A bullet slammed into the cement wall to the side of Dimitri’s cell—inches from my head. The scientist had climbed onto a counter so he could shoot over the bears. So much for not killing anyone.
I shifted to one-handed defense with Chopper and pulled Fezzik from its holster. Weber’s ally fired at me again—what kind of sci-fi scientist kept a gun in his lab coat?
Though I was sorely tempted to pound rounds right into his chest, I aimed at the chains of the light fixture hanging over his counter. Two precise shots, and it collapsed onto his head. He pitched off the counter, and I heard the gun clatter onto the cement. I hoped it slid under a counter where he couldn’t get it.
“Val?” came Dimitri’s voice, weak and scared. “Is that you?”
“Yeah.” I ducked lower than the bears to stay out of the scientist’s sights in case he got the gun again, and kept defending myself. Two of my furry assailants were too injured to keep going, but the rest were driven by some crazy desire to thrash me. “At least until they get me and I’m as dead as your vampire friends.”
I fired directly into a grizzly’s chest as I deflected a paw strike from another one trying to get at my side. The bullets slammed in, but the bear kept fighting. Chopper was doing more damage, lopping off paws with its magical edge, but that also didn’t always stop these guys.
“Let me out to help,” Dimitri croaked. It sounded like he hadn’t been given any water for days. “No, let Zoltan out. He’s next to me. And all the other vampires.”
“I’ll get right on that with one of the key rings the deputy bears are wearing.”
One of the big black bears snarled and rushed in after I shot him in the chest—hurting these guys was making them angrier and stronger. Even though I dodged the main attack, he clipped me with a paw, and it felt like a sledgehammer smashing into my ribs.
Only mad flailing kept me from losing my balance, and I had to spring over another bear to keep from being smashed into the wall. I landed on his head. Not much better. He roared and reared up.
As I ran down his back like a rider trying to stay on a bucking mechanical bull, I spotted the door panel for the cell next to Dimitri’s cell. I still had no idea how to open it, but I tried my earlier idea and slammed Chopper’s blade into it.
Glass shattered and sparks flew. I leaped off the bear’s back as another grizzly rushed toward me, but I landed on a paw and lost my balance for a second, just enough to pitch toward the cell. I winced as I caught myself, expecting to hit the force field and get electrocuted, but there was nothing there. My brute-force tactic had worked, and it was down.
The naked vampire inside—that did look like Zoltan—was chained to a slab, the same as the first one, but he lifted his head at my unexpected entrance. The bears had surged forward, and now I couldn’t get out of the cell. At least there were walls to either side so they couldn’t flank me easily.
“Dear robber,” Zoltan said, either seeing through my charm or having heard Dimitri. “Free me.”
“That’s the plan.” I ducked under a swipe from a roaring black bear and stabbed the creature in the chest.
In other circumstances, I would have felt bad about hurting innocent animals, but I didn’t have the luxury of regret right now. And something more sinister than Mother Nature was compelling these guys to attack me.
“Cut my shackles. They’re steel enhanced with magic, so I’m powerless against them. Quite frustrating.”
“I can imagine.” It took me a moment before I dared take a swipe to the side to hack into one of the shackles, and Zoltan shrieked, almost destroying my aim. “What was that?” I demanded after I’d cleaved through it and faced the bears again.
I ran around the head of his slab to the other side.
“You looked like dear logger instead of dear robber. I thought you were going to free me by lopping my arm off.”
“My aim is excellent and precise.” I slashed a bear’s ear off, and it landed on Zoltan’s naked chest.
“And horrific. Really.”
The next cut took off Zoltan’s other shackle. His first act was to sit bolt upright on the table, grab the ear, flick it off, and wipe his hands vigorously.
“I can tell that freeing you is going to help piles with getting out of here,” I grumbled, sweat streaming down my face as I debated how to push the bears back and get out of the cell so I could free more vampires. Or maybe I could reach that scientist and find the whistle he’d used to drive back the bears.
“Do not underestimate me.”
One of the bears plowed toward me, not caring that five of my bullets were in its chest and I’d taken its ear off.
I leaped up onto the slab with Zoltan, slashing the bear as it passed. From my elevated position, I could see the scientist climbing to his feet with his gun again. This time, I fired at his hand, my bullet passing clean through. He screamed and dropped the weapon. For good this time, I hoped.
“If you try to shoot me one more time,” I yelled, “the next one goes in your eye!”
“Barbarian!” he cried and ran for the back door.
There went the bear whistle.
I spotted an opening and leaped over the bears crowding the cell, using the slab like a diving board and somersaulting over them. By the time I landed, the scientist was gone. I thought about racing after him, but I would have all the bears chasing after me. Instead, I rushed to the next cell and slashed into the control panel before my attackers figured out what I was doing.
Not wanting to get trapped in a cell again, I ran to the next one instead of pausing to free the vampire. With another blow, I cleaved another control panel.
“Go behind me and let out your buddies,” I called to Zoltan over my shoulder.
“With what tools, dear robber? Those shackles are imbued with anti-vampire magic.”
I managed to break one more control panel before the bears caught up with me. Surprisingly, only two had followed. I looked back in time to see Zoltan hurl a bear across the laboratory. Several had stayed back to battle him, but he wasn’t as helpless as I’d imagined. He hurled another bear away. I had known vampires had superior strength, but somehow, I’d never lumped Zoltan in with other vampires.
“Uh, never mind. You handle the bears, and I’ll free your buddies.”
“Excellent. Away, foul furry beast, away!” He shoved a bear into a counter. “Their breath is odious.”
“Yeah, their breath has been my biggest concern too.” I ran into the nearest cell.
Another naked vampire was sitting up, and I cleaved his shackles open. This one didn’t shriek, though that was probably less because of faith in my abilities and more because he looked so out of it. What exactly had Weber’s scientist been doing to these guys?
The vampire recovered enough to lumber out and help Zoltan with the bears. Soon, five vampires were knocking the creatures back, and I was able to run unimpeded back to Dimitri’s corner.
“Let’s lock them up in a cell,” Zoltan called to his buddies.
“Someone broke all the panels.”
“The half-elf is a brute.”
I made it to Dimitri’s cell and bashed open his panel too. Brutishly.
“There’s an empty one,” one of the vampires said. “Thrust them inside.”
Trusting them to handle the bears, I rushed to Dimitri’s side and unchained him.
“Are you all right?”
“No,” he rasped. “I’ve been in this loon’s basement since Monday. I don’t even know what day it is. They’ve been stabbing me and injecting me with God knows what.” He gripped the side of his neck. “Like a guinea pig.”
“More like a mouse.” I thought of the investor women’s questions about clinical trials. “Can you stand?” Not waiting for an answer, I hoisted him to his feet. “And do you have clothes?”
“They took them. They took everybody’s clothes.”
“Yes, I saw. Vampires are alarmingly pasty. Have you seen any dragon eggs?” I maneuvered him out of the cell.
Dimitri leaned heavily on me and grimaced with each step. Bruises I hadn’t noticed before darkened his ribs on one side.
“No. Is that a problem?”
“Only in that a bunch of dragons are going to raze all of Seattle starting with Weber’s house if we can’t produce their missing egg.”
“The bastard had me kidnapped just because I tried to keep his thugs from getting the blacksmith vampire. I’d be okay with his house being razed.”
“Me too, but I’m partial to the rest of the city.”
The vampires had succeeded in locking up the bears and stood outside Dimitri’s cell.
“He took the egg because he believes dragons are immortal and would be key in succeeding with his longevity formula,” Zoltan said. “They were seeking to create something capable of making humans much more long-lived. He had his scientist studying our kind originally, since we are immortal once we are undead, but apparently progress was slow. They thought they could leapfrog ahead by taking cells from a dragon embryo.”
“Well, the dragon’s mother and the entire rest of her clan found out.”
The laboratory quaked, as if one of those angry dragons had slammed to the ground right above us. The lights creaked and swayed on their chains.
“He has made many enemies,” another vampire said. “That foolish human will not survive the day.”
Neither would we if we didn’t get out of here before fighting dragons collapsed the ceiling on us.
I pointed toward the door leading deeper into the underground complex, trying not to be concerned that Weber and the scientist had gone that way. “Let’s see if we can find the egg. A dragon told me I had thirty minutes to bring it to him.”
“How long ago was that?” Dimitri asked.
“Forty minutes ago.”
“Great.”
“Lead the way, dear robber.” Zoltan bowed and waved for me to go ahead. “We shall be your legions and back you up against whatever enemies impede you. So long as we can stay in the dark.”