Nikola had no idea where they were. He only knew that the horns were blaring. War horns of all things. He could hear the hooves stomping behind the car.
Looking down at the branch, he wondered if he should not just make Dimitri stop the car. What was the point in Dimitri risking his life as well?
A life which could be led until the end of time. A life Nikola wanted to preserve.
His hand hovered over the truck's door. He only needed to open the door and to slide out. He only…
"No!" Dimitri looked at him for just a moment. His red eyes were blazing. They were such a red, like Nikola had never seen on the man before.
Dimitri was a predator. He was scared. He had made his choice.
Nikola relaxed back into his seat.
"You know," he began, as he took the branch with which he had killed the Selkie once more. It calmed him, somehow. "I think that of all the people I've dated, you are number one."
The vampire chuckled. So, as if, he noticed what Nikola was doing and wanted to let the Bulgarian continue.
"Most liked to talk about themselves," Nikola kept on rambling. He didn't even know why. He could feel something in him bubbling, but he had no idea if it was fear or mana. "But not you. You like to listen."
"Niki. I know you are scared, but I have avoided more than one Wild Hunt before," this was news to Nikola. Something told him that Dimitri wasn't lying. "How much do you know about the hunts?"
Nikola clutched at the branch, not noticing how white his knuckles got.
"They are sent off against unnatural things. To restore the balance?" He asked, as he threw a look out of the car's window.
There was a skeletal hound running side by side with the truck.
He never got his answer. The hound slammed into the vehicle and forced it off the road.
****
Dimitri was out cold.
Nikola didn't even know if the man was still alive. The blonde had not had a pulse to begin with.
There was a branch coming out of his shoulder. The tree they had crashed into was a wreck.
The brunette didn't know where the fancy knife Dimitri had given him was. He only had his branch. The hounds had surrounded him completely.
Now they were barking. Making sure that he couldn't go past them. That he couldn't break their circle.
There was nowhere to run.
He looked at the skies.
"I have never harmed a human," he didn't know why he expected for someone, anyone, to hear him. Him, a soul-eating druid. "Never!"
Finally, the barking stopped. Nikola could see the bleached white skeleton of the horse. He could hear as its rider blew the war horn one last time.
He still took a fighting stance. His branch being the only thing left to him.
"Mortal," the voice was old and guttural. If this was a druid, Nikola thought to himself, then the creature had long since lost all humanity. "You play with death and beseech the heavens. Why?"
Nikola didn't want to beg. He didn't want to cry.
What use was it?
He was staring Death in the eyes. Those empty sockets on the skeletal creature which might have known warmth, once, but had long since forgotten it.
He heard a whisper in the wind. He felt warmth at his fingertips.
He knew that he had to listen. He just needed to listen to whatever had responded to his plea to the heavens.
Nikola saw a vision. Of people in robes dancing around the flames. Of a woman with a bag over the head being strangled to death.
Of a priest chanting, doing something that sounded like throat singing.
"Remember," the voice on the wind whispered.
The hounds did not move any closer. The lone rider kept his distance.
The branch in his hands began to heat up.
"I am a Christian," Nikola had no idea what sort of demon had latched on him now, but the circle of fire which surrounded him, and Dimitri, was very real.
He was certain that if God had not created it, then something else had.
"The deaf one won't listen," the flames spoke, as they lunged at the hounds and the rider. The rider stood his ground. So, as if this was just a test.
Nikola was being tested. He knew as much.
"You are but a shadow," Nikola countered. His hands went to his neck, where his crucifix rested. The metal was cold. The fire was there, right before him.
His salvation.
But what was he willing to give for that salvation?
"Your people are mine," the voice spoke, as the flames began to close in on Nikola.
"Three deaths you will die," the voice continued, as the flames grew closer and closer.
Nikola began to back away towards the car. His hands were digging into the cold silver.
But the silver was not burning him. It was chilling his soul with the lack of protection it was offering.
"Three deaths," the voice continued, as the flames licked at Nikola's pants. He jumped. Climbing over the car. Knowing that if the flames spread to it, he would die.
A death by fire. The final death.
"I don't want Dimitri to die," he said.
There was no escaping his fate. The fire was there, circling him. The death by claw was obvious to him now. It was the hounds.
The rider with his iron claws on bony fingers.
"Balance must be restored," the voice continued. "You have never harmed a human. I will not make you start doing so."
Nikola took a deep breath. The flames were licking at the car. The smell of burning tires was making him sick.
"Come to the light. Jump!"
The fire spread. Burning away at grass. Burning away at fallen branches.
"If I jump, will Dimitri survive?"
He knew that he had nothing to offer to this creature.
Nothing but himself.
"Yes."
He had no time to think if it was lying.
He jumped.
Falling into the flames.