Fingers like steel cables tighten around your neck, crushing your windpipe. You strain for a breath, fighting just for a few seconds of oxygen, but there's no chance.
What little of the world you can see, past the darkness that's filling your eyes, is turning red. You can barely make out the headmaster, his face twisted into a feral snarl as he continues to strangle you, and the only sounds are his grunting breaths filling your ears.
You close your eyes, not wanting to see that face anymore. Your thoughts are becoming disconnected, losing any lucidity, but you manage one last moment of coherence:
You think of Grace and how terrified she had looked. With a bit of luck, that terror has taken her a long way away from here. It's too late for you, but if she finds the others, then they can keep her safe, or as safe as any of them will be.
That…that's something…at least….
And with that last thought finished, you wait for the end.
It's not like you have much choice.
Then, suddenly, a shriek cuts through the forest around you. It's not human: the very inhumanity of it freezes your blood with dread, as though an icy hand has reached forward through the generations, gripping you as you share in the same fears as your ancestors as they were hunted through the forests.
Primal terror.
Even the headmaster's fingers falter, releasing your throat as you suck in a breath. It's agony to inhale, but the air is the sweetest thing you've ever experienced as you draw it down your aching throat. Even the forces controlling his mind, it seems, aren't enough to shield him from the ancestral dread the vampire's hunting cry has brought to the fore.
Before the shriek has faded away, there's an answer: a rumbling roar of animal fury, full of hunger and rage and the joy of hunting a quarry. The ground shakes under the pounding of heavy paws, and you can hear foliage crashing to the ground as something colossal throws itself through the forest towards you.
The headmaster scrambles to his feet, his hands balled into giant fists. There's no fear in what little of his face you can see; instead, he is staring at the source of the noise, determined and furious.
And distracted.