Nobody turned and looked at us as we came in, but they watched us, the weight of their gazes cold and pressing down right between my shoulders blades. None of the people looked like Maud.
I sat at the bar. A vampire woman, her armor dented and having seen much better days, stopped by me. “What will it be?”
“Mint tea.” I dropped credit chips on the counter. My mother always told me to keep common currency on hand, even if only a small amount, and I had raided my stash for this trip.
She swiped the chips off the bar and looked at the two men next to me.
“I’ll have what she is having,” Sean said.
“None for me.”
The cloak’s hood hid most of Arland’s face, but judging by the curve of his mouth, he could barely contain his disgust.
The tea arrived in semi-clean cups. I sipped the tea and took my hood down. Here I am.
Nothing. If Maud was here, she was waiting. I kept drinking my tea.
“Big guy on the left,” Sean said quietly into his cup.
“I see him,” Arland said.
A huge vampire, his face cleaved by a ragged scar, rose from one of the tables on the left and started toward us. He was older than Arland by at least a couple of decades. A mane of dark hair hung loose down his back, and judging by the greasy look of it, if his hair had ever known what shampoo was, it had surely forgotten by now. Scuffs, dents, and gouges marked his armor, its original black luster lost beyond repair. A sword hung from his waist, not the typical blood weapon of the Anocracy’s warriors, but a savage-looking hacking blade.
He stopped a few feet from Arland. “You’re not from around here.”
“Such keen powers of observation,” Arland said.
“Your armor is clean. Pretty. Do you know what we do to pretty boys like you here?”
“Is there a script?” Arland asked him. “Do you give the speech to all who enter here, because if so, I suggest we skip the talking.”
The vampire roared, baring his fangs.
“A challenge.” Arland smiled. “I love challenges.”
The bigger vampire went for his sword. Arland punched him in the jaw. The other vampire flew a few feet and crashed into a booth that conveniently broke his fall.
He jumped to his feet and charged, sword in hand. Arland ducked under his swing and hammered a short brutal punch to the vampire’s ribs. A loud crack sounded, like a dozen firecrackers going off at once, as the armor split along some invisible seam. Arland grasped the protruding edge of the breastplate and jerked it up. The armor crunched on itself, collapsing. The older vampire tumbled to the ground, his right arm immobilized, his left bare.
“Nice,” Sean said.
“If one is going to wear armor, one must properly maintain it,” Arland said.
The older vampire tried to rise. Arland waited until he got halfway up and kneed him in the face. Blood poured from the vampire’s face. Arland kicked him. The attacker collapsed and lay still.
“Anyone else?” Arland asked.
Seven vampires rose at once.
“Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Sean said, pulling a large knife with a dark green curved blade from the sheath on his waist.
“Might as well get it over with.” Arland ripped off his cloak and tossed it aside. His face wrinkled in an ugly snarl, showing his fangs.
Five more vampires stood up. This wouldn’t end well.
“Stay behind me,” Sean told me.
A figure in a tattered brown cloak jumped onto the table behind the vampires, jerked a blood sword and a dagger out, dashed to the nearest standing vampire, and sliced his head off.
The vampires roared.
The swordsman sprinted through the room, running on the tables, slicing and cutting like a whirlwind. Everyone moved at once. People screamed, pulling weapons, and overturning tables. Some ran to the back, others charged us. Sean sprinted forward, carving his way through the attackers.
A vampire grabbed the swordsman’s tattered cloak and jerked at it. The cloak came free, revealing Maud in syn-armor, her short blue-black hair flying. She dropped to her knees on the table and buried her dagger in his throat. Blood sprayed her face. She pulled the dagger out with a short jerk, rolled on the table, just as another vampire shattered it with a blow of his blood mace, and sliced across his face with her sword.
Next to me Arland stood frozen.
I reached over and pushed his mouth shut. “Arland!”
He stared at me, as if waking up from a dream.
I pointed at Maud. “Help my sister!”
For a stunned half-second he stared at me, and then he pulled out his blood mace, roared, and tore into the mass of bodies like a raging bull.
I slipped the handle of the energy whip into my right hand and squeezed it. A thin flexible filament slid from it, dripping to the floor. There was Maud. There was Sean and Arland. Where was little Helen?
I moved forward, picking my way through the fight to where Maud had originally jumped. A female vampire charged at me, her mouth opened, her hammer raised for the kill.