Twenty-Nine

On a bitter February night, Gwen bursts into Arthur’s apartment, terrified, and reveals a serpent tattoo that fades in across her torso. Van admits he has the same mark, and Arthur, prodded by Gwen, confirms it appears on his chest as well. They connect the brand to King Sorrow and fear touching the serpent’s head will bring him through to “lay waste.”

As shock settles, a fire alarm blares from Arthur’s burning TV dinners. The smoke and panic give way to a sudden psychic plunge: Arthur, Van, and Gwen slip into Jayne Nighswander’s point of view in Boston, as if inhabiting her mind.

Inside Jayne’s home, she wakes to shifting TV channels and an eerie blue glow, checks on sleeping Tana, and arms herself with her father’s Ithaca pump. In the living room, the TV becomes a glass tank containing a dragonlike serpent with claws and a single golden eye. The creature—King Sorrow—addresses Jayne by name with mocking familiarity.

Terror drives Jayne to fire. She shatters the TV with a shotgun blast, then accidentally fires a second round into the floor while re-racking. As Tana and Ronnie react offstage, Jayne fixates on the horror that the dragon knows her name.

The vision snaps back to Arthur’s smoke-filled kitchen. Van’s eyes momentarily film over, and Gwen, shaken, confirms she experienced it too. Confronted with the consequences of their earlier rites and Sorrow’s growing reach, Arthur tells Gwen they must find a way to stop what they set in motion.