Danny wanted to bulldoze the entire place after New Year’s Evil, send a battalion of heavy equipment to churn it into mud and broken pottery. That was his answer for everything: machinery. Eric had to talk him out of it. Merlin had warned him: the things down here had to stay buried. You couldn’t destroy what had been contained in the earth for that long.

The boy — screw it, just call him Colchester, that’s who he is — stops at the top of the serpent’s head and looks at the sky. He holds up his hands, a gesture of peace. “I want you to know this is not about revenge. I am not that petty.”

Eric laughs, because if Colchester is going to kill him anyway, he might as well be honest. “Bullshit.”

“You know, you never understood me, son,” Colchester says, his voice warm and folksy and old, no trace of the child in it now. “You never knew what I was doing. You only thought you did.”

“I remember you trying to kill me. A lot.”

“Well. You were an annoying little shit.”

Eric can’t argue with that.

“But that’s not why. We were on opposite sides. It was a war. Wars have casualties.”

“Yeah. I know. The war between good and evil, light and dark, the beginning and The End — ”

Colchester lets out a laugh that reminds Eric of the bray of a donkey. “That’s what that old fraud Merlin told you. Children are made for fairy tales like that. Admit it, you loved the idea that you were the chosen one, battling to save the world from evil.”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me you were the good guy? I saw the people you killed.”

“I’m saying that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are too small for what we are. Let me ask you this: all my Followers. Why do you think they joined me? Why do they do everything I ask, no matter how horrible?”

“I always assumed they’re sick fucks who enjoy it. Or they thought they’d get eternal life and they didn’t care who else had to die.”

“That’s a fairly ugly view of humanity for someone who’s supposed to be a hero.”

“Yeah, well. People suck.”

“You’re wrong,” Colchester says. “Not about people. They’ll do anything if they’re given the right motivation. That’s why I had them kill each other. You have to get the buy-in. The bigger the atrocity, the better. They figure it must be worth it. Because it has to be.”

Living in Vegas, Eric has seen a lot of that. Unfortunately.

“But you’re wrong about why they follow me,” Colchester says. “They follow me because I offer them true peace and happiness. Not eternal life, or immortality, or anything like that. I never lied to any of them, son. I only ever gave them the truth.”