“You’re Brotherhood, aren’t you,” Jude observes—and it isn’t a question; his tone is hammered steel. Totally lost, I look from him to Daphne and back again, my hackles rising by degrees. They’re locked in a battle of silent glares, and I’m not sure my nerves can take another second of it.

“What is he talking about?” I finally demand. “What the hell is ‘Brotherhood,’ and how do you know his name? What’s going on?”

Daphne’s eyes flicker to me, and she lets out an unhappy sigh. “The Brotherhood of Perseus. It’s a secret society dating to the Middle Ages, a fraternal organization of—”

“Assassins.” The word is as cold as an unfired bullet when Jude spits it out.

“Warriors,” Daphne amends crisply, her fingers tightening around the stake in her grip. “I told you my parents were vampire hunters, Auggie, and I let you think that meant they were part of a volunteer defense squad, but … that wasn’t the truth. I’m sorry.” After a moment, she slumps back, and with another shake of her sleeve the wooden stake vanishes again. “The Brotherhood of Perseus was founded in the twelfth century by two dozen knights who pledged their lives to battling the undead—humans who risked everything against an enemy that could barely be killed. It was dudes only at first, hence the name, but the organization is gender-inclusive these days. Back in the Middle Ages, vampires could attack peasants in the countryside, or raze entire villages without anybody—”

“That hardly ever happened,” Jude interrupts crossly. “Yes, there were some bad vampires roaming around nine centuries ago, but they didn’t rack up even a quarter of the body count that humans did!” Shaking his head, he lets out a disgusted snort. “Your lot have always exaggerated the dangers of vampires as a means to excuse your own barbarism. Or aren’t you planning to address the role the Brotherhood played in the Crusades? Burning down libraries and slaughtering whole families that refused to convert to Christianity—”

“That’s vampire propaganda!” Daphne jerks upright, icicles dripping from her tone. “The Knights of Perseus rode in the Crusades, yeah, but their mission was to root out vampire strongholds. People were idiots back then—they thought the Earth was flat, and half of them died of the plague because they believed bathing was dangerous!” She slams a finger down onto the table. “You make it sound like there were six or seven bad, fang-toothed apples rolling around, sucking the blood out of a few women and children at the edge of civilization, but the Knights have extensive records, buddy. Vampires were crawling all over the Holy Land, picking off travelers like birds on a line, and during the Crusades their numbers were cut in half thanks to the Brotherhood.”