Vampire. Why did it have to be a vampire? The cold creatures gave Blake the creeps. Disgusting little fucking bloodsuckers. Parasites. They didn't however, stop him or even slow him down. Wooden stakes were a nice traditional touch, a nod at a different kind of slayer. Humans, however, those could be killed in any number of ways. The two Yakuza guards outside the chamber door went down with broken necks. Inside, the crime syndicate boss and his most elite fighters were waiting. Blake knew what they did in there to impress other clan members. He knew that a killer even more deadly than the fang face himself was kept caged like a pet.
Even before Blake had hung up his sword in retirement, he would have been opposed to this arrangement. Dragons as pets? No. It was disgraceful. Blake would have readily saved this one from its position by cutting it in two, but now he was here to do something he'd never done in his career: let it go free.
"The door!" Someone shouted, alerted to the sound of dropping bodies. A heavy kick to the panel knocked over two other guards who had come to block the door and Blake came through, two more stakes finding their marks. The warriors attacked and finally Blake was forced to go on the defensive. There were many things that someone like Blake learned from traveling around and one of them was that the boss of any kind of gang from any country or culture was almost always a paranoid that someone wanted his job. In this case, it meant that the vampire kept human guards, and that paranoia was an easy advantage to the Dragonslayer.
Someone pulled a knife and nearly took Blake in the gut before he caught it. The crunch of wrist bones elicited a scream. Then the blade was reversed and sliced the man from torso to chin. Blake kicked him over and blood splattered, the guard choking on it. The other guards eventually followed suit, one at a time meeting their end at Blake's hand. The crime boss was on his feet when he realized this was a losing fight, but before he could escape or use his vampire speed to attack, Blake withdrew the wooden stake and threw it like a javelin, catching the vampire high in the shoulder and flinging him back with a thud, pinned against the carved frame of the trapped dragon's prison.
Blake could see her in there, a young green, holding still as though she was listening. While the vampire tried to get the wood out of his body, cursing Blake in Japanese, Blake stalked towards him and pulled out a second stake. He ignored the threats, the bribes, and even the promise to give the dragon over willingly as long as Blake promised to let him go.
"Sleep tight." Blake shoved the stake into the vampire's dead heart. All the was left was a pile of clothes and ash. The stakes didn't even have a trace of blood on them.
It took Blake a moment to figure out how to get the cage opened. He went in cautiously, unsure how she - he recognized her female markings in her scales - might react, unsure how she had been treated. She looked well fed, at least. The smell inside the mirrored cage was strong of dragon and dead animals. It was the same smell Blake had encountered when walking into a dragon's lair. He took a step inside and then stopped. Hardly daring to take his eyes off the dragon and look around the tiny space, Blake realized what the cage was for. So they could see in but she couldn't see out.
"Be still," Blake spoke fluent draconic and knew from his studies that dragons spoke it straight out of the shell. "I am Blake, your friend, here to take you home."