I can either be a victim—or a winner. Fuck victimhood. I don’t wear it well; it clashes with my wardrobe.

I’m ready.

Only one of us is getting out alive.

It’s going to be me.

Ten minutes south of Dublin, I park in front of my chosen lair; formerly Mallucé’s gothic playground of death, sex, and fear.

The night MacKayla first laid eyes on the enormous four-story Victorian mansion, with its acre of haphazard, perspective-defying additions, oriel windows and transoms, turrets and porticos and wrought-iron balustrades, I’d known it would one day be mine.

John Johnstone Jr., murderer of his parents, feaster upon lessers of his kind, fueled, like me, by lust, greed, desire, and supremacy; his memory serves only to remind me that my body is as weak as his was and can be destroyed in the same fashion.

I drag myself from the car, clutching the door for support, taking care to position my feet properly. The soothing darkness of night has finally descended.

I’d have arrived much sooner if the unthinkable hadn’t happened—the sun exploded in Dublin—assaulting my newborn eyes with cruel javelins of light. Not even the sunglasses I’d found in the car made it possible for me to stare into the burning glare and drive. Rather than continuing to pursue my goals, I’d been forced to pull into a thicket, cover my head with my jacket and bide time until dusk. I’d occupied those hours going over my plan, envisioning each step in exacting detail. Richly detailed thought shapes reality. I excel at thought.

My body, however, is a bitter joke. I’ve discovered MacKayla’s nerve endings are as flawed as her mind; they cause enormous discomfort, overreacting to every sensation like a flock of hysterical doves.

I was certain when I merged with her body, evicting MacKayla’s guilt-riddled consciousness from the limbs and organs, that firmly embedding my enormous, focused will in her tissue and bone would strengthen her flesh.

The opposite is true. In the same fashion Jada burns through energy and must eat constantly, I quickly exhaust the physicality I’ve appropriated. The body that houses me is unequal to my will. I’m a flame-thrower inside a Chinese lantern.

Before I became embodied, my path to supremacy was clear. It had, in fact, seemed childishly simple. Kill the three contenders for the power of the Fae race, summon and kill the Fae queen, absorb the True Magic, drink the Elixir of Life—presto, I’m immortal and unstoppable.

The theft of the spear changed everything.

It was the linchpin, the thing without which all else collapsed. For want of a motherfucking nail. My single priority is recovering the weapon. Or the sword. I don’t care which.

I close the door and lean against the car, drop my head back, stretch my mouth wide and summon my flagging energy to call my army, rouse my children. I chime in the First Language, releasing their True Names in a brittle, beautiful song of tubular bells, ice, and velvety darkness. My words are lifted by a wind eager to do my bidding and go soaring into the night sky where they fan out then streak off into a million different directions.

Come to me, I command. I am Creator/Ruler/King of yore, feel my power. Your will is mine. Come to me. We will feast and conquer.

I repeat the summons, layering my haunting dark melody into the breeze until, with the prickling of my Fae essence, I feel the amassing throng of my children rising from shallow beds in the earth or sex-and-death-perfumed bowers in abandoned houses where they hold humans captive. I feel them turning away inside Chester’s, separating from the Seelie and making for the door. Slipping from catacombs in cemeteries where they claimed lairs. They will stand guard at my lair, watchdogs from Hell while I determine what this vessel requires to function properly.

Come to me, I sing to the night, obey your king.

When I am assured my hordes are rising like the Wild Hunt, I begin the seemingly eternal walk to what will be my lair until I leave this world.

One foot.

The next.

Left foot.

Right.

Cocksucking body.

I’ve eaten as much Unseelie as my stomach will hold without bursting. Still, I weaken. I fortify my resolve with my mantra: WE ARE DESIRE, LUST, GREED, AND THE PATH WE CHOOSE TO SUPREMACY.

The towering double doors are ajar but my children will soon seal and guard them. I grab the fabric of my pants, slippery with blood and guts and brains, by the front of my thigh and hoist up one foot after the next, navigating a wide flight of stairs, stumble and crash into the doorjamb, holding it for support while I gather my energy.

The rambling house MacKayla found monstrous is lovely. She had plebeian taste. Fucking pink everywhere, until she discovered the absolution of black, hiding stains, concealing predators. Each room I pass through is a delight to my senses, fecund with the residue of worship, submission, and death. Here, humans willingly sacrificed themselves on the altars of need and loneliness for a brief glimpse of their god, bestowed only as they gasped their final breaths.

I abhor the word “need.” There are things I require, as I have decided they will benefit me. Need is a disease endemic to the human race—a bit you put into your own mouth, pass off the reins to someone else then act surprised when they ride you hard. Wake the fuck up. Broken horses get ridden. And when they’re past their prime, they don’t get put out to pasture in a serene, happy meadow, but slaughtered and sent to the glue factory. The broken have a responsibility to die and make way for the living.

When MacKayla asked Barrons why so many Unseelie gathered at Mallucé’s mansion, he’d replied, Morbidity is their oxygen, they breathe richly here. That night, I’d thought Barrons similar to me, possessing acute clarity of mind, formidable will, and unapologetic lust.

He is an embarrassment to his form, weakened by the illusions of love and self-sacrifice and no doubt countless others. One can never sell oneself a single illusion. More lies are always necessary to support the original lie.

Wasted eyes follow me as I pass: shocked, dimly curious, lustful, too drugged to approach. Mallucé’s followers linger in the house, heroin-thin and pale, nested on pallets in dark corners or sprawled in a tangle of naked limbs on low-backed velveteen divans, burning incense, playing music, shooting up, snorting back, fading out.

Stoned passive prey.

My children will have food when they arrive.

Pity I lack the energy to partake of it myself.

I seek the basement. By the time I reach the subbasement that houses the suite of rooms where J. J. Jr.—human of surprisingly refined intellect—once lived, I am crawling.