The blast door scraped against the frame as Mod and Arsenal finished shoving it back into place. They’d managed to make it into the Testing Grounds. Tiny security lights flickered high overhead. Despite the near-darkness, Mod could see clearly.

His eyes widened as he quickly took in the sight. The room was massive, like a cave carved out of concrete. Half of it was set up like a parking garage, with three distinct levels, while the other half was open air. Concrete blocks and dividers littered both sections, reminding him of parked cars, lane dividers, and barricades.

It was one thing to read the files about the place being used as a battle arena, but seeing it in person drove the notion home. There were signs of battle everywhere—every surface was pitted and stained, and there were even recently repaired chunks where the concrete was a newer shade of white.

And across the way, a lone vampire waited for them.

At a glance, she could’ve been confused for a regular Gnosis employee. She crossed her arms over a well-tailored suit, and wore a look of arrogance befitting a CEO, a powerful super—

Or an ancient vampire.

He wasn’t sure if it was pheromones that vampires emitted or his enhanced cognition, or maybe a mix of both… But the woman ahead of them practically screamed danger. The sensation was almost as potent as when they’d met with Ichabod.

Mod remembered Ichabod’s words that he was the only elder vampire in Belport. Elders would easily be Class 4, and a serious challenge. Most other vampires would peak at Class 2 or 3. As long as she wasn’t an elder, that meant Mod’s group should be able to get past the woman blocking their path.

Still, seeing the vampire across the arena made him pause.

As Mod thought about the question, text appeared in his HUD.

Ichabod’s right hand. Enola.

Mod concentrated again, and TINA’s text reply came almost instantly.

Pheromone tracing.

There was more too, information that came to Mod like a sudden insight or intuition, except he knew that it came from TINA. Ichabod had meant to meet with them that night, and the aura produced by his pheromones reflected that. His right hand may be weaker, but she was giving off the aura of a predator. She intended to kill them.

With his enhanced cognition, it felt like seconds had passed, but Mod knew it had only been a moment. Arsenal and Athena followed his gaze and now stood to face the vampire.

Enola called out to them, “It’s not often that someone’s stupid enough to attack us.”

As she talked, she began walking casually across the open air side of the Testing Grounds.

“By now you know that the entire compound knows about you. They want to use you as an experiment. I’m supposed to unleash our test subjects on you.”

There was another set of blast doors on the open air side of the room. She was walking toward it.

A moment later, a clang echoed through the cavernous room. Something heavy and powerful hit the blast doors. Again and again, like a giant rapping on the door. There was a soft rattle after each impact—the locking mechanisms inside the door quivering with aftershocks.

The vampire continued, “We’re supposed to start with the ones that are more restrained and work up to the ones that are not… But I hate waiting.”

Another bang and something inside the doors snapped. The double doors buckled. Whatever left of the lock was barely holding it shut.

Arsenal said, “We should go. Now.”

“Agreed,” Athena replied.

The group took off across the room, but before they were halfway across, the blast doors gave way with one final bang. Thousands of pounds of metal were thrown free, skidding and scraping across the concrete. A blood curdling roar followed.

What crashed through the doors was a monstrosity on par with the worst things the Deep Ones had created, except that there was no denying that vampires had made it.

The monster resembled a giant bat, except that it had four arms and that it was heavily muscled like a bulldog. Even hunched over, the creature’s shoulders were ten feet tall. A head the size of Mod’s body stared back, and fangs the size of his arm hung out of its mouth.

Enola stood just beside the doorway and her finger leveled prophetically at Mod’s group.

The giant bat obeyed. It lunged toward them, its claws tearing chunks out of the concrete as it galloped toward them.

It ran right at Mod. He skidded to a halt, shouting for Arsenal and Athena to get out of the way. He pulled out his bo staff, extended it, and flicked the blade switch.

The monster leapt, mouth wide and fangs glistening. Mod dropped to his knees, letting the creature sail over him. At the same time, Mod slashed with his axe, cutting the creature throat to groin.

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It landed past him, stumbling and gushing blood across the concrete.

Mod stood, hoping that the wound would be fatal.

The monstrous bat rose to its feet. Gushing blood slowed to a trickle as the wound stitched itself back up.

From somewhere behind him, Enola said, “Mutagen V-4.”

Mod turned to find Enola had closed the gap on him. She was some twenty feet away now, walking aimlessly with her hands behind her back. Her cherry red lipstick looked like blood across her lips.

Both Arsenal and Athena stepped back, trying to keep both the vampire and the monster in view.

Enola continued, and the monster seemed content to wait.

“It was the precursor to Mutagen-X. All vampire, no humanity.”

The monster lunged, and this time Athena blocked it with a forcefield. The monster slammed into it. Athena groaned and stumbled, and then struggled to keep the barrier up as the monster slashed at it.

At the same time, Enola attacked. Mod barely saw her move. The only reason he even registered it was her feet shifting a split second beforehand.

Athena didn’t see her at all.

Mod barely intercepted Enola in time. He didn’t have time to think—he just threw himself shoulder first into the vampire. Enola and Mod went tumbling over each other. From the wide-eyed fury on her face, he must’ve caught her off-guard.

She slashed at him as they rolled, her clawed fingertips passing harmlessly through his outer shield of nanites. Mod kicked, sending her hurtling away from the group.

Arsenal rocketed past and met Enola with a mid-air flurry of attacks. Hardened bone clanged against metal as the vampire parried every attack.

Athena continued holding back the bat monster with her barriers. She scoffed. “Can we kill these guys, or are we still playing nice?”

Enola finally hit the ground and took off in a blur. Mod flicked the switch, and met Enola with his staff.

“Incapacitate!” Mod shouted.

Claws and staff blurred together, and it was everything Mod could do to keep up. Enola was faster than him and not by a small margin. She was an elder vampire, but she was the most powerful opponent Mod had faced by far. Even blocking and parrying, each impact rattled through his bones and prosthetics. The only reason he was able to keep up was because of his enhanced cognition. She was faster, but he knew exactly where each strike was going. He even knew when to block and when to let a near miss pass through his outer layer of nanites.

Arsenal tried to help, but Enola was too strong. Rather than risk damaging her thinsuit, Arsenal let the blows send her skidding backward and use the thrusters to bounce back into position.

The pair kept Enola between them and kept her from attacking Athena.

~ ~

Athena had spent much of her long life fighting for others, and then spent even longer fighting for herself.

But in all that time, there were few she’d counted on, and fewer that she’d counted as equals.

The lady vampire was fast, maybe even too fast for Athena to take down quickly. Especially without killing her. Athena grit her teeth—nonlethal was a handicap that Gnosis didn’t deserve.

The bat monster had attacked, and then the vampire had blitzed them—moving so fast that Athena barely noticed. Athena might have been able to get a barrier up in time, but Mod and Arsenal were faster.

They’d divided up enemies, taking the vampire and leaving the monster to Athena.

That was fine by her. She could deal with monsters.

Athena kept up a forcefield while she judged the monster in front of her. It was fast in its own right, freakishly powerful, and had a healing factor befitting an ancient vampire. Given enough time, it could break through her barrier.

Time it didn’t have.

Athena wasn’t sure if the monster wasn’t particularly bright or if it just hadn’t clocked how much of a threat Athena really was. Either way, taking down an enemy didn’t get much easier than when it was stuck right in front of you.

She would have to be quick. She wouldn’t give it a chance to attack, a chance to escape, or give the vampire a chance to intervene.

Athena’s barriers had limits, most of which were self-imposed. The real limits were that shields couldn’t overlap one another, and that while they looked and felt instantaneous, they did take a fraction of a second to create. She could also only summon a handful of barriers at a time. The more she tried to summon or the more complex their arrangement meant strain for her.

She’d taken an oath a long time ago not to use them to kill or to maim. She’d gone to great lengths to use her power to protect people—using her barriers as shields instead of swords.

And yet swords were so much easier to make.

Athena summoned two barriers. They appeared simultaneously and parallel to one another. They passed through the bat’s limbs, lopping all four of the front wings off at the shoulder. Blood didn’t even have time to spray before she dismissed those and conjured the third barrier.

She lopped off the bottom half of the creature. Its head and chest fell with a thump while the legs and pelvis teetered over.

Athena reconjured a barrier between her and the creature, mostly to block the arterial spray that shot across the floor. It took a second for the monster to register the pain of what had happened, and the bellow that followed filled the room.

The blood spray didn’t last long. The bat’s arteries cinched off and its wounds were already closing up. It would take much longer for it to grow back lost limbs. Hopefully, more than an hour or two.

All Athena could do was stare as what was left of the monster writhed on the ground. The world had gone silent, and she was only vaguely aware of the battle still going on beside her.

It had been a long time since she’d cut someone. The sensation was somewhere between a twinge and a scrap, like stitches being pulled out. She seemed to remember nausea…

But in that moment, all Athena could think was how easy it had been.

It was even easier than she remembered.

Her tunnel vision faded, and the sounds of battle filled her ears once again. Athena turned toward the fight, catching glimpses of Mod, Arsenal, and the vampire.

The vampire was still trying to get to Athena.

“Pop shot,” she called out.

The fighters were too close together for her to target just the vampire, so Athena conjured a wide barrier beneath all three of them. It cut into the first millimeter of concrete—

Then she hurled all three of them upwards.

By the time the vampire realized what was happening, she was helpless in the air. Arsenal jetted out of the way, and another barrier gently separated Mod and the vampire. At the same time, Mod pulled out his fusion rifle and opened fire with his kinetic shots. He fell to the ground while still firing.

Between Athena’s barriers and Mod’s shots, they juggled the vampire across the room. At the same time, they shuffled the other direction—

Making it to the opposite door by the time the vampire finally hit the ground.

~ ~ ~