Where was his goddamned jammer? As soon as the monsters were done with the Germans, he had to try—he’d have to hunt for the right counterfrequency to lock them out. But even as he thought through the plan in his mind, he saw all the points of failure, the unlikeliness of success—

Rebeka closed her eyes and rocked back and forth on her heels. If she was communing with the shadows again, he hoped it was working.

Crunch. Sigmund’s shouts went abruptly silent with the gnash of bones and teeth, replaced by the screams of his family. Phillip forced himself to look: the first monster stood in the cabin’s doorway now, grinning at them with a blood-slick smile. It sucked down Sigmund’s headless body with a fierce slurp.

“Anytime now, Rebeka,” Simone shouted, stepping backward from the monster. It turned flaring nostrils toward her, sniffed deeply . . .

Then swiveled its focus toward the German woman.

Something bumped up against Phillip’s leg, and he looked down to find Sigmund’s bitten-off head staring back up at him. Bile roiled in the back of his throat. But it was the reminder he needed to get to work—

“You devils have done this! With your—your wicked magic and your—”

The German woman had no time to finish before the monster raked her into one massive, multijointed claw and held her aloft. One talon punctured straight through her lungs, dissolving her words into a damp gurgle.

Finally Phillip found the jammer and tore it free of his pack. He snapped the crystal into place and rattled the box until the dimmest frequency came in. Come on, you know how to do this. He clicked through the frequencies, but his invention was designed for portability, not fine-tuning. Before him, the monster took its time feasting on the woman while its companions munched on the Reichsjugend.

There—he found one frequency that made a curious shimmer in the air. It was almost as if, for one second, the monsters were a chalk drawing on a blackboard that someone had smudged. But then they righted themselves and turned, snarling.

Oh, you felt that, didn’t you? Phillip spun back to the frequency, and the same effect happened. But it wasn’t enough. Liam had told him that the frequency opened the rifts, so countering that frequency should push it closed again. Right? If he was going to force them back into their realm, he’d need more power.

“You found it,” Rebeka said, locking eyes with him.

Phillip winced. “I don’t have enough juice. I need a bigger generator. I need—”

“A car?” Simone asked, peering out the cabin window.

Phillip’s face fell. Yes, a V-6 engine ought to do the trick. But there were at least two monsters between him and that horsepower. “They’re blocking it—”

“I can buy you time,” Rebeka said.

“Please—don’t—”