Daunator’s face appeared to be on fire from the inside. The grenade hadn’t made much of a sound when it went off, but she could tell the difference immediately as the Vampire contorted with pain, his glowing eyes bearing down on her as he fought against the intense burning literally consuming him from the inside out.
“How long will it take for him to die?” she shouted at Christian who was still rejoicing on the other side of the monster.
“I have no idea. But it should be soon.”
“Mila needs me,” Cale noted. “Do you think I can go?”
“Go, go!” Cadence didn’t hesitate. She could see through her IAC that Mila’s leg had been severed, and even though a Vampire couldn’t kill a Guardian, they could cause a lot of pain. The Area Leader was on the ground, grasping the bloodied stump, her teeth gritted.
Cale took off, and Cadence surveyed the rest of the field. Aaron was ending the largest of the Vampires, and the rest of the team seemed to have the other two under control. She could see several of her teammates rushing in her direction to help finish Daunator off, but there were still black creatures to contend with, and Heather and Cassidy were busy digging people out of holes and finding severed limbs. Daunator needed to die, and he needed to die now.
He wasn’t doing it though. As much pain as the Vampire was in, he seemed to be handling it somehow. His face wore the grimace of a person with horrible indigestion or abdominal cramps, but even as Cadence watched, waiting for him to burst into ash, he raised his hand and sent a surge of power her direction. She easily deflected it, the weak beam nothing like what she’d been fighting off before, but it was clear he still had some fight in him. In fact, when he shot another beam her direction a moment later, this one was stronger.
“I don’t think it worked,” she said to Christian, who paused mid-happy dance to turn and look at her.
“What do you mean? Sure it did.”
In response, Daunator sent a fireball the Guardian’s direction, and Christian barely got his arm up in time to deflect it. “Yeah, I mean... I don’t think one’s enough.” Daunator turned back her way, and Cadence found herself immersed in battle once again.
“How could that not work? His insides are on fire!”
“He’s really, really powerful!” she shouted back. Cadence surveyed the field again and saw the help that was coming was still a long ways off, and Daunator’s powers seemed to be building again with every second they waited. She needed to move in, needed to get a second grenade inside of him. If that didn’t work, she had no idea what might do the trick.
His beams were coming slower than before but building in intensity. His narrowed eyes focused in on her, and Cadence dodged to her right. He was slow to follow, but another beam headed her direction. A deflection from her bracelets kept her from catching on fire again. “Distract him, Christian. I’ve got a couple of your grenades. The hole’s already there.”
“Maybe you should let me....”
She wasn’t waiting for that. As Daunator concentrated on sending another wave of power her direction, Cadence moved a few steps closer, her wrist up, her hand on the grenade on her belt. She knew she had five seconds from the time she pulled the pin until it would explode. She’d have to plant it and get away. While she didn’t think the grenade itself could hurt her, she had no idea what harm an exploding Vampire could cause.
Daunator realized she was coming at him, and despite his growing power, he took a few steps back, closer to the drop off. Cadence took his hesitancy to face her as a sign of weakness and moved in again, faster this time, as Christian sprayed bullets across the ground at the Vampire’s feet—a distraction, but not one that should cause any harm to Cadence or Daunator, for that matter.
The monster opened his mouth to speak, his lips and gums blood red. “None of this had to happen,” he said, his voice a deep growl, though it was weak from exertion. “You could’ve left well enough alone.”
“The day you started claiming souls was the day well enough left my vocabulary,” the Hunter answered. She’d had enough, and thinking about all of the people who’d lost their lives because of this monster, their black, charred bodies littering the mountain top, she was ready to end him. Pushing off with her back foot, Cadence launched herself up into the air, stepping on Daunator’s outstretched thigh. She grabbed hold of his shoulder with one hand, and with the other, she took out the grenade, popped the pin, and shoved it in the hole Christian had used earlier.
He wouldn’t go easily. Daunator twisted and turned, almost throwing her off, trying to get the foreign object out of his chest cavity. At one point, he even faded a little bit, as if he might disappear, but there was no getting the grenade out of him, and when he realized what she had done, that he couldn’t handle a second one, Daunator stopped attempting to buck her off.
Instead, his talons sank into her hand where it gripped his shoulder. His face contorted into an evil smile, and Cadence thought for a moment she must be looking into the red, glowing eyes of the devil himself. In the back of her mind, a countdown had begun the moment she pulled the pin, and she was running out of time.
She attempted to pull her hand free, but his grip was a vice, and she couldn’t get loose. She felt the tendons in her wrist snap and thought she was literally pulling her own hand off. Another second went by, two. A low rumble emanated from Daunator’s throat, a cackle unlike anything she’d heard before. Christian was shouting her name, running in her direction, but it was too late. As Daunator twisted his body one final time so that Cadence was hanging over the edge of the drop off, his body exploded, a bright light blinding her. Cadence closed her eyes, and as her hand came free, she shielded her face from the blast of heat and energy. Like a supernova exploding deep in space, waves of power surged from the spot where Daunator had stood, blasting Cadence away from the mountainside, away from the ground, away from Christian’s extended hand, a lifeline she could not reach.
