I opened my eyes. Julie was lying inches away, profile crushed painfully against the floor. "We have to shoot my dad," she cried as she tried to rise. "Don't let her take him."

"Got it," Holly stated as she stepped over us. The bed was lying sideways, blocking the doorway. She raised her Vepr over the obstacle and fired wildly into the room, emptying the twenty-round magazine in an instant. I surged to my feet and pushed the bed out of the way, Abomination held in one hand, ready to shoot as soon as I had a target.

There was nothing but a hole in the floor. Boards had been pulverized into sawdust, and the creature had dropped through, taking Ray with her.

"Aw hell," I said. If Ray fell into the hands of the Cursed One, the world was pretty much screwed. I could see no movement down the dark hole.

"Don't let her take him. Do whatever you have to do," Julie ordered. She stepped to the edge of the ragged hole, knelt down, and without hesitation began to climb. Tactically it was a stupid move to crawl blindly after a super powerful undead, but we did not have any choice other than pursuit. She looked up at me before she dropped into the opening. I could not tell if her features were betraying fear or sadness. She disappeared into the dark hole.

"Clear!" she shouted.

I followed. My torso barely fit through the jagged opening, I leveraged myself down as best as possible, dangled from my fingertips, and then bent my knees and dropped the last four feet. I landed with a thud. Julie flipped the lights on. We were in the guest bedroom that had served as Gretchen's hospital. We were alone.

"Split up. Find them," she shouted up through the hole. "You three take the stairs."

"But if we split up, we're easy targets."

"Doesn't matter, we just need to stay alive long enough to kill Dad." She sounded desperate. "I'll head for the kitchen, you take the family room. Hurry."

"All right." I wanted to tell her to be careful. I wanted to tell her to stay alive. I wanted to tell her to be reasonable, and let me stay with her. But there was just no time. I fled the room, turning the lights on as I went. The mansion was huge, and the impossibly fast creature could be anywhere, or she could have already have fled.

No. She was going to stay and finish her work tonight. She had said that she was going to take Julie, and give her the gift of twisted immortality. Somehow I knew that Susan was still here in her ancestral home. She was here. I could feel it, and she had the one person who could help the Cursed One. I had to kill Ray before he could talk.