Veronica and Tamara had been searching the castle's all-but-empty ground floor. At one point, they had peeked into a large industrial kitchen where a few strange, misshaped golems had been bustling about, but if they had seen the girls, they had ignored them. Aside from that, the place had been deserted. Was it always this lifeless, or had Frankenstein stripped his staff when he launched his invasion?

Echoing bootsteps sounded in the corridor behind them. Fear clutching at her, Veronica darted through a pair of wide doors and froze, crouching just inside the door of an empty but refined dining room. Tamara ducked in after her. From the corridor behind them, boots stamped.

“It sounds like a platoon,” Tamara hissed.

The marching feet did indeed sound like a large group, growing louder by the minute. Veronica trickled more power into her mech link and extended her senses through its eyes. She had left it crouched in a large room just off the main corridor at the entrance to this wing. She opened its senses and could hear the tramping feet even louder. They were coming from the interior of the castle. This must be golem reinforcements, not the Russian assault force.

The girls looked at each other.

“The others are cut off,” Tamara hissed, keeping her voice low.

Veronica glanced toward the doorway to the main hall. “We will be too in a minute. We have to get to our mechs.”

“Go, go, go!” Tamara said. Together, they turned and took off running for the back of the room, past the forty-foot-long table set with probably a hundred places, silver dishes and china sparkling on the white linen cloth beneath four enormous unlit chandeliers.

The dining room they were in had several entrances. All these large first-floor chambers were connected to the adjacent rooms as well as the main hall. Additional smaller halls for servants to move about unseen snaked between them, turning the place into a labyrinth. The two of them had been searching the floor, so they knew their way. They retraced their steps toward their mechs at a run.

They tore through an ornate drawing room and down a long hall lined with tapestries. They burst through a door into a library and ran straight into a squad of golems. Veronica hit them first, with Tamara two steps behind her not because she was running slower, but because they couldn't run side by side, with Veronica carrying a long rifle and Tamara holding two swords.

Veronica barely had time to register that these golems seemed different than she was used to. Bigger, and their eyes glowed red. She stabbed her rifle, with bayonet fixed, into the first golem. The blade sunk into its chest. The monster reacted quickly, grabbing for her weapon even as she started to pull it back. The front sight tore past its hand, and the big fist closed on the bayonet's blade instead of the barrel. Veronica yanked her weapon free as the blade sliced deep into the golem's hand.

Another golem loomed to her right. Veronica desperately lifted a hand and blasted it with a wave of istota-powered force at point-blank range.

The blast had been hasty, without her full power behind it, but even so, she was surprised to see the golem only staggered. Before she could hit it again, a blow slammed into her from behind. Pain flared across her head and shoulder, and Veronica tumbled across the room. Her rifle went flying. She hit hard, then sprang to her feet. She raised both empty hands, readying her istota attack.

Tamara was five meters away, surrounded by golems. Her swords flashed in all directions. Blood sprayed. Veronica hesitated, not wanting to hit Tamara with a force wave.

Tamara's blade cut deep, slicing flesh and glancing off of bone. The damage to the golems was horrific, but these ones seemed unusually tough, and they did not fall. Veronica saw one lift a gun, only to have Tamara cut its hand off, sending gun and hand flying. The golem, unfazed, lunged forward to grab at her with its remaining hand and fresh stump.

Tamara split the golem's belly open and ducked away from its grasp, but still it came on. It was the scene out of a nightmare.

Then Tamara made a mistake, her sword getting caught in the rib cage of another golem. A wave of mutilated and bleeding golems bore her down. Veronica had no choice. She stepped closer and unleashed a wave of force, keeping the power tight and blowing a golem body off the top of the pile.

This was a full-powered blast, but again it did not have as much effect as she expected. She stepped forward and blasted again, dislodging another golem. This one flopped over. It had lost both forearms and its face was mostly torn away, but still it moved to attack.

Veronica scooped up her rifle from the carpet. She stabbed it through the eye socket with her bayonet. The monster spasmed and then pitched over on its back, twitching.

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Tamara was struggling to free herself from the pile, grasping hands still pulling at her.

"Thanks.”

She handed one of her sabers up to Veronica to free up her hand, then shoved a body off her legs and moved to stand. A hand shot out of the pile and grasped her around the throat. Tamara's eyes bulged as the fingers dug in with superhuman golem strength.

Veronica hacked down with the saber, cutting the arm to the bone. She had to be careful not to cut Tamara, who was grasping at the hand with both of her own. Veronica hacked again and again. Finally, Tamara pulled the fingers away, gasping.

Veronica couldn't even see which golem the arm had belonged to. It plopped back into the pile, the elbow nearly severed. She tossed the sword aside and then put down her rifle to haul Tamara from the pile with both hands. "We have to go!" She snatched up her gun again.

"Hang on!" Tamara turned back to the mutilated bodies. "I need my other sword!"

Veronica opened her mouth to argue, but Tamara interrupted immediately. "Here it is!"

Marching feet echoed in the hallway, getting louder, and the two of them took off running again.

Veronica reached out to get her mech moving. It was crouched in a foyer off the side of the entryway with Tamara's mech and the Polish pair.

She felt her mech start moving and withdrew her senses so she could concentrate on running. In that brief moment, she almost plowed into a suit of armor. With her mind fully back in her own body, she dodged to the side and dashed down the next stretch of the hall.

She nearly tripped over a shriveled hunchback golem just stepping out of a set of stairs hidden behind a wall panel. The creature looked as surprised as she was, and Veronica raced past it without stopping her run. Tamara was pounding up behind her. Over her shoulder, Veronica heard a thunk and a grunt. She suspected Tamara had cut down the deformed golem with her sword, but she didn't stop to look.

They pounded through another parlor. Off to her left was an open door to the main hall. She heard shouts. Something had spotted them. Then she was ducking into another access hall.

In the massive reception hall, Veronica's mech had stood up and unslung its weapon, starting toward her to answer her call. Tamara and Angelica's machines were also there, but Hannah's was missing. Veronica didn’t have time to worry about that because as she burst into the room, the doors to the entry hall opened, and a squad of golems poured in. They immediately raised weapons and opened fire.

Veronica had been at a full run. She threw herself forward and to the side. She lost her rifle as she rolled but came up with her magic flaring, hands extended. Her force wave blasted into the tight-packed group of golems, sending them staggering into each other. It was only a momentary disruption, and their guns came back up immediately. These golems were resistant to magic.

Weaponless, her magic useless, Veronica threw herself into her link as a dozen weapons came up. Her mech lunged, smashing into the wad of golems, bowling them over and crushing them beneath it.

Machine gun bullets sprayed against the wall and ceiling as some of the golems fired wildly. Her mech smashed into them ruthlessly. The golems were big, standing more than a third the height of her mech when it stood, and there were twelve of them. Some of the bodies were broken by its sudden attack, but the others fought back in a mass. Bullets pinged off her mech's armor. Bullets wind off her mech's armor. Fleshy bodies swarmed over her machine. Its attack turned into a desperate struggle. Two golems clutched at its right arm, dragging it to the side as another wrapped itself around her mech's head.

Twinges of pain shot through Veronica's shoulder and neck. She had to get them off. She deepened her link, wincing against the sensation. Her mech threw itself to one side, rolling over, trying to crush the golems beneath it. But there were too many of them. The pain in her neck grew as the golems strained against the neck actuators.

Veronica swung her mech's left hand up to grab at the golem on its head, but more artificial bodies grabbed at that arm too.

A cannon roared, too loud for the room. Windows shattered. Her ears screamed in agony. The golem on her mech’s head was blasted in half and tumbled away in two pieces. Veronica looked up; Tamara's mech stood over her, its cannon light for a mech gun but overkill for anything made of flesh was extended with smoke trailing from the muzzle.

Then Tamara herself moved in, stabbing at the golems that were wrestling with Veronica's mech. She inflicted serious wounds on two of them and they released its left arm, but then the constructs turned. Several that had been grasping at the mech's legs let go and lunged for Tamara. She fell back, swords flashing to keep them at bay.

Veronica snatched up her rifle and leveled it. She fired, worked the bolt, and fired again. The gun sounded muffled past the ringing in her ears. Her first two shots tore grievous wounds in one of the golems confronting Tamara, but only when her third shot struck its head did it finally go down.

Her mech staggered up, swatting golems away. It fell again as the constructs continued to swarm its right arm, but now that most of its limbs were free, its thrashing was more effective. Golem bodies were swatted and kicked away. Veronica ducked as one sailed over her and slammed against the wall behind, sliding down leaving a trail of blood and gore on the wood paneling. Bombs were tossed in every direction before finally her mech stood free.

Her mech staggered as a blast echoed from the hall beyond. Veronica cried out in pain as the shot tore through her mech's shoulder. More shots rang out. Heavy shells ripped into her machine, punching through its modest armor and ravaging the insides.

Another squad of golems stepped into the doorway from the main hall. Two of them were armed with short-barreled autocannons. Even in their massive arms, the guns looked comically big, but the constructs wielded them easily.

"We have to go!" Tamara shouted.

Veronica didn't remember falling to her knees. Agony shot through her body as her mech was torn to pieces. A massive metal hand closed around her, sweeping her off the floor. As Tamara's mech retreated, she closed her eyes to block out the pain.

Bullets whistled past and glass shattered. Then they were outside. She opened her eyes to see Tamara leaping down next to them into a courtyard. Pain lanced through Veronica's chest as she felt her body seize and shake in sympathy with her dying mech. “Tamara! I –"

The world went dark.