“Don’t know,” Jack muttered, sitting back on his heels, staring in disbelief at the scene before him.
Carla held a manicured hand over her mouth. “Is he—Is he dead?”
“No,” said the yellow-eyed man simply. “But he’ll wish he was.”
Boris looked from Jack, to Enzo, to the yellow-eyed man. “We need to end this,” he said. “How do we end this?”
An answering shrug. “Like you said. We must cut off the head of the snake… and destroy it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jack, reaching to brush his bangs from his forehead. Boris made a sound halfway between a yelpand a snarl, and Jack found himself once again staring down the barrel of a gun.
“Don’t fucking move.”
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Jack promised, raising his bloody palms. His knees ached where he rested on them. Beneath his torn trousers, he was sure a bruise had bloomed. “I didn’t—that wasn’t me.”
“Yeah,” said Boris, breath hitching. “I know it wasn’t you. I don’t care. Don’t fucking move.”
“I promise,” Jack said, trying to catch his eye, imploring.
“I can assure you that you will never again see this man do something like that,” said the yellow-eyed man coolly. “He’s physically weak. Uncoordinated. But easily controlled.”
Jack tried to smile and accidentally displayed all of his teeth. Carla sobbed.
“Don’t fucking possess people,” Boris snarled. The gun wavered in his hand.
“I make no promises,” said the yellow-eyed man, shaking his head. “What must be done will be done. We should move on.”
“To what?” Boris demanded.
A wave of exhaustion crashed over Jack, made his bones unbearably heavy. With it came a rush of adrenaline, charging through him like an electric shock.
“We lure the beast,” said the yellow-eyed man, slow grin unfurling.
“It’s simple,”said the yellow-eyed man. “We wait for Enzo to sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping,” said Enzo stubbornly, glaring outside the circle. “You can’t make me.”
Jack cast a guilty glance at Carla. Ronnie lay in a pool of blood, his head pillowed on Enzo’s lap. Whatever terrible, rotting curse had been cast was dispelled. For all that Enzo moaned about all his missing bits and pieces, he appearedreasonably intact. A few teeth, a fingernail, the tip of a nose—all things that time or plastic surgery could restore.
But Enzo isn’t going to survive, Jack reminded himself, crestfallen. He bore no love for the short, tubby man in the circle, but this was a fate no one deserved. Even Enzo, who might have killed his lover and summoned the vampire to Hidden Cove but surely did not comprehend its abilities.
Chose to disregard it, whispered the voice in the back of Jack’s mind.He knew it was wrong and did it anyway.
But Jack couldn’t imagine putting someone to death for their ignorance, no matter how willful. Perhaps he was too kind, too understanding, but the thought ofanyonebeing consumed by thatthingmade him physically sick.
There was no way to fight against the yellow-eyed man. No way to battle someone who could disintegrate flesh or take control of someone else’s limbs like a child playing with a rag doll.
Carla sat on the couch, gun in her lap, black tears cascading down her face. “Ronnie,” she would mumble occasionally, her gaze flitting to Jack, then back to the wall.
Maybe it was a mistake to assume that Carla was intimately familiar with the ways of the mafia. That she’d seen terrible things and shrugged them off like the dregs of a nightmare. Maybe she knew how to shoot. Maybe she’d seen a death or two. But she couldn’t possibly be accustomed to this sort of violence. Not when she reacted like this, limp and afraid.
Boris moved to stand beside Jack and reached tentatively for his shoulder. “You OK?”
“No,” Jack mumbled, afraid to look away from the yellow-eyed man, lest he find that his limbs were not his own once more.
“I know,” Boris said, squeezing the inside of his elbow. “I know. It’s OK.” The reassurance was more for himself than for Jack, as were the tiny circles he rubbed on his arm. Still, the motion was grounding, and Jack leaned into it.
He wanted to call to Carla, to pull her into his arms and keepher there until she came back to herself. Anything would be better than this—anger, hatred, despair.
