Morgan Rice

Fated

(Book #11 in the Vampire Journals)

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”

– William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Copyright © 2014 by Morgan Rice

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Jacket image Copyright Subbotina Anna, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

About Morgan Rice

Morgan Rice is the #1 bestselling author of THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS, a young adult series comprising eleven books (and counting); the #1 bestselling series THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY, a post-apocalyptic thriller comprising two books (and counting); and the #1 bestselling epic fantasy series THE SORCERER’S RING, comprising thirteen books (and counting).

Morgan’s books are available in audio and print editions, and translations of the books are available in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Turkish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak (with more languages forthcoming).

TURNED (Book #1 in the Vampire Journals) and A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1 in the Sorcerer’s Ring) are each available as a free download!

Morgan loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.morganricebooks.com to join the email list, receive a free book, receive free giveaways, download the free app, get the latest exclusive news, connect on Facebook and Twitter, and stay in touch!

Select Acclaim for Morgan Rice

“A book to rival TWILIGHT and VAMPIRE DIARIES, and one that will have you wanting to keep reading until the very last page! If you are into adventure, love and vampires this book is the one for you!”

– Vampirebooksite.com (regarding Turned)

“Rice does a great job of pulling you into the story from the beginning, utilizing a great descriptive quality that transcends the mere painting of the setting… Nicely written and an extremely fast read.”

– Black Lagoon Reviews (regarding Turned)

“An ideal story for young readers. Morgan Rice did a good job spinning an interesting twist… Refreshing and unique. The series focuses around one girl… one extraordinary girl!…Easy to read but extremely fast-paced… Rated PG.”

– The Romance Reviews (regarding Turned)

“Grabbed my attention from the beginning and did not let go… This story is an amazing adventure that is fast paced and action packed from the very beginning. There is not a dull moment to be found.”

– Paranormal Romance Guild (regarding Turned)

“Jam packed with action, romance, adventure, and suspense. Get your hands on this one and fall in love all over again.”

– vampirebooksite.com (regarding Turned)

“A great plot, and this especially was the kind of book you will have trouble putting down at night. The ending was a cliffhanger that was so spectacular that you will immediately want to buy the next book, just to see what happens.”

– The Dallas Examiner (regarding Loved)

“Morgan Rice proves herself again to be an extremely talented storyteller… This would appeal to a wide range of audiences, including younger fans of the vampire/fantasy genre. It ended with an unexpected cliffhanger that leaves you shocked.”

– The Romance Reviews (regarding Loved)

Books by Morgan Rice

THE SORCERER’S RING

A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)

A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)

A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)

A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)

A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)

A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)

A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)

A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)

A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)

A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)

A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)

A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)

A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)

THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY

ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)

ARENA TWO (Book #2)

THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS

TURNED (Book #1)

LOVED (Book #2)

BETRAYED (Book #3)

DESTINED (Book #4)

DESIRED (Book #5)

BETROTHED (Book #6)

VOWED (Book #7)

FOUND (Book #8)

RESURRECTED (Book #9)

CRAVED (Book #10)

FATED (Book #11)

Listen to THE VAMPIRE JOURNALS series in audio book format!

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Chapter One

Caitlin Paine stood in the back room of Pete’s Bar, joined by Caleb, Sam, Polly, and a dozen police officers, and stared out through the smashed open window, into a night filled with flashing police lights. She wondered what on earth could have happened to her daughter. Scarlet, the love of her life, was out there somewhere, running into the night, alone, likely afraid, and the thought of it was tearing her apart. What pained Caitlin even more than the thought of Scarlet missing was the thought of what Scarlet had become, her memory of her, her last look at her before she’d leapt out through that window. That wasn’t her daughter.

That was something else.

Caitlin shuddered to think of it, and yet, try as she did to shake it, she knew it was true. She had been fighting with the idea all this time, fighting not to believe that Scarlet was no longer human, that Scarlet was really a vampire. Caitlin had been fighting with Aiden, with the priest, with Caleb, and most of all, with herself, hoping, wishing, it were anything else. But she had no fight left in her. She had no more explanations.

Caitlin’s heart pounded as she looked out into the night. She had seen it for herself this time, had witnessed it with her own eyes. Her girl had transformed, had fed on that man, had gained a super-human strength. She had smashed that huge man into a wall as if he had been a toothpick – and she had bounded off into the night so fast, within the blink of an eye, that there was no way she could be human. There was also no way, Caitlin knew, that they could catch her. She knew the police were wasting their time.

It was different this time, too, because she had not been the only one who had witnessed it. Caitlin had seen the expression on Caleb’s face, on Sam’s and Polly’s, and she could see it in their eyes: a look of shock, a fear of the supernatural. Scarlet, the person they had all loved most in the world, was no longer Scarlet.

It was the stuff of nightmares and fairy tales and legends, something Caitlin had never ever imagined to see in her lifetime. It shook not only her view of Scarlet, but her entire view of the world. How could such a thing actually exist? How could this planet have more than just humans on it?

“Mrs. Paine?”

Caitlin turned to see a police officer standing beside her, pen and paper in hand, staring back at her patiently.

“Did you hear my question?”

Caitlin, trembling, in a daze, shook her head slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she answered, her voice hoarse. “I did not.”

“I said: where do you think your daughter might have gone?”

Caitlin sighed as she thought of it. If it were the old Scarlet, she could tell them easily. A friend’s house; the gym; on a date; the soccer field…

But with the new Scarlet, she had no idea.

“I wish I knew,” she finally replied.

Another officer stepped forward.

“Are there any friends she might have gone to?” he prodded. “A boyfriend?”

At the word boyfriend, Caitlin turned and searched the room, examining it for any sign of that mysterious boy who had appeared in this bar. Sage, he had said. So simple, just one word, as if she should know who he was. Caitlin had to admit that she’d never met anyone like him. He exuded a power more compelling than anyone she had ever met, and he was more a grown man than a teenager. He had been dressed in all black, and his shining eyes and chiseled cheekbones made him look as if he had dropped down from another century.

Strangest of all, Caitlin recalled what he had done to those locals in this bar. She had known Caleb and Sam to be more than capable of taking care of themselves – yet this boy had achieved a quick victory where they could not, beating up all those men in a whirlwind. Who was he? Why had he been here?

And why had he been looking for Scarlet?

Yet as she looked all around, Caitlin saw no sign of him. Sage, too, had somehow disappeared. What was his connection to Scarlet? she wondered. Her mother’s instinct told her that somehow those two were together. But who was he? The mystery only deepened.

Caitlin didn’t feel ready to mention it to the police; it was all too weird.

“No,” Caitlin lied, her voice shaky. “Not that I know of.”

“You had said there was a boy, a boy who was here with you, involved in the altercation?” another police officer asked. “Do you know his name?”

Caitlin shook her head.

“Sage,” Polly chimed in, stepping forward. “He’d said his name was Sage.”

For some reason, Caitlin had not wanted to tell them; she felt protective of him. And she also felt, she could not explain how, that Sage was not human, ether – and she was not ready to say that to the police, to have everyone once again thinking she was crazy.

The police stood there, scribbling his name, and she wondered what they would do.

“What about all these creeps in here?” Polly pressed, looking around in dismay. “All these jerks who started the fight? Aren’t you going to arrest them?”

The police looked at each other uncomfortably.

One of them cleared his throat.

“We have already arrested Kyle, the man who attacked your daughter,” the officer said. “As for the others, well, to be frank, it is their word against yours – and they say you started the altercation.”

“We did not!” Caleb said, stepping forward angrily, nursing a lump on his head. “We came in here looking for my daughter – and they tried to stop us.”

“Like I said,” the officer said, “it’s your word against theirs. They said you threw the first punch – and frankly they’re in worse shape than you. If we arrest them, we’d have to arrest you, too.”

Caitlin stared at them, smoldering with anger.

“What about my daughter?” she asked. “How do you plan on finding her?”

“Ma’am, I can assure you, we have our entire force out there right now looking for her,” the officer said. “But it’s awfully hard to search for someone when we don’t know where she went – or why. We need a motive.”

“You said she ran,” said another officer, stepping forward. “We don’t understand. Why would she run? You had arrived. She was with you. She was safe. So why would she run?”

Caitlin looked at Caleb and the others, and they all looked back uncertainly.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

“Then why didn’t you try to stop her?” another officer asked. “Or run after her?”

“You don’t understand,” Caitlin said, trying to make sense of it. “She didn’t just run; she bounded. It was like… watching a deer. We couldn’t have caught her if we tried.”

The officer looked skeptically to the others.

“Are you telling me that with all these grown people here, not one of you could even try to catch her? What is she, some kind of Olympic athlete?” he scoffed, skeptical.

“Were you drinking tonight, ma’am?” another officer asked.

“Listen,” Caleb snapped, stepping forward, “my wife is not making it up. I saw it, too. We all did: her brother, too, and his wife. The four of us. You think we were all seeing things?”

The officer held up a hand.

“No need to get defensive. We’re all on the same team. But look at our side here: you tell me your kid runs faster than a deer. Obviously that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe you’re all scuffed up from the fight. Sometimes things don’t always look as they appear. All I’m saying is that it’s not all adding up.”

The officer traded a skeptical look with his partner, who stepped forward.

“Like I said, our force is out looking for your daughter. Nine times out of ten, runaway kids show up back at the house. Or at a friend’s house. So my best advice to you is to just go back home and stay put. I bet that all that happened here was that she wanted to bend the rules a bit and go out for a night at a grown-up bar and have a drink, and things got a little out of hand. Maybe she met a guy at the bar. When you guys came, she probably took off, because she felt embarrassed. Go back home, I bet she’ll be waiting for you,” the officer concluded, as if wrapping everything up neatly.

Caitlin shook her head, overwhelmed with frustration.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “You don’t know my daughter. Scarlet does not go to bars. And she does not pick up strange men. She came here because she was suffering. She came here because she had nowhere else to go. Because she needed something. She came here because she’s transforming. Don’t you understand? Transforming.”

The officers looked at her as if she were crazy; Caitlin hated that look.

“Transforming?” they repeated, as if she had lost her mind.

Caitlin sighed, desperate.

“If you don’t find her, people out there are going to get hurt.”

The officer frowned.

“Hurt? What are you saying? Has your daughter been hurting people? Is she armed?”

Caitlin shook her head, beyond frustrated. These local cops would never get it; she was just wasting her breath.

“She is unarmed. She has never hurt a soul. But if your men do find her, they will never be able to contain her.”

The police officers gave each other a look, as if concluding that Caitlin was crazy, and then they turned their backs and continued into the next room.

As Caitlin watched them go, she turned and looked back out, through the broken glass into the night.

Scarlet, she thought. Where are you? Come home to me, baby. I love you. I’m sorry. Whatever I did to upset you, I’m sorry. Please come home.

The strangest thing of all of this, Caitlin realized, was that, as she thought of Scarlet out there, alone in the night, she did not feel any fear for Scarlet.

Instead, she felt fear for everybody else.

Chapter Two

Kyle sat in the back of the police car, hands cuffed behind his back, staring at the cage in the cramped cruiser, and feeling unlike he ever had before. Something was changing inside him, he did not know what, but he could feel it bubbling up inside. It reminded him of the time he used heroin, that first rush when the needle touched his skin. This new feeling was like a searing heat, coursing through his veins – and accompanied by a feeling of invincible power. He felt overwhelmed with power, felt like his veins were going to pop from his skin, like his blood was swelling inside him. He felt more powerful than he ever had in his life, the skin prickling on his face and forehead and the back of his neck. The surge of power within him was something he did not understand.

But Kyle did not care; as long as the power was there, he welcomed it. He looked through blurry eyes as the world tinted red, slowly coming back into focus. Behind the cage, he could see two officers.

As the ringing in his ears began to subside, he started to hear their conversation, muted at first.

“This perp’s going away for a long time,” one said to the other.

“Heard he just got out, too. Sucks for him.”

The police started laughing, and the grating sound cut right through Kyle’s head. The cruiser sped down the highway, its lights on, and Kyle became more aware of his surroundings, started to realize where he was. He was on the same Route Nine, heading back toward prison, the place he’d spent the last fifteen years of his life. He was piecing together the night: that bar… that girl… he was about to have his way with her when… something had happened. The little bitch had bit him.

Realization rushed through him like a wave. She had bit him.

Kyle tried to reach up and feel his neck – the two marks there were throbbing – but he was stopped; he realized his hands were cuffed behind his back.

Kyle moved his arms, and to his amazement, he broke the cuffs with no effort. He held up his wrists in wonder, looking at them, shocked by his own strength. Had the cuffs malfunctioned? He looked at them dangling before him, and wondered: How could he have done that?

Kyle reached up and felt the two lumps on his neck, and they burned, as if the bite had entered his veins. He sat there, looking at the dangling cuffs, and he wondered: Did vampires exist? Was it possible?

Kyle grinned wide. It was time to find out.

Kyle took the dangling cuffs and tapped them against the cage before him.

The two cops turned and looked back, and this time they weren’t laughing; now, their faces bore looks of shock. Kyle’s hands were free, his cuffs broken, and he dangled them there, grinning, as he continued to tap on the cage.

“Holy shit,” one officer said to the other. “Didn’t you cuff him, Bill?”

“I did. I’m sure of it. I cuffed him tighter than hell.”

“Not tight enough,” Kyle growled.

One cop reached for his gun, and the other went to slam on the brakes.

But not fast enough. With incredible speed, Kyle reached out, tore the metal grate off as if it were a toothpick, and dove into the front seat.

Kyle lunged onto the cop in the passenger seat, smacked the gun from his hands, and reached back and elbowed him so hard, he snapped the cop’s neck.

The other cop swerved, and the car reeled across the highway as Kyle reached over, grabbed him by the back of the head, and head-butted him. A crack filled the air as the cop’s blood gushed all over Kyle. With the car careening, Kyle reached out to grab the wheel – but it was too late.

The police cruiser swerved onto the other side of the highway, and horns filled the air as it smashed into an oncoming car.

Kyle went flying through the windshield, head-first, and he landed on the highway, rolling and rolling, as the car flipped and rolled onto its side, too. A car coming toward Kyle screeched its brakes, but not in time – and Kyle felt his chest being crushed as the car ran him over.

The car screeched to a halt as Kyle lay there, breathing hard, and a woman in her thirties got out, screaming, crying, as she ran to Kyle, who lay on his back.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” she said in a rush. “I tried to stop in time. Oh my God. I’ve killed a man! Oh my God!”

The woman was hysterical, kneeling over him, weeping.

Suddenly, Kyle opened his eyes, sat up, and looked at the woman.

Her crying stopped as she stared back at him in shock, eyes wide in the headlights.

Kyle grinned, leaned in, and sank his beautiful ecstatic fangs, growing and growing, into her throat.

It was the greatest feeling of his life.

The woman screamed as he drank her blood, gorging himself until she fell limp in his arms.

Kyle rose to his feet, satisfied, and turned and surveyed the empty highway.

He straightened his collar, smoothed his shirt, and took the first step. There was a lot of payback coming this town’s way – and it would all start with Scarlet.

Chapter Three

Sage flew through the air, into the breaking dawn, the first rays of sun lighting up a tear on his cheek that he quickly brushed away. He was exhausted, bleary-eyed from flying all night, searching for Scarlet. He was sure he’d spotted her many times during the night, only to swoop down on some strange girl, shocked to see him land, and take off again. He was beginning to wonder if he would ever find her.

Scarlet was nowhere to be found, and Sage could not understand it. Their connection was so strong, he was sure that he would be able to sense her, that she would lead him to her. He couldn’t understand what had happened. Had she died?

Sage’s only guess was that perhaps she was in such an emotional state, all her senses were blocked, and he was unable to pick up on her location; or maybe she had fallen into a deep sleep, as vampires were known to do after the first time they fed on a human. That could be deadly for some, he knew, and his heart pained at the thought of her out there, who knew where, all alone. Would she ever wake up?

Sage flew low, flying so fast he was undetected, passing by all the familiar places he had gone with her – their school, her house, everywhere he could think of – using his laser-like vision to comb the trees and the streets for her.

As the sun rose higher and hour after hour passed, Sage finally knew there was no use searching anymore. He would have to wait until she surfaced, or until he could detect her again.

Sage was exhausted in a way he had never been before. He could feel his life force beginning to ebb away. He knew he only had days to go now until he himself died, and as he felt another pain in his chest and arms and shoulders, he felt that he was dying inside. He knew he would soon leave this earth – and he had made peace with that. He only wanted to spend his final days with Scarlet.

With nowhere left to search, Sage circled and flew over to his family’s sweeping estate on the Hudson, looking at it down below. He circled again and again, like an eagle, wondering: should he see them one last time? He didn’t know what would be the point. They all hated him now for not bringing Scarlet to them; and he had to admit, he hated them, too. The last time he left, his sister had been dying in his arms, and Lore had been on his way to try to kill Scarlet. He did not want to face them again.

And yet he had nowhere else to go.

As he flew, Sage heard a banging, and he looked down and saw several of his cousins holding up boards to the windows and hammering. One by one, they were boarding up their ancestral mansion, and Sage spotted several dozen of his cousins taking off in flight. He was intrigued. Clearly, something was happening.

Sage had to find out. A part of him wanted to know where they were going, what would become of his family – and a bigger part of him wanted to know if they had any idea where Scarlet was. Maybe one of them had seen or heard something. Maybe Lore had captured her. He had to know; it was the only lead he had.

Sage dove down for his family’s estate, landing in the back marble courtyard, before the grand steps leading up to the rear entranceway comprised of tall, antique French doors.

As he approached them, they suddenly opened, and he saw his mother and father step forward, facing him with a stern, disapproving look.

“What are you doing back here?” his mother asked, as if he were an unwelcome intruder.

“You’ve killed us once,” his father said. “Our people could have survived if it weren’t for you. Have you come to kill us again?”

Sage frowned; he was so sick of his parents’ disapproval.

“Where are you all going?” Sage demanded.

“Where do you think?” his father retorted. “They’ve convened the Grand Council for the first time in one thousand years.”

Sage looked back, shocked.

“Boldt Castle?” he asked. “You are going to the Thousand Islands?”

His parents scowled back.

“What do you care?” his mother said.

Sage couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Grand Council hadn’t convened since what felt like the beginning of time, and for all of their kind to gather together in one place, it could not be good.

“But why?” he asked. “Why convene, if we’re all going to die anyway?”

His father stepped forward and smiled as he raised a finger and jabbed it in Sage’s chest.

“We’re not like you,” he growled. “We’re not going down without a fight. Ours will be the greatest army ever known, the first time we’ve all assembled in one place. Mankind will pay. We will take our vengeance.”

“Vengeance for what?” Sage asked. “Mankind has done nothing to you. Why would you hurt innocent people?”

His father smiled back.

“Stupid to the end,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we? What have we left to lose? What are they going to do, kill us?”

His father laughed, and his mother joined him, as the two of them linked arms and walked past him, bumping his shoulders roughly, preparing to take off in flight.

Sage yelled after them: “I remember a time when you were noble,” he said. “But now, you are nothing. You are less than nothing. Is this what desperation does to you?”

They turned and grimaced.

“Your problem, Sage, is that while you are one of us, you have never understood our kind. Destruction is all we’ve ever wanted. It is only you, only you who has been different.”

“You are the child we never understood,” his mother said. “And you’ve never failed to disappoint us.”

Sage felt a pain course through him, felt too weak to respond.

As they turned to leave, Sage, gasping, mustered the strength to yell: “Scarlet! Where is she? Tell me!”

His mother turned and smiled wide.

“Oh, don’t you worry about her,” his mother said. “Lore will find her, and rescue us all. Or he will die trying. And when we live on, don’t you dare think there will be a place for you.”

Sage reddened.

“I hate you!” he yelled. “I hate you both!”

His parents merely turned, smiling, stepped up onto the marble railing, and took off into the sky.

Sage stood there and watched them go, disappearing into the sky, as the remainder of his cousins joined them. He stood there, all alone, before his boarded-up ancestral home, with nothing here left for him. His family hated him – and he hated them back.

Lore. Sage felt a fresh burst of determination as he thought of him. He could not let him find Scarlet. Despite all the pain inside him, he knew he had to muster the strength one last time. He had to find Scarlet.

Or die trying.

Chapter Four

Caitlin sat in the passenger seat of their pickup, exhausted, heartbroken, as Caleb drove relentlessly on Route 9, driving up and down as he had been for hours, scouring the streets. Dawn was breaking, and Caitlin looked up through the windshield at the unusual sky. She marveled that it was daybreak already. They had been driving all night, the two of them in front and Sam and Polly in the back seat, keeping their eyes peeled to the side of the road, looking everywhere for Scarlet. Once, they had screeched to a stop, Caitlin thinking she’d seen her – only to realize it was a scarecrow.

Caitlin closed her eyes for a moment, her eyelids feeling so heavy, swollen, and she saw the flashing of cars as she did, headlights passing, an endless flow of traffic as she had seen all night long. She felt like crying.

Caitlin felt so hollow inside, like such a bad mother for not having been there enough for Scarlet – for not having believed in her, for not understanding her, for not being there in her time of need. Somehow, Caitlin felt responsible for all this. And she felt like dying at the thought that she might not ever see her daughter again.

Caitlin started to cry, and she opened her eyes and quickly wiped her tears away. Caleb reached over and grabbed her hand, but she shook it away. Caitlin turned to look out the window, wanting privacy, wanting to be alone – wanting to die. Without her little girl in her life, she realized she had nothing left.

Caitlin felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Sam leaning forward.

“We’ve been driving all night,” he said. “There’s no sign of her anywhere. We’ve covered every inch of Route 9. The cops are out there, too, with far more cars than us. We’re all exhausted, and we’ve no idea where she could be. She might even be home, waiting for us.”

“I agree,” Polly said. “I say we head home. We need some rest.”

Suddenly there came a loud honking, and Caitlin looked up to see a truck coming right at them, as they were on the wrong side of the road.

“CALEB!” Caitlin screamed.

Caleb suddenly swerved out of the way at the last second, back onto his side of the road, missing the honking truck by a foot.

Caitlin stared at him, her heart pounding, and an exhausted Caleb stared back, his eyes bloodshot.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I must’ve dozed off.”

“This isn’t doing anyone any good,” Polly said. “We need rest. We need to go home. We’re all exhausted.”

Caitlin considered, and finally, after a long moment, she nodded.

“All right. Take us home.”

* * *

Caitlin sat on her couch as the sun rose, leafing through a photo book with pictures of Scarlet. She was flooded with all the memories rushing back to her, of Scarlet at all different ages. Caitlin rubbed her thumb along them, wishing more than anything in the world that she could have Scarlet here with her now. She would give anything, even her own heart and soul.

Caitlin held up the torn page from the book which she’d taken from the library, the ancient ritual, the one that would save Scarlet if only Caitlin had returned in time, the one that would have cured her from becoming a vampire. Caitlin tore the ancient page into small pieces and threw them to the floor. They landed near Ruth, her large husky, who whined and curled up at Caitlin’s side.

That page, that ritual, which had once meant so much to Caitlin, was useless now. Scarlet had already fed, and no ritual could save her now.

Caleb and Sam and Polly, also in the room, were each lost in their own world, each slumped in a couch or chair, either sleeping or half asleep. They lay there in the heavy silence, all of them waiting for Scarlet to walk in the door – and all suspecting she never would.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Caitlin jumped up and snatched it, her hand shaking. She dropped the receiver several times, finally picking it up and holding it to her ear.

“Hello, hello, hello?” she said. “Scarlet, is that you? Scarlet!?”

“Ma’am, it’s Officer Stinton,” came a male voice.

Caitlin’s heart dropped to realize it wasn’t Scarlet.

“I’m just calling to let you know we have no sign of your daughter yet.”

Caitlin’s hopes were dashed. She gripped the phone, squeezing it, desperate.

“You’re not trying hard enough,” she seethed.

“Ma’am, we’re doing all we can – ”

Caitlin didn’t wait for the rest of his response. She slammed the receiver down, then grabbed the phone, a large landline from the ’80s, ripped the cord out of the wall, picked it up over her head, and smashed it down to the ground.

Caleb, Sam, and Polly all jumped up, startled from sleep, and looked at her as though she were mad.

Caitlin looked down at the phone and she realized, maybe she was.

Caitlin stormed from the room, opened the door to their large front porch, and went out alone and sat on a rocking chair. It was cold in the dawn, and she didn’t care. She felt numb to the world.

She folded her arms across her chest tight, and she rocked and rocked in the cool November air. She looked out at the empty street that was spreading with the light of a new day, not a soul in sight, not a car moving, all the houses still dark. Everything still. A perfectly quiet suburban street, not a leaf out of place, everything clean and how it was supposed to be. Perfectly normal.

But nothing, Caitlin knew, was normal. She suddenly hated this place which she had loved for years. She hated the quiet; she hated the stillness; she hated the order. What she wouldn’t give for chaos, for the stillness to be shattered, for sound, for motion, for her daughter to appear.

Scarlet, she prayed, as she closed her eyes, crying, come back to me, baby. Please come back to me.

Chapter Five

Scarlet Paine felt herself floating through the air, the fluttering of a million small wings in her ear as she felt herself being raised up, higher and higher. She looked out to see she was being hoisted by a flock of bats, a million bats, surrounding her, clinging to the back of her shirt, carrying her through the air.

Scarlet was carried up through the clouds, through the most beautiful breaking dawn she’d ever seen, the clouds scattering and breaking up, the whole burnt-orange sky on fire. She did not understand what was happening, but somehow, she was unafraid. She sensed they were taking her somewhere, and as they screeched and fluttered all around her, as they hoisted her into the sky, she felt as if she were one of them.

Before Scarlet could process what was happening, the bats set her down, gently, before the biggest castle she’d ever seen. It had ancient stone walls, and she stood before an immense arched door. The bats flew off, disappearing, their fluttering fading.

Scarlet stood facing the door, and slowly, it opened. An amber light spilled out, and Scarlet felt drawn to enter.

Scarlet crossed the threshold of the door, passed through the light, and entered the largest chamber she had ever seen. Inside, lined up at perfect attention, facing her, stood an army of vampires, dressed in all black. She hovered above them, looking down upon them as if she were their leader.

As one, they all raised their palms and slapped them against their chests.

“You have given birth to a nation,” they boomed, their voice as one, echoing off the walls. “You have given birth to a nation!”

The vampires let out a great shout, and as they did, Scarlet took it all in, feeling as if, finally, she had found her people.

Scarlet’s eyes flew open as she woke to the sound of breaking glass. She found herself lying face-down on the cement, her cheeks pushed up against it, cold and wet and damp. She saw ants crawling toward her, and placed her palms on the rough cement, sat up, and brushed them away.

Scarlet was cold, achy, her neck and back twisted from having slept in this uncomfortable position. Most of all, she was disoriented, freaked out at not recognizing her surroundings. She was underneath a small local bridge, lying on the cement slope beneath it, as dawn broke above her. It stank of urine and stale beer down here, and Scarlet saw the cement was all marked up with graffiti, and as she studied the ground, she saw empty beer cans, refuse, used needles. She realized she was in a bad place. She looked around, blinking, and had no idea where she was, or how she got here.

There came again the sound of breaking glass, accompanied by shuffling feet, and Scarlet turned quickly, her senses on alert.

About ten feet away stood four bums dressed in rags, looking either drunk or on drugs – or just out for violence. Unshaven older men, they stared at her as if she were their play-thing, lecherous smiles on their faces, revealing rotting yellow teeth. But they were strong, she could tell, broad and tall, and by the way they approached, one of them throwing a beer bottle and smashing it under the bridge, she knew their intentions were not kind.

Scarlet tried to remember how she had gotten herself to this place. It was a place she never would have willingly gone. Had she been brought here? Her first thought was that maybe she had been raped; but she looked down and saw herself fully clothed, and knew that wasn’t it. She thought back, trying to remember the night before.

But it was all a painful blur. Scarlet remembered in flashes: a bar at the side of Route 9… an altercation… But it was all so hazy. She couldn’t quite recall the details.

“You know you’re under our bridge, right?” one of the bums said as they all approached, getting ever closer. Scarlet scurried back on her hands and knees, then rose to her feet, facing them, shaking inside but not wanting to appear scared.

“No one comes here without paying the toll,” another said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how I got here.”

“That was your mistake,” another said, in a deep guttural voice, smiling back at her.

“Please,” Scarlet said, trying to sound tough, but her voice shaky, as she stepped back, “I don’t want any trouble. I’m going to leave now. I’m sorry.”

Scarlet turned to leave, her heart pounding in her chest, when suddenly, she heard footsteps running, and then felt an arm wrap around her throat, holding a knife to her throat, his awful beer breath in her face.

“No you’re not, honey,” he said. “We haven’t even begun to get acquainted.”

Scarlet struggled, but the man was too strong for her, his stubble scraping her cheek as he rubbed his face against hers.

Soon the other three appeared before her, and Scarlet cried out as she struggled to no avail, and then felt their awful hands running down her stomach. One of them reached her belt line.

Scarlet bucked and twisted, trying to get away – but they were too strong. One of them reached down, yanked off her belt, and threw it, and she heard the clang of metal on the cement.

“Please, let me go!” Scarlet screamed, as she squirmed.

The fourth bum reached down and grabbed her jeans by the waist and started to pull on them, trying to yank them off of her. Scarlet knew that, in moments, if she didn’t do something, she would be hurt.

Something inside her snapped. She didn’t understand what it was, but it completely overwhelmed her, an energy flooding through her, rising up through her feet, up through her legs, her torso. She felt it like a searing heat, shooting through her shoulders, her arms, all the way to her fingertips. Her face flushed, the hair stood on end all over her body, and she felt a fire burning inside. She felt a strength she didn’t understand, felt herself to be stronger than all these men, stronger than the universe.

She then felt something else: a primordial rage. It was a new feeling. No longer did she have a desire to get away – but now she wanted to stay right here and make these men pay. To tear them apart, limb by limb.

And finally, she felt one more thing: hunger. A deep gnawing hunger that made her need to feed.

Scarlet leaned back and snarled, a sound that was scary even to her; her fangs extended from her teeth as she leaned back and kicked the man reaching for her jeans. The kick was so vicious, it sent the man flying through the air a good twenty feet, until he smacked his head against the concrete wall. He slumped down, unconscious.

The others stepped back, releasing their grip, mouths open in shock and fear as they stared back at Scarlet. They looked as if they realized they’d just made a very big mistake.

Before they could react, Scarlet wheeled around and elbowed the man holding her, cracking him across the jaw so hard, he spun around twice and collapsed, unconscious.

Scarlet turned, snarling, and faced the other two, like a beast looking down at its prey. The two bums stood there, eyes wide with fear, and Scarlet heard a noise and looked down to see one of them pee in his pants.

Scarlet reached down, picked her belt up off the floor, and walked forward casually.

The man stumbled backwards, petrified.

“No!” he whimpered. “Please! I didn’t mean it!”

Scarlet lunged forward and wrapped the belt around the man’s throat. She then lifted him with one hand, his feet dangling off the ground, the man gasping, clutching at the belt. She held him there, high overhead, until finally he stopped moving and slumped down, dead.

Scarlet turned and faced the final bum, who was crying, too scared to run. Fangs extended, she stepped forward and sank them into the man’s throat. He shook in her arms, then in moments, he lay there in a pool of blood, limp.

Scarlet heard a distant scurrying, and she looked over to see the first bum rising, moaning, slowly getting to his feet. He looked at her, eyes wide in fear, and scurried to his hands and knees, trying to get away.

She bore down on him.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpered, crying. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what you are, but I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she answered, her voice dark, inhuman. “Just like I don’t mean what I’m about to do to you.”

Scarlet picked him up by the back of the shirt, spun around, and threw him with all her might – straight up.

The bum went flying like a missile, up underneath the bridge, his head and shoulders smashing through the cement and popping out the other side, the sound of rubble falling everywhere as she sent him halfway through the bridge. He hung there, lodged in it, his legs dangling underneath.

Scarlet ran up to the top of the bridge in a single bound, and she saw him, his upper torso stuck in the concrete, as he shrieked, his head and shoulders exposed, unable to move. He wiggled, trying to break free.

But he could not. He was a sitting target for whatever car happened to come along.

“Get me out of here!” he demanded.

Scarlet smiled.

“Maybe next time,” she said. “Enjoy the traffic.”

Scarlet turned and leapt and flew off into the sky, the sound of the man’s cries growing dimmer and dimmer as she flew higher and higher, away from this place, having no idea where she was and no longer caring. Only one person loomed in her mind: Sage. His face hovered before her in her mind’s eye, his perfectly chiseled chin and lips, his soulful eyes. She could sense his love for her. And she felt it back.

She did not know where her home was in this world anymore, but she didn’t care, as long as she was with him.

Sage, she thought. Wait for me. I’m coming for you.

Chapter Six

Maria sat with her friends in the pumpkin patch, hating life, so jealous of all of them. Everyone seemed to have a boyfriend but her. And the ones that didn’t seemed to have a really strong clique of friends that all huddled together.

Maria sat on a pile of pumpkins, Becca and Jasmine by her side, and she didn’t really know where she fit in anymore. Maria used to have such a strong clique, an unbreakable clique forever, the four of them, she and Becca and Jasmine and, of course, her best friend, Scarlet. They had been inseparable. If one of them didn’t have a boyfriend, the others were always there for them. She and Scarlet had vowed to never fight, to go to the same college, to be maid of honor at each other’s weddings, and to always live within ten blocks of each other.

Maria had been so sure of her friends, of Scarlet, of everything.

Then, in the last few weeks, everything had suddenly fallen apart, without warning. Scarlet had stolen away Sage right from under her eyes, the only guy Maria had been totally obsessed with for a very long time. Maria’s face flushed as she remembered the indignity; Scarlet had made her look so stupid. She was still so mad at her for that, and she didn’t think she’d ever forgive her.

Maria recalled their final argument, Scarlet defending herself, saying that Sage liked her, and she didn’t steal him. Deep down, a part of Maria knew that probably she was right. Still, she had to blame someone, and it was a lot easier than blaming herself.

Someone bumped her, and Maria slid off the pile of pumpkins, landing on the ground, and her jeans got muddy.

“Watch it!” she yelled, pissed.

She looked over and saw it was one of the drunken boys. Several hundred of her class had gathered here, as they always did by tradition, the day after the big fall bash, for this stupid school “pumpkin picking” event. Everyone knew that nobody really picked pumpkins, they all just sat around the pumpkin field, filling up on hot apple cider and donuts, while the riffraff of the class spiked their cider with gin. It was one of these boys who had bumped her. He hadn’t even realized he had done it, adding insult to injury, as he stumbled by. Maria knew him, and she knew that all those boys who drank at this age would end up doing nothing with their lives anyway, so at least she took solace in that.

Maria had to clear her head. She couldn’t stand it anymore, being around all this. She just wanted to get away. She was still so upset, and now she didn’t even know why. Losing her best friend, even with Jasmine and Becca there, made her feel at loose ends. Making things worse, she still felt a lust for Sage. Thoughts of him were driving her crazy.

Maria got to her feet and began to walk.

“Where you going?” Jasmine asked.

Maria shrugged.

“Just to get some air.”

Maria pushed her way through the crowd, going farther and farther out into the farm field on the outskirts of town, looking at all the kids holding mugs, sitting around laughing, everyone seeming to be so happy. Everyone but her. At this moment, she hated them all.

Maria made it to the edge of the crowd and kept walking, finding a lone haystack at the base of the corn maze.

She put her head in her hands and held back tears. She was feeling depressed, and she did not know why. Mostly, she thought, it was because Scarlet was out of her life. She used to text her a hundred times a day. She didn’t understand why it had all happened, either. And she couldn’t stop thinking of Sage, even though she knew he didn’t like her. She closed her eyes and willed and willed and willed for him to appear.

Sage, I’d give anything, she thought. Come here. I want you. I need you.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing sitting here all by herself?” came a dark, seductive voice.

Maria flinched, as she opened her eyes and was in utter shock at the sight before her. It was not Sage. But it was a guy, if possible even more gorgeous than Sage. He wore black leather boots, black leather jeans, a black T-shirt, a small, black shark-tooth necklace, and a fitted black leather jacket. He had gray eyes and wavy brown hair, and a small, perfect smile. He had more sex appeal than any guy she’d ever seen: he looked like a rock star who had stepped off the stage just for her.

Maria blinked several times and looked all around, wondering if this was a joke. But he was the only one there, and he was actually talking to her, and nobody else. She tried to respond, but her words stuck in her throat.

“Pretty?” was all she managed to say back, her heart thumping in her chest.

He laughed, and it was most the beautiful sound she’d ever heard.

“Come on, they’re having all the fun. Why aren’t you?”

Without waiting, he approached her gracefully, held out a hand, and without even realizing it, she took his hand, jumping down off the stack of hay, and followed him, the two walking hand-in-hand into the corn maze alone. She was so swept up by him, she didn’t even stop to think or realize that this wasn’t exactly normal. A fantasy of hers had materialized, and had swept her way. But she wasn’t exactly about to start asking questions.

“Um… who are you?” she asked, tentative, her voice trembling, overcome by the feel of his hand in hers.

“I was looking for a date for the corn maze,” he said with a smile as they stepped inside. “This is my lucky day. Maria, right?”

She looked at him in wonder.

“How did you know my name?”

He smiled and laughed.

“You’ll soon find out about me,” he said, “that I know just about everything. And as for my name: you can call me Lore.”

* * *

Lore walked hand-in-hand with Scarlet’s friend, delighted with himself at how easy it had been to seduce her. These humans were too frail, too naïve – it wasn’t even fair. He had barely even needed to use his powers, and in just moments, he had her in the palm of his hand. A part of him wanted to feed on her, drain the energy from her body, and dispose of her as he had other humans.

But another part told him to be patient. After all, he had flown across the countryside and set down just for her. Lore had been searching for a way to get to Scarlet, and as he was flying, he had sensed Maria’s strong feelings cutting through the universe; he had felt her desire for Sage, her desperation. It attracted him like a magnet.

Lore had spotted Maria with his eagle eye from the skies, and as he’d dove down, he realized she would be the perfect trap after all, someone so alone, so vulnerable – and so close to Scarlet. If anyone knew of a way to find Scarlet, it must be her. Lore decided he would befriend her, use her to find Scarlet, and when he was through, kill her. In the meantime, he might as well have fun with her. This pathetic human would believe whatever fantasy she wanted.

“Um… I don’t understand…” Maria said, as they walked, her voice shaky, nervous. “Explain it to me again. You said you’re like… like new here?”

Lore laughed.

“In a way,” he said.

“So like are you going to be in our school?” she asked.

“I don’t think I have time for school,” he replied.

“What do you mean? Aren’t you my age?” she asked.

“I am. But I finished school long ago.”

Lore almost said centuries ago, but he stopped himself at the last second, luckily.

“Long ago? What do you mean? Are you like advanced or something?” She looked at him with wide, admiring eyes, and he smiled back at her.

“Something like that,” he said. “So your friends are back there, at the party?” he added.

Maria nodded.

“Yeah, all of them except… Well, I’m not friends with her anymore, so yeah, all of them.”

“Except who?” Lore asked, intrigued.

Maria blushed.

“Well, my former best friend. She’s not there. But like I said, we’re not friends anymore.”

“Scarlet?” he asked, then immediately regretted giving too much away.

Maria looked at him, suspicious.

“Like, how do you know all this? Are you, like, stalking me?”

Lore began to feel her retreat from him, and he didn’t want to lose her. He looked at her, held her cheeks, made her stare at him, and flashed his eyes at her. She blinked, and as she did, he wiped out the last thirty seconds of their conversation from her memory.

Maria blinked several times, and he took her hand, and they continued walking.

Close call, he thought. Let’s start again.

“So your friends are back there, at the party?” he added.

Maria nodded.

“Yeah, all of them except… Well, I’m not friends with her anymore, so yeah, all of them.”

“Except who?” Lore asked, intrigued.

Maria blushed.

“Well, my former best friend. She’s not there. But like I said, we’re not friends anymore.”

Lore paused this time, thinking through his words.

“What happened between the two of you?” he asked carefully.

Maria shrugged, and they continued to walk in silence, their boots crunching in the hay.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Lore said, finally. “Anyway, I know what it’s like to be estranged from a friend. My cousin Lore. We were once as close as brothers. Now we don’t even speak.”

Maria looked up at him with compassion.

“That’s awful,” she said. “What happened?”

Lore shrugged.

“Long story.” Centuries long, he wanted to add, but he restrained himself.

Maria nodded, clearly feeling sympathy for him.

“Well, since you seem to understand,” she said, “then I’ll tell you. I don’t know why, like I don’t even know you, but I feel you’d understand everything.”

Lore smiled reassuringly at her.

“I seem to have that effect on people,” he said.

“Anyway,” Maria continued, “my friend, Scarlet, she, like, stole a guy that I liked. Not that I care about the guy anymore.”

Maria stopped talking and Lore sensed she wanted to say something more, and he read her mind:

Well, not since I met you, that is.

Lore smiled.

“Stealing someone’s mate,” Lore said, shaking his head. “There’s nothing worse than that.”

He squeezed her hand tighter, and Maria gave him a half smile.

“So you’re not friends anymore?” Lore said, fishing.

Maria shook her head.

“No. I like totally cut her off. I kinda feel bad about it. I mean, she’s like still stored in my favorites and we’re still friends on Facebook and everything. I haven’t quite gotten that far. But I haven’t called or texted her. We used to text a hundred times a day.”

“Have you tried to text her at all?”

Maria shook her head.

“I don’t really want talk about it,” she said.

Lore sensed that he was pushing too hard. There would be plenty of time for him to seduce her, to find out all he needed to know about Scarlet. In the meantime, he had to make her trust him – to trust him completely.

They reached the center of the corn maze, and they stopped and stood there. Maria looked away, and Lore could sense how nervous she was.

“So, like, now what?” she asked, her hands trembling. “Maybe we should get back?” she added.

He read her mind:

I hope he doesn’t want to go back. I hope he kisses me. Please, kiss me.

Lore reached down, held her cheeks, leaned in, and kissed her.

At first, Maria resisted, pulling back.

But then, she melted into his kiss. He could feel her melting into him completely, and he knew that now, she was totally his.

Chapter Seven

Scarlet flew through the morning sky, wiping her tears, still shaken from the incident under the bridge, and trying to understand all that was happening to her. She was flying. She could hardly believe it. She did not know how, but wings had sprouted, and she had just taken off, lifted into the air as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She couldn’t understand why the light was hurting her eyes, why her skin was starting to itch beneath the sun. Luckily, it had become a cloudy day, and she had some relief; yet still, she did not feel like herself.

Scarlet felt so lost, so alone, and she did not know where to go. She felt she could not go back home, not after all that had happened, not after discovering that her mother wanted her dead, that they all hated her. She couldn’t go to her friends, either; after all, Maria hated her now, too, and it seemed she had turned the others against her as well. She couldn’t go back to school, couldn’t just step back into her normal life, especially after her big fight with Vivian at the party.

A part of Scarlet felt like curling up in a ball and dying. She felt she had no home left in the world.

Scarlet flew over her hometown and as she passed her house, it was such a strange feeling to look down on it from above. Scarlet flew high enough to not be seen by anyone, and she saw her town from a bird’s-eye view, like she’d never had. She saw the perfectly formed blocks, the rectangular grid, the clean streets, the tall steeple of the church; she saw the wires everywhere, the telephone poles, all the slanted roofs, some shingled, some slate, most hundreds of years old. She saw birds perched on roofs, and saw a lone purple balloon lifting up toward her.

The November wind was cold up here, whipping her face, and Scarlet felt the chill. She wanted to get down, to warm up somewhere.

As Scarlet flew and flew, trying to think, the only person that she could see, the only face that continued to flash in her mind, was Sage. He hadn’t shown up as promised at the homecoming; he had stood her up, and she was still mad about that. Scarlet assumed he didn’t want to see her again.

Then again, she wasn’t really sure what happened. Maybe, just maybe, there had been some reason he didn’t show up. Maybe he loved her after all.

The more Scarlet thought about it, the more she felt she needed to see him. She needed to see a familiar face, someone left in the world who cared about her, who loved her. Or, at least, who had loved her once.

Scarlet made a decision. She turned and headed west, toward the river, toward where she knew Sage lived. She continued flying outside the town limits, looking down at the main roads below, and using them as a beacon as she flew. Her heart pounded quickly, as she realized she would reach him in a few moments.

As she flew outside of town, the landscape changed: instead of perfectly laid out blocks and houses, there were fewer houses, larger lots, more trees… The lots morphed from two acres, to four acres, to six, then ten, twenty… She was entering the estate section.

Scarlet reached the river’s edge, and as she turned and flew alongside it, below her she could see all the mansions, replete with their long, sprawling driveways, framed by ancient oaks and formidable gates. It all reeked of wealth and history and money and power.

Scarlet passed over the biggest and most elegant of them all, beautifully set back from the road by several acres, perched right near the edge of the river, an old home of ancient stone, with the most beautiful spirals and towers, looking more like a castle than a house. Its fifteen chimneys protruded into the sky like a beacon to the heavens. Scarlet had never realized how beautiful Sage’s home was until she saw it from above.

Scarlet flew lower, diving down, her heart pounding, so nervous. Would Sage even want to see her again? What if he didn’t? If not, she did not know where she could possibly turn.

Scarlet landed before the front door, coming down gently, her wings retracting, and she looked up at the stone edifice – and as she did, she felt her heart go cold inside. She could not comprehend what she was seeing: the entire house, all of it, was boarded up. In place of the beautiful ornate glass, there was plywood, hastily nailed; in place of all the activity that had been here last time she visited, there was nothing.

It was deserted.

Scarlet heard a squeaking noise. She looked off to the side and saw a rusty gate swinging lightly, squeaking in the wind. It felt as if no one had lived here for a thousand years.

Scarlet flew around to the back of the house, setting down in the wide marble plaza, and looked up at the façade; it was more of the same. The house was completely empty, boarded up. As if all that had been, had never been.

Scarlet turned and looked at the sprawling grounds leading down to the river, peering into the cloud-filled horizon, the blackening sky threatening a storm, looking everywhere for Sage.

She did not sense him here. Not in the house. Not anywhere.

He was gone.

Scarlet could not believe it. He was really gone.

Scarlet sat down, putting her hands on her knees, and wept. Did he truly hate her that much? Did he never really love her?

Scarlet sat there, crying, until she fell hollowed out, numb. She stared at nothing, wondering what to do. A part of her wanted to break into the house, if for no other reason than to get warmth and shelter. But she knew she could not do that. She was not a criminal.

Scarlet sat with her head in her hands for what felt like forever, feeling an intense pressure between her eyes, knowing she had to go somewhere, do something. But where?

For some reason, Scarlet thought of her friends once again. Maria hated her; but there was no reason for any of the others to hate her. They’d all been so close at one point. Even if she couldn’t talk with Maria, maybe she could talk with Becca or Jasmine. After all, Scarlet hadn’t done anything to them. And what were friends for, if not for a time like this?

Scarlet stood, wiped her tears, took three steps, and leapt into the air. She would find her friends, ask for them to take her in, just for the night, and then figure out what to do with her life.

Chapter Eight

Father McMullen knelt before the altar, his hands trembling as he clasped the rosary, praying for clarity. And also, he had to admit, praying for protection. His mind still flashed images of that girl, Scarlet, brought here by her mother so many days before, of that moment when even here, in this holy place, every window shattered. The father glanced up and looked all around, as if wondering if it had really happened – and he felt a sinking pit in his stomach as he was given the stark reminder, the former windows now boarded up with plywood.

Please, Father. Send us protection. Send her protection. Save us from her. And save her from herself. I ask for a sign.

Father McMullen didn’t know what to do. He was a small-town priest, with a small-town parish, and he did not have the skills to deal with a spiritual force of this magnitude. He had read legends of it, but he had never known it to be true, and certainly had never witnessed it with his own eyes.

Now, after spending his entire life praying to God, after spending his life talking to others of forces of good and evil, he had witnessed it for himself. True spiritual forces were doing battle, here on earth, on display for all to see. Now he had experienced it – everything he had ever read and talked about to others – for himself.

And it scared him to death.

Can such evil really walk the earth? he wondered. Where did it come from? What did it want? And why had it all come his way, fallen into his lap?

Father McMullen had contacted the Vatican right away, reporting what had happened, asking for their help, for guidance. Most of all, he wanted to know how to best help this poor girl. Were there any ancient prayers, ancient ceremonies, he did not know of?

But, to his dismay, he had never heard back.

The father knelt there, praying, as he did every afternoon, now praying longer and harder.

The father suddenly flinched as the huge, arched wooden doors to the church banged open, light flooding in behind him, a cold breeze rushing on his back. He felt an immediate chill – and it was not just from the weather.

He sensed that something dark had entered the place.

The father, his heart pounding, quickly gained his feet and turned around, facing the entrance, wondering what it could be. He squinted into the light.

In walked the silhouettes of three men in their sixties, with white hair, dressed in all black, with black turtlenecks and cassocks. He examined them in wonder; there was something different about them, something sinister. They did not look like any priests he had ever seen.

“Father McMullen?” one of them asked.

The father stood his ground as they approached, and nodded back shakily.

“Who are you?” he asked. “How may I help you?”

“You sent for us,” one said.

The father looked at him, puzzled.

“I did?”

They reached him and as they did, one of them held a piece of paper out.

The father took it. It was from the Vatican.

“They’ve sent us to investigate,” one of them said.

The father felt some relief, yet still, he examined them with apprehension, taking in their stark appearance.

“I am honored that you’ve come all the way from Italy,” he said. “Thank you for coming. Can you help?”

The men ignored him, though, all turning, examining the plywood on the windows, looking at each other knowingly, as if they had seen this before, as if they knew exactly what had happened.

“This girl that you describe,” one said, his voice dark and low. “What is her name?”

“Her name is Scarlet,” Father McMullen replied.

“Last name?” the same man asked.

The father looked at him, unsure. He did not know if he should protect his parishioner, protect her privacy. But he knew that was silly; these men belonged to the Church.

“Paine,” he answered, feeling increasingly hesitant.

One of them wrote as he spoke.

“And where does she live?” he prodded.

Now the father felt even more uncertain. He cleared his throat.

“With all due respect, may I ask why are you asking all of these questions?”

The three men looked at each other disapprovingly, then one of them stepped forward. He came too close, and the father took a half step back.

“If we are to help her,” he said slowly, his voice somber, “we need to know everything.” He leaned forward. “Everything.”

The father cleared his throat and averted his stare.

“Well…” the father said, then stopped. “I would like to know how you plan on helping her. Perhaps I can bring her here to the church to perform the service?”

The father wanted these men, whom he felt unsure about, on neutral ground.

“Father,” one of them said, stepping forward and clasping a firm hand on his shoulder, “I don’t think you understand. We did not come to help your parishioner. We came to stop her.”

“Stop her?” the father asked, horrified. “What do you mean exactly? She’s just a teenage girl.”

The man shook his head.

“She is far more. She is an ancient, demonic soul, and she will unleash a destruction unlike you have ever seen on the world. Our jobs, as members of the Church, is to stop her – by any means necessary.”

The father paled. “Our job is to heal our people,” he said, horrified. “I did not write to the Vatican for this. I think you should all leave now. I did not want this.”

The man tightened his grip on his shoulder, and the father cried out. His grip was so strong, it sent a pain up and down his spine.

The man stared back with steely black eyes, and the father felt as if he were staring into the depths of hell.

“You may not have wanted us,” he said darkly, “but we are here. And we are not leaving until this girl you speak of – Scarlet – is dead.”

Chapter Nine

Caitlin looked down and was confused as she saw a beautiful, medieval European city floating by beneath her. She tried to figure out where she was as she took in the church steeples, terra-cotta roofs, a river cutting through it spanned by low, arched bridges… Suddenly, she realized: Venice. Not the modernized Venice of today, but the pure, intact medieval Venice, roads of cobblestone, trodden by horses and carriages, and people in archaic dress.

Caitlin felt someone gripping her hand as the clouds brushed by her face, and she looked over to see Caleb with her, flying at her side. She did not understand what was happening, how she was flying, how Caleb was with her, what she was doing here. She felt stronger than she had ever felt, as if she could conquer the world by herself. As if she were not human.

Caitlin was led by Caleb as they sped downward, cutting through the air. They soon reached a bridge, and landed in the center of it. All around them, the city was packed with people, peddling their wares, browsing in all the booths. Caitlin looked around and saw gold trinkets everywhere, and she realized: they were on the Ponte Vecchio. The bridge of gold. One of the most romantic places in the world.

Caitlin could not understand what they were doing here, but she felt as if she had been here before. In some other time. Somehow, she had vivid memories of this place.

Caleb led her to one of the booths and picked out a beautiful golden ring, laden with diamonds. He then led her to the edge of the stone rail, and knelt before her.

“Caitlin,” he said, looking to her eyes, “will you be with me? Forever?”

Before Caitlin could respond, she found herself riding on horseback, amidst breaking ocean waves, beneath the Aquinnah Cliffs on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. To her right were the beautiful red clay cliffs, while before her sat huge prehistoric boulders, scattered in the ocean. She and Caleb laughed wholeheartedly as they rode through the water, water splashing all around them, heading into the sunset.

They eventually stopped and dismounted as Caleb took her hand and kissed her.

Caitlin felt the world slow down as he held her, the waves crashing around him. She looked into his beautiful eyes, and knew they would be together forever.

Before she closed her eyes, again, she saw a flash of something in the setting sun, and was horrified to spot two long fangs extending from Caleb’s mouth. She was startled as he suddenly leaned in and sunk his fangs into her throat.

Caitlin gasped, the feeling at once so painful, yet so ecstatic.

Caitlin sat up with a start, breathing hard. She opened her eyes, disoriented, and looked around to see herself sitting on her couch, in her home, in Rhinebeck. She was alone in the room.

She shook her head, trying to shake off the crazy dream. She realized she had fallen asleep here in the living room, with Caleb and Sam and Polly, all of them here with her. And yet now she was alone.

“Hello?” she called out.

Caitlin got up and crossed the room, and as she did she looked to the floor and saw torn pages everywhere, covering the entire floor. She picked one up and realized it was a page from a diary. They were all over the house, covering everything.

She looked up and saw, with wonder, that they were all over the ceiling, too.

Caitlin, not understanding what was happening, felt compelled to go to her front door, and she walked toward it as if in a trance, thinking of Scarlet, feeling that maybe she was there somehow, behind that door. Her heart pounded as she approached.

Suddenly, the door burst open. A cold gale rushed in and blew the pages everywhere, all throughout the house, and the noise was deafening as Caitlin stood there, her heart slamming, ecstatic to see Scarlet standing before her, looking okay.

“Scarlet?” she asked, hardly able to believe it. “Where have you been?”

Caitlin rushed toward her, preparing to embrace her, when Scarlet opened her mouth, extended two fangs, and stepped forward and plunged them into Caitlin’s throat. The pain was excruciating as Caitlin fell to her knees, the world spinning around her.

Caitlin opened her eyes and sat up screaming. She breathed heavily, grabbing her neck, and looked all around. She grasped the edge of the couch as she cried out, flailing, and Caleb, Sam, and Polly appeared before her, running over.

“Caitlin?” Caleb asked. “What is it?”

Caitlin breathed hard, looking all around slowly, until finally, after a long time, she realized it had all just been a dream. One cruel dream after the next. She was fine, in her house. Everything was normal. Caleb was normal. Sam and Polly were still here.

Caitlin looked out the open windows and saw that a new day had dawned. She looked to the floor for the pages, but there were none to be found. She looked to the front door, but it was closed, just as it had been the night before.

It was all just a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare.

Suddenly Caitlin remembered: the nightmare of her real life. She turned to Caleb.

“Scarlet?” she asked, grabbing his arm. “Anything?”

Caleb shook his head grimly, and Caitlin’s heart fell. She reached down and checked her phone.

“I already checked it,” Caleb said.

Caitlin checked anyway, and saw that there were no new messages. No new texts. No new calls. Nothing.

Scarlet, her baby, was really gone from here.

“The police?” she asked.

Polly and Sam shook their heads.

“We already called. Three times since sunrise. No one has seen anything. She’s gone.”

“But we have to find her,” Caitlin said, jumping to her feet. “We have to! My baby’s out there!”

“She’s my baby, too,” Caleb replied calmly, “and we’re doing all we can do.”

“We’re not doing enough!” Caitlin pressed.

“What would you have us do?” Caleb asked, exasperated.

“Let’s get back out there,” she said. “Let’s split up. We’ll take our own cars. Drive block to block again.”

“Drive block to block where?” Caleb said. “We’ve already covered every block there is ten times. What good will it do?”

“And if we leave this house,” Sam added, “we might miss her. You heard what the cops said: Scarlet will probably come looking for us.”

“We can’t just stay here,” Caitlin insisted.

“Then what should we do?” Caleb asked, hands on his hips.

Caitlin thought, racking her brain. Her dreams haunted her, and she looked over and saw her diary sitting there on the ledge, and something suddenly occurred to her:

Aiden.

Aiden had been right from the start. She had not listened to him, foolishly, until it was too late. And now, with nowhere else to turn, he was the only one she knew who might know what to do.

Caitlin grabbed her phone, and with trembling hands, she dialed him. She walked to the parlor, so that the others wouldn’t hear and think she was crazy.

She stood there, crying softly, wiping away tears as the phone rang and rang.

Please pick up, she thought. Please.

“Hello?” finally came the gravelly voice.

Caitlin let out a sigh of relief.

“Aiden!” she said. “It’s me, Caitlin. I need to see you. Now. Can you see me? Can you? Please. I need to talk to you about Scarlet. Please.”

It all came out in a rush, and there came a long silence on the other end.

Finally, he spoke:

“Come to my office immediately,” he said. “I’ll cancel my appointments.”

Caitlin hung up with shaking hands, and she rushed over and grabbed her keys, and without even putting on her coat, headed for the door.

“Wait!” Caleb called out. “Where are you going?”

She looked at Caleb, completely forgetting.

“To Aiden,” she replied simply.

Caleb stared at her.

“To the city!?” he asked. “What about Scarlet?”

“This is for Scarlet,” Caitlin said.

She turned to go, but soon felt Caleb’s hand on her shoulder.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

Caitlin turned and looked at him, and she could feel the love and support in his eyes, and she nodded, grateful.

Caleb took the keys and opened the front door for her, and they looked back at Sam and Polly.

“Don’t worry,” Polly said. “We’ll hold the fort. You go. And get some answers.”

Chapter Ten

Scarlet flew through the night, circling high above her hometown, looking down at all the houses lit up in the darkness. They all looked so cozy from here, a million sparks of light flickering amongst the trees she crossed over. Scarlet imagined the families that must be in these homes, perhaps sitting down for dinner, laughing and enjoying themselves, normal, functional families getting together as they did every night. Perhaps they would have dinner, followed by TV, then homework. Perfect, happy families, without a worry in the world.

Scarlet craved a family like that now more than ever.

She wiped tears away as she thought of her own house, her own family. On the surface they seemed like the perfect family in the perfect town, seemed perfectly functional; yet she felt as if her family was all broken, as dysfunctional as every other dysfunctional family. Scarlet had felt so close to her mother her whole life, yet after reading her diary entry, Scarlet could not help but feel as if her mother wanted her dead. Scarlet had felt close to her father, too, and she couldn’t understand: how could he possibly have let her mother feel that way about her? Was he complicit?

They looked at her now as if she were some sort of freak, some sort of monster; she felt that now all they had for her was disapproval, no matter what she did. They just didn’t understand her. They wouldn’t take the time to listen to her, to hear her point of view; they were always so quick to rush to judgment and disapproval. As much as she loved them, she really hated that part of them. Why couldn’t they just talk to her, just try to find out what was going on with her, instead of rushing to condemn her?

Scarlet flew over her house, high above, and saw it, somewhere down below amidst the lights flickering between the trees. She knew it would be so easy to just dive down and enter it. And yet, the easiest route was also the hardest. Scarlet felt she couldn’t go home, felt that she didn’t really have a home anymore to go home to. Something inside her had irrevocably changed. She didn’t really trust her parents anymore, and she didn’t trust them to understand what she was going through.

She didn’t want to be with them, at least not now, during this fragile time. For now, she wanted to be with Sage. She felt somehow he would understand better than her family. She wanted Sage and no one else.

Scarlet brushed her tears away, knowing that Sage was gone, wherever he was. He had boarded up his house and fled like a thief in the night. It was as if he had never been.

Scarlet cried as she flew through the air, the thought devastating her. She had cared about him. Didn’t he know that?

Scarlet flew for hours, circling aimlessly, second-guessing herself, trying to decide where to go. Maybe she should just leave this town together, she thought, just take off completely.

But something inside Scarlet was not quite ready to leave yet. She still felt a lack of resolve about Sage, and she felt she needed to try to find out more about what happened to him. She couldn’t just walk away. And as she wondered how to find out more, she kept thinking of her high school, of the other people who might have seen him.

She thought once again of her friends, of her plan of visiting them. She recalled the last time she saw them, at the school bonfire; it hadn’t gone well. Yet as she thought about it, Scarlet realized she didn’t care if they hated her anymore; she just needed to find Sage. And they were the only people she knew who might have heard something.

As Scarlet circled, she decided, for Sage’s sake, to swallow her pride and seek out her friends. She couldn’t seek out Maria, not after the fight they’d had. Jasmine, though, she’d always been able to talk reason to. Even if Maria had turned Jasmine against her, maybe Jasmine would listen to reason coming from Scarlet – at least long enough to tell her if she knew anything about where Sage was. That was all she needed. That, and maybe to crash there for the night until she could figure out where to go next.

Resolved, Scarlet turned and flew away from town, heading to the outskirts, to the more rural areas, the neighborhoods with the one-story ranches, pickups in the driveways, larger lots, and gravel driveways, until she found Jasmine’s house, easy to spot from above, with its beat-up red pickup in the front, and its large plastic sculpture in the front yard – of what, Scarlet could never figure out.

As Scarlet flew lower she saw the house was all lit up and felt a sense of relief. At least she was home.

Scarlet set down behind Jasmine’s house, behind the trees, where no one would see her. She walked across the grass, crunchy with frost beneath her feet, and headed up the back steps of Jasmine’s deck, as she had a million times before, when they were friends. Now it felt weird walking up them, as if she were intruding.

Scarlet’s heart was pounding as she nervously wondered if this was all a bad idea, if Maria had succeeded in completely turning Jasmine against her.

Scarlet walked up to the door, the porch creaking beneath her feet, and rang the bell.

She waited, heart pounding, and as she stood there, she heard a lot of activity inside, kids laughing, talking to each other, music – the muted beats of a Britney Spears song in the background. She wondered what was going on – when she heard someone walking toward the door.

Scarlet braced herself as she saw Jasmine opening the door.

Jasmine stood there, looking at her in shock.

“OMG,” Jasmine said slowly. “Scarlet. Like, I thought you were dead. Everyone did.”

They both stood there, not knowing what to say in the awkward silence.

“Well, I’m alive,” Scarlet finally said, “as you can see.”

“OMG, like what happened to you? Like, where have you been?” Jasmine pressed.

Scarlet began to play with her hair unconsciously, nervous.

“It’s a long story,” she said. “I really don’t want to get into right now. I’m just wondering if I can, like, crash.”

Jasmine hesitated, eyes wide with surprise, and her gaze hardened.

“Scarlet, we were all like best friends, but after what you did to Maria, it’s really hard to like still be friends you. Like the four of us were like gold. You can’t steal someone else’s guy. Like I would never do that to you. And it’s really hard to trust you now knowing that you did that to Maria.”

Scarlet frowned, half expecting something like this. Maria had always had such a sway over Jasmine and Becca.

“That’s Maria’s perspective,” Scarlet pointed out. “I didn’t steal anyone. Sage sought me out. He likes me. He never liked Maria. If he liked her, he could have had her and she could have had him. I never would’ve gotten in the way. But he didn’t. I can’t make him like somebody he doesn’t want to like. How is that my fault?”

Jasmine bit her lip, unsure.

“Well,” she said, hesitant, “that’s not the way I heard it. I heard you like stole him away.”

“That’s not true.”

“Look, Scarlet, this is, like, really awkward,” she said. “I don’t want to be put between you and Maria. I’m like really good friends with Maria and – ”

Suddenly the door opened wider, and Scarlet’s throat went dry as she saw Maria standing behind Jasmine, glaring back at her.

Scarlet braced herself for the tirade to follow. She felt mortified that Maria was here, had been here this whole time, listening. As she heard the noise behind them, Scarlet envisioned all kinds of kids in the house, and she felt mortified that they saw her, that they heard all this. She had thought she could take solace here, and she had unintentionally walked into some kind of party.

“Jasmine, it’s okay,” Maria said, putting a hand on her shoulder and motioning Scarlet in. “Let her in.”

“Um, what?” Jasmine said, confused. “I thought you like hated her.”

Scarlet was confused, too. She had been so sure Maria despised her.

“It really doesn’t matter anymore,” Maria said. “I’m over Sage. I’m so over him. She can have him, totally. I’ve got someone new in my life that makes Sage seem like nothing.”

Scarlet noticed Maria was beaming, could see that she was genuinely happy. It was the look Maria had whenever she had a new boyfriend.

Scarlet was happy for her, and relieved, if confused, that Maria was no longer upset with her. Scarlet didn’t understand how she could have found someone so quickly, but she welcomed it. At first she wondered if Maria was joking; but as Maria stepped forward and reached out a hand, she realized she was being genuine.

“Truce?” Maria asked.

Maria smiled wide, and Scarlet reached out and shook her hand, and Maria stepped up and hugged her.

“Who cares about the guys anyway?” Maria said. “Guys come and go. But we’re like forever, you know?”

Scarlet hugged her back, and over her shoulder she saw Jasmine’s expression soften. Becca came over, too, and it was clear that, if Maria had reconciled with her, the others were willing to as well.

Becca and Jasmine stepped forward and hugged Scarlet, and she felt all the tension in the air dissipate.

“Close the door, it’s cold,” Jasmine said.

Scarlet stepped inside, and Jasmine closed the door behind her. Scarlet followed the girls as they walked through the house, a little curious.

“What’s going on here anyway?” Scarlet asked. “What’s with the music? Do I hear voices?”

“The basement,” Jasmine said. “We’re pre-gaming for tonight.”

“What’s tonight?” Scarlet asked, confused.

“Duh, it’s only Bannerman’s,” Becca said. “Every year, the night after the bonfire, don’t you remember?”

Bannerman’s, Scarlet thought, and then she remembered. It was that small, abandoned island in the middle of the Hudson. She remembered last year, all the kids taking motorboats out there, a small abandoned island with the ruins of a castle on it. They had taken it over for the night, lighting bonfires, drinking beers, roasting marshmallows. Last year it had seemed so bold and fun to her.

Now, though, the thought of it just seemed cold and exhausting. It was not what Scarlet wanted. She just wanted to get some peace and quiet, to get away from the world, and to find out anything she could about Sage.

But as Scarlet followed them down the steps, she realized it was not meant to be. The basement was filled with a dozen kids, friends of friends, sitting around laughing, drinking beers from plastic cups. As Scarlet looked at all the faces, her heart suddenly pounded to see that Blake was here. He stood in the corner with a few of his jock friends, laughing too loud, and she immediately turned her head and went off to the far corner, hoping he hadn’t spotted her.

“So you have to tell us,” Becca said, as they all gathered around Scarlet. “Like what happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Scarlet asked, tensing up inside.

“We heard you kicked Vivian’s butt last night,” Becca said. “That you were stronger than god. And that you took off like so fast no one could find you.”

“And like your mom and dad have been texting the whole school looking for you,” Jasmine added.

“I heard the cops are out looking for you,” Maria added. “Like that you’re missing or something.”

Scarlet felt a pang of guilt as she thought of how upset her parents must be, of how they must be out looking for her. A part of her wanted to go back to them; but another part of her needed more time to understand why her mom wanted her dead.

For now, she just needed to calm her friends down and get them to stop pressing her; Scarlet hated being in the limelight.

She shrugged.

“My parents always freak out when I’m not home right away,” Scarlet said. “They call the cops way too easily. It’s like nothing. Don’t worry.”

The girls nodded in understanding.

“My parents are ridiculous, too,” Jasmine said. “The only reason I’m having people over tonight is because they’re out of town. But when I go anywhere, they’ve got like the whole military out looking for me.”

“You seem okay to me,” Becca said.

“I’m fine,” Scarlet assured her.

“And like, what happened between you and Sage?” Maria asked.

Scarlet looked at her, worried to bring up the topic, but she could see there was no jealousy left in her eyes – only genuine curiosity.

Scarlet sighed.

“He stood me up,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”

Becca rolled her eyes. “Guys. They’re the worst. I hate being stood up. You should dump him.”

Scarlet furrowed her brow.

“Have any of you seen him or heard anything? I mean about where he is?” Scarlet asked them, looking at each one, hopeful.

They all shook their heads.

Jasmine said, “Why bother if he stood you up?”

“I just need to talk to him,” Scarlet replied.

“Why don’t you like text or call him?” Becca asked.

“He’s not picking up his cell,” Scarlet said. “So, have any of you heard anything?”

They all looked at each other blankly, and shook their heads.

“If I did I’d tell you,” Becca said. “But that guy, he’s like a mystery man. No one ever sees him for more than a second.”

Scarlet’s heart fell. She had so been hoping that one of her friends had seen or heard something. It was the best bet that she had, since they were her eyes and ears inside the high school. She was crestfallen, and felt like crying inside. Maybe he really had left.

“Maria’s got a new man,” Jasmine said, smiling, changing the subject.

Scarlet smiled at Maria, happy for her, and Maria blushed.

“Good for you, Maria,” Scarlet said. “Who is he?”

“Only the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen,” she said. “He’s like a man, not a boy. He drives this awesome Maserati, and he wears the most expensive clothes. He said this week he would take me out to the city. Can you imagine?”

Scarlet looked at her, wondering who this person could be. It sounded too good to be true.

“Just be careful,” Scarlet warned.

Maria’s expression darkened.

“What do I need to be careful about? He’s perfect.”

Scarlet held up a palm.

“I’m just saying.”

“There you are,” came a voice.

Scarlet turned, and her stomach dropped as she saw Blake standing opposite her, smiling, wearing a plaid shirt, hands in the front pockets of his jeans. His hair was tousled, and he was a bit unshaven. He looked down at her as if he was really close to her.

“You’re like the hardest person to find these days,” he said. “Did you get any of my texts?”

Scarlet stared at him blankly, not having a clue what he was talking about.

“Which text?”

“I’ve been texting you off the hook.”

“Sorry, my phone broke,” she said.

He shrugged.

“Anyway here you are. You coming with us tonight? To Bannerman’s?”

Scarlet looked at the others, unsure, and they all nodded vigorously back at her.

“You have to come,” Maria said, stepping forward, linking arms with her.

“Of course she’s coming,” Maria volunteered to Blake. “She wouldn’t miss it.”

“Awesome,” Blake said. “We’ll ride out on the same boat.”

Scarlet went with the others to the couch and sat down, staring, thinking, and did not take the drink they offered to her. All the others drank as they turned up the music, laughing and having fun with each other, and in their joy, not one of them noticed that Scarlet was sitting there, despondent, wanting to be anywhere but here, not knowing what to do, and wishing the world would end.

Chapter Eleven

Caitlin walked quickly with Caleb up the endless steps on the Columbia University campus, their footsteps echoing as they hurried across the imposing building that held Aiden’s office. It felt surreal for Caitlin to be back here, this place she had spent so many years of her life, and her heart was pounding as she headed for the building, fearing what Aiden might say. Caitlin took assurance in having Caleb at her side, both of them desperate to see Aiden again and also dreading it. The last time she had been here he had advised her to kill her own daughter. She had vowed to never return.

But now she found herself in a desperate situation, and she realized now, ironically, that Aiden was the only person left she could turn to. She only prayed that the outcome would be different this time, that he would have something to tell her that could help Scarlet. There was no one else who had more scholarship on the subject than he, and if there was anyone in the world who would know how to guide her, it would be him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Caleb asked. “How can some old professor help us get our daughter back?”

They walked quickly, Caitlin out of breath as she spoke.

“Not just a professor,” she said, “he’s a genius and a scholar. He holds the entire university library in his head. If anyone knows where to look, it will be Aiden.”

“But look for what? How will that help us find Scarlet?”

Caitlin shook her head.

“You don’t understand. It’s not just Scarlet we’re looking for; it’s the motivation behind where she might be. We need to know what’s driving her. What’s overcome her. Unless we have that understanding, we can’t know where to look. And most of all, we need a cure. Aiden could shed light on all of this.”

Caleb shook his head.

“I think we are wasting time here. I don’t have your mind for all this scholarly stuff. I never have. But I respect you. If you think this is the way, so be it.”

“We have to try,” she said. “Please don’t be so skeptical. You were skeptical once, and you were wrong. Remember?”

He looked at her, and he nodded, and finally, she could see that he was humbled.

“I’m ready to listen,” he conceded. “After what I’ve seen, I’m ready to hear anything.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and as Caitlin looked up, she was surprised to see Aiden standing outside the door of the building, eagerly awaiting them. His face was lined with concern, and he rushed forward and greeted her, placing a reassuring hand around her shoulder and guiding them in.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he said, his voice gravely concerned, and she could see the compassion on his face. She realized she was wrong about him; he had never intended anything but the best for her, and had said what he had said out of concern.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Caitlin said.

“Have you been followed?” he asked.

Caitlin’s heart pounded as she considered the notion for the first time; she turned and looked behind her, as did Caleb, and she shook her head.

“Come with me,” he said quickly. “I don’t want anyone to hear our conversation.”

Aiden looked all about nervously, then turned and opened the door, and they followed him up several flights of stairs, down a hall, and finally to his office.

They crowded into the tiny room, and Caitlin and Caleb sat side-by-side in the two small student chairs, as Aiden shut the door firmly behind them and took a seat opposite them. Aiden leaned forward on his desk, elbows on it, hands beneath his chin, one of his eyes twitching nervously.

Caitlin could see the toll that all this had taken on him, too, and she could see that he was a good man, and had never really wanted any harm to come to Scarlet.

“I’m sorry it has come to this,” he said. “I am sure you know I only wanted the best for all of you. I said what I said because I also didn’t want any harm to befall humanity. This is an unfortunate turn of events. Most unfortunate.”

Caitlin fidgeted in her chair, and before she could speak, Caleb leaned forward, anxious, and said: “Can you tell us where our daughter is?”

Aiden leaned back, sighed, and shook his head sadly.

“I’m afraid I cannot,” he said. “But I might be able to help you in other ways. Perhaps I can help you get to the bottom of what is motivating her. And what you can expect.”

“What do you mean, what to expect?” Caleb demanded.

Aiden leaned back in his chair, which creaked as he did.

“Vampirism existed for thousands of years,” he explained. “Your daughter was the last one. Now that she has fed on someone else, I’m afraid the plague is no longer contained. We don’t know how many others she’s infected, or how many others her victim has, too. It is too late for containment. Now we must find the solution.”

“A solution?” Caitlin asked tentatively. “Is there one?”

Aiden closed his eyes, looking pained.

“That is a question that has plagued scholars, historians, victims, the afflicted, the church, and even witch-hunters for thousands of years. Does a solution to vampirism exist? One would think yes. After all, your daughter was the last remaining vampire on earth. But you see, the problem is that the cure – if it exists – has been hidden. No one knows by whom, or when, or why. This is not knowledge that is freely shared, as you can imagine, but I will tell you that scholars and historians and others have searched for centuries. There have been many promising leads, even rumors of discovery. But no one has ever produced concrete proof. In many ways, we are knights in the search for the Holy Grail, for the Lost Ark. There are so many theories, it’s hard to know whom to believe. I myself have never seen evidence.”

“Can you tell me: is there hope?” Caitlin asked, desperate.

Aiden examined her, his eyes filled with intelligence.

“If you ask me,” he said carefully, “I would say yes. Others would not agree.”

“That’s great news,” Caitlin said.

“Not necessarily,” Aiden said. “I think there is a Holy Grail, too – yet that doesn’t mean I think I can find it. Or that anyone else can. There are so many centuries of scholarship to wade through, so many false leads to track down. I don’t know if it’s ever been done thoroughly and painstakingly enough. I don’t know if it could ever be achieved in our lifetime.”

“I can achieve it,” Caitlin said, determined. “Just tell me where to look. You know me: I can scan a thousand books a day if I have to. It’s my daughter’s life on the line here. You yourself said – ”

Aiden held up a hand.

“I’ve never met anyone with your scholarly mind, Caitlin,” Aiden said, “but even with your incredible speed and comprehension, it is a tall order. You must understand, you would be searching for two different things: both a cure for vampirism – for Scarlet – and a weapon to kill them – for the people she’s turned. You will need both. The legends have it that you can only ‘cure’ vampires that are pure and innocent of heart, like your daughter. The ones with darker spirits will need to be killed.

“This is precisely why I believe your daughter was the last of the vampires. I believe all the other vampires were killed. The last vampire, the pure one, of good heart, could not be killed the same way. I believe the relic was found to kill vampires – but not the relic to cure them.”

He sighed and leaned back.

“But you’ve got me off on a tangent and this is all inconsequential now,” he said. “They’re both long-lost, wherever they are.”

Caitlin focused only on the possibility, and she felt a fresh wave of determination; she would hear of nothing else.

“You spoke of leads,” Caitlin said. “Can you give them to me?”

Aiden summed her up and shook his head.

“That’s you,” he said. “Once you get something into your head, you will never take no for an answer.”

He sighed.

“I can give you a library full of them,” he added. “But you are just one person. You will not be able to comb through it all. The chances of your wading through it on time – ”

“Aiden, please,” Caitlin insisted, pleading. “I have to try. It is my daughter out there. I have to bring her back to me. I will try anything – however far-fetched.”

Aiden thought for a long time in silence. Finally, he nodded.

“All right,” he conceded. “I believe you embark on a futile task, but very well. As you wish. Your first order of business must be to visit the most complete library on the topic: the collection at the Yale library.”

Aiden lifted a heavy fountain pen and a notepad off the mess of books on his desk, and he hunched over and began scribbling furiously as he spoke.

“You’ll need to reference all these titles,” he said, scribbling. “They are virtual encyclopedias of reliable occult scholarship. You’ll find a dozen of the best theories within them. Whether you’ll get anywhere, that is a different matter.”

“Thank you,” Caitlin said meaningfully, taking the piece of paper.

Aiden looked back and forth, from Caitlin to Caleb.

“Before you go, there is something I still don’t understand about your story,” Aiden said. “You said you entered this bar and found Scarlet?”

“No,” Caleb said. “She was in the back room of the bar. First, we had an altercation.”

“An altercation?” he asked, his voice rising with alarm.

“Yes, with the locals,” Caleb said. “Actually, it wasn’t going well. But a boy showed up, and he helped.”

Aiden leaned forward, intrigued. “A boy, you say?”

“Yes,” Caleb said.

“It was not normal,” Caitlin added, remembering. “It was like he had super strength. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.”

Aiden studied her, clearly concerned.

“Why was this boy there?” he asked, and Caitlin could detect the alarm in his voice.

“He said he was looking for Scarlet.”

Aiden leaned back and thought for a long time, brows furrowed.

“Why do you ask?” Caitlin finally asked, becoming concerned herself by his expression.

“I think there may be another force at play here,” Aiden finally said.

“What do you mean?” Caitlin asked.

Aiden sighed.

“There is a prophecy that, when the last vampire on earth surfaces, the Immortalists would die.”

“Immortalists?” Caleb asked.

Aiden nodded.

“An ancient race of legend, a race destined to live precisely two thousand years old. Not quite immortal – a misnomer, if you will. But they have the ability to be immortal, to extend their lifetimes forever. They need the last vampire to continue living… ”

He paused.

“It could be that Scarlet found herself in the middle of an Immortalist war. If the legend holds true, it could be that she is their last hope for survival. That could explain the boy.”

“This all sounds way too far out for me,” Caleb said, leaning back, crossing his arms. “Aren’t you a scholar? Do you really believe in all this stuff?”

Caitlin shook her head, overwhelmed.

“No,” she said to Aiden. “The boy was definitely there to help us.”

“To help you find her,” Aiden corrected.

“It sounds too surreal,” Caitlin replied.

“And yet you’re the one that came to me with the story,” Aiden replied. “Do not doubt what your instincts tell you.”

“So what now?” Caleb asked. “I don’t care about all this stuff, honestly – I just want my daughter back.”

“But you must care about all of this, Mr. Payne,” Aiden said. “You will need it in order to get her back. Combing the streets will not yield her. Without unraveling all of this, you will never find her, and you will certainly never save her.”

He turned to Caitlin.

“Go to Yale,” he said. “Search for leads for the cure and the weapon. I myself will look into this boy, and do more research on the Immortalists. I feel they may be an integral part of your puzzle.”

“What should I do?” Caleb said.

Aiden turned to him.

“Your daughter’s first victim is out there somewhere, now surely turned,” he said. “Soon enough, he will turn others. You must find this man and stop him before Caitlin can find the answer.”

He leaned in close.

“Do you hear me?” Aiden repeated, emphatic. “Right now, he is the gravest threat to mankind as we know it. Above all, you must stop him.”

Chapter Twelve

Kyle strutted down Route 9, feeling reborn, stronger than ever, as he relived in his mind’s eye again and again his killing of those police officers. Nothing gave him more joy. He would kill more if he could.

Kyle made a fist, flexed his muscles, and he couldn’t understand where his newfound strength came from. He felt blood pumping through his veins at an insane rate, as if he had received ten blood infusions. As he bounced along the road, he felt like a boy of eighteen, invincible, ready to take on the world. He couldn’t believe how much energy he had to his step; he felt like he was ready to party all night long.

Kyle knew he should be afraid, knew that he was a cop-killer now, and that soon the whole county would be out looking for him. He figured he probably shouldn’t be walking conspicuously down Route 9, as if he didn’t have a fear in the world.

But for some reason, he was unafraid. More than that, he felt emboldened, invincible even. He had shed all fear, and he had the craziest feeling that no matter what happened, he couldn’t get killed. He felt the greatest confidence of his life – and he wanted to test it.

The night road was black, the early signs of dawn just beginning to break on the horizon, the sky still a twilight gray, and Kyle was determined to test his limits. Instead of walking along the shoulder, he moved to the middle of the road. He walked slowly, casually, right down the center, knowing that cars couldn’t see him in time – knowing that they would hit him.

He wanted them to hit him. He wanted to see if he really was invincible.

Within moments lights flooded the horizon, and a van came speeding down Route 9. Kyle heard the tires on the pavement, followed by a horn blaring, and the screech of the tires. Kyle stood his ground and faced them, grinning, knowing it was too late for them to stop.

The occupants saw him, their horrified faces up against the windshield as they smashed into him.

The impact smashed their fender, then their windshield, and it caused the van to stop short – as if they’d hit a wall. The driver and the passenger, a middle-aged couple, flew through the windshield, landing on the pavement, a bloody mess, unmoving. The van sat there, smoking, its horn blaring permanently.

Kyle stood there checking himself and realized, amazed, that he was unhurt. A few bruises on his arms, that was all – and as he looked down at them, they healed before his eyes.

Kyle smiled wide.

Nothing can stop me now, he thought. If only I’d had this kind of power in prison. He daydreamed of all the corrections officers he would have killed, all the fellow inmates he would have freed. The killing spree that would have followed.

Kyle turned and saw the middle-aged couple lying on the ground, dead, and he felt satisfied.

They shouldn’t have been out driving this early anyway, he thought. Served them right.

Kyle turned and began marching back to where he’d been going: Pete’s. He was thirsty, and he wanted a beer – and a lot more than that.

* * *

Kyle set off at a jog for Pete’s, and he was amazed to realize that he made it in just a few strides, crossing hundreds of yards in seconds. He blinked and found himself at the bar’s door. He wondered what was happening to him. Was he imagining all this? Was this some kind of amazing dream?

Kyle stepped up to the door and saw that it was still off its hinges, crooked from the night’s festivities. He felt this was the place to go; he needed to find out more about that girl that bit him – Scarlet – and this was the only place he knew that she had been. Someone here must know something about her.

Kyle kicked open the door and stepped in, looking around. The light felt unusually bright to him, and for some reason, it stung his eyes.

“Sorry, pal, bar’s closed,” came a voice.

Kyle looked up and saw the bartender, looking haggard, wiping down the bar. A small TV was on in one corner, and he saw the place was empty of patrons.

“Hey, didn’t you hear what I said? We’re closed,” the bartender said, more firmly, as Kyle walked in.

Kyle ignored him, walking across the place, right for the bar. The place stunk like it had just been mopped with ammonia.

“I told you the place is closed,” the bartender snapped, his voice darker.

As Kyle reached the bar, the bartender looked at him closely, and he stopped talking, his face frozen in surprise.

“Hey, wait a minute, aren’t you the guy from tonight?” the bartender said, confused. “Wait a second. I thought – holy shit – wait, didn’t they take you away?”

Now the bartender examined him, unsure, and as Kyle watched him, he could see confusion morphing to fear on his face.

Kyle, a foot away, reached out, grabbed him from across the bar, and hoisted him high above his head.

“Hey, man, get off of me!” the bartender yelled, flailing but helpless against Kyle’s superior strength. “Hey, man, what’s your problem!?”

“I don’t like being told a bar is closed,” Kyle said slowly, his voice gravely. “I’m not going to ask you twice: I want a Guinness and a shot of Jack. Make it two. Make it now.”

The bartender looked down at Kyle as he dangled in the air, eyes wide with fear, and he held up his palms.

“Hey, man, whatever you want!” he said. “You can have your drinks.”

Kyle grinned, and slowly set the man down. He reached into his pocket and took out a fifty, which he had swiped from the wallet of one the policeman, a nice clean crisp bill, and put it on the bar.

“Keep it,” Kyle said.

The bartender looked over at it, impressed. He glanced over his shoulder at Kyle, clearly scared, as he poured the beer from the tap; he didn’t even notice the foam spilling over his hand.

“I’m looking for a girl,” Kyle said, “the girl that was here tonight. The redhead. Teenager. You know her?”

The bartender turned and set the drink down before Kyle and looked up at him, uneasy.

“I don’t know anything about her.”

“You don’t?” Kyle said, looking into the man’s eyes.

Kyle always knew when someone was lying; he considered it one of his great talents.

Kyle took both shots of Jack, took a long swig on his pint of Guinness, then, without warning, suddenly smashed the glass down on the bartender’s fingertips, crushing them, pinning his hand down.

The bartender cried out in pain.

“You sonofabitch!” he shrieked.

Kyle leaned in close.

“The next step,” Kyle snarled, “is I break this glass and cut your throat. Now go ahead: lie to me again.”

The bartender, groaning, sweating, nodded hastily.

“She goes to the local high school, man, that’s all I know,” he said in a rush, squinting in pain. “Her name is Scarlet. I swear I know nothing else. It was her first time in here. I heard the cops talking to her folks. That’s it. That’s all I know!”

Kyle released his grip, and the man pulled back his hand, shaking it in pain.

Kyle smiled wide.

“You see?” he said. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“What do you want from her, anyway?” the bartender asked. “Why don’t you just leave her alone? You had your fun. The girl is like missing or something. You really messed her up.”

Suddenly the TV blared, and over Kyle’s shoulder, he heard the news announcer.

“This just in: police are on the lookout for Kyle Vicious, wanted for the murder of two police officers on Route Nine. This, after his escape tonight from the local prison.”

Kyle turned, saw a picture of himself on the screen, and was surprised by how handsome he looked. Kyle turned back, saw the bartender looking at him with fear, mouth agape.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Kyle said. “I didn’t escape. My time was up.”

“You have to leave now,” the bartender said, panicked.

Kyle grinned, ignoring him.

“My last name,” Kyle said. “You probably think it’s fake, right? It’s not. Can you believe it? I was aptly named: I was born to kill.”

The bartender held up his palms.

“Look man,” he said, voice shaky, “I got no problem with you. I don’t get involved. I won’t say nothing.”

Kyle heard the man’s voice shaking. Kyle smiled.

“You know,” Kyle said, “after all those years in prison, there’s one skill I learned really well: how to tell when a man is lying.” Kyle looked right at him. “And you, my friend, are lying.”

The bartender shook his head.

“You’re going to rat me out the second I walk out that door.”

The bartender shook his head vigorously.

“No, I swear it!”

Kyle heard a buzzing noise, looked down, and saw the man’s cell phone vibrating beneath the bar. Kyle snatched it before the man could, and he read it. Kyle saw that the man had texted the police.

“Like I said,” Kyle added, “I can always tell.”

The bartender reached down behind the counter, pulled out a bat, and held it up.

“You better get the hell out of here now!” he yelled, his voice breaking. “The cops are coming! They’ll kill you! And if they don’t, I will!”

Kyle laughed.

“Will you?” he mocked.

A second later, the place flooded with flashing lights and sirens, and Kyle heard police cars screech up to the door, heard boots run across the gravel, and a moment later, the door was kicked open.

Dozens of police officers rushed into the room, guns drawn.

“Freeze! Hands on your head! NOW!”

Kyle sat on the stool, grinning, his back to them, and the bartender watched in shock as Kyle slowly drank the rest of his pint of Guinness. He drank and drank, liquid dripping down his chin and onto his shirt, until he finally set the glass down.

Kyle belched.

“Damn good beer,” he said. “Too bad it’s wasted in a dump of a place like this.”

Kyle turned around and grinned.

“Ready now,” he said. “Beer’s done.”

“I said hands up!” an officer yelled.

They all held the guns in their hands, and Kyle smiled as he could sense their fear.

“And what if I don’t?” Kyle asked.

Kyle took a step toward them, and suddenly, gunfire erupted.

Kyle felt the bullets riddling his chest and stomach and arms and shoulders, and his body shook as he was knocked down to the floor after dozens of rounds.

Kyle lay on the floor until the gunfire stopped. He could smell the smoke from the pistols, and finally all was quiet inside.

Kyle suddenly jumped back to his feet. He stood there, staring at the group of astonished cops, all with mouths agape, too stunned to react.

“Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?” Kyle asked, grinning wide.

Kyle lurched forward with a guttural shriek, and he felt more power, more speed, than he’d ever had. Before any of the cops could react, Kyle unleashed a world of pain on the room, racing through the crowd, head-butting and elbowing, punching and kicking.

In the blink of an eye, they were all knocked out on the floor, unmoving, with broken jaws, noses, limbs.

Kyle stood there admiring his handiwork, then casually reached down, picked up two of the pistols, examined the ammunition, and stuck them in his belt, smiling.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said to the dead officer.

Kyle turned to go, and as he did, he heard the creaking of the floorboard.

He turned around, remembering the bartender.

The bartender stood there, cowering, now holding the bat limply before him.

Kyle approached him, and the bartender dropped the bat and raised his shaking hands.

“Please,” he pleaded. “I got a wife! I got kids!”

Kyle stopped and examined him from a foot away, looking into his eyes.

“There you go,” Kyle said, “lying again.”

Kyle heard a dripping noise, and looked down to see the bartender peeing his pants.

Kyle reached out, took the crisp fifty off the bar, and grabbed the other pint of Guinness.

“You poured the Guinness just right,” Kyle said. “Not too much foam. That’s hard to do, you know. Very hard. You’re a lucky man. A very lucky man.”

Kyle turned, beer in hand, and stepped over the corpses as he headed out the door, into the night, on his way to find that girl.

Scarlet, he thought.

Now things were about to get interesting.

Chapter Thirteen

Scarlet sat in the back of the small rowboat, rocking in the strong currents of the Hudson River, and wrapped her sweater tighter about her shoulders to ward off the cold breeze coming off the water. She had forgotten how cold the Hudson could be in November; she had also forgotten how strong the tides could be, and she braced herself against the spray, almost like waves in an ocean.

There were too many people crammed in – Maria, Jasmine and Becca, Blake who was rowing, and a couple of his friends – and Scarlet looked out, shivering, not trusting this creaking, weathered boat, and was grateful to see that Bannerman’s Island was fast approaching, hardly thirty yards away.

Scarlet had mixed feelings about coming here. She remembered times in the past when she used to love to come to Bannerman’s, a small, abandoned island in the middle of the Hudson, with its huge crumbling ruin of a castle, a relic of a former time, long abandoned, structurally unsound, overgrown with vines. In fact, the whole island was overgrown with thorny thickets and vines and poison ivy, a place long condemned, left to the side of history.

Scarlet used to like to imagine how it looked in its former glory a hundred years ago, when the whimsical rich owner had lived here, a man who had somehow used his force of will to dredge up and build a castle on an island in the midst of the Hudson. How romantic, she thought, even if he was a gunrunner. She would have loved to have met him, to see what his castle looked like in all its glory.

But that was another era, long dead. As she looked out at Blake and his friends, all laughing too loud, drinking beers, and throwing the empty cans into the water, she realized that there was nothing romantic left in these times. All chivalry, all grand notions of romance, seemed to have died. This castle was a testament to it. Now it was just another ruin littering the Hudson, another place bratty kids could go to drink or get high or do anything they wanted far from the eyes of their prying parents. It was a place they could party all night and not have to worry about trashing a house, or having the cops called on them. In some ways, it was a disgrace that Bannerman’s romantic ideal ended, a hundred years later, with this.

Yet Bannerman’s was also a treacherous place to go – the island covered in poison ivy, thorns, and dangerous structures ready to collapse – and it was also a dangerous place to get to, the tides taking someone else’s life at least once a year somewhere along the Hudson. And on a November night like this, it was no fun being here, being exposed to this kind of wet and cold. Especially when Scarlet felt sick to her stomach, not enjoying the company of her friends, not enjoying anyone’s company. The only thing on her mind was Sage.

Scarlet did not know why she had agreed to come. At the time she’d felt cornered in, pressured into it, and she had felt that she couldn’t go back home. Now that Sage was gone and she had no way of finding him, a part of her felt that all she had was her friends – and she didn’t want to abandon them. She didn’t feel like being left alone, not at this moment, and so she had agreed to come along. It would give her time, at least, to decide what to do next. Besides, given that it was a party, Scarlet hoped there might be people here who had seen or heard something of Sage. She had to find him. If she didn’t, she felt she would just die.

“I can’t believe he didn’t text me back,” Maria said.

Maria sat beside her, annoyed, angrily clutching her phone, staring at it as if waiting for a message from God. Scarlet could see the frustration in her face.

“Who?” Scarlet asked.

“The new guy,” Jasmine taunted. “Larry.”

“His name is Lore,” Maria corrected, snapping.

“Excuse me,” Jasmine said. “Whatever his name is. Who cares what his name is if he won’t text you back?”

Maria flushed, getting upset.

“I didn’t say he won’t text me back,” she said, defensive. “What I meant was that he said he’d meet me, but when I told him I was coming to an island, he didn’t answer.”

“Maybe he’s afraid of water,” Becca said, laughing.

“Maybe he’s a vampire?” Blake chimed in.

The whole boat chimed in with laughter – everyone but Scarlet – and Maria looked increasingly embarrassed. Scarlet sat silent, and she felt compassion for Maria, who sat there, shamed, looking down at her phone in frustration. Scarlet could see how much he meant to her.

“You really like this guy, don’t you?” Scarlet asked, compassionately.

Maria looked up at her, and her eyes suddenly, unpredictably, flashed with anger.

“Don’t talk to me about guys,” she snapped, and turned her back on Scarlet.

Scarlet was taken aback. She didn’t understand her reaction. Hadn’t they just made up? Hadn’t they gotten over their fight?

Apparently they hadn’t. It left a bad feeling in Scarlet’s chest. This night was going from bad to worse, and now she just wanted to go home.

But she was stuck on this boat now, with no way off. She wished she hadn’t agreed to go, that they could just turn back around. It had been stupid of her. She shouldn’t have trusted Maria.

There came a sudden buzzing noise, a motor whining, and Scarlet flinched as a large speedboat raced right by her, and she jumped as she got sprayed by icy cold river water. Their rowboat rocked violently, and Scarlet clasped the edge and hung on for dear life.

Scarlet heard mocking laughter rise up, and she looked over and was horrified to spot Vivian with a large group of friends in a sleek new motorboat, all the popular, rich kids of the school, all dressed in their Ralph Lauren sweaters and speeding past in daddy’s hundred-thousand-dollar speedboat. They zoomed toward the island, reaching it in seconds.

“Was that Vivian?” Scarlet asked, the words catching in her throat. Just when she thought the night couldn’t get any worse. “What’s she doing here?”

Becca sighed.

“What do you think? Half the school’s here. It’s a huge party.”

Scarlet felt a deepening sense of dread. As they neared land, she could already hear the music, coming from somewhere inside the ruins, could see the bonfires in the distance peeking through the thickets and the trees. She realized everyone was going to be here. She would be stuck on this island now even with people she hated. People like Vivian. She wanted to die.

Scarlet watched as Vivian turned her head in the speedboat and sneered directly at her. She saw the hatred in her eyes as she and all her friends, drinks in their hands, laughed at her. Vivian pulled her Burberry coat tight around her shoulders, turned her back, and stepped off the boat. Scarlet clutched her own thin, wet sweater tighter, and felt jealous. What she would do for a warm coat on a night like this.

Their rowboat roughly touched down against the shore, Scarlet jolted along with the others. Blake’s friends jumped out and dragged it onto the sand, and Scarlet got out with the others, taking the big step down to the sand, no one reaching out to help her. The boat rocked as she did, and a wave came in, and instead of stepping on dry sand, Scarlet found herself stepping into freezing water up to her ankles, soaking her socks and shoes.

Great, she thought. Now she was not only miserable and freezing, but wet.

Scarlet walked with the others, her socks squishing, as they navigated the island, heading through the thickets of thorns and overgrown poison ivy, the boys creating an impromptu path toward the ever glowing ruins of Bannerman’s, the bonfires punctuating the night. The music became louder, as did the sound of kids laughing and cheering. Scarlet saw Blake and all the others passing around a small flask.

“Want some?” he asked.

Scarlet turned to see Blake standing beside her, smiling at her, holding out the flask. She shook her head, although she really felt like she could use a drink. Anything to calm down, to forget about all her troubles, to relax.

But she didn’t accept. She was not that kind of girl.

“Thanks, I’m okay,” she said.

Blake looked disappointed, as he took another swig himself and caught up with the others, Scarlet trailing well behind.

Scarlet watched Jasmine, Maria, and Becca talking with each other, moving from one topic of gossip to the next, all conversing so freely, and she wondered again what she was doing here. Once again she was beginning to feel like an outcast. They weren’t deliberately excluding her, but she didn’t feel they were including her either. It seemed that Maria was pissed about Lore, and she was blaming Scarlet and taking it out on her. Was she imagining things? Or was it even more sinister than she thought? Had Maria only pretended to be friends again? Had she invited her here only to exact revenge, to alienate her further?

Scarlet felt a pit in her stomach as they all broke through the thickets and entered the ruins of Bannerman’s, ducking beneath the low crumbling arched stone entranceway as she stepped inside the hollow shell of what was once the castle.

Despite everything, Scarlet had to admit that, once inside, she felt a bit of a sense of the magical here, with the historic walls, the bonfires inside setting the ruins aglow, lights flickering off of everything here inside this abandoned place in the middle of the Hudson. She could almost be transported to another magical place and time.

Except the illusion was ruined by all the kids, shouting, drinking, blasting music, laughing, sitting around bonfires, passing around joints. It was like any other party, just dropped down here. They might as well have all been in someone’s basement.

Scarlet followed her group over to a small bonfire, and they all sat around it, Scarlet sitting as close as possible to the fire to try to get warm, staying somewhat apart from the others. Someone was handing out long roasting sticks pierced with marshmallows, along with graham crackers and chocolate, and Scarlet took a stick and held it over the fire.

She sat there and watched the marshmallows burn. She was starving, and her stomach ached as she watched it. As it finished melting, she held it to her lips and reached out to pull a piece of it off the stick, when suddenly she was bumped from behind and she jerked forward and dropped the stick onto the dirt.

Scarlet turned to see Vivian standing over her, looking down with an evil smile.

“Sorry,” Vivian said, “my mistake.”

Vivian laughed with her group of friends, then turned and walked off from her, joining the popular kids on the other side of the ruins.

Scarlet turned back and looked at her marshmallow, now covered in dirt, and the pain in her stomach increased. This night could not get any worse. She just wanted to get out of here. To be away from all this noise. To be with Sage. Wherever he was.

“Don’t mind her, she’s just bitter,” came a voice.

Scarlet turned to see Blake coming over and sitting next to her, smiling.

She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She appreciated his sympathy, but it was too little, too late; she had such conflicting feelings about Blake. So she just looked down at her dirt-covered marshmallow and wondered how she felt.

“Take mine,” he said.

Scarlet looked over to see him handing her his stick, freshly burnt, with a smile. She hesitated; but then her hunger got the best of her, and she took it and ate quickly, savoring the gooey, burnt marshmallow and melted chocolate.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

“Listen,” Blake sighed. “I know I’ve been a real jerk. I’m hoping you’ll give me another chance. I’m really not such a bad guy. I’ve just been stupid. And I really like you.”

Scarlet looked around to see if her friends were listening, and she was surprised to see they had moved on, had gone to someone else’s fire and had left her alone here with Blake. She felt slighted that they had not invited her to join them. Was she really friends with them again? She felt more confused than ever.

Scarlet stared at Blake, saw his blue eyes glistening in the firelight, and remembered that she had been attracted to him once. He was a great-looking guy, the ultimate jock, the guy that most girls in the school would die for. There was a time when she had really wanted him. Then she’d met Sage.

But Sage was gone from her life now. He had left her, had stood her up.

Or had he?

Maybe Blake was being sincere, she thought. Maybe she should give him another chance.

“It wasn’t really me,” Blake said. “I was just like under a lot of pressure, you know? Like from Vivian and – ”

“Are you going to sit there all night with this lonely girl?” came a voice.

Scarlet’s hair stood on end to hear Vivian’s voice; she looked over, and Vivian came and squatted on the other side of Blake, draping a hand around his shoulder.

Blake looked uncomfortable, shrugging his shoulder.

“I’m okay, thanks,” he said.

“Why would you want to sit with this loser?” Vivian said. “I mean, like everybody hates her. She has no friends in school. Come with us.”

“Vivian, you’re out of line,” Blake said.

“She’s a freak,” Vivian said. “And everybody knows it.”

Scarlet sat there, feeling an anger rising up, feeling like hitting Vivian.

But a part of her didn’t even care anymore; she felt beaten down by life, and she no longer cared what other kids thought. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be anywhere but with Sage.

“Listen, Vivian,” Blake said, standing, “I realize you may not like her. But it’s not okay to treat her like that. And the answer is no. I don’t want to be with you. So just go back to your friends and leave us alone, okay?”

Vivian stood and scowled at him, her face darkening.

“You’re pathetic,” she seethed at him. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

Vivian stormed off, and Scarlet sat there in shock, impressed that Blake stood up for her like that. Maybe he had changed after all. Maybe she had underestimated him. Maybe she should give him another chance.

He looked down at her and smiled apologetically.

“Sorry about her,” he said. “Want to take a walk?”

Blake held out a hand, and Scarlet sat there, debating.

“Where?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Anywhere but here.”

She debated, looking at his hand, then finally, after a long while, she reached up and placed her hand in his, and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

Anywhere but here. That sounded good to her.

* * *

Scarlett walked beside Blake, weeds crunching beneath their feet as they ventured out on the trails leading into the island. She looked up at the night sky, filled with distant stars, and she breathed in the cool November air, trying to clear her head. Her heart swarmed with conflicting emotions. She felt she didn’t know who she was anymore; she didn’t know what she wanted, or where she wanted to go.

As they walked together in a comfortable silence, the weeds crunching, Scarlet looked out into the darkness and wondered where they were going.

“I know you love that guy,” Blake said, breaking the silence. “Sage, is it? Whatever his name is. Anyway, I know I’m not him. But he’s not here. And he’s not coming back.”

“What do you mean?” Scarlett asked, her heart pounding at the thought.

Blake shrugged.

“That’s what I’ve heard. He’s like packed up and gone. So I’m here, and you’re here, and this is real. Why can’t we just enjoy each other?”

“Enjoy each other?” she asked.

Blake chucked his flask into the bushes, turned, leaned in, grabbed her cheeks, and kissed her roughly, completely catching her off guard. The smell of alcohol was strong on his breath, and he kissed her too roughly.

Scarlett, horrified, pulled back, trying to get away from him, not liking being treated like this, not liking his abrupt actions – and sensing how drunk he was. She felt stung, and shocked, as they seemed to have been getting along finally, and this totally came out of nowhere. It was like the one person she could trust in this place – and he, too, had turned on her. She didn’t appreciate it at all.

Scarlet reached up, trying to push him away, but he forced himself on her, kissing her harder and harder.

“Get off of me!” she was finally able to say, shoving him.

But Blake was much stronger, and to her surprise, he did not back off; instead, emboldened, he grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her tighter and tighter, kissing her harder and harder.

“You know you want to be with me,” he said between kisses, as she struggled. He was running his hands down her shoulders, and then he started lifting her shirt, trying to pull it off.

Scarlett’s heart was pounding as she began to realize he was actually trying to force himself upon her. She felt sick to her stomach, and without thinking, a sudden visceral reaction overcame her, a power coursing through her that she could not control.

Scarlet reached out with her palm, now burning hot, and shoved Blake in the chest; as she did, she felt a tremendous heat run through her, like a flash of lightning.

Blake suddenly went flying back, a good ten feet through the air, before landing in a thicket of thorns and weeds.

Blake sat there for a few moments, stunned, as he stared up at Scarlet in surprise, and something else – fear.

Scarlett stared back at him, her heart thumping, not sure what had just happened, and not sure she wanted to know. She was relieved, at least, to have gotten him away from her.

“They’re right about you,” he finally said. “You are a freak.”

Scarlett burst into tears, turned, and ran down the trail, heading back towards the shore. She couldn’t take it anymore: she had to get out of here. Everything had gone so wrong; she hated everyone and everything about this place. She didn’t know what she had been thinking to ever agree to come here.

Scarlett, crying, wiped away tears as she ran through the cold air, stumbling on roots, navigating the unfamiliar trails, until finally, she reached the river’s edge. She saw the rowboat, and hesitated. It was her only ticket back.

A part of her wanted to just take it and go home, rowing herself. But the water was rough, and she didn’t want to leave her friends, regardless of their actions, stranded without a boat. Another part of her wanted to just lift off and fly away; but though she willed for her wings to lift, they did not respond. For some reasons, her powers were not entirely working here.

Scarlett stood there, debating. Slowly, her crying stopped as she began to collect herself. At least she was alone now, and it was quiet here, away from all of them.

Scarlet finally decided she would wait it out; she would get in the rowboat and just wait here until the night was over, for the others to return. They had to return eventually, and she wouldn’t abandon them to this place. She was sure, ironically, that they would not do the same for her.

Scarlett stepped into the boat, still beached on the sand, stepped across to the end of it, and sat there, folding her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She lowered her head and cried softly, willing the world to disappear.

“Well, there she is, the freak in her shell,” came a nasty voice.

Scarlett looked up and her heart dropped to see Vivian, marching out onto the beach with a dozen of her friends, holding a flask of liquor. She took a swig and threw it to the sand, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and marched for the tip of Scarlet’s rowboat.

Suddenly, before Scarlet realized what she was doing, Vivian shoved the boat hard. Scarlett grabbed onto the sides, panicked, as the boat suddenly wobbled, and as half of it entered the water, bobbing wildly.

Vivian laughed as she held the edge, rocking it.

“What are you doing?” Scarlett shrieked, terrified. “Pull it back!”

“Why should I?” she said.

“Viv, cut it out,” one of her male friends said, grabbing her shoulder. “You’ve had your fun.”

But Vivian threw his hand off of her and, fury in her eyes, rushed forward, leaning in and shoving the boat with all her might.

A moment later, Scarlett felt her boat drifting out into the strong currents; worse, she saw the oars dropped on the sand. There she was, alone in the boat, without oars, floating wildly every which way in the currents. She had no way to steer, and the boat swayed up and down in the choppy, two-foot waves, the rough current pulling her away quickly from Bannerman’s. Her boat spun in every direction.

Yet at the same time, as Vivian rushed forward and shoved her off, Scarlet watched Vivian slip. Scarlett heard her cry as Vivian went stumbling forward, face-first, right into the deep waters of the Hudson.

Vivian shrieked and flailed as the tides carried her away, down-river, too fast for any of her friends to grab her – though none of them tried. Perhaps it happened too quickly, perhaps they were too drunk, perhaps they were just in shock – or perhaps none of them was fearless enough to jump in and risk their lives to save her. The waters were freezing, the current impossible, and rescuing Vivian, already a good thirty feet down-river, would probably be a death sentence.

“Help!” Vivian screamed, bobbing above water.

Her friends yelled out in terror, and some started dialing on their cell phones, but none dared go after her.

Scarlett, sitting there in her own rowboat, rocking wildly, felt a bit of vindication; after all, Vivian had brought this upon herself with her cruel act. Yet at the same time, as Scarlet watched Vivian sinking into the waters, she knew that no one deserved to be dead – not even Vivian. As evil and cruel as Vivian was, Scarlett just could not let her die. Even if she had meant for Scarlet to die. It just wasn’t right.

Without thinking, Scarlett suddenly stood and dove off her boat, plunging into the icy waters with a shock. She opened her eyes underwater, and to her surprise, she was able to see. She spotted Vivian’s lower body in the distance, saw her legs kicking.

Scarlet’s powers came rushing to her: she felt a heat within her, despite the cold, and she felt a surreal power course through her legs as she kicked. With just one kick she went thirty feet, and caught up to Vivian underwater.

Scarlet grabbed Vivian around the waist, and in the same motion, she used her powers to leap up out of the water, against the current, up into the air. She bounded out of the river and flew with Vivian, a good fifty feet, landing with her on the sandy shore of Bannerman’s, and setting her down safely.

Vivian stood there beside her, shaking, teeth chattering, staring at Scarlett, eyes wide in terror. All of her friends crowded around Vivian, hugging her, getting her warm, and none bothered to try to help Scarlet.

Scarlet stood there, stunned by her own actions, and she looked back at Vivian, expecting her to thank her for saving her life.

But Vivian, instead, just stared back at Scarlet, and eventually shook her head.

“You are a freak,” Vivian said slowly. “You really are. Don’t you ever come near me again.”

With that, Vivian turned to her friends, and they went to their high-priced speedboat, piled in, and quickly took off from Bannerman’s.

Scarlett stood there, wet and shivering, and watched them go. The small of exhaust from their diesel fuel slowly dissipated, as the whine of their engine faded, and they never turned back to look her way.

Scarlet felt overwhelmed by the night; she saw other rowboats on shore, and she knew her friends would find some other way home. But she no longer wanted to wait here for her friends. She did not want to see any of them, ever, ever again. She needed to be alone.

Scarlett hiked back through the trails, this time taking them to the far side of Bannerman’s, to a distant, rocky beach she had never set foot upon, where it was pitch black, and the sound of the music was all but faded. All alone, she sat there, staring at the opposite shore, and as the silence immersed her, she began to feel that she was the only one left.

She looked up at the sky, at the millions of stars, and she couldn’t help herself as she began to cry, feeling as low as she’d ever had. She now saw no point to living anymore, all of her friends against her, her family against her, everyone she knew against her, and Sage gone. She looked up to the stars, and she prayed.

Please, God. Give me a sign. Let me know if I should go on.

As Scarlett slowly opened her eyes, she looked up and saw an apparition coming down, descending right for her. She blinked, confused, wondering if she were seeing things.

But soon she realized she definitely was not.

There, flying down toward her, was the man she thought she would never see again, was the love of her life.

There, was Sage.

Chapter Fourteen

Caitlin walked quickly across the Yale University campus, clutching her coat, which was too light for this weather, around her shoulders as a stiff breeze whipped through. It was already the coldest November she’d ever felt, and Caitlin felt chilled to the bone as she marched across campus, keeping her head down, trying to shield herself from the wind as she fought her way toward the Sterling Memorial Library. Caitlin glanced up at it, a massive Gothic building looking like a medieval church rising up into the sky, dominating the campus, and she felt as if she were approaching another era. This building was so out of context here, in this modern university, in this modern city, like a portal to another time and place.

It was only fitting, she thought, that it should house some of the rarest books in existence, the most precious and obscure volumes on where the supernatural intersected with scholarship.

It was the intersection that Caitlin was interested in. She did not want to go to a purely occult source, nor did she want to seek out a purely academic one, either. She wanted firsthand information, wanted to unearth what no one had been able to for centuries, and to analyze it all in a way that no one else ever had. Aiden had set her off on the right foot, and in the right place, already giving her dozens of leads for volumes to point her in the right direction. Clearly, he had gone far down this road himself, before, she assumed, he had given up.

Too much time, not enough years, he had said to her.

She could see in his eyes that Aiden, sadly, did want to continue, had wanted to find the answers himself. But he must have finally given up, finding it too vast, too ambitious even for himself.

Caitlin could hardly blame him. After all, this was the Holy Grail of scholars, occultists, and historians for centuries, the quest to find the mythical cure for vampirism, and the mythical weapon to eradicate it – or, for that matter, even finding any proof that vampirism existed at all. Caitlin, of course, didn’t need any proof. She had seen it with her own eyes, in her own daughter. But the cure, and the weapon – that was a different matter.

Caitlin marched up the stone steps leading to the vast door, this place looking like an ancient stone cathedral, and tried to push from her mind thoughts of her daughter out there somewhere, missing. It pained her to think of it. A part of her wanted to turn around and run back to her car and race back to Rhinebeck, to go street to street searching for her.

But she forced herself to lift her chin and keep marching through the doors, knowing turning back would do no good. After all, what good would it do to walk block to block? No, this was where she was needed. They needed to divide their efforts. She had to try something new, however remote it was.

Caitlin entered the library, grateful to be out of the cold. She had never been here before in all her years of scholarship, and as she looked out into the main hall, she was in awe. The ceiling rose dozens of feet high, arched, reminiscent of the great medieval churches of Europe. The walls were made of stone and stained glass, and it all made her feel as though she were in a hallowed sanctuary of some sort. Had she just traveled back in time? Especially with the room’s soft lighting, it was so disorienting; she felt as if she had just walked into a fifteenth-century church in Scotland.

With all the silence and reverence in the air, it felt like a church, though in this case it was reverence for the written word, not for God. Several people sat at tables, quietly hunched over books, and yet there was not a sound in the air. There was a thick heavy silence of respect, as if they were all worshiping at their own private temples.

Caitlin saw the rows of computers, and she went and sat before one, instinctively knowing exactly what to look for after all these years of being a scholar, all these years of cataloging rare books.

It didn’t take her much time to get into the guts of the catalog, entering several dozen combinations of keywords: Vampire. History of the vampire. Vampire myths. Vampire legends. Vampire rituals. Vampire cure. Vampire weapon. Scholarship. Proof. Facts.

Her searching brought up a wide array of books. She scrolled through them quickly, her expert eye able to weed out the wrong ones, immediately ruling out books that were too modern, books by disreputable publishers, books with titles that were too sensational, books that lacked the sense of history and scholarship she desired. She was looking for books that were older, that had been in print for centuries, put out by reputable publishers, written by scholars and historians. If books had been around long enough, century after century, then more often than not there was something to them. Books that fit her exact criteria were few and far between.

Nonetheless, Caitlin settled on a half dozen titles, books on the history of the vampire, scholarship debunking myth, archaeological evidence of vampires, and archaeological searches for vampire races. She printed out the catalog numbers and hurried to the librarian’s desk, handing the list to the clerk.

The clerk took it without a word and studied the titles. She then looked up at Caitlin with an expression of distaste. Caitlin flushed, embarrassed, realizing what she must be thinking. She probably thought she was some sort of crank invading a library for serious scholars.

“I will have them brought down from the stacks for you,” the woman said, curt.

Without another word, the woman turned and handed the list to a small man, perhaps fifty, frail, wearing an old tweed blazer, too tight, a crooked bow tie, and thick glasses perched at the tip of his nose. He walked around the table, Caitlin following him, and together they walked into the main hall.

“You know there’s a six-book limit, don’t you?” he said sternly, his voice nasal, not looking at her or smiling, as if he were too busy to be bothered with her request.

“I’ve only requested six books,” she said.

He stared at her, obviously not liking being corrected. Then he slid his glasses up his nose and looked down at the titles. He glanced at her with the same expression the clerk had.

“I take it you’re some sort of paranormal writer looking for ideas?” he said, speaking to her as if she were a used-car salesman.

Caitlin frowned, hating his judgmental attitude, and uninterested in sharing her life with him. He wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Something like that,” was all she said.

“Well, I have a lot of serious scholarly requests in the stacks that should come before yours. It may take me a while, due to the… nature of your request.”

Caitlin was fed up; she grabbed his wrist, too firmly, not meaning to, but unable to let go. He stopped and turned and looked at her, horrified.

“Don’t touch me, madam,” he snapped, his voice rising.

She slowly released her grip.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I haven’t time. My matter is urgent.”

“Your matter?” he said disdainfully. “Fantasy books?”

Caitlin blushed. She didn’t know what to say to make him understand how truly pressing this was.

“I need the books now,” she said. “NOW, do you understand me!?”

Her words echoed too loudly in the silent hall, and people sitting quietly looked up from their books and glanced at them.

The librarian, clearly embarrassed, scowled back at her. Without a word, he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall, climbing the metal steps to the upper level, to the endless stacks.

Caitlin turned and saw the patrons looking at her, and she slowly looked away, embarrassed. She walked over to one of the reading tables and sat there, waiting.

Caitlin rested her head in her hands and closed her eyes, wondering how long the librarian would take until he returned with her books. She realized what a crank she must seem to be, and wondered if this was all just a waste of time. As Aiden said, scholars had been searching for centuries. What could she really hope to achieve in such a short window?

As Caitlin sat there, head in her hands, there came a tremendous bang beside her, and she jumped. She saw six thick books land on the table beside her, and the short librarian who had slammed them walked right past her, not even acknowledging her.

Caitlin’s heart raced from the surprise; she was both annoyed at him for scaring her, and grateful for getting the books so quickly. What a spiteful little man, she thought.

Caitlin wasted no time. She cracked open the first book, an old tome from the nineteenth century, thick, leather-bound. As she turned its frail and brittle pages, she went into speed-reading mode, reading the pages faster than she ever had in her life, looking for keywords, places, locations, ideas. Anything that would lead to another book, another idea, another lead, another clue. Anything with substance.

Caitlin scanned and scanned, and while she found interesting tidbits here and there, there was nothing that really caught her eye. It was mostly scholars debunking the theories of vampirism, explaining that one theory after another was illegitimate, that there had never been any serious scholarship and research producing evidence of any vampires in history. There had been corpses discovered from the Middle Ages in Europe with bricks in their mouths, corpses whose hearts had been pierced by stakes – yet none of this was proof that they had been vampires. The locals, they believed, were superstitious.

Caitlin waded through fables and rumors and legends, thousands of pages spanning every time and culture and society; she pored through supposed vampire sightings and slayings. She read all of the scholarly context, time and again, the scholars debunking every lead.

Hours had passed, and Caitlin was feeling depressed as she waded her way through the final book, Archaeological Explorations of the Vampire Myth, as dry and scholarly as the others, feeling increasingly certain this was another dead end.

It was only while perusing the last chapter, about to close the book, that she stumbled upon something that made her sit upright, alert. She went back and read it again carefully:

… This is not to say one can discount the notion of a lost vampire society. Whether a supposed race of vampires existed could never be proved. But the mountain of evidence suggesting a lost city cannot be ruled out, either. We don’t know that this was necessarily a vampire city. It could have, for example, been an ancient city of religious fanatics, or zealots. Yet, based on my research, one could say that the existence of such a place is indeed entirely probable.

Caitlin read the passage again and again, her head hurting, trying to understand what the author was saying. She flipped through several pages, all the way to the end of the book, increasingly confused by his long academic, winded sentences, his qualifying his every word.

She could find no mention in the book of a cure, or weapon. But his words made her think. A lost vampire race. A lost vampire city…

On the one hand, this might be taking her further off-topic; yet on the other hand, this might be exactly the lead she needed. If there were indeed a lost vampire race or city, it went to follow that it was eradicated. And it could have only been eradicated by a weapon or cure.

Maybe she been thinking about it the wrong way, she realized. Maybe she shouldn’t be searching for a weapon or cure. Maybe she should be focusing on a lost civilization. A lost race. A lost city. A lost book.

Caitlin got up, encouraged, returning the books to the library clerk, and went back to the computer. She changed her keyword search terms. Lost cities. Mythical cities. Legendary cities. Vampire cities. Vampire races. Lost races. Extinct races…

Caitlin tried dozens of combinations, and this time she ended up with an improbably huge list of books, hundreds of them, having to do with lost civilizations and lost cities and races. They were mostly about mythology and archaeology in general, and not about vampires. Yet she found it encouraging nonetheless. Maybe she needed to think of the vampires as a lost race, a lost people, a lost city.

Caitlin returned to the librarian with a freshly printed list, and he looked down and frowned.

“There are seventy-one books on this list,” he said forcefully. “You know the limit.”

“I’ll take the first six,” Caitlin said.

He sighed loudly, plainly annoyed.

“It’s four-thirty, ma’am. The library closes in fifteen minutes.”

He stood there, clearly not wanting to go to the stacks again for her.

“Then go quickly,” she replied, not giving in.

He tried to stare her down, but finally, he snatched the list from her hand, turned, and stampeded up the steps, his footsteps echoing off the metal.

Caitlin returned to her table, encouraged yet anxious. She only had fifteen minutes, and they did not allow one to check out the books. There was no way she could come back tomorrow; with Scarlet out there, she didn’t have the luxury of time. She had to think of some other way.

As Caitlin racked her brain, she realized what she had to do: she had to get up there, into the stacks, past this man. She needed to spend the night here, in this place. To go through every book on her list. There was no other way.

The lights in the library suddenly flashed, and a voice came over the loudspeakers: “The library will be closing in fifteen minutes.”

A moment later the librarian returned, setting down six more books for her, and this time, as he did, Caitlin heard a buzzing noise. The man reached into his pocket, glanced at his phone, and scowled.

“Kids,” he said to himself. “I told my daughter to stop texting. She just won’t stop.”

Caitlin looked down at his phone, saw he had the same model as she, and she had an idea. With her phone’s new technology, one could exchange contact info instantly by bumping phones.

Caitlin deliberately slid a book off the table, dropping it with a bang, and he, as she’d predicted, bent over to pick it up; as he did, she raised her phone furtively, while he was distracted, and bumped her phone into his.

She glanced down and saw they had just exchanged phone numbers. Now she had him in her contacts.

The librarian, never realizing what had happened, went back to the stacks. Caitlin knew this was her chance; it was now or never. Especially as another announcement came over the loudspeaker.

Caitlin felt bad doing this, but her daughter’s life was at stake, and she had to try to do something to get past him. Caitlin quickly blocked her number so that her texts would come from a private number, then sent him in a message:

You have gone over the limit for text messaging for the month. You have an overage of $782. If you do not contact us within the ten minutes, your service will be disconnected.

Caitlin clicked send.

She sat there, waiting, and sure enough, moments later she heard a commotion. She heard footsteps as he quickly hurried down the metal stairs, and she turned and saw him hurrying, looking very pale, holding up his phone as he ran to the main hall to get better reception.

Caitlin realized this was her chance. The lights flashed again, another announcement was made, and as all the patrons began to migrate from the hall, Caitlin grabbed the books before her and went against traffic. She looked both ways, took off her shoes, and walked quietly up the metal steps leading to the stacks. With everyone heading in the other direction, no one seemed to notice her.

Caitlin reached the top and looked around, and saw an endless library of scholarly books, precious stack after stack after stack. Holding the catalog numbers in her hand, she knew exactly where to go.

First, though, she would find the darkest corner she could find, and wait. Soon, the lights would go off.

And the library would be hers.

Chapter Fifteen

Scarlet looked up into the black starry night, elated, her heart soaring with joy as she saw Sage flying down, descending right for her. At first she was sure it was a trick of her eyes, a hopeful dream. But as Sage got closer, she saw his beautiful eyes glistening under the light of the moon, and she knew it was true. It was really him.

Scarlet’s eyes welled with tears as he landed before her, stepped forward, and wordlessly embraced her, holding her so tight, his black leather pants crinkling. She held him tight, too, not wanting to let him go, ever, She felt her tears pour down her cheek, overwhelmed with gratitude that he was alive, that he had come back for her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked over his shoulder.

“I came for you,” he replied.

The sound of his voice reassured her immediately, a sound she could never forget. It was really him, here in the flesh. She clung to him, feeling as if she were holding onto the cornerstone of her world, the only thing left to make her want to live. She realized that without Sage in the world, her life felt meaningless. He had become her entire world.

Now here he was, back with her like a dream, and she squeezed him tight, not ever wanting to let him go. She swirled with conflicting emotions. She was mad at him for leaving her, grateful to him for returning to her, and sad knowing his days were numbered, that he would not live forever. She wept as she held him, knowing their love was fleeting, knowing he was destined to die. A part of her wanted to die with him.

“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered into his ear as he held her tight.

He did not reply as he held her. After all, what could he say?

“Let them take me,” she said, “let them kill me. It will allow your kind to live. It will allow you to live.”

Sage pulled back and shook his head as he looked at her.

“I’d rather die a thousand times than have anything happen to you.”

He leaned in and they kissed, and the feel of his lips electrified her. She knew he was the one true love of her life, the one person she was meant to be with forever. She couldn’t explain it, but there was something about him, something so different from everyone else.

“How did you find me?” she asked, pulling back and looking into his eyes.

“I’ve been searching for you ever since you ran out,” he said. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. And then, while I was flying, searching, this time I felt something. I felt you calling me. I felt it so strongly, you summoning me to you, like a beacon in the night. I followed my gut, and it led me here, to you.”

He took her hand, and the two of them walked through the trails, to the edge of the beach and rock. They found a spot in the sand, right by the lapping shores of the Hudson, and as they sat together, Sage draped an arm around her and they looked up at the starry night.

The entire world was still except for the sound of the lapping waves. Even on this cold November night, the wind coming off the waters, Scarlet felt warm in Sage’s arms, felt heat emanating off him. Everything felt perfect in the world.

“I went to your house,” Scarlet said. “It was all boarded up. I thought you left.”

He shook his head sadly.

“My family has left,” he said. “For the first time in a thousand years.”

“Where did they go?” she asked, curious.

“There is a convening,” he said. “Of all of our kind, from all around the world. They’re coming together for the final days.”

Sage shook his head, his face grim.

“They all know we’re about to die. Some cannot accept it. Some have come to be with each other; some to console each other; others, though, to wreak havoc upon the world. They wish to make others suffer before they die. They will unleash a great terror on mankind, will go out in a burning blaze. None of them want to go quietly, not after two thousand years of living. They all want to go out with a bang.”

Scarlet’s heart pounded, his words terrifying her.

“Don’t worry,” he said, holding her hand, “they are far from here.”

Suddenly, Sage broke into a coughing fit. Scarlet could feel his entire body wracking, and she felt alarmed, her eyes welling with tears. He looked too pale. He looked to be on death’s door.

“Are you dying?” she asked him flatly, afraid to know the answer.

He looked away from her, and finally nodded weakly.

“How much time do you have left?” she asked.

Sage looked up at the moon, then looked away.

“The moon is waning,” he said. “In but a few days it will be new. Once this moon goes, so will our kind.”

Scarlet felt horrified at the thought.

“I can’t let you leave me,” she said. “If you die I will die with you.”

She wept as she held him to her.

Sage shook his head.

“Let us not focus on death,” he said softly. “Death will come for us all. Tonight, we have life. We have us. We have this moment. Let us focus on now. Let us live. Let us truly live. Let us be happy here, together, while we’re alive. While no one else tries to tear us apart.”

He looked into her eyes.

“I have a few good days before I die. I want to spend them with you. Tomorrow, when the sun rises, I want to take you somewhere special. Somewhere you’ve never been. I want it to be a day just for us.”

Scarlet’s hands were trembling at the idea.

“There’s nothing I would love more,” she said, feeling a mix of excitement and sadness. “Where will we go?”

“I have a surprise for you,” he said with a smile. “You’re going to love it.”

Scarlet could not help smiling, happy for the first time in as long as she could remember.

“I want you to always remember me,” he said. “After all, you are immortal now. I will be dying. But you are the one who’s going to live forever.”

Scarlet’s eyes welled up again. She did not want to live forever. Not with Sage dead.

The two of them lay on the sand under the stars, listening to the sound of the lapping waves, and she held him tight, feeling his warmth, and wanting this night to never end. All the heartbreak she had endured, all the suffering, all the tormenting and confusion from her friends, all the petty people in her school and in her town – all the things she hated – it all meant nothing to her now. It was all washed away by this moment. It all meant nothing just for this moment to be in Sage’s arms.

Chapter Sixteen

Caleb walked into the local police station, Sam by his side, grim-faced as he thought of the business that lay before him. He was determined to confront that predator Kyle, the man who had tried to harm his daughter. He needed to look him in the eye, to know if all of this was nonsense, or if Scarlet had, indeed, truly turned Kyle into a vampire.

Deep down, Caleb didn’t want to believe any of this; he still wanted to believe he was living out some horrible nightmare, that everyone was just making some awful mistake. He wanted to discover that Aiden didn’t know what he was talking about, that Scarlet was not truly a vampire, and that she had returned home and all was well. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been. They had all been so happy as a family once, everything so perfect in their lives. He had loved Scarlet, and she had loved him. How had it all gone so wrong so quickly?

Caleb could not wait to look Kyle in the eye, to hear what he had to say about his daughter. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he felt he would know it once he laid eyes upon the man. If nothing else, he would love to knock him out – if he weren’t behind bars already.

Caleb walked side by side with Sam through the police station lobby, and as they neared the front desk, Caleb was struck by a terrifying thought: what if it were all really true? What if Scarlet were truly a vampire? How would he stop her? Would he have to kill her? He shuddered at the thought. He would never. He would rather be killed himself.

But then he had another thought: what if Kyle were truly a vampire? How would he kill him? Vampires, he had always heard, could not be killed, except in special ways. He had no idea what those ways were. A silver bullet? A stake in the heart?

Was he showing up to a fight unprepared?

As Caleb approached the police chief’s desk, the chief, a grim-faced officer in his fifties with graying hair and wide jowls, scowled back at him, a man Caleb had known most his life.

“Chief,” Caleb said, nodding.

The chief, usually warm, just looked back warily, eyes cold and hard.

“We don’t have anything on your daughter,” he said. “I told you we’d call.”

Caleb shook his head.

“I’m not here about that,” he said. “Well, not directly anyway.”

The chief glared back.

“What is it then? You’ve come on a bad day for our department.”

“What do you mean?” Caleb asked, surprised, realizing something was really off here. “What is it?”

The chief shook his head, and Caleb could see his eyes well with tears. Caleb wondered what could’ve happened; he had never seen the chief show emotion, not once in twenty years.

“Two of our own,” he said. “Killed.”

Caleb’s heart dropped.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “How?”

The chief shook his head, his throat choking up.

“It’s this business with your daughter,” he said.

Caleb’s heart started to pound as he felt an increasing sense of dread.

“My daughter?” he asked. “What did Scarlet have to do with it?”

The chief sighed.

“The perv we arrested at the bar,” he said. “Kyle. The boys were bringing him in, in the back of a cruiser. Somehow, he broke free. Don’t know how. Never happened before. Killed two of my boys. Just like that.”

Caleb felt his heart slamming at the news, filled with dread. Kyle had broken out of a police car, had killed two officers. Alone. Unarmed.

It felt ominous. Supernatural.

“I’ll kill him myself when I find this punk,” the chief said. “I swear I will.”

“Find him?” Caleb asked. “What do you mean? I came here to talk to him.”

“Talk to him?” the chief responded. “Are you nuts? The guy’s a cold-blooded killer. He’s not here anyway. Like I said, he’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” Caleb pressed. “Where did they transfer him? I need to talk to him.”

The chief shook his head, leaned forward, and slammed his palms on the desk.

“You don’t get it,” he snapped. “He’s gone. Meaning gone. He escaped.”

“Escaped?” Caleb asked, stunned.

The chief nodded.

“Everyone on my force, state police, even the feds are out looking for him. We’re gonna catch this sonofabitch and it’s gonna be a bloodfest before this night is through.”

Caleb turned over his words, and he wished he could believe him. But he had a sinking feeling, deep in his heart, that if they caught Kyle, the only ones that would be killed would be them.

* * *

Caleb drove down Route 9, Sam in the passenger seat, turning over again and again in his mind his conversation with the chief. He still could not believe what he had heard. It all felt sickeningly real – as if there could be some truth to all of this after all – but he did not want to believe it. He wanted to hear that Kyle was locked up, that he was just a normal bad guy. He didn’t want to hear about him escaping. He didn’t want to hear about him killing cops, breaking away.

And he certainly did not want to hear that any of this had anything to do with his daughter. Caleb wondered if the chief blamed him, hated him.

“Don’t you think this is a waste of time?” Sam asked.

Caleb snapped out of it. “Pete’s was the last place anyone saw him. Maybe someone there will know something. Anything. Maybe he said where he was going.”

“The guy’s a cop killer,” Sam said. “If we find him, are you ready? Because I am.”

Sam opened the glove compartment and as he did, a small pistol came sliding out. Sam picked it up and held it in his hands, weighing it. Caleb’s eyes opened wide in surprise. The stakes had just been raised.

“Never knew you had that,” Caleb said.

“I never carried it,” Sam said. “Until now. If we find that guy who hurt Scarlet, and he tries anything, I have no problem using it.”

Caleb nodded back.

“I’m ready to do what I have to do,” he said. “Don’t use every bullet. Save one for me.”

Caleb pulled into Pete’s parking lot, the gravel crunching beneath the tires. He parked and they both jumped out and marched up the rickety wooden steps. As they approached the door, Caleb was shocked to see police crime tape all over the place, the door shattered, the place looking as if it had been hit by a bomb. He didn’t recall leaving it in such bad shape. Had something else happened here?

Caleb and Sam walked through what was left of the creaking door, and into the dimly lit bar, and Caleb was amazed to see it look even worse on the inside. Shattered glass everywhere, it was like a war zone. The place was empty, police tape up all over it.

There came a shuffling of feet, and Caleb saw a bartender, bruised and cut up, picking up pieces of glass off the floor and setting them on the bar.

“We’re closed,” he snapped, not even looking at them. “Can’t you see the sign?”

Caleb marched right in, Sam beside him, and as he did, it brought back fresh memories of his brawl with those men. Caleb had no love lost for this place, or this bartender, or anything about this place, which he associated with the worst of everything, the spot where his daughter was almost killed.

“You’re not closed anymore,” Caleb answered.

The bartender suddenly reached behind the bar, pulled out a shotgun, and pointed it at them.

Caleb and Sam stopped in their tracks.

“I’m not having anyone else waltz into this bar. Happened once already. So you two best just turn around and get the hell out of here.”

The bartender held out the gun, and Caleb thought twice. But he was not about to back off.

“I would,” Caleb said, “but my daughter’s out there and I need answers. I figure you’re the best person to give them to me.”

The bartender squinted, lowering his gun as he studied Caleb.

“You’re the dad?” he asked.

Caleb nodded back, and the man set down his gun.

“Sorry about that. I’m jumpy these days.”

Caleb saw how banged up he was, and he had a feeling.

“Kyle?” Caleb asked. “Did he do that to you?”

The bartender looked back, surprised.

“How did you know?” he asked.

Caleb approached the bar, and the bartender set down the gun and raised a glass.

“Beer?” he offered.

Caleb shook his head.

“No,” Caleb said, “I don’t drink. I just want answers. I want to find my daughter.”

“We all want something,” the bartender said. “I want my broken nose to heal. I want that bastard Kyle dead – and so do a lot of other people. Cop killer. Can you imagine? I’m damn lucky he didn’t kill me.”

“I need to know where he went,” Caleb said.

The bartender looked at him as if he were crazy.

“And if you find him, what are you going to do? He’s a cop killer. You think you’ll stop him?”

“I know I will,” Caleb said, determined.

The bartender looked at him, hearing the seriousness in his voice.

“It’s your own funeral,” he shrugged. “I’d tell you if I knew. But I don’t.”

“You don’t understand,” Caleb said. “I need to find my daughter.”

The bartender raised his brow.

“That’s funny,” he said. “That’s the same thing Kyle wanted – when he came back in here.”

The hairs stood on the back of Caleb’s neck.

“Kyle was asking about Scarlet?” Sam said.

The bartender nodded.

“Why would he be doing that?”

“I have no idea. Seems like he’s fixated on your daughter. Guess he can’t find someone his own age.”

Caleb scowled, furious.

“And where did you tell him my daughter was?”

“How was I supposed to know?” the bartender said, defensive. “I have no clue where she is. I told him that. I said I knew nothing about her. All I knew was that she went to the high school.”

Sam scowled.

“You told him that?” Sam said. “You told him she goes to our high school? How stupid can you be?”

“What’s wrong with that?” the bartender said, confused. “Do you really think he’s going to march up to her school?”

Caleb shook his head.

“That’s exactly what he’ll do,” he said. He turned to Sam.

“But I’m going to get there first.”

Chapter Seventeen

Caitlin sat on the floor between the stacks in the dark, silent library, bleary-eyed, her back against the metal frame and every muscle in her body aching as she hunched over a stack of books in her lap. It had been a marathon of reading, and books were strewn everywhere, as if an avalanche of them had fallen down upon her. Her eyes were blurry and she rubbed them again, determined to keep going.

Caitlin read beneath the dim emergency light, as she had been for hours, ever since the library had closed and its lights had shut down. She was grateful that she had not been detected, and she was determined to make the most of it, tearing through volumes, devouring them from the second the doors to the main library finally slammed close.

Caitlin had had a long and lonely night, squinting through book after book, searching for any clues, anything she could find. She waded through volumes on lost cities, lost races, lost civilizations, reading the most fantastical things, most of it legend, myth. Frustratingly, she had come across little having to do with vampires.

Caitlin began to see a soft light filtering in from the stained-glass windows high above, and she knew dawn was breaking. Soon the doors would open, everyone would be back, and she would have to slip out before they caught her. Her time here would be over. She did not think physically she could spend much more time reading anyway, exhausted from having not slept and not eaten, having barely moved from this spot.

Caitlin was beginning to wonder if this had all been a huge waste of time. What had she been thinking? Did she really think that she would stumble upon something that Aiden himself had been unable to? She was smart, of course, but so were a lot of other people who had gone down this route, searching for the same thing. Would she ever find a cure for her daughter? A weapon to stop it? Did either even exist?

All Caitlin really cared about was Scarlet; all she wanted was for her daughter to be happy and healthy and back to the normal girl she was. Caitlin had always been able to find a solution to everything through her scholarship, through reading – but not this time. It frustrated her to no end. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to wonder if she would come up empty. Despite all her scholarship and reading skills, she herself could not unlock the mystery to get her daughter the help she needed.

Caitlin closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the metal frame of the stack, and rubbed it, caressing her aching head, rubbing her fingers between her eyes, over her eyebrows, trying to make the dull pain go away. She felt like crying, collapsing, giving up on the world.

Please, God, she prayed. It was the first time she’d prayed in she did not know how long, certainly since she was a child. Yet she had never felt as desperate as she did now.

Please, God. Bring my baby back to me. I’ll do anything. I’ll give anything. Please. I don’t pray for riches or power. I just pray for clarity, for insight, guidance, and wisdom. Please. Help me save my daughter.

A loud bang suddenly startled Caitlin, and she looked over and was surprised to see one of the large dusty books she had stacked beside her had slipped off the mound and fell by her knee. Caitlin, puzzled, examined it, a huge, heavy, leather-bound book, nearly two feet long, and realized it was one of a few books she had not yet read.

It was so heavy as she pulled it off the floor and placed it on her thigh. The book must have weighed a good ten pounds, and as she turned the oversized pages, she realized it was a rare volume, hundreds of years old. She could be sent to jail for being here, she realized, for doing all this, sitting here, trespassing, holding these invaluable items, which collectively were worth millions. She knew, having worked with rare books, how much they were worth. They were priceless.

Caitlin turned page after page, fingering the goldleaf, the beautiful illustrations, and reading closely the elaborate penmanship. It was in Latin, but Caitlin understood it.

The book was about lost places. Caitlin read and read, and unlike the other books, it was riveting. She became intrigued. Her heart started beating faster, as she finally began to feel like she was onto something.

The mythical city of Atlantis, of course, can be looked at in two ways. One is as a myth, a metaphor for some greater civilization, some place we strive to attain to as humans. The other is a real place, a place swept underwater, perhaps by a flood, or by a volcano or some other catastrophic event. The notion of a lost city, though, is not so far-fetched. Consider the lost libraries. Alexandria burned to the ground, taking with it half of our civilization’s scholarship. And what of the Hall of Records – fact or fiction?

Caitlin blinked, processing it all. She’d never heard of the Hall of Records, and was thrown off guard by this oblique reference to it. What on earth was the author referring to?

Feeling a glimmer of hope, Caitlin flipped page after page, her heart sinking as she could not find a mention of it again. She wanted to scream. She felt like jumping back in time and grabbing and shaking this author, this person who would tease her in this way and then not expound on it.

As she turned the next page, though, she came upon an elaborate color illustration of the Sphinx of Egypt, the sun shining behind it, its rays filling the page, so bright it looked as if it might jump out at her, and as she read the inscription, in tiny letters, she was immensely relieved to discover that the author did, indeed, revisit the topic:

Considered the greatest library known to man, the Hall of Records is a mythical lost library containing the most precious scrolls known to man, supposedly hidden under the Sphinx in Egypt. Various theories have the library being built there by aliens, by a civilization ten thousand years old, or by a race of vampires.

Caitlin let the book fall from her lap, her mouth open in shock, and it landed with a thump on the floor. She sat straight up, feeling a jolt. She suddenly felt wide awake, as if she had just lost all sense of time and place. She picked the book up again, her throat dry, and read the words again and again, desperately, like a castaway starving for water.

Of course, there have been many archaeological expeditions, many attempts to find the Hall of Records. Egyptian authorities have forbidden all expeditions, in an effort to preserve the integrity of the Sphinx. While there are many tantalizing clues, including visible holes within the Sphinx itself, to indicate that there indeed is a lost city beneath it, that indeed a lost civilization lived there, that indeed there may be the greatest library known to man, still, it remains closed off by authorities and no one of record has managed to find a way below ground. Could it be that no such entry exists? Could it be that the Egyptian and other authorities have a reason for keeping others out? What are they hiding? What has one generation after the next been hiding for 10,000 years?

Caitlin sat there, processing it all, feeling in her heart that she had stumbled upon something real, something authentic. Its words rang in her head. A vast library. A lost city. A lost people. Vampires… It all felt right to her.

As Caitlin closed her eyes and imagined it all, the strangest thing happened: suddenly, an image flashed through her mind. She saw herself standing in a vast city beneath the earth, surrounded by thousands of vampires, all of them dressed in black, torches everywhere, raising their fists and shouting.

Caitlin opened her eyes, heart thumping, wondering what it was she was she had just experienced. Was it a dream? She had never experienced anything like it. It was like a flashback, like a memory that she never had. She had seen herself as a vampire. In a nation of vampires. An ancient race, a lost race, beneath the earth. She had been their leader.

Caitlin opened her eyes, terrified. She did not understand was happening to her. Was she just sleep deprived? Or did she have a genuine flashback? She had never daydreamed before. Was it all true? Had she herself once been a vampire? Had she lived in that ancient time and place?

Caitlin turned the pages and was disappointed to see, as she combed the final pages, no other mention of lost civilizations or the Hall of Records. And yet, on the final page, she noticed something odd: the writing was different from every other page in the book. It didn’t make sense. It was scrambled, backwards, and it wasn’t in Latin. It was in hieroglyphics.

Caitlin suddenly realized it was a hidden message. Because of her knowledge of ancient languages, her years of deciphering lost codes and rare books, she was able to see a pattern to the letters, a pattern perhaps that others could not. It was a hidden code. There were seven sentences centered perfectly in the page, and none made sense. But Caitlin isolated the middle letter of each sentence, and read it going down, vertically, and a word came in to view:

V… O… Y… N… I… C… H

Voynich.

Caitlin turned the word over and over again in her mind, and then finally, it clicked. The Voynich manuscript. The rarest book on earth, the most controversial and mystical book on earth, rumored to contain secrets never unlocked.

Caitlin suddenly felt certain that a lost vampire city did exist, that it was beneath the Sphinx, and that the key to discovering the entry would be found in the Voynich manuscript.

Caitlin sat up, realizing it made perfect sense. The Voynich manuscript was right here on the Yale campus, in another library. It held the key. The key to entering the lost city. The key to finding the cure she needed for Scarlet.

Caitlin stood, leaving the mound of books where they were, hurried down the metal steps, and strode to the main door, checking her watch. It was just before 6 AM.

Her heart pounded and she stopped in her tracks as she saw a security guard arrive, put out his hand, and begin to open the door.

Caitlin quickly hid to the side of the doors, her heart thumping, as he pulled opened the door and came in. Thinking quick, she grabbed a small pencil nearby on the ledge and threw it all the way across the hall. It landed at the far end, echoing.

The security guard turned, on alert, and began hurrying down the hall after it, away from the open door, deep into the library.

Caitlin quickly slipped out the open door into the cold morning air, the breaking dawn lighting the sky in shades of orange and red. She pulled her jacket tight as she marched across campus, heading the place she knew housed the Voynich manuscript: the Beinecke Rare Book Library.

She was just steps away, she knew, from finding Scarlet, and nothing would stop her now.

Chapter Eighteen

Kyle marched up the steps to the local high school, squinting in the sun, not knowing why it was hurting his head so much as he approached the front doors. He felt stronger than ever, yet also pained by the sun, eager to get inside. He bounded up the steps, taking them ten at a time, shocked at his speed and strength. In just three steps, he reached the top, and he stood there before the astonished security guard.

“Sorry, school’s in session,” the guard snapped. “Are you a parent?”

Kyle looked him up and down. The guard was a huge man, at least six-five, nearly as wide as Kyle, with a square jaw and a belligerent look on his face.

Kyle shook his head.

“Do I look like a parent to you?” Kyle retorted.

Kyle walked past him, heading for the doors, and he felt a beefy palm on his shoulder, stopping him.

“Don’t touch that door,” the man said. “You don’t get in without a pass.”

The guard shoved Kyle, sending him stumbling back a foot, and Kyle, enraged, suddenly lunged forward and tackled the man, driving both of them back through the closed doors.

The glass doors crashed off their hinges, and Kyle landed on top of the man as they skidded on the floor, on the broken glass, down the wide hallway.

Kyle looked down at the guard, who was unmoving, and then turned and surveyed the destruction he’d created, the front doors off their hinges, glass everywhere, and the security guard lying there, unconscious.

“How’s that for a pass?” Kyle asked.

Kyle stood, brushed off the glass, and began marching down the empty hallway. No one was coming, clearly everyone still in class, and Kyle looked at all the closed doors as he walked past. He turned down one hallway after the next, wondering where Scarlet could be. Before Kyle turned down another hallway, he looked back over his shoulder and saw some people starting to gather around the broken front door, looking down at the guard, puzzled.

The school bell rang and the halls flooded with kids, hundreds of them, laughing, jostling each other, swarming down the hallways. Everyone was so preoccupied with their friends that no one even seemed to notice Kyle, a huge man, taller than everyone else, dressed head to toe in black leather, covered in bumps and bruises and scars, with a scowl on his face, looking like evil itself walking down the middle of the hallway.

Kyle scanned the faces, looking everywhere for Scarlet. He needed to find her. He needed answers. He needed to know what she had done to him, why she had bit him, how she was able to overpower him, why his head was hurting so much. And he wanted revenge.

But no matter how many halls he turned down, how many faces he scanned, there was no sign of her. Kyle used his new super-strong vision, and discovered he was able to zoom in on anything and everything far and wide. It was incredible. He felt like an eagle.

As he did, Kyle noticed a half-open locker, and he zoomed in on a small picture in it. It was a picture of Scarlet, he was sure of it. He caught a glance of it just as the locker slammed shut.

Kyle looked to see who had closed it and he saw a girl, looking like a young Jennifer Lopez, standing before it.

Kyle shoved his way through the crowd, roughly elbowing kids as he made his way toward her.

“Hey, watch it, man,” one kid, a jock with a varsity letter on his jacket, called out, as Kyle sent him flying, slamming into a locker.

But Kyle didn’t even look back. He continued marching right for the girl.

“Excuse me, sir,” came a voice.

Kyle felt a rough hand grabbing his shirt from the side, and he turned and looked over to see a stern older woman standing there.

“Who are you? What do you think are doing in these halls? Didn’t you notice that you just bumped a kid? You could have hurt him. Apologize right now, and report to the principal’s office at once!”

Kyle stared at her, surprised that such an old, frail woman would have the guts to speak to him like that. Then, after a moment, he broke into laughter, a deep guttural sound, as he stared back at her.

“You remind me of a teacher I had in middle school,” he said. “She was the reason I never went to high school. You’re all the same, aren’t you?”

“How dare you talk to me that way!” the woman said. “You better go to the principal’s office now, before I call the security guard!”

Kyle snorted.

“I don’t think the security guard will be of much help to you now,” he said.

Kyle stepped forward, grabbed her with two hands, lifted her high overhead. She dangled there, legs kicking, flailing.

“Put me down at once!” she screamed.

All the kids stopped and looked, as Kyle leaned back and threw her.

The teacher went flying down the hall, landing on the slick floor face first, and sliding nearly a hundred feet, like a bowling ball, taking down kids, creating havoc down the hallway. Kyle smiled as he watched her go. He wished he could have done that to every teacher he’d ever known.

Kyle turned back, annoyed, impatient, and rushed over to the Jennifer Lopez girl with the picture of Scarlet in her locker. As he neared her, the girl stood there frozen, horrified by what he had just done to that teacher. She looked up at Kyle in fear and awe, taking a step back.

Kyle smiled, relishing her fear, as he glanced at her notebook and saw her name scribbled on it.

“Maria,” he said aloud, his voice dark, gravelly. “I need you to answer me some questions.”

Maria, petrified, dropped her books on the floor, mouth open. All the other students around her began to back away, terrified of Kyle, some beginning to run down the halls.

“Questions?” she said, her voice hoarse. “How do you know me?”

Kyle grinned and took a step closer.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “There’s a little game I like to play. It’s called, don’t lie to me and I won’t kill you,” he said, now inches away, leaning into her. He could see her trembling.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I want to know about your friend,” Kyle said. “Scarlet. Where is she?”

Maria’s eyes widened. He could sense her freezing up, debating what to tell him. He could sense she was a loyal friend, not wanting to rush to give an answer, even though her life was obviously at stake.

“I… don’t know,” she said.

Kyle stepped closer, grabbed her hair, and yanked it back. She cried out, and he leaned in, even closer, until his teeth grazed her ear.

“You’re about to lose the game,” he said.

Maria gulped, sweat running down the side of her neck.

Finally, she said: “Okay, I’ve seen her. She’s crashing with her best friend.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Kyle said. “And who is her friend? What’s her name?”

Maria turned and held his gaze, holding steady, and finally seemed to come to a decision.

“Her name is Vivian.”

Chapter Nineteen

Sage flew with Scarlet into the breaking dawn, high over the Hudson, the world spread out before them in shades of purples and pinks, and even though he knew he was dying, Sage felt that everything was perfect in the world. He loved the feel of Scarlet on his back, her arms wrapped around his chest as they flew. He loved that the two of them could enjoy the breaking dawn together, looking down at the river, the trees, and the rolling hills, the entire world alight with fall. The leaves shone a thousand different colors, reds and oranges and yellows, twirling in the wind, falling to the Hudson, lining the waters as they floated down the current, making the river seem alive with a rainbow.

They flew and flew, following the contours of the Hudson, passing over a bridge, and Sage felt so excited to be with her, and to be bringing her to his great surprise. He could feel her excitement, and it made him all the happier.

Sage thought back to their time together the night before, the most magical night of his life, knowing it might be his last. Scarlet had fallen asleep in his arms, the two keeping each other warm despite the cold, after talking to each other half the night about their hopes and dreams, about lives they would have led, places they would have visited together. They talked about how amazing it would have been to have been able to spend a lifetime together. He told her how much he loved her a thousand times, knowing that any day might be his last.

Sage spotted his destination in the distance, and he flew down, lower and lower, as a wide-open clearing appeared on the banks of the Hudson. It was bordered by a historic mansion with sweeping manicured grounds looking over the river. It looked like something out of another century.

He could hear Scarlet gasp behind him as it all came into view.

“It’s so beautiful,” Scarlet said. “What is it?”

Sage grinned.

“Boscobel,” he said. “One of the last great estates on the Hudson.”

As they circled high above, Sage saw the long, tree-lined driveway, the sprawling grounds in every direction, and the huge white canopy along the water’s edge.

“It looks like a theater,” Scarlet said.

“It is,” he replied.

Sage chose a well-hidden spot behind the tree line and dove down out of sight of all the people.

He held her hand as they emerged from the woods and walked the immaculate grounds, heading toward the outdoor theater.

“A sunrise show,” Sage said. “They do it once a year.”

“A show?” Scarlet asked, smiling. He could hear the excitement in her voice.

Sage turned to her and smiled.

“Your favorite play,” he said. “Romeo and Juliet. They’re performing it outdoors, just like they used to in Shakespeare’s time. They do it right at the edge of the Hudson River, with the sky and the mountains as their backdrop. It is the most powerful thing you’ve ever seen.”

Scarlet smiled and kissed him, and he kissed her back, delighted to see the happiness in her face. He was thrilled that he would be spending some of his final moments with her, here in this theater, watching this play which he remembered seeing firsthand back in Shakespeare’s time. In some ways, the times had changed so much; in others, they had not changed at all.

“Thank you,” she said, meaningfully, and he could hear her sorrow lifting.

They walked through the crowd and entered the theater, having amazing seats in the front row center. All grew quiet as the actors appeared, walking across the grass, and the play began.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

It all came rushing back to Sage. He remembered seeing this play the first time it was performed, back in 1594. He had seen it in the Globe, on the banks of the Thames, standing with all the groundlings, thousands of people crammed in together, watching it. He remembered being mesmerized. And now here he was, 400 years later, and it was still as fresh to him as the first time he’d seen it.

Scarlet leaned in and held him tight, and he held her. This play of two star-crossed lovers took on a new meaning this time for Sage, a meaning it never had. Knowing he was about to die, every word, every gesture, every motion of the actors felt as if it were just for him. He knew it would be the last time he ever saw the play, and he wanted to cling to each word, each gesture.

Here they were, two people of different races, she just beginning her immortality, and he, ending his. He had lived for two thousand years, and she would live for two thousand more, and the tragedy was that he had never met her before this moment. Why did he have to meet her as he was dying, as she was about to live?

All that time, he realized now, all those two thousand years on earth, he had really been searching for her. He had never loved anyone more. And now, at the moment of his death, she was being taken away from him. As if destiny had played some cruel trick on him.

Sage became lost in the play as the hours passed, seeing flashes of his lifetime before him, feeling himself nearing the end, feeling weaker, knowing he was dying. He was losing himself in the play, losing all sense of time and space as finally, the play neared its end, Romeo dying, Juliet discovering him and ending her monologue:

What’s here? a cup, closed in my true love’s hand?

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:

O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop

To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,

To make die with a restorative.

O happy dagger!

This is thy sheath;

there rust, and let me die.

Juliet stabbed herself, as the audience gasped, and as she did, Sage sat there, mesmerized, and felt as if he had been stabbed himself.

The curtain fell, and the crowd slowly erupted into applause. Sage sat there, feeling so numb, so deeply lost in the action of the play, that he had a hard time coming out of it. He forgot for a moment where he was.

Scarlet turned to him, her eyes wet with tears, and he could see that she was thinking the same thing as he was. To them, this was more than a play. It was also the life they were living, with Sage about to die.

“I love you, Sage,” she said.

They stood and embraced and Sage held her tight, not wanting to let her go as all around them people began to filter out.

Sage thought of all the other places he wanted to take Scarlet, some of the most romantic places in the world. He was determined to show them to her before he died.

But he was feeling so weak, he did not know if he could make it. He knew he had to recharge if he were to spend more time with her. He just had to get enough strength to get him through another day or two.

“Sage, you don’t look well,” she said, as she pulled back. “Are you okay?”

He forced a smile and nodded back weakly.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Despite his best efforts, he began to cough, his voice trailing into a whisper.

“This afternoon,” he said, “at four. Meet me beneath the great willow by the bridge, at the river’s edge. I want to take you somewhere so romantic, so beautiful.”

A flash of concern crossed Scarlet’s face.

“Where are you going now?” she asked.

Sage wanted to tell her that he needed to recharge. But he could not tell her how sick he was. He knew he had to offer some excuse to leave for a bit. He didn’t want her to worry.

“I have some pressing family business,” he said. “This afternoon, we shall be united, and I will tell you everything.”

He leaned in and kissed her, and they held the kiss, Sage knowing that tomorrow might be their last day on earth with her, and never wanting to leave her side.

Yet as they kissed, Sage, try as he did to suppress it, had the sinking feeling that he might not ever see her again.

Chapter Twenty

Maria walked home down the familiar streets of town in the late afternoon, her friends Becca and Jasmine by her side, still wearing her jersey and shin guards, black paint beneath her eyes, her hair frazzled from the soccer match. She fumed, reliving the soccer game in her head, still annoyed that her coach had sidelined her so late in the game, especially after she’d scored a goal. She knew she was being aggressive, and maybe she had crossed the line when she kicked the other girl in the shin. But still, she knew she was the best player on the team, and the coach shouldn’t have sidelined her for that.

Maria usually was a clean player, but she had been so frustrated as of late, she had begun playing dirty, tripping and kicking the other girls. It was just a matter of time until she was sidelined, she knew, but still, she was mad that it had happened today, when she was playing so well.

As Maria walked, she thought about it, and she realized she didn’t know why she had been so angry lately; she could only think it had to do with losing out on Sage, then losing her best friend, being rattled by that creep in the halls who had demanded to know where Scarlet was – and now, most of all, losing her new boyfriend, Lore, whom she had been totally obsessed with. He stopped texting her, he never met her on Bannerman’s, and he seemed to have just disappeared. Maria felt so led on, so mad and frustrated. She just wanted to scream at the world.

“Like, what’s Scarlet’s deal?” Jasmine said as they walked, breaking the silence.

Maria had been wondering the same thing herself. She felt like she didn’t even know Scarlet anymore. Scarlet had changed so much. There was something about her, something different she couldn’t quite understand. Scarlet used to be so light and happy and easygoing. Now she seemed so serious, so heavy, almost like there was a… darkness around her.

Being around Scarlet now was like being around an adult, not a kid. The whole thing was so weird, Maria didn’t know what to make of it. She wanted to be friends with her again, but she didn’t know if it would ever happen. She felt bad for blowing her off on Bannerman’s, but she had just been too overwhelmed, so pissed about Lore standing her up. And so much, anyway, had happened between them. Would they be ever be able to get over it? she wondered. Would they ever be able to go back to being best friends, the way they once were?

“I have no idea,” Becca said. “Did you see what she did in that boat last night? How she saved Vivian? It was totally freakish.”

“And like, why save Vivian anyway?” Jasmine asked. “What was she thinking? She should have let her drown and done us all a favor.”

“I don’t know what she’s thinking anymore,” Maria chimed in. “That’s kind of the whole point. It’s like she’s… someone else.”

“The four of us used to be super tight,” Jasmine said. “Now it’s like the three of us. I noticed she wasn’t in school again today. Where is she this time?”

They all turned the corner, and as Maria looked up, her heart lurched as she stopped in her tracks. Standing before her was the very boy she had been obsessing over ever since she last saw him.

Lore.

Lore stood there, smiling, as if were the most normal natural thing in the world. As if he had been waiting for her, as if they had planned to meet here. She wanted to yell at him, to be so mad at him; but something happened when she met his translucent eyes. Her heart melted, and all thoughts of anger slid away. Instead, she could think only of how hot he was, how obsessed with him she was, and how she would do anything just to be near him. No matter what he said or did.

“There you are,” Lore said, his voice so seductive, going through every fiber of her being, making it impossible to think of anything else. She was transfixed.

“Who’s this?” Jasmine said, coming up beside Maria, defensive.

Lore smiled, turned his head to Jasmine and Becca, raised a palm, and leaned forward and placed it gently on each of their foreheads. As he did, there came a sudden flash of light, and suddenly, Jasmine and Becca turned to Maria.

“Maria, we have to go,” Becca said.

“We totally forgot, we have an assignment we have to do at school,” Jasmine said.

“It was so great meeting you,” Becca said to Lore. “I’m so happy you’re going to walk Maria home.”

Without another word, the two turned and walked off.

Maria stared at Lore, puzzled. Why had they changed their minds so quickly?

“I don’t understand,” Maria said. “What just happened?”

Lore shrugged.

“There’s not much to understand.” He looked intently at Maria. “They want us to be alone together. As do I.”

Lore took her arm, and Maria found herself unable to think of anything but him as they turned and walked together.

Maria felt butterflies in her stomach, her heart pounding, and as she walked beside this boy, the most gorgeous boy she’d ever seen, she wondered if this was all just a dream.

“I was like looking for you everywhere,” Maria said. “I like texted and called you. You didn’t answer.”

Maria waited for Lore to respond, and as she did, she suddenly felt thoughts invade her mind, thoughts that weren’t hers. Yet as she thought them, they became hers:

We have been in constant communication ever since we last left. We are madly in love with each other. You want to lean in to give me a kiss.

Maria suddenly stopped, turned, and gazed at Lore. She leaned in to give him a kiss, and she felt so happy that he always answered her texts, that he had continually been in her life ever since the moment they’d first met. It was like a dream.

“Now,” Lore said, leaning back, smiling. “I’m looking for your friend Scarlet.”

Maria’s brow furrowed.

“Scarlet? Why is everybody always looking for her?”

Suddenly, Maria felt nervous. She hoped that Scarlet wouldn’t steal Lore away from her, too.

But Lore smiled, reached around, placed a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly, new thoughts came to her:

I am so happy and eager to help Lore find Scarlet. I will do whatever I need to do to help him.

Maria turned and looked into Lore’s eyes.

“What can I do?” she said, eager. “How can I help you find my friend?”

Lore smiled.

“You will text Scarlet now,” he replied. “You will find out exactly where she is. You will first make her feel entirely comfortable. You will find out if she is with Sage.”

Maria nodded, feeling it was the most natural thing in the world as she quickly pulled out her phone and texted Scarlet.

“But we kind of got into an argument earlier,” she said. “I don’t know if she’ll talk to me.”

“Then you will apologize to her,” Sage said. “You will do whatever you need to do to make her feel entirely at ease.”

Maria frowned.

“I don’t want to apologize to her. I mean, like, she was the one who – ”

I want to apologize to Scarlet. I want to make her feel entirely at ease.

Maria stopped speaking as she blinked and looked at Lore.

“I want to apologize to her,” she said.

Lore nodded back approvingly, and Maria looked at her phone and begin texting:

Hey Scarlet. So sorry about last night. I really didn’t mean it. Just cranky. In a bad mood. Anyway. I really love you and miss you. Where are you.

She hit send, and she stood there and looked at her phone.

After a minute she said to Lore.

“She’s not replying. Maybe she’s not – ”

Suddenly her phone buzzed and she looked down and read the message:

Thanks for that. That means a lot.

Maria began typing:

Like I didn’t see you in school today. Where are you now?

SCARLET: I didn’t go to school today.

Why not, where were you.

SCARLET: I went to a play.

A play?

Scarlet didn’t respond, and Maria waited, then turned to Lore.

“She said she went to a play,” Maria reported.

Lore pondered this.

“Ask her if she’s with Sage,” he commanded.

Did you go alone?

SCARLET: No.

Did you go with Blake?

SCARLET: No.

Maria looked at Lore, who was now looking at her phone, beside her.

“Ask her if she was with Sage.”

Did you go with Sage?

After a long silence, the phone finally buzzed.

Yes.

“Ask if she’s with him now.”

Are you with him now?

Another long pause, then finally:

What’s with all the questions?

Maria showed Lore the phone, and he rubbed his chin.

“Tell her – ” he began to say, but suddenly Maria’s phone buzzed again:

No. We’re supposed to meet up later today.

Maria showed Lore the phone, and Lore nodded, satisfied.

“That’s what I needed to know,” Lore said. “The two of them are together. And there’s no way he’d leave her side, not now, unless he needed to recharge. And there’s only one place he can go to recharge.”

Lore smiled and nodded to her.

“You’ve done your job well, Maria,” he said. “Very well.”

Maria frowned.

“But I don’t understand,” she said. “Like, why is this all so important? What do you want with Scarlet? He needs to recharge? What does that mean – ”

“Don’t worry about all of this, my love,” Lore said softly, reassuringly. “You don’t need to know any more than you already do. In fact, in moments, you won’t know a single thing. You’ve served your purpose well, but now, I’m afraid, I’m done with you. Thanks for letting me use you.”

As Maria stared back, confused, Lore smiled wide, stepped forward, spread his wings, and suddenly wrapped them around Maria, holding her tight, smothering her, as she screamed, the sound muffled against his chest. He held her tight as she struggled, and he breathed deep, satisfied, as he felt himself sucking all the life energy out of her, feeding on her energy and soul. Maria struggled, more so than most of his victims, but she could not break free. He hadn’t had anyone break free in a thousand years.

Finally, Maria gave up the fight. She grew limp in his arms, and Lore pulled back his wings and watched her collapse, crumpling to the ground. He picked up her phone and put it in his pocket.

“You won’t be needing this anymore,” he said.

Then he took one step and leapt into the air, heading to where he knew Sage would be, ready, at last, to ambush him, and, finally, capture Scarlet.

Chapter Twenty One

Lore raced through the air, following the Hudson, heading toward where he knew Sage must be. There was only one place Sage could be if he wasn’t at Scarlet’s side: the recharging stone. Of course Sage would go there. It made perfect sense. Sage, the stupid romantic that he was, refused to feed on humans, to suck out their energy, and he would be weaker than the others of their kind. He would need energy, especially with them all dying, and especially if he wanted to spend his last days with Scarlet before he died.

The recharging stone would be the only place that could give him enough energy without a human feed. It would buy him a few more days, and Lore shook his head in disgust as he thought about it. Sage was a stupid romantic. He had always been weak. And now it would be his downfall.

Lore flew along the shores, delighted with himself for manipulating Maria the way he had. Now, finally, he could execute his plan. His real plan, of course, was to live forever. To do that, he needed the girl, Scarlet. And to get the girl, he needed bait. And that bait was Sage.

If Lore could capture Sage, keep him prisoner, the girl, he knew, would come. He could see in that girl’s eyes that she had fallen for him, that she would sacrifice everything, even herself, to save him. And that would be her downfall, too.

Lore would capture her, and then he would bring the chosen girl to his people. He would kill her himself, and he and all his people would live forever. He’d be memorialized for generations, songs sung of his heroism, while Sage would be punished and killed. Lore could think of nothing that would make him happier.

Lore smiled wide as he flew over the recharging stone, a plateau of perfectly flat rock, shaped in a circle, smooth from centuries of use by his people, hidden high along the shores of the Hudson, surrounded by thick trees at the river’s edge. His people had used the recharging stone for centuries, and as Lore looked down, he was elated to see, just as he’d expected, Sage lying there on his back, hands and feet out at his sides, face up to the sky, recharging.

Lore dove down immediately, landing by Sage’s side, thrilled to be able to take advantage of him before he could react.

The second Lore’s feet touched the ground, he wasted no time: he pulled out the Askelon shackles, descended on Sage, and in one quick motion, wrapped the shackles around Sage’s wrists, binding his arms behind his back.

Sage cried out, but there was little he could do; he had been caught at a vulnerable moment. One was defenseless while recharging. Of course, there was a sacred law amongst their people to never disturb one another during recharging. And for centuries, Lore had always respected the law.

But these were troubled times, and now there was too much at stake to respect any laws. Now Lore would break any law he needed to, even his own people’s laws, to do whatever he had to to survive.

Lore smiled wide as he grabbed Sage by the shirt and held him close, face-to-face. Sage stood there, trembling from the recharging, looking sickly, unable to defend himself – especially now that he was bound by the Askelon shackles.

“You don’t look well, my brother,” Lore said with a smile.

“You can’t do this,” Sage said. “You have broken the sacred law. You cannot touch anyone while recharging.”

“Nor can you let the girl go,” Lore replied. “It seems as if we have both broken our people’s laws.”

“You are a coward,” Sage sneered.

Lore smiled.

“Those labels mean nothing to me now, my brother. I do what I need to do, and I will survive. You, my friend, I am sorry to say, will not.”

Lore grimaced as he held Sage tight.

“You see, Sage, while all these centuries you got the best of me, you were the better man, the one most loved, it seems our fortunes have now turned. I will be the savior, not you. I will be the ones the bards sing of, not you. I am going to bring you to our people for judgment. They will know what to do with you. And best of all, you will be the flame that attracts” – he smiled wide – “Scarlet.”

Sage’s eyes opened wide in fear and anger.

“You can’t!” Sage said. “Even you would not stoop so low!”

Lore leaned back and laughed, a shrill, piercing laugh which ripped through the woods, up to the very sky.

“You have no idea, my brother,” Lore said, “just how low I can be.”

Chapter Twenty Two

Caitlin sat in the Beinecke Rare Book Library on the Yale campus, hunched over the Voynich manuscript, a librarian standing discreetly over her shoulder, hands clasped, waiting, watching over her. Caitlin reached out, latex gloves on, and studied the book, fingering each page gently.

Caitlin had been grateful that they had allowed her, after she’d displayed her scholars’ credentials from Columbia, to examine the book. The librarian had taken her to a private table in a private room, here in this special branch of the Yale library, and had set it down before her, allowing her to peruse it under her careful watch.

Caitlin sat there, exhausted, her heart thumping wildly, sensing that this book held a great secret, that the key to finding out what happened to the lost vampire race lay here, in this manuscript. Caitlin could not just show up in Egypt at the Sphinx and hope to enter. There would be guards and no obvious way to get in, if an entrance even existed. She needed to know more. She needed to know what she was getting into, before she even considered flying halfway across the world.

As Caitlin scanned the Voynich manuscript, the first time she had ever seen it, she was blown away. She had heard of this volume her entire life, the most controversial and mysterious book known to man, filled with a curious collection of scientific analyses of botanical plants, various cures and remedies, and hundreds of drawings and diagrams in all different colors, written, it was speculated, sometime in the mid-fifteenth century in Europe. Nobody, not one of the scholars who had grappled with it over the centuries, had ever been able to decipher what it all meant, what the odd drawings were, what all the zodiac signs meant. Theories swirled that the book had been written by aliens; that it included prophecies for the end of the world; that it held the key to everything from decoding the Bible to unlocking lost worlds. Caitlin had read all the lore and mythology surrounding it, and she didn’t know what to think. Neither did any scholar who came before her. It had never been properly, definitively debunked, and that in itself was alarming.

Now that Caitlin held the actual book in her hands, felt the weight of it, she was in awe. The book was bigger than she thought, heavier, more substantial, and the drawings, done in color so many hundreds of years ago, were still so vibrant, so vivid, the colors popping off the pages as if they had just been printed. The text was in a language no one understood. It was all, from start to finish, a mystery.

As Caitlin turned the pages, took it all in, a pattern began to emerge in her brain. She had to give herself some credit; after all, she was one of the most distinguished scholars of her time, and she had a mind unlike any other, bringing to her scholarship a perception that even Aiden did not share. Maybe she was able to decipher patterns that others were not. Or maybe it was something else; maybe she was experiencing flashbacks. Or maybe it was just a mother’s love for her daughter, a desperation that was driving her to grasp the text. She was not just another historian looking casually for answers; she was a mother with her daughter’s life at stake. She had to decode this book. As a mother could lift a car that her daughter was trapped under, Caitlin felt that her mind, in such a time of desperation, could rise to the task, could become a super mind, could decrypt and decipher something that no one else could.

Indeed, as Caitlin flipped through the pages, one after the next, she felt something happening, felt her mind tingling and buzzing, as she began to see patterns in the words and phrases. She did not understand the language, but she began to get a bird’s-eye feeling of the visuals, the appearance of the letters in the lines. She began to see things. At first it was just a letter, here and there. Then it became a pattern of letters. On one page, she saw a word spelled out in the shape of a diagonal, the letters slanting down to the left and to the right and back again. On the next, she saw a word spelled out in a circle. On the next page, in a long rectangle.

Caitlin did not understand how the patterns were coming to her, but they were. Her heart pounding madly, she began to decode it all.

It began to dawn on her that this was not meant to be an entire book. It was meant to be one word per page, meant to spell out but a few sentences. A key. A code. A message, for the initiated. Meant only for the one who knew how to look.

Caitlin checked off the words as she turned page after page, and she remembered them, and in her mind, sentences began to form:

The last vampire will arise after 2,000 years have passed. She will rise across the ocean and will be named for the color of blood. To enter the city, one needs a key. And the key can only be found here.

Caitlin’s hands shook as she turned the final page of the book, and saw on it nothing but a large diagram, a picture. It was a circle, and inside was what looked like petals of a flower, alternating scarlet and blue. In its center was another circle, with a crude drawing of a face. It was one of the most unusual drawings Caitlin had ever seen, looking like something out a surrealist painting.

As Caitlin looked closely she recognized the symbol – and as she did, aghast, her breath caught in her throat, her hands shaking.

What shocked her was not how unusual the symbol was – but how familiar. She had seen it before, this drawing, many times. It adorned a small leather box belonging to her grandmother. A box that still sat in her grandmother’s attic, in her old house in Florida. That symbol had been a persistent mystery of Caitlin’s childhood, especially after her grandmother had chastised her one day and told her never to touch the box again.

As Caitlin, hands trembling, looked at the last page, she made out a word spelled backwards, written in fine print, in cursive, surrounding the circle. She looked over every sixth word, then every fifth then fourth, then third, and another pattern began to emerge. She went around the circle, again and again, and her heart stopped as she gasped and dropped the book.

There was no mistaking it. The circle spelled out a word. A single word. Her last name:

Paine.

Chapter Twenty Three

Scarlet stood at the edge of the Hudson River as the sun began to set, standing inside the old, abandoned ruin of the gazebo, their destined meeting place, a place they had both been to before. In this lonely, desolate area hidden by trees, on the edge of the shores, was a private place that only Scarlet and Sage knew about, a place they could mistake for no other. She had been looking forward to meeting him here with such excitement, looking forward to their next time together more than she could say.

Yet now Scarlet cried as she stood there, looking out at the river, watching the sun set, hardly able to comprehend that she was standing here alone. Sage had promised he would meet her here by four o’clock. Now it was after five.

Sage’s ominous last words rang in her head: If I’m not there by four, you can be sure that I’m dead. I would never leave you. I would never abandon you.

Scarlet wept and wept. She had been standing there for an over an hour. Obviously Sage had not made it back from wherever he had gone. Where had he gone? she wondered, burning with frustration, with a desire to know. Why couldn’t he have just told her? Why had he even had to leave? Scarlet would have wanted to be there with them, in his final dying moments. She would have wanted to do anything she could to save him. Why did he feel he had to go off and die alone?

Scarlet, still weeping, stepped out of the gazebo, looking out as the crimson sun began to spread over the river. It felt like death falling all around her, like the last day on earth, the last day she would want to live. With Sage gone, she didn’t want to live, either. The earth held nothing left.

Scarlet slowly stopped crying, took a deep breath, and wiped her tears, feeling a sense of resolve come over her. She knew what she had to do. It was time to say her goodbyes. She would go home, see her parents one last time, and then join Sage, wherever he was.

* * *

Scarlet hurried up the front steps to her house, noticing there were no cars in the driveway, and wondered where her parents could be. On the one hand, she had to admit that it felt good to be home, in a familiar place, a place that was hers; yet on the other hand, she knew this was no longer her home. She had changed so much since leaving here, she now felt as if she were walking up the steps to another world. Another place. Another lifetime.

As Scarlet reached the door, she was surprised to find it already ajar. She pushed it open further, walked inside, and was shocked at the sight before her.

Her entire house was trashed, curtains on the floor, curtain rods hanging half off the wall, couches torn apart, furniture upended – it looked like a tornado had spun through. Her parents’ precious mahogany dining table was on its side, all the china in the cabinets was smashed, glass littered the floor everywhere. It was like walking through a place that had been bombed. There was not a single thing left intact.

Scarlet looked around in terror, trying to fathom what could have happened.… Who could have done such a thing? And why?

As Scarlet stood there in shock, she spotted a small piece of paper hanging from the chandelier in the dining room, the one thing left untouched. It was a note written on a piece of parchment, in letters that looked like they were written in blood.

Scarlet stepped forward, glass crunching beneath her boots, and pulled down the note with shaking hands. She held it close, and read:

I have Sage. He is captive in our ancestral home, on Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands. If you want to save him, come. If you want to let him die a slow painful death, if you want us to torture him until his very last breath, then stay where you are. How much do you really love him?

Scarlet, aghast, let the note drop from her hands, as she wondered who could have penned it. Her mind focused on one person: Lore. His jealous, hateful cousin. He was the only one who could have done this.

It was a trap, she knew. His kind wanted her up there. They wanted her dead, so that they could live. They were using Sage to get to her.

Scarlet breathed deep, overwhelmed; she couldn’t stand the idea of Sage held captive, being tortured. She couldn’t stand the idea of his dying. She felt that if he was dead she had nothing left to live for anyway, and if going there would save him, then so be it. Even if she were the prey going to slaughter, walking into a trap, then so be it. It was worth it for her, to save Sage.

Determined, Scarlet spun on her heel and began to march out – when she suddenly looked up to see a group of people standing inside her doorway, looking at her in surprise and wonder. She recognized the man in the middle; it was the priest from the church down the block. But the others, dressed in all black, she did not recognize.

Scarlet stared, confused.

“Father, what are you doing in my house?” she asked, aware that they were blocking her exit, and impatient to leave.

“My daughter,” he said, “what have you done to your parents’ home?”

They all looked about, horrified, and Scarlet looked too, realizing they thought she did this.

“I didn’t,” she said.

His eyes were filled with compassion, but not the eyes of those who joined him. They were older priests, and they looked at her darkly, with no warmth in their gaze.

They all gazed at her skeptically.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” one of them said. “I’m sure the wind just swept through here and happened to destroy their home while you were here.”

“What business is it of yours?” Scarlet snapped. “Who are you all? What are you doing in my house? I didn’t invite you in.”

“No, my lady,” one said, “a vampire never invites anyone in.”

Scarlet stared back in the tense silence, wondering how much they knew.

“We have come to help you,” another said. “To cure you.”

The three priests she didn’t know stepped forward. Each took a shiny silver crucifix from inside their waistband, held it up toward her, and began to chant in Latin:

Deje Lo que está dentro de ti que seas libre

Scarlet felt her insides turning, felt a prickly heat rising on her skin, felt a great rage overcoming her. She lunged forward, letting out a guttural scream, hardly even aware of what she was doing, and in one quick motion, she grabbed each of the strange men and threw them like rag dolls across the room. They each smashed into a wall before collapsing on the floor, lying there unconscious.

The house was still again. The only one who remained standing there, trembling, facing her, was the priest she knew. He had not chanted at her, so she had left him untouched.

“Tell your friends to stay away from me,” she said, her voice dark, primal. “Next time I shall not be so kind.”

With that, Scarlet turned, took two steps out of her house, and leapt into the air, flying, soaring high, knowing the priest was watching from below but not caring. She had a man to save. A man she loved.

And she would go to the depths of hell to do it.

Chapter Twenty Four

Caleb drove faster as he pulled into the gates of Scarlet’s high school and spotted commotion up ahead. He rode in his pickup, Sam by his side, determined to come here on the off chance that Kyle had come here looking for Scarlet.

But Caleb had never expected to see the sight before him. There was chaos in the parking lot, kids screaming, running and racing down the steps, and as Caleb gained speed, his heart pounding, he realized something here was very, very wrong. It looked like a FEMA disaster scene.

The front doors of the high school were torn off their hinges, broken glass was everywhere, and kids screamed as they fled from the school, pouring down the steps out to the parking lot, clearly running for safety. Caleb had a sinking premonition as he watched the whole scene that it all had something to do with Scarlet. And something to do with Kyle.

“Get ready,” Caleb said, tensing up. “He’s here.”

Sam reached into the glove, took out two pistols, locked and loaded them, and placed one in Caleb’s lap.

“I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s take out this piece of trash.”

Kyle was not going to get away this time. Caleb was determined.

Caleb screeched to a stop before the steps, and he had barely killed the ignition before he and Sam jumped out of the car, each with a gun in their belt, and began to run up the steps.

Caleb looked up and suddenly stopped short, as did Sam, as she saw, right before him, the very man he was seeking. Kyle came walking casually out of the building, a huge grin on his face, as if nothing were wrong.

Kyle locked eyes with Caleb, then his eyes lowered to Caleb’s gun. Caleb expected to see fear, or at least hesitation; but the strangest thing happened. Instead of expressing hesitation, or fear, or shock, like any normal person, Kyle just smiled wider, carefree, and continued to saunter right toward them.

Caleb, heart pounding, raised his gun.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Come any closer, I’ll shoot.”

Sam, too, raised his gun.

Kyle grinned wide and stopped, looking at them both as if he were amused.

“Where’s my daughter?” Caleb seethed.

“Isn’t that funny,” Kyle said. “Seems like we have something in common. I want her, too. Maybe when I find her, I’ll tell you where she is. Then again, maybe I won’t.”

Kyle broke into harsh laughter, and as he did, Caleb spotted sharp fangs glistening on the sides of his mouth, and his breath caught. It was real. He was a vampire. His daughter had made this man a vampire. Caleb felt numb.

Kyle lowered his head and began walking quickly toward them.

“Then again,” Kyle said, “maybe I’ll just kill you first. And kill your daughter later.”

“Don’t move!” Caleb yelled.

Kyle ignored him, getting closer, feet away, and Caleb knew it was now or never.

Caleb aimed his gun at Kyle and fired five times. As he did, the gun shook and vibrated in his hand, booming in his ears.

Caleb heard the shouts and screams of students all around them, as he then heard Sam unleashing five shots of his own.

Kyle took shot after shot, his body convulsing with each blast, the two of them filling him with at least ten rounds. It was enough ammunition to kill an elephant, and Caleb watched in satisfaction as Kyle finally fell backwards onto the steps, one hand still holding the metal railing, and lay there, covered in blood, unmoving.

Caleb lowered his smoking gun, looked at Sam, who did the same, and slowly they put the guns in their belt, kids screaming and fleeing all around them. Caleb walked forward to examine Kyle’s dead body. He had never killed a man, not like this, not up close and not in any context outside of war, and his body was trembling from the event. Part of him, despite everything, felt bad. Here he was, having killed another human being. Or was he even human?

Then again, this man had hurt his daughter, Caleb reminded himself. He had killed cops. He would have hurt others. He had no choice.

Caleb began to hear the sound of distant sirens, and soon police cars began to screech into the lot. Caleb stood over Kyle’s body and saw a pool of blood streaming from him, looking as vengeful in death as he had in life. Caleb felt a great sense of relief.

Suddenly, Kyle’s eyes opened wide.

Caleb stood there, frozen in shock, not comprehending what he was seeing.

Kyle jumped to his feet in one quick motion, and stood there, facing them, looking down at them. Caleb was too stunned to react.

Kyle grabbed each of them with each hand, and hoisted each high above his head as if they were nothing. He stared up at them.

“Next time,” Kyle seethed, grinning, “buy a bigger gun.”

Kyle pulled them back, swung them around, and threw them both, and Caleb felt himself flying through the air, going a good twenty feet before landing on the concrete, rolling again and again, bruised and scratched up. He rolled hard, and finally stopped when he banged into a tree.

Caleb lay there, his head pounding, ears ringing, feeling every bone in his body aching, with a vague sense that Sam was on the ground next to him. Caleb looked up and saw Kyle bearing down on them, marching down the steps, a devilish gleam in his eye.

“Now you’re going to die the hard way,” Kyle said.

Suddenly, a dozen police cars, sirens blaring, screeched up on the pavement, blocking the way between Kyle and Caleb and Sam, cutting Kyle off. Dozens of officers jumped out of the cars and raised their guns at Kyle.

“FREEZE!” they shouted.

Kyle ignored them, and they fired on him, again and again and again. It sounded like a warzone. Caleb watched Kyle take more lead than any creature possibly could. At times he stumbled back. But he never fell.

“Let’s go,” Caleb yelled out to Sam, lying a few feet away.

They scrambled to their feet and took off. Caleb wasn’t about to wait around to see what happened. He knew that creature was surrounded by enough cops to kill an army.

And he knew the cops didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Twenty Five

Sage felt a burning pain in his arms and legs as he struggled against the Askelon shackles, to no use. He hung there, on the huge Askelon cross, his arms bound on either side of them, his legs tied below, and looked out and saw thousands of his kind, more of his people than he’d ever seen gathered in one place, all swarming around the grand hall in Boldt Castle. It was an immense hall, hundreds of feet high, shaped in an arch, and they swarmed about in agitated chaos, some of them buzzing through the air, others pacing the ground, while Sage hung there, in the center, an object of display and scorn.

Sage felt so weak; he had been dragged from his recharging station before he’d had a chance to recover, and he felt himself dying. He knew his time had come. His only regret was that he wanted more time with Scarlet, or at least a chance to say goodbye. He thought of her showing up at their meeting place, and his not being there, and it broke his heart. He could only imagine how hurt she had been. She must have thought he had abandoned her; or worse, that he was already dead.

Sage leaned back and looked up and he saw the ceiling of the hall, tapered, and hundreds of feet high, he saw the hole through it, through which he saw the night sky, the stars, the crescent moon. It let in cool air through the place, and cooled down the frenetic swarming and buzzing of all his people. Sage saw the moon and knew his people still had a few days before the moon finished waning.

Sage looked back down and saw the angry faces of his people staring up at him as if he were the greatest villain. But he no longer cared. He cared not for himself, cared not for the burning pain in his arms and shoulders and legs. He knew they would torture him greatly, and he didn’t care about that, either. He cared only for Scarlet. He prayed that she was safe, far away from here. That none of his people would ever find her.

“SILENCE!” screamed a voice.

Slowly, the room quieted, as their leader slammed his long metal staff on the stone of the ancient castle again and again.

Soon, one could hear a pin drop, as the leader emerged from the crowd. Sage laid eyes on him: Octal. A man he hadn’t seen in years, twice as tall as the others, wearing a long scarlet cloak, and wielding the metal staff of Komber. He held the staff up, with its ancient crooked cross perched on the end of it, a cross said to be able to pierce and burn even the strongest foe, a mystical weapon feared by his kind, and wielded only by their leader.

Octal stepped forward, his translucent eyes burning through Sage as he stared at him with disapproval and condescension.

“You stand now before your people,” Octal’s dark voice boomed throughout the room, echoing off the halls, as he glared at Sage, “you, who had the chance to let us all live two thousand more years. Instead, we shall all die because of you. Have you any final words for yourself?”

Sage stared back with contempt, not having the energy to respond. He knew it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

After a long silence, Octal scowled.

“You may have given up on life,” he said, “but we have not. It is too late for you now, but not for us. I’m going to be kind and give you one last chance. I’ll forgive your sins, and pardon you, and let you live, if you lead us to the girl. Give up her life, and save all of us, your family and brothers.”

“If you do not, your final days on this planet will be more grievous than you can imagine. We will torture you in ways you cannot imagine, and introduce you to a hell you’ve never known.”

There was an agitated buzzing throughout the crowd, a murmur of approval, as the leader stepped forward and raised the tip of his staff to Sage’s chest. As the staff came closer, Sage already felt the pain. He writhed in agony, groaning, turning his head away, the searing heat coming off it unbearable. Sage knew that when it touched his skin, he would experience pain unlike any he’d ever had. The tip of the crooked cross came closer.

“Tell us,” the leader said softly. “Where is she? Will you give her up for your family?”

Finally, Sage summoned the strength to look him in the eye.

“Never,” he replied. “You may do anything you wish to me. But I will never, ever, bring you to her.”

The crowd of thousands broke out into angry murmurs, and the leader grimaced, stepped forward, and raised the crooked cross right up to Sage’s chest, sticking it against it.

Sage shrieked as the cross seared his flesh, feeling a pain rip through his bones worse than anything he could ever have imagined. The leader held it there, grimacing, pushing it deeper and deeper, as Sage screamed, wanting his life to end, but determined to never give up Scarlet.

“I think you’ll come to find,” the leader said, pushing it deeper, “that you haven’t even begun to understand what pain means.”

Chapter Twenty Six

Caitlin sat in the passenger seat, holding onto the handle, as Caleb made a hard turn onto their street and pulled up to their house, screeching to a stop before it. Caitlin leaned forward and craned her neck, peering into their lit-up house, hoping beyond hope that Scarlet had returned.

It had been a whirlwind of a drive ever since the train station, where Caleb had picked her up. Caitlin had been speechless as Caleb, all bruised up, had filled her in on all that had happened with Kyle, with his escape, with the shooting in the high school and how lucky he was to be alive. Caitlin was both horrified and grateful that Caleb had not been killed. She had warned him to stay away from Kyle until she had discovered the weapon they needed – if she ever discovered it. He had not listened; she’d had a feeling that he would not.

Caitlin had filled him in, too, on her research, on the clues she had discovered, and on where she felt they needed to go next to solve this. Caleb had listened with rapt attention, and this time around he seemed to no longer be a skeptic, after all that had happened with Kyle. Now he had seen it with his own eyes; now he knew what they were dealing with. Now he hung on her every word and seemed all too willing to follow whatever leads she had.

Their first stop, they both knew, had to be home, to see if there was any word from Scarlet, any trace of her anywhere. And if not, to pack up, head to Florida, to Caitlin’s grandmother’s, to search her attic and get the clue they would need to lead them inside the lost city beneath the Sphinx.

As they pulled up in front of the house, Caitlin, expecting to see her home empty, was shocked by the sight: her front door was ajar, the lights were on, and she saw motion inside.

“Did you leave the door open?” she asked Caleb.

He shook his head.

Caleb reached out, grabbed his gun, and cocked it.

Caitlin looked at him, horrified.

“What are you doing? Where did you get that?”

“I don’t know what’s going on around here anymore,” he said, “and I’m not taking any chances.”

They jumped out of the car, hurried up the creaking wooden steps to their porch, and ran through the open front door.

As they crossed the threshold, Caitlin gasped.

It was a devastating sight. Her entire house, everything she’d known and loved and saved for her entire life, was smashed, destroyed, everything in bits and pieces. There were shards of broken glass, broken china, furniture ripped, everything destroyed, as if a lawnmower had ridden over it. She couldn’t imagine what could cause such awful destruction, short of a tornado.

Even more shocking was the sight of the three priests slumped on the floor, bloody, and a fourth priest, the one she knew from down the block, standing in her living room, looking at her, terrified.

“What are you doing in our home?” Caitlin asked.

“What happened here?” Caleb asked him.

The priest looked shell-shocked, eyes open, mouth agape, as he slowly shook his head. He seemed too stunned to even speak.

Caitlin walked through the mess, glass crunching beneath her feet, her eye attracted to a note she saw on the floor. She leaned down, picked it up, and with shaking hands began to read.

“Caleb, look at this,” she said quickly.

Caleb hurried over, and the two of them examined the note together.

“This note was left for Scarlet,” she said. “Sage. That was the boy. Boldt Castle… I think she was here. I think she read this. I think that’s where she’s gone. She’s going to save him.”

“Let’s go,” Caleb said.

Caleb grabbed her hand, and they began to hurry out of the house, Caitlin caring about nothing but finding Scarlet and saving her.

As they reached the front door, the night suddenly lit up with flashing sirens outside the house. She saw a police cruiser parked outside, heard footsteps on her wooden porch, and saw two local police officers, whom she knew from town, walk in uninvited.

“Mr. and Mrs. Paine,” one of the officers said.

The officers did not look at them in a friendly way, as they had their entire lives. Instead, they looked at them suspiciously, as if they were criminals. Even the tone of his voice was more somber than ever before.

They stepped in and looked around the house, taking it all in.

“What happened here?” he said. “We received complaints.”

Caitlin and Caleb looked around the house themselves, and Caitlin realized how bad it must look. She didn’t know how to explain, and she didn’t have time to – she wanted to find Scarlet.

“I don’t know,” said Caleb. “We just walked in.”

The cops look at him suspiciously, unwavering.

“I’m sorry to say this, Caleb,” he said, “but we have multiple reports of you at the high school, carrying a gun, firing. You and your brother-in-law, Sam. A lot of witnesses. Was it you?” he said, as his eyes roamed the house, then looked at the priests lying on the floor with concern.

“Did you do this?” the other police officer asked Caleb. “Who are those men? Are they hurt?”

The officer hurried over and knelt beside the priests.

Caitlin suddenly felt a sense of horror, as she realized they were both looking at Caleb suspiciously, clearly thinking he was responsible.

“You have the wrong idea,” Caleb said. “This wasn’t me. None of it was me. You don’t understand what we are dealing with here. Why would I destroy my own home?”

“A lot of cops are dead,” an officer said. “A lot of people are asking a lot of questions, and a lot of fingers are pointing to you.”

“Me?” Caleb said, indignant.

“Are you denying that you were at the high school? That you fired a gun?”

“I was there,” Caleb said. “I did fire. But you don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry,” the officer said, shaking his head, reaching for his handcuffs, “but we have to bring you in for questioning.”

Caitlin and Caleb exchanged a horrified look as the two officers approached. Caleb looked stunned, frozen.

Caitlin realized that if they took Caleb away, their only hope of finding Scarlet would be gone.

“No!” Caitlin shouted.

Caitlin stepped forward and shoved the officer, pushing him away from Caleb – and Caleb grabbed Caitlin’s hand and pulled her, racing out the front door.

“FREEZE!” the cops yelled out behind them.

Caitlin and Caleb ran down the steps, racing through the cold night, jumping into the car together. Caleb slammed the door, turned the key, gunned the engine, and the two of them peeled off.

Caitlin looked over her shoulder, saw the cops running after them, scrambling into their car, turning on the lights, talking into their radios. The cruiser took off after them; it was only a few blocks behind them.

They sped through the night, fugitives on the run, and Caitlin knew that soon, the entire police force would be after them.

“Where are we going?” Caitlin asked Caleb.

Caleb, driving like a maniac, didn’t look at her as he replied:

“To Scarlet.”

Chapter Twenty Seven

Kyle landed outside the tall stone gates heralding a long, tree-lined cobblestone driveway that wound its way longer than any driveway ever should, up to a massive private mansion. Kyle could have landed inside the gates – he could have landed right on the roof of the mansion if he’d wanted. But instead, he had flown over it, scouting it out from above, seeing the sprawling acres, the huge historic structure, the swimming pool and tennis court, the ancient oak trees, the sculpture scattered on the lawn, and he had felt sick from it. It was more than any one man should be entitled to. Much less this bratty little girl, Scarlet’s best friend.

Vivian.

Kyle thought it would be fun to land before the gates, to take his time walking up to the house and enjoying himself. After all, it was a beautiful fall day, and it would be a nice long walk up the driveway. He hoped he could even let them see him approaching, and strike terror and fear into their hearts. He smiled at the thought. Nothing would give him more joy.

As Kyle stepped toward the massive iron gates, a sudden crackle came out over the intercom.

“May I help you?” came a voice. “This is a private residence.”

Kyle smiled as he walked over to microphone.

“You can’t help me,” he replied, “but maybe you should help yourselves.”

Kyle reached out, grabbed the box, and yanked it out of the wall, exposing its wires. As it hissed and beeped with feedback, Kyle smashed it to the ground. There, he thought. That was already an improvement for this place.

Kyle reached out grabbed hold of the two huge iron gates, a thousand pounds each, and he easily tore them from their hinges. There came a crumbling of rock and rubble.

Kyle wound up and threw the iron gates and they went flying a good hundred yards, smashing into the car sitting at the end of the driveway – a brand new Bentley. There came a great showering of glass, and car alarms went off, piercing the tranquil fall afternoon air.

Kyle beamed, thrilled at his aim.

Kyle began to walk calmly up the driveway, smiling wildly, already in a good mood, looking at the chaos and destruction already before him. He walked casually, as if he had all the time in the world, passing several other cars – Lamborghinis and Mercedes and Maseratis – that were parked in the driveway.

Finally, he climbed the white marble steps leading to the front door, and as he did, Kyle could hear multiple bolts being locked behind the double-wide mahogany front doors. He could hear alarms being set, could hear a frantic voice calling the police. Kyle knew that was a waste of time: with a mansion like this, the police would have been notified automatically, the second he broke that intercom. The people inside were panicking.

He smiled broadly. As well they should.

Kyle grabbed the gold-plated doorknobs and with a good yank he tore the thick mahogany doors off their hinges, throwing them back behind him and into the Lamborghini. He glanced over his shoulder and admired his handiwork.

Kyle looked into the front door and saw a caretaker standing there, holding a cell phone, looking at him with panic.

“I told you to help yourself,” Kyle said, as he took two steps in, grabbed the man by the shirt, and hoisted him into the air.

“The police are on their way!” the man shouted, frantic.

Kyle smiled.

“I myself could never afford help,” Kyle said. “Then again, I couldn’t afford a house, either. You might say that I learned to help myself.”

Kyle turned and threw the man and he went flying a good fifty yards, until he landed in the marble bubbling fountain in the center of the circular driveway, smashing it to pieces. He lay there, unmoving.

Kyle shook his head at the sight.

“Should’ve took another job,” he said. “That’s what you get for working for rich people.”

Kyle turned back and stepped into the house. It was adorned with a huge marble foyer, sweeping ceilings thirty feet high, a whole wall of glass facing out back, through which he could see a marble stone patio about fifty feet deep, leading to a massive pool.

Lounging beside the pool he saw a girl who must be Vivian, maybe seventeen, lying there, dressed but taking advantage of the sun even though it was November, clearly oblivious to all the goings-on the other side of the house.

Kyle grinned.

“Nice spread,” he murmured to himself, admiring the decor as he casually walked through the foyer. He ran his hand along the back of a silk settee, then reached out and touched a priceless vase of china. He leaned over and smelled the flowers.

“I could have used a spread like this in prison,” he said.

Kyle slid the china vase toward the edge gingerly, little by little, until it hovered on the edge. Then he gave it one tiny push, and he laughed as it fell and shattered into pieces, the flowers falling onto the floor.

“Whoops,” he said.

From outside, Kyle could already hear the distant sirens. The police were surely coming for him. His clock was ticking.

Kyle marched across the foyer, out the French doors, which were already ajar, the curtains billowing in the wind, and he walked quietly across the endless marble plaza until he was poolside. There were dozens of plush lounge chairs lined up around it, only one of them occupied.

Vivian.

She lay there, her back to him, eyes closed to the sunny November sky.

“Carlos, is that you?” Vivian called out, eyes still closed as she lay in the sun. “You forgot the lime in my seltzer.”

She lay there, eyes closed, frowning.

“Carlos?” she called out. “Do you hear me? I need another. And do it right this time.”

Kyle walked up to her, grinning as he sat on a chair beside her.

“Lime, huh?” he said. “I always go for lemon when I order my servants around.”

Vivian sat up in a panic, squinting over at him, raising a hand to the sun, disoriented. At the sight of him she flinched, pulling her sweater tighter and jumping back a bit, as if some grotesque creature had just landed beside her and violated her space.

“Who are you?” she demanded, with the insolent voice of the rich. “How did you get here? The service entrance is around front.”

“A bit cold for tanning, wouldn’t you say?” Kyle said.

“Did you hear me?” she asked. “What are you doing here? I can call the police, you know.”

Kyle laughed, slapping his thigh. This one had spirit.

“Check. Someone beat you to it. But they won’t help you now.”

Vivian’s brow furrowed in recognition that she was in danger, and for the first time, worry crossed her face. She began to get up, but Kyle reached out and draped an arm around her shoulder, held her close. He squeezed her tight, holding her there as she squirmed uncomfortably.

“Get off of me!” she snapped. “What do you want? Let go! Please. I don’t know you. My daddy can pay you whatever you want. Just tell me how much you want. Please, let me go!”

Kyle held her tight, laughing madly, and Vivian began to cry.

“I don’t want your daddy’s money,” he said. “I want something far more valuable.”

“What?” she asked. “What do you want? Please, just let me go!”

She struggled, but he held her tight.

“I will ask you once,” he said. “Lie to me, and you’ll be swimming in that gunite pool of yours, far beneath that tarp. Answer correctly, and I’ll let you go.”

She cried, weeping, truly scared.

“Please,” she said between tears. “Just let me go. Whatever you want, I’ll tell you. Do you want to code to the safe?”

Kyle shook his head.

“I want to know where your best friend is. Where is Scarlet?”

“Scarlet!?” Vivian said. “My best friend!? I hate her.”

Kyle looked back, confused by her reaction.

“I won’t ask again,” he said. “Where is she?”

“How should I know?” Vivian said. “As long as she’s far away from me, I could care less. I have no idea. Please. I swear. I really don’t know.”

Kyle shook his head as he smiled.

“You’re a good actress,” he said.” I almost believe you. I really almost believe you don’t like her.”

“Please, you don’t understand. I don’t like her!”

“Very good. You’re a loyal friend. I admire loyalty.”

“I’m not loyal! I hate her! Let me go, please!”

“Sorry,” he said. “You came so close to freedom.”

Kylie turned and in one quick motion, sank his teeth into Vivian’s neck.

Vivian screamed and screamed as his fangs sank deeper and he sucked her blood. Kyle felt reborn as her blood entered his veins, felt a sweet ecstasy he did not even know could be possible.

Finally, slowly, Vivian’s body went limp in his arms, and Kyle sat up and wiped the back of his mouth. He looked down at her and realized she was the first person he’d turned. His first protégé.

He stood, smiled wide, and said:

“Welcome to the club.”

Chapter Twenty Eight

Caleb drove like a madman on Route 9 and checked his rearview to see a dozen police cruisers trailing him. They were gaining fast, and he didn’t know how much longer he could shake them.

“We’re not going to outrun them,” Caitlin said. “Should we pull over?”

Caleb shook his head.

“Too late for that,” he said. “They’ll throw us in jail. We’ll never save Scarlet. Not in time.”

“But Scarlet’s upstate. It’s a ten-hour drive – we’ll never make it in time.”

Caleb drove on, his mind racing with a million thoughts. He knew she was right. He knew the police would catch up to them soon enough. He knew they could not travel all the way upstate in this pickup. More than anything, he knew that they needed to rescue Scarlet. Nothing else mattered.

As Caleb drove in desperation, racking his brain for what they could do, suddenly they passed a sign lit up in the night, going almost a hundred miles an hour, and he had an idea. Duchess Air Force Base. It made Caleb think of work. His fighter jets.

Caleb suddenly turned hard, taking the exit way too fast. Their pickup rocked left and right, and for a moment he thought they might flip – but they made the turn. They turned so fast that the cruisers sped right past them, slamming on their brakes on the highway, overshooting the exit. It bought them precious time, maybe a good two minutes.

“Where are you going?” Caitlin screamed.

“To work!” Caleb said.

Caleb sped down the ramp and took a hard right, then sped down the local roads he knew by heart. He was in the back country now, heading to the reserves’ air force base, where he flew every fourth week. Everyone there knew him as they would one of their own brothers.

“I don’t understand,” Caitlin said. “Why are we going to the base?”

“Like you said, we have a long way to go. And we can’t get there by car.”

“What!?” she said, shocked. “Are you kidding?”

Caleb sped up to the gate and came to an abrupt stop as he was stopped by one of the guards.

He rolled down the window, and the guard recognized him.

“Officer Paine, sir.” The guard peered at him. “What are you doing here this time of night?”

“I need to check on one of the planes,” Caleb said.

The guard looked down at his clipboard, puzzled.

“Sorry, sir, no sign of you in the registry tonight.”

Suddenly, there came the distant sound of sirens. Caleb looked over his shoulder and saw the police on their way; they’d be on his tail in seconds. He looked up and saw the puzzled look of the guard, who watched them come right at him.

Caleb had no choice. The guard suddenly looked skeptical, and Caleb knew it was now or never.

Flooring it, Caleb broke through the guards’ barrier, wood smashing over the hood and windshield.

“Sir, stop!” the guard yelled after him.

Caleb didn’t stop. He sped across the base, weaving in and out of the maintenance checks, over the speed bumps, down the tarmac, speeding right toward one of the small jets that he knew so well, parked at the end of the base. It sat there pгеррed, ready to go, clearly awaiting one of the officers to take it up.

Caleb was determined to get there first.

Caleb looked over his shoulder, saw the police following him onto the tarmac, and he increased speed, then cut it hard and came to a stop at the base of the plane, slamming on the brakes, tires screeching.

They came to a tough stop, and he and Caitlin jumped out. He grabbed her hand, and the two of them ran up the steps to the plane, Caleb’s heart pounding, intent on making it before them.

The police screeched to a halt below, just as Caleb and Caitlin made it to the top of the metal steps.

“Freeze!” the police screamed out, pointing guns.

Caleb gave the ladder a shove and it rolled away as he closed the plane’s door. The door closed just in time, and Caleb knew the cops would never dare shoot at an Air Force jet.

In moments, Caleb and Caitlin were in the cockpit, each taking a seat.

“Buckle up,” Caleb said, furiously pushing buttons, turning knobs and switches.

Caitlin buckled with shaking hands, as Caleb began hitting every switch he knew so well, faster than he ever had. He knew this plane like the back of his hand.

In moments the plane lit up, and Caleb felt it beginning to start, getting ready for takeoff. Down below, before them, he saw officers taking positions, running frantically toward the plane. He knew they would try to stop him, but they wouldn’t get there in time.

“Hang on,” Caleb warned.

Caleb pushed on the throttle, and the jet became a lot louder as it began rolling down the tarmac. Police cars began chasing the plane, keeping pace beside it. Yet Caleb knew they would not dare stop it.

They gained speed, and within moments, Caleb felt the familiar thrill in his stomach as the plane lifted off the ground and flew into the night. He looked over and saw Caitlin, and they took each other’s hands, each relieved, each terrified, as they looked down at the night, saw the lights on the ground getting smaller and smaller, and knew that, in moments, they would see Scarlet, would be flying right into the midst of a vampire war.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Scarlet flew through the cold night air, racing along the Saint Lawrence River, heading north, upstate, into colder and colder territory. She wiped away her tears, and for the first time, felt a fresh sense of determination. For the first time, she felt emboldened, felt a purpose: to save Sage’s life.

She was elated to realize that Sage was not dead, that he did not abandon her, that he was alive and wanted to be with her. That was all she needed to know. She would go to the ends of the earth for him, do anything for him, even give up her own soul.

Which was exactly what she was prepared to do. She knew it was a trap, that she would be flying straight into the lion’s den. She knew that Lore had taken his cousin for a reason, that all of them were awaiting her arrival. That her death would be the key for them all to live forever.

And she didn’t care. She closed her eyes and saw Sage’s face, and as long she could see his face, as long as she could rescue him from whatever danger he was in, Scarlet would give up anything. She’d even give up herself.

Scarlet studied the landscape below her. She had been flying for hours and hours, searching for the island she could not miss, for the vast ancestral castle of their race that Sage had told her about so many times. She looked down and saw the river begin to transform, filled with hundreds of small islands, and she knew it was not far now. She flew faster, determined.

Scarlet turned a bend in the river, and there, in the distance, she saw one island in particular, bigger than the others, on which sat the structure of a towering castle, surrounded by trees. In the center of its roof was a wide, hole, open to the heavens. There was no mistaking it: this was Boldt Castle.

Scarlet dove down, sensing with every part of her body that Sage was inside. As she flew, the clouds racing through her hair, she saw a soft glow coming from inside, and knew it was torchlight. She knew the castle was filled with thousands of Immortalists, all of them waiting to trap her. But she didn’t care.

Scarlet dove straight down, aiming for the hole. She knew that flying in here would mean her own death. They would all descend on her, and her life would end here tonight. But none of that mattered anymore. No matter what happened, she and Sage would be together again.

Content

Morgan Rice
Fated
(Book #11 in the Vampire Journals)

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine