Sinunu watched as Rachel flushed slightly, her eyes lighting up with a strange gleam.

“Okay,” came Sandman’s voice over the tacticom, “now you’ve done it. You got enemy converging on you from all points. Take the right corridor as fast as you can.”

Sinunu grabbed Rachel and began hustling her down the hall. At the end of it was a doorway marked “Stairs.” She was just throwing it open, when a howl came from behind her.

“It’s party time!” yelled Flak, “Let’s show these bastards we’ve come with our boogie shoes on.”

The quiet corridor filled with roaring gunfire.

Sinunu pushed Rachel into the stairwell, then turned, letting the door close behind her.

At first guess, she might have estimated twenty vampires streaming down the hallway, but because of how fast they were moving, it could have been twice that number.

The vampires seemed to come in all shapes and sizes, most of them human, but she could make out two orks and a stubby dwarf who seemed to be having a hard time keeping up with the rest of their companions. If what she remembered was correct, vampiric dwarfs should look like goblins, and vampiric orks were huge, white-furred monsters. These, except for the cyber on some of them, still looked like orks and dwarfs. She just hoped they died the same way regular vampires did.

She had just started to move forward, when the vampires ran full speed into Flak and de Vries. The sound was like a small clap of thunder.

The first vampire was a gangly human boy, who looked fifteen at most, but who attacked with utter abandon, fingers curled into claws reaching for the troll’s eyes and driving Flak back for a moment. Catching both of the boy’s hands in one of his massive paws, Flak used his free hand to pull the kid’s head from his shoulders in a gout of blood that blinded the vampire coming up behind.

De Vries had managed to snag one of the two orks, a dark-haired woman with knobby, scarred skin. She had come to a stop just in front of him, and Sinunu could have sworn the creature was still trying to get off a spell when de Vries pulled out her heart.

Whatever the spell had been went off in the wrong direction, blowing the woman’s body apart, and sending a sheet of flame back toward the other vampires.

Vampire bodies began to come apart in the fire, but it didn’t touch all of them.

Sinunu watched as the dwarf stumbled through the flames and the dying vampires. He shook his grizzled head and tamped out the part of his red beard that had caught fire. He was past de Vries and Flak, who were playing clean-up, and in a moment, he focused on Truxa.

Roaring, he leapt for her throat, spurs pushing from his forearms and shins.

Sinunu fired her MP-5 and saw the leaping dwarf’s face come apart under the force of the blow. Truxa knelt gracefully as the dwarf, suddenly without direction, sailed over her head.

As the thing hit the floor, Sinunu stepped forward and kicked it in the side of the head with all the strength she had. The head snapped to the side and she heard the sound of its neck breaking, even over the noise of the fighting.

Sinunu was just about to head back to the fray when she heard shots in the stairwell. Cursing, she swung back to the doorway and crashed through it.

There were six of them, three vampires up the stairwell, three below. And they were advancing.

She saw Rachel standing with her back to the wall, the huge Manhunter in her right hand and the smaller LD-120 in her left. Her face was surprisingly calm as she sighted first on the closest of the vampires above her and fired the Manhunter, which roared in the enclosed space.

The bullet tore open the vampire’s throat, even as it tried to dodge.

Without even waiting to see if she’d hit, Rachel switched her aim to the LD-120, which was sighted at the vampires below her, and fired.

With a small popping sound compared to the Manhunter’s roar, the bullet from the smaller gun ripped into the vampire’s head, spraying bone and blood on the two vampires behind.

Sinunu put her back to the wall beside the other girl. Without taking her eyes from her task, Rachel said, “Head shots are about the only thing that seems to slow them down. Anything less, and they just keep coming.”

“Sin,” came Sandman’s voice on the tacticom. “Get past the guys on top. If you can, you got a pretty clear shot to the surface”

“Six clear!” Flak shouted through the doorway. “Activity on twelve” said Sinunu, as she and Rachel simultaneously fired, Sinunu at the top vamps, Rachel at the bottom. Rachel was using both pistols at the same time now.

Then de Vries was there, standing in the doorway to Sinunu’s right. Striding forward, like some evil god, he laughed. “My brothers, you have been deceived. Let these two pass. They are nothing to you. The one who deserves your hatred is the man who created you. Turn your hunger on him.”

Sinunu knew he was trying some kind of spell, and for a moment she thought it might work. The vampires hesitated, hissing, their dead eyes filled with something that Sinunu could only read as fear and respect.

Then the lead vampire snarled and leapt at de Vries with a howl. The vamp never even came close. De Vries made a casual pass with one hand, and it was like invisible blades slashing through the air, slicing into the approaching vampire’s flesh, cutting through bone. The vampire quickly came apart in a cloud of black blood and tissue.

De Vries turned to Sinunu, and with a small smile said, “Well, it was worth a try, and it should have worked. These vampires are being controlled somehow.”

With that move, the rest of the vampires attacked in force. Suddenly, the high whine of the Vindicator rolled through the narrow stairwell as Flak joined the fray. Deafening thunder shattered the quiet.

Pieces of vampire flesh flew everywhere, splattering the walls and stairs. The Vindicator tore them to pieces. As a group, the runners moved up the stairway, Truxa and Sinunu taking the lead.

“Bad news,” came Sandman’s voice over the tacticom. “Your boys have managed a flanking maneuver somehow.” He sounded concerned. “They’re waiting for you just at the top of the next landing.”

“Beautiful,” muttered Truxa, then turned to look up at Sinunu. “You tag them, I’ll bag them.”

22

The only thing more amazing than the quantum leaps we’ve taken in advancing technology are the advances promised by our researches into the possibility of combining technology and magic. I foresee a future where the line between the two will blur to the point of indistinction We stand on the brink of the next great leap in evolution.

– 

Oslo Wake defending his use of metahuman subjects before Board of Ethics and Review, Universal Omnitech, New York City. Transcript #ETH678, p. 892, 21 September 2051

Julius felt the Mobmaster’s rigger rev the big engine, cranking up its speed to ram the oncoming barrier.

“Brace for impact” yelled Julius.

The Mobmaster hit the reinforced steel gate of the Hell’s Kitchen compound and ripped it off its hinges. Rolling over the tire shredders that popped up, the Mobmaster’s runflat tires took no notice.

The huge vehicle rocked gently as explosions shattered stone formations to the left and the right, raining deadly shrapnel against the unyielding sides of the truck.

“Our deckers report land mines coming active!” yelled Biggs. “This ride’s about to get bumpy.”

Julius looked out the window at the distinctive shapes of miniguns along the fence line. He turned to Biggs. “Why aren’t they using the miniguns?”

Biggs shook his head for a moment, then looked up. “Decker says they’ve been taken off line. He doesn’t know why but he can’t get to them. He’s been locked out.”