Not ten minutes after setting foot inside Bran Castle, our battle with the vampires has already begun in the entrance hall.
I’m zipping around as fast as I can, staking vampires like crazy.
Sonia is using her silver chain whip to devastating effect. Every vampire she strikes bursts into flames.
WH-PSSH
Hunter is running around, stabbing vampires in the ankles with his silver horn. They collapse screaming to the floor, leaving themselves open to anyone in range.
Victor is lobbing the holy water balloons around, and the vampires they hit explode like they’ve been hit with grenades.
Even if they miss, it’s still a problem for the bastards. They’re avoiding the puddles of holy water on the floor like they’re puddles of acid.
A drop lands on Henry’s face as he stakes another vampire, and he winces as it sizzles.
“Ow! Vic! Watch the friendly fire!”
“Sorry, Henry! You should probably stand back!”
Slayer, in demon form, is chasing one of the vampires away from Mortis, out the open doors, hellbent on making nonconsensual fluffy love to her head.
"YU WE-SIS-TANS ONWY MAKE SWAYEW NO-NOS HAWDEW!"
Reggae is wearing a pair of silver knuckledusters, and is punching vampires with his zombie strength.
WHAM
FWOOSH
Have you ever punched someone so hard they burst into flames?
Alpha is using the retractable wooden stakes on his wrists on every vampire that gets close to him.
One of them actually tries to bite him, and the dumbass ends up fleeing, leaving all of his teeth behind on the floor.
The dumbass slams into Prometheus head-on.
CLANG
As the vampire joins his teeth on the floor, Prometheus quips at him in a flawless Brooklyn accent.
“Ey, I’m stakin’ 'ere!”
As the vampire tries to crawl away, Victor grabs him by the hair, lifts him up, and drips some holy water from a flask onto the vampire’s head, which starts smoking.
When the vampire opens his mouth to scream in pain, Victor pours the rest of the flask down the vampire’s throat.
“I’m cutting you off. That’s your last drink tonight!”
The vampire burns to ash from the inside out.
Victor throws the empty flask at the back of another vampire’s head.
As the flask shatters, the vampire turns around, and Victor, having already pulled out his gun, shoots the vampire right between the eyes.
BLAM
The cross carved into the tip of the bullet works as well as that guy in El Rey promised, and the vampire’s head explodes.
SPLAT
Then Victor goes back to lobbing water balloons, taking care not to aim any in Henry’s direction.
Carmilla, flying on bat-like wings up near the ceiling, carries a holy water flask by a string she grips with her teeth.
She lets go and drops it onto one vampire, and as it shatters on her head, the vampire bursts into flames.
The burning vampire runs into one of her friends, and then two vampires burn to ashes.
Carmilla looks smugly downwards.
“Ha! Fwy wun, git wun fwee!”
Carmilla then swoops down to bail Mortis out, who was cornered by a vampire.
Reggae roars and charges at the vampire.
“GIT AWEH FRAM FI MI FREN, YUH BUMBACLOT VAMPAYA!!!”
Hey, his accent’s coming back! I wonder if that means his memories are returning too?
Reggae punches the vampire in the face, and her head explodes too.
WHAM
He turns around and glares at three other vampires with all the undead fury he can muster.
“Oh, yuh waah sum too?”
As they close in on Reggae, he explodes their heads with three hard punches.
WHAM
WHAM
WHAM
Glenn is swinging Grandleon at every vampire in range.
SLASH
The silver in the blade burns them, and the chivalrium in the blade burns them even more.
He’s holding a gilded shield in his other hand, just in case any of them know magic.
“You howwid fiends don’t stand a chance in Heww! I’ve got you bastawds coming and going!”
Dave and Robert, still in human form, grab a vampire’s left and right arms respectively, and pull slowly and deliberately.
They still have access to their demon powers in human form, they’re just not as strong as they are as demons.
But they’re strong enough to do this.
The vampire realizes what they’re doing and panics.
“Nonononononono–”
SKLURCH
And they tear him in half, right down the middle.
Dave and Robert let go and look down at the vampire blood now pooling around the two halves of the body.
“You know what I always wondered, Rob?”
“What?”
“Why don’t vampires just drink each other’s blood?”
“BECAUSE YOUR BLOOD IS SO MUCH TASTIER, BLOODBAGS!!!”
Another vampire lunges at them from the stairs.
FWOOSH
Dave and Robert turn into demons in the blink of an eye and incinerate the vampire with hellfire, mid-lunge.
They stake the first vampire’s heart anyway, just to be sure.
Dave turns to me, as I stake another vampire.
"Cal! You realize that this is all just to keep YOU busy, right?"
“Of course I do, Dave!”
Victor turns to me, blowing away vampires without even looking at them.
“Then go, Cal! We know where the chief bastard is!”
He’s out of water balloons.
And the bastards just keep coming.
Where did all these vampires come from?
How many people did they turn?
“Right!”
I make my way up the stairs, and just as I make it to the top, someone plows through the wall in front of me, grabs me, jumps down the stairs and slams me into the ground.
CRASH
The stakes I was holding fly out of my hands and clatter to the floor.
I look up at the new challenger.
Holy shit, that’s one jacked fucking vampire.
He glares down at me and grunts.
With his hands, he makes a gesture that conveys exactly what he plans to do to me.
So, can he not talk, or…?
I turn to steel immediately.
“Try that now, asshole!”
He grunts in surprise, and takes a step back.
In one quick movement, I spring up onto my feet, crouch down, and punch him in the balls as hard as I can.
WHAM
He howls like a wild animal as he falls to the ground.
WHAM
I kick him in the balls this time.
WHAM WHAM WHAM
And I just. Don’t. Stop.
Another vampire leaps at me, hoping to save her friend.
WHAM
I shatter her hopes by punching her away.
As she slams into the wall and slides to the floor, she looks up, obviously woozy, and sees Slayer hovering above her on his bat-like wings, leering down at her, his groin covered in vampire blood and bits of vampire bone and grey matter, and his, ahem, stallionhood still at full mast.
"Swayew am dun wif yu fwend. Nao Swayew gun see how wong YU wast."
As I keep kicking the gym rat vampire in the junk, I ignore the screams that start to come from that part of the hall.
Henry stakes another vampire who was trying to go save the big stupid asshole, and turns to me.
“Cal! Stop wasting time! Stake him and go!”
“Right. Sorry, I was really getting into it.”
I kick the vampire one last time, to roll him over onto his back.
I plant one foot on his head so he can’t run.
I take out a stake, and hold it over his heart, pointy end down.
And then I throw it down as hard as I can.
SKLURCH
It’s a direct hit. His body bursts into flames.
Before he burns away, he looks up at me and starts laughing.
“Ahahahaha! You want to meet our Lord, Korkea? Then go, bloodbag! Go, and meet your doom! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THREE CHEERS FOR THE COUNT!!!”
So he can talk.
He burns away, leaving nothing but ash.
I return to flesh and turn to the stairs.
“Right. Time to go meet this Fiendlord.”
Glenn stabs a vampire in the brain, and walks over to me.
“I’ww be coming with you.”
Sonia whips another vampire, and walks over with Hunter.
“So will we.”
I look to Glenn, and then I look to Sonia.
Then I turn back to the stairs.
“Let’s go.”
And we leave the chaos unfolding in the entrance hall behind, ascending the staircase to darkness.