“Some motherf*cker’s always tryin’ to iceskate uphill.”

Fun fact: The directors got that line from Wesley Snipes. No, he didn’t suggest it to them, they heard him use it in a conversation.

That’s how he actually talks.

“Come out.” Cullen said softly into the dark, and icy downtown street of Forks, Oregon. He had kissed Belle just a bit more than he should have, more than was safe for her, knowing what was out there, coming for him. His ‘sister’ had seen it, and had seen that if all the Cullens came together for the Daywalker, that Belle would inevitably find out, and she would be here. And after that, Edward Cullen could feel the mind of the predator closing in on him.

Here in the place of death.

Blade stepped out of the doorway that would have hid him from merely human senses, his heavy black armor only slightly darker than his face, his booted steps crunching inch thick ice under his feet despite the light cat-like way he stepped.

Edward could smell caution, but also anger well-controlled. And he reached out to read the mind, and saw Blade’s plans. Blade knew that he was fast, faster than him, and so Blade planned to dump a grenade in his path, and nail him while he flipped in the air.

Edward nodded. It was a good plan, and it might well have worked, but his opponent seemed unaware that his innermost plans lay open to be read by any passing telepath.

Edward feinted forward, a motion so swift that a normal human would not have seen it, but suddenly Blade’s katana was in his hand, and Edward noted that his suspicion was correct. The feared vampire slayer was much faster than a human, but not nearly as fast as Edward.

A clink-clink, very faint, like that of a grenade swaddled in felt, a deadly baby to live a life of fire, came from Blade’s direction, and Edward nodded sadly. In many ways he did not disagree with the Daywalker. Most vampires were frankly a scourge on the world, but he would not die for this one, and leave Bella alone.

Edward sprang to the right with a speed that would have shocked a diving eagle, daunted a rattlesnake, and possibly let him dodge a Hellfire missile launched from a Predator overhead. He hit the corner of Wilson’s Drug Store, shattered a half-dozen bricks, and set a couple flying free from the wall, with one impacting in the midst of the window for Morgan’s, a jewelry store across the street.

By the time the alarm had begun to ring, he had rebounded from the corner of Wilson’s like a pinball, and he was heading straight at Blade from his right shoulder. Blade had been waiting for him to charge forward, and into the grenade he had kicked forward.

Blade was not there.

Panic gripped Edward, and suddenly he saw more clearly as his and Blade’s emotion’s spiked.

–Yeah, punk, I know all about your mind juju–

Blade had leapt forward over the grenade in front of him, taking Edward’s initial place in a triangle in the street. Only the grenade he had tossed was not a grenade. Or was it? So little time…and…

Blade was standing where Edward had stood, and a pair of crossbows were in his hands. Two hawthorne tipped darts sped for Edward’s heart as he hurtled across the road to where Blade had been. Edward tried to dodge instinctively, to step aside, and he felt himself began to cartwheel out of control on the ice.

With superb reflexes, he got himself stable, and his eyes narrowed and the world seemed to slow down. One dart he caught at arm’s length. The other he caught but an inch from his heart.

And then pain flared in his hands. The darts were coated with some horrible acid.

Blade just looked at him as Edward sailed on. Edward had seen his best, and he realized that Blade was far more dangerous…

–Too late, punk.–

And Edward knew.

Clink. Clink.

Two grenades.

One false, the one Blade had jumped.

The other that he sailed out of control toward at blinding speed, the one that Blade had dropped between his ankles was real.

Edward leapt, trying to go high, get above the explosion. But even his reflexes could not turn a tenth of a second into safety from an incendiary grenade that blew up a foot from his foot.

“BELLA!!” He screamed, and died.

“Sparkle boy had guts, if not brains.” Blade told the street as he bent down to retrieve the katana laying on the ice next to his feet. Soon, the police would come, and so he slid into the darkness of the alley with practised ease.

He had heard there was some whiny punk in New Orleans that needed to be interviewed.

Interesting…and while i dreaded Blade killing Edward….it was so satisfying. I wonder why that was?