Still trapped in the huge underground moon temple machine and becoming more exhausted and injured by the moment, Helena, Issy, and Valencia are not doing well against the overwhelming odds facing them. Helena, having taken too much of a beating from the dismembered zombie sacrifices plaguing them, keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, while Issy and Aldonza are having trouble continuing to fight off the effects of the moon machine trying to siphon off their free will and Valencia, with no protectors, is vulnerable to the attacking cultists. Issy manages to continue to retain her free will in the face of all the moon energy swirling around them, but Aldonza starts to slip, becoming more and more Colossus-like, stopping more and more often in her attempts to help them escape, and they fear soon she might turn on them as well. As the wall frescoes fire silvery arrows at them, Issy returns fire, turning the stolen bow she took from the seaside archer on the artwork. She manages to damage and destroy several of the frescoes, channeling her own control over the moon to deface the carvings until they can no longer attack them, but Helena desperately calls out to her that they have to focus on Aldonza - the machine is siphoning off Issy's lunar powers and Helena's control over mystic forces and using them to help turn her into its puppet. Valencia, more pragmatically minded, calls for help and is finally answered in the person of Marco, a bodyguard who used to work for her criminal overlord father, who slides down into the temple and has no idea what's going on but understands at least that his employer is threatened and starts opening fire on the zombies and cultists in her defense. Chaos reigns, but the three girls at least begin to hold their own, however tenuously. Unfortunately, Helena can see, through the blurry haze of her injuries, that it can't last long; the machine will overwhelm them even if the attackers don't. She calls out to Issy that she'll have to shoot Aldonza to have any hope of saving her; only the purified lunar power of the bow, wielded by Issy with her connection to the moon, will be able to break through the machine's insidious hold. Issy is horrified by the prospect of shooting their new friend, but grits her teeth and inflicts several nonfatal shots to Aldonza's limbs... and unfortunately doesn't manage to snap her out of it. Aldonza instead turns on her, lifting Issy up and beating her against the floor and walls, and Helena screams at her that only a fatal shot will work. Issy finally shoots Aldonza directly in the chest as she is about to drop, breaking the spell and tearing off the growing metal influence... but Aldonza falls to the floor, mortally wounded, and Issy and Helena must scramble to try to keep her alive. With Marco protecting Valencia and Issy dragging both Aldonza and Helena toward the chute, it seems unlikely that they could possibly fight their way through the remaining cultists. Helena uses the last of her strength to mystically force them back up the chute to the surface above, and everyone manages to run to the car, stagger back to the apartment, and try to recover from their near-fatal wounds. Issy puts Aldonza in their one remaining functional bedroom, hoping that rest will help her now that they've done everything for her medically that they can, and she and Helena and Valencia collapse together on the couch to recover themselves. Before they can, however, they hear a tapping at their balcony window and discover a leather-clad, handsome man loitering out there, which is surprising considering that they're on the second floor. Issy suspects what's going on even before she has to issue him a formal invitation to enter; the vampire introduces himself as Diego, and explains that his boss, the Count Eladio that they met and befriended at the party, sent him to ask them to come to a meeting to discuss paying him back for his help the other night. The girls are slightly disgruntled since they didn't realize he'd want to be paid back, but decide that it's fair, and Valencia and Issy head off to his club, Drain, to meet him, leaving Helena behind to watch over Aldonza. Once they arrive at the club, they meet Eladio, Tiberius, and a new woman who is introduced to them as Sylvia, a liaison from the local Seminole community that lives in he Everglades. This meeting is a state-of-affairs roundtable, and everyone has something to contribute to talk about how things have unfolded and what they need to do now. Valencia and Issy learn, among other things: Tiberius tells them that a group of terrorists stole several of his trucks and used them to release strange foreign monsters in the city, then destroyed them Tiberius and Sylvia both explain that these monsters are responsible for an imminent and incredibly dangerous hurricane and for the destruction of the swamp spirit, which was attacked by an invading lightning demon Sylvia informs them that a new swamp spirit has arisen to fill the vacuum left by the old one, but that it's angry and vengeful and actively harmful to humanity, and that many of the native spirits and deities are upset and volatile The Count tells them that the invading monsters have wiped out all the rival vampires that he was opposing, but that they're now menacing his own people, and that he had contact with and was betrayed by the same group of terrorists Everyone agrees that the problems with the moon are going to be exacerbated by the hurricane, possibly to the point where they can't be fixed Valencia and Issy are shocked by this news and angry at the revelation that terrorist activity has been undercutting them at every turn, and they explain their recent attempts to repair the moon situation and their near-thing escape at the site of the moon machine. Everyone agrees that it's imperative that the moon be repaired before the hurricane destroys it or the terrorists succeed in further dragging the world into chaos, and the Count asks them to discharge their debt by getting rid of the Colossus as soon as possible. They agree, but since they know they can't hope to overcome her in a physical confrontation, they need an alternative, and head home to see what Helena has to say.
