07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

He now ascended the steps slowly. He was fairly certain of the identity of this hunterslayer,
but if he was wrong he was going to have to dodge a stave launched straight down at him like
a javelin. No problem—if he were still a vampire. Slightly more difficult, unarmed as he was and at a
severe tactical disadvantage.
He reached the top of the stairs unharmed. This was really the most dangerous part of
climbing steps, for a weapon of just the right length could send him crashing all the way back down.
Of course a vampire wouldn’t be permanently injured by that, but—again—he was no longer a
vampire.
But the person in the kitchen allowed him to climb all the way out of the root cellar
unhindered.
A killer with honor. How sweet.
He turned slowly to measure up his vampire hunter. He was immediately impressed.
It wasn’t the obvious strength that allowed the hunter to be able to whip off a figure eight
with the fighting stave that impressed him. It was the weapon itself. Perfectly balanced, it was meant
to be held in the middle, and the designs picked out in jewels around the handhold showed that its
creator had had excellent taste. The ends showed that he or she had a sense of humor as well. The two
ends of the stave were made of ironwood for strength—but they were also decorated. In shape, they
were made to resemble one of humankind’s oldest weapons, the flint-tipped spear. But there were tiny
spikes extruding from each of these “spear flakes,” set firmly into the ironwood. These tiny spikes
were of different materials: silver for werewolves, wood for vampires, white ash for Old Ones, iron
for all eldritch creatures, and a few that Damon couldn’t quite work out.
“They’re refillable,” the hunter-slayer explained. “Hypodermic needles inject on impact.
And of course different poisons for different species—quick and simple for humans, wolfsbane for
those naughty puppies, and so on. It really is a jewel of a weapon. I wish I had found it before we met
Klaus.”
Then she seemed to shake herself back into reality.
“So, Damon, what’s it going to be?” asked Meredith.