Only Him

Chapter 45

*Dimitri*

The Strigoi charging for him stumbled and shrieked as a ball of flames slammed between his shoulders, instantly setting his shirt ablaze. Dimitri glanced in the direction the fireball had come from long enough to give Sydney an appreciative nod before turning to the struggling Strigoi and finishing him off.

He was breathing heavily. He'd been fighting for what felt simultaneously like hours and seconds. When the battle thrall overtook him he was never sure of exact timing, only sure that he wasted no time as he moved from one opponent to the next.

The trap had been laid according to plan and had worked as intended; the Strigoi under Marlen's command had fallen right into it. They'd set up a fake meeting at a brownstone owned by a notoriously staunch Zeklos lord and evacuated the residences within a miles perimeter under the pretense of a gas leak. Once the area had been free of civilians they'd baited the trap, using some of the accompanying Moroi magic users as doubles for the Zeklos family. They'd then set up a loose perimeter, which the Strigoi had slipped through not realizing that the net closed behind them and the guardians surrounded them.

Rose and Sydney had been bouncing around estimates of Strigoi numbers for weeks and guessed anywhere between fifty and sixty Strigoi based on disappearances and increased crime rates. Dimitri hadn't had time to count since the fighting began but he was willing to bet that there had been more than that.

Dimitri slipped his stake out of the flaming Strigoi and moved on without a backwards glance at the burning corpse. They'd pinned the Strigoi between two lines of guardians, an inner ring that had been 'patrolling' the Zeklos residence and the outer ring that had closed in on them. Dimitri was a part of the inner ring, keeping Christian, his friend and charge, close by him. Christian—sharing some similar attributes with the Zelkos lords' oldest son—had been part of the act within the home. Dimitri felt him at his side now, distracted by his own confrontation with row after row of Strigoi.

Dimitri hoped that no news stations decided to take out a helicopter to inspect the area of the gas leak. He didn't want to deal with the wild stories that would follow.

He caught sight of the skyline and the rapidly graying night sky. Dawn was approaching and the dwindling numbers of Strigoi would not be a threat for long if they could only prevent them from reaching shelter in the next fifteen minutes.

Dimitri wasn't quite ready for the Strigoi to all burn to a crisp. He hadn't found Marlen yet. He needed to see the man, to know for certain that he was present, and that he was taken care of. Preferably by his own hand. He would feel slightly cheated if the sun took care of Marlen when he had so much to pay him back for.

Dimitri waded through the undulating mass of fighting men and women, dodging fists, fangs and sakes as he went. The fighters were matched in numbers but the guardians had the upper hand in skill. Even the fairly green Moroi combatants all had skill that superseded the enemy. Marlen had definitely been focusing on numbers when building his army, not skill. He hadn't done much to train his recruits, though raw power did the trick in many cases.

Dimitri was grateful for his superior height at the moment as he stood a head above much of the crowd, searching for the man who had caused him so much pain and heartache over the past year. The one responsible for taking Rose and almost costing him the love of his life and his son.

He wanted to rip the mans heart out. 'Man' was too good of a word for what Marlen was. He knew from personal experience that once a person was changed into a Strigoi they were no longer what they used to be. Man or women it didn't matter; they ceased to hold many of the qualities that made up a man or woman, their humanity and faults. Instead they became an 'it'. A being that existed purely to cause mayhem and pain. He had to find Marlen so that he didn't have the opportunity to do that for anyone else again.