The moon was high in the sky as David and Mack walked down the road that lead south from Georgetown. David didn't sense anything nearby yet, so he and Mack were talking quietly, discussing possible strategies.

"I have something I want to try, actually, but it's going to mean you're effectively on your own until the last minute, I won't be able to give you instructions or warnings. You'll probably hear them coming before I can say anything to you, in fact."

Mack looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, they're getting pretty wary, especially the smaller groups, which are what I'd ideally like to suck in here. They can sense me as well as I can sense them, and fewer and fewer of them will come anywhere near me. They don't know who I am, of course, just from the sense, but they know anybody they do sense could be the hunter, so they're getting pretty skittish about approaching strangers. But there's a way I can be 'invisible' to them. Not physically invisible, but to their mental sense. They'll think we're two humans, until I'm ready to move. The problem is that it takes all my concentration to do. I'm getting pretty good at it, I think I might be able to walk slowly while doing it, but there's no way I can talk, or do much of anything else, until they're so close that they can't all get away."

Mack thought that through, then nodded. "Well, I just have to walk down the road, and then pretty much duck and get out of your way once they actually get here, right? I'm pretty sure I can manage that." He grinned.

David grinned back. It was good to be hunting again! "Let's get to it then!"

He and Mack set off at a slow, ambling pace. David didn't want to try going any faster, since his attention was not going to be on the road. As they walked, he summoned up the blank room. It took a few tries, his eyes kept wanting to go to things along the side of the road as they loomed up in the moonlight. He looked down at the dusty, worn surface of the road itself, and that was better. Soon he was completely lost in the formless white, and the road's plain surface moving in front of him became part of the trance. He was not just invisible, he didn't exist at all. Hours passed, and David would ordinarily have been bored, seeing nothing but the passing road, hearing nothing, saying nothing, but he wasn't even aware of the time. Mack remained silent, and just walked along beside his companion, keeping quiet to avoid disturbing him.

Eventually there was a flicker of something at the edges of David's senses. For a moment it almost jolted him out of his trance, but he regained the state nearly instantly. That not-quite-conscious part of him that was aware of his surroundings, even if it wasn't thinking about them, tracked the sense of vampires in the distance as they moved. He would have noticed, and come out of the trance state, if the source had been unusually strong, but it was not. He didn't measure it, he just knew without thought that it was nothing unusual as it moved towards him. The vampires were going slowly, wary, but there was nothing in the night but the sound of two pairs of feet on the road.

They drew steadily closer, becoming bolder as they sensed no threat. The vampires all knew by now that the Hunter was another vampire, and there were no other vampires here, just two helpless humans.

They had actually set foot on the road, and Mack was hastily backing away, when David snapped to life. He drew his sword and ran straight into the middle of them. There were five. Mack dropped to the road, out of the way of flying blows, as David fought. He was a blur of motion, steel catching the moonlight in lightning flickers as he snapped it through the air and through vampire flesh with equal ease. It took only seconds for the first to die, and the second had fallen before the startled undead could fully realize what had happened. The remaining three broke and ran into the night, and David ran after them. He caught one more, and was able to reach ahead and mentally slow a fourth and catch him as well, but the fifth escaped into the night.

"Damn." He jogged back to the road, where Mack was picking himself up and dusting himself off.

"Did you get them all?"

David shook his head. "One of them got away. Which is annoying, as it will now be that much harder to use that trick again. But I think this went fairly well. In fact..." suddenly he trailed off. "Oh hell."

"What?"

"There's another pack out there. And the one who's still running for it has veered towards them. They're going to know exactly who we are and where we are in just a few minutes. And it's a big pack, more than I really want to face down. We need to get out of here, and fast!"