Myth-ion Improbable by Robert Lynn Asprin

“Leila took me dimension-hopping with her, showed me hundreds of different places, taught me some basics of magik, then got killed by an assassin.”

I could tell from the look in Harold’s eyes that even though that had been some time ago, he still missed her. And might even have been in love with her.

“So after she was killed I got a D-Hopper and came back here. The magik block over this old castle was pretty basic, intended to just keep Count Bovine and my people out. But I had been trained in some magik, so I got in, knocking the block down.

“A little knowledge can be dangerous,” Aahz said, glancing at me.

It was my turn to ignore him.

“It sure can be,” Harold said. “I sat up house right here and found the room you stayed in last night, and started learning about what had happened to my people. And the more I read, the more convinced I became to try to save my people and wipe out the vampires once and for all.”

“In other words,” Tanda said, “you started the war again.”

Harold nodded at Tanda’s blunt statement. “Basically, I did. Yes.”

“So what went wrong?” Aahz asked.

“Count Bovine came back,” Harold said.

“What?” I said. “How could he? He’d have to be thousands and thousands of years old.”

“He is,” Harold said.

Aahz stared at me. “When are you going to get it through your head that powerful vampires, like powerful magicians, live a very long time?”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Go on with your story.”

“I actually didn’t know that Count Bovine could be alive either,” Harold said. “Since I was free from the magical spell that kept the cows safe, I started gathering up help. One by one, I gathered a gang, broke the spell over them, and started planning. When there were about fifty of us, all trained and on horseback, we set about rounding up cows and killing them.”