I grabbed Seb by the collar. The youth dangled and kicked. “Geroff!” he snapped, his voice thick with panic. A bottle of gin tinkled to the ground, spilling the remains of its contents across my boots. I was still salty about Seb’s earlier betrayal and just couldn’t trust him.

  “Sorry, kid.” As soon as the rest of my party was with me, I lobbed him through the open portal behind him to Salnia, who caught him.

  “I’m forty-three, you fucking–”

  The portal snapped closed. Seb had moved back into the stable after Beville had decided to relocate the permanent portal into the pub itself to encourage foot traffic past the bar. However, I now needed this space for Bulldo’s magic circle, so Seb was having a holiday with crazy aunt Salnia. It would be character-building.

  Two of the latest model bunnyborgs loomed in a corner, bulky machines with digitgrade legs that stood nearly three metres tall. They had mana-cannons mounted on each shoulder, and long dangling arms tipped with razor-sharp claws. Half metre long “ears” swept back from their shoulders. Apparently, Tim had been a big anime fan and had imported the aesthetic to the new versions.

  Bulldo began waving the fingers of both hands in the air in front of him. Each twitch of a finger caused glowing lines to spread out across the floor, intricate sigils and ideograms covering a four-metre-wide section of the rough floorboards.

  “Tim, are you good?” I asked.

  The lanky Orlic in the lab coat glanced over and gave me a broad smile. “Oh yeah.” He patted a hand against the magitech pistols holstered at his hips. “This is going to be very useful research.”

  “Got everything you need?”

  “Yes, Bob.”

  “Stop fretting, Bob. There’s nothing worse than a nervous dragon,” Kat said, emerging from my shoulder and crossing her legs. Tim blushed an interesting shade of lime, and Bulldo had to redo a section of his diagram.

  “Thanks, Elvira. I’m not worried, I’m angry.”

  Wrath had been working himself up into a tizzy. The group that had carried out the attack on Esme was almost within my grasp. I hadn’t rushed in like a lunatic. I’d plotted and schemed like a good reptile.

  “I’m more Kat von D, thanks to your mean-spirited, nasty choice of an evolution,” she grumped, slapping a gloved hand against the side of my head.

  “Look, we’re about to attack a nest of ancient and evil vampire assassins and all their minions. We could all die, or be turned to the dark side by whatever pale ass Sith Lord is in charge of them. You and I haven’t always gotten along, Kat. It’s been fractious at times. I didn’t trust you at the start, when I should have. Before we do this, I want to tell you something.”

  Tim and Billdo had glanced over and waited in the pregnant pause.

  “Yes?” Kat said. “What do you want to say, Bob?”

  “The Baywatch theme was definitely the best, and I regret nothing, Selene.”

  My brain rang as a shower of sparks exploded from where she punched me in the side of the head.

  “Asshole.”

  “You thought I’d be all heartfelt and genuine?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Good. Bulldo, hurry this shit up.”

  “Nearly done, Bob.”

  The pattern was filling itself in. The outer circle had been completed, all the curliques and flourishes settled into place and glowed a faint cyan. Bulldo raised both his hands and chanted.

  New Synteticus acquired!

  Reticulum Teleportationis

  Bonus spell acquired. I’d consider it a sweetener for letting Bulldo escape for now.

  “Step into the diagram,” Bulldo said. Fear was clear in his voice.

  The bunnyborgs strode forward and formed a ring around the edge. Kat, Tim and I stepped into the centre along with Bulldo.

  There was a flash of light, and we appeared in the entrance room to the crypt. Spiderwebs, the low, flickering glow of the lights in the corridor outside. It was eerie and silent.

  “Ok, I’m done here. See you all later,” Bulldo announced cheerfully.

  “Yeah. See you later,” I growled, earning a worried look before the gangster vanished.

  “We can settle up with him afterwards,” Kat said as she fluttered towards the door.

  “You’re ok with your role?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t have agreed if I wasn’t,” she said as she drifted into the corridor and immediately vanished. We waited, the big cyborgs taking up position to either side of the entrance while their smaller cousins fanned out to form a semicircle around the door.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  There was no sound besides the occasional shallow breath from Tim, the odd uneasy shuffle on my part, and every now and then the muted slurp as a bunnyborg accessed their onboard carrot paste supply.

  “I think we’re clear,” hissed a voice in my ear, making me jump.

  “Dammit, Kat, you didn’t need to hide from us.”

  “Sure, but it’s nice to get one back on you now and then.”

  I ignored her as she settled on my shoulder. “Tim, move them out,” I announced, as if I were ordering a column of tanks to advance.

  The big ones, the BB-109s, stooped to clear the doorway and stomped out into the long corridor that lay beyond. The other machines followed after them, seemingly content to let the titans take the lead, for once their bloodlust and unhealthy interest in corpse sculptures weren’t driving them into a frenzy.

  Mind you, the battle hadn’t started yet. I stepped out into the familiar corridor. I’d only seen it twice before, but the gloom and… loneliness? I think it was loneliness that permeated the atmosphere. Maybe it was hunger, or rather thirst. Something felt empty, as if it were waiting to be filled.

  The dusty corridors were still quiet. Tracks of footprints ran down them, depressions in the debris of ages, carved out where a heavy foot had landed and cleared a space down to the rock beneath. Did vampires shed skin cells like normal people?

  It might seem like a minor issue, as you and your kill team are stalking quietly through a tomb, but it weighed on my mind. Most vampire fiction involves consuming some part of the undead abomination to become one. Usually, they had to drain you of your own blood and then feed you their own like a messed-up nursemaid, but the norm was that at least at some point, you took in something from the vampire.

  Even if a bite could turn you… The natural assumption was that some saliva, some bit of DNA, had been implanted in the victim as part of the process. I briefly considered the damage a vampire gigolo could cause, or even worse, a vampire who made regular and generous donations to sperm banks. Why hadn’t any Earth literature ever touched on that idea? Forcibly turning teenage girls hundreds of years your junior into a life of undeath and predation was apparently ok, leaving a few dozen milky samples behind in clinics was not.

  The thought of an evil vampire whose world conquest plot revolved around, uh, donating bodily fluids to various fertility clinics… Well, I’d have probably read it if it were out there. I’m not saying I’d have enjoyed it.

  “How exactly does one become a vampire on Helstat?” I asked softly as we crept along. My ruminations had bumped the concern very far up my list of urgent worries.

  “A dark ritual,” Tim replied casually, and at “chilling at home with the TV on” volume.

  “Shh!” Kat and I both hissed at the same time.

  “What? You’re actually worried about this?”

  “Agatha was an ancient vampire, and she was a fucking grunt,” I hissed. “I’m all for being irreverent and rude as long as it doesn’t involve mid-battle banter, but alerting them before we’re ready is just dumb.”

  “They already know we’re here,” Tim said cheerfully, holding out his left wrist as he pulled back the white sleeve of his lab coat. “See?”

  “It should make a blip noise,” I grumbled as I assessed the display on his wristcomp. I wasn’t going to question the thing’s providence. Tim was very inventive.

  A series of dots was falling back as we took a step. More and more of them were gathering, moving in from the periphery to form a cordon around us.

  I glanced at the walls. No air vents. So it would have to be corridors. The ceiling was also solid, so there was no way for the enemies to drop down on us that I could see.

  “They’re all around us, man,” Tim said. He flinched as Kat cracked her whip next to his ear. “That wasn’t… You hear that?” he asked quietly.

  The snap of the whip echoed back to us. And again from behind.

  “Whipcracks. Whipcracks in the deep. We cannot get out,” the orlic said cheerfully.

  “Shut up, Tim.” I was peering over his shoulder, and like Kat’s move had been a starter pistol, the blips were blipping rapidly closer to us.

  They flowed ahead and behind. We’d passed a few corridors and empty rooms that were only occupied by sarcophagi and hungry spiders.

  “One of the BBs to the rear, split the regular bunnyborgs,” I ordered as I rolled my shoulders. I pulled out a staff from my possum pouch and spun it idly in one hand. I made the blipping noises in my head, increasing in pitch, volume and frequency as they drew closer to us on Tim’s wrist comp.

  “Blipblipblipblip,” I muttered.

  “They’re right on top of us,” Tim gasped.

  “That’s not possible, you’re reading it wrong,” Kat barked. I smiled. I liked that my minions were having fun, even as my muscles tensed for what was to come. I glanced down at the staff held at my side. It was Gillyboops Glowing Gland.

  I remembered the priests rambling about who had made it and why. How long ago and how powerful the crafters had been. I say I remembered, it was all buzzing bar the important issue. Turning to the rear, I raised my staff and spewed out blasts of light like the stick was a Gatling cannon.

  “Get some!” I crowed, panning the beams of light carefully so I avoided my allies. Faintly pink, the laser attacks cut through the dark and revealed our enemies even as they cut through the monstrous ranks.

  Mana beams lashed out, adding a purple counterpoint to the pink glow of the staff’s attacks and creating a nightmarish disco effect.

  Ghouls were ugly. Not “a few more beers and it’ll be right” ugly. But ugly. Butt fugly, in fact. Warped flesh that appeared half melted, gleaming black eyes and fangs that occasionally caught the light and glowed a sickly green colour.

  I cut them down, smiling happily as the kill notifications rolled in. Ghouls did not suffer from whatever disability had stymied me on the gold for killing Kenny. These guys were paying the big bucks.

  Mechanical screeches rang out behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Between blasts from the mana-cannons on the Big Borgs, the other cyberbunnies were charging into battle. Flickering black armour, the occasional sucking sound as one of them pulled on the carrot paste tubes attached near their mouths… it was pure chaos.

  Then the real enemy appeared.

  The ghouls had been cut down. They were essentially zombies, but they weren’t actually dead. I glanced at Tim as the shadowy forms of vampires began flitting towards us. They moved like liquid darkness, sliding away from our attacks or splitting apart into swarms of bats or rats when they couldn’t dodge.

  The hideous chittering of their beast forms managed to reach me over the noise of the cyborgs' attacks.

  Claim staked.

  The town of Baginton is contested. Three factions vie for control of this rich, well-situated locale, which sports an ensuite Temple of the God of Light, offers excellent views of the city and has three latrine pits.

  Compte de Fallade has sent his second army group to beseige the town.

  The Holy Knights of Bulb, under Lady Nardshire, are holding the wall, for now.

  The House of Bob has minimal resident forces but significant local ecomonic commitments.

  The spoils will go to the victor!

  Perfect fucking timing. My staff spluttered and died as its charge ran down. I sent a blast of my own fire down the corridor behind us and spun to charge forward into the fray. Could I eat vampires without getting vampirism? This corridor wasn’t too narrow… time to find out.