John

"Ritual of Feasts, that's right. You heard of it?"

The tall woman who'd introduced herself as Freya paces up and down the sidewalk in front of the Perro Gordo, phone pressed to her ear. After being filled in on the situation and what we knew so far, she'd called her 'associate,' who she claimed was more likely to be familiar with the occult side of things, and passed the information along to him. The whole thing was very unorthodox, and probably a breach of some kind, but Chief Coleridge seems untroubled, and I don't give a fuck as long as it helps me get Carlos back safely.

"All right, one sec." She holds the phone away from her face and addresses me where I sit on the sidewalk bench with Becky and the dogs at my side. "You got some paper and a pen? One 'a those little cop notebooks, or something?"

"I do." Becky, ever prepared, fishes in her purse and produces a small, spiral-bound steno pad and a ballpoint pen.

Freya takes them with a nod of thanks and goes back to her call. "Okay, go ahead."

She makes markings as she listens, which look more like scribbles than notes, and ends the call with a word of thanks and a promise to someone named Darius that she'll be careful and safe.

"Lucky for us, Darius has heard of this thing," she says. "You wouldn't be surprised if you knew him. Anyway, he says if the three rituals aren't carried out in the same location, then they'll have to be performed in places that align with the points of an equilateral triangle, preferably with a power point at the center. The site of the final ritual marks the apex of the triangle. Now," she holds out Becky's steno pad, revealing the marks she'd made on it. "We'll have to look at these locations on a map, but we've got two, so finding the third should be a matter of simple geometry."

Coleridge nods, already on her phone and calling the station. She passes along the information and request, then pulls up a GPS map on her phone. My phone pings as well, and I see two sets of coordinates.

"Why are there two?" I ask.

"'Cause the third point could be on either side of the first two," Freya says.

"Where exactly did you see that van, John?" Coleridge asks.

"Near the bank on Crescent, heading north."

"Shit." Freya stabs at the paper with the pen. "That's almost directly on the line we already have. They could have gone either way from there."

"What's at these coordinates?" Becky asks, leaning around my shoulder to look at my phone.

I check the map. "One is outside of town on privately owned land; the other is in the historic old town area along Rail Street."

"Alright." Coleridge takes a breath. "We'll split up; you pick one, I'll take the other. McKenzie, Carter, you're with me. Turner, you've got Hunter. What'll it be?"

I study the four pins on the map, two in blue for the sites of the first two rituals, two in red for the possible sites of the third. Remembering what Freya said about a point of power, I look at what lies in the center of each triangle as well.

"Just go with your gut, John," Becky says gently. "Pick one. Either way, someone will find him."

Nodding, I choose.

~ ★ ~

Despite my best efforts to convince her not to, Becky insists on accompanying me with the dogs. She rides beside me in the passenger seat as I follow Freya Hunter's motorcycle through town at top speed.

At first, I'd been too rattled by fear to tell if my instincts were leading me right, but now I'm sure. I can sense Carlos, and sense that he's in trouble.

No, not just trouble. He's afraid, and he's in pain.

My foot gets heavier on the gas. Becky grips the handhold on the door, but she doesn't complain. She might not have my vampiric senses, or share the bond Carlos and I have, but she knows we're running out of time.

My car doesn't have sirens, so I can't safely run red lights, and I grit my teeth every time I'm forced to slow down or stop. Thankfully, there's very little traffic this late at night, and once I'm sure an intersection is clear, I barrel on through, red light or not.

As we near the industrial area around the rail yard and the old theater building comes into view, my instinct solidifies into a certainty: Carlos is here.

A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the old building, with a large gate on wheels, which is chained shut. While Freya skids her bike to a halt in front of it and dismounts, pulling off her helmet and hanging it from the handlebar, I contemplate how to get over the fence without raising uncomfortable questions in Becky's mind.

Freya makes this a moot point as she runs straight at the gate, climbs it like a ninja running up a wall, and vaults over the top without snagging so much as a curl on the barbed wire.

She lands in a crouch on the other side and looks back at me expectantly. "You coming?"

"Uh... Becky's not..." I look at her helplessly. She's staring at Freya as if she's not sure she believes her eyes.

Unperturbed, Freya strides back towards us. "No worries. I got you," she says, and takes hold of the padlocked chain keeping it shut. Grasping it in both hands, she pulls hard. A link gives, opening enough for her to slip it loose and break the chain. She yanks it free and slides the gate open.

"There. Now come on."

Becky glances at me, and the fact I'm not freaked out seems to freak her out more than anything else.

"Cheap chains," I say, by way of explanation. "They don't make 'em like they used to."

"I guess not," Becky agrees, but she's looking at Freya as she says this.

Freya draws a small pistol from a holster on her thigh, and I ready my sidearm and gesture for Becky to stay back. She doesn't listen, unsurprisingly, and joins us as we break into a run.

The front of the theater is boarded up, but that doesn't deter Freya. Handing me her weapon so I can cover her, she grasps a two-by-four and tears it free, nails and all, tossing it aside. Becky watches, mouth agape, as the other woman kicks right through a sheet of half-inch plywood, cracking it down the center. She clearly needs no help, but as she wrenches the pieces off, I join her while Becky hangs back at a safe distance with the dogs.

"Becky's not in the know," I say, keeping my voice low. "She thinks you're a normal woman."

Freya stops what she's doing and turns to look at me, dark brows raised above unusual amber eyes. "Excuse me?"

"Werewolf is my guess," I say. "Am I right?"

She opens her mouth and shuts it again. "Oh. Yeah, I thought you meant... something else."

"Like what?" I frown at her, wondering how else my words could possibly be interpreted under the circumstances.

Freya shrugs and gets back to work. "I was born 'Frederick,' after Frederick Douglas. Kept the first bit when I changed it."

"Oh." I clear my throat. "No, I meant Becky doesn't know about... things like us."

Freya casts me a glance. "Coleridge knows, and you smell like a vamp, so I figured we were all on the same page. I'll be more careful."

Muffled gunshots sound from within the theater, followed by a high-pitched scream that cuts off abruptly. A chill runs through my blood, and I throw caution to the wind.

"Fuck it. I'll debrief her later," I say, and kick in the door with my foot. Vampires aren't as strong as werewolves, especially a half-turned one like me, but fear and adrenaline make up for what I lack, and the door splinters off its frame. I step through, weapon at the ready, Freya at my back and Becky following behind with the dogs flanking her.

The scene that greets my eyes defies reason, momentarily stopping me in my tracks.

On the stage at the front of the theater, Carlos stands in a sphere of light, hands outstretched. At his feet lies a body without a head. I surmise this belongs to Rafael, as Rexi stands at the other end of the stage, gun drawn. She aims her weapon at Carlos and fires twice, but the bullets spark off his protective shield—or rather, the demon's shield; because, as a terrible growl echoes through the auditorium, I understand it isn't really Carlos I'm looking at it.

He's possessed.

It appears the ritual worked, but probably not in the way Rafael expected, given his lack of head.

"Holy fuck," Freya says. "Darius is gonna be pissed he missed this one."

Gesturing for her to stay back and cover me, I jog down the aisle towards the stage, gen drawn. "Police! Drop your weapon!"

Rexi pivots towards me and fires, but the shot is wild and strikes something high above my head, sending down a shower of sparks. I duck behind a row of skeletal seats and take aim, but I'm too slow.

Two more shots ring out, but Rexi didn't fire them. She drops like a sack of stones, probably dead before she hits the ground. I turn, expecting to see Freya, but it's Becky, stance wide and both hands steadying her weapon, who gives me a shaky smile and lowers her gun.

"She shot at you."

"She shot at all of us," I say.

"Never mind that." Freya nods at the stage where Carlos still stands within the sphere of light, which appears to be emanating from a strange pattern of cracks in the floor beneath his feet. "Even if we could shoot him, my guess is you don't want us to. So, what's the plan?"

I shake my head. "No clue. Let me see if I can talk to him."

Slowly, I approach the side of the stage and mount the steps. Carlos—or whatever's inside him—watches me with chillingly patient curiosity.

Whatever has him is powerful, and I don't know if we can beat it, or if there will be anything left of Carlos to save if we do.

I have to believe there will be. Faith is what it takes to beat demons; and while mine isn't exactly the sort of faith that's usually called for, it's the only kind that really works.

Faith in the man I love.

As if he reads my thoughts, Carlos smiles, and a voice—his, and not his—rings in my head.

Hello, John. We've been waiting for you.