It was getting late. Out of the corner of her eye, Eve could see, with her heightened vampire vision, that the human cops were getting impatient. Any moment now, they were going to drag their gargoyle partners back into their cars and drive away.
"We have to hurry," she said, shaking her arm out of Rex's grasp.
"We do," the orcs agreed. "And you're holding us back, Ma'am."
Eve tried to protest, but she suddenly felt her waist caught in the vise-like grip of a pair of strong arms. She turned her head in surprise, wondering who could have such strength, and saw Rex latching onto her. Rex, of all people. Rex, whom she'd always thought such a weakling.
"We need to get you to safety," he insisted. "Please!"
To her surprise, he managed to pull her back, towards the van. The orcs looked at each other for an instant, then sprang into action, pushing her back with their strong arms. Before Eve could say anything, she found herself inside the van, with the door closed, and Rex still holding onto her for dear life.
Outside the van, the orcs smirked at each other, then turned to the humans' hideout and broke into a run.
***
There were only two loud thuds. The orcs hurled themselves into the door once, and the metal door crumpled inward like a sheet of aluminum foil. At the end of the street, the gargoyles were reluctantly getting into their cars. The noise made them stop.
Tina and Lola took three steps back and hurled themselves at the door again. The metal shook and screeched. That was enough noise to alert the cops. The gargoyles sprang into a run, their human partners shouting behind them.
The orcs stepped back again, preparing for one final blow to the already shaky door. Then the comms in their ears came alive with static, and Lumina screamed "Duck!"
The orcs stopped.
"Take cover!" Chris shouted into the comms.
Tina sprang to her right. Lola dived to the left. And the door burst open from the inside. A rain of bullets pelted the street right where the orcs had stood a moment earlier. They hit the van, leaving dents in the door.
Chris hit the pedal instinctively, and the van sped away in a cloud of smoke and dust.
"No!" Eve shouted, struggling to break free from Rex's arms. "We have to get the girls. You can't just leave them there!"
The van skidded around the corner of the street and kept going for a few more seconds, while Chris was trying to reconcile in his mind the word "girls" with the burly frames of the orcs. Then he hit the brakes hard and pulled the wheel, and the van spun on the road.
"Yes, Ma'am!" he said over his shoulder, turning the van around.
He saw Eve wiggling helplessly on the floor, with what looked like a giant furball on top of her. Someow, in the commotion, she had fallen and dragged Rex on top of her. The werewolf was now fully in wolf form, his fur all fluffed up. With his hands turned into paws, he couldn't quite hold onto her anymore, and he was trying to keep her in place through sheer body weight instead.
"That looks like something HR would want to be notified about," Chris said casually.
He turned his eyes back to the road just in time to avoid crashing the van into Lola. The van swerved away from her, and the sudden change of direction propelled Rex aside. His head hit against the door and he fell with a faint whine. Eve was off the floor in an instant. She shoved the door open and saw Lola wobbling on the road.
"Get in!" Eve shouted.
She sprang out of the van before Rex could get back onto his paws again. In a heartbeat, she was at Lola's side. The smell of blood filled her nostrils and made her stomach growl. Orc blood, not as appetizing as human blood. But after decades of a purely synthetic blood diet, it smelled godly. Eve gulped and grabbed hold of Lola's waist, gently pulling her towards the van.
"Lean on me," she said firmly. "Small steps. We're almost there."
She kept talking, trying to keep her mind focused.
"It's just scratches," Lola was saying, blood spurting from several bullet holes.
"Chris, call an ambulance!" Eve shouted. The smell was making her head swim.
"On it!" the goblin answered.
Inside the van, Rex was getting up, shaking his head as if to wake himself up from a bad dream. Eve pushed Lola onto the back seat. She could feel the thirst taking over. With a superhuman act of willpower, she pushed herself back, out of the van. The werewolf whined and tried to follow her. Eve looked into his puppy eyes, trying to focus all of her vampire charm into her gaze, to make sure he'd obey.
"Stay with her, Rex," she said. "I'm going to get Tina."
***
At the other end of the street, the cops had heard the gunshots. They rushed towards the hideout on foot, the humans yelling at the gargoyles to stay back. Tina saw them running towards her just as the pain exploded in her left knee. She fell to the ground hard, cursing the bullet that had hit her kneecap. A moment later, as more bullets flew over her head, barely missing her, she was thankful for it, in spite of the pain. She saw the gargoyles reaching for their guns and the human cops breaking into a run to catch up.
"This is the police! Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up!" one of the gargoyles shouted, puffing out his chest in a way that showed he'd been dying to say that line.
The other gargoyles were already at Tina's side, helping her get up.
"Stay back," she warned. "They have sun-based weapons."
"We know," one of the gargoyles whispered in her ear.
"Our humans don't," the other gargoyle added in a low voice.
By the looks of it, the human cops didn't know anything at all. They held their guns aimed at Tina, as if the gunshots had come from her.
"I'm unarmed," she shouted at them, trying to hold her hands up and hold her balance on her one good leg at the same time.
"She's the victim here," one of the gargoyles pointed out. "Jeff, the bad guys are —"
"How do I know that?" the human called Jeff asked, his gun still pointing at Tina. "I see a green-skinned monstrosity trying to break down a door, I say she's the bad guy. Those decent folks in there were just trying to defend themselves."
Tina stared at him in disbelief. She could hear footsteps behind her, but she didn't dare turn to look.
"Good day, officers," someone said behind her. "Nothing wrong with us humans firing a few warning shots at a trespassing orc, is there?"
"They have illegal weapons in there!" Tina protested.
"Quiet, orc!" Jeff snapped back at her. "Cuff her, Goyle!"
The gargoyle who'd talked to Jeff winced.
"My name is Richard," he said sharply. "And I see no reason to arrest the lady here. It's the humans who —"
Jeff cursed.
"Fine, I'll do it myself," he muttered. "Useless diversity hires."
The three gargoyles moved as one, stepping between Tina and Jeff. The other human cops stayed back, unsure of what they should do. Behind Tina, the humans were casually aiming their guns at the orc and at the cops.
***
Eve was struggling to control her thirst. She smelled Tina's blood from around the corner of the street. It made her forget about the sun weapons.
When she rounded the corner, she saw the humans out in the street, weapons aimed at Tina and the gargoyles. They looked like thugs, no scientist among them, and their weapons looked like ordinary semi-automatics, not anything illegal. Nothing that would really harm her. She could bet they didn't even have silver bullets.
The cops were arguing among themselves. She considered intervening, but she was only one vampire and her girls had been trying to break in. What she needed was to prove the existence of the illegal weapons. The sun bomb had to be in there, she just needed to get it out. The door was still open, and the humans were distracted. Eve pushed herself against the wall, trying to blend in with the shadows, and snuck inside.
***
There were two sparks of light in the ventilation system. The humans hadn't noticed them. Eve reached for the comms in her ears.
"Lucien, Lumina," she whispered. "Have you found the bomb?"
There was static, then a tiny voice whispered in return.
"Affirmative, Big Momma."
***
The humans' hideout was not the sort of intricate maze Eve had feared. The ground floor was a large storage space. Neat rows of boxes were stacked against the walls, clearly labeled "machine guns", "holy water guns", "wooden stake throwers", "sunlight torches" and so on. At the far end of the room, there was a staircase leading up to the floor above.
The upper floor proved more interesting. It was filled with lab equipment, as well as an assembly line for weapons. A faint greenish light was oozing from multiple exit signs, giving the place an eerie look. Eve moved slowly, trying to sense any presence, any danger. She focused on her enhanced hearing, trying to catch the faintest sound of footsteps. If the scientist making the sun weapons was here at all, he had to be in this lab.
But instead of footsteps, her ears were assailed by a cacophony of sound. Someone had turned on the assembly line. The noise was unbearable. And all the commotion made detecting any other movement impossible. Worst of all, if someone had gone through the trouble of making all that noise to confuse her, it meant they knew she was there.
A roar of laughter echoed through the room. Eve looked around for the source of the sound, but it was coming from everywhere, booming out of a dozen speakers placed around the room.
"Miss Stakes," a deep voice said from the speakers. "I thought you'd be in your tower, cowering behind your vampires. What a pleasant surprise to see you here."
There was more laughter. Eve stopped trying to locate the source of it and focused on getting to the sun bomb instead. Lucien and Lumina had described the place well. Just a few more steps.
"We have many sun-based weapons here," the voice went on. "What should I use? You've already seen the stuff we sell to the werewolves. Perhaps you'd be interested in something else? Perhaps it's time to test the sun bomb..."
There was more laughter, but Eve wasn't listening. She'd reached the location the pixies had given her. On a desk in front of her she could see the device, about the size of a golf ball, with wires attached to it. And, glowing dimly in the darkness of the lab, a small screen attached to the wires displayed numbers. Ten. Nine. Eight.
"Sorry," the voice boomed from the speakers. "There's no ticking. And don't even think about cutting the wires. They're just for show. Everything is controlled wirelessly these days. Maybe if you disabled the wi-fi..."
There was another roar of laughter. Eve was already running back to the stairs. Time seemed to slow down. She could feel the heat expanding behind her. The stairs were too far. She ducked behind one of the machines and covered her face with her arms. And then she felt something warm and fluffy ram into her, throwing her to the ground and covering her with its massive body.
The bomb went off with a deafening sound. Eve had expected the light, but not the explosion. Chunks of wall flew out into the street. Machinery tore loose from the floor with a wailing sound and was projected to the back of the room. The force of the explosion ripped through the entire building. Light pierced through every crack and bounced off every surface. Eve could feel the sunlight engulfing her, burning every bit of unprotected skin. She could feel the pain spreading through her arms and legs. She could smell the scorched flesh. But she didn't die. When it was all over and darkness returned and she opened her eyes, she saw the wolf stretched out on top of her, blocking the light with its body.
And then the last tremor of the explosion shook loose a piece of the ceiling right above his head. She saw it fall in slow motion and tried to move, to push him aside. Her burned hands pushed against the fur, but he wouldn't budge. Panic overtook her and she pushed harder. And then she heard the thud of the impact, smelled the blood, and Rex slumped over her body, turning back into human form.