Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 22



Barrie felt a scream rising in her throat, and then a hand was clamped tightly around her mouth and she stared into the black and fathomless gaze...of DJ.

He put a finger to his lips and stared into her eyes to see if she was going to cooperate. She nodded, shaking, and he released her.

He must have seen me in the mirrors, she realized.

“What’s happening?” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

“We’re not alone,” he mouthed.

“Who?” she choked out.

He raised his hands to silently indicate I don’t know.

“Have you seen Brodie? Or Mick?”

He frowned, even as his eyes were darting around them in the dark, searching for anyone hidden in the shadows. “Who are they?”

She didn’t have time to explain who. She was too busy wondering where they were.

“You haven’t seen anyone?” she whispered.

“I feel someone,” DJ answered ominously.

You’re a vampire, she thought. Turn into mist or something.

But that wasn’t fair. He was also a troubled soul, psychologically fixated at the age of sixteen in a haunted past.

I need to get him out of here, she thought. We can look for Brodie and Mick just as well on the way out, and it’s better than staying here.

“Come on,” she whispered. “We’re getting out of here.”

The actor shook his head wildly. “I can’t leave. I’ve tried. Someone’s put up a wall. There are hexed crosses up at every exit. I’m locked in.”

Barrie’s heart dropped in dismay. This is a planned attack, then, an ambush. And by someone who knows the rules of the Otherworld.

The clink and rattling of chains echoed from somewhere in the vast, silent room, and she and DJ both froze. They weren’t alone.

Then DJ put a finger to his lips and held up a hand, indicating she should stay hidden.

He stepped forward toward the sound, into the circular space that held the three thrones. “Who’s there?” he called out in an impressively menacing voice.

He is an actor, Barrie thought from her position crouched below him. But then, as she looked up, she saw a look flicker across DJ’s face: confusion, recognition, wariness, disbelief.

“Who are you?” he said to someone Barrie couldn’t see.

Another voice came from the darkness. “Come on, Deej, we don’t have time for this. You know who I am.”

From her hiding place, Barrie felt a profound shock. It was Mick’s voice, but he sounded like a different person, a younger person.

She crawled closer to a standing screen so she could peer out through the cutouts to see what was going on. She nearly gave herself away; she had to bite back a gasp. She was looking out not at Mick Townsend but at Robbie Anderson. Golden-haired, golden-eyed, those incredible cheekbones, that lithe body. Not a teenager anymore, but he didn’t look much older, either.

“Rob?” DJ said hoarsely. He sounded dazed, all posturing gone. He sounded like a child. “It can’t be.”

“It is,” Mick said. “For tonight, anyway. Just like old times,” he added, looking across the throne circle at DJ. He glanced around at the room, the thrones, the whole setup from Otherworld. “Just exactly like old times.” To Barrie his voice sounded dangerous, uninterpretable.

“All the ghosts are walking tonight,” DJ muttered. “Where have you been? All this time... Damn, Robbie—”

“It doesn’t matter now. Time is what we don’t have. People are dying, and we have to stop it.”

“Oh, I’m going to stop it. I’m going to stop you.”

Suddenly DJ lunged and grabbed Barrie, hauling her up off the floor. His arm was hooked around her neck, and she could feel that incredible vampire strength; she was completely immobilized and knew he could crush her throat in an instant.

Mick/Robbie stood completely still, but in the wavering light of the candles she could read terror on his strange, beautiful face. “Let her go,” he said slowly and carefully. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”

DJ’s grip tightened on Barrie’s throat. “But you’re the one who brought her into it. What were you looking for, a cover story?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mick said. He looked at Barrie’s face, and she could feel him willing her to stay still.

“I know you killed Johnny,” the actor lashed out. “Was Mayo going to spill it after all this time? Maybe some publicity scheme he was cooking up for the remake?”

Barrie felt the rage in him, vibrating through the arms that held her captive, and she felt light-headed. It can’t be.

Mick shook his head. “Now you’re saying I killed Johnny, Mayo—and Branson? Come on, Deej, why? Saul—anyone would want him dead, and you know I’m not grieving for Travis. But Johnny? You think I could kill Johnny?”

DJ stared across the circle at him, and the actor’s face looked like a Greek sculpture of Dionysus, and no older than when the two boys had been in the movie. “I know you did, pal.”

Barrie’s heart dropped to her shoes. He absolutely meant it; she could feel it in his body against hers.

DJ looked around them at the set, the scene of the movie. “You think I didn’t know? I was f*cked up to the moon, but you think I couldn’t tell you from Johnny?”

His black eyes bored into Mick’s golden ones. “Oh, I knew. I even understood. Hell, we all wanted to kill Johnny at some point. You just got to it first.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “Those last scenes, they kept talking about camera angles and reflections, and yeah, I could barely stand, but I knew. You were shifting your little heart out those last two days. Playing yourself and Johnny. I don’t know how you kept it straight.”

Mick closed his eyes briefly. “I was playing him. I didn’t kill him.”

Barrie swallowed through the choke hold and looked at Mick, and she saw a teenager. A heartbreakingly open, gorgeous, vulnerable teenager.

“They told me if I didn’t the movie was dead,” Mick went on.

“So, you did it for all of us,” DJ said, in a voice so mocking it cut Barrie to the core.

“I did what I was told,” Mick—or Robbie—said softly. “Didn’t we all?”

For a moment DJ was silent, with Mick’s words hanging in the air between them. And Barrie, tight in his grip, could feel him thinking, weighing what Mick had said.

“No,” DJ said savagely. “You lie. If you hadn’t killed him, you wouldn’t have left.” His voice hitched. “You left me alone. You, Johnny...you left me alone with all of them.”

Mick took a careful step forward, and DJ’s grip instantly tightened on Barrie’s throat. Mick stopped in his tracks. “I’m so sorry for that, Deej. I had to get out. I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting out, getting away.” He spread his hands. “What chance did we have? Three kids against the whole machine?”

There was silence in the cold and candlelit throne room, and then Barrie felt DJ shaking his head.

“You’re good. You’re very good. But you’re lying.”

“I think so, too,” another voice said, cutting through the darkness, young, clear, male. DJ’s grip loosened on Barrie, and she turned toward the sound. And out of the shadows appeared Johnny Love, as pale skinned and golden as when he had manifested at the séance. Only this time he had a gun. Again Barrie had to fight to keep from gasping aloud.

Mick and DJ stared at Johnny, and for the moment reality rippled; they were impossibly but unmistakably in the movie now, the three actors reunited.

“Johnny?” DJ whispered.

“No,” Mick said. “Not Johnny.” He stepped forward carefully. “You’re Tiger’s friend, aren’t you?” he asked the specter. “Phoenix.” Barrie was shocked to realize that he was right. When she focused on the image of Johnny, she could see the telltale shimmer around the edges. Phoenix was a better shifter than she’d thought. Or perhaps anger and grief and determination had made him stronger.

“Right in one,” Phoenix said. The gun never wavered.

“I’m so sorry about Tiger,” Mick said.

“We’re all sorry,” Phoenix said. His eyes were fixed on the two older men. “But sorry isn’t going to bring Tiger back. It isn’t going to bring Johnny back. Somebody needs to pay.” He leveled the gun at Mick.

Barrie pushed away from DJ, freeing herself, and called out, “Phoenix, wait!”

All three spun around, and reality rippled again. She was facing all three of the actors from Otherworld, on the set from the movie. She had to shake her head to clear the dreamlike feeling of déjà vu, to focus on the desperate situation in front of her.

Phoenix stared at her, confused.

“Let her go,” Mick said, his voice taut. “She’s got nothing to do with any of this. Barrie, go, let us handle it. Please.”

She shook her head slightly and kept her focus on Phoenix, who was now holding the gun on all three of them. “I think there’s more to this, Phoenix. If we all talk it through, I think we can get to what really happened.”

Phoenix didn’t answer her, but he was silent, watching her. She could almost feel his ragged breathing from across the room.

“You killed Mayo, didn’t you?” she asked him softly. “You and Tiger.”

“Mayo killed Johnny Love!” Phoenix cried out. “He killed him!”

Mick, DJ and Barrie stood in the triangle of thrones and looked at each other, with the trembling teenager in the center of them.

“He deserved to die,” Phoenix finished with tears in his eyes. “For Johnny.”

“How do you know Mayo killed Johnny?” Barrie asked softly.

“It was Tiger who found out,” Phoenix said, swiping at his eyes with his left sleeve, never lowering the gun. “Mayo heard Tiger could do Johnny Love. He started coming around, buying dates. He wanted Tiger to do things. He’d have a script, you know, make Tiger say things.”

“What kinds of things?” Mick asked. Barrie thought he looked as pale as a ghost himself.

“Lame-ass things.” Phoenix’s voice changed, became mocking, mimicking. “‘I belong to you, I’ll always belong to you, you’re the only one.’ Me ’n’ Tiger would just about die laughing after.” His face hardened. “But one night Mayo was making Tiger do the whole bit as Johnny—‘I’m yours, you’re the only one’—and Tiger broke up. He laughed, you know? I mean, who wouldn’t?” Phoenix looked around at the three adults defiantly. “And Mayo flipped. Started choking Tiger, calling him things. ‘You little shit, I made you, you’re nothing without me.’ Like that. But Tiger was smart. He shifted. Suddenly old Mayo’s holdin’ Jim Morrison. Shocked him enough that he let go of Tiger and he got away.”

Barrie was mesmerized. She could see the whole scene playing out, the young prostitute mouthing off to the mogul who was used to having the entire world bow to him, the mogul’s fit of rage, the shock of Tiger’s shift.

Phoenix was nodding to himself. “But that’s how we knew he killed Johnny. It had to be, see it? Just exactly the same way. Johnny laughed at him and Mayo killed him.” The boy’s eyes were gleaming, determined. “So, we decided he had to die. For Johnny.”

“Oh, Phoenix,” Barrie said softly, her heart breaking.

“So, Tiger calls Mayo up again and says he misses him, wants to see him, he’ll be good this time, all that. They make a date, and Tiger takes the drugs with him. The same stuff that killed Johnny, right? That’s the way it had to be.”

Phoenix was shaking, his eyes far away as he remembered. “And there I am, waitin’, and waitin’...but Tiger doesn’t come back. Next thing I know I’m hearin’ they’re both dead.” He looked around in anguish.

“So, who killed them?” Mick asked tensely.

Phoenix swung toward Mick, leveling the gun at him. “You did.”

Barrie’s heart dropped all the way through her chest to the ground. “No...” she whispered.

“Or you did.” Phoenix swung toward DJ. “Silver bullets, in case you were wonderin’,” he added, lifting the gun slightly. And then his eyes went from Mick to DJ. “One of you, or both of you. But someone’s going to pay.”

“You’re wrong, Phoenix,” Mick said softly.

“It doesn’t make sense, Phoenix,” Barrie said just as softly. “Why would they kill Mayo and Tiger?”

“Because Mayo killed Johnny,” Phoenix said. “So, they killed Mayo. They were avenging Johnny. That’s fine, all on its own, but they killed Tiger because he was there.” His face crumpled again. “That’s how people treat us. Like we’re nothing. Like we don’t count at all. Like they can just use us and throw us away....”

“That’s how Mayo treated us, too, Phoenix,” Mick said. “Mayo, and Branson, too—we were just props to them.” He looked to DJ through the flickering candlelight. “But we wouldn’t kill Tiger. That would be like killing Johnny. We’re the same, you and Tiger and us. You think we can’t see that?”

DJ nodded slowly, transfixed. “We’re the same,” he said.

Phoenix looked from DJ to Mick, and Barrie could see he was wavering. Mick took a tentative step toward him.

“No!” Phoenix shouted, brandishing the gun. “You’re just trying to save your asses. How do I know you didn’t kill Johnny?”

Mick took another step. “I didn’t kill Johnny, and neither did DJ. We loved him. He was a part of us. Our lives have never been the same since he died. You kill us and the people who killed him win. Not just Mayo, but everyone. Everyone who used Johnny and sucked things out of him and wasn’t there to protect him when he needed it. The whole system.”

Barrie knew there was something they were overlooking, and it suddenly flashed on her like blinding light. “You didn’t kill Travis Branson, did you, Phoenix?”

The teenager glanced toward her, startled. He looked confused. “No. Why would I?”

Barrie looked to Mick. “So, who did?”

Mick looked back at her and nodded slowly, processing the information. “This isn’t making sense. If Mayo killed Johnny, and Tiger killed Mayo, then who killed Tiger and Branson?”

“See?” Phoenix said. He looked wildly from Mick to DJ. “It’s one of them.”

“No,” Mick said. His eyes went to DJ. “You know who.”

The two men looked at each other across the circle, in the wavering candlelight.

“Damn,” DJ said softly. “Darius. It has to be.” And Mick slowly nodded.

Darius, the agent, Sailor’s godfather? “Why?” she said in shock.

There was a sudden disturbance in the air, a cycloning spiral that would have looked like special effects if not for the sheer power of the vacuum that the air current created. And once again reality and film merged...as a figure appeared in the dark spiral, powerful, winged, lethal.

Darius Simonides.

The air calmed to a breeze, and the vampire settled on the floor, looked around at the assembled others.

“Enter the Wicked Witch of the West,” DJ said.

“Shut up, Dennis,” Darius snapped. “And stay where you are. Heroics don’t suit you. I’ll take that,” he suddenly said to Phoenix, who had lifted the gun in his hand to fire. But suddenly Darius was no longer standing in front of him; he’d completely vanished. And then, before anyone could move a muscle, he had appeared again behind Phoenix and snatched the gun away, shoving the boy savagely to the floor, pinning him with a booted foot to the chest.

Barrie gasped and started toward him; Darius turned on her faster than her eye could follow, leveling the gun at her. She froze in her tracks. “That’s good. Not one move. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am joking.”

Now that he had the floor, he held the gun almost casually, as if he didn’t really need it to keep them all in check. He turned to Mick, and looked him over.

“Well, Robbie. You managed to fool all of us, didn’t you? You’ve elevated ‘hiding in plain sight’ to an art form.”

“I didn’t do it to fool anyone,” Mick said casually, but Barrie could hear the tension in his voice. “I did it to leave one life behind and start a new one that was actually mine.”

Darius shook his head as if he were wounded. “We made you famous, Mayo, Branson and I.”

Robbie—Mick—looked almost sick with contempt. “Whatever you did, you did for yourselves. You created us, the three of us, as a moneymaking machine.”

Darius looked genuinely surprised. “We weren’t just making money. We were making stars.”

“Did you kill Johnny?” Barrie asked. She couldn’t help herself.

“Of course not,” Darius snapped. “That was Mayo and his exotic appetites. He was obsessed with the boy. When Johnny switched his...allegiance to Branson, Mayo killed him in a jealous rage, just as this young one—” he nodded to Phoenix, who was still huddled on the floor “—and his unfortunate friend deduced.”

“And you knew it?” Barrie accused, disbelief and outrage warring inside her. “You never said anything? You let him get away with it? Why?”

Mick answered for Darius. “Power. You knew Mayo was going to have plenty of it, and keeping his secret meant you had something over him for life.”

“Of course,” Darius acknowledged. He sounded bored. “He’d taken away my biggest client.” His eyes went from Mick to DJ with a ghost of a smile. “If you’ll both forgive my saying so.” He shrugged. “I had to consolidate my losses. Of course, no one could replace Johnny—or you, really.” His eyes went again to Mick, and lingered. “But I can’t say I’ve done badly, over the years, with Mayo in my pocket and DJ in my stable.”

DJ moved angrily, but Darius snapped his head around to look at him, and DJ froze in his spot and said nothing. Barrie shivered; she was close enough to feel the pure fear emanating from him.

“So, why did you kill him?” Mick demanded.

“I didn’t,” Darius said, glancing casually back to Mick. “Again, this young shifter was telling the truth. It was his shifter friend who killed Mayo, with that exotic cocktail. Mayo called me as he was dying. He was high as a kite, of course, didn’t even know he was done for. Rambling on with his last breath, some bright idea that this young shifter should play Johnny’s role in the remake.”

Phoenix lifted his head at that, and Barrie felt a pang. So, Tiger did have his moment of thinking he’d gotten a lucky break. At least he had that.

“I could sense disaster brewing, and I flew to the Marmont to try to avert it. I was too late to save Mayo, but in time to have quite an interesting conversation with the young shifter, who was valiantly ready to send me along the way Mayo had gone.” He smiled. “It seems Mayo, Branson and I are the root of all evil, corrupters of youth, exploiters of talent—”

“He got that right,” Mick said evenly.

“And he was unfortunately correct about the manner of Johnny’s demise, as well. Unfortunately for him—as that insight necessitated his own dispatch. I administered the second cocktail, not without a slight...struggle.”

“That’s why there were no footprints and no witnesses,” Barrie said. “You flew, and left Tiger’s body there.”

Darius shrugged elegantly. “And that should have been the end of it. There was no reason for anyone to have connected that boy to Mayo.” His gaze rested on Barrie for a moment. “And I could hardly have anticipated that you would take his death so seriously. He was a little nothing, a nobody—”

Phoenix gave a sob of rage from the floor. “He was somebody. He was.”

“Yes, he was,” Barrie said. “He was somebody.”

“But hardly worth dying for, my dear,” Darius said softly, and Barrie felt a chill.

“Then what about Travis?” Mick demanded.

Mick was keeping him talking, Barrie realized, but she had been thinking the exact same thing: Why did the director end up dead?

Darius shook his head in disgust. “Travis couldn’t leave well enough alone. I’d cleaned up Mayo’s death, we could have gone on without anyone asking any questions about Johnny or the movie...but then, even with Mayo dead, Travis wanted to continue with the remake. Ridiculous idea. He’s too old to do it justice, anyway. A film like that needs a young edge.”

Barrie couldn’t believe he was even bringing up the point; he sounded as if he were in a development meeting.

“But he even went so far to find independent financing. And that was just too much. A desperate move, anyway. He thought it would revive his career, and he was willing to risk all of those skeletons being dug up again. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying—‘Three can keep a secret—if two are dead’? I realized the wisdom of it, and dispatched Branson. With Branson dead, the financing goes away, and the curse on the film is alive and well. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about anyone else attempting a remake for a long, long time. We can all go back to business.”

He looked around at the four of them, and his voice dropped.

“If only you’d left it alone. We could have done all this with so much less bloodshed. As it is, I’m afraid there’s going to be an unfortunate accident that kills four people tonight.”

He glanced around at the enormous stage set. “And I couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate setting. You have such a flair for the dramatic, Dennis, but this time it’s going to kill you.” His eyes swept down the line of candelabra, and he tutted reproachfully. “How many fire codes are you breaking, do we think? This is the problem with thinking you’re immortal. Sooner or later the premise is tested.”

“You wouldn’t kill me,” DJ said. “I’m worth too much to you.”

“You may be right,” Darius said. “And, touching as it is to see you and Robbie together again, I can’t imagine your loyalties stretch so far as to include dying for your friends, old or new. As one vampire to another, I’m willing to offer you a reprieve—with certain conditions, of course. Your silence being paramount.”

The two vampires looked at each other, and Barrie had a horrible sinking feeling that DJ might cave.

“You’ll never get away with it,” she told Darius quickly, trying to break the spell. “Do you think Rhiannon and Sailor won’t hunt down my killer?”

Darius turned toward her and regarded her contemplatively. “The vampire council won’t let them near this one. I’ll see to that. Too many celebrities involved for the brand-new Canyon Keepers to merit the case. Besides, my dear, did you think I came here without establishing an alibi? Right at this moment I am at a screening with four hundred other people. I have any number of shifter friends who were happy to do it for me.”

Barrie’s heart sank.

“It won’t work, Darius,” Mick said. “There are too many of us, plus Mayo and Tiger and Branson. You’ll never explain all these bodies. There has to be a killer.”

“And that’s where you come in, dear boy,” Darius said, and Barrie was struck by the mesmerizing power he had. It was no wonder at all that he’d been able to manipulate the three teenage boys that the Pack had been, not to mention half of the rest of Hollywood. “As my assistant and several colleagues will testify, I’ve had a message from the long-lost Robbie Anderson, who contacted me out of the blue and wanted to see me and DJ here tonight. Apparently you’re a crazed killer. You’ve already killed off Mayo and Branson, and even the unfortunate boy who got in the way.”

Mick shook his head in disbelief. “Why would I do that? Why would anyone believe you?”

“Because you killed Johnny. You confessed to DJ just before you tried to kill him. DJ escaped, the Keeper and the boy did not. It will be an Oscar-worthy performance from an Oscar winner.”

Darius’s black eyes slid to Barrie’s face. “And tell me that your cousins won’t believe it. This man has lied to you from the start.”

Barrie looked to Mick, and their eyes locked.

“I won’t do it,” DJ announced.

Everyone whipped around to look at him. The candles wavered in the wrought-iron candelabra around them.

Darius rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re developing a conscience at this late stage.”

“Maybe I am,” the actor said in a voice that shook only slightly.

A small smile spread across Darius’s face. “Suit yourself. Another body isn’t going to make that much difference at this stage. I made you, I can make another to replace you.”

Barrie felt her veins turn to ice at the unbridled arrogance. But they had bigger problems.

Darius looked around at all of them. “Have a seat, Robbie.” He jerked the gun slightly at the triangle of thrones.

Mick stared back at him. “You think I would ever do anything you say again?”

Darius’s black eyes shone. “Oh, I think you will.” He turned and leveled the gun directly at Barrie’s head.

Mick flinched. He looked at her, and, keeping his eyes on hers, he lowered himself to the throne. They gazed at each other, barely breathing.

“And you, Dennis,” he said to DJ, who walked carelessly to another throne and dropped into it, flinging a leg over the armrest like a petulant crowned prince.

Barrie felt a wave of déjà vu; it was so exactly from the last scene of the movie.

Darius must have felt the same thing, because he looked at the two actors—present and former—with an expression of nostalgia on his face. “What a waste, really. Ashes to ashes. At least you can comfort yourselves in the thought that you are immortal...on film, anyway.”

He stepped to a candelabra, picked it up as if it weighed no more than a feather and tossed it against the drapery. Flames instantly licked up the velvet-covered walls; the circle of mirrors reflected the dancing light.

Darius looked to the empty throne with real regret. “If only Johnny were here to complete the circle. I’d like to see that one last time.”

And suddenly Barrie knew what she had to do.

She shifted.

She hadn’t had practice in holding a full shift for long, but then, she didn’t need to do it for long. Johnny’s look was engraved in her consciousness. She’d spoken to his ghost, he’d even come to her in her dreams. So, she held his look and his essence in her heart, and she breathed into her astral body and became him.

“You have your wish!” she called out in Johnny’s voice, and Darius turned to her, startled, and then drew back in shock.

Just as Tiger had saved himself—once—from Mayo by taking him off guard, Darius was now so startled at the sight of Johnny Love that he relaxed his bead on DJ and simply stared at Johnny.

And in that split second Mick leaped from the throne and tackled Darius.

They struggled with the gun. And as they fought, Darius Changed. His eyes turned from black to red as fangs sprouted from the roots where his canine teeth were grounded, and he suddenly seemed twice his size as the supernatural strength flowed into his limbs.

But on the other throne, DJ was Changing, too. The animal ferocity that was always just below the surface of his performances now was fully realized. He was a creature, a vampire, and there was no hesitation or laxness in the way he flew at Darius with the full strength and fury of his kind. The two otherworldly beings grappled with each other in a tangle of fangs and leathery wings.

Mick grabbed Phoenix up from the floor and hustled him over to Barrie. “Take him. Get him out of here.”

She knew he was playing on her maternal instincts to get her out of the fray, and she was having none of it. “I’m not leaving. We have to put Darius down.”

“Let me help,” a voice said behind them, an ethereal sound, but Barrie felt the resonance in her soul. She and Mick turned as one...and she gasped.

The real Johnny Love stood in front of them, insubstantial but large as life. “He’s not immortal and we are,” he told Robbie. Mick. Whoever the shifter was, other than the man Barrie loved.

To her shock, Mick grinned at the ghost of Johnny with a careless, adolescent, f*ck-you smile. “Hell, yeah,” he told Johnny. “Let’s do it.”

They turned as one and called out, “Deej! Let’s off this bastard!”

DJ pulled himself away from the fight, and for a split second, the three Others looked at each other. In the candlelight they seemed caught between adulthood and adolescence, a trio of supernatural beauty the likes of which had never been seen in the fever dream that is Hollywood before or since.

“Get him!” Johnny called.

And the three of them converged on the vampire with all the idealism of youth and the strength of manhood and the supernatural power of their Otherworldly nature.

Invincible.

For a split second Darius seemed stopped in his tracks at the sight of them. Then he drew himself up, bared his fangs and crouched on his haunches to spring. As the fire raged around them, DJ tackled him with all his vampire power, pinning him to the floor. Mick picked up a chair and smashed it against the floor, then grabbed one of the splintered wooden legs: a perfect stake. DJ held Darius and Mick held the stake and Johnny used invisible strength to drive it home, piercing the vampire’s flesh, cracking through ribs.

Blood spurted from Darius’s chest as he arched and hissed and writhed in his death throes.

At that final moment it didn’t feel like a movie to Barrie, but horribly, tragically real.

Darius spasmed in death, blood still fountaining, and then went still on the floor, pinioned through his heart.

And as the fire raged, a blistering heat, Barrie grabbed Phoenix and Mick grabbed Barrie and DJ grabbed Mick...but then they all looked back at the beautiful, golden ghost of Johnny Love, surrounded by mirrors and flames.

“Go!” Johnny shouted at them. “Go!”

And still they hesitated, until Johnny Love smiled, that heartbreaking, unforgettable smile.

“I’m fine,” he told them. “I’ll be fine now.”

As he faded away, the others all ran for the stairs, ran for their lives, as the fire ate through the dying, curling, burning images of Otherworld.