from her hand. Abraham advanced now, still fast, even after the heroin. Tori got in his way, was knocked aside, and landed hard. Two could hear the crack of her head on rock from six feet away, like ice snapping on a lake in midwinter. Two fell to her knees, scrabbling at the ground.

Reaching, searching, her eyes never leaving Abraham’s advancing form. She felt the machete’s handle, clasped it, and brought it up in a last, desperate arc. She swung the heavy blade with all of her strength, screaming prayers in a nonsense language to an indistinct God. Prayers for speed. Prayers for strength. Prayers that it was not too late.

The blade caught Abraham just below the chin, carving into the skin of his neck. For Two, it was like chopping at stone. She felt pain lance through her arm as muscles separated, tore, gave out, but did not draw back, did not stop her swing. Abraham’s head separated from his body, flew up and backward into the air, hit the ground rolling, and came to a stop by Tori’s inert form.

Two rolled away from the headless trunk, which stood for a moment as if welded to the ground. Great black jets sprayed forth from the ragged stump of neck, and the hands clutched at its sides as if searching still to tear Two apart. Then at last like Goliath it fell, borne down by its own weight, and lay still upon the ground. Abraham, the dark god, elder vampire of the new world, lay dead.

* * *

Blackness overtook Two, and she lay on her back for some time, covered in filth and blood, heedless of the slush that piled around her. Gasping, sobbing, calling out to Theroen, Two lay on the cold ground until she at last realized that Theroen wasn’t coming, and dragged herself to a sitting position.

Tori.

She made her way to Tori’s body and bent down, fearing the worst. To her relief, Tori’s body was already healing, the flow of blood from the wound on the forehead slowing. She was breathing in deep, slow, steady breaths. Two shook her gently, and Tori opened her eyes. She sat up, groggy, and looked at Two, then at the head on the ground, and broke into tears. Two held her tightly, kissing her face, her hair, unable to believe they had both survived it.

“Oh, Tori. Oh, sweetheart. We did it. He’s dead. Tori, he’s dead!”

They took the head back with them to the house. Two wanted it nowhere near the body. She knew that vampires possessed formidable powers of regeneration, and if someone had told her that Abraham’s head could somehow reattach itself to his body, she would not have doubted them.

From the forest emerged two staggering forms, making their way slowly toward the mansion, toward warmth. Two’s head was throbbing, though she couldn’t remember hitting it on anything. Her right arm felt as if on fire, every muscle torn and pulled. Tori leaned against her, still dizzy and sick from the blow to the head. Neither woman was capable of mustering more strength than was necessary to keep their limbs moving.

The side door was locked, and so they made their way toward the front. Two didn’t know what she would do if that door wouldn’t open. Break a window, perhaps. It didn’t matter. They needed to get inside. The mansion was hope where no hope had been. It was warmth. Survival. Two wondered if she was crying. Her face was too numb from cold to tell.

The front door opened with ease, swinging wide, opening on the rooms in which she had spent the past two months. Two made a choked, sobbing noise of gratitude and stumbled inside, slamming the door behind her. She eased Tori down onto the plush oriental carpet, and staggered to the entrance to the basement. She threw Abraham’s head down the stairs, then bolted the heavy oak door at their top.

The pain in her head and arm were making her dizzy. Two stumbled forward into the first room she could see. The media room. Melissa’s blood still stained the carpet, and Two looked away. She struggled to one of the couches, fell down upon it, and let black unconsciousness take her.

* * *

She woke in the early morning, the sunlight still painful on her skin, and shifted position to a couch that lay in the shadows. Here she slept the rest of the day, and into the next evening. When at last she came out