Clara released the radio switch and drifted to the back of the congregation, unshouldering her bat-wing backpack, searching for something inside.

“All manner of beasts must sacrifice their bodies for their superiors to feast.” The cultist priest was giving his speech beside the prisoner’s hanging cage. “Just as the chicken offers its egg, the cow offers its milk, so too must we offer our blood to our lord.”

More cultists placed buckets beneath the cage. One held a pitchfork, his head was draped in a black fabric, concealing his face.

“Tonight is a blessed full moon, for one of our kin need not relinquish their life’s manor. A man from the barrenlands was captured by Dusk and Damien. Well done boys.” The priest clapped softly for two young men stood at the front of the congregation. They raised their chins proudly as others joined with the polite applause.

“Fuck ya’ll,” Robert spat, rattling the bars. The priest looked up at him with disdain.

Clara had to create a distraction if she was going to rescue Robert from the cage. She withdrew a flare from her bag and darted around the side of the nearest hut. All of the townspeople’s attention was on the ritual, so nobody noticed as she threw the flare onto the thatched roof and rejoined the congregation.

“Pikeman, are your bucketeers ready?”

The goth holding the pitchfork nodded as three of his comrades lifted buckets above their heads, poised beneath the cage. Their long black hair was tied in buns beneath hair nets and they wore large rubber gardening gloves. The pikeman stabbed Robert through the cage, the pitchfork jamming against the bars. Its three freshly sharpened tips shone silver against the rest of the rusted metal fork. Robert tried to climb the cage above them, arching his back against the roof. The goth jammed the pitchfork in sidelong, it slid through the cage bars and struck Robert in the arm, cutting him. A primal terror blanched his face. His eyes bulged and he made a sound like a pinned dog.

“Please, stop! God.”

“Fire,” Clara yelled. The flare smouldered on the wet thatch, but had yet to take light. It emitted a pinkish red light, which she hoped others would mistake for flames. “Fire! Don’t let it spread. Quickly.” She screamed, trying to sell the sense of panic.

A few men broke away at the rear of the group to inspect the roof. Finally, the flare ignited and flames licked the roof. The smell of smoke seemed to change something in the onlookers. They darted this way and that, some ran inside nearby houses to ferry possessions outside, others helped with buckets of water.

“It’s going to spread,” Clara yelled, before turning on the bucketeers. “Don’t just stand there, help. You have buckets.”

The goths nodded. The youngest of them couldn’t have been older than fourteen–a boy with waist length black hair and a white vest held together by safety pins, decorated in blood stains. The boy looked solemnly up at Robert, who was clutching the cut on his arm, blood oozing through his fingers. A drop landed in the young goth’s bucket. His face lit up with glee, and he lifted the bucket up to the cage for more.

“Begone,” Clara yelled, imitating the cultist’s dramatic speech. Behind them, the fire had spread, smoke billowed in clouds over the courtyard. Some goths had climbed onto the roof, receiving buckets from those below to put out the flames.

Clara dug around in her rucksack for the powered bolt cutters she’d brought, but it was stuffed so full of gear, it was hard to rummage around in the dark without spilling stuff everywhere.

“Damn, what inconvenient timing.” The pikeman stood by her side. He lifted his veil, revealing a familiar face: the young man from the pub earlier that day. “Hey,” Carrion said. “Can you believe they picked me for pike duty?”

“I can’t believe that, no,” Clara said monotone. “Carrion, go help the others with the fire.”

“How could I help? Better I remain here, so as not to impede on their efforts.”

Clara bit her tongue. The fire would be put out soon. Andy would be here any second with the payload. If she was going to rescue Robert, it would have to be now.

She retrieved the bolt cutters from her bag and handed them to Robert. He snatched them up between the bars and got working on the padlock. Clara stared Carrion dead in the eye. “Fat thighs, eh?”

The young goth looked stunned. His eyes narrowed on the bolt cutters, mouth moving like a fish gasping for air. “What… Did you just… The prisoner?”

“Carrion,” Clara said. “Walk away, right now.”

The padlock snapped and fell beside her, clanging off the cobblestone. The cage above them creaked as Robert climbed through the hatch. Carrion’s eyes went wide. He stepped backwards, pointing at Clara with his pitchfork. “Traitors!”

Clara fired her pistol from the hip. Her cloak fluttered as the bullet punctured it, killing Carrion. He fell down, stiff. Cultists turned towards the commotion, and within seconds, a circle had opened up around Clara, and Carrion’s corpse on the cobblestone. Somebody screamed, then Robert thudded beside her, falling to his knees. Clara spun around, throwing her cloak over Robert and heaving him up. They fled together, barging through the frantic crowd.

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The crack of a rifle rang out above their heads. Clara let go of Robert, slinging her submachine gun around, spraying bullets into the air. Pandamonium seized the courtyard as bullets sped above the congregation's heads. Men and women fled for cover. An elderly woman fell into a puddle, clutching her leg. Dogs barked on leashes, doors slammed shut.

Four men wearing leather jackets stood out in the moonlight, pushing through the fleeing crowd towards her. They were each armed with old rifles, like cricket bats with barrels. Clara took aim, but there were too many civilians around them. She couldn’t get a clean shot. Instead, she aimed at their feet, spraying the cobblestone with shrapnell. The riflemen jumped for cover, one rolled on the ground and went prone.

Clara dashed for Robert, he was limping down the road. She caught him under the arm and pulled him along. They ducked as bullets thudded into the house beside them. The road dipped downwards, out of sight of the courtyard, and out of the line of fire. Their jeep was parked a mile outside of town off a dirt path. Originally, she had intended to escape with Andy, running full-pelt. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it had worked before. She hadn’t accounted for Robert. He was heavy, too injured to take his own weight. He slipped in the mud of a drain and fell. Clara let him go, not to be dragged down with him. She replaced her gun’s magazine, slipping the empty into her belt as she took cover behind the stairs of a porch. Peaking above the steps, she scanned the road behind them.

Robert cursed. “Jesus Christ, I’m covered in shit.” He crawled towards her. “Water.”

Clara had prepared a bottle, which she threw to him. He crawled into cover beside her and gulped it down.

A shot splintered the beams above her head. She ducked, trying to sight the shooter. More muzzles flashed from the buildings across the street, spitting bullets into the house behind them. Their attackers had multiplied. Gunshots pelted their cover one after another. “Perish, heathens,” someone screamed. Clara had been in enough firefights to sense what was happening. An overzealous goth charged their position. When people smelled victory, they attacked like dogs, abandoning reason for madness. Clara didn’t wait for him to flank them, she snapped out of cover and fired a quick burst, then ducked back behind the steps. The boy skidded across the cobblestones, his rifle tumbling down the road after him. He wailed his regrets.

The high pitched whistle of a near death experience whizzed passed her head and slammed into the porch railing behind her. Clara ducked, holding her limbs to her chest. She panted, scanning the road downhill for cover. There was an alleyway two buildings down. If she could get to it, maybe she could hop garden fences and get lost in the village. But that meant leaving Robert behind. She shared a glance with the man; he was a merc too, he knew the deal.

“Cover me,” she said.

Robert’s expression sank. He gritted his teeth, then nodded. “Better to die free.”

Clara handed a sidearm to Robert–a small .45 calibre pistol. “Good luck,” she said.

A cannon boomed in the streets above them. It rang six times. What followed was silence. Clara crouched out of cover, submachine gun at the ready.

Andy stood above the boy whom she had shot in the street. He carried a silver briefcase in one hand, holstering his revolver and drawing a sidearm in the other. The boy beneath him clutched his guts, holding a palm up to Andy as though he was trying to keep the void night sky at bay. Clara looked away and shut her eyes, she knew what came next.

A gunshot thudded. “Hey sis,” Andy said. “You won’t believe what crazy shit was in that castle. There was a ghost train, and mummies and this creepy hospital area with bodies wriggling under the blankets.” He strode over to them, swinging the briefcase merrily. “And there were these pig people with prosthetic heads, but I couldn’t tell if their bodies were real or not. And this cool serpent in the water. Oh Clara, you’d have loved it. We’ve got to come back here some time.”

Clara helped Robert up and started down the path. “Andy, concentrate. Did you fight the demon?”

“Erm, you mean the vampire? Drakaula, with a ‘K’.”

“I mean whatever the fuck these black jean wearing eyeliner motherfuckers are worshipping.”

“Alright, calm down.”

“I almost got shot, Andy. You calm down.”

They turned down the path heading out of town. Ahead, on their left stood the Crypt Inn. No lights were on inside the building, it seemed the whole town was out for the festival. Two vans were parked by the roadside. Clara withdrew a combat knife and stabbed the wheels on each. They hissed and began deflating.

“I didn’t fight the big D,” Andy said. “But I think we’ll get the opportunity to soon.”

“How’s that?”

“He knows my name, and also…” Andy pointed at the castle. Purple smoky tendrils swirled around the central spire, rising to the sky. They parted the clouds above, creating a funnel for the moonlight, which seemed amplified by whatever magic the demon, or vampire, possessed, like a silver spotlight from the heavens.

“What the…” Clara murmured. Rifle fire crackled form the village. She saw a man run into the cover of a fence, another ran across the road into a doorway. Clara darted into a ditch at the side of the road with Robert, aiming down the street with her submachine gun. She was too far, and it was too dark to line up a shot. Meanwhile, Andy stood in the centre of the street, his long black hair blowing carelessly in the wind. He raised his pistol slowly, shifting one foot forward into a firing stance.

A bullet flew between Clara and him. “Andy, take cover,” Clara said.

The barrel of his pistol flashed. Andy moved his arm one degree to the left and fired again. A scream responded.

“Dammit, winged him,” Andy said. He fired twice more. “Ah, never mind.” Turning, he saw them in the mud and smirked. “Bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?”

“You have no idea how close I came to eating a bullet earlier.” Clara climbed out of the ditch and offered a hand to Robert.

“Is he going to slow us down the entire way?” Andy said.

“Get me out of this,” Robert croaked, “and I’ll repay you. I promise. Mercenary's honour”

“Well there we go,” Andy said. “That’s all I needed to hear. Come on then slowpoke, the jeep’s this way.”