The King of Thorns sniffed the blood on my face and then suddenly darted his head forward, his tongue slithering out like a snake’s to lick fresh trickles from my cheek. It was a horrible thing, invasive, intrusive on a level I’d never personally experienced before, and deeply disgusting. He took a second, longer lick and I tried to squirm away from his hot tongue running over my jaw and cheek and all the way up to the corner of my eyebrow.

He pulled back for a moment, and his smile was truly horrifying.

I think I screamed.

His face wrinkled in disgust and he spat out the blood, but then he smiled. “Eating garlic is an old trick. You have to do it for years before your blood is poison to us.”

He laughed, stretching that mouth wider still. I recoiled and thrashed and kept screaming. Then Grigor bent closer still and pressed his cold lips to my ear.

“Hugo Vox gave me a very special list, my friend. Would you like to guess what is on it?”

My heart froze in my chest.

“There are Upierczi in America. Even now, even as you die here, my brothers are heading toward Baltimore. Shall I tell you who will die?”

He whispered the names of my father, my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew.

“If your brother’s wife is still fertile, we may let her live. Our birthing cells are waiting. But she will see her husband and child torn to pieces and consumed.”

I howled in fury and tried to tear myself free of splinters. All I accomplished was to drive the jagged points deeper into my own flesh.

Grigor was not done with me. His lips moved against the flesh of my ear. “I can spare her. She will still die, but she can die quickly … and whole. You can save her. I offer you a chance to assure an easy death for those you love.”

“Go to hell.”

He slapped me so hard that I felt a tooth crack. But the impact shifted me in the nest of splinters. I felt one shoulder suddenly slide free, greased by my own blood. The rest of me though, was still trapped.

“I’m offering you a chance to save your family. Are you too stupid or heartless to listen?”

“O-okay,” I wheezed. “Tell me…”

“Pray to me,” he said. “Fall to your knees and pray to the King of Thorns. Pray to the Upierczi. Be the first of your kind to worship us and you will earn my mercy. That’s all you have to do.”

Around me the Upierczi had fallen into an expectant silence.