Adamayurka's Hunt

Chapter Three

After sheathing my right-hand dagger and drawing my sword once more I stepped forward to the very edge of the patch of sunlight, careful to keep my weight on my good leg. I could see the creature thinking as he stood there staring at me.

Finally, he hissed, revealing two long canines that protruded well beyond his other teeth, then he turned and ran in the opposite direction. Just before the alley curved, he crashed into a pile of refuse and a cat leaped out at him, scoring his face. Even at this distance I could see the smoke rising from the wounds before he took off running again. I lost sight of him when he reached the point where the alley curved. I had never seen any kind of creature that had canines like that -- not a supernatural non-Shifter, at any rate. But those teeth did explain the puncture wounds I had seen in the woman's neck. And he seemed to have a weakness, for all the good it did me. Cat's claws seemed to be able to inflict damage where no other weapon so far had succeeded.

I remained where I was for a moment, shaking my head. This creature was bad news, even without the vampire minions that had initially been with him. He seemed smarter than the usual supernaturals I fought; smart enough that he might even have human-level intelligence, motivations, and goals. I had a feeling I would soon miss the days of supernaturals other than Shifters being mindless killing machines with no more motivation than the desire to feed.

Something was changing in the preternatural world and it wasn't changing for the best. Intelligence combined with preternatural strength and reflexes meant the city's purely human Hunters didn't stand a chance against this type of creature.

Hell, to my knowledge, I was the city's only non-human Hunter, and I wasn't sure I stood a chance against the creature. Especially not in my current condition.

I sheathed the sword, but kept the dagger in hand, then surveyed as much of the alley as I could see from my current vantage point. I didn't see the creature anywhere, so after another quick glance around, I left the safety of the patch of sunlight and resumed my journey.

I had only gone a few blocks when a dark shape dropped onto me from above pinning me to the ground and piercing my injured thigh with two sharp pinpricks of fire. The creature was latched onto the wound, sucking blood from my thigh.

What do you know; there is something I hate more than needles.

I pulled back my good leg and aimed a kick at the creature's head, which only succeeded in dragging its fangs down my thigh, creating anew pair of gashes and fresh torrents of blood.

Instead of giving the creature pause, my kick and the fresh wounds it created on my thigh only seemed to increase its determination. It reached up to my waist, took a firm grip, and used my body to pull itself backup to its original position on my thigh. It alternated between licking up the free-flowing blood and sinking its fangs into my thigh and sucking blood from me that way. It was a strange feeling, as though the canines were hollow and every time the creature sucked the blood flowed into him through the fangs. And he wasn't too particular about sticking to the gashes when he bit, either. Every time he sank his teeth into my thigh, he created a new pair of puncture wounds, leaving my thigh covered in little pin pricks of fiery pain.

For a moment, I just lay there, dizzy from the blood loss. That creature had just withstood a full force kick from a fully grown (albeit injured) Shifter. Now I knew I wasn't the strongest Shifter out thereby any means, but still . . . even the weakest Shifter was usually more than a match for most things.

Granted, that was second hand information garnered from years of research, with the experience of a few one on one fights with other Shifters thrown in. But it was still a pretty reliable information base.