Across the room, Dominic slammed Boarstaff against the wall with enough force to crack the obsidian surface. Boarstaff's head snapped back, blood spraying from his mouth. The knife fell from his fingers. Dominic's brass-tipped fingers closed around Boarstaff's throat, applying steadily increasing pressure.
Forty seconds until alarms.
Sebastian dragged himself toward the fallen knife, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through his body. Zarek followed, unhurried, confident in his superiority, his own blade held casually at his side. Sebastian's fingers closed around the knife handle just as Zarek's foot came down on his wrist, pinning it to the floor.
"Disappointing." Zarek applied precisely calculated pressure to the delicate bones.
Sebastian's wrist snapped. Pain lanced up his arm. But in that moment of agony, his body responded with something hisfather's improvements had never accounted for, raw, desperate survival instinct.
Sebastian twisted violently, accepting the damage to his broken wrist as he wrenched free of Zarek's pin. He drove the knife upward with his other hand, aiming for the regulatory node at the base of his brother's skull.
Zarek was faster, dropping his own blade to catch Sebastian's wrist before the knife could connect. He bent Sebastian's arm back with inexorable force, the knife turning toward Sebastian's own throat.
"Father will salvage what he can." Zarek pushed the blade closer.
Twenty seconds until alarms.
Across the room, Boarstaff's struggles weakened as Dominic's grip cut off his air. His face darkened, eyes bulging as consciousness began to fade.
Sebastian stared up at his brother's face, at the mechanical precision that had replaced whatever Zarek had once been. At the emptiness in eyes that had witnessed centuries without truly seeing. At the brother who had ceased to be a brother long ago.
The knife trembled between them, inching closer to Sebastian's throat despite his desperate resistance.
Ten seconds.
Sebastian released his grip on the knife.
Zarek, anticipating continued resistance, overcompensated. The sudden lack of opposition threw him off-balance for a fraction of a second. All Sebastian needed. He drove his hand up under Zarek's jaw, fingers finding the seam where brass met flesh. He dug in, tearing through the recent repairs from his previous attack.
Zarek dropped the knife, grabbing Sebastian's arm to pull it away. But Sebastian had found what he sought, the secondaryregulatory node that controlled jaw function. He ripped it free, taking chunks of brass and flesh with it.
Zarek staggered back, dark fluid spraying from the wound. His jaw hung loose, mechanisms failing. Sebastian forced himself to his feet, swaying as blood loss and system shock threatened to overwhelm him.
Five seconds.
He grabbed the fallen knife and drove it into Zarek's chest, between the brass plates that protected his vital systems. The blade slid through with sickening ease, finding the primary regulator beneath. Zarek convulsed as systems failed catastrophically. His mechanical eyes flickered, adjusting and readjusting before going dark.
Zarek made a sound no vampire should be capable of making – raw, primal, unregulated. His body convulsed, brass components sparking beneath his skin as systems failed. Dark fluid leaked from his mouth, his nose, his ears, places where brass met flesh. He collapsed face-first onto the obsidian floor.
Zero seconds.
But the alarms didn't sound.
Sebastian turned to see Dominic still holding Boarstaff against the wall, but his brother's attention had shifted to Zarek's fallen form. Something flickered across Dominic's mechanical features. Not emotion, his regulators would prevent that, but perhaps the ghost of a response his systems couldn't quite suppress.
Sebastian didn't hesitate. He charged across the room, driving his knife into Dominic's back with all his remaining strength. The blade slid between brass components, severing connections to his brother's regulatory systems.
Dominic released Boarstaff, turning with unnatural speed despite the knife embedded in his back. His brass-tipped fingers closed around Sebastian's throat, lifting him off his feet withmechanical strength that even catastrophic damage couldn't diminish. His ceremonial dagger hovered near Sebastian's temple.
Sebastian's vision darkened as Dominic's grip tightened. Through the haze, he saw Boarstaff struggle to rise, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
Dominic's mechanical eyes fixed on Sebastian's, components whirring as they focused and refocused. Sebastian knew his brother was analyzing him, calculating the precise pressure needed to kill without damaging salvageable components.
Then Dominic's grip failed as Boarstaff drove the examination table into his legs with desperate strength. Sebastian fell to the floor as his brother staggered. Boarstaff snatched up Zarek's fallen blade and drove it into Dominic's throat, severing the brass components that regulated his central systems.
Dark fluid bubbled from Dominic's lips as he collapsed, body twitching as his components tried to compensate for catastrophic damage.
Silence fell over the chamber. Sebastian lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath him, each breath sending fresh waves of agony through his broken ribs. Boarstaff stood over Dominic's body, knife still gripped in his hand, blood streaming from his nose and split lip.
