“You’re finally here,” Colchester says, the voice coming from his own mouth rather than Jeremy’s now. He points to Kirk and Susan. “Put her on the altar.”

“What?” Grace says.

“What?” Eric says.

Colchester rolls his eyes. Jeremy’s eyes roll along with them. “Don’t be slow, boy,” he says. “We have a lot of sacrificing to do tonight. Sooner begun, sooner done. Let’s go”

Eric doesn’t move. “You gave your word you wouldn’t harm her.”

“And I won’t,” Colchester says. “You will. Why do you think I told you to bring the sword? That should make it easy.”

Eric looks at the sword, then at Colchester. “This wasn’t the deal.”

For a second, Eric sees something flicker to the surface of Jeremy’s face. A sudden unease.

“It takes a lot of blood to change the world,” Colchester says flatly. “If you really want power, you’d better get used to it now.”

Eric clenches his free hand into a fist. Magic shimmers in the air around him. He does not quite point the sword at Colchester.

“I just want to make sure I’m not next on the altar. What did you mean that we have a lot of sacrificing to do tonight?”

“You interrupted the last harvest. One girl is not nearly enough. This is the payment and the interest. This is what it takes to start The End.”

He points to the road that leads to Snake Hill. Down below, Eric can see headlights moving along the winding highway that climbs up from the valley. Someone else is coming to be slaughtered as well.

Then he realizes: those are not headlights.

He’s seeing the light from dozens — maybe hundreds — of phones in the hands of people walking toward Snake Hill.

He casts his sight a little further — an old, easy bit of magic, like suddenly looking through a telescope — and sees they are kids. They look like zombies, in thrall to the light of their screens, marching forward through the rain.

Colchester has brought the children of Middleton here for a sacrifice. The Pied Piper all over again.

“Oh,” Eric says. “Cool.”

Colchester nods, and Kirk and Susan begin hauling Grace over to the altar. She struggles and screams.

Jeremy shakes himself, as if waking from a nap. He turns and looks at Colchester floating above him.

“But you both promised to bring her back to her mom,” he says in a small voice.

Colchester thunders down at him. “Don’t you question me, you whining little shit. You stay where I tell you and do what I tell you and you will get what you want, or you will get nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

Jeremy shrinks down and seems to vanish behind his own eyes. His face goes blank again.

Colchester grimaces, satisfied.

“Now you,” he says to Eric. “Time for you to earn what you have coming to you.”