By Hook or by Wolf

I scurry into the room and look around quickly. I have only seconds to grab the knife and get the hell out of dodge. There are stacks of books and piles of gold coins. There are trophies and gold statues. Basically, everything I’m looking at is bright and shiny. I don’t know where to even start looking for the knife.

But we’re certain that’s it here.

Our intel is never wrong.

Bad intel means that we all die, so Daisy and I go above and beyond to make sure that anything we look for is a sure thing.

And a magical weapon?

That’s a pretty sure fucking thing.

Magical swords and knives have been around since the dawn of time. It’s impossible to tell which ones really existed. Humans love fairy tales and nothing makes for a good story quite like a magical object. I mean, there’s Excalibur, wielded by King Arthur. There’s Caesar’s Crocea Mors. Hell, there’s even Ninurta’s Sharur. These weapons have been talked about, studied, and sought for thousands upon thousands of years.

Yet very few magical items have been found or captured.

Until now.

The Sword of Edith isn’t something most people know about or most people have been able to get. Not any humans, anyway. Not that many are looking for it. Most people are too damn scared of Derek’s army or his reach to be willing to sneak directly into his home and steal from him.

Good thing I’m not most people.

I peruse the treasure room and I try not to stress. I don’t see it. There are piles of gold and stacks of treasure chests. Could it be in one of those? This entire place looks like the kind of room you’d see in a dragon’s cave. Then again, vampires are probably just as old as dragons. They certainly have a lot of the same characteristics. Scanning the room, I note the gold benches, the chairs, the tables. I see the gold statues and the silver boxes. I see rings, necklaces, and every other kind of treasure I could possibly imagine.

And then I see it.

I see the blade.

It’s at the end of the room and it’s surrounded by what looks like lasers. This room doesn’t have physical guards because the idea of anyone breaking into it is preposterous. No one would dare cross Derek like this. Unfortunately for him, he’s a cocky bastard.

I approach the blade and look at the lasers.

“I’ve got eyes on it,” I tell Daisy quietly.

“Hurry,” she urges me.

Most people would try to find a way to get through the lasers without touching them. Most people would try to find a place to shut them off so they could grab the blade. I know better, though. These aren’t ordinary lasers. They won’t chop off your hand if your skin comes in contact. These lasers aren’t hot; they’re laced with a poison. Instead of dismembering you, the noxious poison seeps into your skin and destroys you quickly.

It doesn’t take long.

Most people exposed wouldn’t make it back to the hallway. They’d die here: their body left to serve as a warning to anyone else who might dare cross the vampire’s path.

But I’m not most people.

Besides, I’m prepared. I hurry quickly, quietly, over to the blade. I pull out the enchanted gloves that cost me six month’s wages to purchase and hope that they do their fucking job. Ezekiel promised me they’d work exactly as prescribed. If they do, then the investment would have been entirely worth it because once I sell Edith, I’ll never have to work again.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Daisy is speaking to me, but I ignore her as I reach through the lasers, grab the blade, and pull it out.

Then I turn and I fucking run.

The alarm starts blaring when I’m halfway across the room. All hell is about to break loose. There weren’t sensors under the blade itself, but anytime the poison in the lasers is activated, it sets off an alarm that notifies the vampires there’s trouble. I run back toward the entrance. There’s a wall sliding closed over the door, but I’m not about to do something crazy like try to slide under it before it closes. Instead, I grab one of the gold statues and toss it ahead of me. It slides across the floor and manages to jam the door open. The wall can’t close now, but I don’t know how much time I have before it crashes down, smashing the little statue.

Daisy is screaming in my ear for me to get my ass out of here, so I drop to my stomach and wiggle under the door. On the other side, I look both ways and start running left. I’ve trained for this moment far too long to get something as little as an alarm going off be the reason I get stuck inside the Mountain.

Not today, Satan.

I can already hear the emergency gas sensors starting to go off. I glance up and see small bursts of something being pushed into the hallway. I press a button on the side of my sunglasses and a nose cover comes down, pressing against my face. The cover extends further down and mashes against my lips, effectively rendering me mute. It’s going to be a little hard to breathe for a few minutes, but the tight cover will both keep gas from getting into my lungs and slowly feed me oxygen. Wearing this mask isn’t like a normal gas mask, but it’s also not like I’m just holding my breath. There’s oxygen flowing from a pack I wear at my hip. It’s just not a lot, and I don’t have a ton of time.

“Songbird, do you copy? Two hostiles up ahead. There’s no other way out. You’re going to have to fight this time.”