To His Hell and Back-Chapter 277: Grim Power-II

Twenty minutes after Isabelle had helped them, only then did they hear the sound of gallops following them.

Turning her head slightly, Isabelle frowned. Her quick instinct allowed her to notice that the ones who had followed them were the same people who wanted to kill Arabella, "We’re being chased."

Arabella hadn’t heard the sound of the horses yet but the moment Isabelle had said so, she could hear the sound of the horses neighing and the thunderous galloping noise stomping on the forest floor which alerted her.

Erthand moved backward, holding to his own bow and arrow. While the horse still ran, he aimed at one of the horses, stopping one of them but he frowned upon eyeing their number. He snapped to Isabelle, "There are eleven of them, Your Highness."

"You-" before Isabelle could finish her words the sound of a sharp whipping noise filled their ears.

WHOOSH.

Arabella saw as an arrow had already pierced Isabelle’s shoulders and blood seeped out like river, dripping on her shoulder blade, startling her.

"Isabe-!" Arabella saw as the horse began to neigh and run amok due to Isabelle who had released her tight grip from the reign.

It happened in seconds. The horse’s body moved upward in a tall kick, its body shaking around. Arabella and Isabelle couldn’t hold on to the nervous horse and in a second, Arabella could see the stone beside her face.

She shut her eyes, thinking that she would now bear a large wound on the back of her head. Perhaps she would die again, she thought but she couldn’t feel the pain at all.

Her eyes slowly opened to see an arm had already shielded her. Then when she turned around, she saw Isabelle who was grimacing in pain, eyebrows furrowed and eyes shut with cold sweats forming a thin sheet above her forehead.

Arabella quickly sat up and turned to wince in pain as she watch how Isabelle’s hands had broke to the point that it had twisted to the side it wasn’t supposed to.

Panicked, Arabella raised her hands around Isabelle’s arm, "Your hand- Isabelle, we need to bring you to a doctor..."

"No- no!" Isabelle gritted through her teeth. She stared at Arabella and force a strong voice from her throat, warning Arabella in hurry, "Go. GO NOW!"

Arabella couldn’t make the choice whether to leave or not. Though she was sure she wouldn’t want to leave behind Isabelle who had protected her, the answer she was about to make was cut short as the next second she had to face the group of vampires staring above her.

"Oh dear, what’s this?" Johann said, "A vampiress hogging all the points? I’m sorry, I thought you were one of the preys to be hunted and shot you."

"How could you mistaken such a fancy dress?" another one of his friend laugh in mockery.

"You seemed so startled," said Johann staring at Arabella, "Did you think no one would caught up to you?"

Arabella didn’t answer his taunt, instead she moved in front of Isabelle, hiding her behind her body.

"Well you wouldn’t have been caught," said the vampire as he jumped down. Johann patted his two hands, and his blood red eyes that had stopped to her turned into something darker than just a sneer. "If not for this human friend of yours to tell us where you were running to."

Arabella moved her eyes slightly, just slightly, and she could immediately see the face of Iliza from the corner of her eyes, hiding her face but not in guilt, rather to make herself small enough so the other vampires wouldn’t caught wind of her.

Gritting her teeth, for the very first time in her life, Arabella felt the regret of not killing someone for good.

She clenched her fingers tight into a fist, her body unmovable to shield Isabelle.

Erthand was nowhere to be found and that was bad. Really bad. She couldn’t tell where Erthand had gone to but thought that perhaps he was also chased by the other vampires. In a way it was good that he didn’t come back with Donna but at the same time, what could the two of them do against ten men alone?

"How many limbs do you have," Johann began to count while moving his dagger around her, "Head, one leg, two leg, one arm, two arm, does your torso count?"

"That’s too little for us," someone else chirped. "How about we open her body? One organ per each person, one fingers per each person if it still isn’t enough."

Arabella shuddered. Her ears rang with such fear that she could feel her own heart pressed against her ears.

She could see that these vampires weren’t playing around. Though they seemed younger than her, they were much more violent, and they weren’t interested in charms or positions, they just cared about points and winning the hunt as it was a game to them.

"But they say she has power," someone else muttered in warning, "We should approach her carefully."

Johann shook his head while clicking his tongue, "You’re being stupid Gerald. Don’t you see? If she really does have power, would the Queen put her here on the loose? Would she be sitting there, cowering like a caught rabbit? She won’t. She can’t die even after she was killed but that doesn’t mean she has power."

The other vampires were quick to believe into Johann’s words, smiling, grinning from ear to ears as they realized that Johann was closer to the truth with the facts he had said.

"Since I am the leader," Johann sang, "I’ll be getting her head first."

His hands then reached out and Arabella jumped to a stand. She quickly rasped and felt around her hip where she had pushed the gun into her pocket earlier but much to her surprise, she found that the gun wasn’t anywhere inside her dress pocket.

Her eyes moved in an alarming speed, looking for it only to found that it had been knocked a few feet away from her, beside one of the vampire’s feet who still hadn’t noticed it.

With speed, she tried to reach toward it but the scalp of her head immediately burns as Johann had reached out his fingers, curling around her hair and yanking her head in one swift move until the back of her head had bleed.