We didn't make it to the cellar.
We burst out of the kitchen like the garlic-scented apocalypse, tore through one velvet-curtained hallway after another, and got hopelessly turned around somewhere between the Hall of Erotic Tapestries and the Room of Forty-Nine Useless Thrones.
Every corridor looked the same — gold trim, candlelight, too many mirrors. Too many shadows.
"Where are we?!" Loma hissed, tripping over her own hem.
"I don't know!" I barked. "Somewhere expensive!"
Then we crashed through another set of gilded double doors—
And froze.
The Archduke's bedchamber. Again.
The same silken canopy. The same velvet drapes. The same smell of rose oil and old regrets.
And him.
Lord Severin the Pale.
He wasn't naked this time. He wasn't snarling or lunging or whispering poetry with a fang in my neck.
He was on his knees. Hands shaking. Shoulders heaving.
And sobbing.
Not elegant noble sobbing, either — snotty, ugly sobbing. Red-faced, wrecked, human.
We skidded to a halt.
Loma raised her frying pan.
I raised my spoon.
He didn't even look up. Just whispered, hoarse:
"It's not me…"
We blinked.
"I'm not… I never meant to—gods," he choked, "they used me!"
"What?" I said, my voice flat and sharp.
He finally looked up, face streaked with tears.
"The harpies of my harem," he gasped. "It started with Number Three. Shigella."
Loma muttered, "That sounds like a disease—"
"She was," he moaned. "She turned in the spring. Some cursed tomb, some suitor, I don't know—she changed. She spread it to the others. Bit by bit. Silk by silk."
He clutched his chest like he was confessing to murder.
"They said I was still useful," he whimpered. "Bait. A drawing lure. For fresh blood. Young blood. Virgins. Gods help me, I didn't know. I didn't want to know."
Loma's pan lowered an inch.
I didn't move.
"They fed off the girls," he sobbed. "The dancers. The new wives. I just thought they were… leaving. I let them go, I said. But they were being… drained. Piece by piece. Breath by breath. I let it happen."
He collapsed against the bed frame like a puppet cut from the strings.
"I'm not evil," he said. "I'm just…"
He looked up at us.
"…a coward."
I stared.
Then looked at Loma.
She looked at me.
I said, very calmly, "We're going to need more garlic."
There was a long, wet silence.
Him sobbing. Me calculating. Loma breathing like she'd just realized this wasn't a fever dream. Garlic stink thick in the room. My spoon was trembling in my hand.
I actually almost pitied him.
Almost.
Until something shifted.
It was subtle. The kind of change you feel in your gut before your brain catches up. His sobbing stopped too fast. His breathing went still. The hunched, broken posture… went rigid.
His fingers twitched. His head lifted.
"Wait," I said, raising the spoon again. "No, no, don't—"
He lurched.
One second we were three sad sacks in a velvet tragedy, the next he was launching at me with his eyes bloodshot and mouth open, fangs out.
"Oh come on—!" I shrieked, stumbling back.
Then—CLANG.
The frying pan connected with a meaty thud.
He hit the floor face-first, limp.
I blinked.
Loma stood over him, pan raised like a holy weapon, mouth hanging open in shock. Her cheeks were flaming.
"Wow," I breathed. "Princess."
She stared at the Archduke's unconscious body.
"I—uh—he—he lunged and I—"
"You clocked a vampire noble with a frying pan."
Loma stammered, "I didn't mean to— I just— instinct—!"
I grinned. "You're officially promoted to Captain of Don't-Die-Tonight Squad."
She bit her lip, trying not to smile.
"I think I bent it," she said, inspecting the pan.
"I think you bent him," I said, nudging the archduke with my foot. He groaned softly, but didn't move.
Loma's blush deepened. "I think I'm going to throw up."
"Do it in the corner," I muttered, grabbing the velvet drapes. "We're tying this bastard up before he wakes up and cries us into round two."
So there we were.
Dragging a half-conscious, fully-tied, occasionally-whimpering vampire archduke through the palace halls by his embroidered ankles.
He was trussed up like a festival pig in curtains and braided sashes, glitter-stained and gagged with a whole garlic bulb jammed in his mouth like an overstuffed dumpling.
Loma was gripping his feet. I had his arms. We were both sweating, panting, and covered in soot, blood, and crushed aromatics.
It was not our finest hour.
And then — the harpies appeared.
They flowed out of the shadows like silk-clad ghosts. Eyes glowing red. Fangs gleaming. Seven of them. No smiles this time. No coy whispers.
Just hunger.
We froze.
Loma whimpered. I raised a hand.
"Ladies."
They hissed. Took a step forward.
I kicked the archduke's limp body hard in the ribs. He groaned around the garlic.
"One more step," I said, voice cold, "and I stuff him like a sausage. Garlic. Everywhere. Nose. Ears. Ass."
The harpies stopped.
One snarled. "You wouldn't dare."
I stepped on his chest.
"Try me."
Another hissed. "He's ours—"
"He's a meat shield, sweetheart." I raised a second bulb and squeezed. "And I will explode him with flavor if you so much as blink."
They circled slowly. Tension rippling like heat.
Loma tightened her grip. "Saya…"
"Shhh. Negotiations."
I pointed the spoon like a dagger. "Back up. We're leaving. No tricks. No bites. No creepy hallway chase scene."
Silence.
Then, slowly, the harpies backed away. Not far. Just enough.
Eyes still locked on us. Hungry. Furious.
But they let us go.
We dragged his leechy highness down the stairs, out the grand atrium, across the marble courtyard. The gates loomed ahead.
Almost there.
Loma whispered, "You think they'll follow us?"
I grinned.
"They want him alive."
I gave the archduke's thigh a threatening pat. "Too bad he's about to get pickled."
And with that, we slipped through the palace gate, dragging a vampire lord behind us like luggage.
Freedom never smelled so much like garlic and spite.