All the kids.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Jake’s breath caught in his throat and tears stung his eyes. He would have collapsed to the floor had Kristen not been holding on to his arm. The enormity of the loss hit him like a blow to the gut from a heavyweight champ. His knees sagged and Kristen drew him close, wrapped her arms around him.
A sound broke the silence.
Jake’s heart started hammering again.
Footsteps.
Coming from somewhere on the other side of that open doorway.
Someone on high heels.
Then the person came through the doorway and he thought his heart might stop altogether. His mouth opened. He forced the word out. “Moira.”
The demon smiled. “Hello, Jake. I’ve missed you.”
Kelsey got shakily to his feet and moved backward a step. “Something’s not right. That’s not her. Not Myra. But…”
Kristen’s grip on his arm tightened. “Jake? Who is this? Do you know this person?”
Jake didn’t reply. He was temporarily incapable of speech. A mind-bending sense of surreality gripped him. This thing was their enemy. Lamia. And at the same time it was Moira Flanagan. The hair. The clothes. The eyes. The mouth. That same knowing smirk, so playful and full of sexual promise. And yet…there were little differences, slight subtleties in the shape of her face. A moment after he sensed this, he saw through the disguise. Moira Flanagan was still dead. This was her baby sister, the girl he’d met at the Grill his first day back in town. Bridget. He couldn’t fathom why she would have gone to such lengths to look like her dead sister.
Lamia moved a step closer. “It’s true. This is Bridget’s body. But I am Moira, Jake. And I am Lamia. I am the woman who was the center of your world for a few precious years. The one you made love to in the back of your car down by the dock. The one you read your first stories to. You’ve never loved anyone like you loved me.”
Jake shook his head. “No. Moira’s dead. She went for a ride with my brother Michael. There was an accident. They both died.”
Lamia smiled again. “Moira’s body died, yes. But the essence you loved lived on, just as it has lived on through the ages.” She held out her hands, looked at them, then looked at Jake again. “This is just a shell. I can inhabit any female body. You like this one, yes? I can take another if it’s not suitable.”
The sense of surreality intensified. Too many horrific revelations in too short a time span. The dead love of his life had never really died. Had never been truly human. He thought of all those drunken, wasted years he’d spent mourning a monster and would have laughed if not for the tragic circumstances.
He found his voice at last and said, “You killed them all, didn’t you?” He nodded at the open door behind her. “All those kids. They’re all dead.”
Her smile remained placid. “I fed, yes. It’s irrational to hate me for it, Jake. It’s simply my nature.”
“And now you’re going to kill me?” He glanced first at Kristen, then at Kelsey. “And them.”
She moved another step closer, raised her hands, splayed her fingers. “Them, yes. Not you.”
Jake moved backward a step, dragging Kristen with him. He felt her tremble and drew her close, wrapped an arm around her. “Why not me?”
She laughed. “Because I enjoy you. I want you around. The others are nothing to me. I’ll feed on them as I fed on the children. Then I’ll feed you some of their essence. I can do that. I wasn’t strong enough ten years ago, but now I am. You’ll become stronger, too. And you’ll live a long, long time. Hundreds of years, if I wish.”
Jake’s throat constricted but he managed to push out the words: “I’d rather die.”
Lamia shrugged. “I don’t believe that. But it hardly matters. The choice is mine, not yours. You are mine. You will do as I say.”
He shook his head. “Fuck that and fuck you.”
The time to run had come. No more talking. There was nothing more they could do here other than die. He spun around and Kristen turned with him. Then Jake’s heart sank as he realized they wouldn’t get to make a break for it. The way out was blocked out by at least a dozen big dogs and an array of other animals. The dogs bared their teeth and growled at them. Huge droplets of saliva drooled from the mouths of each. Jake sensed these weren’t normal animals. The strangely glowing eyes told him that. And there was the way they’d sneaked up on them without making a sound to consider. An immense frustration tore at Jake. There was nothing to do now. No way to run. No way to fight. They could tangle with these creatures or Lamia, and either way they’d be equally fucked.
Then he looked at the.38 Kristen still held and thought maybe there was one last option, after all. He didn’t like it, but it beat the hell out of a surrender to the monster. He looked her in the eye and saw the same grudging acceptance. He pressed his lips to hers and felt equal measures of regret and longing in the way they yielded to his.
“Stop that.”
Lamia’s voice was harsher now. Angry.
Jake heard the click of her heels on the floor tiles as she strode rapidly toward him. Jake wrapped one arm around Kristen in an awkward embrace as his other hand went for the.38. He had to do this fast without thinking about it. Had to get off two quick shots. One straight between Kristen’s eyes, then swallow a bullet himself.
BOOM!
Jake jumped at the sound, recognizing it immediately for what it was. He let go of Kristen and turned back toward Lamia, gaping at the sight of the massive and bloody exit wound just below her sternum. Then he looked beyond the demon and saw Jordan Harper. The girl pumped another round into the shotgun’s chamber and took aim again.
Instinct pushed Jordan through the open door as Kristen took aim and fired at the knife-wielding bitch who’d murdered Will Mackeson. Though she’d found temporary solace in the company of others, she knew she was the only one who stood a chance against Lamia. She had to act while the others were otherwise occupied, before they could get themselves killed by trying to face the monster.
Much of her bravado vanished as she entered the backstage area and saw all the elegantly attired bodies on the floor, all of them leaking blood from still-fresh gunshot wounds. The rest of it disappeared as she moved beyond them and got a look at her mother, who was still working her dark magic at the edge of the stage. The body belonged to Bridget, but strong, undeniable intuition told her the girl she’d known no longer inhabited that body. It was her mother. Lamia. She stood at the edge of the stage with her hands raised high over her head. Bolts of electricity arced out of her fingertips to weave a tapestry of light over the ceiling. The students screamed and screamed. The ones that were still alive, that is. Bodies were piled up at the chained doors and in the aisles between seats. The bodies looked ravaged, as if they’d been hollowed out from the inside. The eyes of the dead appeared to have burst, the sockets filled with bloody pulp. Every few seconds a finger of electric light would descend from the ceiling tapestry to strike at yet another of the screaming students huddled between the rows of seats. The light would enter through the mouth, suffusing the flesh of the victim with an incandescent glow. The body would convulse and quickly wither. Jordan watched this and felt her resolve wither just as quickly. The energy emanating from the edge of the stage was as powerful as anything a faulty nuclear reactor might generate. Stronger. She’d only just started learning how to tap and harness her own abilities. They would be no match for what her mother could do. So she watched in numb shock as the massacre went forward unimpeded, feeling paralyzed, unable even to retreat. She knew she ought to get back to the others, warn them it was hopeless, but she remained riveted to the spot until it was nearly over.
When she saw that only a few students remained alive, the shock gave way to a simple, reflexive act of self-preservation. She moved backward and tripped over the body of a man in a long black trench coat. She landed awkwardly, twisting her ankle as she hit the floor. The last of the screams from the auditorium cut off as she lay there. Then she heard footsteps coming toward her across the stage. She had only a few seconds to act and rolled under a table laden with a punch bowl, plastic cups, and various refreshments. Another dead body was nearby. She pulled it close, hiding behind it as she held her breath and waited for Lamia to pass. The sound of her mother’s heels entered the backstage area and continued through to the hallway beyond.