The durability of a hundred Olos didn’t save his ribs. Threnium armor didn’t help. Impact absorbers blew out after the third hit. Artificial muscles in the armor tore just like his muscles would after Gene’s spell timed out.
It wasn’t all bad.
The strength, speed and reaction times of a hundred Olos had allowed him to batter the fucking blurry thing all over the first floor.
The other vampires might as well have not been there as the violence of their fight trampled over them.
Mines exploding had been another minor inconvenience. They had hurt the vampires, but not the one that mattered.
Then came the screech of tearing metal.
His thick, Threnium shield was ripped right down the middle. The force snapped his armored arm.
His vision went dark.
The next thing he knew was the feeling of being crushed into an unyielding wall. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
The wound in reality was way too close inside his personal space.
He saw the hole in the wall over its shoulder.
It had thrown him through several rooms.
He had gone one on one for over 30 seconds, which was an eternity for beings that could move in a blur.
Too bad his silver-coated mace hadn’t done any real damage.
“Serve me. Your unique Skill should not be lost in thralldom.”
“You even real?” he said through grit teeth.
He brought his mace up over its arm and jabbed the top spike into the side of where he guessed its head was.
Lack of proper leverage didn’t mean much when one had the strength of a hundred Olos.
Its head didn’t budge as the spike flattened against it.
“Serve willingly and I will spare the one you love. Refuse and she will suffer an eternity at your hands.”
“You repeating yourself like one of those old automated phone voice tree things.”
Another shriek of ripped metal.
His HUD went dark.
The sudden exposure to the scent of burning bodies made him gag.
The smoke stung his eyes.
The sprinklers chose that moment to turn on.
Holy water from a wide variety of belief systems.
Vampires screamed as their flesh sizzled and added to the smoke.
Vukylokyr?
The ancient vampire stood there like it was a pleasant spring drizzle.
Something long, wet and slimy caressed his cheek before stabbing into the soft flesh.
He bit down on reflex.
Felt something hard followed by a pinch on his tongue.
His head spun like it used to do when he stood up too quickly back when he was a skinny, asthmatic kid.
The blurry red thing was wriggling in the corner of his eye as the thing in his mouth started to poke at the back of his throat.
He bit harder.
Shit was like a fat, invulnerable noodle.
The wall against his back suddenly vanished, but the ancient vampire embraced him tighter to keep him from falling.
A small hand darted past his ear and grabbed the wriggling red thing.
Vukylokyr screeched, bleeding Olo’s ears.
It withdrew its tongue and fell back, slamming into the hallway wall, sending a spray of splinters and paint chips everywhere.
“Get back! I might be infected!”
He panicked then set his will. No way was he going to give in to thralldom without a fight.
He tightened his grip on his mace and strode toward the writhing thing on the floor.
Kill the vampire that turned you to stay human.
That was the rule, right?
“Hold still!” Mrs. Cruces snapped.
Her bare hand slapped him in the cheek.
Instant relief mingled with the painful sensation of bloody holes closing.
“The curse—”
“You don’t have one as far as I can tell. No infections. No parasites. Clean bill of health.”
“Great. Thank you. We still need to kill it while we have the chance.”
“Agreed. Keep it distracted, I’ll go for the head.” Gene drew his longsword.
The ancient vampire’s blurriness resolved in parts.
Olo saw snatches of its true form.
White skin.
Broad-shouldered.
Sleek muscles.
Naked.
He wasn’t into guys, but he couldn’t deny the physical perfection he thought he was seeing.
Well… aside from the bulging growths underneath its alabaster-like skin.
They grew and shrank in a most disgusting way.
Mrs. Cruces had given Vukylokyr instant and rapid growth cancer. And it fought them.
Olo stepped in and clubbed it in the back.
Bone crunched, blood splattered.
Gene leapt in with high to low cut.
The rainbow-colored blade bit lightly.
Shadows erupted around the ancient vampire, forcing them back.
Gene’s relic eye flashed.
Magic shields shimmered around their bodies, absorbing the tendrils’ strikes.
Shadows on the walls whipped out and wrapped around them, constricting like snakes.
Fire and light exploded, weakening the shadows enough for them to break free.
They fell back into the hallway.
Mrs. Cruces’ had fired every weapon in her armor.
“Serve me willingly and I will teach you the truth of your class.”
“Who, me?” Gene raised a brow.
“No. From you I will take the only thing of value.”
“Sorry, man. I’m not into dudes or ancient, non gender specific beings. I mean, you’re the latter, right? Cause I didn’t see a dong.”
Vukylokyr went from writhing on the floor in front of them to standing tall, almost to the ceiling behind them.
The blurriness was back.
Mrs. Cruces cried out as it grabbed her and threw her straight through the ceiling.
It went for Gene next.
Slower than it had been moving.
Instead of a blur, it was just merely very, very fast.
Gene’s relic eye blazed bright as clawed fingers reached within an inch of it.
Olo taunted.
The hand swerved.
Pointed claws cut his brow, drawing a curtain of blood down over his eye.
He maced it in a face.
One hundred Olos of strength combined with his best striking Skill at maximum energy showered the hallway in sharp, finger-length fangs.
He would have followed it up with another had his body not suddenly turn into fire.
“Aspect’s out!” he cried out as he fell on his face.
Muscles and joints throbbed, torn.
Bones groaned, cracked.
Gene’s relic eye flashed to another facet.
The instant relief of powerful healing magic was a cheat code.
Olo rose with an upward sweep of his mace, catching the ancient vampire under the chin.
The one downside of Gene’s relic was that he could only cast one spell at a time.
“Slow isn’t sticking unless I channel it!”
Gene circled around his back, looking for an opening to use the rainbow-hued blade.
“Haste me!”
“It won’t be fast enough to keep up with it. And you’re already over the limit with the boosts.”
Vampire blood flowed like a stream around their armored boots.
So many vampires had been killed by the autoguns and mines.
Oddly, the bodies had remained where they had fallen, leaking the viscous red.
“Shit! Watch the blood!” Gene fell back to the shield generators.
Olo followed.
The blood around his boots suddenly exploded, throwing him into Gene.
They went down in a tangle of limbs and weapons.
The blood surged, taking serpentine forms. Striking them. Battering. Constricting.
Their Threnosh armor was drenched in the red liquid.
Gene’s relic eye flashed a magic shield over them a moment before Vukylokyr ignited the blood.
His friend cried out.
“That took so much mana!” Gene gasped.
“Quit bitching! This is nothing. Remember—”
Olo gagged.
Blood gushed out of his mouth and flowed toward Vukylokyr.
“You. Will. Serve.”
“Shut up about the service bullshit! You sound like my old pastor! Fuck that guy! And fuck you!”
Gene’s relic eye flashed to a different facet.
Blood turned to water.
The ancient vampire hissed.
“No more medium to do your blood magic shit, huh? Fuck face! Why don’t you— oh, shit! What the fuck! No! Don’t!”
Gene screamed, covering his face while frantically backing into the elevator doors.
“Chattel. Ever weak of mind.”
“What did you do?” Olo planted his mace on the floor to help him get to his feet.
When he stood, he was back on the walls of Par Olalin.
The unique stench of the spores coming into contact with the lanterns filled his nostrils. It was terribly sweet, fragrant and vile. Like, a bouquet of spring flowers drenched in sewer juice.
How could something so repugnant be so desirable?
His helmet’s filters could’ve kept the smell out for a time had the faceplate been intact, but eventually, just like the Spore God’s twisted creations battering the gate and walls, it was inevitable.
So much black smoke in the skies.
An endless gloom of dying night.
They were down to their last gate.
Their last bastion.
Where the scant remnant of the fortress city’s population huddled in wait for the end.
He stood alone with a ragged group of defenders.
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The very old and the very young.
Man, woman or neither.
It didn’t matter.
The Spore God took all, as it had to the brave defenders that stood at every wall until it had fallen to ruin under the inexorable march.
Bastien— Johnny— Mads—
“Where are you guys? Can’t do this without you. Where are you? Why aren’t you answering?”
His vision grew blurry and wet.
His broken shield weighed on his broken arm. His weapon twice so.
It’d be so easy to set them down one last time.
A sudden spike of pain up his arm jolted him out of the vision.
He glanced at it.
The bent Threnium armor plates moved back into its proper shape, setting his arm. It tightened like a cast.
He felt the armor’s artificial muscles shifting, mending.
He flexed his hand, squeezing his fingers.
Pain knifed up to his shoulder, but he could move it, use it, so long as he endured.
That was who he was.
A big tank.
Meant to take the hits so his friends didn’t have to.
He had failed them.
Not this time.
Every metal piece around him suddenly shot at the ancient vampire faster than Olo could track.
Cutting blades, stabbing spears and spinning saws savaged it, turning it into a red pincushion held in place by metal bands and impaling poles.
“You’re fucked now, bitch!”
Olo looked for an opening in the tangle of metal crowding the hallways.
Gene was still cowering at the ancient vampire’s feet.
“… go…”
A familiar voice crackled over the comms.
He knew what to do.
He charged forward.
The metal flowed out of his way like water.
He reached Gene and dragged his friend around the corner.
“… clear out…”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
He could guess at what was coming.
The building shook violently just as he reached the rear elevators.
A massive boom followed a split-second later.
“Gene, bro, snap out of it!”
Olo lightly tapped his friend’s face.
The terrified look on Gene’s face didn’t change.
“You and me both, bro.”
Olo hefted Gene over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and headed for the stairs.
----------------------------------------
“I think you stunned it. Bringing it outside. Hold fire until it’s clear.”
Tessa held a hastily created bullet.
Silver dust inside a mixed metal shell meant to burst apart after penetration.
Her dad had made a bunch by pulling ancient coins out of a bank.
She stood on the I-80 looking down on the rear of the hospital.
Her dad had opened a shooting lane at an angle cutting through a few floors down to the first where Vukylokyr had been about to kill her friends.
Her mom was safe.
Dad had used his powers to fly her straight to where the other people were holding defensive positions.
The freeway was littered with the corpses of vampires and monsters.
She had fiercely encouraged them to put aside their differences and die together.
The gore covering her kanabo attested to the effectiveness of her mediation techniques.
Comms were still wonky.
Her dad was making it work somehow.
Something about forcing it through whatever magic bullshit the ancient vampire was using to mess with the concept of distance verbal communication or some such nonsense.
Her dad wasn’t very clear.
Regardless, he brute-forced it through his mastery of all things electromagnetic and junk.
Sometimes it seemed unfair to her that she had a hard cap in regards to her power.
She was never going to be as powerful and as versatile as her dad.
Where he had it all, she only had some.
It was the same with Vee.
They were just parts of the whole that was their dad.
“Now!”
She railgunned the bullet in her palm to hypersonic speeds in an instant.
The ancient vampire shifted at the last second despite being filled with metal stakes and restrained with thick metal bands.
Instead of the chest the bullet ripped through its leg.
It looked less fuzzy than the first time she had fought it.
Her stump itched.
“Take that you dickless bastard,” she muttered. “A leg for an arm.”
The ancient vampire screeched.
She didn’t know screech language that well… or at all, but that sounded more anger than pain.
Weird vampire shit probably meant it could make pain feel like pleasure or some overly pervy crap.
It struggled, breaking bands and tearing spikes from its body as her dad continued to hold it aloft.
Her dad pulled metal from the surrounding environment, repairing the broken bits and adding more.
“Again.”
He cleared a path straight to Vukylokyr’s chest.
The hypersonic bullet ripped through.
The screech sounded more pain than anger this time.
“Is the silver even working? The sunlights aren’t. Not really.”
“It’s fine. We just have to keep it occupied while the wizards finish whatever it is they’re doing.”
Ms. Teacher had gotten a message through to them in the form of a glowing magic bird tracing words in front of them on their flight to find each other.
She wasn’t sure about the High.
Her uncle seemed to think Ms. Teacher was a good ally, but almost every High she had ever had the misfortune of encountering on the Dominion world seemed to indicate otherwise. Granted, she could count the number on one hand. So, she supposed it wasn’t fair to judge an entire species based on a few less than ideal individuals.
She reached into her bag of holding for another silver-filled bullet.
“I don’t have enough bullets to keep doing this all night.”
“It’ll be fine. Worst case, I can try to throw it into space. Plenty of solar radiation up there.”
“This would be so much easier if Uncle Eron was here.”
“It was too late to swap places. The duels can’t be interrupted or it’s all out war with another world… something like that. Get ready for the next shot.”
“Already ready.”
----------------------------------------
Rupert, code-named ‘Teddy Bear’, cast the solar wall spell straight from his spellbook.
Four short walls sprang to life at the edges of the tiny park in the middle of neighborhood of tightly packed row houses.
The yellow walls only reached up to his neck, but that was enough to keep the vampires from interrupting the ritual the rest of his fellow wizards were in the middle of performing.
The essence of sunlight scorched pale flesh and drove the vampires away.
The escorting Watch squad took the opportunity to kill several with silver bullets or blessed ammunition and spells.
He wasn’t too clear on the former.
And didn’t care all that much when spells had proved more than enough to put them down permanently.
He felt sorry for them.
The vampires.
Because they had just been people before the sun had gone down.
Probably, just had dinner with family.
Maybe played games together, watched movies or read a book as they wound their days down and prepared for bed.
Men, women and children.
He could tell just by the way they were dressed in regular house clothes or pajamas.
He also felt bad for the Watch.
The kids didn’t say anything, but he could see the looks in their eyes.
They were being forced to put down people they knew.
Looking at their callow faces reminded him of the days when he had been in their shoes.
Now, he was a full grown man in the prime of his life.
He felt like he should say something, but then thought better of it.
He certainly wouldn’t have appreciated some big shot outsider trying to tell him not to feel too bad about killing his own people.
The solar wall didn’t bother the monsters, so he had to open his spellbook again to help the Watch with some less emotionally scarring killing.
They didn’t take long at each site.
Emma, code-named ‘Emmione’, worked quickly and efficiently.
She did most of the work.
The junior wizards were just there to add mana and hold select parts of the spell’s framework.
It was sort of like a dad having his kid hold the other end of the tape measure while marking a wall for some drilling.
Kids. Literal kids.
Dangerous to bring them into a battlezone, especially with vampire thralls and monsters roaming freely.
But, Ms. Teacher thought it was cool, so… it was cool with him.
They had moved quickly through the city.
The Watch’s truck didn’t need to worry about traffic or stoplights. Just vampires and monsters.
The concealment spell he had cast seemed to doing its job.
Their encounters had been few and all had seemed to be by chance rather than intent.
Which was good.
Ms. Teacher had said that they were to get out of there if Vukylokyr found them.
The tension built thick knots in his neck at each location they had hit.
He was a tightly wound coil of muscle just hoping he could cast fast enough to get the kids away in the event that the ancient vampire showed up.
He’d relax a bit on the drive to the next spot where the cycle started again.
They were inside a small music store.
Records or something.
He wasn’t too clear on how that worked.
The Watch helped push cabinets away from the center to clear space for the ritual while he stood at the front windows, watching for trouble.
One of the Watch approached him.
An older woman.
Sort of reminded him of his mom.
She had the vibe even with looking like a hardened fighter otherwise.
It was the scars.
He knew someone was a fighter when they had scars on their face.
“That spellbook thing. How does it work?”
He could see the mana flowing through her body.
A mage-type.
Probably, basic mage, around Level 30 if he guessed right.
He could cast an appraisal spell, but he had been taught it was rude to do it on allies.
The brief explanation took as long as the ritual.
He promised to show her how to get started if there was time after everything was over.
It was only right that he shared the knowledge of the best magic user class.
Record store done meant that there was only one place left to do.
Then, they could finally put the city’s nightmare to the torch, so to speak.
They hit the road, heading south to the city college.
When they reached it, Rupert’s heart sank.
It was under siege.
Tracer fire lit up the dark night as defenders on the walls fired into the hordes clawing their way up the metal surfaces.
Dark clouds swept down from the sky to knock screaming men and women off or eat them alive.
Vampires and monsters weren’t fighting each other here for some reason.
“It really wants this place,” Emma said.
Rupert could only nod in agreement.
“Do you think it knows?” she said.
“How? We haven’t said anything to each other about it.”
“Then it’s focusing here for another reason and we just have the worst luck.”
Something drew his eye to the sky.
A twinkling star.
Wait—
He squinted.
Emma held out her hand.
The twinkle turned into a tiny magic bird of light.
It flitted above Emma’s palm, writing a quick message.
Emma tapped the driver on the shoulder.
“Can you take us around this? South. Where 19th and 20th meet. Do you know it?”
“Yeah, no problem,” the grizzled old man grunted.
Rupert would never fail to be surprised at how Ms. Teacher seemed to somehow know everything.
----------------------------------------
They rode in Vessandrion’s bone chariot pulled by bone horses, but not normal earth horses. Nope. The bones came from a pair of Rangaran Horses. So named for the emperor whose ill-fated attempt at domestication led to his demise. For the horses were highly independent and highly carnivorous.
They were extinct now.
Had been for a few thousand years.
The next emperor’s revenge had been total.
It didn’t seem fair to Vee.
She was of the mind that one deserved what they got when they decided to jump on the back of a giant, carnivorous horse.
Nope.
Not justice at all.
Regardless, they came to a stop at the corner of two dark city streets.
She didn’t recognize the area despite having lived in the city for a few years when she was younger.
It was kind of a weird ‘V’ with a small triangle-shaped island of buildings amid a lot of other buildings.
They looked like homes.
Everything was dark.
She hoped that was because the people had gone to the shelter.
Probably, up at the city college.
Coincidentally, where they had been headed when the glowing bird message spell had hit her in the faceplate.
It had been insistent and had used the right code words.
Vessandrion was eager to meet Ms. Teacher.
The young High only knew of his fellow people through stories.
The closest he had gotten was to the few Low that had emerged from their secret forests sanctuaries after Tessa had instituted changes in her reluctant reign as empress.
There was a lot of crap in that past, dating back to beyond their recorded histories.
Suffice to say, Vessandrion had always been quite alone.
The circumstances of his birth hadn’t helped either.
Her team stepped off the bone chariot and took up defensive positions without the need for orders.
They heard the truck before they saw its lights.
She zoomed in and recognized a few of the Watch inside the cab and clinging to the armored bed. She didn’t recognize the people wearing pointed or floppy hats. Wizards. It made sense considering the bird message spell.
“Hello. Are you ‘Vee Cruces’?”
The lead wizard was a young-ish woman with a fancy hat and armored robes. Her spellbook hung off a harness chain set up messenger bag style.
“Yup and you?”
“‘Emmione’, nice to meet you.”
To her credit, she said her code name with a straight face.
Introductions were made.
Vessandrion stood tall. “I am the High Lord of Bones.” He nodded stiffly at Emmione and the wizard called ‘Teddy Bear’.
The two felt powerful judging by the energy in their electromagnetic fields.
“No. He is not. His name is ‘Vessandrion’. Call him that or ‘Vess’. None of this lord of bones crap.” She shook her head. “He’s like 14.”
“Oh,” Teddy Bear raised a brow. “Is that your level?”
Vessandrion stiffened.
“Age,” she answered for him.
“Oh wow! You’re tall for your age. Cool bone horses! They must be really strong to be able to, uh, carry all of you.” Teddy Bear eyed the wide Meneldrom and the giant Skarga before shooting Vessandrion a thumbs up. “Maybe if we’re alive after this we can trade notes on our respective spells.”
The young High’s face was mostly hidden behind his full-faced bone helmet. Which hid his unearthly beauty. Not to mention he was essentially the same as an Earthian teenager which meant he lacked the same kind of natural awe-inspiring aura that older Highs possessed.
Vessandrion cleared his throat. “That will be acceptable.” He glanced over at Vee.
“Sure, why not?” She shrugged. “So, I got your Ms. Teacher’s message. What’s the deal?”
Emmione explained the bare bones of their plan and what they needed.
Vee wasn’t sure.
She wanted to link up with her family.
But if the wizards’ plan worked it would solve the vampire problem.
She turned to her team.
“Thoughts?”
The walls around the city college were under siege. Which brought back memories she didn’t want.
“The gatehouse under heavy assault. We get to it, but vulnerable while wait for defenders to open… if open?” Skarga said.
“They will as long as I can contact someone.”
“Just go over the wall,” Meneldrom grunted with a nod toward Vessandrion.
“I can do it, elder sister.”
His eyes pleaded with her like he was 5 again and wanted an extra sweet cake.
Not a slice.
A whole cake.
The perks of a High’s metabolism minus the drawbacks thanks to the inherent magic within them.
“Can you do it for them too?” she indicated the truck.
“Yes? Probably? Yes.”
“Alright, let’s find out if they’re okay with it.”
Turned out they were even if they might have to bail partway up.
Apparently, they had spells for that.