He was barely on the ground for a moment before his limbs and head were torn free in a haze of motion, the parts of him tossed haphazardly but powerfully, landing houses away.

It didn’t take three minutes before all eight were headless (and one limbless), their remains scattered around me.

Xun, Wei, and Chen stood, surrounding me close, breathing heavily, their clothes bloodied, their eyes pinned to the army in front of them as Abel sauntered to the golem, picked up his torso, tore it in half, and tossed each half away from him, one at either side.

More awesome and more gross.

Whatever.

Not taking a moment even to glance at his brothers to get a lock on how they were there, he faced Etienne.

“We done now?” he asked. “Or do you want more?”

Etienne apparently was unconcerned with the loss of his followers, their headless corpses littering the street.

He was still smiling.

Man, this guy was whacked.

Suddenly, he shouted, “Humans!”

Abel, the boys, and I all braced. Abel was crouching, obviously to prepare to turn wolf; Xun, Wei, and Chen were lifting their hands and shifting their legs, bending just at the knees as if they were track stars at the starting line. But before any of us could take a breath, a line of vampires in front of us held humans in front of them.

I stopped counting at thirty.

No, I stopped counting when I saw one had a little boy. He couldn’t be more than five, also in his jammies—a crumpled blue tee, bottoms with turtles on them.

His little, pale face was a mask of fear.

Sick rolled up my throat. Sick with a chaser of panic.

Etienne’s head tipped to the side as he challenged, “Do you think you can save them all?”

I knew by the tightness of his body that Abel was freaked.

And worried.

So was I.

“Yep,” Abel replied carelessly.

“Good luck,” Etienne whispered, lifting his hand.

“No!” I again screamed.

* * * * *

At a Convenience Store Somewhere in Florida

“They got no shot,” one of the throng of people standing around the counter, watching the small television on the shelf behind the cash register, said.

“Holy cow, that’s the guy and girl Susannah River was talking about this morning!” a woman who just walked up exclaimed. “What’s happening?”

“Shh,” another woman shushed her.

“Those Chinese guys can fight, and that big guy’s got speed, but those poor people are goin’ down,” another man muttered. “And they’re takin’ the good guys with them.”

“Pray God they don’t,” a woman up close to the counter whispered. “Pray God. Pray God. Pray God they save them all.”

* * * * *

Gregor

A vampire whirred into the room and stopped.

“Sir, The Three,” he stated.

“This is not good, this is not good, this is not good,” headphone man chanted, gaze to the monitors.

“What?” Gregor clipped to the vampire.