I took another swipe and another, and I realized they were just toying with me. Hattie laughed as she watched us play this game of cat and mouse. At least until my back was pushed up against a wrought iron fence surrounding one of the tombs. It dug into my waist, and I went over backward, the points of the tops of the fence dragging along my flesh and opening me up.

I couldn’t help but grunt as I hit the ground, the wind knocked out of me, fire along my spine. The two henchmen followed me over, crawling up and over the fence like spiders.

I needed help. I needed a friend.

“Robert, now’s a good time!”

The albino lunged for me and I sidestepped, right into the arms of the midnight-skinned man. Well, maybe man was a bit of a push with those teeth of his.

Teeth that were awfully close to my own flesh now. I snapped my head back, cracking the back of it into his nose. He bellowed and the smell of his breath about suffocated me.

Sulfur and rot filled my lungs and I gagged on the stench, but I stuck my butt out and leaned forward and took him with me, flipping him over my body onto the ground.

Stunned, he stared up at me and I saw the same power in him that the demon at Crash’s place had possessed. My knife was in my hand and I drove it into his left eye.

An explosion of wings swept up around me, his body breaking apart into a thousand flying bugs that swept up through my hair, biting my face, my neck, any bare skin they could find. I batted them away, trying to catch a glimpse of the albino through them.

When they finally did clear, all I saw was Robert swaying, a single bone held in his hand, a thigh bone. “Help. Friend.”

“He’s gone? You killed him?”

“Dispersed,” Robert said.

I turned and limped around the edge of the fence to see Hattie bent over Eric, that blade in her hand.

I couldn’t get to them in time.

I had to throw a knife and hope I could do it again. Third time’s the charm, right?

One flick of the wrist upward, I caught the knife on the way down and threw it with all I had.

End over end it flew on what was left of my strength and a prayer that I threw true, to save Eric.

Hattie stiffened with the sound of a thick thunk, her arms raising over her head, the demon-steel knife clutched between both hands. Slowly, she turned to the side, my knife sticking out of the middle of her back.

“Just like your gran, always messing up my plans,” she whispered as she slowly went to her knees, then forward onto her face.