Avoiding the decaying vampire, Olivia ran to her mother, hugging her tightly around the neck. Amiata wrapped her right arm around her daughter, despite the rapier still stuck deep in the muscles of her other shoulder. Luke turned toward them, sword ready but not threatening. Amiata narrowed her eyes at him and let out a deep, warning growl. He raised his left hand in a placating fashion.
“Mrs. van den Bergh,” he said, using Dutch, “Pieter sent me to get you and your daughter out of here. I’m not going to harm you, but if we don’t get the sword and knife out of your body, we’re going to be up to our necks in pissed off vampires, and you won’t be able to defend yourself or your daughter.” He walked over to the door and kicked it shut, barricading it with the crossbar. He set his gladius down on the table next to The Mistress’s throne and turned toward the wounded werewolf. “I’m going to remove these blades now. Is that OK?”
She nodded once, halting her growling.
“Olivia, I’m going to need you to let go of your mama for a moment. I need to help her, OK?” Luke tried to keep his voice soothing and calm.
She looked at her mother for confirmation. Amiata nodded.
“Hold still, please.” He gently grabbed the hilt of the rapier and stabilized it so it wasn’t bobbing around and slicing apart her shoulder more. He put his hand on her shoulder, fingers spread around the wound, and pulled the rapier out quickly.
Amiata grunted but had no other reaction.
“OK. Let’s get this dagger out.” He knelt next to her and placed his hand around the wound to stabilize it, then carefully grabbed the silver dagger’s handle. “Ready?”
She nodded, grabbing onto the cell bars behind her. He pulled the dagger straight up as she hissed in pain.
Slam. Someone tried to break through the door.
Luke pulled his rudis out of the pile that had been The Mistress, shaking off the dust. Jogging to Joseph’s beheaded body lying in the middle of the floor, he set the rudis down on the corpse. Then he reached up, placing the fingers of each hand along each side of his broken nose, and wrenched it back in place.
“Damn, that hurt,” he grumbled in English.
Rudis in hand, he slammed it into the chest of the headless vamp. Kneeling over his weapon, he gripped the bone hilt with both hands and placed his forehead on the pommel. He whispered an ancient incantation. The silver inlay flared white at the pommel and worked its way down the blade before disappearing into the vampire. The vampire convulsed and twitched. The silver-white light reversed course, working back up the blade, and disappeared into his forehead.
He wiggled his nose and gave an experimental sniff or two. He looked down at his torso; the cuts he’d earned earlier were nearly closed. The distinctive sound of an axe striking wood slammed into the door, interrupting his self-inspection. The vampires weren’t finished with them yet.
He strode over to the short woman he’d beheaded and repeated the process. When he finished, his wounds were gone, leaving only faint pink lines where they’d been. He sneezed a couple times—his nose was whole and unbroken.
As he went for his steel blade, he noticed his wallet with his fake documents on the lower shelf of the side table near the throne. He shoved them in his pocket, grabbed his gladius, then joined Amiata. The shallow slashes had mostly closed up, but the deeper wounds in the shoulder and the thigh were responding much slower in comparison, probably due to the silver in the weapons, though the thigh was taking longer. The dagger must have had a much higher silver content than the rapier.
“How are you doing? Can you keep going? We’re about to have visitors.” Looking at Amiata anxiously, Luke jumped a bit as the axe slammed into the door again.
She nodded.
His eyes flicked to the rapier lying on the ground. “Can you use a sword? It might work better to keep them back since you’ve got a bunch of injuries.”
She held her hand out and rocked it, indicating she only felt so so about her ability. He offered his hand and pulled her to a standing position. She bent over and picked up the rapier by the hilt to avoid the silver of the blade, barely getting her enormous paw into the delicate half basket surrounding the hilt. Luke turned to the girl.
He smiled kindly at the child. “Olivia, we’re going to have to clear out some more of these vampires before we can get you out of here.”
She nodded. He flipped the rudis around and offered it to the child, hilt first.
“Be careful; that’s silver on the blade. I want you to hide along the wall.” He pointed next to the door where the hinges were. “We’ll open the crossbar and force our way out of this room. When I give you the word, slam the door shut and fix the crossbar back in place. Then I want you to lock yourself back in the cell. That’ll keep anyone from getting to you.”
She looked up at her mother, who nodded reassuringly at her child. Olivia took a deep breath and steeled herself, then took her place against the wall. Luke looked around the floor until he found the silver-coated dagger he’d pulled out of Amiata. He picked it up to use in his left hand—the silver would work nicely against the vampires.
He took a deep breath, readying himself for the next stage of his protracted rescue and escape. “Ready, Mrs. van den Bergh?”
She nodded, giving a small yip, and swished the sword around to test its feel.
The axe slammed into the door again, this time penetrating shallowly. Luke caught Amiata's attention and looked at the crossbar. She nodded, reached down, and wrenched it up and open, pulling the axe from its wielder's hands.
He slashed out blindly, making contact with someone who yelped and fell back. He charged, slashing and stabbing, to clear the doorway. The werewolf followed him out. When she cleared the door, he yelled for Olivia to close the door. It slammed shut behind them with the thunk of the crossbar sinking home. They were clear to go on full offensive.
The vampires on the other end of the door were not prepared to deal with a trained warrior and a pissed off werewolf in hybrid form as eyes opened wide and jaws dropped. A few vamps drifted behind their friends, shoving them forward to face Luke and Amiata. He added his own anger to the mix, trying to end as many vampires as possible. After the first few vamps lost limbs, heads, or their undead lives, the rest seemed to think seriously about their immortality and whether they wanted it to end violently in a basement in Liege.
With The Mistress gone and Guillaume nowhere in sight, the vampires bringing up the rear faded back up the stairs. When the front lines noticed backup wasn’t coming, their resolve wavered, and the fight turned into a rout. Anyone who could disengage fled. Once Luke and Amiata put down the remaining fighters, they took a moment to catch their breath.
“I think this is it. Judging by the sounds of feet running and doors slamming, the rats are abandoning the ship. Why don’t you shift back, go get your daughter, and we’ll get out of here.” He closed his eyes for a moment and gave thanks that despite his plan going to shit, they were nearly out of the vampires’ mansion.
Amiata nodded as she returned to her human form. He politely turned his back and watched the door to the stairway leading up to the main floor.
“Olivia. Olivia Adelisa,” Amiata called through the door. “You need to let mama in.”
When Olivia opened the door, Amiata slipped in. Then the crossbar was lowered to secure her position while she dressed. Luke shrugged. It was OK if she didn’t quite trust him and wanted to protect her daughter. He wasn’t going to begrudge her locking him on the other side of the door. After a long day filled with several fights, a drugging, and no sleep, he felt exhausted. Even if the sun was close to making an appearance, he couldn’t rest until he brought Amiata and Olivia back to their family. Then he could get a few of his own questions answered and find out exactly who he’d struck a bargain with.
Did they know Amiata was a werewolf? It seemed unlikely they didn’t which probably meant they might also be werewolves. Either way, his return to Antwerp promised to be interesting.
A few minutes later, Olivia and a fully dressed Amiata stepped through the door. Amiata limped, looking as tired as he felt.
“Your wrists are still covered in welts,” he said, seeing the angry red bands of irritated flesh near Amiata’s hands.
“The manacles were made of silver. It’ll take a while for them to heal properly.” Her eyes flicked down to the weapons in Luke’s hands. “How do those destroy vampires so easily?”
“They were blessed by a god to make them powerful anti-vampire weapons.” He shrugged. “They work very well.”
Nodding, she stared at the sword for a moment, then reached out and took her daughter’s hand and limped toward the stairs. “I think it is time we should go.”
“Take your time, I don’t sense any vampires left in the building. I need to grab a shirt from upstairs, and hopefully, my scabbards. I parked my car a couple blocks from here. Then we’ll stop by my hotel room. There’s a bag of clean clothes for each of you. You can use the shower and freshen up before we head north,” he said.
For the first time since meeting her, Amiata smiled. “Oh, that would be wonderful, Mr. Dubois.”
“My name is actually Luke Irontree. Romain Dubois was selected as a joke by your husband’s associate, Jan.” He shook his head lightly and smirked.
“Jan is often quite pleased with his sense of humor. Anyway, thank you for helping me and my daughter escape, Mr. Irontree,” she replied in Congolese-accented Dutch.
“Thanks for evening the numbers. That was a lot of vampires in a confined space. And please, call me ‘Luke.’”
“Amiata,” she said, putting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “This is my daughter Olivia Adelisa.”
The girl smiled shyly up at him. He smiled back at her.
He bent over so he was face to face with the child. “Well, Olivia Adelisa, how about some waffles on the way out of town?”
Relieved to be nearly out of the woods, Luke wanted a tasty treat to bookend his little adventure in Liege. He could worry about the broader implications of vampires making such a bold move after he’d delivered the van den Berghs back to Antwerp. For now, he focused on his duty with the bright light of a waffle before making the last leg of his mission.