raised by wolves

Back on the surface, it’s pretty obvious our cover is blown. There is a horrible black vortex ripping down the hall in front of us. People are screaming and running, just like Santiago and I. We don’t have time to be discrete, and so we join the throng and hope that they picked the right direction. The floor behind us gives out and crumbles away into that magical void that things don’t come back from. A man running behind me loses his footing and vaporizes before he can hit the floor. He opens his mouth to scream, but the sound is sucked out of him. I keep running. I notice Santiago is gone. I call his name but, blind with panic, I can’t convince myself to stop running.

I feel the floor giving out under me. I leap and dive and tuck and roll, back on my feet. At the end of the corridor, I see something that looks suspiciously like daylight. I pray the comet hasn’t fallen from the sky. Not yet.

I feel a cold wind on the back of my neck like fingernails made of ice. I stumble at the last moment on a dislodged piece of ceiling, and drive my face into the mud just outside the complex. By the time I roll over to get my bearings, it’s as though the complex was never there. There’s a sound like a vacuum seal being broken, and then simple nothingness. What an odd sight, hundreds of vampires standing by the sea in the morning. I don’t see Santiago. I lay flat on the ground and stare up at the wretched blue sky. I have a vision of a cigarette burning all the way down to the filter without a single drag being taken. I wish for the simple annihilation that the sun could have brought me before this whole mess. It’s true what he said, that old monster. Not existing would be much easier than dealing with this.

But nothing worth doing is ever easy.

I’m roused from my nihilistic daydream by strong hands gripping me around my shoulders and pulling me to my feet.

“Is this him?” one of the guards asks. I don’t bother looking up. I feel so drained.

“Yes, it’s him. Put him down unless he can’t stand.”

Her voice sounds so far away. The heavy grip eases up off my arms, and I feel my knees wobble, but I stay standing.

“Sergei? Earth to Sergei, come in cosmonaut,” she says and there’s a white hand like a feather tickling at my forehead, running fingers through my hair. It’s Sophie.

“Sergei, you saved us.”

This is the last thing I was expecting. Torture, vilification, execution maybe. Certainly not “you saved us.”

I look up at Sophie with tired disbelief. She says it again, that I saved them. I shake my head.

“Santi’s gone. He didn’t make it out.”

Her eyebrows shoot up so fast I think they’re going to fly off her face.

“Mon Dieu,” she says and shakes her head. She puts a hand on my shoulder and pulls me close to her. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to be touched. My skin feels like a prison. I want to tear at myself and explode outwards, out of this horrible undead shell. I rest my face in the crook of her neck and she strokes the back of my head comfortingly.

“Come,” she says, releasing me when she realizes I’m not going to break into tears. “Sit.”

We walk to the car. She sits on the hood and explains what happened after I got the axe in the head.

The guard hit me and Santiago took him down. He then ripped Solomon’s insides out and threw Sophie face first through the nearest wall. She assures me she’s fine, not that I asked or cared at this point. Solomon is fine, too, she says.

After we disappeared, Solomon began calling his own abilities into question. He had never had any experience with or talent for magic until comparatively recently. Being a vampire, and a simpleton, he never questioned that his influence and ability were never any effort. When he tried to move the meteor of his own accord and nothing happened, he realized I was right and that, whatever it was, we were heading for a trap. Then the complex started collapsing. The sun turned red in the early morning sky, and the howl of ancient demons flooded everyone’s ears.

“I don’t know how you did it,” Sophie says. “I don’t know how you knew, but you were right. We’re in your debt, Sergei. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

I sigh. “Don’t worry about it.”

I get in the car and turn the key in the ignition. “See you around,” I say to Sophie and unceremoniously peel out to meet what might be the last stretch of daylight I ever see.

I stop in a coffee shop. No one sees me. I drink three cups and eat a donut and leave without paying. No one says a thing. I drive all day, back to the city, back to my hole. I stop at a Mexican corner store and buy a portrait of the virgin. When I get home, I draw a mustache on it and hang it on the wall next to my book case.

That night I have dream that I’m a fly caught in a web. I hear the old witch cackle. In my dream she says, “I don’t know how you did it, little Cyril. You escaped both traps, his and mine. You are a special lad, little Cyril. There is a place for you yet in this world of men and monsters. You have earned it.”

In the dream the spider sinks its fangs into me and sucks me dry.

When I wake, the sun has gone down.

I find myself overcome with a terrible, familiar thirst.

“What happened to you?” Sophie asks. Santiago and I have just burst into the chamber where we last left Sophie and the puppet Solomon. She’s sitting on his lap, and he’s smiling that vacant smile.

“Your new boyfriend is a fraud,” I say and point at Solomon. “No offense,” I add as his smile turns to a look of intense consternation.

“And we’re all walking into a trap. If the ceremony tonight is allowed to occur, we’ll overrun the whole planet. Don’t you see?”

Sophie and Solomon look at me like I’m wearing clown makeup and have just told them I can turn lead to gold with my farts.

“Isn’t that the whole idea, Sergei?” Sophie asks.

“Are you kidding? If we’re allowed to keep walking in the day, we’ll kill all the humans in a matter of weeks. Who will we feed on when they’re gone? The hunger hasn’t faded, and it never will! You’re signing up for madness, starvation, damnation! Can’t you see?”

Sophie puts her head in her hands and sighs heavily.

“When did you lose your mind, Sergei?” she asks. “You don’t think they’ve got a contingency for this? Solomon has thought this all through many, many times. We’ve been harvesting the humans for decades leading up to this. There are storehouses in the depths where the human cattle are being bred. We’ve got enough blood stockpiled to last us indefinitely. Humans will always bleed.”

There’s a cold feeling in my stomach. It’s like opening the emergency exit in a plane at thirty thousand feet. A whoosh, a breeze, cold, empty and falling. I’ve been set up.

“I’m sorry, Sergei,” Sophie says. Before I can ask what she means, I’m being clobbered on the back of the head and everything goes black. I wake up to Santiago shaking me.

“Sergei, come on! Move your lazy ass, we need to get out of here!”

Everything goes in a blur. I see what looks like one of the huge guards, except all his insides are on the outside. Solomon, the gap-toothed moron, or something that looks like him is shredded and strewn about. Santiago is covered in black blood. I don’t think to ask what happened to Sophie.

We run in a direction picked entirely at random and don’t stop until we’re thoroughly lost.

“What happened?” I ask, slumping against the nearest wall. My head is spinning. Something hurts, but it seems so far away, like an old telegram telling you about a stubbed toe. Santiago reaches down behind my ear, like a magician preparing to produce a coin, but instead it’s the end of an axe. It’s got my blood all over it.

“They got the drop on us, Sergei. It’s only a matter of time before they track us down. What are we going to do?”

I’m still transfixed by the sight of the axe. I must be getting old. No one used to be able to sneak up on me. I reach behind my ear and feel the wound, deep, dark, cold. My hand is covered in black when I look at it again. I touch the wound again and a shock of electricity shoots through me, making me kick my leg involuntarily. Motherfucker axed me in the brain. I puke a little and wait for the wound to start healing so I can think straight again.

“Sergei, we don’t have time for this. What are we doing here? What is going on? That thing in the basement, the giant crystal, what was it? We are so fucked.”

He’s getting hysterical. I touch the wound again, and now it’s almost gone. I can see clearly again. It almost doesn’t hurt any more.

“We’ll kill the magicians,” I say matter-of-factly. Santiago doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

“The who?” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“The magicians. The fuckers in the cocoons. The ones powering the magic in this place, the ones that are being used to bring the comet down. The old man, the creature in the basement, that was the sorcerer the Spider Lady told me about, the first vampire. He’s using the other magicians, the ones he’s got charmed and tied up down there, to succeed where he failed originally. If we kill them, he’ll have no batteries. Dead in the fucking water, got it?”

I can see Santiago is having second thoughts. Sophie’s remark about the blood stockpiles has made the idea of a world run by our kind sound infinitely more appealing than running around in this bizarre dungeon hell, getting hacked at by guards.

“Have you lost your mind, Sergei? This is all so far out. I can’t wrap my head around it. You aren’t crazy are you? I just want to go home at this point. I want to crawl into my bed and sleep, and damn the sun and the moon and everything else. I want one quiet night. If you’re insane, just say so and we can go home.”

He looks at me in a way that is much more serious than I am comfortable with. I shake my head slowly.

“I’m not insane, Santi. You’ve trusted me this far. We’re almost out of the woods.”

He looks at the floor and appears to deflate. His shoulders drop and his hands fall at his sides.

“Fine,” he says eventually. “What do we do then, fearless leader?”

We gather our wits about us and make our way back to the elevator. We duck and sneak and dodge guards at what seems like every turn. Some of them we have to take out, spearing them through on their own horrible axes. One by one they become ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It is one thing to murder humans. Killing your own kind is something else. Not nearly as satisfying.

Finally we retrace our steps back to the top of the elevator. It’s just as we left it, mustachioed virgin and all. I take a deep breath.

“They might be waiting for us at the bottom,” I tell Santiago. “You don’t have to go. If I fail, I guess I was insane and it doesn’t matter. If I succeed…”

I don’t know what happens if I succeed. Santiago frowns. “You’re trying to ditch me, now? I can’t back out of this now. We’re both dead if you’re crazy. We’re probably both dead even if you aren’t. I’m coming along.”

He steps up to the altar and puts his feet into the outlines. The platform jerks and begins to sink.

“And besides,” Santiago says, sinking into the floor. “You couldn’t drain all twelve by yourself, and I haven’t eaten all day.”

He winks, and down we go.

Back in the huge chamber with the giant red crystal, there’s no sign of him. Him, the ancient monster. The first of our kind. It must be him. Nothing else could explain such power. We move cautiously towards the nearest cocoon.

“Bottoms up,” I tell Santiago and sink my teeth into the charmed sorcerer’s neck. Blood that runs with magic has always been a favorite of mine. There is a sweetness to it like forbidden fruit. You can feel the magic in it like a warm blanket that covers you from inside. I drain this once-powerful magician and let him fall to the floor. The arc of red lightning no longer dances from his head. I move onto the next.

And the next.

And the next.

Nine magicians in and I’m starting to get a stomach ache.

“Let’s just snap the other’s necks,” I tell Santiago as he wipes a cascade of electric red blood from his lips. He nods.

Snap. Snap. Snap. And then a scream, a howl not of this earth.

It’s him.

“You fools!” he bellows. “Oh, no, no, no! What have you done?”

We turn to face the terror that we expect to come raining down on us, but instead we see the very image of defeat. The man, the creature, the first, has dropped to his knees in the doorway of the chamber. He looks blurry around the edges. His form seems to be in flux between that of the regal young man and the horrible broken monster. His skin moves in white ashen patches. His bones protrude at random, moving in all the wrong ways. I think he’s crying.

“This curse…” he says finally. “There is no way to break this curse.”

He looks at us with hollow black eyes. There is such pain in them, I feel my cold black heart might break.

“I was mad, power mad. I tried to damn the world in my own name, to carry my legacy on through to eternity. I hoped to arrive at heaven’s gates and spit into God’s face, to tell him that his legend was nothing compared to my own. But this curse…What I have become…There will be no heaven. There will be no hell. There will only be this, forever, until eternity. And God will laugh at me and spit in my face for my blasphemy, for my arrogance, for my stupidity,”

He clutches his face in his hands and falls forward. He sobs unabashedly.

“What creatures you are,” he begins again. “What creatures you are, to love your curse so much. Surely you would rather not exist than be what you have become? Does the curse not eat at you, as you eat at the humans? Do you not feel horror at every moment of your being?”

Santiago and I exchange worried glances, then look back at him. We shake our heads. He laughs.

“No, I suppose your curse is different than my own. You are merely side effects, victims of a crossfire. Innocents lost in the middle. Oh, you poor fools,” he sobs again. He breathes in deeply.

“Well, go on then,” he says. “Finish it. Perhaps I will be rewarded for my mercy,” he laughs. “No, there will be no reward. But mercy you shall receive.”

He nods and motions to the last of the sorcerers, a weak arc shooting away from him towards the giant red crystal. I nod to Santiago, who is standing closest to the cocooned figure. He snaps the neck cleanly, quietly, and the body slumps to the floor.

I notice that the creature is smiling. This isn’t good. Now he’s laughing.

Far away, but urgently close, a rumbling noise like a million storm clouds booming in unison. The ground lurches away under my feet, and I leap for Santiago to steady myself. The walls shake. The rumble gets louder, closer. The giant red crystal sways from its impossible fixture on the high ceiling, and falls with a noise like a glassware factory falling down the stairs.

“Oh fuck!” is the last coherent thought I remember expressing before a surge of animal instinct wells up in me and sends me running blindly for the nearest exit.

I could kick myself for being so stupid. Sure, Sergei, kill the magicians. Stop the ceremony and bring this massive magical construct crashing down around you. Two birds with one stone. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so furious.

At the elevator, rather than waiting for it to slowly and precariously take us to the top, Santiago and I climb up the walls of the shaft. It takes some time. I make the mistake of looking down and see the reality below collapsing away into the void. I scream, panicked, and almost lose my grip. Santiago pushes past me and yells something I can’t hear over the thunder and fury and the unnatural sound of something being sucked away into nothing.

“Jesus Christ, that was unreal,” I grumble at the bottom. I step on my cigarette and look around. The chamber we’ve arrived in doesn’t look much different than the one we left somewhere above, except the lighting is worse and there’s a damp antique basement smell. Santiago puts his cigarette out and we resume snooping.

Eventually, down the dusty corridors of this basement portion of the complex, we hear footsteps. We press ourselves to the nearest wall and listen. There’s a voice.

“No sign of the intruders, sir, aside from the cigarette butts at the base of the elevator. They must have gone back up,” the voice says, sounding muffled and distant. It must be one of the masked guards like the ones upstairs.

“You fool,” says another voice which sounds like sandpaper and broken glass. “How could they have given you the slip so easily? I told you they would come. You’re supposed to be one of the best, aren’t you? I should slit your throat and hang you up to drain for a while.”

An awkward silence.

“Sir, I’ll send another patrol out,” says the first voice.

“Yes,” replies the second. “Yes you will.”

The footsteps are coming right for us. Santiago and I scurry up the walls and hold ourselves to the ceiling. We hold our breath and blend with the shadows and cobwebs as a huge guard built like a refrigerator, carrying a gigantic axe with a spearhead on the back end rushes by under us, like we’re not even there. We hear the hum of the elevator a little while later.

“Do you think he was talking about us?” Santiago asks me once the silence has gone unbroken by the sound of more guards coming to oversee our execution.

“No, Santi, he must’ve been talking about the other intruders.”

Santiago scowls at me in the dark on the ceiling and I can’t help but smirk. He makes it too easy sometimes.

We get down and cautiously head in the direction from whence the guard came.

Now here’s where it gets a little strange.

As we move down the corridor, my stomach begins to ache. I feel it flip-flopping back and forth, like doing somersaults or spinning around in circles. I feel a cold sweat appearing on my forehead.

“Sergei,” Santiago says. “Something is wrong here.”

I nod but something tells me to press on. I feel dizzy, but the feeling in the back of my neck says there’s a reason for this.

The reason is this:

Around the next bend is a vast room with high vaulted ceilings and lit by torches. Arranged in a circle are people wrapped up in what appears to be cocoons. From the heads of each an arc of unnatural red lightning dances towards a huge red crystal hanging like a chandelier in the middle of it all. It’s huge and the color of blood. In the far corner, at a small office desk is a horrible creature, a twisted parody of the shape of a man. It is rifling through papers, charts, graphs, comparing and contrasting data of a sort I couldn’t begin to guess at. It does not appear to be wearing any clothing. It’s skin is white like ivory or cocaine, sick, deathly. It’s bones protrude in strange places. It looks broken.

Santiago breathes in a little too deeply and the creature whirls around.

For an instant, I see huge black eyes like bottomless pits, a flash of teeth like daggers, dry blood caked at the corners of pallid lips, a sunken chest and protruding pelvic bones. Then it changes.

Where the creature stood before is now a man who looks at first glance remarkably like Santiago. It’s really just the long black hair. His nose is bigger than Santiago’s, and his chin much more prominent. He is wearing a regal black robe with a high purple collar. The huge black pit eyes have turned red.

“You,” he hisses. “I knew you would come.”

I open my mouth to attempt a quick witted explanation, but it is no use. The man, the creature, whatever it is, has already set upon us.

With a simple gesture, Santiago is sent flying off down the corridor we just snuck up. The man picks me up by the neck and pitches me headlong into the opposite wall. In a moment of clarity as I pass through the middle of the bizarre congregation, I realize that the cocooned people must be the source of the magic I felt upon our arrival, and what made my stomach spin as we approached. Magic never had much of a positive effect on me.

And neither has having my head smashed against a wall.

I cough and sputter and try to turn around to face my attacker.

“Wait,” I say, but it’s no use. The man is on me again, lifting me into the air by my throat. Being a vampire, I don’t expressly need to breathe, but being unable to at my choosing is no less unpleasant than it was when I was alive.

Once again, I’m being hurled through the air. I don’t think I’ve been this disoriented in decades. I try to focus, and my concentration holds just long enough to prevent me from taking the full force of my flight on my head. I turn and hit the wall with my shoulder and back more than my face. I land hard and slump over on the floor.

“You,” the man hisses. “How foolish! I was expecting something more substantial.” He snarls and then shouts to no one, or no one that I can see at least, “Is this the best you’ve got?”

I cough. “Who are you talking to?”

The man looks alarmed that I’m still talking.

“Really?” he says to the ceiling. “You would use my own kind against me? Is there no depth to which you will not sink?”

His own kind? I think to myself. So, he’s a vampire. Is he a vampire? My head is still swimming, but I’m beginning to get my bearings.

“You’ve only made my job easier, old witch!” he shouts. “I was worried that not as many would show up. But the stragglers will be minimal. Especially if you saw fit to send more after me. I cannot be stopped! It is already too late!”

This last bit is what I like to think of as “famous last words.” He’s in such a state, mad with the thought of whatever his plans are coming to fruition. Like a fucking TV villain. Fucking monologuing assholes.

I pick up a piece of the wall that dislodged itself when I made impact. I rush at the yammering idiot and plant the stone squarely on the crown of his head. It sounds about how you’d expect the collision of head and stone to sound, kind of like billiards. He doesn’t move though. He laughs instead and turns to face me, red eyes glowing like the inside of a volcano.

“What type of thug are you? Is this a joke? You hope to stop me by simply battering me?” His voice rises to a shrill, manic pitch. As this happens a wave of energy ripples off of him and sends me flying once again. I’m getting sick of this. It’s time to get out of here.

I land hard, but get to my feet as quickly as I can. I’m out of there fast. I find Santiago still slumped over down the corridor. I hustle him to his feet, slapping him about the ears to bring him to his senses.

“We have to go,” I tell him. He nods and we shuffle off as fast as we can, battered, bruised, confused. The sound of the man’s horrible laughter echoes down the corridor behind us.

On the elevator back up to the surface, Santiago asks me in no uncertain terms what the fuck is going on.

“That’s him,” I say. “The magician. The one from the legends. The first. No one else could be that strong,” and Santiago looks at me, dumbfounded.

“The story the Spider Lady told me. The first vampire, summoned the meteor. I thought I told you this already?” He shrugs. I groan. “We have to find Sophie and get out of here. That’s the short version. Something very bad is getting ready to happen here. Did you see the cocoons?” He nods. “I don’t know who they were. Powerful magicians, held in thrall is my guess. No one being could be powerful enough to warp a place of this size. But a vampire can charm as many as they want. He’s using them like batteries for this place, and for the ritual tonight that will keep the meteor in place.”

Santiago’s eyes are glazed over. I don’t know if he’s heard a single word I’ve said. It’s a long ride up.

I want to find the Spider Lady and wring her neck. I should’ve known this would happen. She wouldn’t have brought up some legend, some obscure story from before time without purpose. Sure, to explain the meteor, but I walked right into this. I feel like such a retard. I light another cigarette. When it’s done I pinch off the end and stuff it in my pocket instead of leaving it on the floor.

Santiago holds his head in his hands and slouches.

“I’ve never been hit that hard, ever,” he says with defeat in his voice. “What are we going to do, Sergei? We can’t stop something like this.”

I shake my head. “We have to do something. She wouldn’t have sent me if there was nothing I could do.”

“How can you trust the old witch so much?” Santiago demands. “Isn’t it obvious? What loyalty does she have to you? Who’s to say that she didn’t just send you here to die? What loyalty does she have to the humans either for that matter? What does she care if they go extinct and we go mad?”

And up we go.

And up we go.

And up we go.

And so, down the serpentine corridors we crept. The stone walls looked ancient, scarred by time’s insensitive passing. I can’t tell what sort of place this was before the vampire cabal set up shop here. It reminds me of something from long ago, but I can’t put my finger on what.

After a long time creeping up to and peering uneasily around corners, we come to a dead end. The hallway we’ve been traveling down terminates rather abruptly at what looks like an altar of some sort. There are candles burning and various trinkets scattered on the floor, like you would find in an old Mexican monastery. Santiago crosses himself and it’s then that I realize it is an altar like in an old Mexican monastery, complete with the portrait of Mary holding her wretched baby.

“What is this?” Santiago says. “Catholic vampires? Why would they bother putting up a picture of the virgin all the way down here? They didn’t even draw a mustache on her,” he scoffs and pulls a black magic marker from his pocket. “I can fix this,” he says and steps towards the altar. I follow and take a closer look at the trinkets spread among the candles. Tiny sugar skulls, beads, wind-up birds, coins and small things that look like toothpicks. I realize as Santiago presses his marker to the virgin’s upper lip that they’re meant to be tiny wooden stakes. A chill runs up my spine and Santiago steps back, smiling contentedly with his artwork. “Much better,” he says and puts the marker back in his pocket. The virgin now sports a very stylish fu manchu.

“Something isn’t right about this, Santi,” I say.

“What do you mean? Since when does a little good-natured blasphemy bother you?”

“That’s not it. Do you see these?” I ask, motioning to the trinkets. “Stakes. Why are there stakes here?”

Santiago shrugs. “It could be anything. They look like toothpicks to me.”

There is a sound like an industrial size fan starting up. A distant whirring hum. The hair on my neck stands up like soldiers at attention. There is a slight breeze.

“Do you hear that? Do you feel that?” I ask. Santiago looks at me and shrugs.

“Just a draft, Sergei,” he says. “But we should go, before someone finds us messing with their stuff,”

I put a finger to my lips and feel the current in the air. I drop to my knees in front of the altar and put my hands out in front of me.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Santiago says. I tell him in no uncertain terms to shut his mouth before I pull his tongue out. The current, the draft is coming from under the altar.

I fling the trinkets and candles aside, and pull up the blanket at the base of the altar to reveal a stone tile with two foot prints on it. It doesn’t match the rest of the floor. In fact, it looks brand new.

“What is this?” Santiago says incredulously. “How did you know that was there?”

I shrug and tell him it was a lucky guess.

I stand up and contemplate the foot prints and the altar. It’s not a difficult puzzle. I step forward and put my hands on the altar and line my feet up with the footprints. There is a buzz and the ground under me jerks unnaturally. And then I’m sinking.

It’s an elevator.

“I told you we should snoop around! Where do you think this goes?” I ask Santiago. He shrugs, now a good foot above me, up on the regular ground.

“Hop on, man! You can’t chicken out now.”

He rolls his eyes and jumps, causing the platform to sway and jerk. I don’t think the secret elevator is made for more than one person at a time.

And down we go.

And down we go.

And down we go.

I light a cigarette. I offer one to Santiago. He takes it and I hand him my lighter.

And down we go.

Sophie smiles at me over Solomon’s shoulder encouragingly. I take his hand confidently and spout some smooth-sounding bullshit about being eager to see what he can do.

“Ah-ha! But you already have,” he said, gap-toothed grin big as a slice of watermelon. “If you have not noticed, the sun no longer holds sway on us. This is but the first of a series that will finally bring our kind to the top of the food chain once and for all. No longer will we be confined to the shadows. No longer shall we allow these sheep, these humans to over-run the planet. They will take their place as simple livestock. It will be glorious!” he declared at last, smiling with an empty stare at nothing in particular.

I did my best to retain my composure. I wanted to demand an answer from him right then, what was the deal? What about the comet? What are you really up to, man? But none of the questions made it out. Instead I nodded dumbly and said, “Yes, glorious. Well I’m certain you have much preparation still before the night’s ceremony. We won’t keep you.”

With only a mild struggle, I convinced Santiago to follow me out of the chamber and back down the corridor that brought us here.

“This Solomon is an idiot,” I said simply. “He is not the source of this magic. There’s something else at work here, and someone isn’t letting on as much as they know. But Solomon believes what he says. You can see it in his eyes. There’s nothing there. Lights on, no one home and all that.”

“Then who?” Santiago asked.

“I’m not sure. We’re going to have to do some snooping around.”

“Snooping around?” Santiago inquired with alarm. “What are you talking about, Sergei? Did you not see the guards? This is not the kind of operation you want to snoop around. This is some medieval shit, Sergei.”

“What are they going to do if they catch us? Kill us? The sun doesn’t work anymore. They aren’t expecting to have to stake anyone. Everyone here is here because they believe in what this Solomon guy says he’s doing. They’re being made stronger, what reason do they have to stick their noses into things beyond the surface?”

“When you say it like that it sounds so simple! Why are we snooping around then? Why don’t we just sign on for the ceremony too? Humans as livestock doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”

“Santi, we’ve been over this. Madness. Extinction. The Spider Lady. Besides, we’re already well below the surface. I feel like we’re in the VIP section now. Somehow Sophie’s got connections. Or else this Solomon isn’t quite as important as they’re making him out to be. We need to snoop. There’s something else going on here, or else the old witch wouldn’t have sent us,”

“Sent you,” Santiago cut in. “She sent you. You just dragged me along.” He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a stubborn little boy.

“Please, Santi,” I implored. “Is it so much for me to ask that you trust me? We’re here already. Everything has gone like clockwork, even though we don’t know which end is up in this mess. This is what we’re here to do and it’s going wonderfully. But we can’t expect everything to happen on it’s own. If you really feel that strongly about it, you can wait in the car.”

Santiago rolled his eyes and uncrossed his arms. “Fine,” he spat. “But when those guards catch us and start cutting off our parts and making us watch them grow back, I don’t want to hear you complaining about it.”