Cover

Title Page

Dedication

To Dad, the original storyteller. Thank you for the walks in the woods.

And to Mom, who still takes care of me. May I be half the mother you are.

One

Blood & Picket Fences

It was a place of nightmares surrounded by a white picket fence.

“Home sweet home,” Reg muttered beside me. His lips tightened over his fangs, and I could almost smell his disdain.

“More like a prison,” I said.

We stood side by side on the edge of the property, unwilling to step forward but not daring to run away—not with Elders present. This place, with its hideously cheery fence glowing in the moonlight, was where we would serve our sentence. Our life sentence.

I felt a claw of panic scraping its way up my throat and spit it at Reg.

“This is your fault, you know,” I said.

His face, always an elegant mask of cool detachment, cracked ever so slightly. “My fault?”

“If you hadn’t confessed—”

“To a crime you committed.”

“Because you tried so hard to stop me?”

“Enough!” Reg spun to me with a speed no human eye could follow and flashed his fangs, nearly as white as the fence.

“Ew. Put those away.” I flicked a pale hand toward the offending teeth.

Rude.

He tucked his fangs back, and when he spoke again, it was with his usual lazy lilt. “It could be worse. It could be the stake.”

There was a shift in the air behind us as the two Elders, who had been conversing in low tones to the side, now stood at our backs. Elder Adante cleared his throat—a totally unnecessary action for our kind, the drama queen.

“Charlotte and Reginald Drake, House of Drake, Clan of Bone, you are hereby sentenced to life.”

Humans got sentenced to things like life in prison or life on parole.

Vampires? Just life. That was punishment enough.

“A stake would be better,” I said, the panic scratching at my throat again. I forced it down. “At least then we could avoid the wrinkles.”

“You never know,” Reg said. “You may not grow old at all. You may get lucky and get hit by a bus.”

“Do you fear death, Charlotte?” Elder Adante asked.

I refused to turn and face the Elders, to let them search my expression for any hint of fear.

“Please.” I scoffed. “The only thing I’m afraid of is being bored to death. And don’t call me Charlotte. It’s Charlie.”

Reg took my hand and squeezed it with all the strength he would soon lose—enough to grind granite into dust.

“My sister fears nothing,” he said.

It was a lie, and he knew it. He couldn’t read my mind, of course—mind manipulation took a hefty dose of vampire venom—but after a century, we didn’t need to hear each other’s thoughts to know them.

“It would be a reasonable fear,” Adante mused. “Life and death are inextricably linked for humans, part of the same cycle, each defined by the other and unable to exist without its counterpart.”

I dragged my gaze beyond the white picket fence. We’d lived so many places in the last hundred years—mansions, penthouses, beach bungalows, and even, in the best of times, castles. I thought we had lived everywhere and every way one could live. But we’d never lived in a—

“What is this?” I whispered.

“Don’t be dense, Charlie,” Reg said. “It’s obviously a cottage.”

“It looks as old as we are,” I complained.

“Older, in fact,” Adante said. “This cottage has been here since before you were born . . . the first time.”

Reg forced a thin smile onto his face. “It’s . . . quaint.”

I wasn’t sure why he was bothering to be polite at this point. Why show respect to the Elders when they hadn’t shown any to us—constantly treating us like children, no matter how long we lived.

“And what is this supposed to be?” I swept an arm to indicate the fence that stretched out before us. It circled the cottage yard and was made entirely of wooden posts—each one thicker and narrower than your typical fence slats and sharpened to a severe point at the top. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Reg eyed the fence and forced a wry smile. “Ah, yes. A fence made of wooden stakes. Very clever,” he congratulated the Elders.

Elder Adante sounded ever so slightly exasperated. “It is a fence, nothing more. Well . . . not quite nothing more.”

I turned, finally. “What is it?”

“It is your punishment.”

Reg gulped. “So it is for— You do mean to— We are to perish, then?”

“Die.” I crossed my arms. “Not perish. Really, Reg, watch some TV, why don’t you.”

“Hardly the time to correct me,” he huffed, “when we’re about to be staked.”

“I doubt we’re going to be staked.”

“I tire of this,” the second Elder said to Adante. I couldn’t remember her name. Mary or Madelaine or something. Until today, Adante was the only Elder we’d really spent any time with, since he was assigned to House Drake. Each house—dozens of them within the four clans—had an Elder representative, a diplomat of sorts. But if Adante was a politician, then this other Elder was the muscle. Power radiated off her in a way that would have chilled me if my body wasn’t already ice-cold.

“You are not to fall upon the posts,” Adante said.

Reg let out a loud sigh of relief.

“But the fence is your end, nonetheless,” Adante continued. “It is the end of this life and the beginning of, well, life. We wish you well.”

It sounded so final, I half expected the Elders to turn and leave, but they stood there as if waiting for us to do something.

“Um, thank you?” Reg tried.

Adante lifted a stiff arm in response—his bony hand a shade darker than ours, but just as bloodless—fingers pointing ominously toward the small gate in the white picket fence. He meant for us to cross through it.

Instinctively, Reg backed away a step instead. But a single step was as far as he got. The other Elder was behind him in an instant. If I had blinked, I would have missed it. She was faster than both me and Reg, and I was certain that her sole job tonight was to make sure we passed through that suspicious gate.

I resisted the urge to expose my fangs. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing any fear. Instead, I summoned up all the attitude I could and pointed at the pile of luggage filling the sidewalk and spilling into the street. “And just who exactly is going to carry our bags? I assume there is no bellhop?”

Adante’s arm still hung in the air, pointed at the gate. He could stand there for a decade and never get tired. “Your bags are not my concern. Now it’s time to go. We’ve said our goodbyes.”

“Yes.” I smiled. “And what warm and fuzzy goodbyes they were. Thanks ever so much for your hospitality over the last century. Do tell everyone back home we said, ‘Bite me.’”

Reg grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the Elders, who remained as still as statues but now had their fangs bared. “Stop it, Charlie.”

“Get it?” A hysterical laugh bubbled up from my throat as Reg dragged me backward. “Bite me?”

“Be quiet!” Reg gave me one final yank, and I stumbled right into the gate. He caught me a split second before I fell through, but my rear end bumped the gate, and it swung open with an ominous creak like a tree swaying in a storm.

As if to complete the scene, a slight breeze swam up from the cottage yard, rustling fallen leaves and blowing my long dark hair across my cheeks.

“We’re going, okay?” Reg called back to the Elders. “We’re going.”

He set me upright, and our eyes locked. At first glance, his eyes were so much like my own—as tar black as our hair. But Reg’s eyes were the kinder pair, always. There was fear in them now, but also a softness. “Let’s make the best of it, shall we?”

“Will we,” I corrected.

“Right.” Reg put on a big fake smile and grabbed my hand tight as we faced the cottage, the tips of our toes right on the threshold of the open gate. “Here we go, then.”

“All your fault,” I breathed. But I squeezed his hand hard, grateful to have at least one part of my life I could still hold on to.

Then together, we stepped through the yawning gate, past the stupid white fence, into the yard.

And our world turned upside down.

Two

This Is New

The second we entered the yard, the breeze that had teased my hair became a roaring wind, whipping up a cocoon around us. For one delirious moment I thought we were running. It felt just as wild as the wind we created when moving at top speed, slicing through the air with a power greater than any man-made engine. But our feet were planted on the ground, and the wind tangling my hair was not a natural one.

I pressed my face to Reginald’s chest, and he wrapped his arms around me. The closer we drew together, the tighter the tornado around us closed in, until it was pressing down on us so hard we couldn’t breathe.

Air. I need air!

The sensation was nothing like the need for blood that I had known for so long. This was more urgent, more all-consuming. It eclipsed all other thoughts and— Oh God, I need air! Panic rippled down my body, and the need for air caused an actual pounding in my chest.

No, wait. That pounding wasn’t need. It was something else. Something I hadn’t felt in a century—something I couldn’t remember ever feeling, because it had been erased from my memory the day I turned vampire. It was my heart. My heart was pounding for the first time in one hundred years.

Just when I thought I might pass out from shock and lack of oxygen, a force more powerful than the wind blew me backward off my feet. I felt Reg’s body ripped from mine with the same energy, and for a split second I was flying, until I landed with a painful thump on my back.

Pain. That was new too.

I gasped, desperate for the air now filling my lungs. Slowly, it came, and after a few moments, I didn’t even have to try to breathe. My body—this new aching thing with a beating heart—breathed for me. I opened my eyes, and a new terror set in.

I can’t see.

“I can’t see!” I called out. “Reg, help! I’m blind!”

“Hush,” Reg said from somewhere across the yard. I heard a rustle and a groan, then his voice drew closer. “Give your eyes a minute to adjust to the dark.”

I did as he said, lying still and keeping my eyes open until one by one, tiny pinpricks of light pierced through the darkness. Stars. A whole sky full of them. Reassured, I sat up, testing my sight. I had to squint to make out Reg crawling toward me through the grass and leaves, clutching his side. Behind him, the white fence glowed, and I followed the line of stakes until it reached the gate, where the Elders stood ever stiff and impassive just outside the fence.

Elder Adante tugged on the ends of his shirtsleeves, making tiny adjustments to his cuff links. He could not have looked more bored.

“The transition is complete,” he said. “I trust you’ll have all you need here.”

I scrambled to my feet, a sudden rage eclipsing all my pain and fear. “That’s it?! You’re just going to drop us here without telling us where to go or what to do?”

Adante indicated the cottage behind us. “You go there. What you do is up to you.”

“As if any of this is up to us,” I snapped.

“Charlie,” Reg warned. “Be calm.”

“Don’t tell me what to—”

“They bicker like children,” the second Elder muttered as if we weren’t there.

“They are children,” Adante replied. “It is precisely the problem. Of all the things we shed when we turn—our memories, our illnesses, our physical imperfections—we cannot lose the essence of who we are. If we are children, we are doomed to remain children.”

“Excuse me, we”—I pointed back and forth between myself and Reg—“are standing right here. And we’re not children.”

Adante’s answer was a cold stare. “You are now.”

The other Elder attempted something like a smile. “It’s for your own good.”

Her patronizing tone set my skin on fire. I felt my face burning from my cheeks all the way up into my hair. I forgot for a moment how powerless I must be—forgot how slow and weak and practically blind I was, and in that moment of amnesia, I rushed toward the Elders, opening my mouth to show them my fangs.

Except I had no fangs, and “rushing” felt like wading through thick honey compared to how fast I could move only minutes ago. I had to pass through the gate to get to the Elders, and for one irrational moment, I wondered if that would restore my powers. But as I crossed the white picket threshold, I felt no change. My heart was still beating, my lungs still pulling in air. Disappointment caused me to stumble. Either that or my toe catching on the edge of the sidewalk.

I tripped and fell, my knees skidding a few inches on the concrete before I landed ungracefully in a tangle at the Elders’ feet. How humiliating. I had never had a clumsy moment in my whole long life.

Adante gave the slightest shake of his head. “A pity.”

“For your own good,” the other Elder repeated.

Then they were gone. Just like that. One moment they were standing above me, and the next, they vanished.

I stood up, ignoring the throbbing in my knees, and spun around on the spot, trying to find the Elders in the dark. But all I could see was the cottage, with black hills cutting a curving line across the night sky on either side of it, and across the road, a wall of something—probably corn—waving and whispering in the dark.

“They— Where did they . . . ? How did they . . . ?” I turned in a new direction with every stutter, still searching the shadows, but all I saw was Reg.

He was on his feet now, leaning against the fence and still holding his side. His mouth was hanging open in a shell-shocked expression that only amplified my fear.

“Reg, they disappeared! Did you know they could do that?”

He shook his head slowly. “Even the Ancients can’t disappear. How can Elders?”

“They can’t,” a voice like gravel said from behind Reg.

I had to squint to make out the shadowy figure on the front porch of the cottage. “Who’s there?” I called. I stepped back into the yard, flinching a little as I passed the picket fence, but there was no wind this time.

“Vamps can’t disappear.” It was a man—an old one by the sound of it. “They just jogged off—same as they always do. Only you can’t see it now. Little too fast for your eyeballs to follow.” The old man chuckled, and it sounded more like a cough.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “What are you doing here? This is our . . . cottage.” I waved a hand miserably over the tiny building. It wasn’t much, but if it was all we had, I was ready to fight for it.

The shadow on the porch lumbered down the few steps to the lawn. I could make out his outline now, and it was large and strong, making him seem younger than his rasp. I wasn’t great at guessing human ages, but I pegged him at about sixty. The raspy chuckle came again.

“On the contrary. This is my cottage, and you are my guests . . . for the time being. Think of me as your caretaker.”

“Sir.” Reg gave an embarrassing little bow, and I stomped on his toe. “Ow!”

“We don’t need taking care of,” I said.

“If you say so.” The old man’s hand stroked his chin, and I could see a beard and mustache taking shape in the dark. “But way I see it, you do need a place to stay, so let’s just start there, huh?”

“And the way I see it, we’ve been taking orders from Elders for too long,” I said, propping a hand on my hip. “Look where that got us—a shack in the middle of nowhere.”

The man coughed. “We’re actually just outside of Nowhere, and I’ll thank you not to call my home a shack or me an Elder. I’d venture to say you’re a fair bit older than I am, little lady, though it may not look that way.”

“You’re not vampire?” Reg asked.

The man’s hand stopped pawing his beard and became a fist at his side. “’Course not. And lucky for you two, neither are you anymore.”

“Lucky?” I breathed fire. “Lucky?! This is the worst—”

Reg squeezed my arm. “Perhaps we are getting off on the wrong foot. My name is Reginald. This is my sister, Charlotte.”

“Charlie.” I pouted.

Reg crossed the yard with his hand out toward the man, but at least he didn’t bow this time. “You may call me Reg.”

“And you can call me a recluse. All the kids do.” They shook hands, and Reg looked like he might break in the old man’s powerful grasp.

“We’re not kids,” I said, still lingering back by the fence.

“You’ve been kids for a very long time, I suspect,” the man said. “But you won’t be for much longer. Enjoy the few years you’ve got left. One day you’ll be wishing you were kids again.”

“Spare me the teachable moment.”

The man spread his arms wide. “Look, it’s way past late. You’re welcome to sleep out here if you like, but I, for one, am going inside. If you choose to stay in my shack, there are rooms made up for you.”

“We’d like that very much,” Reg nodded hastily. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Speaking of hospitality,” I said, “we have a lot of luggage.”

Reg gestured to our mountain of suitcases out on the sidewalk. “Yes, is there someone . . . ?” He trailed off.

The old man eyed the bags. “Best get to hauling it in, then.” He was chuckling again as he made his way back up the porch steps.

I waited until he was inside the cottage to fix Reg with my most withering stare. “Sir? Thank you for your hospitality? Since when are you so polite to humans?”

“Since we became them,” Reg said. He strode across the lawn until he was right in my face. It seemed to take ages. “And since the first person we’ve met is strong enough to rip my arm off with a simple handshake.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Don’t be so stubborn.” He marched past me and stood at the center of the pile of luggage. “This is all we have. Everything we own, save for whatever Drake House put in our trust.” He pointed toward the cottage door. “Our lives are in the hands of—of—”

“Some old guy?”

“Precisely. So I simply want to weather this ordeal with what little bit of dignity we have left and hang on to our few remaining worthless belongings.”

“Excuse me, Prada is not worthless. It’s priceless. It’s—”

“Enough, Charlie!”

The cornstalks across the road swayed as if leaning away from Reg’s outburst, and I swayed with them. It wasn’t like my brother to lose his temper. That was usually my role, and he was upstaging me.

I stepped over a suitcase and joined him in the middle of the mess.

“You okay?”

It was a ridiculous question. Of course he wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. But it was Reg’s job to be the levelheaded one, and I needed him to snap out of it right about now.

“I am . . . unsettled.” Reg collected himself. “But look on the bright side.”

“There’s a bright side?”

“They didn’t stake us. Perhaps that’s a sign this is only temporary, and the Elders are attempting to teach us some sort of lesson.”

The idea that the Elders would go through this much trouble just to play games with us was as ridiculous as asking Reg if he was okay.

“Like an elaborate trick? Can you just imagine?” I smiled, even though I didn’t mean to, and my voice took on a high pitch alarmingly close to a giggle. “It’s almost kind of funny, right? Isn’t it kind of funny?”

Reg took my hands as they started to tremble.

The tremble rippled up my arms and into my chest until my whole body was shaking and my legs were Jell-O. I collapsed onto a mound of duffel bags and hatboxes. A strangled sound like a hiccup escaped my throat. Reg knelt in front of me and wiped something wet from my cheek. We both stared at the moisture on his hand in wonder for a moment, then my hands flew to my face.

Tears.

New again.

I felt another one slip from the corner of my eye, and all at once it was a flood. I collapsed into Reg’s arms, letting the tears come. I don’t know how long we sat like that in the dark, with my eyeballs leaking all over Reg’s shirt, but I was vaguely aware of him carrying me into the cottage, huffing and puffing the whole way, and settling me into something soft and warm. My last thought, as sleep finally stole the tears away, was that Reg was dead wrong.

This sentence was far from temporary.

We were permanently, infuriatingly, hopelessly human.

Three

Sunlight & the Assassin

I woke up to something warm but intangible coating my skin and a glow behind my eyelids. My eyes fluttered open, seeking the source of the heat and light. I found it immediately, but it took me a moment to process the sunlight pouring through wide-open curtains.

Wait. Sunlight?

My brain snapped awake as my eyes snapped shut.

Sunlight!

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