Gunnar growls, and anger sparks inside me, raking my bloodstream. While these two measure their dicks, my life and death—and that of my parents—have once again been reduced to another unimportant detail in someone else’s story … and I’m sick of it.

“Look at me, asshole,” I seethe. “I’m not scared of you, and I don’t care about your plans for the future. You won’t hurt me, and if your head gets ripped off, I’ll just track down one of your friends—so don’t think you matter to me. Don’t think you’re leaving this school alive unless you tell me where my mom and dad are.”

“Can you feel him?” His eyes grow bigger, his smile twisting wider. This is his true face, his cheekbones like daggers. “The Ascension is so close I can taste it. The Endless One claws his way through you even now, your sad, unworthy skin giving way to his glory!”

“I feel him,” I confirm. “And if you won’t give me what I want, I’ll take it.”

With that I lunge into his thoughts, burrowing as deep as I can. His name is William, and once upon a time, he was a musician—a normal person, if not a nice one, whose brain was damaged by substance abuse, then malnutrition, and then psychosis. He was exactly what Rasputin was looking for when they met: an embittered man without hope or morals, full of anger, desperate to feel powerful. He senses me running through the gallery of his thoughts, but he doesn’t resist, because he knows I’ll find nothing that matters.

He doesn’t know where my parents are; he doesn’t know where his master hides, or who’s among his inner circle. He’s nothing but a grunt, a foot soldier recruited to be one more body between Rasputin and his enemies—and William is more than happy to fulfill that role. He’s been promised eternal life, dominion over the people he resents, and any sacrifice he has to make to get there is worth it.

I let him go, rage and desperation clashing in my heart like thunderheads, tears blurring my vision. William chuckles at my misery, his laugh a sound like bodies falling into a ditch. “All you have to do to save them is join the Order, August Pfeiffer.”

“If I do that, he won’t need them anymore.” My throat is raw. “He’ll just kill them.”

“He’ll kill them if you don’t.” William’s smile stretches into a truly monstrous shape, an aspect of vampiric physiology I’ve never seen before. “You could at least give them a fighting chance.”

“I could make you find them for me,” I threaten, but his shoulders merely shake in silent mirth.