Gregori smiled pleasantly at the vampire, taking care to step far away from the body now flopping helplessly in the mud. “You are like a peacock, Rafael, raising your feathers and strutting. You must have had centuries to build such a hatred against Morrison.” His voice was beautiful, seeping into the vampire’s body, turning the strength, built on the deaths of so many others, to water. That voice whispered of power. Real power. Invincible. Merciless. Relentless. “Morrison is the one who allowed you to survive the hunters, sending you from the city. It has been the way he has survived the hunters, leaving when they arrive in the vicinity he occupies.”
“Running,” Rafael said contemptuously. “He runs even when we are strong. We should own this city. Together we should drive off and kill any hunter who dares to come here. But he runs like the rabbit he is. I despise his weakness.”
Gregori pointed to the thrashing ghoul, and a bolt of lightning slammed from the cloud to the ground, driving through the very heart of the puppet and leaving behind only blackened, useless ashes.
“You think you are so powerful,” Rafael snickered. “I have killed so many, you are nothing. Nothing compared to one such as me.”
Gregori’s silver eyes glittered, pale and cold in the black night. Red flames flickered through the silver. He seemed to grow in power and stature. “I am the wind heralding death, the instrument of justice sent by our Prince to carry out the sentence pronounced on you by our people for your crimes against mortals and immortals alike.” His voice was purity, beauty, the tones painful to the vampire, like spikes being driven through his head. Yet he had no choice; unwillingly he moved closer, needing to hear the sound of such purity and beauty again.
As the vampire took an involuntary step forward, something tightened around his calves, his thighs, then reached higher to coil around his chest, squeezing slowly. The pressure was steady, relentless. In horror, the vampire looked down to see the tails of fog moving, alive, like a huge, thick python, sliding in an ever-tightening ring to imprison his body. “Fight me!” Rafael screamed, spraying blood and saliva into the mud and water. “You are afraid to fight me.”
“I am justice,” Gregori said softly, his voice implacable in its resolve. “There can be no fight, no battle, as there can be only one outcome. Mental or physical bout, or simply a match of our wits, there can be only one end. I am justice. That is all.”
A rush of wind, and the vampire never saw the Dark One move. The speed was so incredible, the vampire could not follow the blur of motion. But the vampire felt the impact. Hard. The jolt shook his entire body. He stood there, locked in the strange fog’s embrace, looking down at the hunter’s outstretched hand. Lying in the palm was his own pulsating heart. The vampire threw back his head and howled in rage and horror. The black empty void that was his long-lost soul was gone, rising with his foul stench into the night air like smoke. His teeth snapped and gnashed at the impassive hunter.
Gregori stood his ground, his mind carefully blank. This was his life. His reason for existing. He was the dark justice necessary for his people to survive, to continue their existence in secrecy. He stood there in the night, utterly, completely alone.
Gregori, I am with you always. You are never alone. Look for me in your heart, in your mind, in your very soul.
Look at your hero now. See what I really am. I kill without thought. Without effort. Without remorse. Without mercy. I am the monster you named me, and I am without equal. Someday I will pay the ultimate price.
Savannah’s soft laughter whispered over his skin. It was a gentle, cleansing breeze drifting through his mind. And who is stronger than my lifemate? No one can kill you.
You think death is the ultimate price? No, Savannah. Someday you will know what I am, and you will look at me in horror and revulsion. When that day comes, I will cease to exist. Gregori watched the vampire begin to fall. He moved then to complete the distasteful task of ensuring that the nosferatu could not rise again. Fiery sparks rained from the sky, the size of golf balls, striking the vampire, coating him in flames. On the muddy bank, at a distance from the burning body, Gregori incinerated the evil one’s heart.