He’d expected the door at the top to be locked somehow, and it was, but only from his side. Apparently, they were less concerned with keeping him in than keeping themselves out. Still, it gave him trouble. He had to stretch to reach the knob, and only after several tries did he manage to turn it. The door opened and his poor balance and awkward position brought him face-first onto the rough carpet of the main floor.

The bodies of the priest and nun had been removed from the vestibule, but they’d been replaced with fresher corpses. Cyrus pulled himself across the floor, the carpet scraping his stomach where his shirt rode up with his motion. He reached for a wheel of one of the motorcycles, thinking to pull himself up. The vehicle tipped, and for a long moment he thought it might topple onto him. With a frustrated sob, he made his way to the wall, pulling himself upright through sheer force of will. He had dealt with these kinds of people before. They had no respect for anyone or anything, but he had a better chance facing them standing than crawling on the ground at their feet.

As he rested, propped against the wall, he glimpsed his surroundings through the dark windows. A badly cracked parking lot in an ocean of desert sand, and beyond that, a barren road. Exactly the sort of place these cretins would imagine when waxing poetic about the open road. His gaze dropped to one of the bikes, and the insignia on the side made his skin crawl.

The Fangs.

A part of him was revolted at the thought of spending another minute with the uncouth gang, but another part was grateful he’d offered them refuge in the days before his untimely death. If they had any decency at all, which he doubted, they would feel indebted to at least explain what was going on.

The large, double doors to the church were shut. Cryptic, occult markings had been drawn on them in chalk. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

Loud, discordant music, the type Cyrus had been glad to be rid of when they’d ended their extended stay at the mansion, blared from a huge system of stereo equipment hastily arranged on a side altar. A rowdy dice game occupied most of the gang members in the center aisle. A few slept in the pews, obviously not caring what toll their dirty boots and grimy clothes took on the upholstered seats. One Fang used spray paint to draw exaggerated phalluses on the figures in a mural of the Last Supper that graced a side wall. Someone threw a beer bottle and it shattered loudly against the wall. On the whole, they conducted themselves much more respectfully than when they’d been at Cyrus’s house, swilling beer and ruining his formal dinner parties. This must be their church behavior.