My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

A Bird's Eye View

It ought to be impossible, but BIRD was smiling as it watched Luca fling Fabulo around like a toddler smashing a doll in a particularly energetic temper tantrum. The vampire made a delightful thump every time he crashed agains the cobbled street, and mewed impotently after Luca finished with his fun.

But amusement couldn't fully replace BIRD's confustication, and it fidgeted irritably on its perch on a nearby lamppost. Carefully laid plans, and months of preparation had been unravelled by that slick, shirtless werewolf with the same sort of ease he disrobed a socialite. Getting a billionaire murdered, shocking BIRD with the revelation that Luca is the most responsible person in the known universe, and then casually buying off their mercenary force were too implausible to simply be coincidence or good fortune.

BIRD wasn't sure if it was a very clever werewolf, or an author's plot protection. It could see the old vampire, Alcuard, coming up with that caliber a scheme. Even Viviana, Luca's hyper-competent 'secretary' who seemed to enjoy pretending to be a sexretary, might have come up with a plan that clever. But Luca?

In the meantime, a vampire began to charge at Viviana. No, not charging, that would imply a certain amount of vigour that sickly billionaire didn't possess. Is there a word for an asthmatic drunk's wheezing stagger? No, but there ought to be. Viviana was giving the oncoming vampire all the attention a teenager normally gives to their teacher in class, and pulled a spray bottle out of her bag of holding.

She shook the bottle, pointed it a the vampire, and sprayed.

And the vampire burst into flames. He burned like a Margaret Atwood book at a Neo Nazi rally, and was nothing but stripper glitter in less time than it took BIRD to hop in genuine shock.

BIRD blinked in surprise and looked closely at the bottle in Viviana's hand. And read the label just as the secretary replied.

"Spray tan." The revelation nearly made BIRD throw up its circuits.

Viviana started to pull more things out of that bag of holding. A wooden block shaped like a T-bone steak, several crosses and other religious symbols, a small assortment of aerosol sprays, a bottle of caffeine powder, hypodermic needles, a bottle of something similar to orange juice, and a jar of Turkish delight.

BIRD turned away in disgust. Vampires really did suck. It raised its gossamer metallic wings and pushed itself into the air, away from the inevitably absurd fight. It flew up a little, until it spied Isabella jogging towards Alcuard's palace, and followed.

After all, Isabella was about to use this mysterious technology to fly the city towards the dawn, which would dust all of BIRD's allies in this venture.

BIRD frowned at that. Dust them, but they turn into glitter. Glitter them? No, too many connotations of small children making a mess with sparkles and glue. Glitterfied? Glittered? Glitzed? No, glitzed is actually a word.

BIRD was slightly appalled with itself when it realized it was preparing to dedicate a petawatt of RAM to solving that pointless quandary. Literary issues were beneath the concerns of machines, it was why writing was left to the meat bags.

It took only a dozen seconds to catch up to Isabella. BIRD flew through the open door, buzzed into the room, and landed on a chandelier well out of Isabella's reach. Isabella whirled about when she saw it enter Alcuard's palatial entrance hall, and grabbed at her side like she was wishing she had a pistol there.

"I'll slag ya if I catch ya," Isabella warned it in a sing-song tone. BIRD was taken aback by how menacing she managed to make that sound.

"You don't think that would be a kindness at this point?" BIRD asked as if fluttered towards the elevator. "I've been reduced to working with a cabal of billionaire vampires. Because I suspect my universe was created by a lazy hack of a writer who didn't win the 2019 Wattys and is taking it out on all of creation."