I stare at his hand on my arm, then at his face. “Are you—I don’t have time for this.”
His fingers dig deeper into my arm. “I won’t let you throw your life away for?—”
“You used me as bait.” I shove him back hard enough that he stumbles.
Sienna’s strength is failing. I grab a leather-bound Bible and hurl it at the man attacking her. It hits his shoulder with a dull thud. Not what I was aiming for.
“Hey!” I yell. “Over here! Look at me.”
The thing’s head swivels toward me, mouth hanging open in a grotesque parody of hunger while Sienna sags against the font, gasping for breath.
Good. I’ve?—
Two more of these things shuffle from between the pews toward me. One’s a woman in a floral dress, Mrs. Abernathy, who brought homemade cookies to every school function. The other’s a teenage boy in a suit too big for his frame, blood soaking through his white shirt.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I didn’t think this through.
My heels slip on the marble floor as I backpedal, searching for another weapon. Bible’s are too soft. There’s nothing?—
My eyes land on a heavy brass candlestick. I wrap my fingers around its base. Solid. The thing, who was on Sienna before, reaches me.
Behind it, Sienna forces herself upright, her face pale.
“Run!” I shout at her.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she goes after the thing, trying to yank it back. “Asshole!”
The man whirls, faster than something so wrong should move, and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, hitting the leather. She screams, shoving her arm under its jaw.
I don’t think. Don’t care about the other two.
I run forward, candlestick raised high, and swing it like I’m going for a home run. The brass connects with the back of the thing’s skull with a sickening crack. It releases Sienna, staggering sideways.
I swing again. And again. Until it drops to the marble floor and doesn’t get up.
Sienna stares at me, eyes wide, chest heaving, and holding her shoulder. Blood and gray matter splatter her jacket, her face, her hair. She looks like she stepped out of a horror movie.
“You—” she starts, but then her face crumples. “Behind you!”
I spin as Mrs. Abernathy lunges for me, teeth snapping. I hit her on the chin, and she stumbles into a pew but rights herself.
The boy is faster, fingers clutching at my torn dress and trying to get a bite out of it.
I heave the candlestick back and swing it at the boy’s head. The brass connects with a wet crack that turns my stomach. His skull caves inward, dark fluid spattering across my face and body. He drops like a stone.
My breath comes in ragged gasps. Blood and bits of… something else… drip from the candlestick. I feel numb, disconnected, like I’m watching someone else murder a teenager in a church.
“No!” Sienna’s voice cuts through the fog.
I turn to see Mrs. Abernathy lunging at me again, her floral dress soaked with blood, mouth stretched impossibly wide. My arms feel like lead weights.
I won’t be fast enough?—
Julien materializes from nowhere, ramming into Mrs. Abernathy with brutal force. They crash into a pew, splintering wood. She snaps and claws at him, but he pins her thrashing body with one arm across her throat and drives a letter opener straight through her eye.
Mrs. Abernathy goes still.
He rises, blood splattered across his face and suit, letter opener still clutched in his hand as his eyes scan me from head to toe.
