They arrived on the rooftop, one by one filing through the doorway that led from the stairwell out onto the gravelly surface, headed toward the Zarcturean’s ship, which stood there before them as though awaiting their arrival. Gadget, then Dizzy, then Misto and Darmok, Mystikite and Elphion, then Buffy, Viktor, Jetta, Basil, and his cadre of Rebel Vampires: Trazeal, Dana Zulfridge, her acolytes Razor and Bryce, Ripley Mibs, Giova Miskandriska, Balthazar Kingman, his bodyguard Vivacia, and the one called Thrallia. As they approached the ship, Gadget surprised Mystikite — and no doubt everyone else, too — by suddenly crying out, as though in intense pain. He fell to his knees, grasping at either side of his head and the Mind-Weirding Helm, his face contorted into a grimace of agony.

  “Whoa!” said Dizzy. “Gadget, what the frak?”

  “Gadget babe, what’s wrong?” asked Buffy, kneeling down beside him. She had her med-kit with her, and broke it open now.

  “Dude, you okay?” asked Mystikite, stopping, and putting a hand on his shoulder. Anytime something weird happened with that damned Helm, it didn’t bode well for any of them.

  “Ugh,” said Gadget, gritting his teeth. “Dude, would I be in this position if I was okay? Argh . . . ugh . . . Jesus . . . God, it hurts like a bitch! What’s it — what the hell is it doing to me . . . ?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Darmok. “That. I should’ve warned you about that. The Zarcturean ship has a kind of psionic security system; if it senses any kind of psionic scan or trace, it attacks the source as soon as it gets within range. Back up about five or six feet — that should take you just out of range. If you want to get any closer, stop actively listening to any psionic noise around you, and whatever you do, don’t look directly at the ship. That should do the trick. At least for right now.”

  “Hey, thanks, nice of you to warn us ahead of time.” Gadget got to his feet, turned away from the ship, and backed away a few paces. He seemed to relax a little, and breathed deeply for a moment, presumably now safely out of range of the ship’s attack. “Okay . . . better now . . .” he said, nodding his head. “Jeeze. Whew. Damn. That thing fucking means business! I felt it . . . in my mind . . . screaming. A scream so loud and terrible that it’s like a thousand fingernails on a thousand chalkboards. A sound so awful it almost literally rips your nerves apart. Like an Irish banshee with rabies and on meth, and really, really pissed off . . . ”

  “Sorry,” said Darmok. “The worst part is, you have to fight that thing in order to get it to let you onboard. In a manner of speaking, of course.”

  “Gee, that sounds like so much fun,” said Gadget. “Guess I’ll just — ”

  “You will all put down your weapons and surrender! At once!” bellowed a loud, familiar voice behind them. Everyone turned toward the door to the stairwell in order to look for the source. It was none other than Ravenkroft — because who else, right? — hovering in the air in his Evangeliojaeger. Morganymuae followed; she levitated as well, her tentacles writing in the air. Following her came a group of nineteen Vampires in full gothic-punk, leather regalia, with the one Basil had named as Vynovich — he was easy to spot, given the description Basil had given — leading the charge as they fell into an almost military-like formation before them. Mystikite did a quick headcount of his own forces; including himself, Jetta, and Basil, they had only had twelve Vampires on their side. And given that Vynovich and his crew were all armed with what looked like Geist-Verst?rker units of their own design sitting atop their heads — just as he, Jetta, and Basil’s Vampires wore thirteen of their devices — this looked like it might turn out messy in the extreme. He only hoped that his Human friends — and his one new alien friend, he supposed — and their cosmic-scale weapons could throw the odds in his side’s favor. Together, his Human and Vampire friends numbered eighteen . . . three short of Vynovich’s side if you counted Ravenkroft and Morganymuae. Oh well. He supposed they could make up for it in firepower. Gadget’s Helm was a lot more versatile than those headpieces his Vampire friends wore . . . At least, he hoped it was.

  Next, though . . . next came a big problem: Spilling out of the rooftop exit came the most twisted sight that Mystikite had ever seen, like something out of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual: They were humanoid, and there were a lot of them, sixty in total once they had all come pouring out of the doorway. Their clothes were total cosplays — specifically, the metal and leather of Klingon warriors — their pauldrons and armored breastplates polished until they gleamed, the seams bulging around their odd but substantial musculature. They had the roughly-human bodies of men, but the misshapen heads of animals; here was one with a partly-human, partly-rat-like head . . . there came one with a half-human, half-bird head, beak and all . . . and over there, he saw one with a minotaur’s somewhat-human, mostly-bull’s head bolted ungainly atop its well-muscled body. Bits of machinery and hoses penetrated their flesh at certain points; messy-seeming surgery had attached mechanical appendages to some of them. Each one had a pair of katana swords crisscrossed and mounted across their back, and they each carried one of what looked like the same sort of energy weapon with which Dizzy had equipped each of her friends. Their eyes were black orbs and they gleamed with both immense pain and intense, murderous cruelty. They came flowing out of the rooftop doorway and filed into a crowd behind Vynovich and his other Vampires, and stood there, roughly “at attention,” like soldiers awaiting orders. Vynovich smiled at them, and then turned back to face Dizzy and the others.

  “Well?” he cried out. “We’re waiting.”

  “Not a chance in the Hell of the Upside-Down Sinners, Ravenkroft! You either, Vynovich, or whatever your funky Russian name is!” Dizzy stepped forward, out in front of her friends. “In the words of Gandalf the Grey: You. Shall not. Pass!” She leveled a Interphase Pistol at Ravenkroft as he floated closer to the front lines. “There comes a time,” she said, “when the whole of the cosmos descends upon us and tells us to move aside, move along, get out of evolution’s way, and just let it happen . . . let nature sacrifice your genome for the greater good of the universe. Well, when the greater good of the universe comes knockin’ on my door and tells me to ‘get the hell outta the way,’ to make room for the newly-improved, I consider it my job to plant myself — like an Ent — by the river of truth and say to the universe: ‘Nope. To Hell with you. Get outta your way? Ha! Frak you — I’m standing in your way. Lead, follow, or get outta the way? Balderdash! I obstruct, asshole!”

  Elphion leaned over to Mystikite and asked softly, “Am I crazy, or did she just combine a Mark Twain — and Captain America — quote . . . with a George Carlin reference there at the end?”

  “Yeah, generalized weirdness is kinda her thing,” replied Mystikite, and shrugged. “Just roll with it. I do. It’s easier that way, believe me.”

  “Your empty threats mean nothing to me, Weatherspark,” said Ravenkroft, a triumphant scowl on his face. “The invasion has already begun. The Zarcturean will be here soon enough. And they bring with them a colonizing force . . . they will settle here and harvest this world’s resources — all of them, including its Humans, who will make for good servants and slaves. They will spare me, of course . . . they need someone to act as their liaison between they and their cattle, someone to act as their slave-master. And once I’ve finished with you, my dear . . . then the creators of the Zarcturean — those who first fashioned their genome, Ravenkrofts ago — will have a foothold here as well, and will walk among their children as gods. And you, Weatherspark . . . you will be a goddess in this New World Order, whether you wish it or not! So you see, I don’t plan on killing you. In fact, I plan to elevate you! To a whole new echelon of evolutionary development! Why, if you so choose, I can see to it that they fit your friends here with Zarcturean symbionts, like my friend Marvin. They would worship you, you know. Serve you. Do your bidding. You would have power over them like never before — and over the physical world, as well! — and ah, your intellect . . . oh how your mind would grow in prowess! Oh, the new stratospheres of thought you could ascend toward! Think about it, Weatherspark! Think of what I am offering! A chance to walk among the stars with the gods! All you have to do is submit. All you need to do . . . is let go of your friends . . . let go of this thing you call ‘fandom’ . . . let go of your middling humanity. Let go of this vision of yourself as some kind of ‘hero.’ Let go of all that, and take my side in this! Together, we will rule this island Earth! And perhaps, one day, the Galaxy itself!” He clenched a fist before him, and grinned a malignant grin.

  Dizzy stood there for a moment, her Electro-Mesmeric Guitar strapped to her back, her Evangeliojaeger gleaming in the dimming light, as though actually mulling his offer over in her head. Then she smiled, and shook her head. “Nah. Don’t think so, Ravenkroft. Let go of my humanity? Well, some would say I’ve already done that. Stop seeing myself as the hero in this screenplay? Well, some might say that I’ve no illusions on that score, either. But give up . . . fandom? Give up my friends? Ha! Hell to the frakkin’ no, you cock-wombling frak-muppet! Get outta here with that moon-man babble! Now, then: You and your team there will kindly put down your weapons, if you don’t mind. It’s either that, or I’m afraid I’ll have to get cross with you. Don’t make me cross, Ravenkroft. You wouldn’t like me when I’m cross, any more than you would when I’m angry.”

  “I’m very much afraid,” said the Vampire in the lead — Vynovich, who stood near the one who must’ve been Francesca — as he stepped toward them, “that we don’t just outnumber you, Human, but we also outclass you in every conceivable metric. And hey. Basil. My man. Check this out.” He had his hands behind his back. Now, he revealed them. On his left hand, he wore the ungainly-looking, circuit-and-tube-laden Conjuring Gauntlet. “Nice toy you’ve made for me here. Can’t wait to play with it. We went down to the subbasement level of this hotel, and after we got done murdering the Orogrü-Nathr?ks we found — hey, they put up a meager fight — ” And here, Dana, who stood next to Basil, flushed, her eyes growing larger, the color draining out of her as her face fell — “well, after we did that, Dr. Wrothisbane and Ms. Zulfridge — guess what we found?” Two more of Vynovich’s Vampires emerged from the stairwell, carrying between them what looked like a large plastic picnic table with something big and bulky on it, a sheet covering it. The sheet rippled in the wind. They removed the cover, and let it billow away, revealing a complex array of machinery and components. It looked like someone had taken a jet-engine and a giant Tesla coil, and had merged them. Vynovich walked over to this huge machine of thus-far-unknown purpose, and grabbed the dangling cables, and then one by one — much to Basil and Dana’s visible dismay — plugged them into the Conjuring Gauntlet’s connector ports. Vynovich grinned at them. “We found this. Supposedly, it lets the Orogrü-Nathr?ks talk to Orogrü-Nathr?k in his sleep. We can even use it to scream at him, so that he wakes up. Thanks for that, Basil. You’ve made our conquest of the Vampire world so much easier than it would’ve been. I guess we’ll all be Nathraks of Orogrü-Nathr?k, soon.”

  “No! You cannot do this! You will destroy the world!” cried Dana, tears streaking down her cheeks. She started forward, but Basil and Balthazar held her back. More tears came, and she let out a wailing sob as she tried to fight against them.

  Man . . . she grieves for those of her Coven that this guy killed, thought Mystikite. I would too, if it were me. Basil was right — this guy really is an asshole of the first goddamned degree.

  Dana pleaded with him, “Please, Vynovich — I’m begging you — do not activate that device! Do not perform the ritual while wearing that gauntlet! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to learn while on the job, then!” said Vynovich, and laughed, the black laughter of a pirate swaggering toward Viktory over the latest ship to fall to his cannons. He adjusted the knobs and controls on the Conjuring Gauntlet. “Y’know?” he said, “I’ve got no idea what any of these little gizmos actually do. No, no — you just stay put there, Basil. Go on — you go ahead and hide behind that Human woman for protection. Tsk, tsk, tsk. If only you had balls, right? I know.” He shook his head sadly, but then grinned again. “Man, that’s a whole new low for you, isn’t it? I mean, I knew your Coven was nothing but a bunch of pants-pissing cowards and sniveling little nerd-babies, but I never guessed just how cowardly and how sniveling you really were until now. It’s really fucking pathetic that the other five Covens — you hear me, Dana? Giova? Ripley? You too, Trazeal, Balthazar? — actually look to you as some kind of leader, now. But oh well. They won’t for very long. Not after tonight, anyway. Because after tonight — well, in about ten minutes, actually — you won’t be alive to lead anybody.”

  “You don’t scare me, Vynovich!” cried Basil. “You nor your Army of . . . of . . . things! We’re ready for you! We’ve come prepared! So go on, and have at it! C’mon — c’mon and show us what you’ve got!”

  “Have it your way, Buttercup,” said Vynovich with a sneer. “As you wish.” He turned around and faced Arkham who, like the others of his crew, wore one of Ravenkroft’s Geist-Verst?rker devices atop his shorn, gleaming head. Several other Vampires flanked his left and right, the leaders of the other Seven Covens who had joined Vynovich’s crusade, plus a few more from Coven Drogath and Coven Geistig. Basil had told Mystikite about these people, and what he’d heard worried him, especially now that he saw them in the flesh: Nineteen “Evil” Vampires in total, plus whatever Morganymuae was, and Ravenkroft in his Evangeliojaeger. It was them, versus twelve “Good” Vampires on his side, thought Mystikite, plus Misto — a werewolf — plus Dizzy in her Evangeliojaeger, plus five other Humans armed with alien weapons-tech — plus Gadget and his Mind-Weirding Helm — plus an extraterrestrial cat-woman from space armed with . . . well, duh, more alien weapons-tech. This was about to get interesting . . . especially when you threw in an angry Elder God with the worst case of the Mondays since the initial singularity had vomited forth the universe.

  Arkham wore a stolid glare on his broad face, with his fingerless-gloved fists clenched at his sides, each of them holding a submachine-gun, with two large belts of ammunition criss-crossing over his chest as they hung from each of his wide shoulders, his black t-shirt beneath them and his leather jacket both bearing cover-art from his favorite black metal band, Cannibal Corpse.

  Vynovich smiled up at him. “Rip the others apart. Spare no one. As for the mortals . . . well, enjoy. Just be sure that in a few minutes, when I perform the incantation, when I wake up the Beast . . . be sure that you and the others get clear of Basil and his Vamps, and the Humans, too, whatever’s left of them. I want the Elder One to be well-fed when He arrives.”

  Arkham smiled back a smile full of gold teeth, his eyes shining with hate. “You got it, boss.” He raised his voice, and yelled to his troops: “Alright, you monstrous fucks! You know what to do! Hail and kill, motherfuckers! Hail and kill!”

  What happened next — though not everyone would tell the story this way — happened suddenly and all at once, as though the events erupted from some looming, smoldering volcano islanded in time, and in doing so, scorched the fabric of history itself.

  “Back off, guys, I got this one,” said Dizzy, her sights set dead on Ravenkroft, who seemed to also catch sight of her from where he levitated above Vynovich’s evil cadre of Vampires — he grinned maliciously at her and inclined his head with mock respect — and began hovering toward her. Gadget and Misto did as she asked and retreated from her side. Instead of backing up Dizzy, they ran toward where Mystikite and Basil had engaged Vynovich and his mistress, the one named Anaztazia.

  Good luck, guys, she thought. Let this be it, then; let this fight, tonight, be my final reckoning with you, Ravenkroft.

  “Stand aside, my love,” she heard Ravenkroft say to the Morganymuae creature. “This is my prize to acquire.” He fixed his gaze upon Dizzy. “You needn’t get involved. Look there — go assist our friend, Vynovich.”

  “No can do, Dizzy. I’ve got your back this time,” said Darmok, her hand on the butt of her Decimator pistol. “I can’t let you face him alone. With the Zarcturean inside him, he’s too powerful for you to face alone.”

  “Well, since you’re gonna be all rude and insist on intruding . . .” said Dizzy. “Alright. But I get to finish him off. You let me get in the last shot, understand?”

  “If we get a last shot, sure,” said Darmok. “If we win, yeah. It’s all yours.”

  “You’re such an optimist.”

  “Hey, I try.”

  “Well, here goes.”

  “Yep, guess so.”

  And with that, Dizzy levitated upward, followed by Darmok. Dizzy and Ravenkroft flew toward one another from across the rooftop battlefield. Each frowned at the other. Each’s face was stony. They collided in a storm of kicks and punches as the War suddenly exploded below. Dizzy threw a swift right hook at Ravenkroft. The punch crashed into the side of his spangenhelm and wrenched his head to the side. He returned fire with a hard blow to the flexible armored segments that protected her stomach. And what a blow. It hit her harder than he’d ever hit her before. Never had his punched packed suck a wallop. A knot of agony exploded there and rippled up from the point of impact, shaking-up her guts like never before. She flew backwards from the impact, whirling through the air unexpectedly, her Evangeliojaeger’s onboard computer frantically calculating and and trying to stabilize her flight using her repulsivators. She finally leveled out and got un-dizzy, righting herself it the air and the pain fading a bit — her Evangeliojaeger told her body to up the endorphins in her blood to deaden the pain a bit — and she said over the coms:

  “Damn, you weren’t kiddin’, Darmok!”

  “See, I told you. Powerful. I’m coming in to attack.”

  “No. Hold off. I want another shot at him.”

  Dizzy engaged her repulsivators and zoomed back toward Ravenkroft, yelling a primal scream of fury as she smashed right into him. She grabbed him by the shoulders, taking him by surprise, and crashed her motorcycle helmet into his spangenhelm, head-butting him. The blow sent him reeling backward. She let loose of him, reeled backward, ten kicked him in the chest and fired the repulsivator in her boot. Sparks flew from the power terminals on either side of the zero-point reactor chamber in his chest as he went flying backward even more so, tumbling in space. He course-corrected and raced back toward her. At the last second, thinking quickly, Dizzy zipped to one side and grabbed onto the structure of Ravenkroft’s Evangeliojaeger as he zoomed past her, and threw additional momentum into him, which tossed him off-course and threw him tumbling toward the Visitor’s ship parked on the Hotel’s rooftop. He clanged into the side of it hard, backside first. He and the entire ship both vibrated with the impact. He snarled, and rocketed back toward her again, his fists out before him. He fired both his Interphase Pistols at her repeatedly. Luckily, the forcefield Gadget had rigged-up worked like a charm — the blasts impacted it instead of her and dissipated as it absorbed them. The field flickered here and there — one or two shots got through and singed the armored shoulder of her Evangeliojaeger as well as singed a lock of her hair, even as she tried to dodge the shots with evasive maneuvers — but it stopped most of them from killing her.

  Thank the gods for you, Gadget, she thought. Ravenkroft closed in on her despite her flying away from him at top speed, his fists out before him as he flew straight at her. She turned to face hm at the last, thinking she could surprise him, but that turned out to be false hope; he kept on coming, and both his fists punched her squarely in the chest. She cried out as the wind went out of her. The forcefield could protect her from energy pulses and highly-kinetic projectiles — maybe even bullets — but not from physical matter traveling at lower velocities or with relatively lower amounts of momentum.

  “Gah!” exclaimed Dizzy as she felt what was most likely a lower rib fracture; she sailed backward, her repulsivators kicking in to keep her aloft. There were times when the Evangeliojaeger almost seemed to have a mind of its own, although she knew that, in reality, it was most likely just her unconscious mind kicking her survival instinct into overdrive, and the Evangeliojaeger’s onboard computer did the rest. Thankfully. She raced back toward Ravenkroft. She aimed her Interphase Pistols and fired at him repeatedly . . . the first time she had ever actually done so without “pulling any punches,” so to speak.

  “Okay, enough of this bullshit. Is this a private room party, or can anyone crash it and join?” Darmok flew in from the side, the antigrav thrusters on her backpack unit glowing a bright red, her Decimator pistols blasting at Ravenkroft as did Dizzy. His forcefield was obviously the better of the two. It deflected most of their blasts, despite them both firing on him from two different directions. For the ten or twelve shots that got through the flickering gaps in his field, he deflected them off the metal of his Evangeliojaeger’s gauntlets with a whisk or a flick of the arm before they could burn through either his head or his chest or his shoulders. He snarled a mischievous grin at both of them, and then turned one gauntlet toward each of them and returned fire. Obviously, his Evangeliojaeger’s onboard computer — or the Zarcturean, with its telepathic abilities — did the aiming and firing; no ordinary Human could have aimed and fired in two different directions simultaneously like that.

  Then Dizzy realized: Both she and Ravenkroft shared a disadvantage in that neither of them could fire with their forcefield in place; had they done so, the blasts would simply bounce back at them and kill them instantly.

  Dizzy banked, yawed, and rolled in the air and dodged the blasts from Ravenkroft’s Interphase Pistols, with her forcefield deflecting most of his blasts, with a few of the shots landing on the Evangeliojaeger’s shoulder pieces, flex-armor, and armored plating, generating electric sparks as the pulses hit the structural-integrity field, blowing holes in other places — luckily, none of them located near any vital organs or protecting any parts of her body — as the two of them doggedly charged each other. Good, his focus was on her, and not on Darmok; thus far, he must’ve regarded Darmok as more of an irritant or a secondary threat. Good, keep the focus on her. If she could get him to underestimate one of them, that made it easier for the one he underestimated to maybe take him out.

  They fiercely collided midair. Their forcefields collapsed. Darmok stopped firing at him. He landed a punch to her jaw, sending her reeling, but not without her first ramming the toe of her boot into the flex-armored side of his torso. He spun through the air and lurched to one side, grimacing in pain and clutching at the spot her foot had connected with; she herself spun around, giving into the momentum his punch had lent her, and as she did, she launched herself at him afresh, springing forward and grabbing his Evangeliojaeger by the collar. She hauled back a fist, and punched him square in the face.

  In response, he started laughing. Laughing. At her. Dizzy got angrier, snarled, and punched him again, harder this time. This only made him laugh even more.

  “Damn you, Ravenkroft! Why the frak are you laughing!” She punched him a third time. “Why!”

  “Because!” he said, and giggled. “Because of what you’ve forgotten!”

  “What!” she bellowed, and grabbed his metal collar with both hands, and shook him. Blood ran down from his nose, from his mouth, from one swollen eye. The wounds began heal and close-up even as she gazed at him, the serum fueling his body’s regenerative powers. This only enraged her further. “What, what is it, Ravenkroft! What’ve I forgotten!”

  “Ah, ah-ha-ha-ha!” he burbled, spat blood in her face, and then tittered more laughter. “Why . . . why these, of course!”

  His Evangeliojaeger’s four segmented, metal tentacles raced around through the air from behind him, fully-extended and writhing through the air like a quartet of trained serpents.

  “Ah, crap,” she said as two of the tentacles grappled both her arms with their strong, steel pincers, and yanked her toward him.

  On the ground — or rather, the rooftop below — all-out war and all seven hells broke loose, as though someone had detonated a bomb made of pure chaos amidst all there assembled. The Teenage Mutant Biomechanoid Samurai spread out and attacked Dizzy’s Technowizards as well as Basil’s Rebel Vampires, as did the members of Vynovich’s New Cabal, both with psionics and with sheer brute force.

  “You ready for this?” Mystikite asked Basil, as Vynovich and Anaztazia headed straight for them. The Geist-Verst?rker units on their heads glowed brightly and revved-up. Four Viktorian-garbed Vampires from Coven Geistig backed them up, and they now joined hands as their Geist-Verst?rkers all lit up atop their heads. Their eyes appeared half-lidded as they stood in a crescent-shaped half-circle behind their masters, giving them a psionic backup squad. A pair of Biomechanoid Samurai closed in on them as well.

  “Nope,” said Basil, his own Geist-Verst?rker unit charging. “Not really.” He straightened the sword and energy weapon he had buckled around his waist. The former had been a gift from Mystikite's collection of knives and blades; the latter had come from Dizzy. Buffy had been kind enough to bring his collection with her from the Executive East Inn when they'd moved all their stuff from there. The sword wasn't very fancy — in fact, it wasn't that sharp. It was only a show-sword, a display replica Mystikite had bought at a consignment shop years earlier. It would have to do.

  “Me either,” said Mystikite. He turned his unit on and felt his scalp grow warm and begin to tingle. Was that supposed to happen? He hoped so. He really hoped so. He also hoped it didn't fry his brain like an egg.

  “C’mon guys,” said Gadget. He raised two fingers to his left temple. “Let’s get these fuckers. Let’s get ‘em really good.”

  “Uh, right,” said Mystikite. “Or something to that effect. You really have no idea about my penis, though. None of you. No idea. Stories will be written of it. Songs will be sung of its girth.” He focused his mind — he guessed that was how you did this — on Vynovich and Anaztazia, and shoved his hands out in front of him as hard as he could as he concentrated on them, trying to mentally direct the wave of mental force he felt wash over his body. And lo, it actually worked: Vynovich and his concubine both tripped and staggered back a few paces as though struck in the chest by a pair of powerful virtual hands. But, they soon regained their footing and kept on coming, faster now than before. Mystikite wasn’t sure how, but he felt Basil’s mind reach out next to him, and felt what he did: A great rush of air blew past them and swept both Vynovich and Anaztazia off their feet, landing them flat on their backsides on the gravel rooftop. No sooner than that happened than did Vynovich sit up from where he lay, and a bright, blue-white bolt of lightning lashed out from his Geist-Verst?rker unit and struck at Basil. It took only a split-second, but Gadget somehow reacted fast enough and threw up a force-shield around Basil, who went flying backward from the impact, but was otherwise unscathed. The field around him shattered like glass and vanished in a puff of acrid smoke as he landed on his backside and skidded through the gravel to a stop.

  The two Biomechanoid Samurai creatures — one with the head of a ram, its coiled horns the rough texture of rock and its beady black eyes aglow with mischief, the other with the head of a gorilla, its snout contorted in a snarl of contempt — ran at them from either side of Vynovich and Anaztazia, and aimed their energy weapons right at Gadget and Mystikite. Gadget threw up his hands and a force-shield went up in front of them just as the Biomechanoids opened fire and bright purple blasts of energy hit the shield. They kept coming at them and fired again, and again, the force-shield protected them. But they still kept on coming. In a few seconds, they would —

  The marching Biomechanoids breached the force-shield, stowed their energy weapons, and drew their swords. Meanwhile, Basil got to his feet soon enough and fired back at Vynovich — with two burning beams of laser light that blasted out of his eyes and swept across the rooftop, incinerating one of the Geistig standing behind Vynovich and to the side. One down, three to go. The Geistig manufactured spare psychokinetic current and channeling it into Vynovich and Anaztazia so they could throw it at the three of them. Before Mystikite could act on that knowledge and add his firepower to Basil’s attack, though, Vynovich threw up his hands in front of him — as did Anaztazia — and a shimmering force-bubble appeared in front of them, reflecting Basil’s energy-beams right back at him. Mystikite winced — it was hard to try and concentrate with so much going on — and Vynovich’s return-fire energy beams actually bent around Basil and went wild, smashing into and cutting through one of the large air-conditioner units situated on the building’s roof. Sparks and flame blasted out of the unit along with billowing plumes of thick, black smoke. Basil turned to Mystikite and nodded his thanks; Mystikite nodded in return, as though to say, no problem. But the Biomechanoids were almost upon them. Mystikite concentrated on the one on the left, and the thing dropped its sword and grabbed at its head with both furry paws, letting out a high-pitched squeal of pain, its limbs quaking as smoke rose from its ears, mouth, and nose. It dropped to its knees as fire shot out of its mouth and nostrils, as did the dripping goo of its melted brain. Gadget must've focused on the other one, because it suddenly catapulted backward through the air — also squealing with something like surprise — and went slamming into the rooftop stairwell exit, immediately crushing its skull. The two Biomechanoids fell limp and dead . . . but two more, these with the heads of an overlarge fox with pointed, blackened ears and a reddish-furred orangutan, rushed in to take their fallen comrades' places, firing their weapons at Gadget, Basil, and Mystikite. This time it was Basil who threw up a protective shield in front of them, but only in one direction, which unfortunately didn't protect them when —

  Vynovich attacked again, this time focusing on Gadget. He quickly levitated into the air to avoid the green, slithering energy beams that shot out of Vynovich’s upraised palms. Anaztazia narrowed her eyes and began whirling her hands in a spiraling motion. A fierce wind kicked up on the rooftop, blowing gravel around in large roundabout ellipses, then in smaller circular patterns. A sudden wispy funnel-cloud coalesced around Gadget, whipping him around in a circle. Then again, faster, then again, faster still . . . until Gadget cried out as he whirled around in the air, orbiting a central axis, caught up in the maelstrom. Basil kept busy dealing with the Biomechanoids: They fired their energy weapons at him, but the blasts bounced off the force-shield he threw up in front of himself. The Biomechanoids learned quickly, though. They advanced on his position on foot, and fired again quickly, once inside the force-shield. One of the blasts hit home — a small, precise pulse-blast that slammed right into the Geist-Verst?rker unit on Basil's head, causing sparks to fly and Basil to stumble back; the blow had stunned him, his eyes rolling up into his head briefly. He staggered but regained his footing quickly enough, now all but defenseless and dazed, having taken an energy-pulse to the head. His Geist-Verst?rker lay sparking and useless on the gravel rooftop, having tumbled off his head. The Biomechanoids converged on him. They put away their energy-weapons, and each unsheathed one of their katana swords from their backs, and each put one to Basil's throat, cornering him. He drew his own sword, awkwardly but with power in the upswing — replica though it was — and brought it up and around and crashing into first one then the other of their blades.

  Meanwhile, Mystikite answered Gadget's call for help. He looked ready to vomit from all the whirling around. Mystikite focused on Anaztazia, and she flew up into the air with a surprised cry — as Gadget broke free of the miniature tornado surrounding him and rocketed upward on telekinetic currents of his own — and Anaztazia unceremoniously dropped back down onto the ground from twenty feet in the air. She cried out as she hit the gravel hard. She winced and grasped at her leg. It looked broken, twisted out of shape at the knee. Good. It would take her a few minutes to heal. Vynovich looked down at her and turned and sneered at Mystikite. A sudden storm of lightning came lashing out of his Geist-Verst?rker unit and slammed into Mystikite’s chest before he could react. Mystikite felt the electricity course through him, causing his teeth and fangs to rattle in his mouth, his entire skeleton to vibrate. His nervous system lit up and twinged hot with voltage as he soared backward through the air and hit the smoke-billowing air-conditioner unit. He recovered, trying to shake off the last of the tremors in his muscles as the electric shock dissipated, and hit Vynovich with a frontal assault of telekinetic force. It ripped the Vampire off his feet and rammed him backward through the air, as though a gigantic fist had just wound-up and punched his whole body. Vynovich landed sprawling on the rooftop’s gravel surface and skidded to a halt. Anaztazia turned her gaze upon Mystikite and he once more felt himself go flying, tossed off his feet and lifted into the air as if by a pair of yanking hands, up over the air-conditioning unit, backward through the air, as though picked up and moved, and sent hovering out over the edge of the rooftop and set dangling thirty floors above the busy streets below. Not really wanting to, but unable to resist the primal urge, he immediately looked down . . . and vertigo quickly overtook him. He almost vomited. He moaned softly in his throat as he watched his feet dangle there in the air beneath hm, as tiny cars darted back and forth on the far-below concrete thoroughfare. He dipped in the air a little and bobbed back up; it was Anaztazia, threatening to let him go any second. His heart raced and blood-sweat beaded on his forehead. He clenched his fists in order to stop his hands from shaking. How had the bitch known he was deathly afraid of heights? He tried to concentrate but couldn’t; his mind fired on eight different panic-cylinders. It was no use; without the ability to focus worth a damn and with paralyzing fear squirting an overdose of high-octane terror into his brain, the Geist-Verst?rker unit on his head was all but useless.

  At the same time as all this unfolded, Basil fought the two Biomechanoids. And he put up a hell of a good fight, too, Mystikite thought. They were skilled swordsmen — for ungainly human-animal hybrids, that was — but Basil managed to counter them, even with a minimum of experience. His blows and parries were clumsy, but effective. They had katanas, which were effective slicing weapons that could move swiftly and precisely, and that cut through the air like swooshing, Ginsu-knife vipers. But Basil’s sword was larger and heavier, and bladed on both sides . . . and therefore made an effective blocking weapon that could parry almost any attack that the two Biomechanoids unleashed on him. They landed a few choice cuts here and there: One’s katana cut buried itself deep in Basil’s shoulder, bloodying him badly and causing him to cry out in desperate agony, and cutting short his ability to wield his definitely-two-handed weapon. Another blow cut across his chest, slicing open his shirt and evincing a long, bloody, diagonal gash across his chest, blood pouring from the wound. A third sliced across his arm, opening a seam in his jacket and a deep cut in the flesh beneath. Finally, he managed — wielding his sword clumsily and with only one hand — to knock both their swords out of the way one last time, swiping them both aside with a wide, striking blow. With a primal yell containing all the fury in his body, he sank his fangs in the thing’s neck. He hung onto the squealing monster with all his might as he drained it dry of blood, sucking the thing’s life out in deep slurps and swallows, a crimson waterfall of blood gushing from the wound in its furry neck and spilling all over its Klingon costume and his jacket, shirt, and pants. The other Biomechanoid squeal-screamed in fear and terror, dropped its katana, reached for its energy weapon, and put it to Basil’s head as he stood feasting on its brother. The gun was about to fire. Basil dropped his prey and whirled around. He unholstered his gun. Before the next second was over, he had blasted a smoldering hole through the skull of the remaining Biomechanoid.

  As all this happened, Gadget came to Mystikite's rescue as Anaztazia held him out over the building's ledge, panicking. Something else had begun to happen: Mystikite could now feel an invisible hand closing around his throat. It was hard enough to breath due to the extended panic attack his terror of heights currently instilled in him. This made it harder. He would asphyxiate any second. Already, the world blurred before him. Gadget — may the gods bless him — stepped into his line of sight, and focused on Anaztazia and upon the three Geistig Vampires backing-up her and Vynovich up with their spare psychokinetic power. He put both sets of fingers to his temples . . . and then Mystikite didn’t need to see what happened, because he could see it unfold in his head. Gadget narrowed his eyes at Mystikite's attackers, and concentrated. A circular wall of bright orange fire erupted from the rooftop, enclosing Vynovich, Anaztazia, and the three Geistig. The flames licked ten feet, twelve feet into the air, the heat baking off them, forcing the five Vampires to all move toward the center of the circle. The flames licked higher, grew hotter.

  From within them, there came a cold blast of icy, wintery air, blowing in all directions; a billowing wind, coming from Vynovich and Anaztazia. It blew out the flames, first dampening them and then causing them to flicker and die. Vynovich smiled and laughed, as did Anaztazia. Gadget and Basil exchanged a glance. Gadget nodded at Basil. This fight — this showdown — had only just begun. Mystikite — able to hear the sound of his own ragged breathing — just hoped he lived the rest of his Vampiric un-life to see it end well for his side.

  The Vampire in the lead of the monsters and “evil” Vampires — Vynovich’s second-in-command, it looked like — hollered, “Alright, you monstrous fucks! You know what to do! Hail and kill, motherfuckers! Hail and kill!”

  Just as he finished bellowing the command, he seemed to set his sights right on the two of them. Buffy heard Elphion let out a small gasp, and then, he started heading toward them — as did the monsters. Viktor hid with them; he crouched behind Buffy and tried to stay out of sight.

  “So, are you . . . ready for this?” asked Elphion, as she swallowed a lump made of obvious nervousness and fear. The Biomechanoid creatures — God, they looked so hideous! What kind of twisted mind could come up with something so cruel, so demented! — came rushing forward, seemingly out to attack everyone at once, including them. Vynovich’s second-in-command slapped his twin submachine guns onto a pair of magnetic holsters he had clipped to his belt, worked out a crick in his neck and clenched and unclenched his fists, smiling at them devilishly, seeing them where they hid.

  “Well I sure as hell hope so,” said Buffy, turning to her. She paused, seeing the fear welling-up in Elphion’s eyes. She softened her gaze a bit, and added, “Just stick close to me, okay? I’ve got an idea of what to try. I just hope it works, is all.”

  “What’s your idea?” whispered Viktor. He gripped the Lightning Gun’s handle tightly in his fingers.

  “For one thing, be quiet,” said Buffy.

  “My poor Children,” whispered Viktor, shaking his head. “Corrupted. Put to ill use, ill purpose. I’ll never forgive myself for making them, now. For bringing them into a world where they could be used for such evil. For creating them in the first place, if this was the goal behind their creation. For making them for such an evil purpose. And now I have to kill them. So, so very sad.”

  “Quiet.”

  Buffy leaned out around the corner of where they hid and aimed the gun Dizzy had given her — the Gravity-Pulse Cannon — right at the contingent of monsters and at the Vampire headed toward them, and pulled the trigger. Viktor aimed as well, and pulled the trigger of the Lightning Gun.

  There was a sound like the bass dropping in a techno song, then a subsonic rumble . . . and then a visible ripple in the air as a shockwave of sorts traveled through it and cascaded over the Vampire in the lead and his troops. And then, he and they just suddenly . . . flipped upward into the air and turned sideways, whirling through space as though caught in a sideways-cyclone, and were then thrown down onto the ground, toppled. The gun in Buffy’s hands vibrated and let out a volley of bright yellow sparks and a crackling, fizzing noise, a puff of white smoke belching out of its innards. She dropped it to the ground as bright electric arcs kicked up around the backside of it and she felt a small electric shock go through her hands. Great. Just great. She so did not need this. It was indicative of how her day had gone thus far. She was fast losing hope that any of this was going to improve in any measurable way. Viktor had better luck — the bolt from his Lightning Gun hit home, careening into the chest of one of the Biomechanoids, sending it, sparking and smoking, flying backward through the air with a loud cracking noise. It squealed in pain and protest as it went flying.

  “Fuck!” she cried as she dropped the Gravity-Pulse Cannon and it continued to smoke and fire off sparks. She turned to Elphion. “Uh, I think it’s broken.”

  “Okay,” said Elphion, in a small, frightened voice. “Does your idea include what to do now?”

  The lead Vampire had gotten back up on his feet, and his animal-headed minions had recovered as well. He glared at them from where he stood, and now marched toward them, his pace quickened. It was clear they were his targets, and that if they didn’t do something, they would very quickly die by his hand, most likely pounded into puddles of vaguely-Human paste. As he approached, the Geist-Verst?rker unit on his head lit up with electric arcs, the torus-like shape around it lighting up and throwing off yellow sparks. Viktor fired his Lightning Gun at him, but the lead Vampire held up his hand and his Geist-Verst?rker unit glowed brightly as he used his hand to simply deflect Viktor’s bolt of lightning. It went zapping off in the other direction and blasted into the gravel rooftop.

  “Uh oh,” said Viktor. “That’s not good.”

  “Lovely ladies,” he cried to them, and laughed. “I’ll drink you pretties dry, but only once you’re a little more . . . shall we say . . . relaxed.”

  He lifted both his hands and made gripping motions with them, and Buffy felt the wind suddenly ripped out of her lungs. She couldn’t breath. Her windpipe closed up, and her hand went to her throat, powerless to reopen the airway there. She turned and saw Elphion collapse to her knees, similarly afflicted, both of them completely unable to breathe. Viktor grabbed at his throat as he too went to his knees, choking and gasping for air. Buffy fell to one knee, trying to gasp for air but failing, the muscles simply not responding. Elphion began to turn blue, her eyes bulging out. The world fuzzed. Her vision blurred. Panic struck her, and a lurching sensation of sudden terror churned in her gut, a dark and gut-wrenching fear of impending death. Buffy collapsed to her hands and knees, still clawing at her throat for a respite from the lack of oxygen. Viktor too. Maybe if she just gave up — gave in to the specter of death now — it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe if she just realized that it was pointless, the whole thing, all of it, then maybe she could find some peace when this monster killed her . . .

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  Arkham merely grinned as he held them there, choking them to death. “That’s it, mortal lovelies. Die. To die, to sleep . . . to sleep, perchance to dream . . .”

  And then, it happened: Buffy felt her skin start to tingle, then almost vibrate, her flesh practically alive with what felt like insects crawling all over it. She gave into it, let it happen, only vaguely understanding what was going on; this was what she had felt back in the hotel suite earlier, when she had somehow burst into flame. (Why had that happened? Dear gods, what had that damned Mind-Weirding Helm done to her?) Her field of vision turned blue and rippled, just as before, as though she gazed at the world through a refracting, underwater spyglass with a lens made from polished, azure gemstones.

  She turned and saw Elphion’s Geist-Verst?rker unit light up, a flurry of yellow sparks popping off its torus-like component. Then, a large arc of bright blue lightning leapt out of Elphion’s eyes, and struck Arkham in the chest. Surprise showed on his face as the bolt of energy crashed into him — or rather, as it crashed into the thin, soap-bubble-like forcefield that suddenly popped into existence around him — and sent him soaring backward through the air, a smoking hole in his t-shirt, his leather-clad butt skidding across the gravel rooftop of the hotel as he landed twenty feet away. And suddenly, Buffy found herself gulping down fresh air once again, sucking in a deep, refreshing breath at long last; she heard Elphion do the same thing. She briefly collapsed to the rooftop, gasping for air, and then pushed herself up, and tried to get to her feet. Then came the anger, the rage. She scrambled to her feet just in time to see Arkham recover and get to his and try coming at them afresh, this time unholstering one of his submachine guns, and locking and loading, readying to shoot. Viktor got to his feet and readied his Lightning Gun, and took aim at Arkham. He fired, and the bolt of lightning flew at Arkahm; but Arkham once more raised his hand, and as his Geist-Verst?rker glowed, he lit up with a blue aura of force as he deflected the bolt once again.

  Focusing on Arkham as he took aim at Elphion, her vision still colored a bright blue that rippled like a natural-gas flame, Buffy concentrated on him — or rather, on the vague idea of what she wanted to see happen to him — and lo, somehow, it worked: A pair of wispy tendrils of orange fire rocked her body as they exploded out from her like twin, writhing serpents; they hurt coming out, too, as though someone had stabbed her with twin, burning daggers in both her shoulder and her side, the two places from which the tendrils had erupted. They snaked through the air and embraced Arkham, penetrating his forcefield with ease. He shrieked in pain as the burning tendrils wrapped themselves around him and cooked his Vampiric flesh with a loud sizzling, crackling sound, charring him to ash, the black smoke and scent of cooking meat rising and billowing through the air as he screamed in agony, the fire showing him no mercy as it immolated him. It was all over in less than a minute; his blackened body and the remaining ashen rags of his clothing dropped to the rooftop a smoldering husk, his half-charred skeleton poking through in places.

  Buffy turned to Viktor Elphion, and they turned to her. The three of them exchanged a meaningful, mutual stare with equally-raised eyebrows for a moment.

  “Y’know,” said Elphion, picking up one of Arkham’s submachine guns, “we make a good team. I think.”

  “I’ll say,” said Viktor, “though you two seem more effective than me.”

  “Don’t let it get you down, Vic,” said Buffy, picking up the other gun. It would make a nice companion to the Gravity-Pulse Cannon that Dizzy had equipped her with earlier. She wondered — was it like in the movies, where you could wield one of these things single-handedly? She hoped so. That would be badass. “We’re tough chicks. You can’t hope to compete with us.”

  “Okay then.” said Elphion, readying her gun. “Let’s do it again, now. Viktor — aim for the thing on their heads with your lightning.”

  “Got it,” said Viktor. “Aim for the devices they wear. That makes sense.”

  “Rock on,” said Buffy, and pulled back the bolt on the submachine gun. She held up her hand in front of her face, and then closed her eyes and concentrated on that hand, and thought: Fire. Fire in my hand. The power of fire, mine, mine to control. Mine to wield. Fire. Fire in my hand . . . She opened her eyes, but saw nothing. She tried again, repeating the same litany in her head, then opened her eyes again. Still nothing. So, she tried it a third time, concentrating harder, and this time, sure enough, her hand lit up, a blue, flickering aura of translucent, rippling flame enveloping it. It did not burn nor hurt, really . . . just felt really weird . . . Tingly, almost vibratory, as though she had immersed her hand in an anthill. She clenched her fist and tried mentally extinguishing the fire. Didn’t work. And so, she tried again, thinking the thought harder. The blue aura flickered in and out, then vanished altogether. Huh. This would take practice. Lots and lots of practice. But maybe, just maybe, winding-up a pyrokinetic wasn’t going to be entirely a bad thing. She looked around briefly for some kind of cover . . . and saw six of the Biomechanoid monsters, some with the heads of pigs, some with the heads of warthogs, spot them and point in their direction. The pig-and-warthog creatures began heading their way. Buffy spotted one of the large air-conditioner units mounted to the roof nearby. “Quick, Elphion, over there!” she said. She pointed, and the two of them dashed across the roof toward the large machine, as the Biomechanoids headed toward them. “Elphion, here. Follow my lead,” she said, as they made it to safety. “Don’t wait for them to attack you. You attack them, you hear me? You attack them!”

  “Uh, right!” said Elphion as they hid behind the air-conditioner, their backs up against it. “How do I work this gun?”

  “You point it at them and pull the trigger, that’s how.”

  “Okay. Seems simple enough.”

  “And when they aim at you and shoot, you duck back behind this thing.” Viktor knocked on the metal of the air-conditioner. “Got it? But remember — you also have that thing on your head. It’s powerful. You’re powerful. You can use that power to hurt them, do anything you want to them. Or, you can use it for defense, if you need to. Your imagination is the limit. You just have to concentrate.”

  “Uh, right. Yeah. Concentrate. Got it.”

  “Elphion,” said Buffy.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s you’re real name?”

  “My name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I — it’s Lynn. Lynn Celeste.”

  “Good to meet the real you. Now let’s give ‘em hell. One the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

  They all three swung away from their hiding spots and out around the sides of the air-conditioner unit, facing the attacking Biomechanoids, setting them in their sights. Buffy squeezed the trigger of the submachine gun in her hands and felt the rattling recoil of the gun against her shoulder as it shuddered, blasting out rounds of ammunition at the approaching six creatures. Viktor unleashed the Lightning Gun. The Biomechs returned fire with their energy weapons and kept on approaching. Buffy wasn’t a very good shot, even with a spray of bullets instead of one-off shots, but managed to fell one of the warthog-headed creatures, cutting across its chest with a quick swath of gunfire, while Viktor took out a second of them with a bolt of lightning. The other four, the pig-headed ones, fanned out and kept on firing their energy weapons. One of the blasts landed close to Buffy’s head. She ducked back behind the air-conditioner. Elphion continued shooting at them too, in shorter bursts, and managed to take down another of them, leaving only three now. They kept on firing their energy weapons, their resolve apparently relentless. Elphion cried out, blown backward and knocked down onto the rooftop as one of the creature’s pulse-blasts hit her square in the shoulder. Sparks flew from her and the wound looked bloody and nasty as she clutched at it and screamed.

  “Lynn!” cried Buffy. She abandoned her attack, lowered her weapon, and went to Elphion’s side. “Let me see . . . let me see!” She pried Elphion’s quivering hand off the wound; it looked like a third-degree burn. Elphion moaned with pain as Buffy inspected the wound and went for her med-kit. She doubted she could do much good on the battlefield against a burn this bad, but anything she could do, she would. She also knew that right behind her, the Biomechanoids still approached the air-conditioner unit, and would soon be upon them. Viktor fired his Lightning Gun again, and took out another of them. She didn't care, though. Let the bastard alien things come for them! She was a healer, by gods, and would do her work here anyway. And if need be, she would pick that gun back up and blow off their hideous faces if they tried to lay so much as a finger upon this wounded, fallen woman!

  Sure enough, Buffy turned her head, and from the periphery of her vision, saw two of the pig-head monsters approaching. Viktor backed up toward them; he missed his next shot. The Lightning Gun was effective, but unpredictable; it could easily go wild when least expected to. Buffy whirled around to face them from where she knelt beside Elphion. One of the monstrous things had broken past Viktor. It put its energy weapon to hers and Viktor’s heads, and cocked its own head at them, as though wondering — what are you? Its black eyes looked at her without emotion, save perhaps for a strange, alien curiosity. It motioned for her to stand, as one of its comrades also pointed its energy weapon at her, and the second of its friends pointed its energy weapon at Elphion’s prone form, putting the muzzle of the gun up against the curls of her hair. Elphion moaned softly. The other two looked to the one that had its gun trained on Buffy and Viktor — obviously the leader of this detachment. It nodded at the second of its friends, and the creature pulled the trigger.

  "NO!" screamed Buffy and Viktor both at once, as Elphion's body convulsed only once, the bolt of purple energy blasting through her head and into the rooftop beneath it. Elphion lay still after that, blood pooling beneath her corpse. The Biomechanoid stood up from where it knelt beside her body, and trained its weapon on Buffy. The other one pressed its gun tighter against Viktor’s scalp.

  Buffy felt her body begin to heat up. The world turned blue again, and rippled before her eyes. “Fire,” she said simply, and heard her voice echo in some invisible space. “Fire. All of you, burn. BURN! PORK ROAST FOR EVERYONE!“

  She closed her eyes, and the orange fireball exploded out from her body in a dancing spiral, whirling and engulfing all three of them, careful to avoid Viktor, and causing their bodies to combust one by one as they squealed in agony and terror, their flesh and bones cooking in the heat . . . but slowly . . . for Buffy she did not want their suffering to be quick or easy. No, she wanted it to last a moment or two, for their deaths to be as drawn out and cruel as possible. She wanted these beasts to feel pain, to know the fullness of her wrath for what they'd done. It was a pity she didn't have more time to spend on them, that even as she cooked their guts, she saw five more of their kind heading toward her, as well as two of Vynovich's Vampires. Viktor raised his Lightning Gun and fired at them. Well, good. She intended to make these bastards suffer, as much as humanly — or inhumanly — possible. From this moment in the battle onward — maybe even throughout life, going forward — she would be a fiery creature of revenge. Remember Elphion.

  To her right, about forty feet away, she saw Jetta fighting off a horde of the Biomechanoid things. She supposed she should help her. Even if she was the monster who had turned Mystikite into what he was now, a beast incapable of loving her. An agent of the monstrous, an animalistic extension of the barren and uncaring cosmos.

  “Come on, Vic,” she said. “Let’s go help Jetta.”

  Ripley Mibs, of Coven Iravaban, found herself on the battlefield, back-to-back with Razor and Bryce, disciples of Coven Les Orogrü-Nathr?ks. Seven of Vynovich's Biomechanoids surrounded them, the beasts' katanas out and at their necks. The creatures had the heads of overlarge birds of prey — giant Owls and Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, and Seahawks. Their beaks and talon-fingers, sharp and deadly-looking, to say nothing of their artificial weapons, were a their necks. The three of them, on the other hand, had armed themselves only with Geist-Verst?rker units, though none of them really knew how the damned things worked. You had to concentrate, Basil had told them. But how the hell were you supposed to “concentrate” when a team of human-animal hybrid monsters had you surrounded, and had seven very long, very sharp knives pointed at you? Knives that looked to have their bladed edges coated in silver, at that?

  “Uh, guys?” she said, as she raised her hands in surrender. “I don’t know about you, but I think we're in real trouble here."

  Razor and Bryce also had swords, of course — katanas, like the Biomechanoids, and also sheathed on their backs — which they had pulled out at the first sign of trouble. But the Biomechanoids had surrounded them in a hurry, their swords already pulled out on approach. Plus. what good were two blades against seven, especially when your enemy had the drop on you . . . and their blades could poison you instantly with the merest cut or scrape?

  I’ve been sold-out, she told herself. The certainty of that was cold comfort. When she had agreed to work for Vynovich, she had known this would be a calculated risk. She hadn't agreed to work with him because she liked or trusted him. Far from either. No, she had agreed to be his mole because she had believed in what he was doing. For the longest time, the Vampire Nation had suffered from the stifling effects of the division between Die Kabale and Les Gardiens, the straightjacket of the Fa?ade, and the limitations that Vincent Telluré's “leadership” of the Seven of the Covens had imposed upon them. Also, for the longest time, little more than fear and tradition had forced Vampires — the rightful rulers of this planet — to keep their existence a closely-guarded secret from the Humans of the world; the Fa?ade was an outdated, outmoded system of ideas, invented in a more ancient and desperate time. Well, no more! Vynovich had promised a shining new world, one where the Vampires were on top of the social order as well as the food chain, one where Vampire stood at the apex of the world and sat on the thrones that they belonged on, one where their kind ruled over Humanity like the overlords they deserved to be. It had been an easy sell to someone like her, a person who lived to see order imposed on a chaotic world that hungered for rules and hierarchies. For thousands of years, the Iravaban had been the peacemakers, the diplomats, the lawyers of the Vampire Nation, they who had overseen millions of pacts and contracts, they who had seen the sacred Laws and Edicts obeyed, they who had seen ritual adhered to and the Old Traditions respected. It was time to bring back the rule of law — to impose order on a world that had forgotten what real order was like. Vynovich promised that, too. And if making that omelette required breaking a few sacred eggs, well, so be it. Ripley, for one, was ready to make whatever sacrifices were necessary.

  Except that right now, she thought — as she raised her hands and the Biomechanoids closed in around them, swords to their throats--the sacrifice appeared to be her. Dammit. It appeared that Vynovich had deemed her expendable, along with her compatriot in betraying Basil and the others, Balthazar Kingman. It appeared Razor and Bryce were her only hope. And the things on their heads. Basil had told them to concentrate on what they wanted to happen, and the machines would take care of the rest, translating their will into psychokinetic action. Was it really that simple? She guessed she was about to find out. She focused her mind on the Biomechanoid in front of her; she gazed into its black, ichorous eyes and imagined two large, powerful hands — her hands — squeezing its head like a walnut, cracking it like an eggshell. And sure enough, the creature’s limbs and head began to tremble and quiver, and then it squealed in pain and dropped its sword. Its hands went up and grabbed either side of its head as crunching noises came from the bone there. Blood ran down out of its mole-like snout, spurted out of its pointed, furry ears, and coursed down through its fur from its black, greasy eyes. The crunching sounds intensified and its quivers became tremors, which became convulsions as it dropped to the ground and seized, spasmed, and died, its crushed head lolling to one side. The other Biomechanoids squealed and chittered, and closed in even tighter around the three of them. They pushed the six of their swords to their three throats even closer, drawing blood.

  “Uh, Razor? Bryce?” she said, gulping, panic setting in now. She tried to come up with something — anything — in her mind’s eye, but her brain was a jumble. She tried to envision a grisly fate for the seven creatures around her. Tried to imagine something big, something that would take them all out at once, without harming the three of them, but it was hard . . . especially with her heart hammering in her chest like a thundering drumbeat, almost lodged in her throat, and her senses on high-alert, her nerves thrumming like live-wires. “Have — have you two got anything?”

  “Maybe,” said Bryce. “I . . . I think I may have. I’m concentrating . . . but nothing’s happening. It’s as if — as if something or someone is blocking me from doing anything!”

  Ripley scanned the area just beyond the Biomechanoids surrounding them and then spotted what she thought might be the problem: Just beyond them, near where Vynovich and Anaztazia fought with Basil and the Humans Gadget and Mystikite, stood a group of three Geistig, dressed in archaic Viktorian finery and just standing there, holding hands and muttering to themselves, eyes half-closed . . . except for one. She even recognized him — his name was Kitesh, one of the Elders of his Coven. And he seemed to enjoy his work. He had turned in their direction and now stared at them, hard, his fingers to his temples, his eyes boring into her and the others from across the rooftop, the Geist-Verst?rker unit atop his head glowing brightly, almost like a blue-white flare showing up on a camera lens. That must’ve been it — he blocked their efforts.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to fight our way out,” said Razor. He turned to Bryce, who also turned to him. They had lowered their swords when the Biomechanoids had first threatened to cut Ripley’s throat. They turned to her now the she had two new blades poised at her neck, the Biomechanoids watching them expectantly. They waited, swords presently lowered, for a signal — any signal, from her, that it was okay to proceed. If they did anything suspicious or made any sudden moves, the Biomechanoids would slit their throats. They had to know she had prepared for that. Well, she sure as hell hadn’t. They would just have to wait a second.

  All she needed was a distraction. Any distraction. It didn’t have to last long or be very big. Just something, anything, to throw the Biomechanoids off-guard long enough for Razor and Bryce to raise their swords and fight their way out of this. Or better yet, something that would break that Acrothta’mallocotha’s concentration so they could actually use the psionic devices with which Basil had equipped them. Then it dawned on her. A second ago — when she’d crushed the Biomechanoid’s head — Kitesh hadn’t been able to block her. The block — it didn’t work on her. For whatever reason, she was immune to its effects.

  So, she marshaled what courage she could, closed her eyes, and focused her mind as best she could, forcing herself to concentrate on the image of Kitesh bursting into flames, the image of his face exploding into fire, a scorching, roiling inferno consuming his dying flesh. Focused all that she had inside of her — all the panic, all the fear, all the horror she felt at the feeling of the cool metal on the skin of her throat, all the terror at the thought of the blood trickling down the skin of her neck — and threw it at Kitesh in a giant, catapulted ball of flaming emotion that she literally felt exit her body through the top of her head and go careening through the air away from her like a gust of wind, headed toward him. As she opened her eyes, she saw the impact happen: Kitesh screamed in agony and threw back his head and arms. He arched his back as the fireball ripped through him. It tore him limb from flaming limb; he combusted into blazing embers and pinging yellow sparks that flew every-which-way, scattered on the winds. The other Geistig quickly turned to see what had happened to their brother-at-arms, which just so happened to briefly drain some of the psychokinetic power away out of Vynovich and Anaztazia and their struggle against Basil, Mystikite, and Gadget . . . which enabled them to suddenly turn the tide in their fight, as well. Well, good — let that bastard Vynovich learn the hard way that nobody sold out the Iravaban; not if they wanted to live, at least.

  While she had distracted the Biomechanoids — that part had worked like a charm! — Razor and Bryce both raised their swords, and brought them up to meet the blades currently at their and Ripley’s throats, forcing the Biomechanoids’ blades away and shoving two — then three — of the creatures back away from them. Then Razor drew back and hacked his way forward while Bryce drew back and slashed to the side, burying his sword in one of the Biomechanoid’s sides before it could block his attack; one down, five to go. He whirled around, light on his feet, and sank his katana into the head of the beast behind him, the blade slicing cleanly through the creature’s fur and cheek and into its squealing skull, blood splashing everywhere. He whirled back around the other direction. Two down. He kicked backward with his leg, knocking the already-dead Biomechanoid into its brethren, casting them off-balance and causing one of them to fall. His sword clashed with the sword of one of the ones still in front of him. He yanked his blade back and lunged forward, skewering the thing through its chest. Three down, three to go. Meanwhile, Bryce’s sword smashed into the steel blade of another of the Biomechanoids. It parried his blow, so he drew back and attacked again. It proved skilled, parrying his blow once more as one of its brothers attacked from the side; it was his turn to parry, this time. He parried its blow as the first one attacked him now. Razor stepped in and kicked that one in the testicles as Bryce recovered and slammed his sword into the side of its neck and into its jugular vein. Blood splattered everywhere and poured down its neck and chest, ruining its costume. The thing flailed backward and fell. Two to go. Bryce and Razor each took on one of the things.

  Ripley stood back and raised both her hands before her, picturing cold balls of air, and then ice, appearing above either palm. She tried to imagine the twinge of the burn of frigid winter air swirling over either hand. Hell, a little variety never hurt anyone, she thought as she tested the extent of her newfound power. Hardened balls of ice crystals appeared over either palm, coalescing out of the cool air condensing there, and then suddenly rushed forward at the two Biomechanoids, aimed at their heads. The ice-chunks impacted their skulls, knocking them both off their feet and penetrating, going all the way through like overlarge musket-shells. Blood and bone flew from the exit wounds as the Biomechanoids flipped through the air and landed on their backs.

  Razor and Bryce turned to her, surprise on their faces.

  “We had that under control,” said Razor.

  “Yes, was that really necessary?” said Bryce, clearly annoyed.

  “It was for me,” said Ripley. “Now then. Let’s go help the others. They look like they need it.”

  Just then, Gadget saw the second of the Geistig suddenly explode in a ball of flame. He didn’t know who had done it — or how — but he didn’t care. Now there only two of the fuckers remained to aid Vynovich and Anaztazia in their crusade of evil. The wall of flames he’d conjured up blew out just ahead of him, and he grew desperate. He had to save Mystikite. He turned and gazed at his best friend. Anaztazia had him hovering six feet out from the ledge of the building, out in the open air. He could fall at any second. All she had to do was cut whatever psychic cord she had him suspended from. Which made his job difficult: If he took her or Vynovich out completely, Mystikite would immediately fall to his death. He couldn’t allow that. So, he focused all his metal energy on fighting her: He reached out a hand toward Mystikite, and with all his mental might, he pulled, clenching his fingers into a trembling, ragged claw as he did . . . Mystikite, his hands going to his own throat and his face beginning to turn blue — the bitch also, apparently, presently choked him to death — wavered in the air a little, and bobbed a little closer to him. Gadget reached out with his other hand, also clawing at the air, gritted his teeth, and dug in with his mind again . . . and pulled, yanked, tugged as hard as he could, throwing all his effort into it. Mystikite came floating a little closer, but Anaztazia did not relinquish her hold on him. For the most part, Mystikite stubbornly remained hovering in the same damned spot. Gadget relented and heaved for breath. Behind him, he heard Anaztazia laugh.

  “Oh, so sad,” he heard her say with mock sympathy. “Here, I take pity on him, and let him breathe.” He whirled around as heard Mystikite, still suspended out in midair, sucked down several ragged and sudden lungfulls of air, breathing heavily, rapidly.

  Clearly, he had to weaken her power-base. And that meant taking out those two Geistig standing behind her and Vynovich, and maybe Vynovich himself. But not her; otherwise, Mystikite would fall.

  “Gadget, look out!” cried Basil.

  He looked, and yelled, “Oh shit!” He ducked the swing of one of the Biomechanoid’s swords as five more of the bastards closed in around them from all sides, boxing them in. Dammit, he had no time for this! Not if he wanted to save Mystikite. Gadget closed his eyes and concentrated. A shockwave of energy blasted out from his body, rattling his bones and tensing his muscles, exploding in all directions. The shockwave knocked the Biomechs off their feet; they went flipping into the air and landed on their backs on the ground. Three of them started to get to their feet; two of them fired their energy weapons from where they lay. Gadget threw up a force-shield around he and Basil, who had both his sword and his energy-weapon raised, but who could not return fire due the shield holding in place. The three that had made it to their feet crossed through the shield, their swords upraised. Basil engaged them. As he fought them tooth-and-nail, exchanging sword-blows left and right — blocking, lunging, parrying, and thrusting — Gadget tried to focus on the two fallen Biomechs, who kept firing their energy-weapons at his shield — which weakened by the second. He raised his hands before him, one before each of the Biomechs, and their energy-weapons flew up out of their hands and exploded in the air above them, the shrapnel embedding itself in their furry heads, piercing their black, ichorous eyes and skulls. Bone crunched, blood splattered, and the creatures lay dead. Next, as Basil blocked a wide swipe to his arm by one of the remaining Biomechs and kicked another in the stomach, Gadget turned and focused on the two Geistig helping Vynovich and Anaztazia.

  The first Geistig — Jakal, thought Gadget, reading her thoughts, her name is Jakal — spun around and faced them, sensing Gadget’s oncoming attack. She unlinked from her partner and raised her hands before her. A fierce wind blew from behind her, causing her black, high-necked Viktorian tea dress to billow toward them as it kicked-up. The wind gusted toward Gadget and hit him hard, blasting him in his face and threatening to take him off his feet. Gadget had to counter with a gale-force wind of his own, which pushed against his back to keep him in place, the warring zephyrs nearly yanking him off his feet and tossing him through the air. Moisture began to form in the air, and raindrops followed; soon, Gadget found himself pelted with rain, and then ice-pellets, then chunks of ice. They cut his face, and he felt blood drawn on his cheek. He didn’t care. The goddamn things would not hurt Mystikite anymore. Not if he had anything to say about it. He countered by ramping up the speed of the wind blowing from behind him toward Jakal, and focused on the moisture in the atmosphere around her. Concentrated on it crystallizing, freezing. Soon, the gales they exchanged both blew shards of ice at each other, Gadget’s specializing in ice-sickles, one of which he hoped would find the bitch’s eyes or heart or brain.

  Meanwhile, Basil continued fighting the two sword-bearing Biomechs. These two seemed smarter than the others he’d faced, faster and more skilled, their technique more nuanced. It was as if the creatures could learn not just from their own, but from each other’s experiences, too. Then again, he himself wasn’t that well-trained, and he knew it. He blocked the one on the left’s next blow — a hacking, bludgeoning attack from above, its katana raised above its head as it squealed Viktoriously — but the one on the right tried to skewer him in the gut. He raised his leg and kicked at it, his foot connecting with its chest. It stumbled backward and raised its energy-weapon and fired at close-range. Luckily, at that exact same moment, he had ducked to avoid the swinging sword of one of its compatriots, and so the blast went wild and obliterated the head of its brother. The thing’s skull exploded in a flash of white light and blood, bone, viscera, and brains. The other Biomechs did not seem to care that they got splattered, however , and kept right on fighting. The one that had just shot at him squealed furiously, grabbed at its sword again, and came at him hacking and slashing. He managed to parry its first three attacks, but it managed to stab him in the shoulder on its fourth try at an attack. He cried out in pain and whacked its sword away and then skewered it in the neck. But as he did, the second of the creatures took advantage of his more exposed area, and struck hard. It buried its sword in the soft flesh of the side of his abdomen, and he cried out in agony as its sword cut him open and dug into the fat of his gut. He felt blood pour out of the wound and he collapsed onto the roof, clutching his side, dropping his sword and energy-weapon both. They went thudding to the rooftop as Basil hit his knees, hard. Dazed, the pain of the thing’s blow coursing through him, pumping through his nerves like the dull burn of wildfire, he fell. Luckily, he thought, I’m a Vampire, and Vampires can heal from damn near any —

  He noticed that the monstrosities had coated their katana-blades with a thin layer of silver, and his smile faltered. That was why the wound burned like it did, and why that burning feeling currently spread throughout his body. Oh no. This was not good. Not good at all.

  Elsewhere, Gadget and Jakal kept up their battle of weather and wills for a good five minutes. Finally, Jakal ceased pelting him with ice and began whipping up gravel from the rooftop and flinging it at him; he did the same, returning fire with not only the gravel, but also ice-sickles, ice-crystals, wind, rain. The anger in him raged and scalded despite the cold air he threw at her; they would not hurt his friends anymore, dammit. They had messed with the wrong mild-mannered inventor. He took a step toward the Geistig, and she stepped toward him and snarled. One of the large air-conditioner units on the rooftop suddenly let out a huge, loud metallic groan as it twisted and wrenched free of its metal support bolts and concrete base and floated into the air, hovering. Jakal grinned maliciously and turned toward it, and slid her eyes toward Gadget and Basil. The enormous, ton-heavy device slid through the air and heaved itself at them, lobbing itself like a catapulted boulder made of metal and machinery. Thinking quickly, Gadget threw up a force-barrier around he and Basil. The air-conditioner impacted with the barrier, absorbing the kinetic force of the thing. The machine came apart and smashed to pieces from the force of the collision, its various mechanical bits and bobs all sliding down the soap-bubble-like walls of the force-shield and crashing back to the rooftop in flames. Gadget turned to face Jakal and narrowed his eyes. It was time to end this.

  A deafening thunderclap cracked in the air nearby as Gadget focused once more, and reached deep within, drawing upon every ounce of power within him, and conjured a gigantic lightning bolt from the aether. The large bolt arced through the air, glowing brightly, and struck Jakal right in the chest. She screamed in pain. Her clothing on fire and smoldering, she flew backward and landed on the rooftop in a crumpled, smoking heap, her flesh burned to a crisp. Her partner, the other Geistig, now alone on the battlefield, turned to her corpse wth both surprise and alarm — as did both Vynovich and Anaztazia.

  Gadget pressed his advantage: He reached out toward Mystikite, still dangling — but who now slipped just a little — and with all the mental force he could muster, he pulled and yanked as hard as he could. Mystikite came sailing back toward him — yes! — and floated back from over the edge, hovering back over the rooftop, and Gadget heard and saw him suck down a deep breath of fresh air, his lungs now working overtime.

  “Yes!” He exclaimed. “Come to papa!” Relief flooded his synapses and confidence filled him as he reeled Mystikite back in, and his friend collapsed to the rooftop, safely out of harm’s way for a time, and once again able to breathe normally. He weakly gave Gadget a thumbs-up and smiled at him from where he lay, and slowly began to get to his feet. Gadget smiled.

  “Basil, we did it!” He cried, and turned to face his newfound friend, but then he saw Basil’s body slowly crumbling to ashes, turning to flakes of fire and spark that spread from the wound in his side. His smile faded, and the three Biomechanoids that Basil had fought thus far turned their attention to him and Mystikite.

  Trazeal, dressed in his chainmail Haubergeon, his spiked bracers, and a similarly-decorated choker collar, fought the good fight. He was a warrior from and the Leader of Coven Vathias — the Vampire Coven that believed that humans and Vampires could maybe one day coexist peacefully, without the Fa?ade, with Vampires providing a needed service — namely, sexual stimulation and satisfaction — with the humans supplying another — namely, blood and treasure. His Maker had turned him into a Vampire when he had been a seventeen-year-old high-school football star. It had been a good life, while it had lasted. Well, sort of. His abusive, drunken father had been his motivation to try and get a job and move out, and maybe try to go to college — preferably somewhere far away — maybe on a sports scholarship if he could get his grades up in time. But, all that had been over sixty years ago, when he had gone by his “Human name” of Samuel Robert Jones, born 1947 in a suburban neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Now, he found himself on the rooftop of the Renaissance Regency in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fighting off a eight-fold horde of these fucking teenaged, mutated, biomechanoid samurai — ha, that was cute; he thought he might write that down if he survived this; it would make for a neat story idea, and he was an aspiring writer, after all — and two of the Vampires of Vynovich’s goddamned New Cabal: Vladimir Toskinov, from Coven Nikrotesko (“the Hideous Ones”) and Azazeal Graendal, an Geistig (“the Gifted Ones”), both of whom he knew personally, for fuck’s sake, and both of whom he had once called friend. Now, they eagerly tried to kill him. The world no longer made sense.

  Why had Vynovich gone and done this? Why had he divided the Vampire world even further? Things had been bad enough when the Seven Covens of Les Gardiens and the Six Coven of Die Kabale had been at each other’s throats . . . but now, with the old grudges forgotten and new battle-lines drawn between Vynovich’s New Cabal and Basil’s Rebellion, everything had gotten ten times worse. The bloodshed wouldn’t stop with this fight, either . . . it would continue until it consumed the entire Vampire world. Unless it ended here, tonight. Unless they stopped Vynovich’s rise to power right now, put an end to this violence and his shit-stirring once and for all. Unless they reunited the Vampire Nation under one banner — all for one, and one for all — this shitstorm was likely to engulf all Vampires, everywhere, until none were left standing. And Trazeal, for one, was not going to let that happen.

  Giova Miskandriska — the Leader of Coven Artigiana, the Coven of poets, musicians, and other artisans, the Coven that secretly ran Hollywood and Nashville, and the woman who had often tried to get him to leave Coven Vathias and join her ranks, instead — now fought by his side, wearing one of Basil’s “Geist-Verst?rker” units on her head, just as he did. Presently she shoved her hand in front of her, and a wave of psychic force pushed away two of the approaching Biomechanoids; it threw them out of the way and drove them back into a threesome of their brethren, all five of them knocked off their feet, their advance halted for the moment. They were difficult to use — the Geist-Verst?rkers, that was — as one had to maintain a certain level of concentration, which was hard when one found oneself assailed from all directions. Trazeal had found he wasn’t very good at it. He preferred to fight with his twin daggers and gas-powered, Gatling-gun crossbow. He carried a rounded clip full of silver arrows that dangled from his belt-loops; he hadn’t had a chance to bust them out on either Vladimir or Azazeal, and he both itched to do so and dreaded the prospect; he still hadn’t adjusted to the idea of killing his own kind as wantonly as they did, though he knew it was only a matter of time until he had to. Which thus far hadn’t been a problem, as thus far, they had kept their distance from him and Giova — like the perfect cowards they were! — preferring to let the Biomechanoids do their dirty work. The damn things were like machines. Hell, they were part-machine. He fired his crossbow at one that presently ran at him, charging them, its ray-gun energy-weapon raised and poised to fire. The silver arrow whisked through the air and bludgeoned its way into the thing’s left eye-socket, bursting its ichorous black eye and penetrating its brain. It squealed in pain briefly, then dropped to the ground, dead. One down. Seven to go. They were relentless, like swarming insects.

  “If we die here,” said Giova, as she mentally conjured up a roasting, flickering wall of flame between her and the approaching Biomechanoids, “I want you to know, I could have made you famous. As a writer, I mean. If you had resigned your Leadership and joined our Coven, instead.”

  “I’ll make sure it’s known that that was my greatest regret in the short, sad, and unfortunate life that I lived,” he said, smiling, and fired another two bolts at the next two approaching Biomechs, monstrosities with the bodies of men but the heads of a goat and a giant falcon. The bolts flew through their necks, blood splattering as the arrow pierced their jugulars. They each let out a terrible, keening cry as the blood belched out in pulsating spurts from their necks. They fell to the ground, their trembling furry and feathered hands going to their necks as they writhed and died. Five to go.

  “Well, make sure you do,” Giova fired back. “I’d be so disappointed if I didn’t have an impact.”

  “Of course you would.”

  The five creatures that Giova had knocked off their feet had recovered, and three of them had burst through the wall of flames she had conjured, overcoming their natural fear of fire in order to cross through it, setting their fur and Klingon costumes aflame in places, smoldering in others. They emerged badly burned but otherwise undaunted. They squealed in pain from the burns, but advanced on her anyway. The two flanking the leader raised their energy-weapons, and the leader itself raised its sword defiantly. Giova summoned up a force-shield, and the blasts from their energy-weapons bounced off, but the Biomechanoid with the sword was able to walk straight through it. It came at her and slashed at her with its weapon, surprising her and cutting a bloody diagonal swath into and across her chest. She stumbled back a couple of paces, her eyes wide and her hands clutching at the wound, blood running down in freshets. She staggered on her feet, and bumped into Trazeal, who whirled around in surprise. The force-shield dropped and the wall of fire extinguished itself. The two Biomechanoids with energy-weapons fired again. One of the energy blasts hit Trazeal dead in the shoulder. He cried out, reeled backward, and dropped his gas-powered crossbow. He stumbled forward again and caught Giova in his arms as she fell. The five Biomechanoids advanced on them. A short distance away, Azazeal turned to Vladimir and smiled a cruel smile and twitched the fingers of his hand. The lead Biomechanoid raised his sword again as it and its comrades closed in on them.

  “No! Giova!” shouted Trazeal, seeing her eyes flutter closed, as blood continued to pour from her wounds and she collapsed in his arms. The Biomechanoids kept coming, energy-weapons aimed squarely at them. The one with the sword swung it at Trazeal’s exposed side as he cradled Giova; the blade went into the soft flesh of his abdomen. Trazeal screamed in pain and fell to his knees as the silver-coated blade sunk into his side — he almost dropped Giova — the metal cutting and burning. Tiny sparks of burnt flesh crisped into the air wherever the silver touched his flesh. Blood poured. The Biomechanoid dug out its sword from his flesh and drew back for another attack as the two flanking Biomechs put their energy-weapons to his and Giova’s heads. Surrender was his only option, but he refused to take it. They would have to kill him, kill them both before he did that. He closed his eyes and with his last ounce of energy and effort, he called upon whatever powers of concentration he still possessed, and focused all his will and effort — all that he would’ve put into the sights of his crossbow, all that he would have poured into that unfinished story he had wrestled with back at the Coven’s chapterhouse — into the Geist-Verst?rker unit atop his head. He focused on a particular mental picture: The Biomechanoid with the sword . . . the sword bending, the metal warping, and wrapping around the thing’s throat, at first throttling it and then slicing its jugular. He thrust all his will at this picture, until his head felt ready to burst, and —

  Trazeal heard the sound of twisting metal and the Biomech squealing in pain. He opened his eyes, and saw to his amazement, that it had worked: The Biomech fell over dead, the metal of its sword wrapped around its neck, blood flowing out from the wounds in its neck, its eyes bugging out and blood coursing down from its mouth.

  Giova concentrated on keeping her body alive, not knowing what else to do, as her eyes fluttered closed and she felt faint from the loss of blood and from the burning silver current coursing through her veins. She felt herself fall into Trazeal’s arms, felt the blood coursing down her flesh and her clothing, felt herself grow lightheaded and dizzy, felt the burn of the silver inside her, and wondered for a brief moment if this was in fact her Eternal Death. If she was, at long last, experiencing the Final Curtain Call in the Theatre of Life, if she would ever see her newest darling, Tristan, or her beloved theatre — her poor, poor theatre, now burned to the ground — ever again, or if this was it, this was the last time she would go before the audience and take her final bow, experience the roses tossed at her feet for a fine — a damned fine — performance. Did the show really go on, or was there really no afterparty, after all?

  Her mind raced. There had to be a way to save them. Or at least herself. Beyond her eyelids, the Biomechanoids lurked; two had their energy weapons aimed at hers and Trazeal’s heads. The third, Trazeal had just used the power of his mind to dispatch. Three more behind those, with energy-weapons and swords as well. Closing in. But first — the silver in their bodies. Could she push it out, somehow? She thought she might be able to. She concentrated for a moment, and first things first, she engaged her Vampiric super-speed, slowing down time. And then, she focused all her will on her body, trying to become aware of every cell, every molecule, every atom . . . She felt her consciousness expand to encompass every fiber of her being, and felt pain. Immense pain, every single twitch and tingle, every nerve-ending’s sensation; the agony became so intense that she cried out, screaming in torment, her face a grimace of torture and angst, a portrait of horror, her fists clenched at her sides so hard that her fingernails dug into her palms, and she felt that pain, as well. And then, all of a sudden, she could feel it . . . the silver. There inside of her, every droplet of it, every molecule of it burning like fire. Where it was, every tiny place that it lurked. And she felt it move. That was it . . . yes . . . she was doing it . . . good! She forced the horrid element, all of it, every last atom of it, to move toward the wound in her chest, forcing it to weave through her body — burning every inch of the way, every centimeter, pure torture for every millimeter it moved and stung and ached — as she pushed it out of her body and moved it outward through the wound in her chest throughout a moment of almost-frozen, slowed-down time.

  She opened her eyes. The silver leaked down her chest in tiny rivers along with the blood as the wound began to heal itself. The Biomechanoids, stuck in time around her — as was Trazeal — ready to kill them both, still stood with their energy-weapons raised to their heads, with the leader’s sword wrapped around his own throat at Trazeal’s psionic command. As her wound healed, Giova stood — woozy on her feet; she had lost a lot of blood, after all — and grabbed one of the closest Biomechanoids. She bit down hard into its neck and feasted upon it, slurping its blood between her lips, drinking deeply, tasting its essence, swallowing life-giving mouthful after life-giving mouthful, feeling her strength return as she did. She tossed away the thing’s desiccated corpse as she finished, the blood running down from her mouth in rivulets. She heaved for breath and wiped her chin with her sleeve, and turned her gaze to the other Biomechanoids. One left with his gun to Trazeal’s head, frozen in time — or at least moving slowly in comparison to her — and three left with their guns pointed at the both of them; the one with his sword wrapped around his neck was near to dying anyway. And there, just beyond them and the three Biomechs with the guns, her true enemies: Vladimir and Azazeal, the two Geistig who had kept their distance, obviously controlling the Biomechs from a short distance away using their own versions of the Geist-Verst?rker units . . . and who now watched the battle with — it was obvious — growing dismay at this latest turn of events. They might be able to harness the same abilities she could — Vampiric super-strength and super-speed — but their Biomech minions could not. Giova now turned her attention to two of them, and glared.

  The hideously-deformed Vladimir, of Coven Nikrotesko, sped up suddenly, joining her in the continuum of Vampiric super-speed and accelerated time. “I see you have remembered your birthright on the eve of your death, Giova. It is of no matter. You will die soon anyway.”

  “No,” she said. “You will.”

  “I think not,” he said. “You have known nothing in your life but the charm and luxury that beauty can bring a person. I have known only the pain — and the enlightenment that pain can bring — that comes with deformity. Therefore, I know better than you. And I know you will not survive this. You are to pretty to survive this sort of thing.”

  “And the true deformity lies in your soul, Vladimir.”

  “We shall see. I am on the winning side. That is all that matters. Surrender now, and I may show you mercy.” He put his index fingers near the temples of his forehead and his eyelids fluttered. Nearby on the roof, a large metal cooling fan groaned and shrieked as it uprooted itself from the gravel and its bolts, and lifted into the air, electrical sparks flying from its motor and the power cables connected to it as they snapped. It hurled itself at her, flying through the air, a giant whirling projectile with chopping fan-blades inside it. Giova dove out of the way and landed on the gravel with an “Oof!” on her shoulder as the fan whisked through the spot where she’d stood and crashed into the rooftop with a loud smashing noise.

  She scrambled to her feet and faced him again, dusting herself off. “That all you’ve got? I’m not impressed. Now then. This is for my theatre, and for Tristan, you asshole.” She smiled a mean smile. She put two fingers to her left temple and concentrated on the six silver-coated katana swords strapped to the three time-frozen Biomechanoids’ backs. They all six unsheathed themselves with a sliding, shimmering sound and floated into the air, gleaming in the light. Giova jerked her head and the six swords rushed through the air, dancing as around as they did, moving and pirouetting in a delicate, choreographed symphony of motion — -hey, if you were going to kill someone, Giova thought, it helped to be artful about it — and then they plunged into both Vladimir and Azazeal’s bodies, skewering them like kabobs. Blood splattered and both their bodies shook from the impact, their faces contorting into grimaces in as they moved with super-speed for just a brief moment, spasming in their death-throes at the very last and grasping at the swords as bright flecks of fire, ash, and sparks popped off the places where the silver-coated blades pierced their bodies. They fell in slow motion to the gravel rooftop, the rest of their bodies catching fire and obliterating as they fell, dying in flames.

  “Chekov’s rule,” she said as she stared at their ashes, as wind stirred and blew them away. “If there’s a gun on the mantle in Act One, it must go off in Act Three.”

  She turned and saw Trazeal, in the process of falling from the mortal wound the Biomechanoid had dealt him, its energy weapon pointed at his head. She could do nothing for him — at least, she didn’t think she could. Without the ability to feel the silver inside him — and there was no way she could; his body wasn’t her body, after all — there was no way she could pull it out, the way she had for herself. She wished she could save him. He had been so gallant, in trying to save her. And, he had been so talented as a writer. A little rough around the edges, but still . . . he had held such promise. He would have made a fine member of Coven Artigiana, had he not already been the Leader of Coven Vathias. A little polishing, and he would’ve been worthy of becoming one of her darlings. Now, he never would. He would die here, like these creatures. But he would not be forgotten. She would go to his Coven’s Chapterhouse, and gather his writings. He had finished one novel already — that she knew of — and she would see to it that it saw publication. It was the least she could do for him.

  Giova concentrated on the other four Biomechanoids — the one with its energy weapon aimed at Trazeal’s head, and the other three with their energy weapons aimed at the two of them. She heard their squeals — stretched out in time, like the horrible sounds one might generate by slowing down the speed of a heavy metal record on a turntable — as she waved her hand and their bodies began to quiver and tremble . . . then their furry skin ruptured and cracked, blood pouring from the wounds as it split and cut open, as though lacerated . . . and then their fur and skin simply rushed upward and away from them, leaving their musculature and blood and bone exposed to the world as they screamed in agony. Then their muscles began to rip and tear, more blood squeezing out of them and moving outward, splashing everywhere as the creatures simply . . . exploded in all directions, their viscera, gristle, brain, blood, and bone blowing in every direction simultaneously as they ceased to exist in one piece, explosive balls of flame driving and ripping them apart from the inside.

  Giova simply stood where she was for the moment, breathing heavily, covered in the creatures’ blood and viscera, mourning the loss of Trazeal, of his precious talent. Then, she moved toward where she had seen Basil fall to Vynovich and Anaztazia. They were the real threat here, and they deserved to answer for the chaos they had unleashed. They deserved to pay for what the losses she — and the world — had suffered here today.