Failure, failure, failure! You didn’t protect Laurel. You didn’t protect Imogene! Your wife and child could be dead!
My heart is shattering and somehow still beating harder than it’s ever beat before as I fly into the house, phone in my hand. I don’t call 911—I don’t know what the police would even see if they arrived here. I don’t know what human cops would do against monsters. I text the Night Watch group.
One word.
Help.
It was the right word. When I enter the house, I’m immediately confronted by inhuman growling and something black and pink rolling past my feet.
“Immy!” I scream.
My wife looks up at me, her beautiful face covered in something like slime and blood. “Laurel!” she spits with one frantic look up the stairs. I leap over a grotesque and gory massand take the stairs three at a time, clawing on my hands and knees to get up the last steps.
Laurel’s crying.
I can hear her.
That means she’s alive. That means I can save her. I tell myself that as I jiggle the knob, but can’t get in.
“Fuck it!” I scream and kick the door just next to the knob, putting all of my welterweight body mass behind it. One, two, my knee screams, my foot throbs, wood splinters, and Imogene lets out a scream from below.
I can’t even say anything. Can’t speak. Don’t know if my wife is dying protecting our daughter—and if I hadn’t gone out without them, if I hadn’t wanted to celebrate this night, this wouldn’t be happening.
Or would he have gotten to us more easily, that massive murdering beast reaching in as we parked at the restaurant? Would he have been trailing us, maybe, watching us somehow? I picture him grabbing Laurel, clawing open Imogene’s throat, attacking from the passenger’s side, and I’m still... helpless. Can’t move fast enough, even in my dreams.
Horrifying sights are playing in my mind, and even though none of them are real, I can’t turn them off. They all could be real.
I race to Laurel and lift her up, wrapping her in my arms as I look out the window.
A dark figure is racing towards my house. Something with wings flies like a dark missile past my window.
I put Laurel under my coat, yank the nursery lamp out of its place on the small bookcase, and hold it in front of me like a weapon.
I have to get the baby out of here. I have to help Imogene.
I can’t do both without risking Laurel’s life. And if something happened to Laurel... Imogene wouldn’t recover. Neither wouldI. A dry sob tears out of my chest as I stand frozen at the top of the stairs and look at the bloody streaks on the floor below.
“Can I come in?” A desperate voice shouts from outside.
“Move, Robert, I’ll go!” Another voice insists.
The front door is filled with a dark, charcoal gray figure—a gargoyle with massive wings.
“Come in!” I hiss, and the pale white supermodel-looking type springs in after him.
“Take the baby outside! Go down to our house, Charlotte is waiting!” The vampire shouts, and I remember that Charlotte and Robbie live in the same townhouse development as us, just a few winding streets away.
I start to obey, running out the door, looking back desperately, hating that I can’t help—and stopping when I hear a horrifying crack.
“Oh!” The gargoyle—Genesis, I think his name is—lets out a startled cry.
The sounds of roaring, screaming, and growling stop.
Milo’s big black pickup screeches up alongside my car. “Artie! You okay?” he shouts, flinging open the door.
“Bad krampus,” I point, mouth barely functioning.
“Shit. I came as fast as I could. I was running errands. Anyone who can get here is on their way! Are you two okay?”
