. A thickly calloused hand comes to swipe at the rivulet of blood seeping innocently from his lower lip, the perilous spires of fangs now visible beyond the fleshy dams. "Need I remind you, pet, how badly I can hurt you?" And with that, the insurmountable heft of his frame darts forth once more...

Rarely was it that my instincts led me to a destination where I was enabled to make mistakes callous and otherwise easily avoidable. Honed and thorough, my intuition was trustworthy enough that I was often existing in a certainty that blunders made in choices of actions were nearly nonexistent. A false sense of security, really, when it was taken into account the increasing encounters in which I had made some sort of express decision that resulted in disarray or injury on not only myself, but whoever it was that had been drug into the situation with me and... you guessed it. A vampire. It is more than likely my disgust for the undead beings is acceptable when the recent ... encounters were taken into account. How was it that vampires could survive ungodly amounts of vindication and attempted exacted revenge? I had no answers to that question, except for a handful of expletives that I would prefer to indulge in, instead of using their proper names as vampires. What about leeches? Ungrateful blood suckers? Maybe there was room for renovation in my judgment about the species for consideration as gratitude towards Damon whom I had no quarrels with as a vampire. Maybe there was room for others, too. But this man? I found my imagination tugging its proverbial leash as it strayed towards the imagery of the looming vampire transforming into an ogre, complete with boils and mountainous ranges of pus oozing over his ugly face with his cracked lips speaking nothing more than grunts and unintelligible sounds. The leash became unbearably tight as Isolt's gentle but tangible distress pulled on its, and I began to see the folly with which I was presented as the bear trap breaks and the ogr- ... Vampire, is unleashed once more.

Though deceptively slow, the vampire moves with purpose towards both Isolt and myself until there is no space between the younger vampire and the mammoth of a leech. It is with a surprising, sickening sound that her fist collides with his grotesque skin (... it isn't transmissible by touch, is it? Is it contagious?!) Here I was, creating a pretty weapon for the woman to use, and she merely uses her fist? Where is the excitement in that? I would have to give her credit for the force of the punch as it suggests a kind of aggression I wouldn't have deemed her capable of prior to the actual violent display, but it didn't take long until concern would register itself on my face, knitting itself taut between my eyebrows, furrowed above narrowed, calculating eyes. The words articulated as a threat come in a dangerous hiss from the male vampire who I now understand to be affiliated with my unfortunate companion, become my threat as well when the behemoth moves forward again as if inspired by her actions. It is without hesitation that I make it my prerogative to be in the immediate path of the vampire as to allow Isolt a moment's reprieve before realizing that I must now come up with some kind of defensive maneuver instantaneously. If a bear trap didn't stop the vampire, what man-made object might?

The answer was that potentially, no man-made object might leaving the magic that was all but whispering excited words of encouragement to me as defensive became inspirationally offensive. I understood the exhaustion that would arrive seconds after completion of any use of magic, but I couldn't deny that I was excited for a chance to every variety I possessed. The Shadow sprawled itself into the room, now, with its limbs growing by the moment to swallow any light in the room because it knew I operated better in the heaviness of such absence of light. With the comfort of darkness, I could weave magic into a replica of the red headed vampire he was hunting. The ruse proved effective as he reached for her immediately, and I could remain in a close enough distance that the undead flesh clinging to his bones became accessible. By a blink of my eyes, the flesh began to drip from it's natural form, rolling down over the muscles in a deliberate, excruciating fashion as if beads of rain on a glass pane. Satisfied with it's course I relented slightly, the image of Isolt flickering into the darkness which commanded his attention back onto me, and a frustrated grunt expelled from his lips saw his hands collide with me in a surge of anger. The pain would come later, but for now? I landed a good few feet from him to outstretch my arms and then quickly cross them over my chest. The action was enough to draw the swords and knives from their resting position on my shop walls and shriek their way through the air to stick their points into the fading flesh on the man's face. Resisting the urge to wipe the gentle sheen of sweat from my brow, I exhaled hotly and tilted my head to get a better picture of the man as the lights flickered back to their routine brightness, though that itself was relatively dim.

"Public service announcement: I can hurt you worse."

My words were breathy as using all the forms of magic I possessed was taking a toll on me, considering their lack of encompassing practice. I nodded curtly, and the Shadow's hands slipped around the vampire's neck, one long and billowing arm prying his jaw open to slip it's thick limb straight into the gaping hole of the man's jaws. Through a sickening, choking noise the vampire's eyes began to widen, and the swords, feeling their calling, executed their trajectory straight through the man's skull and when they were finished? His skull resembled something of a pin-cushion. I was unaware of the satisfied smile on my lips as I sat on the ground where I'd managed to be tossed to, murmuring the same very words I uttered after every execution, and with a brush of my hands together as if wiping away the man's existence in total, the rest of his body crumbled into a pile of bare bones.

"I really, really hate vampires."