"Wait," Isabella said, just as Lanval slung the rifle over his shoulder and smiled the unmistakable smile of a man who knew he never had to think about money again.

Isabella pointed at BIRD, then at the glittery remains of Jacoby Edwardo. "You planned that? You really had all of this under control, the whole time?"

"He did," BIRD admitted. "I was clear with Fabulo and the others that they couldn't murder Luca, but the nuances of contract law don't really stick in his head. Lanval's company, 'Peace of Mind', is a registered Private Military Contractor, which means they have to abide by the international regulations for mercenaries. And you'd be a damned fool to believe that Luca didn't have a hand in writing those laws."

"It's a pretty narrow clause," Luca said, to spare BIRD the need to talk through its metaphysical despair. "But the gist of it is that if any company is ordered to kill me, or my employees, I have to be afforded the opportunity to outbid them. And since I'm the richest person alive by such a disgusting margin that it takes two hundred and one billionaires to exceed my net worth, there's no way I can be outbid."

"Soldiers, we get to give up this farce and retire," Lanval said. "Oh, and we're going to buy the bar we're drinking at tonight, just to see how it feels."

"But you said that all 201 vampires are richer than you are," Isabella said.

"True, but they lost one. Jacoby Edwardo was the fourth richest member of their dumbass brotherhood, made a fortune on Twilight revival circuits. It made Fabulo angry enough to murder me, rather than pack us on a shuttle and send us on an eight-month journey back to Earth," Luca explained. "BIRD knew all of this, of course, but you broke its little mind at exactly the right moment. Nice job there, by the way."

"Adama, what the hell is this? You can't double-cross me!" Fabulo raged, bellowing in the operating voice of a boy in the middle of puberty, and petulantly stomping his foot.

"Pretty sure I can, you preening pouffe," Lanval replied casually, making a show of inspecting his ornately designed grenade launcher.

"It's in the laws! You do this, and every other private military in the solar system will hunt you down!" Fabulo cried out.

"No, they won't. Because you didn't read the fine print," Lanval said happily. He turned back to Luca and continued. "So, double the contract value, and you buy out the company and dissolve it? With a performance bonus for every member currently in the field?"

"That is the contractual value. I take it this won't bankrupt me?"

"It would bankrupt any of them." Lanval used the grenade launcher to point back to the crowd of billionaires.

"Guess I have to wait a year to buy that new yacht," Luca mused.

"I do feel a bit of guilt when you say that. But only because millions of kids have played in that absurd Quiddich pitch of yours. But you gotta look out for you and yours. Care to portal us out of here?"

Luca drew how his portal device and pointed to some empty space nearby. With a whoosh, a black sphere winked into existence. The mercenaries moved with giddy enthusiasm as they gathered up their equipment and walked through the portal. In barely half a minute, Lanval was the only one left.

"I'd stay and help, pro-bono, but I'm not allowed to," Lanval said.

"I know. It's by design, I wasn't allowed to buy out the company and then turn them on the former employer. It's the only way the UN let me put that clause in," Luca said. "Enjoy your retirement."

"Oh, your dad asked me to give you this," Lanval said, and he reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out a small pouch tied off with a drawstring.

"Wait, why did Luca's dad know about this?" Isabella asked.

"He's the man I asked to make sure I understood the Tyrion Lannister Clause correctly. Farewell, Mister Cardego. We'll raise a glass to your success," Lanval Adams said. With a tip of his hat and one rude hand gesture to Fabulo, he stepped through the portal. Once he stepped through, the portal winked out of existence with a farting noise precisely the tone and tenor of a whoopee cushion.

"So, are we safe now?" Isabella asked.

"I don't think so," Fabulo answered, and the billionaire bloodsucker tried to crack his knuckles menacingly. His efforts made less sound than a dead cricket being shushed by a librarian, despite trying repeatedly. After a comical few seconds, he gave up. "We might have lost our mercenaries, but we're still two hundred vampires, and hundreds more servants, against the four of you."

"I'd take these three over all of you, any day of the week. Doubly so during half-price pint nights," Luca replied, while he opened the pouch that Lanval had given him.

"What is that?" Viviana asked, pointing at the bag in Luca's hands.

"One of dad's supernatural emergency kits. He started making these when I had my first werewolf transformation. He made them a lot bigger after I figured out portal tech. I'm just hoping he didn't give me the 'demonic invasion' kit, that would be overkill," Luca explained.

"Why, what does it have?" Alcuard asked.

"A double-barrelled shotgun," Luca said. "Green armour, a big frickin gun, a lot of portable artillery, and heavy-metal mixtapes."

"Sounds appropriate," Isabella replied.

"Hey, none of that. I was serious about what I said before, we're not killing people. Vi, think you can drive them off with that suit?"

"I was bluffing hard in that conversation with Lanval," Viviana warned him. "The suit only has about half a minute's charge, and no one makes gasoline anymore, so the chainsaw sword is pretty much dead."

"Use the suit to stall them while I explain the plan."

"I'll set it to 'impress the nerds' mode, the setting we left on for Warhammer conventions," Viviana said, and she pulled a phone out of her pocket.

A moment later the suit jerked to life, took a thunderous step forward, and raised the dumbest weapon in the universe over its head. "By the power of Greyskull, I am Iron Man!" a mechanically manly voice bellowed from the suit's speakers before it marched towards the ninnyish nosferatu. The advancing vampire horde halted like a wave breaking against a wall made of their own timidity, as the first ranks shrank back from the suit. The wide berth they gave left Luca plenty of room to turn to his friends and bring them close.

"Izzy, you need to head back to the control room and fly this city," Luca said, not bothering to worry about BIRD fluttering nearby.

"Why Isabella? I'm the one who has flown the city before," Alcuard said.

"Izzy actually knows how to fly. You nearly put this city into deep space, and I'm pretty sure your six thousand years didn't include reading the manual or a flight simulator," Luca said, and he pointed his finger at Alcuard until the vampire shrugged in acknowledgement.

"Where am I flying us?" Isabella asked.

"Towards the next sunrise," Luca said. "Assuming this vampire horde is like Alcuard, sunlight will turn the snobbish zombies to dust while leaving the people unharmed. So forward unto dawn, second star to the right, straight on till morning."

"Halo and Peter Pan in the same sentence?" BIRD asked. "I bet the author's just trying to pad the number of absurd literary firsts he puts into a single book."

"Shut it, you filthy traitor," Isabella said.

"When did I ever claim to be on your side?" BIRD asked.

"When I paid for you, jackass."

"Funny, I don't remember getting a dime," BIRD replied sardonically.

"Izzy, stop trying to match wits with a hyper-intelligent supercomputer. You know they're only as smart as their laziest programmer," Viviana said. "And don't you dare crash us. I haven't even tried on my platinum bikini."

"I hope it chafes," Isabella replied, but she gave Luca a kiss on the cheek, turned on her heel, and ran.

Luca watched her go for an appreciative second and a half, before turning back to business. This was a life or death situation, admiration could only be indulged so much. And as Luca turned back to the others, he saw the crowd had begun to swarm around the dancing mech suit, Fabulo in the lead.

"There's a lot of them," Viviana said. "What do we have in the bag?"

"Here, you check. I'm going to give Fabulo and company one last chance to surrender," Luca said, and he began to unbutton his shirt.

"Uh, boss, from both a business perspective and personal preference I don't object at all, but is this really the time?" Viviana asked. Nevertheless, she took the shirt from Luca when he finished unbuttoning it and extended it to her.

"Put it in the bag, would you?" Luca asked. "I'm fond of it." Viviana nodded and shoved his shirt into the bag of holding.

"Okay," Luca said, as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. His body felt light under the gentle gravity of his world, and the night air was comfortingly cool. Like having a lover rub his shoulders and whisper encouragement into his ear as he stepped into the ring, Luca felt the comforts of his home and domain reinvigorate him as he marched into battle.

"Creatures of the night!" Luca called out, as the mob approached. Alcuard advanced beside him and drew his sword. The blade burst into flame as soon as it cleared his scabbard, and filled the street with blood-red light. Luca's grin widened as the mob's advance slowed. "If anyone wants out, just walk away. Once this is over, I'll even portal you home. Free for anyone who doesn't drink blood."

"You're still so cocky, even outnumbered as you are," Fabulo gloated.

"Funny, that's what your sister said a few months ago, with her friends at that charity soirée. At least at the beginning of the night," Luca retorted.

Viviana burst out laughing. "Oh my god, that's actually true," she said, sighing in amused amazement tinged with disapproval.

"Enough of your jests! I'll have satisfaction!" Fabulo shrieked.

"Also what your sister said. In a slightly higher tone of voice," Luca noted, and even the vampires beside Fabulo chuckled and scoffed.

Fabulo screamed in blind rage and charged. Somewhere in the back of Luca's mind, the wolf stared out and watched Fabulo rush towards him. Watched and cringed. It was a unique experience for Luca, but his wolfish senses watched the billionaire run and only saw an overweight rabbit with melanoma.

As Fabulo drew near, Luca shifted, slipping into the wolf. Bone crushing jaws opened, inhumanly strong paws rent the cobbles, and his massive form lunged forward just as Fabulo's anger gave way to fear.

Luca grabbed Fabulo by the leg with his jaw, swung the vampire into the air, and slammed him into the ground once. The billionaire made an extremely satisfying sound as his flailing form drummed against the cobbles, and Luca flipped the poor fool back in the air to smash into the ground a second time.

And a few more. After the fifth time, Luca paused without releasing Fabulo, looked at the vampire's dazed and unfocused expression, swung him into the ground one last time, then casually tossed him away.

Fabulo let out a small, high-pitched groan as he lay in place.

Luca shifted back and casually walked past Fabulo towards the rest of the mob. "Puny vampire," Luca said. As he advanced on the crowd of billionaires, their front ranks shrank back from him.

"Now I bet you're all wondering how I clobbered him so easily," Luca announced, pointing back at Fabulo for emphasis. "After all, he's a vampire. You'd think that includes thing like superhuman strength, being able to turn into a bat, a hypnotic voice, the ability to seduce any woman alive despite looking like a zombie working at Sephora, the usual stuff. But that's really only true of old-school vampires. Now, vampires like you sissies, well, you're just walking corpses animated by other people's blood. And you and your minions are suffering from spending months couch-potatoing in space. Some of you can barely stand, and Mars's gravity is pitiful compared to our home."

In his own thoughts, Luca was stunned that the vampire horde was still letting him babble. His monologue would only have been considered short in the Iliad, but the pasty horde of pansies was still leaving him room to talk. "As for me, I have a yacht I use as a gym, and we regularly do workout regimes at one and a half times Earth gravity. Two times, occasionally. I work out like a goddam anime character. And I'm a werewolf. As for these two..."

Luca pointed to Alcuard. "He has the entire gamut of classic vampire powers. The guy can probably lift a small car, he can fly, he can shrug off being hit by that same car, and he has a flaming fucking sword." He then turned and pointed at Viviana. "She's my secretary."

The vampires laughed at that. One vampire was so emboldened by Luca's introduction that he leapt out from the crowd and charged at Viviana. The vampire ran with the swiftness of an overweight house cat dreaming of being a lion and devoured the distance like someone with the flu at a hot dog eating contest. Viviana didn't even bother to look at the charging vampire, still rooting through Luca's bag, but she raised a spray bottle in her free hand and pointed it.

When the vampire finally closed the distance, Viviana sprayed the bottle at him. Luca's eyes widened in surprise when the vampire's face burst into flame, in a rapidly expanding fireball that quickly engulfed his whole head. The vampire let out one dainty scream, stumbled backwards, and disappeared behind a single massive puff of flame.

A moment later, when the fire died away, all that was left was a handful of glitter gently drifting in the breeze.

"Vi," Luca said. "What did you hit him with? Thermite?"

"Spray tan," Viviana said, holding up the bottle.

There was a resounding smack that sounded behind Luca, and he turned to see that Alcuard had smacked his palm to his forehead so hard he could have broken a brick wall. "I swear that being a vampire used to be cool."