The loud bang of a .357 magnum going off again and again told me Nehemiah still fought on. I entered the Dearg Due’s throne room. Vampire bodies littered the floor in various states of decay, writhing on the ground inside the runic blood circle. It appeared that those who intended to make sacrifices of my friends in the circle had been made sacrifices themselves.

Nehemiah held a fistful of Flattop’s tank top in his hand, keeping the blond bulk from falling to the floor. His other arm battered the vampire’s face with the butt end of his .357 revolver.

Rob barked encouragement as he floated in the air just above Nehemiah.

“Give it to ‘em, wizard! Give it to him.” The hobgoblin mashed his small fist into his open palm and made a grinding motion. “Make him wish he never had that stupid haircut. Yah boy!”

Nehemiah struck Flattop until the vamp’s muscular arms fell limp at his side. Only then did the wizard drop the vampire, whose physique turned out to be all show.

Nehemiah eyed the Dearg Due full of amethyst wrath. “Another!”

The Dearg Due looked sour. “No. I tire of this honorable one-on-one nonsense.” She looked left and right at the remaining vampire entourage. “Drain them.”

Apparently Nehemiah struck up some kind of a truce where the vampires held off while he fought Flattop mano y mano. But that was short lived.

Near the throne a small group of the Dearg Due’s upper echelon of vamps stood poised, ready to attack, but they had been given a command to hold off. My friends were not alive because they fought so well. Not necessarily at least. They were alive because the Dearg Due had allowed it.

Charice, Rob and the wizard gritted their teeth with their game faces on, but did not back down. I had to give it to them, they were super brave in the face of being outnumbered by bloodsucking leaches.

That was until Tain and I showed up.

We’d help them turn the tide.

Tain was oddly quiet as he galloped towards the Dearg Due. No snarling, no howling, no growling. Just the loud thumping patter of his front and rear paws striking the ground as he galloped on all fours towards her.

I could tell by the look on the Dearg Due’s face that she had not expected me to defeat Diarmuid. She also had not expected a werewolf to join our party of four, making it a party of five. “How dare a Faoladh taint my sanctum? Children, destroy it.”

If they were toying with us before, they wasted no time on Tain. Count Pale led five of them and they sprouted wings instantly, their faces contorting as their nostrils enlarged and sonic ears grew.

I’d seen Tain’s strength unleashed on a demigod. My werewolf might be able to even the odds. We could have a chance at taking the Dearg Due down and ending her blood reign right then and there.

The vampires circled Tain, forming a cyclone of wings and fangs and screeches as they tried to attack him. He lept into the air wrestling them one by one to the ground.

Tain wasn’t surrounded by vampires.

They were locked in a cage with him.

Tain went to work like a fox in a chicken coop. His own claws and fangs dug into the vampiric flesh with ease.

Tain raked Count Pale so hard across the face, the ivory vampire went down in one hit. His pale body smashed through a wall into another room and did not come back. As the remaining vamps tried to rise, Tain ripped the wings off of their backs.

Nehemiah finished them off with the revolver, putting them down with the expertise of an animal shelter.

The vampire queen was enraged to see her top warriors so easily dismantled and destroyed. She rose slowly into the air herself. The train of her dress morphed into great wings that stretched taut from her bat legs all the way up to her arms. Black fingers elongated into spindly claw-tipped wings. Her beautiful face distorted as her nostrils grew taller and taller, her eyes sharper, more crimson. In a few moments she was an enormous bat-like creature the size of a Hummer. The contrast between Rihanna and lady dracula was revolting. She topped off the transformation with a window-shattering screech that would’ve given the Banshee Queen a run for her money.

We had to cover our ears from the instant migraine that hammered us.

I fell to the ground writhing as the ringing went on and on. My eardrums threatened to burst.

When I gathered myself, I found Tain leaping from column to wall to ceiling. He never stayed in one place for more than an instant. With each leap between touch points, he swiped at the Dearg Due as she flew like a dog fighter jet plane through the high roofed room.

To my surprise and pride, Charice and Rob soared through the room as well, tailing the Dearg Due, providing aerial support to Tain. They distracted the Dearg Due like two smaller birds ganging up on a hawk. They drew her attention while Tain’s teeth and claws found their way to her wings again and again.

Red mist dispelled from the Dearg Due’s open maw, barreling through her ivory razors, fangs as long as my arm.

Claw marks raked her left wing as Tain had repeatedly attacked the same spot over and over. She could no longer fly straight and was forced to swoop in close for more intimate attacks. She let out a screech and from her mouth exploded a red orb of flashing light with crimson mist trailing behind it.

Tain dodged the first orb, but he didn’t see a second one coming. When it impacted with his body the exploding blood magic sent tendrils wrapping around his body like a psycho’s straitjacket. As much as he snarled and his muscles bulged, his huge arms could not break free of the blood magic bonds that entrapped him.

With a yelp, Tain shrunk down to the German shepherd mutt I knew and loved. Rob was at his side instantly, doing what he could to free my dog from his magical bonds.

Having subdued her enemy, the Dearg Due fluttered until she crashed into a pillar sinking to the ground. By the time she reached the floor she had turned into her beautiful humanoid self, but crippled. She leaned against the pillar with one arm, heaving. Her bullet-wound red hair was disheveled and she used her other hand to put it back into place.

If I had AR–15 ammo I would have blown her away right then and there, or at least severely injured her with silver bullets. But I’d used the last of my ammo on Diarmuid. Perhaps she was weak enough that I could finish her with Jade and Fragarach. Time to test my metal.

I dashed at her, and my courage spurred us all to finish the fight. I brought both swords back for a double-edged kill stroke, but she had enough strength still to summon a blood rune shield in her open palm. I swung and swung at the magic shield but could do nothing to penetrate it.

“Ukuqhuma!”

An amethyst ball of inferno with lightning bolts trailing behind it hit her shield, shattering it.

Her magic evaporated and she was hit in the chest by several .357 rounds. Blood splattered the column behind her as she stumbled against it, reeling from the impact of the silver bullets.

From above Charice rained down a sonic Bad Luck wing attack. The force hit the Dearg Due from the side, sending her sprawling to the floor.

I was on the queen in an instant, both my swords spinning hand over hand. She was up and at it as well defending my blades with razor-sharp claws of her own. To the detriment of herself she caught both my blades in her hands, but for the life of me I could do nothing to wrench them free. Blood ran down her palms as the metal edges bit into them, but she held them tight.

Summoning my Good Luck I stared her down with an emerald gaze and she returned it with a crimson stare. We were so close I could feel her breath on my neck. With a quick launch she threw her head at me sinking her fangs into my throat. I cried out trying to pull away but her fangs had already sunk deep into me.

Horrible images flashed in my mind. Images of me twitching on the ground as leathery wings sprouted from my back, images of me bloodthirsty, fangs dripping as I bit into some innocent victim, a fellow human. But I had nothing to worry about. For as soon as she bit me she jumped away repulsed by my blood. She fell on all fours and her back heaved as she vomited all the blood she had drawn from me.

“Irish-American not your favorite flavor?” I asked.

“Your blood is toxic. You’re cursed,” she screeched, her voice dripping venom.

“Oh yeah. I got a Keening from a Banshee. I’ve pretty much put it in check. You should have asked Takahashi. He could have spared you the trouble. Oh wait, that’s right. I killed him. My bad.”

Nehemiah walked over to her until she stared at his boots. He put his arms on his hips pushing his trench coat behind him like a cape.

“So this is what it’s come to, Dearg Due? Some queen of the vampires.”

I chimed in. “You’ll not be working with Donn anymore. We finished Diarmuid, and we’re gonna finish you. He’ll be all out of friends very soon.” I brought my blades up to sever her head if need be. This lady, no this monster, had caused so much havoc, ruined so many lives.

Quick as a wink her body flashed and she was behind Nehemiah with clawed hands at his throat.

“You tricked us. My blood didn’t hurt you at all, did it?”

“Your blood burns,” she spat again. “But it showed me much more.”

There was an odd twinkle in her eye, a deviant spark of some nefarious wickedness.

“So I guess we’re at a standoff then? You’re going to kill my friend, but I’ll lop off your head, like I did Takahashi.”

“How sure are you that the wizard is your friend?”

I paused at that. It was the same question my brother, Gavin, had poised at me. Why did everyone keep asking me that?

The Dearg Due took advantage of my doubt. “You never knew how your father died, did you, son of O’Farrell?”

Ice ran through my veins. “What did you say? How do you know me?”

“The taste in the blood is unmistakable,” she said, flashing stained teeth at me. “You don’t know at all? But how could you? Otherwise why would you be working with this wizard?”

I edged closer, raising the sword point of Jade at her head. “Don’t lie to me. You’re just stalling. You don’t know my dad.”

“Geralt O’Farrell. Shepherd of the Guild. Protector of the Bay Area along with this wizard. Your father fought against me many times. Yet the wizard here never told you how your father died, did he?”

I looked to Nehemiah for some sign of recognition in his eyes, to see if he knew what she was talking about. He looked confused, but he also wasn’t refuting anything she said either. Charice and Rob edged near me, standing to support me, but no doubt just as stunned as I.

The Dearg Due read my thoughts. “The wizard could explain himself if he wanted. He could tell you I’m lying. But he can’t, because he knows this is the truth.”

“Is it true?” I asked Nehemiah. “Do you know how my dad died?”

He looked me in the face, but not in the eye. Then he gazed at the floor. “No. I don’t know how your dad died.”

The Dearg Due hissed in his ear. “You’re going to play it that way? Well, we can draw it out of you. Literally.”

She yanked Nehemiah over to the runic spell circle. While keeping one hand on Nehemiah’s throat she pricked her own palm with the claws on her other hand and let some of her blood drop into the center of the circle. It splattered on the floor running into the grooves of the runes. The sound of stone sliding on stone grinded in my ears. Then a stone basin on an elaborate stand arose from the floor to about chest height.

With a quick swipe of her claws she dug into Nehemiah’s neck drawing blood. He rose up on his toes as she pulled a long stream of blood from his neck. She spun his blood through the air like a scarlet thread, the same way I controlled the stream of water with Fragarach. The blood slithered into the basin.

I could have fought her, could’ve tried to stop her. But Nehemiah wasn’t exactly fighting back. If she wanted him dead she would have killed him. I didn’t want to believe her, that Nehemiah was hiding something from me, but I needed to know how my dad died, and if the wizard had kept that knowledge from me then I needed to know even more.

When the basin was filled with Nehemiah’s blood, the vampire queen etched runes into the air and then nudged them gently until they floated into the basin. The life liquid began to glow.

“Come, look,” she beckoned me. “See for yourself.”

“Don’t listen to her,” screamed Charice.

“No, boss. It’s a trap.”

I took a step forward, then stopped.

What if she was lying? She was a practitioner of Chaotic blood magic. What if whatever I was going to see was what she wanted me to see, a fabrication and not reality?

“Don’t you want to know how your father died? He didn’t die in his sleep, I’ll tell you that much. He was handed over. Given up to die.”

She stepped back, still holding Nehemiah, but giving me room to approach the basin for myself. Every muscle in my body tensed and the hair on the back of my neck stood on edge. It was a little bigger than a ceramic dinner bowl. I took the few steps to the basin, placed my hands on the sides and peered in. For a moment nothing happened.

Murky moving images rippled. I squinted, trying to make out what I saw.

I peered inward. And then as if grabbed by an invisible force, I fell forward, plunged headlong into the blood basin.