Setrakian held the bright lamp in front of him, using it to drive her back. Her reaction was animalistic and confused, recoiling as though confronted with a flaming torch. Setrakian pursued her cruelly, backing her up against a wall. From deep in her throat came a low, guttural noise, a groan of distress.

“Doctor.” Setrakian was calling to Eph. “Doctor, come. Now!”

Eph went closer to the girl, taking the Luma lamp from Setrakian and handing him the ax—all the while keeping the light trained on the girl.

Setrakian stepped back. He tossed the ax away, sending it clanking along the hard floor. He held his tall walking stick in his gloved hands, gripping it beneath the wolf’s-head handle. With one firm twist of his wrist, he separated the top handle from the rest.

From its wooden sheath, Setrakian withdrew a sword blade fashioned of silver.

“Hurry,” said Eph, watching the girl writhe against the wall, trapped there by the lamp’s killing rays.

The girl saw the old man’s blade, glowing nearly white, and something like fear came into her face. Then the fear went fierce.

“Hurry!” said Eph, wanting it to be over. The girl hissed and he saw the dark shade inside her, beneath her skin, a demon snarling to be let out.

Nora was watching the father, lying on the floor. His body began to stir, his eyes opening. “Professor?” said Nora.

But the old man was locked in on the girl.

Nora watched Gary Gilbarton sit up, then rise to his bare feet, a dead man standing in his pajamas, eyes open.

“Professor?” said Nora again, switching on her lamp.

The lamp crackled. She shook it, smacking the bottom, where the battery went. The purple light fizzled on, then off—then on again.

“Professor!” she yelled.

The fluttering lamplight had gotten Setrakian’s attention. He turned on the revenant man, who looked confused and unsteady on his feet. With skill rather than agility, Setrakian doubled Gilbarton up with jabbing thrusts to the gut and chest, opening white-bleeding wounds in his pajama top.

Eph, alone with the girl now, watching this demon assert itself inside her, and not knowing what was happening behind him, said, “Professor Setrakian!”

Setrakian directed thrusts at the father’s armpits in order to bring his hands down by his sides, then slashed at the tendons behind his knees, collapsing the revenant onto all fours. With Gilbarton’s head up and his neck extended, Setrakian raised his sword and uttered some words in a foreign language—like a solemn pronouncement—and then his blade sang through the man’s neck, separating his head from his trunk, the revenant’s lower quarters collapsing to the floor.

“Professor!” said Eph, pressing the lamplight on the girl, torturing her—a girl about Zack’s age, her wild eyes filling with indigo coloring—bloody tears—while the being inside her raged.