Tilla walked toward the stairs on the far side of the room. They descended downward into the darkness, leading the otherwise human-made construct to seem more like a yawning portal to a void-like realm. Its entrance was flanked by two men garbed in sleeveless white undershirts (clothes more popularly referred to with the nickname of ‘wife-beaters’). Bright red tattoos were brazenly displayed across their skin. Snarling dragons curled around bared arms, the face of an enraged Buddha poked out onto the backs of their necks, and on the arm of one of the men, there was a ‘heart’ design with the words ‘I Love Mum’ written within in Kanji.

  Tilla ignored them. Disgusting worms as they were, those two men were far too strung out on drugs to even notice her, much less impede her progress. The first of the descending steps were before her. Tilla tossed a glance over her shoulder just in time to see her darling Jean disappear behind the DJ’s booth. Phil was nowhere to be seen, having wasted no time in starting his search of the club’s second floor.

  Her focus returned to the steps. No lights glimmered in the stairway. Only a few of the top steps were even visible under the washed-out blue lights streaming around the inside of Blue Friday. Tilla’s lips curled into a smile. Such an environment would suit her best.

  A movement in the shadows confirmed her thoughts. It was a flicker, nothing more, of a pale face with a shock of bright blue hair atop it. Her duel spirit, Vampire’s Curse. Bound to serve the Mook family until the bloodline was extinguished for good. With it at her side, Tilla would be safe from harm during her descent underground.

  Tilla's shoes, a pair of black flats that managed to be both sensible for the occasion and rather cute in her eyes, touched the staircase. Neither of the junkies reacted. Her dress rustled slightly, but the sound was completely obscured by the irritating techno music blaring throughout the club. The dress was black, knee-length, and chosen specifically to drive Jean wild. Her Jean was quite adorable when his eyes attempted to turn into hearts like they were in some Western children’s cartoon.

  Step by step she descended into the darkness. Wooden stairs gradually turned concrete. The air cooled, being too far underground for the heating system of the club to realistically affect. Still, Tilla stepped confidently and fearlessly.

  Darkness was not worth fearing, after all. She’d learned that long ago. It could swallow her, but it could never keep Tilla by its side for long without her permission. No, instead there were far better things in the world to fear. The depravity of the yakuza, so terribly casual and even ordinary in nature, done only in the pursuit of money instead of any focused malice. Humans were good at that, inflicting casual cruelty throughout all levels of society, no matter of status or power.

  That sort of casualness was different than what any wild beast or monster could unleash. At least a beast would do it simply to fill its stomach, to live another day.

  Tilla placed her hand on the wooden railing bolted to the wall. It was cool to the touch and without any sort of roughness. Compared to the rest of the club’s mindless hedonism, it seemed to have been made with some amount of actual care and pride.

  That was the strangest sensation of it all. It was as if two worlds had been forcefully shoved together – Blue Friday’s hedonism, and the simple pride of a woodworker who made the railing. Incompatible, but together all the same.

  Her shoes bumped against a concrete floor. While she’d been lost in thought, Tilla had reached the bottom of the staircase. Now there was a faint light, enough so that she could see the barest outline of a hallway spreading out before her and two dark shapes slumped on the ground, but nothing more. Tilla glanced at the shapes. They were humanoid, slumped and unmoving. One was leaning against some sort of dark cylinder. A closer look revealed the first humanoid shape to be a man, and the cylinder to be a round trash can that reeked of vomit. The second shape was a woman. She was slumped against a wall. The faint light from the distance glinted slightly against a thin piece of metal sticking out of her arm. Tilla’s eyes narrowed in a mixture of disgust and pity. A needle. More junkies, the both of them.

  Every moment she began to think the mindless hedonism of Blue Friday had reached its peak, the depraved club merely smiled and revealed even deeper depths.

  Tilla kept moving down the hallway. She didn’t have time to stall. The downstairs of the club needed investigating. Only after could she head back upstairs to back up Jean. He was a fine duelist, make no mistake about that, but still her heart would feel better seeing his good health with her own eyes.

  If her granmama could see her now, she would have laughed. She would have cackled, hooted, and hollered upon seeing quiet, withdrawn, and altogether unsociable Tilla finally discovering love.

  Tilla wouldn’t have minded one bit either. Her granmama was a woman dear to her heart. More of a mother on most days than Tilla’s own mother was. To see her granmama one last time, even to be laughed at over the old woman's words finally becoming true, would be a sensation sweeter than a spoonful of honey. More than that, even now Tilla still had every scrap of her granmama’s advice memorized. Even the bits she didn’t like.

  That wisdom, that precious wisdom, was too dear to Tilla’s heart to discard.

  But her granmama had passed away many years ago by now, making her final journey to the next life at the ripe age of 104 years young (as granmama always preferred to say), dying in combat as she had always wished. Even now, many years later, the memory managed to bring a bitter smile to Tilla’s face. The event had made the papers of the local town her granmama had been living in at the time, a small place with a population of no more than 500 people at most. Tilla had always scolded her granmama for living there. The hospital was much too far away, and Tilla could only visit a few times a month to check on her. Truly, she wished that had not been the case, but at that time Tilla had not yet joined the ranks of the duel professors. She’d been working an ordinary job in an ordinary city at an ordinary hospital as an ordinary nurse.

  The event was a shock. Two thieves from the big city, a man and a woman duo relatively famous as the ‘Bandits of Mediocre Renown’ had apparently been staking out her granmama’s house for several weeks. They’d seen that the only inhabitant was an old lady, harmless and mild to the casual observation.

  Their conclusion was very, very wrong.

  Not about the number of inhabitants, for Tilla could only visit when work at the hospital calmed down (a rarity during some months), but about the ‘harmless and mild’ part. Seconds after the back door was breached, granmama was out of bed with her trusty Brown Bess flintlock musket loaded and ready. Her first shot blew a large enough chunk out of the man’s neck that he died of blood loss in less than half a minute. Then, unable to reload the cumbersome weapon in time, granmama had fixed her bayonet atop the end of her musket and charged.

  Such a shame. Even now, Tilla wished to travel back in time to warn her younger self to stop being indecisive and move in with her granmama, longer commute be damned. It would have only been two hours added, and she would take that in a heartbeat if it meant her granmama still drew breath to give her cryptic advice.

  But there was no going back. Amidst the valiant charge, granmama’s heart finally gave out one last time, though her momentum was still more than enough to keep her body going the extra foot that was needed to drive the bayonet straight through the stomach of her final opponent. By the time the police arrived, there were three bodies on the floor – and two of them were being steadily gnawed away by granmama’s troupe of twelve feral cats (named ‘Huey’, ‘Dewey’, ‘Louie’, ‘Sir Pounce’, ‘Gothmog the Destroyer’, ‘Ed’, Kitty’, ‘Maggot’, ‘Genghis Khan’, ‘Albert Whiskers’, ‘Miss Princess’, and ‘That Whore of a Cat Spreading its Filthy Legs for Every Diseased Tomcat in this Shithole of a Country’).

  Truly, Tilla had loved her granmama greatly.

  By the time Tilla’s eyes had dried and her resolve had steeled, the will had finally been deciphered by the Mook family lawyers. Tilla had arrived at the reading of the will neither too early nor too late. It was as expected. Two of her uncles dueled each other in the courthouse parking lot over the right to own granmama’s hotrod (less of a matter of cards and more of a matter of pistols at dawn). Tilla was neither close nor distant with her unless, so the duel was a pleasant distraction from the solemnity of the occasion. However, the rest of the will-reading went by as smoothly as anyone could ask. Tilla was left with her granmama’s prized bayonet, along with her granmama’s skull (with all its skin removed, of course).

  Tilla had expected that. Even to the end, granmama had always been worried about her. ‘Tilla,’ Granmama was oft to say, ‘You’re getting old! Best get you a good man before you reach 30!’ This, of course, had always been followed by several minutes of high-pitched cackles, wheezes, snorts, and laughter that would set off every car alarm for several blocks, along with making every window in the house flex and creak.

  ‘But you’d best be warned, Tilla ma’ dear,’ Granmama would continue, ‘men are evil scoundrels! Here, when I finally kick the bucket, I’ll leave you my bayonet. If your future husband turns out to be a scum-sucking bastard, use it to cut his heart out. I’ll leave you my skull, too, and my ritual books. If you follow the steps on page 42, combining my skull and the heart of a worthless cheater should concoct quite the curse! But, I hope it won’t come to that! Granmama wants you to be happy and to find a good man and to continue the Mook bloodline because everyone else in this dumpster fire of a family is worth less than the worms crawling through the dirt!’

  Sage advice warmly given and gratefully accepted. Tilla had a feeling granmama, if she had still been alive at this point, would approve of Jean Dubois. And if not, Tilla would fistfight her out in the parking lot, granmama or not. Jean was a good man, and Tilla would be damned if her dearly departed granmama had anything less than the best to say of him.

  A flicker in the shadows drew Tilla’s attention to the faded form of Vampire’s curse. Her lips moved to form the barest hint of a smile. There was someone in the room at the end of the hall, where the faint light was coming from. Tilla quickened her pace, no longer paying attention to the occasional dark forms slumped on the ground at random across the hallway. The sooner this was over, the better. She had business to attend to, like spending more time with Jean. Should they go to the beach next, or would it be better to show him that nice little coffee shop by the park, the one that had cats available to pet? A cat café, if she remembered correctly.

  The door at the end of the hallway opened to the slightest touch of Tilla’s palm. The room inside was small, containing only a singular and somehow slightly familiar man sitting at a small wooden table. On the table was a machine, of which the man was feeding several stacks of yen. After each stack of yen fell into the machine, it would make a loud whirring sound and then spit the yen out. A counting machine, Tilla belatedly realized. The man was counting money. On the edge of the table was a deck of Duel Monsters cards.

  The man looked up. He was a very greasy man with a rather stooped posture. His skin glistened under the singular light bulb hanging from the ceiling. His hair was neatly styled in a long, drooping pompadour hairstyle, and it was as covered in grease as his skin was. Did he ever wash?

  That question died in Tilla’s mind as a realization hit her with all the force of a semi-truck. The man was indeed familiar. She knew why. Not from meeting him before, but from a rather detailed second-hand description. This was one of the three men Jean and Phil had tracked to a shady bar after the attack on their apartment. Jean had described them to her during their walk from the parlor to Blue Friday. Phil’s rather… bare-bones explanation of the attack had failed to satisfy her, so Tilla had pressed Jean hard for details. She needed to know their distinguishing features, what their voices sounded like, and the clothes they were wearing during the attack. It was impossible to say if the information could ever be used, but if Tilla did happen across one or even all three of the men in a dark place with no witnesses…

  Then in that case she couldn’t be blamed for what would happen to them next.

  The greasy man had a black eye. It looked like his nose had been recently broken as well. The presence of injuries fitted with how Jean described Phil instigating a barfight between the three drunkards. The man began to say something, but Tilla couldn’t hear his voice at all anymore. Her ears felt like they had been filled with buzzing flies, and her vision looked like it had been draped in cloth of pure red. To the casual outside observer, Tilla Mook was as calm and gloomy as usual. But inside her head, Tilla was contemplating murder. There was no doubt about it. This was one of the men who not only tried to kidnap her beloved Jean Dubois and her soon-to-be brother-in-law Phillip Jenson, but also participated in the arson attack.

  Without a word Tilla used her right hand to hitch the side of her dress just above her knee. Underneath was a simple black frilled band that was wrapped around her leg. A well-polished bayonet was slid through that band like a sword in a makeshift sheath. Before the greasy man could utter another word, Tilla gracefully pulled the bayonet out and less-than-gracefully slammed its point into the table, causing the weapon to sink two inches into the wood. Tilla’s other hand swiftly popped open the leather deck box strapped to her side to reveal her trusty deck. The threat implied in her actions did not need to be spoken aloud.

  The greasy man made to move, but the shadows were already swirling around them. Tilla gracefully took a seat. The simmering rage within her was forcefully pushed to the bottom of her stomach. This was not an attempt to disperse her anger, but an attempt to guide it. To use it at the perfect moment.

  Thicker and thicker the shadows spun. The hand of the greasy man jerked into his pocket to pull out a knife. One look from Tilla, a look bursting with a barely restrained bloodlust, saw his face go pale and his hand go limp. More than that, she could see the greasy man’s eyes darting around with some amount of… recognition. This was not the first shadow game he had seen, though obviously the concept was still somewhat new to him.

  Tilla placed her deck on the table. The greasy man gulped, only moving when Tilla wordlessly jerked her chin toward his deck.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “To the death.” Tilla softly declared, producing a coin from her pocket. “Heads, or tails?”

  The question was asked as if she was merely querying about the day’s weather, instead of how best to murder the scum-sucking filthy dog of an arsonist who tried to kidnap her boyfriend and burn alive the old man who had extended his hand Jean and Phil out of pure kindness alone.

  The greasy man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed heavily.

  “Tails.” He said.

  Tilla let the coin dance through the air under the single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. She caught it in her palm and flipped it onto the back of her hand.

  Tails.

  Tilla queued up the life point counters, pausing for a second before drawing her hand only to ask the name of the man who was about to fall at her hands.

  “Whammo” The man replied after a moment of hesitation.

  Tilla gently nodded. Her simmering anger was still held perfectly in her stomach, without a single ounce of it able to escape. "I am Tilla Mook. Allow me to show you the might of the Duel Professors-" Tilla blinked, catching herself at the end of the title and smiling in a gentle apology for her gaffe. "Well, I suppose I am not here as a member of the Duel Professors. I am here simply as Tilla Mook, a concerned third party who is rather vexed over your attempt to burn my boyfriend’s apartment down. When I win, I will cut out your heart with this bayonet.”

  The threat was delivered with a smile and in a sweet tone, as if Tilla was offering to buy the man a drink instead of openly plotting to brutally murder him in revenge.

  Whoops. Some of her malice had leaked out. Oopsie-daisy.

  Whammo blanched, but he did not attempt to run. He was smart enough for that, after all. Running would count as a forfeit.

  Tilla: 4000 Whammo: 4000

  Whammo took the first turn. His eyes glanced around at the swirling shadows. Even an ordinary yakuza like him could tell this wasn’t normal, that there was magic in the air. That, and the implied threat of the bayonet, was what kept Whammo in his seat, playing cards instead of letting his knife do the talking.

  He knew his life was hanging off the edge of a cliff, only held up by the frayed rope that was a game of Duel Monsters and the rules of a shadow game he was only vaguely aware of.

  “I-I don’t know what sort of witchcraft you have going on, but there’s no way in hell I’m dying here! Not to someone with a stupid name like ‘Tilla Mook’!” Whammo blustered, yanking the top card off his deck to begin his turn.

  Tilla neatly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Whammo’s words slid off her like a spot of gentle rain. In the past, perhaps, she might have taken offense. No girl ever wanted to be named after an invention, after all. 'Tillamook', otherwise known as the codename for some computer microchip. That was what inspired Tilla's name. Tilla's mother had taken one look at it, and combined with the fact their family's surname was already 'Mook', Tilla's first name was decided in the snap of a finger. That bit of trivia had bugged Tilla to no end for quite a number of years. It wasn’t until recently, when she’d coincidentally met a charming Frenchman, that Tilla began to consider it wasn't such a stupid name after all.

  ‘Tilla Mook!’ Jean had cried out. The way he said her name, it was as if he was besotted by the words alone. Either he didn’t get the weird reference her mom was going for, or he just didn’t care. That hopeless romantic of a man.

  Tilla loved that about him.

  “I summon Giga-Tech Wolf (1200/1400) in attack mode! Two cards face-down and that’s my turn!”

  Tilla eyed the mechanical wolf up and down. Half-way decent attack points, machine-typing, and cute little metal bat wings amid grey steel fur and three thrashing metal tails. Would it, she wondered, look better turned into a vampire?

  Tilla silently drew a card. No, she concluded. The metal would make it look all wrong. Vampires were supposed to look different, all according to power. The weakest were mere savages, unthinking monsters only looking for their next meal. The middle ranks were elegant nobles, refined yet deadly. And the strongest of them all transcended human understanding.

  “I summon Blood Sucker (1300/1500).” Tilla intoned. Unlike the sleek Giga-Tech Wolf, Blood Sucker was a savage, red-skinned vampire. A slobbering green tongue stuck out from between its long fangs.

  “Blood Sucker. Destroy the wolf.”

  The red vampire lunged, but seconds before its arc in the air concluded, Whammo flipped over his face-down card.

  “Not so fast! You’ve activated my quick-play spell, Limiter Removal! The attack of all my machine monsters is doubled until the end of the turn!”

  Giga-Tech Wolf (1200/1400 -> 2400/1400).

  The body of the metallic wolf buzzed with electricity right as the jaws of Blood Sucker closed around its next, causing the vampiric monster to be instantly vaporized.

  Tilla: 2900 Whammo: 4000

  Tilla stoically endured the backlash of the failed attack. It hurt, but this wasn’t her first rodeo. Moreover, she was familiar with Limiter Removal. It was a powerful card with an equally powerful downside that would destroy Whammo’s Giga-Tech Wolf once the current turn ended. Of course, Tilla no longer had a monster to defend herself and Whammo would doubtlessly draw something to attack with, but the game was still very much up in the air.

  “In my second main phase,” Tilla continued on as if nothing had happened, “I activate the spell card Foolish Burial. It lets me send Vampire’s Curse from my deck to my graveyard. I will then place one card face-down and end my turn.”

  Once Tilla announced the end of her turn, the metallic wolf instantly blew up… but Whammo did not pale in fear upon seeing his side of the field be emptied of monsters. Instead, he revealed the second of his two face-down cards.

  “My trap card activates!” Whammo laughed out loud, “Soul Rope! When a monster I control is destroyed by a card effect, I can pay 1000 life points to summon a level four or lower monster from my deck. Come to me, Victory Viper XX03 (1200/1000)!”

  Tilla: 2900 Whammo: 3000

  Tilla’s eyes widened by a fraction. A sleek blue and white spaceship soared onto the table. She had never seen this card before. No matter. Her eyes fell back to their usual calm, heavy-lidded look. The world was wide and doubtlessly there were many cards scattered about that she had never seen before.

  The newly invigorated Whammo began his turn by revealing a monster card in his hand.

  “To join up with the fleet, I summon Gradius (1200/800)!”

  Another sleek ship, this one looking almost like an older model of Victory Viper, soared onto the field. It was painted with the same color scheme as the first ship.

  A second card was revealed in Whammo’s hand. “Equip card, activate! Cyclon Laser! By equipping this spell to Gradius, its attack is increased by 300 points and it will now deal piercing damage!”

  Meaning if Gradius attacked a monster that was in defense position, the difference between the attack of Gradius and the defense of the other monster would be inflicted as battle damage to Tilla’s life points.

  Gradius (1200/800 -> 1500/800).

  Whammo moved to his battle phase. Tilla wasted no time, using the changed phase to her immediate advantage.

  “My own trap card triggers.” Tilla tonelessly said. “Call of the Haunted! This continuous trap card allows me to resurrect Vampire’s Curse (2000/800) from the great beyond!”

  A sheen of sweat formed on Whammo’s greasy forehead as Tilla’s trusty pale vampire rose up to stare him down with unblinking eyes.

  “Damn it!” Whammo cursed. “Second main phase! I activate another spell, Power Capsule! It lets me apply one of the effects of my face-up Victory Viper XX03 without having met the condition of it destroying a monster by battle first! My choice is obvious – the second effect! One face-up spell or trap card on the field will be destroyed! Say goodbye to your Call of the Haunted!”

  In less than half a minute, Tilla’s field was completely empty. The only target was Call of the Haunted, after all, and its destruction would also send Vampire’s Curse back to the graveyard. No matter. Whammo’s battle phase had still been completely wasted and Tilla had saved herself from an irritating amount of battle damage.

  “Draw.” Tilla swept past the reversal in fortune without any complaint. Such was only to be expected in a duel. Her eyes flickered across the cards in her hand. Such a shame. As of now, she had no way to destroy both monsters on Whammo’s side of the field.

  No matter.

  “I summon Vampire Lady (1550/1550)!” Tilla said, her eyes as sharp as flint.

  From the shadows sauntered a woman with pale blue skin and hair, bedecked in an elegant dark purple dress. The woman sent a beguiling smile toward Whammo. The slight lifting of her lips was enough to show a pair of wicked-sharp fangs.

  Tilla entered her battle phase. Vampire Lady was commanded to destroy Whammo’s Victory Viper monster, and the man was sent backward in his chair with a cry of pain once the battle damage flowed past the mechanical barrier that was the fading form of his spaceship.

  Tilla: 2900 Whammo: 2650

  “Vampire Lady’s effect activates!” Tilla sternly declared, “When she inflicts battle damage, I can declare one card type and force you to send a card of that type from your deck to the graveyard. I declare trap!”

  Whammo’s face stiffened. It almost looked as if he realized this somehow caught him in the worst position possible. Tilla tilted her head with a faint amount of interest lingering in her eyes. Did he run only a small number of trap cards?

  A victorious smile tugged at Tilla’s lips once her thoughts were confirmed by Whammo sending a Mirror Force trap card from his deck to his graveyard with an agonized look. There was no other reason for him to send such a trap to the graveyard unless he truly had no other choice. Mirror Force was just that much of a game-changer.

  She would enjoy taking that card as part of her spoils of war.

  "One card face-down and that will end my turn." Tilla said, keeping her thoughts to herself. No need to let the greasy man know how much information about his deck his move had just provided.

  Whammo looked at his Gradius and then stared at her Vampire Lady. It was only a difference of 50 attack points, but a difference was still a difference.

  “The Equip card, Germ Infection, activates!” Whammo frantically shouted. A spell card was revealed in his hand to equip to Vampire Lady. “While your monster remains equipped with that spell, its attack points will decrease by 300 points during each of your standby phases! Then I set one card face-down and end my turn!”

  Tilla’s turn began. She drew a card and watched with an expression of mild interest as the skin of her Vampire Lady began to wrinkle.

  Vampire Lady (1550/1550 -> 1250/1550).

  Whammo’s face looked flush with victory. Tilla had half a mind to inform him that she could simply turn her monster to defense position and still have a decent wall to prevent his attacks. That was, if her deck had not revealed another one of the powerhouses who slept within it.

  “Vampire Lady, heed my orders!” Tilla said, “I sacrifice my monster to tribute summon the level five Vampire Lord (2000/1500)!”

  Similar to Vampire’s Curse, Vampire Lord was another nobleman sleeping within her deck, waiting only for the right moment to unleash his savagery upon her enemies. And, while it lacked the strengthening effect of Vampire’s Curse to come back from every lost battle with additional attack, Vampire Lord was still extremely tenacious in its own right.

  “Destroy Gradius!” Tilla’s sharp tones cut right through the room.

  The pale, purple-cloaked vampire pressed a hand to his chest in an elegant bow toward his master before turning toward the remaining spaceship on Whammo’s board. The monster licked its lips, displaying a set of fangs even longer and sharper than the ones possessed by Vampire Lady.

  It was over in one quick lunge.

  Tilla: 2900 Whammo: 2150

  “Vampire Lord’s effect activates. Just like Vampire Lady, this monster can force you to send one card of a type of my choosing from your deck to the graveyard. Hm. I wonder… I think I will choose ‘spell’ this time.” Tilla said.

  Whammo glowered, shuffling through his deck and pulling out a Power Capsule spell to toss in his graveyard.

  Tilla nodded to herself. Heavy on the monsters and spells, light on the trap cards. That was Whammo’s deck composition in a nutshell.

  “My turn will end.”

  A thick bead of sweat dripped down Whammo’s cheek. In this instance, Tilla didn’t blame him. The room was rather warm even to her. She could feel a few stray strands of hair sticking to her cheek.

  “After my draw, I activate my trap card, Machine King – 3000 B.C.!” Whammo shouted. His voice quavered as he continued to speak. “It summons itself as a machine effect monster with 1000 attack and defense points. That won’t last long, because by sacrificing it, I can tribute summon Machine King (2200/2000) from my hand! Not only that, but it gains 100 attack points for every machine monster on the field!”

  Machine King (2200/2000 -> 2300/2000).

  Out from the shadows crashed a large humanoid machine. Its arms were painted dark red, and the rest of its body was a simple light blue in color.

  Tilla nodded her head to pay the man a tiny bit of respect. He was still a disgusting, cowardly pig-dog of a man, but as a duelist he was still able to consistently form counterattacks to each of her moves while also advancing the main strategy of his deck. That alone warranted at least a quarter of a thimbleful of respect.

  “My battle phase begins!” Whammo shouted. “Machine King, crush the so-called ‘Vampire Lord’!”

  Tilla let a slight chuckle escape her lips. “Now that you’ve declared your attack, it cannot be stopped. I activate my face-down card, the quick-play spell Shrink! By targeting your Machine King, its original attack points become halved until the end of the turn!”

  Before their very eyes, the once-formidable size of the mechanical monster turned to something more closely resembling that of a children’s toy.

  Machine King (2300/2000 -> 1200/2000).

  Vampire Lord, showing no surprise at the quick turn of events, swiftly crushed it into scrap metal. It was a shame, Tilla thought, that Shrink only affected the original attack. That meant Machine King still got to keep its increased 100 attack points. It hardly mattered, but as a professional Tilla always tried to maximize the damage each of her moves could inflict.

  Tilla: 2900 Whammo: 1350

  Whammo’s mouth opened and closed like a stunned goldfish. He looked at his hands and then back to her.

  “I… end my turn.” Whammo said in faltering tones. His voice was uncertain, as if he didn’t know if this was real or some sort of terrifying nightmare he was about to wake up from.

  “I draw.” Tilla said. “My battle phase begins. Vampire Lord, make it hurt.”

  As soon as those final words passed her lips, Tilla let the balled-up rage in her stomach go wild. Her grin sharpened into a fierce, wrathful look that wouldn’t have been out of place on the face of a warring Valkyrie of legend. This. This was what would come of anyone who tried to hurt her Jean.

  Before her, as if completely in tune with his master’s bloodlust, Vampire Lord advanced slowly. His mouth opened, revealing every inch of the gleaming fangs within.

  Whammo bolted. He only made it as far as the door before Vampire Lord reached him, pouncing on his back and dragging the man to the floor in a frenzy of bloodlust that saw scraps of skin flying about the room. Tilla tilted her head to the left just in time to avoid Whammo’s large intestines soaring right through where her head had been a moment earlier to splat against the wall.

  Vampire Lord’s actions were by no means befitting those of a lord, but these were trying times indeed. Tilla would give him a pass for that. While her servant busied himself with his meal, Tilla briskly walked over to the other side of the table to look more closely at the money-counting machine. Yen was still a currency of which she had to take a moment to mentally convert to her home currency of USD. After a couple of seconds, she translated the number on the tiny display on top of the machine to be roughly $1400.

  Not a fortune by any means… Tilla tilted her head in thought. Then again, Jean could use the money to help that kind gentleman Arthur Hawkins rebuild his house…

  She nodded to herself and emptied the money-counting machine. The yen banknotes were stuffed into a small, concealed pocket sewn underneath the waistline of her dress, coming to a rest right beside a small tube of chapstick, a two-piece lockpicking set, and a single-shot Derringer pistol that was small enough to easily conceal within the palm of her hand. So long as Tilla remained cautious with her movements, the pocket was made to be nearly impossible to notice amid the various folds and lines that were naturally a part of the cloth.

  The bayonet was next. Even with all the commotion, the 16-inch blade still gleamed softly under the glow of the bare light bulb illuminating the room. Tilla eased it out of the wood and returned it to its makeshift sheath of the black frilled band wrapped around her right leg just under her thigh. At the same time as the bayonet slid home, Vampire Lord finished with his meal and wordlessly returned to the inside of his card frame for later use. Tilla sighed, the motion letting out all the tension in her body.

  What was Jean up to, she wondered? Had he finished the investigation of his own path, or was he still snooping around? She’d need to think a bit too, about how to sidestep Jean’s typical male pride to make him accept the money. Tilla glanced around the room. It was empty other than her, a small table, two chairs, a bloodstained floor, and a scattered stack of cards. Tilla picked the cards off the floor without looking at them. No sense in loitering down here any longer.

  Tilla quietly opened the door, moving casually as if she had just finished visiting with an acquaintance instead of brutally murdering a scum-sucking worthless trash heap of an arsonist, a creature that couldn’t even be considered to be human.

  The second duel in Blue Friday had come to an end with the victory of Tilla Mook.

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