seemed to momentarily knock the wind and life out of her. He seized her by her slender neck and lifted 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 and high, an immediate sound of agony that echoed off the rocks.
The sight of his friend being brutalized, bitten, and held helpless snapped the final thread of fear in John.
"No!" he roared.
New and blazing energy coursed through his veins, forcing his legs to move faster than they ever had before. As he sprinted, his mind reached into the storage ring, calling forth the weapon he had prepared for this exact moment. In a flicker of spatial energy, the red hilted dagger appeared in his hand. He ripped the blade from its sheath, the steel shimmering with the sickly golden hue of the Silvereye Spider poison he had meticulously brushed on back at the castle.
Jones held the maid aloft, his mouth stained with Elena's dark blood. He sensed John's furious approach and a twisted grin spread across his face.
"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. It is delivering the boy directly into my hands."
Elena, her face a mask of selfless agony, could only shake her head violently. "No, young master!"
Jones ignored her warning and tightened his grip, clearly ready to break her neck and end her life. But in that moment, the red hilted dagger found its mark. A searing and white hot pain exploded in his back as the poisoned steel sank deep into his flesh. John had arrived.
The werewolf let out a strangled and primal cry as the poison coated dagger plunged deep between his ribs. John didn't just stab him. He twisted the blade with all his might, the sickly golden toxin smearing into the muscle and bone. The pain was immediate and incapacitating, forcing Jones to release his grip and drop Elena to the ground.
"You fucking cunt!" Jones roared, whipping around with a speed that defied his injury. He didn't hesitate, delivering a blinding and furious punch that connected square with John's face. Blood sprayed from John's nose and mouth in a dark mist. He felt a sickening crack deep within his facial bones as the world spun into a dizzying blur of gray and red.
Jones reached back, violently ripped the red hilted dagger from his flesh, and flung it uselessly onto the muddy ground. "You shouldn't have done that, boy."
As John struggled to lift himself, dazed and reeling from the concussive force of the blow, Jones followed up with a vicious kick to his side. John felt his ribs groan and buckle under the impact. He was sent sprawling, violently coughing up a mouthful of blood that stained the front of his white hoodie.
"Time to kill you, boy!" Jones raised his heavy boot, positioning himself for a finishing stomp that would crush John's skull.
But he was interrupted. Elena had somehow scrambled up from the dirt. She poured every last drop of her remaining power into her legs.
"You will not lay a hand on the young master anymore!"
Her legs were visibly bulging, the muscles corded with a desperate and massive power that stretched her clothing to the limit. She dashed at an impossible speed, appearing as nothing more than a lethal streak of motion. Her foot connected with a thunderous impact against Jones's wounded side, hitting the exact spot where the dagger had pierced him.
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 through the air. He slammed through two thick trees, the wood splintering like matchsticks, before finally skidding to a halt in the undergrowth.
Having expended the absolute last of her strength, Elena's eyes rolled back. She collapsed into the dirt, her consciousness finally extinguished. John, wiping the thick blood from his eyes with a trembling hand, staggered over to her side on hands and knees.
"Elena… Elena, get up…"