Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

heart for a moment, refused to allow air through his lungs. The plant loosened immediately, but when he forced his body to work again, the bugs continued to feast.
    Zacarias was mostly darkness. Shadows and stains, tainted in a way few if any other hunters were. That darkness was the very thing that allowed him to ignore such wounds, such excruciating pain. He was already part of that world. His father had been legendary with amazing skills in battle, but he was the only Carpathian Zacarias knew of who carried shadows within his soul—until his son had been born.
    Now, deliberately, Zacarias reached for those shadows—embraced them—let himself lose all light, drawing on the darkness that seemed to make up so much of him for aid. The moment all light within him was extinguished, the bugs began to die. The shadows were too dark to keep them alive. The plant lost its ability to continue growing, and with an already loosened hold on him, Zacarias was able to sheer off the outer woven branches, leaving the vines still inside his body.
    There had to be a source for bringing the dead leaves and vines to life. Zacarias was a hunter and he scented the undead immediately, a small slice of Ruslan giving life to his creation. Ruslan couldn’t sustain being in two places at one time, not while fighting off the attack of tiny flies. It took only moments to slay that dark force and take control of the vine within his body. Ignoring Ruslan’s scream of fury and promises of retaliation, Zacarias changed the molecules of the remaining plant, reshaping, absorbing, utilizing the thick vines inside him to replace the muscle and tissue lost. He could do nothing about the blood loss, but anything natural and of the earth was within his ability to manipulate.
    The moment his body was healed, he attacked without hesitation, a blur of motion, speeding across the distance between the vampire and himself, closing fast. Ruslan shrieked and rushed toward him. Thunder cracked. Shook the earth. Lightning sizzled across the sky in great whips as the two crashed together.
    Zacarias drove deep with his fist, piercing the rotted chest. Acid blood poured over him, burning through skin to bone. He hit something solid, abruptly stopping his attack, preventing him from reaching the blackened heart. The jar rode up his arm, and a burning vise fused around his arm sending waves of pain he cut off. The tiny stinging flies took to the air in a black swarm, closing around both vampire and hunter. It was difficult not to breathe them into his lungs. Talons tore at his chest, carving out great chunks of skin and muscle.
    Zacarias dissolved, allowing the wind to take him away from Ruslan, giving himself time to temporarily heal injuries and to keep as much blood as possible from leaking onto the ground. Ruslan licked at his fingers, his tongue long and obscenely thick, forked like a serpent’s. His face no longer wore his mask of beauty. The real vampire was revealed.
    Zacarias had seen his share of rotting corpses, but nothing equaled Ruslan Malinov. Flesh peeled off of him. Worms crawled through gaping holes in his flesh. His mouth was more of a gaping hole, without lips, his eyes sunken. Every living thing shrunk from him, grass withering, ferns and moss going muddy brown. Even the insects scurried away. Only the black flies persisted, feasting on the rotting flesh and depositing as many eggs as possible in the blackened organs.
    “You really have let yourself go, old friend,” Zacarias observed. “I think your arm is about to fall off.”
    Ruslan roared, the threat rumbling through the forest, shaking the trees. He raised his arms, up and down, palms pointed to the sky. All around Zacarias the leaves rustled, came to life, whirling and flying with the chaos Ruslan created. It was impossible to see through the whipping leaves as they stacked and formed one creature after another.
    He extended his arms and closed his eyes, removing the distraction of thousands of leaves coming alive around him. He reached with his other senses to find the threat within the moving debris. The figures surrounded the entire area, forming a loose ring and adding numbers inside the circle until the forest was populated with great monsters all moving toward him. The shadows in him called to the darkness in them. Ruslan had learned quickly.
    “I fear it matters little how I look to you, Zacarias. My little army does not care, either. I have no need to expend energy for your