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be safe to breathe again when they started silently up the steps toward the front door. They weren’t coming straight for Diego and me, at least. When they were out of sight, we could disappear into the sound of the next breeze through the trees, and they would never know we’d been here. I looked at Diego and twitched my head slightly toward the way we’d come. He narrowed his eyes and held up one finger. Oh great, he wanted to stay. I rolled my eyes at him, though I was so afraid, I was surprised I was capable of sarcasm. We both looked back to the house. The cloaked things had let themselves in silently, but I realized that neither she nor Riley had spoken since we’d caught sight of the visitors. They must have heard something or known in some other way that they were in danger. “Don’t bother,” a very clear, monotone voice commanded lazily. It was not as high-pitched as our creator’s, but it still sounded girlish to me. “I think you know who we are, so you must know that there is no point in trying to surprise us. Or hide from us. Or fight us. Or run.” A deep, masculine chuckle that did not belong to Riley echoed menacingly through the house. “Relax,” instructed the first inflectionless voice the cloaked girl. Her voice had that distinctive ring that made me certain she was a vampire, not a ghost or any other kind of nightmare. “We’re not here to destroy you. Yet.” There was a moment of silence, and then some barely audible movements. A shifting of positions. “If you are not here to kill us, then… what?” our creator
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asked, strained and shrill. “We seek to know your intentions here. Specifically, if they involve… a certain local clan,” the cloaked girl explained. “We wonder if they have anything to do with the mayhem you’ve created here. Illegally created.” Diego and I frowned simultaneously. None of this made sense, but the last part was the weirdest. What could be illegal for vampires? What cop, what judge, what prison could have power over us? “Yes,” our creator hissed. “My plans are all about them. But we can’t move yet. It’s tricky.” A petulant note crept into her voice at the end. “Trust me, we know the difficulties better than you. It is remarkable that you’ve managed to keep off the radar, so to speak, for this long. Tell me” a hint of interest colored the monotone “how are you doing it?” Our creator hesitated, and then spoke all in a rush. Almost as if there had been some silent intimidation. “I haven’t made the decision,” she spit out. Then she added more slowly, unwillingly, “To attack. I’ve never decided to do anything with them.” “Rough, but effective,” the cloaked girl said. “Unfortunately, your period of deliberation has come to a close. You must decide now what you will do with your little army.” Both Diego’s and my eyes widened at that word. “Otherwise, it will be our duty to punish you as the law demands. This reprieve, however short, troubles me. It is not our way. I suggest you give us what assurances you can… quickly.”
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“We’ll go at once!” Riley volunteered anxiously, and there was a sharp hiss. “We’ll go as soon as possible,” our creator amended furiously. “There is much to do. I assume you wish us to succeed? Then I must have a little time to get them trained instructed fed!” There was a short pause. “Five days. We will come for you then. And there is no rock you can hide under or speed at which you can flee that will save you. If you have not made your attack by the time we come, you will burn.” This was said with no menace other than an absolute certainty. “And if I have made my attack?” our creator asked, shaken. “We’ll see,” the cloaked girl answered in a brighter tone than she’d used yet. “I suppose that all depends on how successful you are. Work hard to please us.” The last command was given in a flat, hard pitch that made me feel a strange chill in the center of my body. “Yes,” our creator snarled. “Yes,” Riley echoed in a whisper. A second later the cloaked vampires were noiselessly exiting the house. Neither Diego nor I so much as took a breath for five minutes after they’d disappeared. Inside the house, our creator and Riley were just as quiet. Another ten minutes passed in total stillness. I touched Diego’s arm. This was our chance to get out of here. At the moment, I wasn’t so afraid of Riley anymore. I wanted to get as far away as I could from those dark-cloaks. I
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wanted the safety of numbers waiting back in the log cabin, and I figured that was exactly how our creator felt, too. Why she’d made so many of us in the first place. There were some things out there scarier than I’d imagined. Diego hesitated, still listening, and a second later his patience was rewarded. “Well,” she whispered inside the house, “now they know.” Was she talking about the cloaks or the mysterious clan? Which one was the enemy she’d mentioned before the drama? “That doesn’t matter. We outnumber ” “Any warning matters!” she growled, cutting him off. “There is so much to do. Only five days!” She groaned. “No more messing around. You start tonight.” “I won’t fail you!” Riley promised. Crap. Diego and I moved at the same time, leaping from our perch into the next tree over, flying back the way we’d come. Riley was in a hurry now, and if he found Diego’s trail after all that had just passed with the cloaks, and no Diego there at the end of it… “I’ve got to get back and be waiting,” Diego whispered to me as we raced. “Lucky it’s not in view of the house! Don’t want him to know I heard.” “We should talk to him together.” “Too late for that. He’d notice that your scent wasn’t on the trail. Looks suspicious.” “Diego…” He’d trapped me into sitting this one out. We were back to the spot where he’d joined me. He spoke in a rushed whisper.
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“Stick to the plan, Bree. I’ll tell him what I planned to tell him. It’s not close to dawn, but that’s just how it has to be. If he doesn’t believe me…” Diego shrugged. “He’s got bigger things to worry about than me having an overactive imagination. Maybe he’ll be more likely to listen now looks like we need all the help we can get, and being able to move around in the day can’t hurt.” “Diego…,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say. He looked into my eyes, and I waited for his lips to twitch into that easy smile, for him to make some joke about ninjas or BFFs. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned in slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, and kissed me. His smooth lips pressed against mine for one long second while we stared at each other. Then he leaned away and sighed. “Get home, hide behind Fred, and act clueless. I’ll be right behind you.” “Be careful.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard, then let go. Riley had spoken of Diego affectionately. I would have to hope that affection was real. There wasn’t another choice. Diego disappeared into the trees, quiet as a rustling breeze. I didn’t waste time looking after him. I sprinted through the branches in a direct line back to the house. I hoped my eyes were still bright enough from last night’s meal to explain my absence. Just a quick hunt. Got lucky found a lone hiker. Nothing out of the ordinary. The sound of the thudding music that greeted my approach was accompanied by the unmistakable sweet, smoky scent of a
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burning vampire. My panic went into overdrive. I could just as easily die inside the house as outside. But there was no other way. I didn’t slow, just rushed down the stairs straight to the corner where I could barely make out Freaky Fred standing. Looking for something to do? Tired of sitting? I had no idea what he was up to, and I didn’t care. I would stick tight to him until Riley and Diego got back. In the middle of the floor was a smoldering heap that was too big to be just a leg or an arm. So much for Riley’s twenty- two. No one seemed terribly concerned about the smoking remains. The sight was too common. As I hurried closer to Fred, for once the sense of disgust didn’t get stronger. Instead, it faded. He didn’t seem to notice me, just went on reading the book he held. One of those I’d left him a few days ago. I had no problem seeing what he was doing now that I was close to where he was leaning against the back of the couch. I hesitated, wondering why that was. Could he turn his nausea thing off when he wanted? Did that mean we both were unprotected right now? At least Raoul wasn’t home yet, thankfully, though Kevin was. For the first time ever, I really saw what Fred looked like. He was tall, maybe six two, with the thick, curly blond hair I’d noticed once before. He was broad-shouldered and muscular. He looked older than most of the others like a college student, not a high school kid. And this was the part that surprised me most for some reason he was good-looking. As handsome as anyone else, maybe even handsomer than most. I didn’t know
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why that was so trippy for me. I guessed just because I always associated him with revulsion. I felt weird for staring. I glanced quickly around the room to see if anyone had noticed that Fred was normal and pretty for the moment. No one was looking our way. I stole a fast peek at Kevin, ready to shift my focus at once if he noticed, but his eyes were concentrated on some point to the left of where we stood. He was frowning slightly. Before I could look away, his gaze skipped right over to me and settled on my right side. His frown deepened. Like… he was trying to see me and couldn’t. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch into not quite a grin. There was too much to worry about to really enjoy Kevin’s blindness. I looked back at Fred, wondering if the gross-out factor would return, only to see that he was smiling with me. Smiling, he was really spectacular. Then the moment was over, and Fred went back to his book. I didn’t move for a while, waiting for something to happen. For Diego to come through the door. Or Riley with Diego. Or Raoul. Or for the nausea to hit again, or for Kevin to glare in my direction, or for the next fight to break out. Something. When nothing did, I eventually pulled myself together and did what I should have been doing pretending nothing unusual was going on. I grabbed a book from the pile near Fred’s feet and then sat down right there and acted like I was reading. It was probably one of the same books I’d pretended to read yesterday, but it didn’t look familiar. I flipped through the pages, again taking nothing in. My mind was racing around in tight little circles. Where was
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Diego? How had Riley reacted to his story? What had it all meant the talk before the cloaks, the talk after the cloaks? I worked through it, going backward, trying to assemble the pieces into a recognizable picture. The vampire world had some kind of police, and they were damn scary. This wild group of months-old vampires was supposed to be an army, and this army was somehow illegal. Our creator had an enemy. Strike that, two enemies. We were going to attack one of them in five days, or else the other ones, the scary cloaks, were going to attack her or us, or both. We would be trained for this attack… as soon as Riley got back. I snuck a glance at the door, then forced my eyes back to the page in front of me. And then the stuff before the visitors. She was worrying about some decision. She was pleased that she had so many vampires so many soldiers. Riley was happy that Diego and I had survived…. He’d said he thought he’d lost two more to the sun, so that must mean he didn’t know how vampires really reacted to sunlight. What she’d said was strange, though. She’d asked if he was sure. Sure Diego had survived? Or… sure that Diego’s story was true? The last thought frightened me. Did she already know that the sun didn’t hurt us? If she did know, then why had she lied to Riley and, through him, to us? Why would she want to keep us in the dark literally? Was it very important to her that we stay ignorant? Important enough to get Diego in trouble? I was working myself into a real panic, frozen solid. If I still could sweat, I would have been sweating now. I had to refocus to turn the next page, to keep my eyes
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down. Was Riley deceived, or was he in on it, too? When Riley’d said he thought he’d lost two more to the sun, did he mean the sun literally… or the lie about the sun? If it was the second option, then to know the truth meant being lost. Panic scattered my thoughts. I tried to be rational and make sense of it. It was harder without Diego. Having someone to talk to, to interact with, sharpened my ability to concentrate. Without that, fear sucked at the edges of my thoughts, twisted with the always-present thirst. The lure of blood was constantly close to the surface. Even now, decently well fed, I could feel the burn and the need. Think about her, think about Riley , I told myself. I had to understand why they would lie if they were lying so that I could try to figure out what it would mean to them that Diego knew their secret. If they hadn’t lied, if they’d just told us all that the day was as safe for us as the night, how would that change things? I imagined what it would be like if we didn’t have to be contained in a blacked-out basement all day, if the twenty-one of us maybe fewer now, depending on how the hunting parties were getting along were free to do what we wanted whenever we wanted to. We would want to hunt. That was a given. If we didn’t have to come back, if we didn’t have to hide… well, many of us wouldn’t come back very regularly. It was hard to focus on the return while the thirst was in charge. But Riley had drilled so deeply into all of us the threat of burning, of a
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return of that hideous pain we’d all experienced once. That was the reason we could stop ourselves. Self-preservation, the only instinct stronger than thirst. So the threat kept us together. There were other hiding places, like Diego’s cave, but who else thought about that kind of thing? We had a place to go, a base, so we went to it. Clear heads were not a vampire specialty. Or, at least, they weren’t the specialty of young vampires. Riley was clearheaded. Diego was more clearheaded than I was. Those cloaked vampires were terrifyingly focused. I shuddered. So the routine wouldn’t control us forever. What would they do when we were older, clearer? It struck me that nobody was older than Riley. Everyone here was new. She needed a bunch of us now for this mystery enemy. But what about afterward? I had a strong feeling that I didn’t want to be around for that part. And I suddenly realized something stupendously obvious. It was the solution that had tickled the edges of my understanding before, when I was tracking the vampire herd to this place with Diego. I didn’t have to be around for that part. I didn’t have to be around for one more night. I was a statue again as I thought over this stunning idea. If Diego and I hadn’t known where the gang was most likely headed, would we ever have found them? Probably not. And that was a big group leaving a wide trail. What if it were a single vampire, one who could leap up onto the land, maybe into a tree, without leaving a trail at the edge of the water…. Just one, or maybe two vampires who could swim as far out to sea as
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they wanted… Who could return to land anywhere… Canada, California, Chile, China… You would never be able to find those two vampires. They would be gone. Disappeared like they’d gone up in smoke. We didn’t have to come back the other night! We shouldn’t have! Why hadn’t I thought of it then? But… would Diego have agreed? I was abruptly not so sure of myself. Was Diego more loyal to Riley after all? Would he have felt it was his responsibility to stand by Riley? He’d known Riley a lot longer he’d really only known me a day. Was he closer to Riley than he was to me? I pondered that, frowning. Well, I would find out as soon as we had a minute alone. And then maybe, if our secret club really meant something, it wouldn’t matter what our creator had planned for us. We could disappear, and Riley would have to make do with nineteen vampires, or make some new ones quick. Either way, not our problem. I couldn’t wait to tell Diego my plan. My gut instinct was that he would feel the same. Hopefully. Suddenly, I wondered if this was what had really happened to Shelly and Steve and the other kids who had disappeared. I knew they hadn’t burned in the sun. Had Riley only claimed he’d seen their ashes as another way to keep the rest of us afraid and dependent on him? Returning home to him every dawn? Maybe Shelly and Steve had just set off on their own. No more Raoul. No enemies or armies threatening their immediate future.
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Maybe that’s what Riley had meant by lost to the sun. Runaways. In which case, he’d be happy that Diego hadn’t bailed, right? If only Diego and I had taken off! We could be free, too, like Shelly and Steve. No rules, no fear of the sunrise. Again, I imagined the whole horde of us on the loose without a curfew. I could see Diego and me moving like ninjas through the shade. But I could also see Raoul, Kevin, and the rest, sparkling disco-ball monsters in the center of a busy downtown street, the bodies piling up, the screaming, the helicopters whirring, the soft, helpless cops with their dinky little bullets that wouldn’t make a dent, the cameras, the panic that would spread so fast as the pictures bounced swiftly around the globe. Vampires wouldn’t be a secret for very long. Even Raoul couldn’t kill people fast enough to keep the story from spreading. There was a chain of logic here, and I tried to grasp it before I could be distracted again. One, humans didn’t know about vampires. Two, Riley encouraged us to be inconspicuous, not to attract the notice of humans and educate them otherwise. Three, Diego and I had decided that all vampires must be following that guideline, or else the world would know about us. Four, they must have a reason for doing so, and it wasn’t the little popguns of the human police that motivated them. Yeah, the reason must be pretty important to make all vampires hide all day long in stuffy basements. Maybe reason enough to make Riley and our creator lie to us, terrify us about the burning sun. Maybe it was a
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reason Riley would explain to Diego, and since it was so important and he was so responsible, Diego would promise to keep the secret and they would be cool with that. Sure they would. But what if what actually happened to Shelly and Steve was that they’d discovered the shiny skin thing and not run? What if they’d gone to Riley? And, crap, there went the next step in my logical path. The chain dissolved and I started panicking about Diego again. As I stressed, I realized that I’d been thinking things through for a while. I could feel dawn coming on. No more than an hour away. So where was Diego? Where was Riley? As I thought this, the door opened and Raoul leaped down the stairs, laughing with his buddies. I hunched down, leaning closer to Fred. Raoul didn’t notice us. He looked at the crispy- fried vampire in the center of the floor and laughed harder. His eyes were brilliant red. On the nights Raoul went hunting, he never came home till he had to. He would keep feeding as long as he could. So dawn must have been even closer than I’d thought. Riley must have demanded that Diego prove his words. That was the only explanation. And they were waiting for the dawn. Only… that would mean that Riley didn’t know the truth, that our creator was lying to him, too. Or did it? My thoughts twisted up again. Kristie showed up minutes later with three of her gang. She reacted indifferently to the pile of ashes. I did a quick head count as two more hunters hurried through the door. Twenty vampires. Everyone was home except Diego and Riley. The
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sun would rise at any moment. The door at the top of the basement stairs creaked as someone opened it. I sprang to my feet. Riley entered. He shut the door behind him. He walked down the stairs. No one followed. Before I could process this, Riley roared out an animalistic shriek of rage. He was staring down at the ashy remains on the floor, his eyes bulging in fury. Everyone stood silent, immobile. We’d all seen Riley lose his temper, but this was something different. Riley spun and raked his fingers through a blaring speaker, then ripped it from the wall and hurled it across the room. Jen and Kristie dodged out of the way as it exploded into the far wall, sending up a cloud of pulverized drywall dust. Riley smashed the sound system with his foot, and the thudding bass went silent. Then he leaped to where Raoul stood, and grabbed him by the throat. “I wasn’t even here!” Raoul yelled, looking afraid I’d never seen that before. Riley growled hideously and threw Raoul as he’d thrown the speaker. Jen and Kristie jumped out of the way again. Raoul’s body crashed right through the wall, leaving an enormous hole. Riley caught Kevin by the shoulder and with a familiar screech ripped off his right hand. Kevin cried out in pain and tried to twist out of Riley’s grip. Riley kicked him in the side. Another harsh shriek and Riley had the rest of Kevin’s arm. He tore the arm in half at the elbow and threw the pieces hard into
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Kevin’s anguished face smack, smack, smack, like a hammer striking stone. “What is wrong with you?” Riley screamed at us. “Why are you all so stupid?” He made a grab for the blond Spider-Man kid, but that kid leaped out of his way. His jump left him too close to Fred, and he stumbled back toward Riley again, gagging. “Do any of you have a brain?” Riley smacked a kid named Dean into the entertainment center, shattering it, then caught another girl Sara and tore her left ear and a handful of hair from her head. She snarled in anguish. It became suddenly obvious that Riley was doing a very dangerous thing. There were a lot of us in here. Already Raoul was back, with Kristie and Jen usually his enemies flanking him defensively. A few others banded together in clusters around the room. I wasn’t sure if Riley was aware of the threat or if his rant came to an end naturally. He took a deep breath. He tossed Sara her ear and the hair. She recoiled away from him, licking the torn edge of her ear, coating it with venom so that it would reattach. There was no remedy for the hair, though; Sara was going to have a bald spot. “Listen to me!” Riley said, quiet but fierce. “All our lives depend on you listening to what I’m saying now and thinking! We are all going to die. Every one of us, you and me, too, if you can’t act like you have brains for just a few short days!” This was nothing like his usual lectures and pleadings for
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control. He definitely had everyone’s attention. “It’s time for you to grow up and take responsibility for yourselves. Do you think you get to live like this for free? That all the blood in Seattle doesn’t have a price?” The little clusters of vampires no longer seemed threatening. Everyone was wide-eyed, some exchanging mystified glances. I saw Fred’s head turn toward me in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t meet his gaze. My attention was focused on two things: Riley, just in case he started to attack again, and the door. The door that was still closed. “Are you listening now? Really listening?” Riley paused, but no one nodded. The room was very still. “Let me explain to you the precarious situation we are all in. I’ll try to keep it simple for the slowest ones. Raoul, Kristie, come here.” He motioned to the leaders of the two largest gangs, allied for this brief moment against him. Neither of them moved toward him. They braced themselves, Kristie baring her teeth. I expected Riley to soften, to apologize. To placate them and then persuade them to do what he wanted. But this was a different Riley. “Fine,” he snapped. “We’re going to need leaders if we’re going to survive, but apparently neither of you is up to the task. I thought you had aptitude. I was wrong. Kevin, Jen, please join me as the heads of this team.” Kevin looked up in surprise. He had just finished putting his arm back together. Though his expression was wary, it was also unmistakably flattered. He slowly got to his feet. Jen looked at Kristie as if waiting for permission. Raoul ground his teeth
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together. The door at the top of the stairs did not open. “Are you not able, either?” Riley asked, irritated. Kevin took a step toward Riley, but then Raoul rushed him, leaping across the long room in two low bounds. He shoved Kevin against the wall without a word and then stood by Riley’s right shoulder. Riley permitted himself a tiny smile. The manipulation wasn’t subtle, but it was effective. “Kristie or Jen, who will lead us?” Riley asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. Jen was still waiting for a sign from Kristie as to what she should do. Kristie glowered at Jen for an instant, then flipped her sandy hair out of her face and darted to stand on Riley’s other side. “That took too long to decide,” Riley said seriously. “We don’t have the luxury of time. We don’t get to fool around anymore. I’ve let you all do pretty much whatever you feel like, but that ends tonight.” He looked around the room, meeting everyone’s eyes, making sure we were listening. I held his gaze for only a second when it was my turn, and then my eyes flipped back to the door. I corrected instantly, but his glare had moved on. I wondered if he’d noticed my slip. Or had he seen me at all, here beside Fred? “We have an enemy,” Riley announced. He let that sink in for a moment. I could tell the idea was shocking to several of the vampires in the basement. The enemy was Raoul or if you
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were with Raoul, the enemy was Kristie. The enemy was here, because the whole world was here. The thought that there were other forces out there strong enough to affect us was new for most. Would have been new to me, too, yesterday. “A few of you might be smart enough to have realized that if we exist, so do other vampires. Other vampires who are older, smarter… more talented. Other vampires who want our blood!” Raoul hissed, and then several of his followers echoed him in support. “That’s right,” Riley said, seeming intent on egging them on. “Seattle was once theirs, but they moved on a long time ago. Now they know about us, and they are jealous of the easy blood they used to have here. They know it belongs to us now, but they want to take it back. They are coming after what they want. One by one, they’ll hunt us down! We’ll burn while they feast!” “Never,” Kristie growled. Some of hers and some of Raoul’s growled, too. “We don’t have a lot of choices,” Riley told us. “If we wait for them to show up here, they will have the advantage. This is their turf, after all. And they don’t want to face us head-on, because we outnumber them and we are stronger than they are. They want to catch us separated; they want to take advantage of our biggest weakness. Are any of you smart enough to know what that is?” He pointed at the ashes at his feet now smeared into the carpet and unrecognizable as a former vampire and waited. No one moved. Riley made a disgusted sound. “Unity!” he shouted. “We
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don’t have it! What kind of a threat can we pose when we won’t stop killing each other?” He kicked the dust, sending up a small black cloud. “Can you imagine them laughing at us? They think taking the city from us will be easy. That we’re weak with stupidity! That we’ll just hand them our blood.” Half the vampires in the room snarled in protest now. “Can you work together, or do we all die?” “We can take them, boss,” Raoul growled. Riley scowled at him. “Not if you can’t control yourself! Not if you can’t cooperate with every single person in this room. Anyone you take out” his toe nudged the ashes again “might be the one who could have kept you alive. Every one of your coven that you kill is like handing our enemies a gift. Here, you’re saying, take me down!” Kristie and Raoul exchanged a glance as if they were seeing each other for the first time. Others did the same. The word coven was not unfamiliar, but none of us had applied it to our group before. We were a coven. “Let me tell you about our enemies,” Riley said, and all eyes locked on his face. “They are a much older coven than we are. They’ve been around for hundreds of years, and they’ve survived that long for a reason. They are crafty and they are skilled and they are coming to retake Seattle with confidence because they’ve heard the only ones they’ll have to fight for it are a bunch of disorganized children who will do half their work for them!” More growls, but some were less angry than they were wary. A few of the quieter vampires, the ones Riley would have called
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tamer, looked skittish. Riley noticed that, too. “This is how they see us, but that’s because they can’t see us together. Together, we can crush them. If they could see all of us, side by side, fighting together, they would be terrified. And that’s how they’re going to see us. Because we’re not going to wait for them to show up here and start picking us off. We’re going to ambush them. In four days.” Four days? I guessed our creator didn’t want to cut it too close to the deadline. I looked at the closed door again. Where was Diego? Others reacted to the deadline with surprise, some with fear. “It’s the last thing they’ll expect,” Riley assured us. “All of us together waiting for them. And I’ve saved the best part for last. There are only seven of them.” There was an instant of incredulous silence. Then Raoul said, “What ” Kristie stared at Riley with the same disbelieving expression, and I heard muttered whispers around the room. “Seven?” “Are you kidding me?” “Hey,” Riley snapped. “I wasn’t joking when I said this coven is dangerous. They are wise and… devious. Underhanded. We will have power on our side; they will have deception. If we play it their way, they will win. But if we take it to them on our terms…” Riley didn’t finish, he just smiled. “Let’s go now,” Raoul urged. “Let’s get ’em out of the picture fast.” Kevin growled enthusiastically.
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“Slow down, moron. Rushing into things blind isn’t going to help us win,” Riley chided him. “Tell us everything we need to know about them,” Kristie encouraged, shooting Raoul a superior look. Riley hesitated, as if deciding how to word something. “All right, where to begin? I guess the first thing you need to know is… that you don’t know everything there is to know about vampires yet. I didn’t want to overwhelm you in the beginning.” Another pause while everyone looked confused. “You have a little bit of experience with what we call ‘talents.’ We have Fred.” Everyone looked at Fred or rather they tried to. I could tell from Riley’s expression that Fred did not like being singled out. It looked like Fred had really turned up the volume on his “talent,” as Riley called it. Riley cringed and looked away quickly. I still didn’t feel anything. “Yes, well, there are some vampires who have gifts beyond the usual super strength and super senses. You’ve seen one aspect in… our coven.” He was careful not to say Fred’s name again. “Gifts are rare one in fifty, maybe but every one is different. There’s a huge range of gifts out there, and some of them are more powerful than others.” I could hear a lot of murmurs now as people wondered if they might be talented. Raoul was preening like he’d already decided he was gifted. As far as I could tell, the only one around here that was in any way special was standing next to me. “Pay attention!” Riley commanded. “I’m not telling you this for entertainment.” “This enemy coven,” Kristie interjected. “They’re talented.
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Right?” Riley gave her an approving nod. “Exactly. I’m glad someone here can connect the dots.” Raoul’s upper lip twitched back over his teeth. “This coven is dangerously talented,” Riley went on, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “They have a mind reader.” He examined our faces, looking to see if we got the importance of this revelation. He didn’t seem satisfied with his assessment. “Think, guys! He’ll know everything in your head. If you attack, he’ll know what move you’re going to make before you know it. You go left, he’ll be waiting.” There was a nervous stillness as everyone imagined this. “This is why we’ve been so careful me, and the one who created you.” Kristie flinched away from Riley when he mentioned her. Raoul looked angrier. Nerves strained universally. “You don’t know her name, and you don’t know what she looks like. This protects us all. If they’d stumbled across one of you alone, they wouldn’t realize that you were connected to her, and they might have let you be. If they knew you were part of her coven, there would be no delay in your execution.” That didn’t make sense to me. Didn’t the secrecy protect her more than it protected any of us? Riley hurried on before we had too long to examine his statement. “Of course, it doesn’t matter now that they’ve decided to move on Seattle. We will surprise them on their way in, and we will annihilate them.” He whistled a single low note through his teeth. “Done. And then not only is the city all ours, other covens
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will know not to mess with us. We won’t have to be so careful to cover our tracks anymore. As much blood as you want, for everyone. Hunting every night. We’ll move right into the city, and we will rule it.” The growls and snarls were like applause. Everyone was with him. Except for me. I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Neither did Fred, but who knows why that was? I was not with Riley because his promises sounded like lies. Or else my whole line of logic had been wrong. Riley said it was only these enemies that kept us from hunting without caution or restraint. But that didn’t go along with the fact that all other vampires must have been discreet, or humans would have known about them long ago. I couldn’t concentrate to work it out, because the door at the top of the stairs had not moved. Diego… “We have to do this together, though. Today I’m going to lead you through some techniques. Fighting techniques. There’s more to this than just scuffling around on the floor like toddlers. When it gets dark, we’ll go outside and practice. I want you to practice hard, but keep your focus. I am not losing another member of this coven! We all need each other every one of us. I will not tolerate any more stupidity. If you think you don’t have to listen to me, you are wrong.” He paused for a short second, the muscles in his face shifting into a new arrangement. “And you will learn how wrong you are when I take you to her” I shuddered and felt the tremor through the room as everyone else did, too “and hold you while she tears off your legs and then slowly, slowly burns off your fingers, ears,
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lips, tongue, and every other superfluous appendage one by one.” We’d all lost a limb, at least, and we’d all burned when we became vampires, so we could easily imagine how that would feel, but it wasn’t the threat itself that was so terrifying. The truly scary thing was Riley’s face as he said it. His face was not twisted in rage, the way it usually was when he was angry; it was calm and cold, smooth and beautiful, his mouth curled at the edges into a small smile. I suddenly had the impression that this was a new Riley. Something had changed him, hardened him, but I couldn’t imagine what could have happened in one night to create that cruel, perfect smile. I looked away, shivering a little, and saw as Raoul’s smile shifted to echo Riley’s. I could almost see the gears turning in Raoul’s head. He wouldn’t kill his victims so quickly in the future. “Now, let’s get some teams figured out so that we can work in groups,” Riley said, his face normal again. “Kristie, Raoul, get your kids together and then divvy up the rest evenly. No fighting! Show me you can do this rationally. Prove yourselves.” He walked away from those two, ignoring the fact that they fell almost immediately into bickering, and made an arc around the outside edge of the room. He touched a few vampires on the shoulder as he passed, nudging them toward one of the new leaders or the other. I didn’t realize at first that he was heading in my direction, because he took such a wide way around. “Bree,” he said, squinting toward where I stood. It looked like this took some effort.
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I felt like a block of ice. He must have smelled my trail. I was dead. “Bree?” he said, softer now. His voice reminded me of the first time he’d talked to me. When he was nice to me. And then even lower, “I promised Diego I’d give you a message. He said to tell you it was a ninja thing. Does that make any sense to you?” He still couldn’t look at me, but he was edging closer. “Diego?” I murmured. I couldn’t help myself. Riley smiled a tiny bit. “Can we talk?” He jerked his head toward the door. “I double-checked all the windows. The first floor is totally dark and safe.” I knew I wouldn’t be as safe once I walked away from Fred, but I had to hear what Diego had wanted to tell me. What had happened? I should have stayed with him to meet Riley. I followed Riley through the room, keeping my head down. He gave Raoul a few instructions, nodded to Kristie, and then went up the stairs. From the corners of my eyes I saw a few people curiously watch the direction he was going. Riley passed through the door first, and the kitchen of the home was, as he’d promised, totally black. He motioned for me to keep following and led me through a dark hall past a few open bedroom doors, then through another door with a dead bolt. We ended up in the garage. “You’re brave,” he commented in a very low voice. “Or really trusting. I thought it would be more work to get you upstairs with the sun up.” Whoops. I should have been more skittish. Too late now. I
