The swordsman sprinted through the room, running on the tables, slicing and cutting like a whirlwind. Everyone moved at once. People screamed, pulling weapons, and overturning tables. Some ran to the back, others charged us. Sean sprinted forward, carving his way through the attackers.
A vampire grabbed the swordsman’s tattered cloak and jerked at it. The cloak came free, revealing Maud in syn-armor, her short blue-black hair flying. She dropped to her knees on the table and buried her dagger in his throat. Blood sprayed her face. She pulled the dagger out with a short jerk, rolled on the table, just as another vampire shattered it with a blow of his blood mace, and sliced across his face with her sword.
Next to me Arland stood frozen.
I reached over and pushed his mouth shut. “Arland!”
He stared at me, as if waking up from a dream.
I pointed at Maud. “Help my sister!”
For a stunned half-second he stared at me, and then he pulled out his blood mace, roared, and tore into the mass of bodies like a raging bull.
I slipped the handle of the energy whip into my right hand and squeezed it. A thin flexible filament slid from it, dripping to the floor. There was Maud. There was Sean and Arland. Where was little Helen?
I moved forward, picking my way through the fight to where Maud had originally jumped. A female vampire charged at me, her mouth opened, her hammer raised for the kill.
Sean hurled his attacker aside and turned toward me.
I flicked my wrist. The filament ignited with bright yellow and the energy whip sliced at the oncoming vampire. She howled, the deep gash that nearly sliced her chest in two instantly cauterized. I flicked the whip again—she wouldn’t recover from this injury anyway—and her head rolled off. That was the problem with an energy whip. A wound to the torso almost always meant a slow and painful death.
I kept moving.
A chair flew at me. I ducked and ran straight into a male vampire. He grabbed me, jerking my neck to his mouth. I grasped the end of the whip with my left hand—the glove was the only thing it wouldn’t cut—and pushed the stretched whip through the vampire’s face. It cut straight through the helmet and bone, and the top half of the vampire’s skull slid to the floor. The body crashed, with me on top of it. I rolled to the side, under a table, scrambled on my hands and knees and saw a small shape under another table in the distance.
“Helen!”
The small creature under the table turned toward me. Found you.
I crawled from under the table. In front of me vampires clashed, all local—whenever there was a big fight, people settled personal scores. I flicked my whip, lengthening it. It made a sharp electric crack. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. Suddenly the floor before me was clear. I ran through the opening, dropped to my knees, and pulled Helen from under the table. She clutched at me, a five-year-old girl with pale hair and the round green eyes of a vampire.
“Aunt Dina!”
She remembered me! “I’ve got you.”
I scrambled up, supporting her weight with my left arm. A vampire rushed us. Helen hissed, pulled out a knife, and swiped at him. He leaned out of the way, his axe swinging toward us. Sean thrust himself in front of me, catching the axe in mid blow. The vampire strained. Sean sliced at him, the green blade cutting through armor like a sharp knife through a pear.
“Follow me.”
I chased him through the slaughter. Midway to the door Maud appeared next to me, her blades bloody.
“Arland!” Sean roared, his voice covering the din of fighting.
I turned and saw the Marshal, covered in blood, bellowing like a bull, as his mace reduced armors and bones to a bloody pulp.
“Arland!” Sean yelled again.
The Marshal saw us and turned, following. We tore out of the front door and ran to the slick black shuttle. The doors swung open—Arland must’ve activated the remote—and Sean leaped into the pilot seat and started flipping switches.
Maud climbed into the passenger seat and I handed Helen to her.
A clump of vampires pushed out the door. It fell apart, revealing Arland snarling, fangs bared. He swung his mace and cracked one attacker’s skull, grabbed another by his throat with his left hand, snapped his neck, and threw him aside like a rag doll. Maud’s eyebrows crept up. She paused for a second, while sliding Helen into the seat restraints. “Who the hell is that?”
“The Lord Marshal of House Krahr.”
I landed into the seat next to her.
Arland brained the last attacker, ran to the shuttle, and jumped into the seat next to Sean. The tiny camera zipped into the cabin behind him.
A screaming crowd exploded out of the doors and ran for the shuttle.
“Do you even know how to fly, werewolf?” Arland barked.
“Buckle up.” Sean pulled a lever.
The shuttle streaked into the sky.
My sister hugged her daughter to her.
“What happened? Where is Melizard? Where is your husband?”
“Melizard is dead,” Maud said, her eyes haunted. “He led a revolt against his House. They stripped him of all titles and possessions and sent us to Karhari. Eight months ago he crossed the wrong local and the raiders killed him.”
“We killed them back,” Helen told me.
“Yes, my flower.” Maud petted her daughter’s hair, an eerie smile on her lips. “Yes, we did.”
CHAPTER 3
The shuttle docked. Arland paused in the seat, scrutinizing Sean.
“Where did you learn to fly the Holy Anocracy’s shuttles?”
“Wilmos,” Sean said. “An old werewolf at Baha-char. I owed him for some armor he sold me, so I did some mercenary work. He gave me a crash course.”
Arland made a short noise that was the vampire equivalent of a harrumph and sounded a lot like a deep-throat snarl.
The doors of the shuttle swung open. Three vampires stood, waiting, two men and a woman. One of them, an older male, carried a stack of thin towels. Arland stepped out, grabbed one of the towels, and wiped his face. The towel came away bloody.
“Get us out of here before I succumb to temptation and initiate the kinetic bombardment of this dump,” Arland growled.
The female vampire bowed and took off, issuing commands into her communicator.
The other male vampire checked his tablet. “My lord, your injuries…”
“Do you require medical attention?” Arland asked us.
“No,” Maud and I said at the same time.
Arland glanced at Sean. Sean shook his head.
“Lady Dina, if I might have a moment?” Arland asked.
Maud was on my right and I caught a flicker of panic in her eyes. It was very brief but it made my stomach turn. My childhood had few unshakeable truths, but one of them was that my older sister was afraid of nothing. Maud never backed down and never asked for help. When I was a child and someone was mean to me, I went and got Maud, because after she talked to them, they would never be mean to me again.
The vampire with the tablet tried again. “Your injuries…”
“Are minor,” Arland said. “Lady Dina?”
“Of course.”
We walked away a few dozen feet. I glanced at Maud. Helen was standing next to her, hugging her leg. My sister looked ready to pull her sword out at any moment.
“You didn’t tell me that your sister was married to a knight of the Holy Anocracy.”
“I’m sorry. I was focused on rescuing her and my niece.”
“I’m not upset,” Arland said, glancing back at Maud and frowning. “But I do not like to be misled.”
“It wasn’t my intention to mislead you.” Yes, it was. A lie by omission was still a lie. I would’ve told him anything to get Maud and Helen out of there and I didn’t want to risk vampire politics interfering with that. “I wasn’t certain of my sister’s status. I’m sorry if this will cause issues between House Krahr and House Ervan…”