Carpathian 13 - Dark Destiny

ground silently, moving from shadow to shadow. Nicolae barely caught the sliding tail disappearing into the ground far below him. His heart slammed hard in his chest. The undead knew that if he managed to kill Destiny, he would destroy at least one of the hunters for certain.
    Her lifemate would never continue without her, and it was possible both hunters would follow her or turn.
    Destiny!
    I feel the evil one approaching. I have smelled his stench before. There was a confidence in her voice Nicolae did not feel. Pater was a powerful and dangerous adversary. Destiny was seriously injured, ill and fighting the poison in her body.
    Nicolae, let the human go. You will need your full strength to fight off the undead. Vikirnoff was always the same, his voice without inflection, even when he was sentencing a man to certain death.
    You will not! Destiny was furious with Vikirnoff. Do not listen to him, Nicolae. I do not need your help with one slimy vampire .
    The boiling chemicals that had mixed together in her stomach to form the explosive device were beginning to burn through her insides, as if releasing some terrible gas. Destiny studied the compound, felt Nicolae, and Vikirnoff through Nicolae, studying the chemicals with her.
    The first is nitric acid or something similar, Nicolae identified.
    And they have found a way to introduce glycerin, uniting the two chemicals, Vikirnoff pointed out.

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    Destiny winced. Nitroglycerin. Unstable. Dangerous. Sitting inside her and waiting for some signal to explode. Even a change in her body temperature could set it off. The virus itself could be the detonator if it raised her body temperature. Destiny controlled her panic, thinking, determined to use her brain. Their kind existed on blood. Blood would have no effect on that raging mass. A laser blast of pure energy would ignite it. The vampire would expect her to think like a hunter, not a human. He would never expect her to ingest anything other than blood.
    Pater was drawing closer, making his way stealthily down through the caves to the chamber where she rested. Destiny could feel his evil presence spreading through the mountain, a soft rumble of protest from the soil, from the insects and cave dwellers. The shadow lengthened, grew, a feeling of impending doom that began to invade her mind with insidious strength, shaking her confidence.
    The poison was doing its work, overcoming the antibody defense she had set up and breaking down her body's ability to fight. Tiny droplets of blood began to seep from her pores.
    Destiny closed her mind to everything but the problem within her. Nicolae must be protected at all costs.
    This thing, this trap that had been set for him, had to be destroyed. She could think of only one way to do so. Carefully weaving her spell, she called on the earth's minerals, looking for what she needed. Sodium carbonate. Lots of it. She could neutralize the acid in the system and break the glycerin down naturally; neither was toxic alone. She prepared a drink using the mineral water, making certain it was the exact temperature of her body.
    She had to fight to ingest it, to keep it in her body when everything in her rebelled. Once again, she entered a bodiless state in order to direct the sodium carbonate mixture where she needed it. She watched it closely as her only hope raced to do as she bade. If it didn't work, she intended to wait until the vampire was upon her, raise her body temperature as high as she could as fast as she could, and detonate the bomb, taking him with her. She would not allow him to get his hands on her. The chemicals touched, mixed. She knew the precise moment when she'd won.
    Nicolae sighed with relief. Vikirnoff's presence disappeared.
    The vampire was still coming and she was still weak. But she was a hunter. Destiny held the compound in her body as long as she could stand it, then expelled it as quickly as she could, crawling to a corner to be violently sick.
    She turned her head when a soft slithering betrayed the intruder. "Pater. How nice to see you've taken your true form. The scales suit you. I'm very impressed with the reptilian head. It screams success. Bet you drive the ladies wild in that form."
    There was little room to maneuver, and Destiny doubted she had the strength to shape-shift. She sat back, looking at the huge beast as it smirked at her, the cold, dead eyes triumphant. "You think