Betty grabbed Amber, hurled her off her feet and she smashed through a sheet of plywood and the store window it was put up to protect. She hit the ground and rolled and lay in the dark for a moment, getting really sick of people throwing her all over the place.

Bill and Betty stepped into the travel agency office after her.

“You have a vampire friend, do you?” Betty asked. “Not smart, sweetheart. You can’t trust them.”

“You mean like I can trust you?” Amber said as she got up. Glass fell from her hair.

“We’re not having this discussion right now,” Betty said. She was a mere silhouette against the street lights outside. “There are two keys that will take us to Naberius. A shapeshifter has one of them – we’ll leave it with him. Your little friend Austin vanished with the other. Where would he have gone?”

Amber frowned. “Did he use it? The key, did he use it?”

“He used it,” said Bill. “Where did it take him?”

Amber sagged against a desk and shook her head.

“Amber, where did it take him?”

She looked up. “Naberius needed a sacrifice to set off Hell Night.”

“So?” said Betty. “What does …? Oh.”

“He’s dead?” Bill asked. “The little brat got himself killed? What happens to the key?”

“It’s probably still down there,” said Amber. “Looks like your plan is screwed, Dad. You may as well start running again.”

“Don’t talk to your father in that tone,” said Betty.

Amber couldn’t help it. She laughed.

“Well, there appears to be only one way of salvaging the situation,” Bill said. “We have to bring her to Astaroth.”

Betty looked at him. “You don’t think he’ll find out we tried to betray him?”

“I think he already knows, but, if we present her to him on a silver platter, he may overlook our … eagerness.”

“I always hated when you did that,” said Amber. They looked at her, waiting for an explanation. “Talking about me like I wasn’t there. It made me feel invisible.”

“Childhood is a difficult time,” Bill said dismissively.

Betty touched her husband’s arm and he turned, and they all looked out through the broken window as a demon with skin the colour of moonlight staggered into view and dropped, gasping, to his knees.

And then a Hound appeared behind him.

Bill and Betty ducked down and Amber dived behind the desk. She waited a moment, then peeked out as the Hound, big and bearded with tattoos on his bare arms, laid a hand on the demon’s shoulder. The demon screeched, his body locked in agony. The Hound’s hand glowed and the demon started to sizzle. Steam rose from his skin, his eyes, his mouth …

He was being burned from the inside out.