Excerpt:

Picking up the automatic rifle, I slung it over my shoulder and reloaded the crossbow. I dropped down to the bottom floor by jumping over the railings, taking the stairs a set at a time. The pandemonium on the second floor reassured me that Moondancer was still keeping them busy and was, at least, still alive and kicking.

I ducked out into a wide hallway. Recalling the rough map of the level I’d gotten from the binoculars and the security room, I headed left. The hallway made a right, then forked into a T, which I knew wrapped around the great hall. I peered to the right, then whisked my head back around the wall before the two guards saw me, and cocked the crossbow. Torches set in sconces were lit here, lending light to the otherwise pitch black hallway. I lifted my goggles back onto my forehead and blinked a few times to readjust to the new lighting.

After a few moments, I lunged sideways from my hiding place. The guards had started cautiously advancing. I sent my bolt flying, catching the nearest guard. The bolt bounced into his chest right on target, but the thickness of the point couldn’t penetrate the chainmail vest he was wearing.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered as I ducked back behind cover. I hadn’t counted on archaic armor, but if it had been effective for hundreds of years, it certainly was effective here as well.

Bullets were already chipping at the corner of the wall as the guards fired at me. I swapped my crossbow for the automatic rifle. Then, kneeling, I threw myself flat on my side on the ground in the hallway and, firing two quick, successive shots, dropped the sconces holding the torches. The vampires adjusted their fire quickly. As the torches fell, sputtering on the ground, I rolled backward and sat back up on my feet in the smaller hallway. I flipped the night-vision goggles back into place.

A burning sensation in my upper left arm let me know that I hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed. I ignored it, dropping the ranged weapons to the ground and breaking a stake in half, slanted over a bended knee. The wood was such that it splintered into long, slender fragments.

My ears strained for the sounds of an ambush behind me. The gunfire couldn’t have gone unnoticed.

In the meantime, the two guards were moving forward, judging by the clink of their chainmail and the bouncing beams of the tiny lights attached to the rifles that they’d switched on. A rifle poked around the corner and I let fly a high kick, knocking the point upward and away from me. It fired a shot into the ceiling before I wrestled it from the vampire’s hands and tossed it away. Whirling with his arm in my grip, I flipped him over my shoulder and jabbed downward with my other arm. The ragged edges of the makeshift point slid jerkily between the rings of his chainmail, eating flesh but not hitting the heart. From behind my goggles, I saw the vampire smirk as the wood caught, and I felt his arm in my grip tense as he prepared to kick himself upright.

I couldn’t deal with him right away though. I heard the armor clink behind me. I released the first vampire’s arm and pivoted on one foot, my kick catching the second vampire in the arm and disarming him. I dropped to the ground and swept his legs out from under him, then grabbed the automatic rifle and rammed it behind me, catching the first vampire in the chest. He stumbled backward.

Glancing over my shoulder to find my target, I rammed the butt of the rifle against the blunt end of the stake still sticking out of his chest. It slid home, and the vampire dusted, the chainmail falling to the floor with the wood still caught between its rings. Tucking the rifle against my side and backing down the hall, I fired rapidly at the other guard, who was advancing warily. The bullets chipped away at his chainmail armor, creating holes in spots where I was deliberately clustering my shots. He realized what I was doing and made a lunge for me, hands outstretched.

I dropped into a crouch and dug the barrel of the rifle into the vampire’s chest, his forward momentum helping me to lift him up and over me, then switched quickly to the other stake and slammed it into his heart through one of the holes I’d created in his armor.

I rose to my feet and dusted myself off, cocking my head to one side as I listened for more guards. There were none. I knew better than to assume that there actually weren’t any left, however.

She’s waiting for me, I thought, and strode down the hallway toward the double doors.