Lingerie Shop 7 - Vampire Hunting (The Lingerie Shop)

Book 7 of The Lingerie Shop series of short stories.
A dark, romantic fantasy
copyright © 2013 Trisha Miller.
Vampire Hunting
Peter gave Katya a look, “Vampire hunting, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this,” he said.
“You will need the practice, before we can even attempt to take on the Guardians. You said you would help me.”
“If you two need more time, that’s fine with me,” said Bill. “I can think of a lot better ways of spending an evening.”
Peter shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground, “I know I said I would help,” he said, “but it’s too weird.”
“Can’t you just do it for me, Peter? I can’t do it alone,” said Katya.
He looked at her lovely face, serious in the fading twilight. “I dunno: for anything else I’d be only be too pleased to help but this… Well it just doesn’t feel right.” A look of incomparable sadness passed across her face. He took a deep breath, “Hell! Ok: I guess I’m as ready as I ever will be. Let’s do it!” She flung her arms around him.
“Brilliant!” said Bill and clomped off towards his van. He emerged with three waist quivers, stuffed tight with arrows. “That’s 30 each, don’t waste them: I doubt we’ll get a lot of time to fetch ‘em back.”
Katya clipped a quiver on her waist band, slid an arrow out and held it in front of her, the silver head shimmering in the moonlight. She examined the mechanism, “You did a brilliant job with these heads Bill.”
Bill grinned, revealing a gap in his front teeth from bare knuckle fighting. “I do my best, Princess. They’ll shatter and drill their way through virtually any body armor, then open up like a silver flower on entry and release the shaft. The buggers will never get it out.”
“Sounds gruesome,” said Peter. “I didn’t think vampires wore body armor.”
“They don’t,” said Katya, “just the Vampire Guardians.”
“Guardians?” asked Bill.
“Sort of vampire police I suppose: they ensure the vampires keep to the law,” said Katya.
“You seem to know an awful lot about them,” said Peter.
“Let’s get going, while we still have the light,” said Bill. They picked up their bows and set off silently, walking single file in the cool evening air. The track rounded the hill and started to descend down through the forest. A barn owl hooted softly in the thickening darkness. Hearing the crunch of their footsteps on the leafy forest floor, it dived from its perch in a gnarled oak tree and slid, its feathers fluttering silently, across the graveyard, ahead of them, in a long, slow glide. The three hunters set up in a small copse of trees, on a little hillock, that stood in a broad field of wheat-stubble, separated from the graveyard by a low, dry-stone wall.