I kicked him onto his back and jammed the knife into his chest. Leaving the blade inside him, I dragged him into the house.

Jesse was kneeling next to the man I’d almost tripped over when I came in the first time. He helped him—his brother, Edgar—sit up, saying, “Take it easy. You’ll be good as new soon enough.”

The redhead I’d shot groaned, coming back to life. Jesse found a knife on the floor and stabbed her with it, then hacked at her neck until her head came off and she turned to ash.

“Rovers?” I said. “All of them?”

“You didn’t know?” Jesse said.

My relief—I’d killed monsters, not humans!—was short-lived. I knew I was still in danger.

“We’ve got to dust them,” Jesse said. “You take care of these two”—he gestured at the bikers on the floor, the Mexican and the black one—“and I’ll do the ones on the patio.”

I picked up the knife the Mexican had dropped and went to work on him. The wound in his forehead was already smaller than it had been moments before. He opened his eyes and screamed a silent scream, but I kept cutting until he crumbled.

I was about to do the same to the brother when a glass door shattered, and Jesse backpedaled into the house, firing his pistol. He ran past me and pulled Edgar behind a couch. I scurried to an open door and found myself in a hallway. A blood-spattered blonde and a limping biker came in from the patio, headed for a door on the other side of the living room. A third biker, a short white man, followed, waving a pistol.

“Any of you still walking, we’re getting out of here,” the blonde shouted.

Jesse popped up from behind the couch and squeezed off a shot. The short biker fired back. All of a sudden the black one got to his feet and staggered toward the others. I fired at him and missed, but Jesse put a round in his leg. He kept going, the short biker helping him along while pinning Jesse and me down with random shots.

The gang scrambled through the door and slammed it shut. Over the ringing in my ears I heard motorcycles start up. Jesse ran outside as three Harleys exploded out of the garage and fired after them until his gun was empty. When the sound of the engines had faded, he came back into the house and went to his brother, who was cowering next to the couch.

I found Sally hiding in a closet in one of the bedrooms. He didn’t struggle when I hauled him out and threw him on the bed.

“I had to try,” he said.

“I guess,” I replied.