Blood Red (9781101637890) Read Online Free PDF Page B

from every possible orifice. But at least it did so quietly, and as soon as it was safe Rosa closed in on it and drove the stake all the way through its body with a shove of her boot, pinning it to the earth. That finished it. With a final squirm, it died, mouth open in a soundless gasp.
    The stench was appalling. She pulled a candle out of her hunting bag and struck a lucifer match to examine the monster.
    It did not differ substantially from any other
vampir
she had killed in the past. Bald head, hideous face not unlike a goblin’s mask, strangely wizened body, clawlike hands. Mouth
full
of nastily pointed teeth. Most
vampir,
if they didn’t want to kill their victim immediately, would make a cut on the inside of the elbow or some other place it didn’t show, and lap the blood like a dog. But most
vampir
didn’t bother with niceties. They simply tore the victim’s throat open, messily, and fed, and either left the body to be found later or disposed of it somehow so they would have a few more days or weeks to continue hunting.
    She had heard from the Bruderschaft tales of very ancient and very cunning
vampir
indeed, who had secured a place and ruled it with terror and a crushing mental power. She thanked the Good God and Saint Hubert she had never had to come up against one such as those. It would take not just a Hunt Master like herself, but the largest Hunting Party possible to put such an evil down.
    She reached into her hunting pouch again and removed the glass-lined flask of naphtha. Dispassionately she poured it over the body, then bent down and lit it with the candle, stepping back quickly as the soaked rags flared into instant flame. That was one good thing about
vampir,
the only good thing, really. They were tinder-dry and burned to ash quickly, even without the use of naphtha to hurry things along.
    She blew out the candle and restored it to her pouch so as not to waste it, and went to examine the girl. She was still unconscious, but a superficial examination did not reveal any telltale cuts that suggested the beast had fed on her yet. Good, then she had not been given the
vampir’s
blood in return; he had not been grooming her for his nest. She was vaguely pretty, and clearly poor. Probably a serving wench in the inn or a servant of some sort. Her hands showed she was no stranger to hard work. That sort was the easiest prey for the
vampir
to lure, with sensuous dreams and erotic magic.
    Well, she would be all right. Of course, she would probably have hysterics when she woke up from the
vampir-
induced trance and found herself in nothing but her shift, beside the mill in the open and next to a pile of smoking ashes, but that was no concern of Rosa’s. The local Brotherhood had brought her and Hans here for one reason and one reason only: rid the area of the
vampir,
its nest, and whatever servants it had acquired. It had not required of her that she do anything other than
save
the next presumptive victim.
    Now to get to the next hunt, before morning came and the servant-beast hid itself among humans again.
    Without any need to conceal herself, she trotted up the road and out of the village, heading for the ridge where the two creatures’ paths had diverged as fast as she could, pondering what her next move should be. Straight hunt, or ambush?
    I don’t know these mountains, and the creature probably does. I would wager that the
vampir
recruited it here so that the fiend had someone that could give it local knowledge.
    Now
she felt a mingled thrill of dread, excitement, and anticipation.
Vampir
were pretty mindless once they had focused in on a victim, and this one had been operating with the same handicaps she had, since it was not a native to the area. But the native creature? It was hunting on its own ground. This was going to be a real fight, and she was at a distinct disadvantage. At home in the Schwarzwald, she would have been able to set up an ambush.
    I don’t know where