Everything was going well protecting our local Santas from two-bit villains when some annoying people showed up. I’d just finished zapping a lady who could morph her arms to be super long- which she was obviously using to try to snatch one Santa’s bag- when new trouble showed up suddenly.

  Personally, I thought they picked the wrong target. A giant bat came screeching out of the sky towards Great Girl, only to be smacked onto a nearby rooftop- and that was because she was being merciful. But they didn’t let up, as several more were charging towards her.

  That focused the attention of our group on them, and I couldn’t help but think that it was a bit silly. They weren’t even going after Santa. Obviously they couldn’t do much if they couldn’t take down Great Girl, but what were vampires even doing here?

  I sensed a flicker of magic behind me. Blood magic, like Rositsa used. I spun, gathering mana as I turned. A Sonic Lance blasted right into the upper torso of yet another vampire, causing it to let out a horrifying screech as it spiraled to the ground.

  “I think the vampires found out that I locked up their buddies!” I commented on the comms. That was just about in time for four more to rush me, two from the skies and two in humanoid form climbing over the edge of the rooftop.

  I didn’t hear any gunshot as one head snapped backwards. Fortunately, that meant I’d drawn some of the right sort of attention. That was good, because three more were rushing towards me and I couldn’t move. My blood was wrestling with me.

  Physical Freedom seemed like a good idea, but as I gathered mana I estimated that Stoneskin would be more important. Hopefully it could take the material components from my pockets, because I couldn’t exactly pull them out.

  I thought about trying to activate the dispelling ability of my staff at the same time, but I might remove my defenses accidentally- either previous ones or the just-activating Stoneskin.

  Teeth chomped into my neck as I locked eyes with the one flying giant bat who was somehow avoiding Mono’s shots. I was fairly certain there was nothing supernatural about his aim, but there also shouldn’t be a ton to give away his trajectory.

  The one gnawing on my neck- fruitlessly- got blasted in the back with a bolt of fire, and the other one never reached me, instead being tossed through the air towards the flying one. Great Girl was still being harassed by several other vampires.

  I didn’t like the way that the vampire seemed to be trying to rip my blood directly out of me, and I continued to gather mana frantically for another spell. Choosing a good spell in the spur of the moment was important training, but sometimes I just went with my instincts. I wasn’t confident Physical Freedom would resist that ability, or that any of my spells could cause significant harm by themselves. This guy was clearly stronger than the others.

  I knew that vampires didn’t like fire, so I looked the guy directly in the eyes and used my biggest fire spell. I only had two, since I didn’t know Meteor Swarm yet. Firebolt was one, and the other was… Fire Shield.

  Was it weird to use a defensive spell on an enemy? Absolutely. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that Energy Ward was a pretty good offensive spell. I didn’t think about the fact that Fire Shield didn’t hurt the target.

  The instant the orb of fire surrounded the vampire in giant bat form, I heard a shrill screech. It wasn’t just noise though. It was a lot of cussing. I only caught some of it because it was frankly too loud, but there were things like ‘sun-damned’, ‘angel lover’ and other weird things thrown in there. As if the guy hadn’t seen me freezing angels. But hey, people weren’t always rational.

  He dropped out of sight right away, and while I’d tried to make the Fire Shield hurt him, I don’t actually think it did. There was only a small smell of burning from right next to me, and no trailing smoke cloud.

  What an expensive distraction. I cracked a few more minions upside the head with my staff now that I could move. How were there so many vampires? The blood circle had been pretty huge, but why did they all care about this guy and their murderous brethren? What a pain.

  And these guys didn’t even know they were supposed to be going after Santa. Speaking of which, he’d ended up on this roof and was taking shelter from the ongoing combat. I thought he was already done with this apartment complex.

  I scurried over to Santa, checking him over with my magical senses to make sure he wasn’t some sort of decoy. Yeah, he felt like the collective consciousness of a supernaturally active area given physical form, so he was legit. “Where do you need to get to?” I asked.

  He reached into his pack. “For you.”

  “Oh, right. Does it have to be now?”

  “Your apartment complex is annoying to enter,” Santa commented.

  Was it the defensive wards or the lack of chimneys? Well, the latter didn’t seem to stop him pretty much anywhere else. Santa’s hands were covered in extremely impractical mittens, but he still scooped out something and dropped it into my own hands.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It was a lump of coal.

  “... Am I on the naughty list this year? What did I do?”

  Even Swarm had gotten socks, and he was a proper villain. Was it because I killed someone? But Handface kept coming after me, and I hadn’t heard something like that.

  But Santa just smiled and turned away. It wasn’t a great way to get me to not do whatever I did again. I shoved the coal into my pocket to deal with later. There were vampires to fight.

  I ran over to the edge where Midnight was shooting lasers. “Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked. Pretty much any angle would hit a building- and the rest would hit the street.

  “Limited range,” Midnight commented.

  “But lasers-”

  “They’re not all actually lasers,” he said.

  I needed to get cool alien upgrades. The Celmothians would probably make something for me if their stuff was at all meant to function for humanoids. But it wasn’t, so…

  The primary vampire guy had finally stopped screaming. Relatedly, his Fire Shield had faded and I could tell he wasn’t scorched at all. What a pansy, Rositsa had dealt with it just fine. At least it had taken him some time to disentangle himself from the spell. Probably through active rejection. ‘Friendly’ spells could be resisted just like others, there just usually wasn’t a reason to do so. The same was true here… at least it had been a good distraction.

  “Can you take care of the guys climbing up that side?” I gestured for Midnight. I summoned a couple copies of Mage’s Reach, sending the semi-visible hands towards the head vampire guy. “I’ll hold off this guy.”

  Mono was helping with anything at roof level or above, but he’d have to move from his perch to fight this guy. Grasp was still flinging some of these guys into each other. Even if they weren’t trying to steal Christmas, they were still a problem.

  The vampire guy definitely tried to rip the blood out of Mage’s Reach or otherwise control them, but they were just magic. He did manage to twist himself to avoid both of them in a very concerning way. How fast was he? He was looking at me in a way that made me feel like he wanted to manually rip out my blood, with either his teeth or claws.

  I cast Haste. This guy was an expensive opponent.

  Mage’s Reach came up from behind, and I managed to grab one wing- only one, even though I was Hasted. I couldn’t twist them both in front of him like I wanted, and he managed to continue forward and upward with just one wing while tearing the other from my grip.

  I needed to learn an anti-Fly spell. I needed to learn a million things, probably. But I had what I had, and since he didn’t like fire one of the floating hands shot him in the back with a Firebolt. At his upwards angle, if I had missed I should have hit sky. As it was, I only grazed the top of his shoulder… but as he twisted his head my other hand connected again with Shocking Grasp.

  With Haste I could vaguely match his speed, and it was becoming clear he had fast reflexes and excellent vision. Probably enhanced hearing. But he wasn’t good at sensing magical constructs.

  I couldn’t really conserve mana against this guy, so I tried something I knew would be expensive. Perhaps in multiple ways, depending how I missed. Two hands and my staff aimed. Unfortunately, even though I could cast from pretty much anywhere I was less good at aiming from arbitrary points. I didn’t have to release magic from my hands or staff, but the angles were weird otherwise.

  Fifteen points of mana for Multicast Sonic Lance. Two from behind, one from me in front. Once again, something I had never done but was certain would work. One out of three clipped him, but it was enough for him to shriek and change his trajectory- flying off between two far buildings. I did understand that the shriek meant ‘retreat’. Convenient, that Translation was always on.

  I tried to chase him with Mage’s Reach, but the range wasn’t enough and I would definitely damage the buildings if I tried any sort of attack from them. With his call for retreat, I could see that other vampires were jumping down into the streets, catching themselves upon wings and gliding away rapidly. There would be more than a few left behind, but we’d have to call for additional restraints. We’d already gone through our expected allotment.

  I felt something. Someone appeared on the other side of the roof. Teleportation, and a recognized form of it. It wasn’t an ally, though, but instead a large cyborg reaching for Midnight.

  “Flasher!” I called out. Midnight spun behind him as I gathered most of my remaining mana for Dimensional Anchor. Midnight leapt back, still under the effects of Haste with me.

  Flasher looked me dead in the eye, arms still reaching for Midnight, before he disappeared from view moments before my spell took form. That guy was too fast. Shouldn’t it take time to charge up teleportation stuff? Maybe he’d been instantly charging it but then… why would he want to snatch Midnight?

  I didn’t like that at all. I also didn’t like being out of mana, but there I was, my last bit of mana flung uselessly at nothing. If Flasher had instead gone invisible, Dimensional Anchor should have at least connected with him.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said to Midnight, scooping him up onto my shoulder. I kept my senses out for anyone popping in or out of teleportation nearby, but it seemed Flasher had gone beyond easy sensory range. Which probably wasn’t that hard, given everything else happening. “Grasp, can you bring us over to the next building over?”

  I looked down into the alley that still had a number of hopefully-unconscious vampires.

  Grasp picked me up, a comfy telekinetic grip that carried me to the next roof, near Great Girl. Once I was pretty sure nobody was close enough to overhear, I continued.

  “I’m out of mana. Midnight…”

  “Pretty low,” he said. “And my suit needs to charge.”

  A voice came over the comms. “Local Santas appear to have finished their deliveries. It’s a fine time for everyone to withdraw. Anyone who still has some more in them can help mop up the remaining areas of issue.”

  At least we’d lasted for most of the evening. Before the end I’d been able to be conservative with my mana but still effective. That simply wouldn’t have been possible at lower level, because even conservative uses were quite expensive.