“They died the second they volunteered to be planted in a blood farm!” Anya said, exasperated.

Andrew’s face fell. “They just wanted to live forever,” he said.

Anya successfully knocked the Super Soaker out of his hands. The plastic gun clattered to the floor. “And we are trying to live today!” she said. “Let’s go!”

Andrew looked to Jonathan, imploring. Jonathan wanted to turn away, to run up the stairs and out of the church—not looking back until he was safe at home. Maybe safe and under the covers of his bed. But he knew what Andrew’s silence meant. They couldn’t leave human beings here to die. Once, Andrew’s brother, Tucker, had come to the Church of the Eternal Night, seeking immortality. And if Warren hadn’t stopped him, Andrew would have turned himself over to the Master and Darla too. If the Wells boys were stuck in this blood farm, Jonathan wouldn’t have second-guessed freeing them.

Passing the urn full of fire into Anya’s arms, Jonathan dug into the blue backpack and fished out the corkscrew dagger with his metal-clad hand. Andrew unfolded his Eagle Scout knife. Together, the two of them hurried around the antechamber, slashing the blood tubes connecting the black-robed people to their pedestals. It was disgusting work. Sticky red plasma gushed onto the stone floor. Jonathan was sure that the vampires in the next room could smell the wasted feast in here.

The first person Jonathan cut loose appeared to be the oldest person in the blood farm. Her wispy white hair was as colorless as her wrinkled face. She stepped down from the pedestal, black robe trailing in her own blood as it pooled out of the severed tubes dangling from her arms and legs.

“Today’s the day,” the woman rasped, her joy dampened by a voice in dire need of water. “I have earned my eternity!”

“Uh-oh,” Jonathan said. He hadn’t considered that the people in the blood farm wouldn’t immediately see the vampire consumed in flames and assume something was amiss. Random death was probably a common occurrence at the Church of the Eternal Night.

Andrew paused halfway through sawing the tubes of a young man whose eyelids had started to flutter.

“Um, excuse me, ma’am?” Andrew said, waving his blood-drenched knife in the air and trying to get the freed woman’s attention. “It isn’t safe in here.”

Without looking at either Jonathan or Andrew, the old woman gripped Anya’s forearms, the Urn of Fernda pressed between them. Gazing at the vengeance demon with reverence, she croaked, “I have waited so long. And it’s finally my time! I surrender my life to you, my savior. My sire.”

Anya goggled at the woman pawing at her. “The church is on fire, you mortal idiot! Run!”

“Why doesn’t she think we’re her saviors?” Andrew asked Jonathan.