Page 23

“I can’t . . . hold it . . . !”

Victor’s ragged outline blurred, his shadow swelling.

Oh, this was bad.

“Zee?! What do we do?”

“I dunno! Hit him with a stick?”

There were bits of chair all around us, but what good was a stick?

Victor arched, as though struck from behind, and a shadow punched out of him. A shadow of his outline. The shadow stumbled, yellow eyes aglow, and laughed the same haunting Vincent Price laugh from the foyer.

Zee yelped. “What in the seven fuckin’ circles of dick-shaped doom is THAT?!”

Victor lay on his back on the floor, breathing hard. No longer fighting. His wildness, his lack of control, it had taken form. He’d shed all the deadly, vicious parts of himself.

That thing was Victor’s worst impulses. His murder spree indulgences, his rabid, wild desires.

We couldn’t let it escape.

I grabbed a broken chair leg and tossed it across the floor toward Victor. “Head’s up!”

He grabbed it, sprang, and plunged the broken chair leg into his shadow self’s chest. The shadow burst apart, turned to dust just like my monster, and Victor dropped back to his knees with a spent grunt.

The quiet came back. Even the jukebox had finally fallen silent.

The three of us stayed on the floor, panting, mentally reeling.

Zee giggled. “Holy fucking frogballs, you’re a mess, Fancy Fangs.”

Victor sat up and twisted, turning toward us. His messy hair fell over his shoulder. “Thank you, demon, I am aware. Are you both alright?”

“Yeah.” I grinned and huffed an unhinged laugh. “You?”

“I actually feel rather rejuvenated.” He got onto all fours and crawled over, then lay down next to me. I dropped back down too, stared at the ceiling, and took Victor’s hand in mine.

“Thank you for the wooden stake, Adam. That was quick thinking. I dare not imagine what may have happened if that part of me had gotten free.”

“I had no idea if it would work.”

“Which makes it even more remarkable.”

The rustle of Zee’s maid costume sounded beside me. His warm hand took mine, and I turned my head and grinned as he settled down beside me. I wasn’t in Victor’s bed, under his lovely smooth sheets, but I did have them beside me, right where we were all supposed to be.

Tom Collins slow clapped. “How the three of you have survived this long is a fucking mystery.”

Zee raised his hand and showed Tom his middle finger.

We lay there a while. A guest came in at one point, but they must have seen the broken chairs and the three of us on the floor and backed out slowly.

“Is it over?” Zee asked.

“I hope so.” I didn’t have the energy to battle any more fears. “You guys wanna sleep in my room tonight?”

“Yes,” they both answered together.

Zee pulled his phone from inside his tight crop-top, unlocked it, and tapped out a message to someone.