The vampire in front of him hissed and lowered down, and Desmond did the same, his eyes narrowing as he felt his hand grip harder upon the blade in his hands, waiting for that moment when he would watch the other tense, seeing those leg muscles flexing in that way that build up energy before the suddenly released it, sprining forward. Desmond released his own pent up energy as he growled and exhaled sharply as he flew towards the vampire, visualizing the moment before it happened, knowing what would happen. The vampire's cockiness turned to apprehension, then fear as he noticed Desmond moving, and the gleam of the blade. His hands rose to catch it...
But the blades that Desmond and Balthazar wielded were not the standard sort of iron blades that they were used to confronting and stopping easily. Desmond had seen Balthazar slide one through stone before, though it had not gone quite so far through marble. Still, it was more than enough that he could feel it barely even shudder as it sliced clean through the hands of the vampire who was trying to stop the blade with them, the blade slicing through clean through it's neck and beheading it easily. Desmond didn't need to look behind him to know that the vampire was dead before it even hit the ground. With a dull thumping sound he heard the head fall and roll across the dirt behind him.
With a fluid motion, Desmond swung his blade towards the ground, neatly flicking the blood from the tip onto the ground. In the distance he could see Balthazar walking with an easy stride towards him, which meant that the others were dead. Balthazar was, if nothing else, efficient, and unlike Desmond he did not seem winded in the slightest or even tired, just contemplative as he looked out over the fields of dead. Desmond could feel his stomach turn as he looked at it. It was astounding what a small cadre of vampires were capable of against people who were only armed with swords and shields. A small town like this one was nothing more than a bloodied orgy before their cravings.
"They did not turn any of them. I imagine their little group had gotten big enough that they had just started to be afraid of catching real attention." Balthazar mused quietly as he walked through the emptied streets, their windows sills tinged red with the blood spilled over them like fallen paint. Men, women, children, there had been no one that was spared. Their deaths had come with brutal efficiency, none of the games that some of the older vampires fancied themselves to play. These were likely young, Desmond realized, perhaps even those created by the same vampire all in rapid succession. The smaller bands were often like little roving forces of nature, driven mad by their hunger, barely comprehensible or with any of their humanity in tact.
As he walked quietly down the empty street, he heard something shuffle. Pausing his pale blue eyes turned towards where the noise was coming from. Calmly he paused, then he walked towards the house where he had heard it, lightly pushing open the wooden door as his eyes stared at the inside of it. The carnage inside of it was like a living thing assaulting him, the smell of it enough to turn his stomach as he walked inside of it, noting body parts that had been strewn apart by monsters that had all but ripped apart their victims. In the corner though, there was a woman who had terrible wounds at her neck and a deep wound in her belly, but was moaning lightly, whimpering for help as she tried to reach down to pull herself out where someone might find her.