Meanwhile, Serenna, Nikol and Borsun gratefully watched the deadly sun vanish from sight, the wind bringing with it the sharp gusts of night. They crept out from their shelter in the trees and stood in the centre of the field.

"I can feel the raw energy of the Ministry here," Nikol muttered, circling the area with his palms out-stretched, "we are in the right place."

Serenna grinned, looking about her along the ground and up in the skies, "then we'd better start," she said, her eyes wide with excitement.

She reached into a pocket of her skins and removed the blood crystal that Alexa had enchanted, holding it upwards to face the moon in her open palm, "Decepto Multipla," she muttered, the glittering gem glowing from the magic at its inner core. Its power surged upwards in a controlled column to a point in the sky that was unseen, before it hurtled back to its source and dwindled, the crystal regaining its lifeless facade.

Looking around for some sign that the magic had worked, she began to feel a dull vibration in the air. Time was moving swiftly by and the Deatheaters would soon appear.

"Any change?" Serenna asked of the Elders, casting her eyes back to where the more magical Vampires were circling.

They both shook their heads, "no, if the Deatheaters are coming, they are doing so quietly."

Serenna's grin broadened, "oh they're coming," she muttered, her heightened visual acuity detecting small ripples in the atmosphere a few metres away. The ripples expanded and grew in intensity, running into fifteen other sets that had begun not far away, "get ready," she announced, pointing at each of the areas in open space that the Deatheaters would step out of.

Heeding her, the two youngest Elders walked over to her and stood a few steps behind, fully prepared for an assault.

Serenna lost herself in the sudden echoing beats of many pulses that filled her ears, making her salivate.

"Like fast food," she muttered, licking her full, crimson lips sensually and bracing herself. They had to launch their attack as soon as the Deatheaters apparated. They couldn't let any slither back to their master.

Black clouds gathered overhead, blocking out the moon's glare and the wind began to blow fiercely, crashing against the three Vampires with devastating ferocity. But the un-dead beings were stronger than nature and stood their ground as the blackened sky was pierced by a column of charcoal smoke that sliced through the air, landing a few feet from the Vampires.

A masked face emerged and the smoke enveloped his body, creating a set of deathly black robes.

"Good evening," Serenna growled with a cocky wink and leapt through the air, twisting her body into a somersault. Kicking out after the first revolution, her feet clipped the Deatheater under the chin with a sickening crack as the neck broke, flinging the corpse to its final resting place fifty feet away.

With a feral growl, she landed in a crouch on the hard, wind-chilled ground like some angelic beast. Her eyes gleamed with the flames of battle and it was like she was embracing a friend in those eyes. She was a warrior who thrived in violence, and as another Deatheater stepped from the ether, she embraced the thrills of war and turned her insatiable fury on him, landing a single punch that broke his skull.

Nikol and Borsun enjoyed their own little glimmer of glory while Serenna sliced through Voldemort's forces, spilling the foul, stinking blood of evil.

Using small spells, they showered their arsenal down on the harbingers of death, disorientating their foes so their comrade could deliver the final blow that obliterated their lives.

"Enjoying yourselves?" she roared in the aggressive, native tongue of their kind.

They replied with an ascent, but stumbled when they were blind-sided by four Deatheaters, who knocked the Elders to their knees and prepared their death spells.

Serenna roared at them, baring her glistening fangs as the mighty drums of thunder and lightning split the skies.

A great hiss of wind lifted her from her feet, delivering her to the invading Deatheaters with a crunch of bone and squelch of flesh. Gripping one by the neck, she bit down on the neck of the other, the remaining two lying stunned a few metres away.

Her teeth pierced the skin and drove into the vein, allowing thick, slick blood to pass down her throat, filling her stomach with the electrifying sensation of darkness - true darkness.

The Deatheater in her grasp struggled valiantly, trying to prise her off his neck, but as the life ebbed away, he felt his breath grow heavy before his final expiration gurgled in his mouth, his eyes fluttering closed as he succumbed to his eternal slumber.

The other, held tightly in her fist, had the breath squeezed out of him, his trachea collapsing under the strain and sealing his journey to the underworld.

Finally satisfied, Serenna released the neck with a hollow snick and let the body fall, her belly full and energised.

Looking around, she saw Nikol's hunched back, crouched over a burly attacker who struggled helplessly against the Elder, while Borsun snatched the last Deatheater from his apparation mist and proceeded with his own bloody banquet.

She searched for more evidence of Deatheaters approaching but saw only corpses, most with their necks open and a few resting with their necks at odd angles, hideous protrusions beneath the skin evidence of the nature of their demise.

Then the clouds gathered, signalling a reprise, and a Deatheater appeared behind her, suddenly wrapping a thick, meaty arm around her throat while his other jabbed a blunt wand tip into her back.

"So, the Order thought they'd be clever and run a diversion," he snarled in her ear, "just to bring more Vampires over? This is futile! They're getting desperate, sending their own allies to their death."

Serenna's grin never wavered as she toyed with the eight-inch knife blade at her hip, waiting for the perfect moment to puncture his triumph aswell as his heart, "but you fell for it," she growled with a low laugh, "and all you have to do is look around and see what it cost you."

"There's plenty more where they came from," he muttered, "but you won't live to see our victory. Avada Kedavra!"

His wand exploded with green light, but it wasn't Serenna that found herself consumed with horror. He felt his Killing Curse reflect off the Vampire's lifeless skin and pierce his own, absorbing his life instantly.

He fell to the ground, wand still clutched in his fist and his last moment of shock immortalised on his face for all time.

Serenna turned to look at her captor with amusement, "how can you kill what's already dead?" she said and then checked the battle field one last time.

So many Deatheaters defeated and lying dead on the ground, decaying with each passing moment as their evil deeds consumed their corpses.

Serenna's senses picked up no more life, so she breathed in the scent of death one final time and turned to the Elders, "our work here is done boys! Let's go!"

Turning away from their massacre, they basked in the power of the full moon and transformed into bats, sweeping through the skies back to Grimmauld Place.

But their victory was short lived for a loud, echoing laugh filled the Vampires' ears.

Serenna, who was leading the charge, slowed and flapped her wings furiously to try and stay airborne, but the laugh sliced through her ears and spoiled her sonar. She found herself deaf to her environment so that when a poorly aimed dart was shot, embedding itself in her shoulder, her opposite wing failing to keep her in the air.

Before crashing into the ground, Serenna managed to resume her natural form and landed in a crouch at the feet of the hunter while the Elders hurried away to report to their Chieftan.

"You really should be careful where you fly," he laughed, tossing a stake around in his left hand. Leaning forwards, Rader yanked the dart out of her shoulder, her agonised cries adding to his amusement, "considering the pain you inflict on others, I would have thought you enjoyed it."

"No," Serenna muttered, her other hand clutching her wound.

"That was a nice trick you played back there," he said, crouching down and fixing her jet eyes in his own penetrating stare, the stake jabbed painfully beneath her chin, "I have to admit that your friend played it smart. But it only bought you a few moments of glory. Now, you will die."

Serenna gulped saliva and quickly glanced about for a weapon she could reach. Her right arm was useless until it had healed, and that was a few hours off.

Nikol and Borsun were nowhere to be found so she had to think fast. But thankfully she had spent centuries in the dimensional drift.

"Any last requests, unholy demon?" he snarled, straightening up and holding the stake ready for the final blow.

Then she saw it. Clipped to his trousers was a six inch serrated blade. If she moved fast enough, she would be able to reach it.

"Actually, now that you mention it," she mumbled, deliberately letting her words fade so that he had to lean forwards to catch them. She gulped saliva in feigned agony, making him lean in a little closer.

Sweeping out her extended leg, she knocked him off his feet, lashing out with her good hand and grabbing the knife as he toppled backwards.

With a pained exclamation, he hit the floor as Serenna stood, raining a hail of blows on him. But with a kick, he managed to subdue her long enough to vault to his feet, eyeing her malevolently as his stake rolled away into the long grass.

For a few moments they regarded one another, circling in preparation for an attack. Serenna held the blade ready to slash his skin, while Rader held his coat back so that he could grab his weapon of choice in a hurry.

"Why do you fight?" he asked in quite a serious tone, "is there any reason when you know that the Dark Lord will win?"

Serenna's eyes narrowed, "because it's the right thing to do."

"But you're a Vampire. Shouldn't you be on his side?"

"We aren't as evil as you think," she replied, "but you would never think to see that."

With that, she took aim and flung the blade at him, embedding it in his upper arm.

With a scream of pain, he wrenched the bloodstained knife from his flesh and threw it on the ground, reaching for clean instruments as he charged her, but she was faster, vaulting over his head and landing a powerful side kick to his back on landing.

"Sneaky," Rader hissed, pulling six different blade weapons from his belt and throwing them at her with painful precision.

But Serenna was smarter than he gave her credit for and used an impressive array of ducks and dives to dodge the shimmering blades.

"You don't know the half of it," she growled, catching the last weapon out of the air and turning it on its owner with a vicious flick of the wrist. He tried to deflect it with his cloak, but the attempt came too late as it collided with his shoulder with a sickening thump, "I haven't survived for a thousand years without learning a thing or two."

Choking for breath and sweating from the pain, Rader looked at her with his grey eyes, for once devoid of hate. Serenna wasn't breaking her stride while he could feel his energy fading.

He reached for another weapon but she halted his attempt, leaping through the air that separated them and knocking him to the ground.

"With all that hot air you blew back in the alley, I thought you were better than this," she growled, pinning him to the ground with his arms above his head away from any concealed weapons, "but you're just another fool who thinks he's better than us. You were more threatening when we didn't know what you were."

"Bringing you back was unexpected," he gasped, her powerful legs restricting his lungs and putting pressure on his wounds.

"I'll bet," she snapped.

"But I'm not out of tricks."

With a grinding of metal against metal, he triggered a hidden mechanism that released a silver stake from a concealed weapon around his wrist.

The noise startled her so that she lost her grip on his arm, which gave him the opportunity to jerk his fist upwards, embedding the stake in her chest.

Stunned, she wriggled away from him as he retracted the weapon, her hand clasped tightly to the entry-point which was leaking blood at an alarming rate. Spluttering past the collapsed lung, she coughed blood onto the floor and collapsed on her side, clinging on to her final few moments.

With a self-confident smirk, he stood up and straightened his cloak, watching Serenna writhe in agony, "you can't hang on forever with a broken heart," he hissed with a low laugh.

But Serenna began to laugh, low, malevolent and sadistic.

To his surprise, she took a great breath and got to her feet, the wound fading into nothing, "you missed," she said with a cock of her head before rushing forwards with a burst of speed, engaging him in hand-to-hand combat, at which she was far superior. Her millennia in the dimensional drift had taught her a great deal and had given her time to hone her strength.

He blocked her blows with difficulty and then eventually not at all, allowing her to overwhelm him with her raw, feral power.

By the time she began to tire, his face was shattered, bruised and covered in cuts that oozed with blood. He lay in a crumpled mess on the floor, waiting for her to deliver the final, merciful blow.

"This is for my son," she said and picked up one of the many discarded blades scattered across the field.

He watched through exhausted eyes as she toyed with the blade, kneeling down beside him with it in hand. Rader was too broken to struggle or try to escape. He had failed.

Grabbing a handful of hair and jerking his head back, Serenna exposed his pale neck and rested the blade in a horizontal line across his quivering Adam's apple.

"Now, where is he summoning the Chimeras, and when?" she asked, her mouth so close to his ear that he could feel her deathly breath on his skin.

He gulped saliva, gasping when she jerked his head to prompt an answer, "midnight," he managed to whisper passed a fractured jaw and a mouth full of blood.

"Where?" she growled, jabbing the knife a little deeper into the skin without breaking it.

"I...don't know," he replied, yelping when she gave his hair another yank.

"I said where?"

"I wasn't told," he answered, his voice becoming almost pleading, "it was never something I was required to know. But it will show up on a mystical map. Energy...too great for the atmosphere."

Serenna knew that the Map Alexa had obtained from the Ministry would have other uses than simply locating focal points.

"Has the Difforg clan been received successfully?" she demanded.

He managed to nod, "yes," he answered in little more than a whine, "I can smell them."

"Thank you," she said and carved a great gash across his jugular, spilling his blood across the ground as it escaped his arteries in great gushes.

His final breath came quickly, his eyes open and staring as his body folded in on itself as it settled on the ground.

This time Serenna waited, tuned in to the remaining beats of his heart until it slowed to a stop. The Vampire hunter was dead.

Tilting back her head, she gave a great roar of triumph, beating the air with her fists as lightning sliced through the skies. Vokul's death had been avenged.

Taking a last long look at Voldemort's once secret weapon lying drained and vanquished, she transformed into a bat and hurried through the turbulent winds back to Headquarters.