“He’s your brother.”

“Fuck a brother.” With a flick of his fingers, he shot darts of black light toward the sky. “All my life he’s come first, and I was supposed to just follow along behind him, never quite measuring up. The good son, the dean’s list, the important writer. The power. I’m so much more than he is now. And he thinks he can lecture me? Teach me? Train me?”

He shot out a hand, tossed an oily black bolt at a pine at the edge of the forest. It cleaved in two, and the jagged halves smoldering in the blackened snow.

“He thinks his soft, white, weak power can measure to mine?”

“He—he’s gone to the dark side.” Shaun stuttered it out. “Like, like Anakin Skywalker.”

Mouth curling into a sneer, Eric flicked a black dart at the fire ring. “God, you’re such a fucking geek.”

“This isn’t you, Eric.”

He turned that sneer on Lana, then looked at his hand. Now something black and sinuous curled around his arm. When he lifted it, crows streamed over the sky, began to circle.

“It is. Finally, it is, and I have what should’ve always been mine. Humanity’s dead. I’m standing on its rotting corpse, and am. We are,” he said, turning to Allegra. “We are what lives now.”

“Thrives and takes. Whatever we want. Whoever we want.” Leaning into Eric, Allegra rubbed her cheek to his. “Maybe we should keep one for a pet.”

“You’re sick, man.” Eddie gripped Joe’s collar to keep him close. “You’re way sick.”

“Maybe him,” Allegra considered. “After we roast his dog on a spit.”

“Let’s do one now. Our rule-making hero’s taking too long. Let’s just do one now, have some fun. You pick, baby.”

“Hmm.” Allegra stepped forward, pale hair streaming behind her as she strolled around the circle. “It’s hard to choose. They’re all so boring. Except her.” She stopped in front of Lana. “But she needs to be last—her and that bitch she’s growing inside her. She needs to see the rest die.”

“I thought you were just a little stupid.”

Off balance for a moment, Allegra blinked at Lana. “What?”

“You heard me.” Whatever it takes, Lana thought, she’d protect her child. So she smiled dismissively. “A little stupid, a lot whiny, and mostly useless. I can see I underestimated you. You’re really stupid, whiny, and useless. I’m not sure what that makes Eric, as you’ve been able to use sex and some clumsy power to pull him in with you.”

“A man,” Kim said from behind Lana. “A man who loses his shit over a pair of tits. Sorry, guys, but we’ve got a case in point here.”

As she stood, legs spread, Allegra’s hair began to fly in a rising wind. “You have no idea what I am, how long what’s in me has waited for this day. But you’ll know, before I rip that wriggling mass of cells out of you, you’ll know. You’ll see.”

Allegra spread her arms, and they became wings, pale as her hair, with edges toothed and keen. She rose up on them, spun. In the whirl of wind, smoke rose from the flames.

“There she is!” On a laugh, Eric lifted his arms. His wings were black, oily like the bolt, gleaming in the haze.

“What are they?” Shaun choked out. “What are they?”

“Death. The dark. Desolation,” Lana murmured. And arrogant, she thought.

While they, like their crows, circled, Lana drew on what she was, what she had, prayed it would be enough.

“When I say run, run. To the house.”

“We’re trapped here,” Shaun began.

“We won’t be.”

She cast out her light, beat it against the circling dark. Cracked it. “Run,” she snapped, shattering it.

She dug for more, hurled it upward. She heard a sound, like the sizzle of bacon in a hot skillet, a roar of pain and insult, as she ran with the others.

Those bolts rained down from the sky, turning the house into an inferno. The heat, the blast, knocked her back. Before she could push herself up, one of Allegra’s singed wings swooped down. Desperate, Lana gripped it, twisted it, even as the teeth pierced and bit into her hands. Beyond pain, she heaved up power. Eric leaped to gather Allegra to him, pulling her clear.

Eddie yanked Lana to her feet. “Max, Max and Poe. They’re coming. We’ve got to run for it.”

She heard gunshots, ran in a blind haze with blood dripping from her hands. She saw Kim stop, try to pull a stumbling Shaun upright, and fire, fire, fire with one hand. With horror, Lana saw that singed, mangled wing slice down toward Kim. As Lana fought to find enough to defend, Shaun shoved Kim away. The jagged teeth tore through him, face, throat, chest, gut.

Whirling, Allegra let out a cry of triumph as life spilled out of him.

“No, no, no.” Kim crawled through the blood, already a pool of it. “Shaun!”

“He’s gone.” Choking it out, Eddie dragged Kim away, down the muddy, slushy mire of the road as Max drove up.

“In the car. Everybody.” As he shouted, Max pressed his hands up, fighting to create a shield. Teeth clenched, Poe stood beside the car, firing a long gun. “In the car.”

“Not without you.” Sheet white, shivering, Lana yanked her arm from Eddie’s grip. “Never without you. They’re strong, Max. More than either of us can stop alone. Eric…”

“I know. I need you to get in the car.” Sweat rolled down his face as he strained to protect his family. “It won’t be without me, but we need to move fast.”

“We’ll move faster together.”

“Eric.” His arms trembled, his muscles screamed, but Max held the shield.

“Look what she did.” Allegra turned her face into Eric’s shoulder. “She hurt me, Eric. She has to pay.”

“She’ll pay. They’ll all pay.”

“Eric, you have to stop. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can! Because your rules don’t apply anymore.” He hurled bolts against the shield. “Because your time is over, and mine’s finally here. Because it fucking feels good!”

“You’re twisting what’s in you. You—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up and die!”

The blast knocked Max back against the hood of the car, bloodied his nose. With his ears ringing, he looked at his brother’s face, saw only hate and greed.

He made his choice.

“Poe, behind the wheel. Lana, in the back. I can’t hold it much longer.” He inched toward the passenger side and got in, keeping his gaze locked with Eric’s.

In the back, Lana held up her bloodied hands while Kim wept.

“Lana, you need to help Poe. Poe, reverse, and fast. Just go. Lana, keep us on the road.”

They would never outrun what was coming, she thought. Eric and Allegra whirled together, forces joined. The wind shook the car and, around it, the ground began to crack. On the hill the house blazed. They had only to fire the car the same way, to push through Max’s shield and send a black lightning bolt streaking toward the car.

Lana pressed one torn hand to her belly, praying for her child, and turned her other raised hand to guide the car as Poe shot backward at a crazed speed.

“I’m sorry, Max,” she murmured.

“So am I. God, so am I.”

As they whipped past the propane truck, Max dropped the shield, throwing that power and all he had toward the tank. It met the bolts Eric hurled.

In an instant, Lana saw the shock and alarm on Eric’s face, then the explosion spewed fire, metal into the air. She heard screams, terrible, terrible screams, through the rocking blast.

“Turn around as soon as you can.” Max stared straight ahead. “Head into the village. We can’t leave Flynn there, or anyone who’s with him. If they survive that, they’ll go after whoever’s handy.”

“She killed Shaun. They killed Shaun. He pushed me out of the way, and they killed him. He never hurt anyone, and they killed him.”

Eddie hugged Kim close as Poe managed a three-point turn at a pull off. “Dude was a hero. A fricking hero.”