(I)

All the pieces are coming together, Rollin thought miserably. He trudged home from the hotel, eyes wide open in a dreadful contemplation. He pulled the pendant out from his shirt and touched its surface, then touched the silver ring.

I’ll have to enter the house myself, with a gun if need be …

His surveillance of the annex house had amounted to nothing to night. Through the binoculars, he’d seen Cristina Nichols come in and out of her studio several times later, but that was all. Were those two friends of hers staying the night again? Rollin had only seen the dark-haired woman once. I’m spying on the place from two directions, he thought, and what good has it done me?

Again, he faced the fact: he’d have to enter the house himself, and without the owner’s knowledge. I don’t suppose priests fare well in jail, he chuckled to himself.

The hotel behind him now, full dark stretched down Dessorio Avenue. Traffic and pedestrians seemed strangely scant. When he passed the alley, though, he thought he heard the faintest voice, then a scuffling.

One of the homeless girls?

He squinted in the grainy sodium light. Two wan figures stood by some garbage cans, then—to his disbelief—one of them seemed to disappear. He could tell they were women. Where did she go?

Rollin walked along the edge of the alley, using the shadows to conceal himself. Yes! he thought. He could see the second woman now: greasy-haired, and a T-shirt that read THE DAMNED. It’s them …He froze in the dark and watched, fascinated. Now she was lying on her belly. After a moment she, too, seemed to disappear between the garbage cans.

So that’s where they’ve been hiding the whole time …

He quickened his pace. When he arrived, he could see that the garbage can had been dragged back. From inside the building? It must be. Very carefully he moved the can back and saw the hole in the brick wall, about a foot in diameter.

Rollin was delighted that he’d finally found their hiding place, but…

What now?

He looked at the hole without much confidence. I’m probably too fat to squeeze in there.

Calling the police made the most sense but then that would only bring undue attention in proximity to the house. A lifetime of service to God may well be boiling down to this moment, he considered.

He whispered a brief prayer, then got down on his belly and began to crawl into the hole…

(II)

Vernon didn’t know what induced him to glance down the alley at that precise moment, but when he did he saw what appeared to be a portly figure in black fidgeting on the pavement. Oh, for God’s sake, I guess I better …

He pulled the unmarked into the alley, just one turn before the road that Cristina Nichols lived on. He didn’t know why but he wanted to look at the place, figured he’d stop by and question her tomorrow. But now this…

It is my job, he reminded himself. He parked in the alley and got out. Probably some wino having the D.T.’s, but then he looked close and saw that this person was wearing decent black shoes and slacks. A man, obviously. Vernon shook his head.

He’s crawling into a hole in the wall…

Vernon nudged the man’s leg with his shoe. “Police,” he announced. “Crawl back out of there or I’ll pull you out.”

Amid grunts and scuffs, the portly figure shimmied back out and stood up, clearly embarrassed.

Vernon slumped. It was a priest.

“Uh, uh, good evening, Officer,” the man bumbled in a slight accent that sounded European. “I’m Father John Rollin, of St. Amano’s Church on Dessorio. I can imagine how this appears.”

“Why is a priest crawling into a hole in the wall of an abandoned building at twelve thirty at night?” Vernon tapped his foot. He didn’t smell alcohol, at least.

The priest seemed to ruminate, obviously nervous. “My church was vandalized recently, by several homeless women—”

Suddenly Vernon was all ears.

“—and I just spotted two of them, right here, crawling inside the building.”

Vernon suddenly felt overenergized. He all but grabbed the priest and dragged him to the car. “Really, Officer, I—”

“Bear with me, Father.” Vernon grabbed his flashlight from the car, along with an envelope. “Have you ever seen these homeless women?” He shined the light while the priest examined the photos.

Rollin looked right into Vernon’s face, deadpan. “This is uncanny, Officer. Two of the women in these photos are the same two I just saw crawl into this building. I’m 100 percent certain.”

Vernon suddenly felt weak-kneed.

“And this third woman here”—the priest pointed at the next security picture—“the one with the pink glasses. I’ve seen her in this area many times as well.”

I may have just solved the fucking case, Vernon thought, incredulous. The killers have been using this old Banana Republic as a place to squat…and two of them are in there right now …

“Pardon me, Officer, but is there some reason that you look overjoyed right now?”

Vernon gaped at him. “You wouldn’t understand, Father.” He took out his gun. “Excuse me.” He stepped past the priest and got down on his belly.

“You’re…going in?”

“You were going in, weren’t you?”

“Well, yes…”

“Look,” Vernon said over his shoulder, “if I’m not back in ten minutes, call the Twentieth Precinct, will ya?”

“I’d like to follow you in, if you don’t mind,” Rollin asked uncomfortably.

“Fine, fine. Come on.”

Vernon’s slender build didn’t impede him. He slipped through the hole into a maw of malodorous darkness. Another hole could be seen only a few feet ahead. He plowed the flashlight beam forward, saw distant clutter, then shouted, “Police! Identify yourselves and come out of there!”

There was no sound in response. He waited a moment and listened some more.

Nothing.

This is really stupid, he thought, then crawled through the next hole.

Good God! he thought, gagging. The stench was overpowering. Something dead in here, he knew. The flashlight beam seemed dimmer for some reason. He turned it back to the wall and saw the priest laboriously squeezing his way through.

“What an awful stench…”

“Tell me about it,” Vernon said. Looks like an old boiler room, he noted. A pile of trash filled one corner, while boxes of more trash seemed to partition the room. Smaller boxes and milk crates sat arranged on the floor around a broken television, and there were unlit candle stubs everywhere. Vernon took a step forward and—

Shit!

—almost fell flat on his face. He’d stepped on something that had rolled. Pay dirt, he thought when he shined the light down.

What he’d slipped on was a red magic marker.

“There’s no one here,” the priest said.

“We don’t know that. They could be hiding in the boxes, so be careful.” Vernon slowly nosed around, gun forward.

“I really don’t think there’s anyone here, Officer.” The priest was looking around behind him. “And if they’re not here—”

“Where did they go?” Vernon’s gut clenched when he looked behind several more boxes and saw several broom handles whose ends had been whittled to sharp points. A few whittling knives lay beside them.

“There must be some other access, which makes sense,” the priest said.

“What?”

“Just because…” Rollin’s next words faded as he began to pad around the wall.

But Vernon was already staring. What he’d noticed first were two plastic figurines sitting on the floor. More of Nichols’s dolls …He picked them up without thinking, tainting any fingerprints, and read their bases. Hypothermia Harriet, Leprosy Linda …

Then he turned into another area sectioned off with more boxes. The stench trebled, and when he shined his light toward the wall he felt his heart stop a moment.

“Officer? Could you bring your light over here?” Father Rollin requested.

“No,” Vernon croaked. “I need you to look at this.”

Careful footsteps scuffed.

“God Almighty…”

The flashlight beam hovered across six corpses impaled on broomsticks: two men, four women. Pools of blood congealed at each base, the telltale Christmas tree stands. Two had been impaled upside-down, and all were nude. Most of them had been scrawled on with black, green, and red markers.

Vernon and the priest backed out of the cubby, hacking. Rollin muttered prayers in Latin, in spite of being half in shock, while Vernon reached into his pocket and swore.

“Father, I left my cell phone in the car. I need yours.”

Rollin blinked out of daze. “I—I’ve never owned one.”

“Let’s get out of here so I can call this in.”

“Yes, but…Look at this first.” The priest guided Vernon around more clutter to the wall. “They must’ve left through here.” Vernon held the light while the priest showed him an area low on the wall where two cinderblocks had been prized and pulled out.

“They’re in the house next door,” Rollin said. “Cristina Nichols’s house.”

Vernon’s eyes widened. “You know her?”

“Oh, yes, and I also know that these homeless women have been sneaking in and out of her house for some time now. They’ve been…preparing for something.”

Vernon out of impulse grabbed Rollin’s black shirt. “Is there a nun with them?”

Rollin stalled. “She’s not really a nun. She merely poses as one. Her name is Kanesae.”

Vernon leaned against the wall, to think. “Listen. I have to go in there. I want you to crawl back outside, get my cell phone, and call 911.”

Rollin sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on coming with you, Officer. Your 911 won’t help you, believe me.”

Vernon was about to shove him back outside but his eyes flicked to something around the man’s neck. There was a cross on a chain; behind it, though, was pendant, a small disk showing a dragon strangled by its own tail, and the words:

O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL

Rollin absently touched a ring on his finger, with the same emblem and words. “Let’s go now, both of us. You don’t know what’s happening here.” He crossed himself. “I do.”

(III)

Did Britt hear a voice?

“Singele lui traieste …”

It was more like a dream-sound behind something else: the wind rustling through a dense forest.

And a dog barking…

Britt tried to open her eyes but the dream kept her pinned behind its caul of sheer black. At the same time, though, the lewdest sensations began to crest. What was happening? Her back arched, her hands came desperately to her breasts, and then a ravenous orgasm broke as what could only be a mouth tended to her most private place. Still, there was only utter darkness, and for a moment she received the ghastly impression that she’d just had her orgasm in a closed coffin.

When her hands reached down to run her fingers through Jess’s hair, her eyes finally opened. It took a moment to remember where she was: Cristina’s guest room. That’s right, we spent the night again. She looked down and smiled, still playing with Jess’s hair. “Oh, Jess, honey, that was lovely. You know how much I like it when you surprise me like that…”

“My name’s not Jess, it’s Sandrine,” came a sharp female voice.

Britt sucked in a long deep breath to scream when she saw the dirty face rising from between her legs, some vagabond girl with crusty hair.

When the girl grinned, two narrow fangs flashed.

A hand slapped across Britt’s mouth, stifling the scream. Suddenly two more unkempt, naked women were on her, both grinning with similar fangs.

“You can join the convent, too,” said the one with her hand over Britt’s mouth. Dirty blonde hair, clunky glasses.

A third giggled, “It’s the Nuh-Nuh-New Mother’s time. She’s almost fluh-fluh-fluh-fluh-flesh!”

“Look now,” said the one with the glasses, and she shoved Britt’s head to the right, where Jess lay asleep.

But he was more than asleep, she saw. His skin was pale bluish white, and he lay drained, fang marks pocking both sides of his throat.

“We have the power now,” said the one between her legs, “just like she promised.”

“We-we-we-sucked him dry!”

“Just like we’re gonna do to you,” whispered Glasses, and then all three of them converged, their fanged mouths gnawing Britt’s throat like a dog chewie. She convulsed as she felt her blood being sucked straight into their bellies, and as her vision dimmed, she noticed the figure standing in the doorway.

A nun. A grinning nun.

(IV)

Paul woke in a lurch. Had there been a noise? He sat upright a full minute before his eyes could acclimate. Jesus…His heart was hammering, but…why? Must’ve had a nightmare. Moonlight leaking through the blinds showed him that Cristina wasn’t in bed.

She was acting weird again to night. With my luck she’s going off the deep end. All that crap from her childhood? Who knew what effect that could have on someone years later? He pulled on his robe and went out to the kitchen.

“Cristina?”

He’d half-expected to find her out here with Britt, doing their girl-talk. But the kitchen stood dark save for the light over the stove. Something’s not right, he thought without knowing why the notion came to him. He padded to the guest room, where the door stood open. Jess snores like a polar bear, he realized, but the hall was dead silent. Paul stuck his head in…

He stared for a while at the motionless shapes atop the bed. They’re sleeping, he told himself. Right? But something seemed to drag him in. He felt colder with each step toward the bed, until he was staring down, mouth agape.

“Jess? Britt?”

He nudged Britt’s shoulder in the near-pitch dark, then turned on the light.

What he saw there shoved him out of the room where he collapsed in the hall, but the image followed him: Jess and Britt both naked and pale, their eyes and mouths locked open. Both of their throats had been gnawed deep.

Instinct more than reason shot him back to the kitchen. “Cristina!” he yelled. “Get out of the house!” He picked up the phone to call the police but—

“Shit!”

No dial tone.

The next series of minutes proceeded as a mad blur. His cell phone wasn’t to be found, and neither was Cristina’s. Get out, came the next impulse. Whoever killed them could still be here …But as he raced for the front door, he stopped in his tracks.

I can’t leave without Cristina …

“Where are you?” he bellowed. His mind was a tumult; he couldn’t fix on a single thought. Next, he was staring up the stairs.

A light was on.

The studio…Had she fallen asleep, or had another blackout?

Is she even still alive?

He ran up the stairs, however terrified, and bolted into the room.

Cristina stood in front of the windows, nude. She didn’t move.

“Cristina! Come on! Someone broke into the house and killed Jess and Britt!”

Lying on the floor were several broom handles whose ends had been sharpened to points.

“What the hell is that? Cristina?”

She remained standing utterly still. She didn’t seem to hear him. Paul simply stared as she turned and walked toward her work desks. Her eyes looked glazed.

“What’s wrong with you!”

Paul’s stare was drawn deeper when Cristina opened a drawer. She pulled out a yellowed dog’s skull, kissed it, and set it down.

What on earth …

Her blonde hair dangled when she leaned over again, this time removing a strange stoppered bottle that looked old. She clutched it to her bare bosom, then walked slowly out of the room, never once noticing Paul.

I don’t know what the hell’s happening but …

He had to get out.

Then his eyes widened more. Had it been Cristina who’d killed Britt and Jess? A psychotic episode or something. A schizophrenic break …He went out to the dark hall, and saw Cristina’s white body moving slowly up the stairs, to the unfinished rooms.

Paul screamed when he turned, almost fell over.

Britt and Jess stood before him, both smiling with drawn, white faces. They looked skinny now, sapped. Their gnawed throats had clotted up, and both of them had been scrawled on: wavy lines of black, green, and red trailing up and down their nude bodies.

“She’s getting ready, Paul,” Jess said. “You don’t understand.”

Britt stepped forward. “We didn’t either, until we were brought over by the New Mother.”

Paul’s mouth fell open.

“It’s going to happen tonight…” Britt’s nipples and lips were blue. “But it’s something that was planned a long time ago. All we needed were the chalice and the flagon, and we’ve got them both now.” And finally she grinned openly, showing two long white fangs.

Jess bared fangs as well. “It’s the flagon, Paul, don’t you see? It contains the blood of the Prince, and when Cristina drinks it, the Prince will live again, in her body…”

“It’s miraculous, and we all get to be a part.” Britt’s eyes seemed to burn. “You do, too…sort of.”

Britt and Jess stepped closer.

Britt lifted something off the floor and passed it to Jess. “Submit willingly, and you’ll be held in a higher favor.”

The object she’d given Jess was a sharpened broom handle.

Paul backpedaled, then fell down again. Britt lunged on him, her hands pinning him to the floor; he couldn’t budge against her impossible strength. “Let us take your blood first, then we’ll mount you as a homage to the Prince.”

“You’ll get to live forever, Paul, with us. We’ll all live forever in hell…”

Britt’s mouth opened so wide it seemed as though her jaw came unhinged.

“It only hurts for a minute,” Jess promised.

Paul pushed up, squeezing Britt’s throat as hard as he could, his legs kicking wildly. All the while, though, Britt’s mouth continued to lower. He tried to squirm out from under her, but to no avail. A desperate glance behind him showed him a figure standing in the darkness, as if watching in approval.

The figure looked like a nun…

The tips of two fangs touched Paul’s throat—

“Save some for me,” Jess chuckled.

A voice boomed up the stairs: “O quam magnificum, o domnul …”

Britt hissed, her pale dead face suddenly stamped with disgust. She rolled off Paul and looked up. Jess dropped the broom handle, gagging.

Another hiss sounded from the dark end of the hall.

A thin guy in slacks and a tacky sports jacket came first up the steps, holding a pistol. Behind him came a grayhaired priest.

“Strigoi,” said the priest. “Get thee hence.”

Jess and Britt looked sickened, and when the priest raised a circular pendant of some kind, they both vomited blood, then scurried into the studio. The priest hung the pendant on the inside doorknob, then closed the door.

Paul didn’t know which end was up. “Who are…you?”

“Never mind,” snapped the guy with the gun. “I’m a cop. Where’s Cristina Nichols?”

“I—Upstairs…”

“What did those two tell you?” the priest asked in a faint accent. He pointed to the studio door.

Paul shook the terror out of his head and got up. “Something about…a chalice and—”

“Where is it? It doesn’t look like a regular chalice—it’s just a bowl, a clay bowl.”

The recollection bloomed. “We found it in the basement, then—”

“Then what?” the priest snapped.

“Some woman stole it.”

The cop looked bewildered while the priest looked grim.

“They also said something about a flagon,” Paul added. “They said it had blood in it that they wanted Cristina to

drink.”

“Where is it?”

“She took an old bottle upstairs a few minutes ago.”

“That’s it.” The cop looked up the stairs. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” the priest advised. Were his hands shaking? “We have to…think about this.”

The cop raised his gun. “Let me do the thinking.”

“That will do you little good, Officer.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it…”

“Listen to me,” the priest insisted. “We can’t let Cristina consume the contents of that flagon. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?” Paul asked.

“We’ll have no choice but to kill her.”

“Why!”

“Because it won’t be Cristina anymore.” The priest stared off. “It’ll be someone else.”

And that’s when they heard a voice calling them from downstairs…

(V)

Cristina felt jubilant, eyes wide open as the dark colors swirled. Black. Green. Red. She’d set the flagon down in the first empty room. The figure waited for her.

Kanesae.

“I must show you now. You must see your glorious destiny…”

She was standing in the dream as it whirled around, a dark yet radiant maelstrom. The shimmering lines of black, green, and red churning against the bare walls and her bare skin. When the nun kissed her, Cristina sunk deeper into the evil muse…

“Look. And see…”

Again she’s in the dripping, rock-walled chamber. The man is no longer on the stone slab, and then she remembers that he’d already been dragged out, yet Kanesae remains, bloody-mouthed and enraptured as she carefully pours the blood from the crude chalice into the flagon.

“His blood is alive,” Kanesae whispers.

(VI)

Vernon couldn’t possibly calculate all that he’d seen in the last few minutes, so he gave up trying. We have to find Cristina, he realized, and Cristina was upstairs. But now someone had just called out, from downstairs.

“I should’ve known there’d be detractors in wait,” Rollin muttered and fingered his cross.

“What do we do?” Paul asked without much confidence.

“We go down there,” Vernon said. He thrust his gun forward. “Follow me.”

They crept down the steps, eyes peeled. Most of the lights had been turned out, leaving the foyer and living room plunged in darkness, and from that darkness a thin figure stepped forward after she’d said, “Come down here. I want to make a deal with you…”

One of the homeless girls, Vernon recognized.

Dirty shoulder-length hair looked like black noodles on her head. The farther Vernon proceeded down the stairs, the more details he could make out. She was emaciated and naked, her skin streaked by the multicolored magic markers. In her hand she held a sharpened pole.

“Listen to me,” she said. “You can leave now, just leave. We won’t follow you, we won’t kill you.”

“I’ve got the gun, honey,” Vernon pointed out.

When the woman’s barely visible face smiled, the fangs glittered. “Shoot me, and you’ll see.”

To hell with it. Vernon squeezed the trigger—

BAM!

—and watched a bloodless hole appear between the woman’s sagging breasts.

Then he fired five more shots into a tight group over her heart.

“So just leave. Right now,” she said, and took another step forward. “Don’t interfere. You might even be rewarded someday.”

“In hell, you mean,” Rollin voiced and stepped ahead of Vernon. “We’re not interested.” Then he raised his cross.

The woman only smiled wider. “What I can’t see can’t offend me.” And now she was close enough that Vernon could discern the crucial detail: she’d dug her own eyes out.

“The New Mother says that the most powerful force that exists is faith. Watch me.” The fangs shined in the blinded face. “I’ll show you my faith, but if you go upstairs, this will be done to you.” And then she held the sharpened pole above her head, opened her mouth, and began to slide it slowly down her throat.

“God in Heaven…”

Vernon closed his eyes but could still hear it. The woman stood with her feet apart, and continued to shove the pole down in increments. When it exited her crotch, she continued to shove, until the point hit the floor.

She stood for a moment, in perfect stillness, then fell over.

Fuck this, Vernon thought, reloading his gun.

“She was distracting us,” Rollin said. “Time’s running out if it hasn’t already. We have to go upstairs and prevent Cristina from consuming the contents of the flagon.”

Vernon gulped, looking at the impaled woman. “Uh, well…”

“We have to go upstairs,” the priest said. “We must.”

When Vernon turned back around, he stopped short. The landing was empty.

“Where the hell did Paul Nasher go?” Vernon asked.

(VII)

Was it his lawyer’s morality…or something in the house? Paul thought he understood what was going on here. Power, for one thing. A power timeless and everlasting. Why should I let someone else get it? came his reasoning.

When the priest and the cop had gone downstairs, Paul had slipped up to the third floor. The air felt thicker up here for some reason, as if it were alive with something. Moonlight tinted the dark corners of the hallway and unfinished rooms. Got to find her, he thought. Can’t let her drink the blood …

He froze in the next doorway.

There she was—Cristina—kneeling naked in the middle of the vacant room. Was she muttering under her breath?

Or praying?

Paul stepped back to conceal himself, and watched.

There was a soft grating sound when Cristina twisted the stopper out of the flagon. Instantly, the moonlight in the room seemed to darken; Paul wasn’t sure, but he thought he could also see churning lines of light in the back of his mind, lines that were black, green, and red. After what he’d seen Jess and Britt become, Paul could believe anything now, even the prospect of immortality. As a lawyer, he’d always gone for the gold and had gotten it every time, via brains, bravado, and ruthlessness. Survival of the fittest. That’s how it’s always been, since men were apes …

Now Cristina was slowly pouring the contents of the flagon into the clay bowl they’d found in the basement. The blood inside was black now—The Prince’s blood, Paul reminded himself—and it dripped as slowly as old motor oil.

Cristina gazed at the filled bowl as though it were a crystal ball. What did she see in it?

Paul bounded into the room.

“What are you doing here?” Cristina screamed, her eyes feral. She reached for the bowl—

THWACK!

—but Paul kicked her in the head.

“Change of plans, Cristina,” he said.

She leaned up, groggy. “Get out! You’ll ruin everything!”

“Depends on your point of view, honey.” And then, as she lunged for the bowl again, Paul easily grabbed her hair and yanked her to the corner. She kicked and shrieked. “Guess we all have a bad side,” he added. “Now you get to see mine.”

Still holding her hair, he hauled her up and began to bang the back of her head against the wall. Five thuds. Ten. When he was done, the wall showed dents. Cristina collapsed to the floor. He hoped she wasn’t dead. She’ll be the first one I feed on…

Paul turned and stared at the bowl. Very slowly, then, he leaned over and picked it up…

(VIII)

On the next landing, Vernon put his gun away and picked up the sharpened broom handle that Britt had dropped outside the studio. This is fucked-up, he thought, when he realized exactly what he was doing. Behind the studio door, he heard a hissing and a gurgling.

“Up the next flight,” Rollin urged. “I’ll go first.”

What ever you say, Vernon thought.

Only moonlight lit the third floor from the unshaded windows. A noise from the first room signaled him.

“She must be in there,” Rollin whispered. “Remember, if she’s consumed the blood, you must kill her—” He looked at the pole. “With that.”

Vernon nodded.

The priest stepped ahead of him and entered the room.

But it wasn’t Cristina who stood there. It was Paul.

“Stop!” Rollin shouted. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know what you’re bringing back!”

Paul stood poised, with the bowl inches from his lips. “You’re wrong about that, priest. I do know what I’m bringing back. That’s why I’m doing it.”

Paul gulped down the contents of the bowl, and when he tossed the bowl aside, it shattered on the floor, revealing that the clay had been merely a surface, covering what appeared to be a human skullcap.

“Now!” Rollin yelled to Vernon.

Just as Vernon would charge into the room, a thin figure grabbed him from behind. “Yuh-yuh-yuh-you can’t!” exclaimed the emaciated woman suddenly on his back. She, too, was nude and scrawled with the black, green, and red lines. Dirty nails clawed at his face; the pole fell from his hands. “Yuh-you don’t belong here-belong here-belong here!” Vernon yelled when the fanged mouth began to snap open and closed an inch from his face. “I could use some fuckin’ help here, Father!” he bellowed, but the priest was absent. Had he fled? Ninety pounds or not, the pallid woman fought like a gang member. Vernon thrashed on the bare floor; it was all he could do to keep the woman’s snapping mouth off his throat.

“Gonna suck you-suck you-suck you dry…”

Vernon’s strength began to falter; her foaming mouth drew so close he could feel the sour breath gusting on his throat.

He wasn’t thinking when he fired four shots up into the woman’s chest. It hadn’t worked before, so why had he done it now? The woman paused to chuckle, then leaned harder toward his throat.

One more shot: BAM!

“You can’t hurt me with that-with that-with—”

BAM!

The sixth shot blew the woman clean off of Vernon like a catapult. She lay lopsided against the baseboard, con vulsing.

“Fuh-fuh-fucker…” And then she fell dead.

Vernon had fired four shots in a straight line down her chest, then a fifth to the right, and the sixth to the left, the bullet holes forming the configuration of the cross.

He dragged his gaze to the middle of the room.

Father Rollin was on his knees, exhausted, while Paul Nasher twitched on the floor, the sharpened pole rammed fully through his chest, puncturing his heart.

Vernon glared at the priest. “Is it Miller Time yet?”

“I killed him before the transference could take place,” Rollin wheezed. He pointed to Cristina who lay in the opposite corner. “See if—”

Vernon rushed to her, felt for vitals.

“Is she—”

“She’s got a pulse. We’ve got to get her to the hospital. Looks like Nasher damn near beat her to death.” Vernon groaned when he put her over his shoulder. Rollin was already in the hall but something stopped him in his tracks.

“What now!” Vernon yelled.

“Is it my imagination…or do I smell smoke?”

Vernon labored to the stairwell, looked down. The crackling was undeniable, and so was the roaring light. “Somebody set the fuckin’ house on fire!”

“Hurry!”

They rushed to the second-floor landing as smoke began to pour up in volume. The living room was engulfed in flames. We’ll have to jump from a window, Vernon thought, but then the priest bulled down the stairs.

“Are you nuts!”

“Come on, we can beat it!”

Vernon followed, Cristina getting heavier on his shoulder. The front door of the house was already behind a wall of flame. “Now what?”

“Here!” Rollin shouted. “The way we came in!”

That’s right. The basement …

He thunked down more steps into the basement, wondering how long it would take before the floor collapsed on them, bringing down rafters of fire.

“Hurry!”

No, YOU hurry, Vernon thought. I’m the one carrying someone …

Now the house was shaking from the conflagration. Rollin was already on the floor, backing into the narrow hole. “I’ll pull, you push!” he yelled.

Makes sense. Vernon knelt as he fed Cristina’s limp body into the hole. Rollin could be heard grunting his exertion; Cristina disappeared in increments. “Any time now!” Vernon exclaimed, hearing the fire upstairs roar.

Vernon pushed on the unconscious woman’s legs until she was all the way in. Would the fire spread to the next building before they could get out? He could hear fire alarms going on at the adjacent condo. Vernon began to crawl into the hole, to fully exit the house.

When he was halfway in, two hands grabbed his ankles and pulled him back.

Vernon yelled the whole way.

“What happened?” Rollin shouted from the other side.

“Just get her out! The fire’s spreading!” He reached for his gun but realized he was out of ammunition. When he rolled over in the darkened basement, he saw a figure high above him.

The third and final homeless woman. The one with the glasses, he recalled from the pictures.

She sat naked atop a stack of high boxes, her pallid skin streaked with the familiar lines of homage.

The moonlight lit her face and her fanged grin.

“You should stay here with me,” she said, her feet rowing back and forth.

“Why?”

“Then we can go to hell together. We’ll live forever, just like the New Mother promised.”

“The nun,” Vernon croaked. “Kanesae. Where is she?”

“Nowhere, and everywhere. Like all evil. Come with me and all your questions will be answered.”

Fat chance. But then Vernon remembered what Professor Fredrick had mentioned. “The thirteenth lifetime is over. You blew it. But…what was the secret that Vlad whispered to her as she was draining his blood?”

The woman grinned. “If I told you…then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

From the first floor, he heard the stairs collapse. The fire’s roar now sounded like a blast furnace. I have to get out of here. Now.

“Let me impale you,” she said. “An offering to the Prince. You’ll be smiled upon in hell.”

“I’ll pass,” Vernon said.

The woman shrugged her bony shoulders. “Suit yourself. I guess someone should live to tell the tale.”

Vernon stared as the temperature vaulted.

“Singele lui traieste,” the woman whispered. She hitched forward on her perch. Only then did Vernon notice that she’d positioned a sharpened pole mounted on a Christmas tree stand just below. She hopped off the box, bringing her crotch right down on the point. She wriggled and fidgeted, then, as her body slowly slid down. She still showed the fanged grin when the point halted at the roof of her mouth.

Vernon dove back in the hole and crawled out just as the ceiling collapsed amid an avalanche of flame.