Three things happened at the same time: I whirled, shoving Katie into Tate’s arms with an urgent “Get her out of here!” plea. Bones’s power crashed around the ghouls, freezing them in place. Trove disappeared, reappearing an instant later behind Bones to wrap him in a crushing embrace.

I felt the power drain from Bones, as suddenly as if he’d been staked with silver. He hadn’t, though. Trove’s hands were empty, fingers splayed as they dug into Bones’s chest while the demon shuddered with what looked like rapture.

“You’re not a meal, you’re a banquet,” he moaned.

With a snap, the invisible net Bones had cast over the ghouls broke. They’d only been confined for seconds, yet that seemed to be enough to take them from angrily determined to murderously enraged.

“Kill the vampires!” Barnabus howled, raising his silver knife.

“Run,” I urged Tate, mentally cursing when Katie twisted out of his grip. At least she ran in the opposite direction of the ghouls, Tate following close behind her. Then I yanked one of my knives from my coat. I’d worn this duster in the heat of summer for a reason. Instead of charging at the ghouls like Ian did, I slashed my arm with a long, wide cut.

“Come!”

My call reverberated through the boiler room, echoing back to me with a new, eerie chorus. Ice shot through my veins, its bone-chilling effect welcome because of what it heralded. Right as Ian clashed knives with Barnabus, Remnants shot up from the floor and fell on the ghouls.

Their screams joined the howls that filled my mind as well as my ears. Unlike before, I didn’t have enough strength to fight off being swallowed up by the encompassing power. The part of me that could still think hated what was going on because Remnants were unbeatable. I was all for stopping people who wanted to kill me, but unleashing Remnants was akin to showing up at a knife fight with a nuclear bomb.

The rest of me was too attuned to the Remnants to care about fairness. With the door to the other side now wide open, their hunger consumed me. They were slivers of the most primal emotions people shed when they crossed over, sharpened by the passage of time and frenzied by endless denial. As they attacked the ghouls, lips and teeth that had turned to dust millennia ago finally got to feed again, and for brief, brilliant moments, their excruciating need was assuaged. Then, like addicts chasing their next high, the Remnants tore into the ghouls with more viciousness, seeking the shards of relief that their pain brought.