Having been kneeling beside his aunt’s corpse, lost in grief and dark thought, Rodrigo wasn’t sure how long had passed by the time he managed to pull himself together enough to stand. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes or someone would have gotten out of the SUV to check on him. He went over to Jett, still sitting in the fetal position, and gently grabbed him by the shoulders to ask a question he wasn’t certain he wanted answered. “Where’s my mom?”

Finally, Jett looked up at him and Rodrigo flinched. On the right side of his face, from just under his eye to slightly above his chin, were four diagonal claw marks. They were deep, uneven, and caked over with blood that stained his jeans at the knees, where his face had been resting. His neat, slicked-back hair from yesterday was disheveled, falling in long frayed layers down into his eyes. His expression was blank, haunted by unfathomable loss as he shrugged. In a hoarse voice, he croaked, “Gone. We...I haven’t seen her since I got home.”

Rodrigo exhaled in unexpected relief. If she’d been in good enough health to leave on her own, hopefully she was someplace safer than here. “I came with Adena and the others to take you somewhere safe. There’s a black SUV parked outside, so get in and I’ll be right out. I need to grab the kids’ phones from upstairs.”

Jett rose to his feet and stumbled to the steps. Glancing at Emelina’s corpse, he took a steadying breath. “Nah. I’ll get them. You go ahead. I can’t let Pa and Geo find her like this when...if they come back.”

There was an emptiness in Jett’s eyes, as if he might do something drastic, that made Rodrigo reluctant to leave him unsupervised. But trusting in the God-fearing part of his cousin, he nodded and left. He got back into the car, taking his seat up front beside Adena.

“What happened? Were they there?” Carlito asked.

“Mom wasn’t,” Rodrigo said. “Jett will be right out.”

“J-just him?” Raquel asked, her voice quaking as understanding dawned on her. “Does that mean—”

“Yeah.”

After a tense five minutes, during which Rodrigo was so busy second-guessing himself about leaving an unhinged Jett alone, he was almost numb to the passing demons, his cousin finally came into the car. Jett was speechless and still didn’t seem fully present, as he handed Raquel and Carlito their phones. Carlito was sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing the tears drip off his chin and onto his jacket as he tried to speak but could only wail, was actually painful. Raquel was crying, too, though less intensely. Leila was gazing out the window in silence as Adena drove.

Emelina had been the mother Rodrigo wished he had. With all the hideous wounds she had received, an atrocity now seared into his brain, her death would have been nothing short of agonizing. And being the kind soul she was, her final thoughts were probably on the safety of her children. Did she ever learn how well Jett could defend himself, or did she die with the dreadful belief that her eldest would follow her? If he had trusted her to take his side and stayed in the house after his fight with Miriam instead of running like a coward, would it have made all the difference? Rodrigo slouched in his seat, covering his mouth with his fist to refrain from screaming.

“Quiet those blubbering brats at once!” Resent snapped.

“I know being an asshole is a hobby of yours, but this is not the time.”

“Everything dies, imbecile. Before my kind have had their fill, countless more humans shall join her. My interest lies in how the twig, a rank amateur, managed to annihilate those hounds. A feat that surely rattled the other lesser demons in the area, or we would have found him in worse shape than his mother. But that’s a conversation for later. I need to distance myself from this racket before I strangle someone.” Resent took control. “Stop the vehicle.”

“Why?” Adena asked.

“With fewer humans wandering about, demons are becoming less selective in their prey. I’m going to make your job easier by standing up top and dealing with the ones that stray too close.”

“Don’t fall off and inconvenience me instead.” Adena pushed a button over the rearview mirror. Within seconds, the tinted panoramic sunroof above their heads slid open. Without waiting for Adena to even slow down, Resent pulled himself through it and up onto the van’s roof. Rodrigo expected him to rock back and forth, but his balance was solid.

Resent stretched both hands out and in the fraction of a second, tiny orbs of darkness appeared on every fingertip, covering them up to the nail. He fired them, one at a time, at any demon bloodthirsty enough to try to impede the speeding car. The impact of each absurdly fast shot sent their target spinning backward, whether they were wearing armor or not.

Staring ahead, Resent detected something in the distance Rodrigo’s vision wasn’t sharp enough to perceive. For a moment, he seemed perplexed. Then a giant pair of eyelids cracked open in the sky in front of them, revealing luminous yellow eyes. Resent yelled, “Halt!”

The tires screeched as Adena pulled to a violent stop half a block away from an immense, black toad covered in warts. Camouflaged in the night’s dimness, the abomination flicked a slimy, puke green tongue out of its mouth that wrapped around the vehicle and began to pull them in.

From the top of the car, Resent shrouded his fist in the nebulae and mercilessly pummeled the toad’s tongue. If the blows caused any discomfort, the demon didn’t show it and merely continued dragging the SUV forward. Its tongue had ensnared the vehicle, wrapping around the doors and windows so they couldn’t be pried open. Inside the car, Adena mashed the button to re-open the wide sunroof, then stood on her seat and jumped out, landing in a roll.

“Do something!” Rodrigo yelled.

Using an arm for each, Resent wrenched Raquel and Carlito out of their seat belts, and through the sunroof, tossing them away, careless of how they fell. Jett languidly climbed out of the car, as if exiting an unpleasant amusement park ride. It was halfway in the toad’s mouth as Resent swept Leila up in his arms and sprang back toward the concrete.

Once everyone was on their feet, they looked up in horrified awe at the enormous toad chewing on the remains of the car like it was bubblegum. About the size of a two-story house, this thing dwarfed the ogre. But more intimidating was its width. It took up the entire street, just barely leaving the sidewalk uncovered.

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Even Adena seemed unnerved, though she swiftly recovered her poise. “Between making a meal of my favorite vehicle and all the supplies in the back, you’ve cost me a small fortune. In compensation, I’ll be taking your life.”

The toad stopped chewing and spat out a compact metal ball that smashed into the blinking neon sign of a movie theater. It leaned forward and squinted down at her, mystified for a few seconds before laughing hysterically in a shrill tone, startling them all. “Did you believe yourself threatening, little human? Puh-lease, Sonneillon, Captain of Bittervale, is so far beyond you,” the demon said in a singsong voice.

Resent crossed his right arm over his left and unleashed whirling nebulae that matched the toad in size. The demon was big enough that he wouldn’t be pulled into the twister, but consequently, dodging it as it enclosed around him was impossible. So Sonneillon opened his mouth and, with a sound of rushing wind, inhaled the twister, breaking the eddying nebulae down to their base mist-like structure as he did so.

“W-what just happened?” Raquel asked.

Sonneillon’s body bloated all the way up to his bulbous chin.

“Hit the sidewalk!” Adena ordered, already in motion.

The demon spewed Resent’s nebulae back at them in the form of a gigantic, gaseous blast. The mass of dark energy narrowly missed them as it tore down the middle of the street, forming a fissure in the concrete and obliterating a small building in its path. A shock wave shoved all except Resent to the ground as debris and white dust swirled around them, sending everyone into coughing fits.

Sonneillon licked his thin lips in a slow, exaggerated manner. “Yes, the former prince’s nebulae undoubtedly have a unique flavor.”

“You know who I am and yet you still challenge me?” Resent asked.

“Were you in your prime, I surely would have leapt away. However, in your gelded state, you are no more menacing than the humans you crawl with.”

“Is that so? Then why not try me?”

“Certainly. But first, permit me an appetizer.” Sonneillon reached behind him with his tongue. Even Resent seemed at a loss as the toad held a closed dumpster suspended in the air. When the groans and sobs were heard coming from inside the container, everyone understood. If Rodrigo had been in control, he would’ve tried to prevent it, but there was no time. All at once, Sonneillon flipped the dumpster upside down, pouring people too battered and broken to even muster a scream into his mouth, then tossed the empty receptacle aside. He retracted his tongue and gnawed on the humans with his rows of teeth that allowed him to chomp through steel.

“This m-monster...” Raquel’s voice died in her throat at the sound of crunching bones.

Resent was unimpressed. “Are you quite finished with the theatrics?”

Sonneillon whipped his blood-soaked tongue out to entangle him.

Three blasts of blue electricity slammed into the tongue, stopping it short and making the demon give a guttural cry of pain. The toad hastily reeled his singed tongue back into his mouth.

Resent glanced over his shoulder.

Leila stood a few paces behind him with her sleek new semi-automatic shotgun raised. “We’re not going to just sit around and let you eat us!”

“That actually stung, you nasty little bitch!” Sonneillon yelled, all levity gone as his voice dropped several octaves. “I shall devour you while you remain of sound enough mind to fully comprehend your agony!”

“Maybe the tongue’s his weak spot,” Rodrigo suggested.

“Doubtful. When I struck it before, I failed to do any damage. This was barely an attack, yet the fool’s gone apoplectic. It’s the electricity he fears.”

Adena exchanged a look with Resent and nodded, apparently coming to a similar conclusion. To keep their true intention hidden, she said, “Resent, Jett, if we attack together, it’ll go down.”

Resent looked at Jett, still sitting on the pavement, his eyes glazed over and downcast. “Twig, are you ready?”

Jett said nothing.

“Let me talk to him,” Rodrigo said. Resent grumbled, but returned control. “Jett, we need your help.”

“Why bother? What’s the point? Survival? Is it even worth all this trouble?”

Rodrigo blinked. “Look, man, I get that what happened to Emelina has you in a dark place, and you know how much I loved her. I’m so sorry. I should have gotten there sooner. And maybe I could have if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked. I don’t know if that would’ve been enough to...” His voice cracked, and he had to suck in a breath. “Enough to save her, but you can’t give up. Do you seriously think she’d want that?”

“This isn’t about Ma. That was just the wake-up call. If we make it through this fight, all we’ll be doing is fighting again and again until we die. Why struggle so hard...to live a little longer in a world like this?”

Rodrigo was shuffling through his mind for something, anything, he could say to bring Jett back from the brink, when he picked up the sound of a stampede in the distance.

Sonneillon, who had been mesmerized by Jett’s anguish as if watching a Broadway play, snapped out of his trance, his jolly attitude renewed. “You little humans are just precious. I especially adore how you persist in histrionics while your lives hang in the balance. Such a shame. If I am to consume you all before my voracious soldiers return, this performance must come to a premature end.”

Rodrigo looked around at the others. Raquel had her pistol aimed at the demon, but her whole body was trembling. Adena and Leila were peering behind them, trying to spot the incoming soldiers. Carlito was...sprawled out on the ground.

“Carlito?” Rodrigo called.

“We need to go, now!” Adena yelled, eyeing a manhole.

Rodrigo tuned her out, sprinting toward his brother as Sonneillon’s tongue darted out and split into three. Two tongues were coming after him and the other was reaching out for the unconscious Carlito. The rest of the group was too distracted to help in time, and the tongues were approaching faster than he could run. Rodrigo slammed the nebulae into the ground to give himself a better vantage point, then quickly converted them into chains that extended to the inside of the toad’s open mouth. Carlito was being drawn toward Sonneillon like a fly, when Rodrigo’s nebulae crushed the base of the tongue, rupturing it. The demon squealed as his oily tongue drooped out of his mouth and crashed to the asphalt.

Rodrigo could feel his blood hammering in his forehead as he landed and growled, “Don’t you dare.”

“Finish him!” Resent yelled.

To say he wanted to kill the toad would be an understatement. If Sonneillon’s tongue regenerated anywhere near the speed of Rodrigo’s body, he would be back to gorging himself on humans shortly after they made their escape. Demons killing for sport was infuriating enough, but this one was taking things further by eating people alive. However, his backup would be on Rodrigo in seconds. Besides, past the red mist and his racing thoughts, he was vaguely aware of the others calling for him. He yanked Carlito free of the severed tongue that had coiled around him and threw him over his shoulder.

Adena had burned around the edges of the manhole cover with surgical precision, letting it plunge into the sewer tunnel below, and everyone was scurrying down a ladder. Rodrigo jumped in last, just seeing the horde of advancing demons, dozens of which were in flight, making for far more than he would have guessed. Once the group was all there, Adena set fire to the entrance behind them and took off running at top speed, lighting the way with a bright orange flame in her hand. The splashing of their shoes echoed through the tunnel.