Sally Yan knelt in the dark and thought harder than she’d ever thought.

The Evil couldn’t possibly have offered her the victory she seemed to have won. Withdrawing and offering her the game had to be a ploy to come back stronger.

But she sensed that if she called the demon’s bluff, she would win. If she could be strong enough, the vampire plague was over.

Hadn’t the world prayed for just this for five years?

What if she said the other words, though? What if she said the words the world had struggled for five years not to say, not even in jest or in sleep.

What if she said welcome, come in…

Almost comically on cue, every vampire twitched, a horizontal chorus line. Jesse’s ragged wet gasp joined Rich’s sobbing moans.

Amanda Malreaux felt sunlight like a drop of crystal water soothing a fevered dream. A devastated Charity Claire saw light return to her lover’s eyes. Collapsed vampires quivered outside of homes in Iceland, Zimbabwe, Moscow…

And Sally’s heart squeezed painfully as Lavinia’s beloved voice said, “Whuh…”

Then everything was still again.

The ache of longing hope was harder to bear now, as she tore herself from Rich’s misery and scrambled to Lavinia’s side, than it had been on the morning when she found Lavinia in the camper.

She loved Lavinia more deeply and more knowingly now than she had then.

But taking her back then had been danger only to herself. Taking her back now might condemn the whole world.

Her night vision had gotten better again too, just for that moment, damn it. She had seen from the corner of her eye a shiver of movement as Walter, still on the ground, groped heavily to take his beloved’s hand. And she had seen on Lavinia’s face the desperate desire to live and love – and the fierce determination to let the world be saved.

“You been a gift, kid,” Lavinia had murmured.

Everything was over now. She couldn’t even try on that deadly come in thought for an instant again to get Lavinia back, to kiss her once more. The next time would be for keeps.

She tried on the future where she gave Lavinia’s body a last kiss of farewell, then dragged Rich to his feet, if he could stand. She lived the exhausting journey down the dark path lugging him. She imagined calling Helga as soon as she had reception. “Come get us. It’s safe now.”

She’d have to phrase it better, Helga would think Lavinia was part of the “us.” She imagined them driving Rich to a hospital in bitter silence. And after, going back to Helga’s home and almost surely to bed in those forgiving golden arms, the welcome Lethe of orgasm, the remembered shame of her own voice saying, “She’s not much in the brains department…”

“Knock knock,” said that tentative voice again.

KerriAnne wanted to show her something about Jeremy telling Walter, I’ve seen what sunlight can do to a vampire and the strange joy on his face when the sunlight healed Jesse. She saw glimpses of a future that needed to happen: Jeremy getting an all-important knock on his red front door, Sister Amanda’s face lit up with recognition of someone, Charity Claire seeing something outside her window that would change her life, and KerriAnne herself in the form of a graceful pepper tree.

“Then it should be welcome,” she whispered. Lavinia’s eyes flickered to life again, found hers.

“I welcome in the vampires!” Sally screamed. “I welcome them, they can come in, we’ll take them in, we’ll find a way, you can all come in!!!”

Something rushed into her with blizzard force!

Images of fear came quicker than she could take them in: the masked monster gliding silently into her room at night, her small self falling from the highest cliff with a needle thrill of air surging past and the ground rushing up, a roaring bellow and pain that was also thrilling…

She had chosen wrong.

The Evil thing exulted. It had offered the game to her only so that it could come back now, more powerful than ever. Vampires swarmed on all sides, they clogged the world again. Nothing could stop them now, nothing.

Lavinia said through tears that she had never before cried, “So what the fuck are we gonna do now?”