Jack bolted across the room until he was only a few feet from the rug and pivoted. He kept his gaze glued to the floor, where pale moonlight crept beneath the curtains, twisting in an impossible breeze.
“Hell no,” said Enzo. “Hellfuckingno! You didnotjust lead that thing to me?—”
This wasn’t going to work. There was no way?—
But the vampire’s hungry gaze found Ronnie, unmoving. Her feet twisted, bony toes angling toward the circle. Jack closed his eyes, pleaded for his life to any god willing to listen.
For now, he was stronger than Enzo, than Ronnie. Not the easiest target. But he was still surprised when the vampire drifted past him and onto the rug.
“Fuck, no!” Enzo screamed, and it was only then that Jack dared to look up.
The vampire ignored Ronnie entirely, her black eyes locked on Enzo.
Jack winced. Wished that he could say it wouldn’t hurt, that it would be quick. Because it would hurt until it didn’t, and after that? He didn’t want to know.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead, voice cracking.
Then there were hands on his shoulders, turning him away from the sight of the creature descending on Enzo—no longer struggling, just staring in wide-eyed fascination.
Was that what Jack had looked like caught in her grasp?
“We gotta go.” Boris’s voice cut the silence. “We don’t need to watch, let’s just fucking go.”
Enzo whimpered. Fabric shifted, then tore. Jack couldn’t bear to look.
“No!” snarled the yellow-eyed man, whipping to face them. “We aren’t done here.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Boris’s voice turned pleading, panicked. His hand clenched Jack’s, fingers spasming.
“You agreed. We have to cut off the head.”
“I did not volunteer to do any head-cutting,” said Boris, voice wavering. “Neither did he.”
The yellow-eyed man knelt to rifle through his bag, coming up with a canister of gasoline, a jar of salt, a lighter. “I think you can handle it.”
“Oh shit,” said Jack. Terror flared in his gut.
“Don’t worry,” said the yellow-eyed man. “Your girlfriend already left. Fled the scene like a criminal.”
“I thought we couldn’t leave,” said Jack, staring numbly at the can of gas.
“Wards are down. We don’t need them anymore.”
A terrible slurping sound came from within the circle. Enzo moaned.
The canister was thrust into Jack’s hand. “Pour,” the yellow-eyed man instructed, and Jack once again found he couldn’t resist, dropping Boris’s hand quite against his will as he approached the circle.
No one reacted as gasoline splashed across the rug. The scent of it catapulted him back to his childhood, sitting in the back seat of the family station wagon, staring out the window and mentally tracing the shapes of the gas pumps as his mother filled their tank.
He had no more power now than he did then, when he went where his parents went, ate what they provided, slept when they allowed. Now he was at the mercy of the yellow-eyed man and the gangsters who permeated this town, feeling just as lost as he did back then.
When the canister was empty, and Enzo’s legs were twitching uselessly beneath the vampire’s bony limbs, he turned to face the yellow-eyed man. “Now what?”
“Now we light it,” he said, brandishing the lighter.
“Wait,” said Jack, knees turning to jelly as the yellow-eyed man produced a flame so bright that it burned his eyes. Perhaps it was only a trick of the light, but Jack thought it had an odd greenish tint to it. “Shouldn’t we make sure Carla is safe?”
A gurgle. Jack didn’t know if it came from the vampire or Enzo, and he didn’t want to.
