"My leader." Lanval Adams visibly scoffed when he spoke, as if turning the idea about like an unpleasant vintage of expensive wine. "They're lucky I'm being paid extremely well; because the temptation to nuke that moronically named cruiser and leave them stranded on your planet is becoming hard to resist."

"Please don't," Luca requested. "Unless this is your way of torturing me. If it is, I give in and will tell you anything. Anything to keep those morons from freeloading on my planet."

Lanval frowned at that, then grinned at Luca. "You don't look as distressed as you should."

"Not my first time with a gun pointed at me," Luca admitted. He shrugged, and added, "you wouldn't believe how many women are into that sort of thing. Or the number of women who thought of threatening me into marrying me so they could claim half in the divorce proceedings. Or the number of people who felt I dishonoured their wife, sister, daughter, friend, vague acquaintance."

"I think I get the picture," Lanval said.

"Even had a nun point a gun at me once," Luca recalled, snapping his fingers.

"I need to hear this one," Isabella said with a laugh.

"Matron mother of 'The Tranquil Mission', the first nunnery and orphanage on Luna. Came into my office with a Gauss gun and told me point-blank that I was not allowed on the grounds without a shirt, even if I was the only person making donations. Apparently, I was a featured favourite at confessional."

"Was that Sister Francis? About six years ago?" Lanval asked.

"It was!" Luca said excitedly. "Lovely woman, we have tea once a month. How do you know her?"

"She's my sister. I wondered why she needed to borrow that Gauss gun," Lanval mused. "She said she had met you, but didn't mention threatening you. Thank you for taking it so well."

"Like I said, not my first time at gunpoint," Luca said.

"Good. Then you know enough to avoid doing something stupid. There's a reason we're expensive. Now if you'd walk down that road a little ways, I'll take you to my employers," Lanval said, and he gestured down the lantern-lit street.

"You ask us to walk to our execution?" Alcuard asked, and despite their circumstances, his hand was resting on his sword. "Yours wouldn't be the first bloodstains on these cobbles."

Luca could see Isabella, agreeing with Alcuard despite being unarmed and significantly less durable than the millennium-old vampire. Rather than let his friends do something reckless, he took a chance and turned one hand to them placatingly. "Hey, none of that. We'll be okay," he said.

"Their masters will not be merciful," Alcuard said, but the sword at his hip remained sheathed. "If you are not killed, you will be used as food."

"Trust me," Luca said. "We'll be okay."

"My employers haven't decided your fate yet," Lanval said. "But the terms of my contract and my license as Private Military Contractor are clear-cut. And as much as I hate this job, you gotta pay the mortgage."

"Luca, can't you bribe them?" Isabella asked. "Pretty sure his mortgage costs less than your smaller yacht."

Luca shrugged sadly, but the smile didn't completely fade from his face. "He runs a registered mercenary company. He's legally obligated to keep to his contract once he signs. There are serious repercussions to breaching a contract by taking a competing one."

"So it's an expensive bribe," Isabella said. "My point still stands."

"The penalty for that kind of breach is every other mercenary corp in the system would be required to hunt us down and murder us. As explosively as local laws will allow. It's how we maintain integrity in the system," Lanval explained. "Otherwise we'd happily take more money to not kill someone."

"Great. We get captured by mercenaries with integrity," Isabella complained.

Lanval gestured with his gun again, and they started to march down the street at exactly the right pace for a funeral dirge. Luca suspected the mercenary leader was doing it deliberately, as a joke. From what he had learned during his parents' years as heads of Lanval's mercenary company, soldiers of fortune had an odd taste in humour.

And it seemed that Luca's musing triggered something in Isabella's own memory. "Wait, aren't you worried about pissing off Luca's parents? And didn't they run the company you own, once upon a time?"

"Aww, gonna call mommy and daddy?" one of the other mercs mocked.

"I know you're new Francine," another merc interjected. "But if you had a hit order on the Cardegos, Anna would kill you and Lito would make sure your parents paid them for the inconvenience. And yeah, boss, I'd be a little worried about making them angry by killing their kid."

"Relax, Arnold," Lanval said. "This will work out fine, and you'll leave this job so wealthy you'll sprain your imagination trying to spend it all. We'll just take these three to our employers and let this contract play out."

"Right boss."

"By the way," the big merc named Arnold said. Luca was surprised to see the mercenary was talking to Isabella. "Where did you get your boots?"

"Oh my gosh yes, please tell us," another merc said. "Girlfriend, those are so hot."

"They were a gift," Isabella said. "Designed by Valerie."

"Ooh, Valerie. I never could afford her work," the merc said.

"Just a little bit longer," Lanval interjected, "and you'll be able to."

Luca could see a large mob of people up ahead. They stood in small groups, from three to over two dozen, and in each of those groups was one person who stood head and shoulders over the others, with unnaturally pale skin, elongated nails, and surgically enhanced appearances.

Luca nearby laughed aloud when he saw it. The vampires weren't actually any taller than their collection of assistants, floozies, and makeup maintenance professionals, but their vanity wouldn't allow them to blend in with their plebeian employees. More than likely, a stool had been set down for the billionaires to stand on and exalt over their minions.

"Just a little bit longer," Lanval muttered, quietly enough that only Luca's wolfish ears heard it. "Fuck, they are an annoyingly prissy bunch."

"By the way, how did you fool the transit registry and portal here?" Luca asked. "I'm sure Viviana would have red-flagged you instantly."

"We slipped in when Lorenzo had his shuttle portalled to rendezvous with the Oar Gee," Lorenzo said. "We were listed on his transit papers as part of his 'appearance maintenance team'."

"Yeah, I can see it," Luca agreed with a shrug. "Lorenzo could have slipped the entire population of Greenland in that way. I'm surprised he thought of it."

"He didn't. He had a robotic bird giving him orders," Lorenzo said.

"Ah, that makes sense," Luca said. "And speaking of a robotic bird..."

As if on cue, and Luca Cardego was beginning to suspect that the universe might actually work that way, a small robotic bird fluttered into view. It rose above the band of Billionaires and their gaggle of groupies, and flitted lazily in the air as it surveyed the approaching prisoners.

"Well, well, well! Luca Cardego! We meet again," BIRD said in what was supposed to be a menacing voice. Sinister laughter and villainous speeches really require a good voice to match, and that voice has to come out of something more impressive than the tiny smartphone speakers BIRD was equipped with.

"Birdbrain," Luca said with a casual grin. Despite himself, and despite the situation, he was surprised by how fond he was of the manic little AI. It was like seeing a tiny puppy try to murder you. "Still slumming it with this vixen of vampires?"

"That's not the word for a group of vampires," BIRD said as it landed on Luca's shoulder. "It's brood, clutch, coven, pack, or clan."

"Well, unless they were all born from one sire, it can't be brood," Luca reflected. He turned over to Alcuard and asked, "have any illegitimate vampire rugrats you might have missed?"

"No. I was thorough," Alcuard said.

"Now, do these vampires work together well enough to call them a pack?"

"By Wattpad standards? Yeah, they do," BIRD responded.

"Fair point. Their werewolf packs are creepily dysfunctional," Luca admitted.

"Which makes me wonder about you all the more," BIRD said, peering quizzically at Luca. "I've been looking at your history since we met, trying to identify the narrative threads of your character arcs. Isabella and Alcuard, I can see. Isabella gains a sense of self-confidence by being able to act against and alongside you and the others. Alcuard has the value of his actions confirmed by seeing a better world than the one he destroyed. But what's your narrative arc? How have you changed since this story started?"

Luca frowned, thinking on that point. "I doubled the number of real friends I have," he admitted.

"That's not bad, but it's not really a character arc, is it," BIRD mused. "What's really changed is how you're perceived. You've gone from an irreverent playboy billionaire-"

"Quadrillionaire."

"Quadrillionaire and no care for anything other than his own satisfaction, to a man genuinely concerned about using power responsibly. But you went through no changes, besides your night as a werewolf. You are quite literally the exact same person you were at the start of the story," BIRD concluded.

"What does that tell you?" Luca asked.

"That it's the readers who have done the character growth, as the story tricked them into to shelving their initial preconceptions about who you are. Which is absurd, of course. There's no way this idiot story could be trying for something so subtle."

"Well," Luca said, just as he saw Fabulo step off his stool and gesture for the crew of people carrying his industrial-sized fan to follow him. Luca looked at BIRD and gave the machine his best wolfish grin. "The next few scenes are going to blow your tiny circuits. Because if you're right, you're going to watch Fabulo try to do something nefarious that backfires hysterically. Then my friends and I are going to defeat these mercenaries, shatter your preconceptions about the world, and wipe the floor with this vampire coven."

"I don't see how," BIRD said, but it pleased Luca to hear the machine sound just a tad regretful. "But please, surprise me. Because I wasn't programmed to feel anger, but Fabulo makes me wish I had a flamethrower on hand."

"Luca Cardego!" Fabulo Lorenzo bellowed dramatically. Or tried to bellow, at any rate. The man's voice sounded like a teenaged boy in the middle of puberty who chain-smoked. "Literally hoisted by your own petard, since you're captured on a floating city above your world. And at the mercy of I, the great Fabulo Lorenzo!"

At the end of Fabulo's triumphant cry, the crew carrying the fan just managed to crouch down in front of him and turn the fan on, so that Fabulo could turn his head at just the right angle for his hair to blow dramatically and let his partially open shirt billow in the breeze.

"Where's that flamethrower..." BIRD muttered.

"Ah, this is a day I have longed for, for so long!" Fabulo exclaimed.

"I bet the author mangled Fabulo's line deliberately, just to make him that much less likeable. Please tell me he dies soon," BIRD whispered.

"Well, Fabulo hasn't crossed a line into real villainy yet. It's not like he's kicked a puppy or sacrificed a virgin," Luca said.

"And to make my victory complete," Fabulo turned to address the other vampires, but won't the fan on this brought his hair whipping into his face, and the breeze clung tightly to a pair of pronounced love handles. Fabulo pulled his hair back as the fan stopped, and continued speaking. "I will take his virgin companion, and sacrifice her to raise up our youngest member. By drinking the blood of a virgin woman, untainted by the carnal cravings of the flesh, he can, at last, ascend to immortality and join our ranks!"

"Spoke too soon," Luca groaned. Then he looked around, and asked, "sorry, what virgin?"

"I think they're talking about Isabella," BIRD said. Its eyes were wide, and its beak hung open in profound shock. "No, you don't think-"

"Yes, this woman who's been saving herself for you, who rebuffed the advances of even I, Fabulo Lorenzo!" At this point, the crew turned the fan on again. "Denying my charms can only mean she's saving herself for you, proof enough that Isabella is pure enough to satisfy for the sacrifice. Minions, bring her to me!"

"Minions?" Lanval asked, his hand casually resting on the handle of an ornately embossed weapon. To Luca, it looked like a grenade launcher masquerading as a cowboy revolver.

"Well paid solders, bring the girl," Fabulo amended his statement. At a gesture of Lanval's head, two of the soldiers guided Isabella over to Fabulo, just as another billionaire waded his way through the crowd.

"Brothers! Welcome Jacoby Edwardo, our brother in this campaign to throw down the imposter Cardego. Our brother has fasted for months, living on nothing but blood transfusions from untainted youth as our billionaire forefathers taught, and he is ready to take the last, final step into immortality. By drinking the blood of this untainted harlot, he will become immortal."

Luca looked over to Alcuard, who looked profoundly confused.

"Vampy," Luca said to Alcuard. He wasn't particularly worried about being overheard. "Will this work?"

"Yes," Alcuard admitted. "Drinking the blood of a virgin, in the state that Jacoby Edwardo character is in, will transform him into a vampire."

Jacoby Edwards was an odd presence among his vampiric peers. He looked genuinely young, unlike the manicured youth of cosmetics and injections. Luca wasn't sure if the boy even shaved yet. Yet he had the same sickly, sallow skin the others did, and his teeth had a distinctively vampiric point.

The soldiers held Isabella as Jacoby Edwardo strode up to her and ran his finger along her neck. "I can hear her heartbeat. My immortality calls."

Isabella struggled with the soldiers and spat on the vampire aspirant. "Pretty sure I haven't been a virgin since before your balls dropped, you pasty pansy. Have these goons let me go, and I'll feed you my boot as I turn your face into mush."

Lorenzo and the other vampires cackled loudly. "You'll die a virgin, my pretty."

"Seriously? Jacoby Edwardo?" BIRD asked as it looked up at the night sky. "I hope that's a meteorite coming to kill us all."

Luca looked up into the night, and saw an unusual pinprick of bright orange, slowly growing larger. He smiled at the sight and realized he knew exactly what it was.