Vlad reaches into his pocket and takes out a grenade.
“At such close quarters, you’re just as likely to blow up as we are,” Gaius says, but steps back.
His brooding face grim, Vlad removes the pin from the grenade and tosses it at his own feet.
“Get back!” Gaius barks at Lucretia and Ariel.
They obey instantly.
The grenade doesn’t explode. Instead, thick smoke pours out.
Gaius steps back in confusion.
The smoke makes it hard to track Vlad’s movements. One moment, he’s standing inside the cloud; the next, he’s beside Gaius, aiming the shotgun at the vampire’s face.
Gaius’s eyes widen. “Wait—”
Vlad presses the trigger.
Gaius’s head explodes.
Vlad shoots again, this time at Gaius’s chest, then keeps shooting until the shotgun is empty.
Gaius’s aura goes away. I guess there’s a more practical way to kill a vampire.
Ariel leaps at Vlad—proving that glamour works even after the vampire who cast it is dead.
Lucretia grabs Ariel from behind—proving that the sire bond is broken.
“Get her out of here,” Vlad grits through his teeth. “Both of you, leave now.”
Lucretia drags Ariel toward the exit.
Tossing the shotgun aside, Vlad takes out a machete and heads for the back of the restaurant.
The smoke from the grenade reaches the ceiling.
The fire alarm starts blaring over the beats of the song.
Sprinklers turn on, but instead of water, they spray a viscous liquid that smells like gasoline.
Hospital-gown-clad Johnnies run out and head for Vlad. They clearly got here in a rush. Some of them are not wearing sunglasses, exposing their black, Baba Yaga-controlled eyes.
Vlad expertly halves two of them with his machete, like a hunter clearing away brush.
Wiping gasoline from his brow, he narrows his eyes at something behind a dozen more Johnnies.
It’s Koschei. He’s standing there, clutching a knife.
Vlad’s machete rips through the remaining Johnnies like a hot spoon through ice cream.
When he eviscerates the last Johnny, Vlad leaps inhumanly high and cleaves Koschei’s knife-wielding arm as he lands.
Koschei screams.
Vlad chops at his enemy, again and again.
Koschei screams louder as he loses more body parts but somehow manages to stay alive.
When there’s nothing else to cut, Vlad chops Koschei’s head off, waits for the resurrection, and repeats the grisly work with the enthusiasm of a kid pulling wings off a fly.
When limbless Koschei is screaming and writhing on the ground like a snake for the tenth time, Baba Yaga walks out of the smoke.
“Thank you for bringing me the Council seat on a silver platter,” she says in her androgynous, thousand-year-old voice. “Your seat was going to go to Gaius, but with him dead, your presence here greatly simplifies my plans.”
“You shouldn’t have helped Gaius kill Rose.” Vlad is all but vibrating with rage.
“You talk about vengeance,” Baba Yaga says, but if Vlad realizes she’s quoting The Godfather yet again, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he lifts the machete as though he plans to throw it like a knife.
Baba Yaga raises her arm, parroting Vlad’s movement. Before he can even blink, black energy flows from each of her fingers into his head.
A lot of energy.
The witch seems to age another few decades under the effort of it.
Vlad’s eyes fill up with black energy identical to those of the Johnnies, and the weapon does not leave his hand.
“Good,” Baga Yaga says in a weak voice. “Now let’s use that blade to slice your neck.”
She strains until her face looks pained from the mental effort.
Vlad starts to move like an automaton. He positions the machete at his own throat, then lazily hacks at it.
The neck wound looks grievous.
Vlad falls to his knees.
His blood streams down, mixing with the gasoline.
“Again,” Baba Yaga hisses.
Vlad slices himself one more time, and starts to fall to the marble floor.
Baba Yaga sags in exhaustion.
Vlad’s body hits the floor.
A firebird egg rolls out from under his black leather coat and stops in the puddle of gasoline at Baba Yaga’s feet.
“No,” she gasps, staring down in horror. “Not after—”
The egg cracks open.
The fire blast turns Vlad, Baba Yaga, and the still-struggling Koschei into ash, and the gasoline ignites, spreading flames in a heartbeat.
In moments, the restaurant looks like the Seventh Circle from Dante’s Inferno—