The Dark Wind

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As soon as Xavier turned the corner, I leaped up into the sky, flying up to the rooftop of the buildings in one jump. One advantage of being a nightstalker was that we had agility on our side, and it made high jumping a lot easier. At least, it beat climbing up the stairs, or climbing up the side of the building like Spiderman.

Though most of my nightstalkers were comfortable moving around the streets and alleyways of Seattle, I found it easier for me travelling by the rooftops. After all, I wouldn’t meet many humans at the rooftops, and would rarely be seen, thanks to my superior speed that made me look like a blur.

Yet, choosing to travel on the rooftops was the wrong choice tonight, because, as I landed on the rooftop of the building I’d been lounging on before the Hunter –Xavier –challenged me to a fight, a stake flew past my head. Yet, it wasn’t the dead accuracy of Xavier as I dodged it easily, plucking the stake out of the air as it whistled past my head.

The stench of garlic filled my nose as I choked slowly. What was up with vampires and their myths? Pinching my nose, I held the stake up by two fingers, studying the rough, inexperienced work of someone pouring garlic water over the wood. It wasn’t even white ash. Not even elm.

Dropping the smelly stake, I wheeled away, backing to the far end of the rooftop, covering my nose and leaning as far away from the stake as possible. No, it wasn’t that I was allergic to garlic or something.

It was that the stench was really overpowering, and I was starting to have a throbbing headache that didn’t seem about to leave. Damned, why did everything have to happen today? For the last time; I just wanted a snack and back to bed! Was it that hard?

Apparently, it was.

“Go!” I heard someone’s cry as I tried my best to cough out the last of the overpowering smell of garlic that had rolled down my throat, bending over and hugging my stomach. God, my breakfast was trying to rush up my throat. So much for Seattle’s refreshing air.

Another stake sailed through the air, but this time it was thankfully free of garlic as I grabbed it, pitching it back in the general direction as to where it had come to me from. Someone jumped and grabbed me from behind, and that certain someone had to be smaller than me, because he or she clung on to me tight, one knife pressing the blade at my throat. But, before he or she could get a solid grip on me, I wrenched up my elbow, smashing the hard bone into the face of the human. There was a painful crunching sound, and the body hugging me from behind dropped as I slipped away.

I narrowly missed a strategically placed dagger, putting my hand up on instinct as I saw a second dagger slashed downwards, aiming to draw a single line down my face. A curse escaped me as I dragged out the inscripted dagger at my waist, smashing the hilt against the wrist of someone who was trying to stab me by my side. I didn’t need to look for my attackers, they were raining down on me, blow after blow. But I’d survived a fight with a hunter like Xavier; I could survive a few under-trained humans.

I tried my best not to draw any blood, but my blade nicked the forearm of a woman’s as she drew back, trying to back away from my swipe. Jumping around to dodge attacks and swipes from daggers, stakes and knife alike, I managed to land physical blows on all of the humans, and it was soon that most of them were rolling on the floor and groaning. We were lucky that I had chosen a large rooftop, or I’d have already pushed them off the building. Right now, given my lethargy of the events in the early night, I was ready to fake some mass suicide with people falling to their deaths from this rooftop.

I tucked my dagger back to where it belonged, meeting the eyes of the only one still standing.

“Drake, seriously? Garlic, for the last time, doesn’t work on us nightstalkers!” I sighed, sitting on the ledge of the rooftop, crossing my legs at my ankles as I crossed my arms across my chest, giving him a leveled look. When I’d first come into Seattle, I’d met Drake, and thought him a friendly human. But, as I got to know more about nightstalkers around here, I found out he was the leader of the local nightstalker hunting organization.