All Baco thinks about is tearing things apart and eating them. He likes me and Sadie. But when I was in him, it wasn’t words and thoughts like when I was merged with her. It was feelings and urges. The urge to run tusks through something and shred it. There was the need to stand between the Siren and Sadie, a built-in defensiveness, protecting his clan. I also inherently knew that Baco’s vitality rating is absurdly high compared to my own. That dude can take a beating.

  All in all, it truly wasn’t a completely unpleasant experience.

  The halls have been lit by crystal moss and by torch. Dom 2.0 is strong and my endurance is way better than any prior version of me, but I need sleep. I’ve been in this maze anywhere from eight to fifteen hours, I didn’t sleep before the presentation because I was doing all the work, and I’m starting to feel it. My guess is sleep will be accelerated, the same way healing is. I may only need two hours to be fully rested. But that means two hours of who knows what showing up. Sadie yawns. I yawn. Dammit. We need a break. I wasn’t sure she would need sleep. Baco only wants to gore things, I don’t recall him wanting a nap when I was in there. If we sleep in shifts, we still need a place we can safely be for maybe six hours. We need a small side chamber with one easily defended and watched entrance so we can’t get jumped from multiple angles.

  “We need a place to make camp and sleep,” I declare.

  She nods. “Agreed.”

  Baco laps up water from a trickle coming down the side of a sculpted wall. Could be that there’s a water source nearby, or it could mean that it’s damp down here and sometimes it puddles up.

  We pass side passage after side passage as our journey takes us back to rougher walls and cave like tunnels again. I leave a few dots in a triangle configuration at each intersection to show which way we continue from it. I’m getting to the point that I’m afraid my fatigue is going to affect my fighting and cognition. I stop and stretch.

  “We need a place soon,” I say. “I’m exhausted. Unless you have an herb or something to wake me up. I could seriously use an energy drink.”

  The sound of her palm against my cheek echoes up the hallway.

  “Sadie! What the hell?”

  “You awake now?” she asks. “That should wake you up.”

  “No, now I’m tired and pissed off.” I rub my cheek. I know the sting will go away way faster than if we were in California, but it still hurts. “Bondlings don’t hit their summoner, okay? That’s not good.”

  “Woke you up.”

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  “Not the way I meant.”

  “Just trying to be helpful.”

  “Help less.”

  Her ears, which seem slightly longer than before her growth spurt, go down at the ends. She turns away, looking like a puppy that’s been yelled at.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” I say. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “If you want,” she says, “I can always listen to orders and nothing more.”

  “No. When you leapt around, taking out those bats, you came up with that idea on your own. I want you to do that, not just follow orders. I’m not your master like that. You’re Sadie, independent from me. Unless we merge, and that’s something completely different that I don’t know yet. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re on a leash or anything.”

  She nods.

  “We good?” I ask.

  She recoils. “Was slapping you evil? I didn’t want that. I’m not evil, Dom, I swear it.”

  “I mean are we clear. We work together. We take care of each other.”

  “I’m sorry I slapped you.”

  “Apology accepted. Now let’s find a place to rest.”

  After a little more wandering, we find our campsite. It’s a rough room, more oval than rectangle, off the corridor. Could be a small storage area or something. I have to duck to get in. Big enough for the three of us and easily defended. It’s dark, little crystal moss on the ceiling and no torches at all.

  “You rest first,” I say. Baco has already curled up against a far wall.

  She nods. “Wake me when you need me.”

  “I will. And I won’t even slap you.”

  She goes to the back wall by Baco and sits with her back against it. I don’t know where her poof of a tail goes when she sits. She yawns, adjusts her toga a few times and closes her eyes.

  There is absolutely zero chance I was going to tell her, but that slap woke me right up, there is no way I was ready for a nap.

  I must be tired though, because I swear something moved outside our little bedroom. It wasn’t clear, more like a shadow or something went by. I step into the corridor, spear ready. I concentrate and look up each direction, trying to trigger my perception skill.

  Nothing.

  I’m about to duck back into the bedroom when I hear a repetitive squeak, like the unoiled wheel of that shopping cart that won’t go straight. I stare into the dark.

  Bats. It’s a small assault squad of those stupid, giant bats flurrying up the hall. But this time, the ceiling isn’t high enough for them to be overhead more than a few feet. This passage isn’t wide, they can’t zig zag around me. They have little choice in their path. In an open room where they have reign of the air, I have problems. These guys are funnelling right at me in decent stabbing range, I’ve levelled up skills and I have a fresh new spear. No need to wake the team.

  Diagonal stab to the upper left. Got the first through the wing. He flaps right into the wall. Second, my aim is better, coming over my head, gut shot. Third careens past me, raking my bicep after he dodges my thrust. I’m pissed and mis aim against the forth, who clamps his little puppy jaws into my neck.

  Stake.

  Using my now shortened spear, I run right through the jerk on my neck and he instantly releases his tiny bite. Bonus – if it’s really a vampire, I just staked him. On the other hand, that better not be a vampire, I love garlic.

  I spin to take on number three, swipe a notification out of view and reshape the stake to a spear. It extends directly into his tiny screaming mouth. I push to the ceiling and, viola, bat-kebab.

  Which was way cooler before the blood, bile, and bat guts ran down the spear and all over my arm.

  I go back to the first bat and stab him in the chest to shut up his mewling. I look up the hall. No more bats.

  I check in the bedroom to see two soundly sleeping bondlings. Baco twitches and burps.