Hanna went shield first through the capitol dome’s windows.

Colored glass fell with her.

Remy had shot her and the others through with pinpoint accuracy before heading southeast.

She hadn’t known him well before he had gone to the Threnosh world a long time ago. Didn’t know him that well now to be frank. But, from what she could tell, the man would always place his family first.

Comms had been choppy at best at ground level.

Some kind of magical interference.

It had been different up in the sky.

They had found out when Tessa had made contact.

She had been the one to tell them about the targeted locations.

Megan was at the hospital, so that’s where Remy and Tessa headed.

The capitol was on the way, so she and the team got dropped off, literally.

Vampires and vampires surrounded Jake and the others.

Her second thought was that Shannon and Jules weren’t ready for this kind of fight. The third thought was for Cara in Scotty’s arms, not moving.

Her HUD flickered as she tried to get Cara’s vitals.

The interference stopped her.

She cut as she fell toward the floor.

Sword aura slashed the heads off dozens of vampires.

She tucked into a flip just before landing, drew her longsword and drew a red line across the animalistic vampire’s cheek.

The man was fast.

She had been aiming for his neck.

The Threnosh-made armor absorbed the landing.

I Cut What I See.

Her next cut lopped the vampire’s arm off at the elbow.

They could blur all over the place, but skills and Skills allowed her to anticipate their movements.

Claws shrieked against her Threnium shield.

She slashed her blade where she anticipated the vampire would be.

Sparks flew as Threnium and claws clashed.

Finely-tuned combat senses warned her a split-second before she felt the rush of movement at her back.

Blue light blazed from above, forcing another vampire to abort the attack.

Malachi and the rest of her team fell slowly under the power of a spell.

The man’s eyes glowed bright as he gathered the power between his hands before firing a sweeping arc. The bright blue beam contained both heat and physical force. Vampires burned as their bodies were hammered with the impact of an out of control big rig that lost its brakes just as it started the descent out of the grapevine.

Spells and bullets filled the rotunda as the vampires shrieked and threw themselves forward like rabid animals ignoring the sunlight beams burning their flesh.

Jake tossed spell after spell out of his rapidly dwindling supply of devices. All the while slashing his lighting claw.

Shannon and Jules used everything they had to keep the vampires away from Detective Ordonez, who fired blasts from her spell gun, while standing over the slowly waking Cara. A black and white rat, of all things, was licking and slapping Cara’s cheek.

Scotty was a black-furred mountain. Howling wildly as he clawed and bit the vampires swarming him like hounds on a bear.

Marci’s spear blurred even though her left arm hung loose. She danced an intricate pattern of stabbing thrusts and sweeping blows, never stopping, never slowing.

A master recognized the footwork of another master regardless of the weapon.

The animalistic vampire launched himself into a two footed kick like some kind of furry missile. The dull thud sent her sliding back only a few feet thanks to the Threnium and her armor.

A Skill carried her to the vampire, catching him by surprise.

Her gray blade descended.

Only to be stopped by an arm.

Another vampire.

A woman.

In a smart business suit for some reason.

The blade stuck.

Less than an inch.

It had felt like striking solid iron.

What had Bennett said about the paths a vampire could take?

Enhancing the physical body.

The fortitude to withstand blows as if made of stone or metal.

She vibrated her blade in a draw cut.

Then used hundredfold cuts.

A single cut duplicated a hundred times randomly all over the target’s body.

She turned the vampire into a fountain of blood.

It still wasn’t enough.

The vampire’s eyes blazed red.

A punch staggered Hanna.

Too fast to block or parry.

An enraged opponent was a predictable one.

They took the straightest line to the focus of their rage.

Energy Field: Sword.

The vampire blurred right into the path of Hanna’s blade.

The hazy nimbus around the blade carved a path straight down the vampire from head to crotch.

Two halves flopped to the floor in a sudden river of blood and viscera.

The ghostly red chains connecting the vampire to what Hanna presumed was Vukylokyr suddenly pulsed and brightened.

Blood turned into tendrils, drawing the halves back together.

Hanna was the Sword of Freedom.

She couldn’t allow any chains to exist in her presence.

She slashed.

The blood chains resisted.

She poured her very being into her sword.

The chains gave way.

A bright flash knocked down everyone near her.

Her vision cleared quickly.

The vampire remained in two halves.

The shadows at north side of the rotunda gathered.

“Stay here!” she snapped at Malachi and the rest of the team as she dashed to the west side, bashing with her shield and cutting limbs off with all her blades.

So many dead vampires, yet there seemed to be no end.

It didn’t escape her notice that most of them were wearing tattered pajamas.

And a lot of them were small.

They focused their attention on her, leaving only just enough with the others to keep them occupied. To keep her isolated.

A shadowy mass suddenly appeared beneath her boots, resolving into a monstrous, fanged mouth before she could react.

It struck at her like a snake with dark fangs as long as her blade. It swallowed her whole despite her blade and aura.

The void was empty of all sensations.

She could see, hear or feel anything.

Until a voice spoke.

“Serve willingly and they will be spared to serve with you. Reject my gift and you will all serve together in my mindless horde… after a lifetime of suffering.”

It was Bennett’s voice.

No!

It sounded like Bennett, but it wasn’t Bennett.

The presence felt like a mountain looming over her, pressing down with the weight of countless years of existence.

“Vukylokyr. This is your one chance. Release everyone from their chains. Release my friend. Then leave our world. Refuse and I will cut them from you before I cut you down.”

She spoke the words or thought them in her head.

Both.

Neither.

One or the other.

It didn’t matter.

What did matter were the chains.

The blood chains.

She could see them.

Drifting in and out of reality from ethereal to solid and back.

So many of them.

No more than a single chain connecting a single vampire to Vukylokyr. Multiple binding a single vampire.

What did that say about the hold it had on Bennett?

“The chattel never knows its place. You reject my eternal gift. Watch them suffer.”

“You’re first mistake was attacking us. You’re second one was bringing me in here with you.”

She cut with everything she had.

A shriek went through her, damaging her soul, yet she persisted.

The chains gave way, then broke.

One by one until the shadows vanished.

Hanna woke up with the taste of wet iron choking her.

She opened her faceplate to let it all out.

She was in a different room.

One of the side offices from the looks of it.

A tall, scarecrow-like figure stood in the far corner, cloaked in shadow.

“Bennett?” Hanna croaked.

“There’s no time. I’m sorry. And thank you. I can never repay you for freeing me.”

“You can start by helping us win this fight.”

“I will, but not at your side. I have a chance. It thinks I’m dead. I’m obfuscating my presence, but I can feel it searching. Like claws scratching on the surface of my soul. If it finds me, it’ll chain me again.”

“Then I’ll cut them! Over and over. It doesn’t matter how many times. I will cut them until we turn the monster into dust!”

“We both know that you won’t be able to do that again for a while. And I wouldn’t want you to keep cutting pieces off yourself for me.”

She heard the sounds of battle coming through the walls. “We can talk about this later.” She rose with a groan. Her body felt like it had been hit by a truck, then trampled by a herd of elephants. “Our friends need us.”

“You will save them, like you did me.” Bennett sighed. He kept his face hidden from her for some reason. “Tell Jake. Tell Cal— tell everyone that I’m sorry for what I did tonight. I know I can never atone for the lives I’ve taken. Murdered—” he choked. “All I can do now is whatever it takes to make it so this never happens again. And stop it from spreading.”

He melted into the shadows.

“Bennett!”

Her heart hurt and not just because she had just challenged the power of a being that felt as old as the human race, at least on Earth, and won, if only for the moment.

No.

It hurt because she knew that was the last time she’d ever speak to Bennett.

Hanna found her sword, checked her shield and cut through the wall to rejoin the fight.

The end came quickly.

Without the vampires and Vukylokyr’s presence, the vampires were no better than rabid animals.

All semblance of cunning and tactics had vanished with the more powerful.

The vampires had overwhelmed them.

Scotty was buried under the weight of a hundred pale-skinned bodies, biting and clawing through Skill-enhanced fur and skin.

Malachi was backed into a marble pillar firing the blue beam from his eyes, killing vampires in swathes until two managed to duck under the beam and close the distance. Each grabbed a hand and bit off several fingers. The man roared as the controlled blue beam turned into many shooting everywhere. He couldn’t close his eyes or the other vampires would get to him. So he kept them open and hoped that only vampires were in front of him. He scoured the historic rotunda as his beams gouged burning lines on the floor mosaics and punched through walls, demolished sculptures and ignited paintings.

Shannon was down. Her legs kicked as Cara poured a potion on the young woman’s torn throat.

Jules’ eyes were wide as she clanged the flat of sword against the edge of an axe she had picked up from the floor with a desperate roar.

Behind the young woman, Detective Ordonez was down to her backup spell pistol, shooting small balls of exploding fire. Her magitech leg glowed, firing glowing marbles of blue light that streaked in wide arcs around the young swordswoman to hit vampires.

A vampire on the floor near them writhed, his belly bulging. Pale skin tore. And a gore-covered fancy rat emerged with an angry chitter.

That was the scene near the east entrance.

Closer to the south entrance, the rest of Hanna’s team fought with their backs to another huge pillar.

Oscar appeared to be In The Zone as he strobed a sunlight flashlight in one hand and shot silver-jacketed bullets from the machine pistol in his other hand. He didn’t miss while the Skill lasted.

Tobin ran up the pillar. Four strides before backflipping over the pursuing vampires. She tossed tiny grenades down. Custom made. A bright flash of artificial sunlight combined with a cloud of smoke laced with garlic, silver dust and blessed shrapnel.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The explosions consumed the vampires closest to them and forced the ones engulfed by the smoke to scream and choke.

Tobin activated her acrobatic dodging Skill to flip and spin like a crazy spider on her way back to the rest of the team with only a few scratches on her armor.

There were two others with Oscar and Tobin.

Hanna couldn’t tell who was who through the press, but she saw the top edges of glowing magic walls forcing the vampires to come from one direction.

That meant another four were missing and she couldn’t see any other pockets of fighting aside from the melee crush in the center of the rotunda.

Marci still danced with her spear and several dozen very eager dance partners. She owned the center.

Hanna strode forward, cutting down anything in range, helping the others.

Familiar faces leapt at her with bared fangs and grasping claws.

She separated the general’s head from his body.

Doran came next.

Then several soldiers that she recognized from their attendances at her semi-annual swordsmanship seminars.

She killed them all with a single stroke of her gray blade.

There was no way back for them.

Vukylokyr had destroyed who they were when it had transformed them.

Her heart clenched even as she freed each vampire from enslavement.

Not with regret, for her class would not allow her to regret granting freedom.

But with sadness at a lifetime of hard work to build a better community ended in one terrible night.

Blue-white light turned the dimly-lit rotunda into day.

The massive chain lightning spell left afterimages in her eyes despite her faceplate darkening automatically.

It crackled across the entire rotunda, leaving no vampire untouched.

A dog’s howl.

An angry snarl.

Scotty, wiry, black fur reddened and matted, leapt from inside the small hill of vampires, clutching one in his mouth and one in his hand.

He landed high up on a pillar, claws digging into the marble.

He bit down, severing the vampire in half.

Then he bit the other one’s head off before hurling the body into the crowd below.

He howled again and plunged into the mass like a missile.

Pale-skinned bodies went flying.

Hanna slashed in a figure eight pattern, separating heads and limbs.

The blood splashed at their feet as it flooded the rotunda.

Jake waved for her.

The big man stood head and shoulders over the crouching vampires.

“… hear… can… me?”

His voice crackled in her helmet.

“… mana… out. Did you… Bennett?”

Jake swayed before she could answer.

He toppled over like a felled tree a moment later.

It had been less than a minute since she had rejoined the battle.

She ended it in less than ten seconds.

Threnium protection held up for the most part, but they didn’t have enough of it to cover everyone in a full set of armor like her or Jake.

Then there were cases like Malachi, who couldn’t cover his eyes and his hands if he wanted to use his power.

The toll was telling.

Four Watch dead.

Necks opened or limbs torn off.

Shannon was probably going to make it.

Jules hadn’t taken one devastating wound, but many little ones that added up to a near death experience. The last healing smartphone they had left was the only thing that saved her.

The two young swordswomen did their jobs. A task well-beyond what could be expected from their level.

Detective Ordonez was mostly untouched.

Same with Cara, ironically, being unconscious for the beginning of the battle had allowed her to slip the notice of the vampires. She had spent the rest of it keeping Shannon from bleeding out.

Bennett’s fancy rat, Alucard, sat on the detective’s shoulder cleaning blood and bits of viscera from her fur.

The detective must’ve thought the rat had contributed enough to warrant some leeway. At least for the moment because she didn’t shoo it off.

Malachi had his eyes screwed shut while Tobin bandaged his finger stumps.

Scotty loomed close by. His fur-covered ears swiveled, searching for future threats. His hackles were raised.

Oscar and the remaining Watch members searched through the pale-skinned bodies and body parts for the fallen.

Hanna would join them in a moment.

She passed by Marci, who was covered in red, hers and the vampires’.

They exchanged a nod.

One master to another.

Jake was flat on his back with his faceplate retracted and a puddle of vomit near his boots.

Mana poisoning.

He had used too much, too fast.

Then compounded by pounding mana potions and using mana gems judging by the broken bottles scattered around him amidst the dull gems.

The big man was breathing so she rolled him to his stomach then went to find the rest of her team.

Four dead in that nightmare of a fight wasn’t bad.

But only if she didn’t count the other side.

Each vampire had been an ally, a fellow citizen before the sun had set less than an hour ago.

Vukylokyr was spreading it.

And now the top commanders for the nation’s military force were gone. Her blade had put an end to them.

The governor was gone too, she’d wager.

“Ma’am,” Oscar nodded. “Where to next? After we find and make sure…”

“They weren’t changed. I don’t see more blood chains. As for next? We keep trying to reach the watch commander or anyone else. If we can’t then we make for one of the on site bunkers or one of the nearby shelters once the wounded are stable enough to move. If they can’t be moved then I’ll stay here with them while you and the rest go and bring back reinforcements or safe transport.”

Oscar nodded.

The man’s armor and clothing were more red than any other color.

Spells and potions kept him on his feet. Just like the other two.

They completed the rest of their grim task in silence.

----------------------------------------

The Last Bastion of Par Olalin held up well for the first 15 minutes of a few hundred vampires pounding on its translucent golden walls.

Olo hadn’t even started sweating until the ten minute mark.

15 down.

15 to go.

It gave them extra time to move the patients to the upper floors and strengthen the defenses of said floors.

Most of the soldiers had left the first floor to Olo, Gene and Megan.

Only a few remained to set the traps and autoguns.

“Danger sense! My danger sense!” one of the soldiers clutched his helmeted head and promptly passed out.

Another soldier caught him.

“What exactly did that mean?” Gene said.

“He’s got a good danger sense. Nothing like Captain Jimenez’s—”

“Oh… I remember her. What’s she up to now?”

“Uh… technically retired. I think.”

“Oh, that’s good. So, about this dude?” Gene pointed at the unconscious soldier.

“He’s usually good to listen to… never passed out before though and he’s usually pretty chill… so…”

“Shit soup time.” Gene nodded. “Better take him upstairs and spread the word.”

He had been through too many situations like this to simply hope for the best.

“Mrs. Cruces…”

“What?”

She came over. Noticed the soldier. Placed a finger on his face.

The young man jolted awake. “We’re fucked!” He blinked wildly at everyone.

“Yup. Seems like it,” Gene said. “Maybe it’s time for all of you to head on up.” He placed his hand on the hilt of his longsword from another world and felt at his eye patch.

“I have to—” the other soldier said.

“Don’t worry about it. Just press the start button on the screen, right?”

“Yeah, just make sure you don’t walk in front of it after you do that.”

Gene regarded the autogun.

All sleek and futuristic.

Looked more like something from the Threnosh world rather than built by Earth people.

The loose alliance was paying off.

He supposed he could take some credit for that.

Not that it mattered to him anymore.

The things he cared about in the present weren’t the same as the things he had cared about in the past.

The steadier soldier guided the shaky one to the elevator.

“Mrs. Cruces, you too.”

“No, Gene. I’ll stay. They’re after me. It’ll give my husband and daughters more time to get here.”

“Okay. Try to stay out of sight, but feel free to heal us if you have openings. I know how you feel about your C-word touch, but please consider the high probability that those vampires out there aren’t the people they used to be and will never be again.”

“We don’t know that without trying.”

“Agreed, but only if it’s safe. Maybe… I’ll try to grab one for you. But, one try only.”

She scowled up at him.

The familiar resemblance was never more obvious when one of the Cruces women was about to argue.

Fortunately, the building rocked back and forth like an earthquake before she could open her mouth.

Olo cried out a deep, guttural one of true pain.

Gene hadn’t heard his stoic friend like that in years.

So… it was actually unfortunate.

They rushed to the front lobby.

Olo was down on one knee.

“Serve—”

Gene ripped the eye patch off.

The icosahedron floating in his empty eye socket rotated until it stopped on one of its twenty sides. The symbol carved into the smooth sapphire surface lit up.

He had stopped thinking of it as a D20 a long time ago after the teachers had smacked it into his head that the relic was not to be compared to mere dice.

The mental shield spell rippled over the three of them

He felt Vukylokyr’s affronted rage slam into it.

Yup…

Scary strong.

The relic in his eye cast spells at somewhere between Tier 8 and 9 going by the measurement method of the Par Olalin colleges of magery.

As a hybrid class, Gene could max out at a Tier 5, maybe 6, for spells that didn’t fall within the purview of his class. Furthermore, even if he could cast higher, the mana costs beyond that tier would rise exponentially, meaning without an outside source of mana or some kind of fast replenishment he wouldn’t be able to cast it anyway. Naturally, that left out the inherent and likely fatal dangers of pushing that amount of mana through your body beyond your natural limits.

There were only 10 tiers and Vukylokyr was seconds away from breaking the shield.

“Olo, man. Tell me what you need? Should I replenish your stamina?”

The building rocked.

More cracks appeared in the golden bastion.

“Save your mana.” Olo shook his head and stood, holding his hand out to Mrs. Cruces. “Ma’am, if you could, please.”

She took it.

The big bear paw swallowed hers.

Another quake.

Olo grit his teeth as the dark skin on his face began to crack, leaking gold light and blood.

“Olo! This is dangerous!” Mrs. Cruces said.

“Just… please fix the damage. You do that and I can hold until the timer runs out.” Olo’s massive chest heaved as he tried to take in more air.

Both sets of cracks slowly disappeared while the bastion continued to absorb blows from the outside that moved too fast for them to see.

The shield around their minds broke before Gene could warn them.

“You dare challenge me with your middling Skill and spell. I am the Crimson Era. The lifeblood in your veins belongs to me. Is me.”

For the first time in a long time Gene didn’t have anything smart to say.

Rather, he couldn’t even if he had wanted to.

He was too busy trying not to have his head crushed by the giant mountain pressing down on all sides.

He looked up into white lights… when had he fallen?

Streams of blood were flowing from his face holes toward the lobby doors.

The same with Mrs. Cruces and Olo.

Still, the two had stayed on their feet.

Kept the bastion alive.

Did he have a spell for this?

Nothing blood specific.

A thought.

Risky if he got it wrong, so he tried it on himself first.

The sapphire spun and settled on another facet.

The symbol glowed.

Transmute.

Broad in scope, which meant he was responsible for controlling it.

This wasn’t water into wine, a mage-type could just cast that on water and call it a day.

They didn’t need to know the scientific and the conceptual part of turning blood into water.

It was a good thing that he had studied with every bit of free time he had during that terrible siege.

He turned the streams of blood outside his body into water.

Being mostly water made it easier.

The trick was not doing it to the blood inside his body at the same time.

It worked!

The blood drain stopped.

He did it for Olo and Mrs. Cruces.

That bought them a bit more time.

5 minutes turned into 10.

He countered half a dozen different spells and abilities Vukylokyr had brute forced at them through the bastion.

His relic had an ocean’s worth of mana stored in it.

Still, he had a terrifying thought that the only reason he was having any success was because Olo’s Skill was weakening the attacks.

It made sense.

The bastion was supposed to be impenetrable to all harmful actions up to 10-ish levels over Olo’s. Anything over that would start working on a sliding scale of effectiveness.

What was Vukylokyr’s level equivalent?

“Hey, vampire dude? Can you hear this? Or is it a one way thing?”

“Do you seek mercy? It is too late.”

“Nah, just wondering what your level was?”

“I am pure! I am the truth! Unlike your kind with your stolen power! Mine is mine!”

Gene prepped a spell.

The golden bastion was more cracks than bastion.

“Olo.”

“What!”

“Get ready to drop it.”

“I can hold!”

“You do that when it breaks and you’re down for a while. I’m not carrying your big ass. So drop it when I say.”

“You will serve in suffering—”

“Now!”

The golden light vanished like a snuffed candle.

Gene cast teleport.

The three of them popped back into reality near the autogun.

“You couldn’t take us up?” Olo grimaced.

Mrs. Cruces handled the sudden spatial change like a champ.

She didn’t gag. Didn’t shake her head to clear the cobwebs. Didn’t steady herself against the wall at the sudden lightheadedness.

She ran up to the autogun and activated it.

The rotary barrel spun to life, sending silver-jacketed projectiles whistling down the hallway into the mass of vampires pouring into the lobby.

Threnosh tech was truly better than the old combustion based firearms.

That sort of weapon would’ve had their ears hurting from the thunder in the enclosed space.

“On me!” Olo taunted.

Something clanged into his tower shield.

Now, that hurt their ears.

A sonic boom up close despite the helmet’s auditory protections.

Gene couldn’t hear shit anymore.

Just a muffled ringing.

Battlefield instincts kicked in.

He had fixed Mrs. Cruces’ position by the autogun into his mental image of the battlefield, so he cast a shield around her even as Olo’s heavily armored bulk crushed him into the elevator door.

A blur was all over Mrs. Cruces, but the high tier shield was holding.

Olo rushed forward behind his shield.

Probably taunting again.

Gene couldn’t hear it.

But he cast another spell on his friend.

Aspect of Belgarion.

Didn’t know who or what ‘Belgarion’ was. A hero? A demigod? Some type of monster?

Whatever they had been, Olo was now in part. Which was a 100 times better across all physical attributes.

Gene spun his sapphire eye with a thought.

Transmute again.

“Use your mace!” Gene shouted at the top of his lungs. “The mace!”

Olo was tougher than him, so he hoped that Olo’s ears had held up better.

He had changed the outer surface of the mace’s spiked head to silver.

Olo quickened.

A glint shined in the lights.

The mace, Gene hoped.

Two blurs went at it in the hallway.

They demolished the nurse’s station. The walls.

Gene waved Mrs. Cruces over.

“The shield will move with you!”

She dashed over and placed a hand on his head.

His hearing returned and he felt a lot better almost instantly.

“C’mon, we have to help Olo,” she said.

“Um, Mrs. Cruces, I know you’ve got one of those Threnium onesies under your clothes, but, respectfully, that isn’t going to stop that monster. Actually, you should be in your armor.”

“I know, but if it touches me then I’m touching it. Then we’ll see how it does with a body full of fast growing tumors.”

“Ma’am, again, respectfully. You and I might be instantly killed if they crash into us.”

“I won’t.”

“Right, but I will and if I leave you, then I will be definitely dead. So, please get in the elevator. Olo and me are going to hold it off as long as we can.”

Olo had about a minute with the aspect.

They could have used Mrs. Cruces’ spells to heal all the debt damage Olo would accrue, but that put her at risk.

The autogun chose that moment to run out of ammo.

It had filled the lobby knee deep in vampires, but that only slowed the rest.

That left the traps.

Shield generators hummed to life, enclosing the two of them in a space consisting of the elevators and the stairs.

Magitech mines exploded everywhere else on the first floor.

Sunlight, anti-vampire powder blend and silver shrapnel filled the hallways.

No added fire or explosive force.

They didn’t want to burn the hospital or bring it down.

Gene cursed.

Olo was on the wrong side of the shields.

The vampires forgot them.

They choked and burned, clawing at their own throats and desperately trying to find cover from the sunlights.

Gene cursed happily.

“This might work!”

And that was the moment Vukylokyr threw Olo’s big ass into the shield generator.

“Please get in your armor…”