Jacks stood next to Zakuran, bent over, slightly. He held his father's old hunting knife to the side of her neck. He kept it razor sharp. He'd cut her a little already, just by pressing it to her skin.

It was the turning of the knob that woke him. The metallic clicking sound. He'd been lying on the floor on the other side of the bed, next to the window. He'd continued to breathe deep, feigning sleep. Waiting for the right moment to make his move. And then the intruder had approached Stepton, prompting Jacks into action. He had been just in time.

He whistled. Quiet, but loud enough to wake the dog.

Stepton's ear twitched and his head went up. He jumped to his feet. And he didn't bark right away. He could be dangerous, that way. But his hackles went up, ridging his back with thick hairs. He bared his teeth. Growled quietly. Slowly backed away, looking from the woman to Jacks's face intermittently.

"You've upset my dog, again," Jacks said quietly, close to her ear. With his free hand, he grabbed the hair on top of Zakuran's head. He yanked her head back, so that they were face to face, she looking up at him upside down. "What do you think," Jacks said, talking to Stepton. "Should we make a meal of her?" Then, something seemed to come over Jacks. He was furious. Almost shaking. She'd almost killed his dog, right in front of him. The last family he had in this world.

He hocked, spat on her face. The glob of saliva--and probably other stuff--landed high on one of her cheeks, near her eye.

She didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Didn't try to pull away. Her eyes glinted fiercely with a wild light. She was grinning. "You're going to regret that, little man."

There was no possible way Jacks could have prepared or accounted for what happened next. Because it was impossible. And yet, it was happening. He was watching it happen.

The blade of Jacks's knife was no longer in direct contact with Zakuran's skin. Something else was there. A finger-width ridge of a shiny metallic substance that had begun to protrude from her neck, pushing crosswise against the blade. A bar of curved metal running vertically down her neck.

Startled, Jacks retracted the knife. Almost dropped it.

Zakuran spun, palms on the floor. She lashed out with her leg, lifting herself up off the floor.

Her knee and shin struck Jacks diagonally across the chest. It was like getting hit full-on with a steel pipe.

He stumbled- no, he was airborne, literally lifted off his feet and flung backwards. His back hit the wall next to the bed, splintering it, making cracks that split outward from the point of the impact. For a split second he was still in the air, against the wall, before slipping back down onto his feet.

By some miracle he still had the knife clutched tight in his hand. He was having trouble getting a breath in, almost as if his lungs had collapsed. Only, that hadn't been what happened. She had just knocked the wind fully out of him.

He managed a sharp, gasping intake of breath.

Zakuran drew herself up, facing him. Blade-like ridges had formed throughout her body, coming out of her skin. With enough force that in some places her clothing had ripped in places, even though the lengths of metal itself only came up a thumb's width out of her skin. There were several running down her neck. Three running down each shoulder and arm, ending at the tips of six of her fingers. Thumbs, pinkies, and middle fingers.

She came at him, forming a fist with one of her hands.

Jacks managed to duck, rolling out of the way. Her fist struck the already fractured wall where his head had been, sending bits of woody debris flying.

Jacks rolled to his feet, whistling to get Stepton's attention off of Zakuran and onto him. He drew his pistol. He was still wearing all his clothes, except for his jacket. This included his gunbelt.

He pulled back the hammer and fired once. Light flashed from the barrel. Thunder echoed hard in the tiny space, making Jacks's ears ring. A fist-sized hole was punched in the window glass.

Better than nothing.

He jumped, hitting the window shoulder-first, covering his eyes and face with the crook of his arm.

Glass shattered, splitting. Shards grazed his head, arm, and ears, like tiny razors.

He flipped over the lip of the window and onto the tiled roofing, rolling. Bits of glass bounced and clattered, tinkling like wind chimes.

Behind, he heard the BANG of Stepton leaping after him through the window and onto the roof, followed by the thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud of his padded paws as he ran.

Jacks hitched--practically fell--over the edge of the roof. It wasn't that far to fall. Two Jacks's, end-to-end, one on top of the other. Maybe.

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He tucked his knees, absorbing the shock of the fall, and had to roll again, wetting his clothes with the night dew in ankle-high, emerald grass. He got back to his feet and faced the roof.

Stepton was standing at the edge of the roof, gauging the distance to the ground, looking at Jacks questioningly.

Jacks simultaneously sheathed his knife and gun on his belt. He held up his arms and whistled to Stepton. "Come on, boy! Jump!"

Stepton seemed apprehensive, yet still intuitively picking up on the urgency of the situation. He took a couple steps back, made a running start, and jumped.

Jacks had to take one step to the side to line up the catch, making a cradle with his arms. Stepton wasn't that heavy, overall. Slightly heftier than Jacks's travel bag.

Still, Jacks had an OOF feeling as Stepton's weight hit his chest, in the same spot that Zakuran had struck him only moments before. He could already envision the nasty bruise that would be there soon, cutting his torso in half at a diagonal slant.

Jacks set Stepton on the grass and drew his pistol again. He drew back the hammer and began to slowly step backward, eyes on the window.

Zakuran burst through the broken window like a specter of the night taking flight. Dark hair flailing. Feet never touching the rooftop. In a leaping arc.

Jacks began to fire, fanning the hammer with the palm of his other hand as he went, aiming for the dark shadow of Zakuran's body as she shot through the air.

Four shots. Four sparks of light at the end of the barrel. Four cracks of thunder in the night.

There had been five bullets left. He was saving the last.

He watched Zakuran soar in the air. Something had changed in her posture. Her body had gone limp. Faltering.

Jacks sidestepped as her body arced past, just over where his head had been.

She hit the ground, skidding and skidding on the grass. Blades of bunch-grass parted. She came to a stop a good thirty paces away. And didn't move.

Jacks had left his bullet pouch in the room. He had one bullet left.

He began to slowly make his way, apprehensive, across the grass. Toward the body.

He needed to leave, soon. Get as far away from here as he possibly could. They would kill him for what had just happened. He was almost certain of it. But before that happened, he needed to make sure she was really dead. A confirmed kill. No matter what happened, he was going to make sure she never got her hands on his dog again.

She was sprawled. Arms wide. Legs bunched. It was almost funny.

He stood not a couple paces from her, pistol leveled down at her.

She was face-down on the grass.

Stepton was growling. A low rattle in his throat. He was orbiting Zakuran's body, watchful.

Jacks braced himself. Knelt down.

Part of him wanted to use that last bullet. Straight in the back of the head. But he would use it if he had to. He just needed to check.

Something wasn't right about this woman. The things she could do. Maybe bullets wouldn't be enough.

Then why the hell am I still standing here? he thought.

But he needed to know. He had to be sure.

All at once, he grabbed her by the shoulder and flipped her onto her back.

She was limp, floppy. The rigidity of death had yet to take hold, obviously. But she did have three holes in her. Peppered throughout her midsection. Bloody stains bloomed in a trifecta underneath her shirt. Her eyes were open, staring blankly upward into the night.

He felt her neck. No pulse.

So that was it, then.

Jacks stood. Contemplating whether he would have enough time to go back for anything in the room. The rest of the housemates would be up and alert by now. But he might be able to climb back up into the window. With his bullets and rifle, he might have the best chance of fighting his way off the property. He-

A rustle in the grass near his feet. Stepton interspersed his growls with a series of high-pitched, alerting barks.

Jacks glanced down. Zakuran's body was beginning to twitch. Which wasn't all that uncommon of a thing. Dead people twitched. It was just a fact of life. Or...death. But there was something different about this. Stepton sensed it. And now Jacks saw it, too.

Her arms were curling in, pulling in on herself. Her legs were extending. Her eyes began to blink.

She sat up, wide-eyed. She groaned, flexing her arms and neck. She looked down at her bloody torso. She gripped the seam of her shirt collar with both hands and pulled until her shirt tore. She pulled it apart, straight down the middle.

The rate and tone of Stepton's barks had risen to a frantic, maniacal fever. Whereas Jacks was frozen. Spellbound.

His eyes were not drawn so much to the woman's bare breasts as to the bloody bullet wounds themselves. Little things, one in the center of each bullet hole, had begun to rise upward out of her body. Glinting and slick with blood.

The bullets.

Well, you said you'd use it if you had to.

Jacks put the gun to Zakuran's head and pulled the trigger.

He wasn't fast enough. In the last fraction of a second, Zakuran batted the barrel away from her face.

Flame ejected from the barrel. The gunshot rang, sound echoing back off the wide structure of the mansion and losing itself in the treeline on the far side of the property.

She was still stunned, though. Recovering. She bent forward, working to get to her feet.

There was something supernatural about this. Perhaps even divine.

He had just tried to kill a god. Could there be any other explanation?

“You’re done, Jacks Wellick,” she said, on her hands and knees. Getting up so she was on one knee.

Jacks stabbed her. In the back of the neck.

She gurgled, spewing blood onto the grass.

Jacks yanked the blade out. Wiped the knife on his jeans. Sheathed it.

Zakuran fell forward, hitting the grass face first, again. And Jacks had no doubt that, within moments, she would be up and on her feet once more.

He looked toward the house. Gold, flickering lights were beginning to come on in the mansion, clashing with the silver light of the moon.

He was done trying to kill this woman. This…thing. He was done being a part of this.

The man who had killed his family was just that. A man. And Jacks would find him eventually, with or without the help of spirits. Or the gods. Whatever these people were supposed to be.

After all, his mother had always told him it never paid to get caught up in spirit business. And he believed his mother. He believed in the folktales he'd heard throughout his life. Time after time, usually after the sun was down, and the woods were thick with shadows, faces illuminated by the crackle and sputter of a campfire. Fearful superstitions, some of them. Stories invented so the teller could encapsulate his own deepest fears and share them with others, try to make sense of them. But there is often wisdom in the telling. And perhaps some of the stories were even true.

All Jacks knew was that nothing good would come from this. The most he could hope for would be to cut his losses and run.

So he whistled to Stepton, and ran toward the tree line. Ran as fast as he could.