Keeper of the Flame - Saanvi Desai

Saanvi gasps, short and sharp and cut off mid-breath as her back is slammed into the rough brick wall.   She probably shouldn’t have been walking home, but the bus got trapped by an accident, and she wasn’t willing to risk the lives of everyone on it.
She’d seen him stalking her since two blocks from the agency.
She’d thought she’d been detected, somewhere along the line of the investigation. Maybe via that phone call she placed to his front business, thickening her Indian accent to pose as a call center operator, so a field team could set up a trace on the location.
He had to know it was someone from an agency when the place was raided. From there, he could have determined he was in Chimera’s operating area, and then staked the place out to find out which hunters and other employees could have been the one who placed that call. Given that currently, she’s the only one who obviously fits the bill, it probably wasn’t hard for him to put the pieces together.
Vampires can be incredibly cunning and still fundamentally idiots. If he wanted her dead, he should have used a gun like a normal human being.
But given what she’s learned about this vamp from studying his operation, he seems to prefer the dramatic. And he thinks he’s untouchable. Her investigation is proving that wrong, which means he not only wants her gone, he wants to send a message with her death. He’s not going to make it quick.
At least she can be reasonably sure he isn’t going to turn her. This one doesn’t mess around with fledglings.
Apparently he does mess around with dramatic villain speeches. She tunes him out, trying to think of what she knows about defending herself in a situation like this.
But her mind is going blank.
The only thing she can think is that when her family hears about this, it will crush them. She’s their only child, the last heir to a hunter legacy that’s been passed down since vampires followed in the wake of the ravages of colonial rule.   When she was born, after hours of labor that nearly killed both her and her mother, on the first day of Diwali, her family had seen it as a sign, that she would be a bringer of light, a lucky child whose life was guarded by the good in the world.
A split second of clarity, a single coherent thought like a match flaring in the darkness. She is a child of the light. And no one gets to take that away from her.
She ignores the claws tearing at the arm protecting her throat as her fingers fumble the katar from its belt sheath.
She has one chance to get it right.
Her hand flies out in a single, stunning blow, a punch that without the blade at her knuckles might still have knocked this creature off her.
With it, she’s got a straight shot to the vampire’s heart.
The old blade still strikes true, driving past bone to sink into the cold, dead heart of the monster trying to snuff out her spark.
A stunned look crosses his face a moment before he crumbles into ashy dust in the alley.
That’s right. I may be office staff, but that doesn’t mean I’m defenseless.
She uses the katar to tear a strip from her blouse, wraps her arm and then dials the agency medical hotline. “This is Hunter Desai, agency ID R-259870. Requesting non-emergency clinic transport.”