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shrugged. “So you and Diego are pretty tight, right?” he asked, just breathing the words. Probably, if everyone were silent in the basement, they would still be able to hear him, but it was pretty noisy down there right now. I shrugged again. “He saved my life,” I whispered. Riley lifted his chin, almost but not quite a nod, and appraised. Did he believe me? Did he think I still feared the day? “He’s the best,” Riley said. “The smartest kid I’ve got.” I nodded once. “We had a little meeting about the situation. We agreed that we need some surveillance. Going in blind is too dangerous. He’s the only one I trust to scout ahead.” He exhaled, almost angrily. “Wish I had two of him! Raoul’s got too short a fuse and Kristie is too self-absorbed to get the big picture, but they’re the best I’ve got, and I’ll have to make do. Diego said you were smart, too.” I waited, not sure how much of our story Riley knew. “I need your help with Fred. Wow, that kid is strong! I couldn’t even look at him tonight.” I nodded cautiously again. “Imagine if our enemies can’t even look at us. It will be so easy!” I didn’t think Fred would like that idea, but maybe I was wrong. He didn’t seem like he cared anything for this coven of ours. Would he want to save us? I didn’t respond to Riley. “You spend a lot of time with him.”
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I shrugged. “Nobody bothers me there. It’s not easy.” Riley pursed his lips and nodded. “Smart, like Diego said.” “Where is Diego?” I shouldn’t have asked. The words just ripped out of their own accord. I waited anxiously, trying to look indifferent and most likely failing. “We don’t have time to waste. I sent him south the second I found out what was coming. If our enemies decide to attack early, we need the advance warning. Diego will meet up with us when we move against them.” I tried to imagine where Diego was now. I wished I were there with him. Maybe I could talk him out of doing Riley’s bidding and putting himself in the line of fire in the process. But maybe not. It seemed like Diego was thick with Riley, just like I’d worried. “Diego wanted me to tell you something.” My eyes snapped to his face. Too fast, too eager. Blew it again. “Sounded like nonsense to me. He said, ‘Tell Bree I’ve got the handshake figured out. I’ll show her in four days, when we meet up.’ I have no idea what that means. Do you?” I tried to force a poker face. “Maybe. He did say something about needing a secret handshake. For his underwater cave. Some kind of password. He was just kidding around, though. I’m not sure what he means now.” Riley chuckled. “Poor Diego.” “What?” “I think that kid likes you a lot more than you like him.”
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“Oh.” I looked away, confused. Was Diego giving me this message as a way to let me know I could trust Riley? But he hadn’t told Riley I knew about the sun. Still, he must have trusted Riley to tell him so much, to show Riley that he cared about me. I thought it would be wiser to keep my mouth shut, though. Too much had changed. “Don’t write him off yet, Bree. He’s the best, like I said. Give him a chance.” Riley was giving me romantic advice? This could not get weirder. I bobbed my head once and muttered, “Sure.” “See if you can talk to Fred. Make sure he’s on board.” I shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.” Riley smiled. “Great. I’ll pull you aside before we leave, and you can tell me how it went. I’ll keep it casual, not like tonight. I don’t want him to feel like I’m spying on him.” “Okay.” Riley motioned for me to follow and then headed back to the basement. The training lasted all day, but I wasn’t part of it. After Riley went back to his team leaders, I took my spot beside Fred. The others had been divided up into four groups of four, with Raoul and Kristie directing them. No one had picked Fred for a side, or maybe he’d ignored them, or maybe they couldn’t even see that he was there. I could still see him. He stood out the only one not participating, a big blond elephant in the room. I had no desire to insinuate myself into either Raoul’s team or Kristie’s, so I just watched. No one seemed to notice that I was sitting out with Fred. Though we must have been somewhat
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invisible, thanks to talented Fred, I felt horribly obvious. I wished I were invisible to myself that I could see the illusion so that I could trust it. But no one noticed us, and after a while I could almost relax. I watched the practicing closely. I wanted to know everything, just in case. I wasn’t planning on fighting; I was planning on finding Diego and making a break for it. But what if Diego wanted to fight? Or what if we had to fight to get away from the rest? Better to pay attention. Only once did anyone ask about Diego. It was Kevin, but I had a sense that Raoul had put him up to it. “So, did Diego end up getting fried after all?” Kevin asked in a forced joking tone. “Diego’s with her,” Riley said, and no one had to ask who he meant. “Surveillance.” A few people shuddered. No one said anything more about Diego. Was he really with her? I cringed at the thought. Maybe Riley was just saying that to keep people from questioning him. He probably didn’t want Raoul getting jealous and feeling second best when Riley needed him at his most arrogant today. I couldn’t be sure, and I wasn’t going to ask. I kept quiet, as usual, and watched the training. In the end, watching was boring, thirsty work. Riley didn’t give his army a break for three days and two nights straight. During the daytime it was harder to stay out of the mix we all were crammed so tightly into the basement. It made things easier in one way for Riley he could usually catch a fight
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before it got ugly. Outside at night, they had more room to really work around each other, but Riley was kept busy darting back and forth to catch limbs and get them back to their owners quickly. He kept his temper well, and he’d been smart enough to find all the lighters this time. I would have bet that this would spin out of control, that we’d lose at least a couple of coven members with Raoul and Kristie skirmishing head to head for days on end. But Riley had better control of them than I had thought possible. Still, it was mostly repetition. I noticed Riley saying the same things over and over and over again. Work together, watch your back, don’t go at her head-on; work together, watch your back, don’t go at him head-on; work together, watch your back, don’t go at her head-on. It was kind of ridiculous, really, and made the group seem exceptionally stupid. But I was sure I would have been just as stupid if I’d been in the thick of the fight with them rather than watching calmly from the sidelines with Fred. It reminded me in a way of how Riley had drilled into us our fear of the sun. Constant repetition. Still, it was so dull that after about ten hours that first day, Fred produced a deck of cards and started playing solitaire. That was more interesting than watching the same mistakes over and over again, so I mostly watched him. After about another twelve hours we were inside again I nudged Fred to point out a red five that he could move over. He nodded and made the change. After that hand, he dealt out the cards to both of us, and we played rummy. We never spoke, but Fred smiled a few times. No one ever looked our way or asked
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us to join in. There were no hunting breaks, and as time went on, this got harder and harder to ignore. Fights broke out more regularly and with less provocation. Riley’s commands got more shrill, and he tore off two arms himself. I tried to forget the burning thirst as much as possible after all, Riley must have been getting thirsty, too, so this couldn’t last forever but mostly thirst was the only thing on my mind. Fred was looking pretty strained. Early into the third night one more day to go, and when I thought about the ticking clock it tied my empty stomach into knots Riley called all the mock fights to a halt. “Round it up, kids,” he told us, and everyone moved into a loose half-circle facing him. The original gangs all stood close together, so the practicing hadn’t changed any of those alliances. Fred put the cards in his back pocket and stood up. I stood close to his side, counting on his repulsive aura to hide me. “You’ve done well,” Riley told us. “Tonight, you get a reward. Drink up, because tomorrow you’re going to want your strength. ” Snarls of relief from almost everyone. “I say want and not need for a reason,” Riley went on. “I think you guys have got this. You’ve stayed smart and worked hard. Our enemies aren’t going to know what’s hit them!” Kristie and Raoul growled, and both of their companies followed suit immediately. I was surprised to see it, but they did look like an army in that moment. Not that they were marching in formation or anything, but there was just something uniform
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about the response. Like they all were part of one big organism. As always, Fred and I were the glaring exceptions, but I thought only Riley was even the slightest bit aware of us every now and then his eyes would scan across where we were standing, almost like he was checking to make sure he still felt Fred’s talent. And Riley didn’t seem to mind that we weren’t joining up. For now, anyway. “Um, you mean tomorrow night, right, boss?” Raoul clarified. “Right,” Riley said with a strange little smile. It didn’t seem like anyone else noticed anything off in his reply except for Fred. He looked down at me with one eyebrow raised. I shrugged. “You ready for your reward?” Riley asked. His little army roared in response. “Tonight you get a taste of what our world will be like when our competition is out of the picture. Follow me!” Riley bounded away; Raoul and his team were right on his heels. Kristie’s group started shoving and clawing right through the middle of them to get to the front. “Don’t make me change my mind!” Riley bellowed from the trees ahead. “You can all go thirsty. I don’t care!” Kristie barked an order and her group sullenly fell behind Raoul’s. Fred and I waited until the last of them was out of sight. Then Fred did one of those little ladies first sweeps with his arm. It didn’t feel like he was afraid to have me at his back, just that he was being polite. I started running after the army. The others were already long gone, but it was nothing to
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follow their smell. Fred and I ran in companionable silence. I wondered what he was thinking. Maybe he was only thirsty. I was burning, so he probably was, too. We caught up to the others after about five minutes, but kept our distance. The army was moving in amazing quiet. They were focused, and more… disciplined. I kind of wished that Riley had started the training sooner. It was easier to be around this group. We crossed over an empty two-lane freeway, another strip of forest, and then we were on a beach. The water was smooth, and we’d gone almost due north, so this must have been the strait. We hadn’t passed near any residences, and I was sure that was on purpose. Thirsty and on edge, it wouldn’t take too much to dissolve this small measure of organization into a screaming free-for-all. We’d never hunted all together before, and I was pretty sure that it was not a good idea now. I remembered Kevin and the Spider-Man kid fighting over the woman in the car that first night I’d talked to Diego. Riley had better have a whole lot of bodies for us or people were going to start tearing each other up to get the most blood. Riley paused at the water’s edge. “Don’t hold back,” he told us. “I want you well fed and strong at your peak. Now… let’s go have some fun.” He dove smoothly into the surf. The others were growling excitedly as they submerged, too. Fred and I followed more closely than before because we couldn’t follow their scent under water. But I could feel that Fred was hesitant ready to bolt if
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this was something other than an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. It seemed like he didn’t trust Riley any more than I did. We didn’t swim long, and then we saw the others kicking upward. Fred and I surfaced last, and Riley started talking as soon as our heads were out of the water, like he’d been waiting for us. He must have been more aware of Fred than the others were. “There she is,” he said, waving toward a large ferry chugging south, probably making the last commuter run of the night down from Canada. “Give me a minute. When the power goes out, she’s all yours.” There was an excited murmur. Someone giggled. Riley was off like a shot, and seconds later we saw him fly up the side of the big boat. He headed straight for the control tower on top of the ship. Silencing the radio was my bet. He could say all he wanted about these enemies being our reason for caution, but I was sure there was more to it than that. Humans weren’t supposed to know about vampires. At least, not for very long. Just long enough for us to kill them. Riley kicked a big plate-glass window out of his way and disappeared into the tower. Five seconds later, the lights went out. I realized Raoul was already gone. He must have submerged so we wouldn’t hear him swimming after Riley. Everyone else took off, and the water churned as if an enormous school of barracuda were attacking. Fred and I swam at a relatively leisurely pace behind them. In a funny way, it was like we were some old married couple.
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We never talked, but we still did things at exactly the same time. We got to the boat about three seconds later, and already the air was full of shrieks and the warm scent of blood. The smell made me realize exactly how thirsty I was, but that was the last thing I realized. My brain shut down completely. There was nothing but fiery pain in my throat and the delicious blood blood everywhere promising to put that fire out. When it was over and there wasn’t a heart left beating on the whole ship, I wasn’t sure how many people I’d personally killed. More than triple the number I’d ever had on a hunting trip before, easy. I felt hot and flushed. I’d drunk long past the point at which my thirst was totally slaked, just for the taste of the blood. Most of the blood on the ferry was clean and luscious these passengers had not been dregs. Though I hadn’t held back, I was probably at the low end of the kill count. Raoul was so surrounded by mangled bodies that they actually made a little hill. He sat on top of his pile of the dead and laughed loudly to himself. He wasn’t the only one laughing. The dark boat was full of sounds of delight. I heard Kristie say, “That was amazing three cheers for Riley!” Some of her crowd put up a raucous chorus of hurrahs like a bunch of happy drunks. Jen and Kevin swung onto the view deck, dripping wet. “Got ’em all, boss,” Jen called to Riley. So some people must have tried to swim for it. I hadn’t noticed. I looked around for Fred. It took me a while to find him. I finally realized that I couldn’t look directly at the back corner by the vending machines, and I headed that way. At first I felt like
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the rocking ferry was making me seasick, but then I got close enough that the feeling faded and I could see Fred standing by the window. He smiled at me quickly, and then looked over my head. I followed his gaze and saw that he was watching Riley. I got the feeling that he’d been doing this for some time. “Okay, kids,” Riley said. “You’ve had a taste of the sweet life, but now we’ve got work to do!” They all roared enthusiastically. “I’ve got three last things to tell you and one of those things involves a little dessert so let’s sink this scow and get home!” With laughter mixed in with the snarls, the army went to work dismantling the boat. Fred and I bailed out the window and watched the demo from a short distance. It didn’t take long for the ferry to crumple in the middle with a loud groan of metal. The midsection went down first, with both the bow and the stern twisting up to point to the sky. They sank one at a time, the stern beating the bow by a few seconds. The school of barracuda headed toward us. Fred and I started swimming for shore. We ran home with the others though keeping our distance. A couple of times Fred looked at me like he had something he wanted to say, but each time he seemed to change his mind. Back at the house, Riley let the celebratory mood wind down. Even after a few hours had passed, he still had his hands full trying to get everyone serious again. For once it wasn’t a fight he was trying to defuse, just high spirits. If Riley’s promises were false, as I thought, he was going to have an issue when the ambush was over. Now that all these vampires had really feasted, they weren’t going to go back to any measure of
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restraint very easily. For tonight, though, Riley was a hero. Finally a while after I would have guessed that the sun was up outside everyone was quiet and paying attention. From their faces, it seemed they were ready to hear just about anything he had to say. Riley stood halfway up the stairs, his face serious. “Three things,” he began. “First, we want to be sure we get the right coven. If we accidentally run across another clan and slaughter them, we’ll tip our hand. We want our enemies overconfident and unprepared. There are two things that mark this coven, and they’re pretty hard to miss. One, they look different they have yellow eyes.” There was a murmur of confusion. “Yellow?” Raoul repeated in a disgusted tone. “There’s a lot of the vampire world out there that you haven’t encountered yet. I told you these vampires were old. Their eyes are weaker than ours yellowed with age. Another advantage to our side.” He nodded to himself as if to say, one down. “But other old vampires exist, so there is another way that we’ll know them for sure… and this is where the dessert I mentioned comes into play.” Riley smiled slyly and waited a beat. “This is going to be hard to process,” he warned. “I don’t understand it, but I’ve seen it for myself. These old vampires have gone so soft that they actually keep as a member of their coven a pet human.” His revelation was met by blank silence. Total disbelief. “I know hard to swallow. But it’s true. We’ll know it’s definitely them because a human girl will be with them.”
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“Like… how?” Kristie asked. “You mean they carry meals around with them or something?” “No, it’s always the same girl, just the one, and they don’t plan to kill her. I don’t know how they manage it, or why. Maybe they just like to be different. Maybe they want to show off their self-control. Maybe they think it makes them look stronger. It makes no sense to me. But I’ve seen her. More than that, I’ve smelled her.” Slow and dramatic, Riley reached into his jacket and pulled out a small ziplock bag with red fabric wadded up inside. “I’ve done some recon in the past few weeks, checking the yellow-eyes out as soon as they got near the area.” He paused to throw us a paternal look. “I watch out for my kids. Anyway, when I could tell that they were moving on us, I grabbed this” he brandished the bag “to help us track them. I want you all to get a lock on this scent.” He handed the bag to Raoul, who opened the plastic zipper and inhaled deeply. He glanced up at Riley with a startled look. “I know,” Riley said. “Amazing, right?” Raoul handed the bag to Kevin, his eyes narrowing in thought. One by one, each vampire sniffed the bag, and everyone reacted with wide eyes but little else. I was curious enough that I sidled away from Fred until I could feel a hint of the nausea and knew I was outside his circle. I crept forward until I was next to the Spider-Man kid, who seemed to be at the tail end of the line. He sniffed inside the bag when it was his turn and then seemed about to hand it back to the kid who had given it to him,
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but I held my hand out and hissed quietly. He did a double take almost like he’d never see me before and handed me the bag. It looked like the red fabric was a shirt. I stuck my nose in the opening, keeping my eyes on the vampires near me, just in case, and inhaled. Ah. I understood the expressions now and felt a similar one on my face. Because the human who had worn this shirt had seriously sweet blood. When Riley said dessert, he was dead right. On the other hand, I was less thirsty than I’d ever been. So while my eyes widened in appreciation, I didn’t feel enough pain in my throat to make me grimace. It would be awesome to taste this blood, but in that exact moment, it didn’t hurt me that I couldn’t. I wondered how long it would take for me to get thirsty again. Usually, a few hours after feeding, the pain would start to come back, and then it would just get worse and worse until after a couple of days it was impossible to ignore it even for a second. Would the excessive amount of blood I’d just drunk delay that? I guessed I’d see pretty soon. I glanced around to make sure no one was waiting for the bag, because I thought Fred would probably be curious, too. Riley caught my eye, smiled the tiniest bit, and jerked his chin slightly toward the corner where Fred was. Which made me want to do the exact opposite of what I’d just been planning, but whatever. I didn’t want Riley to be suspicious of me. I walked back to Fred, ignoring the nausea until it faded and I was right next to him. I handed him the bag. He seemed
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pleased I’d thought to include him; he smiled and then sniffed the shirt. After a second he nodded thoughtfully to himself. He gave me the bag back with a significant look. The next time we were alone, I thought he would say aloud whatever it was he had seemed to want to share before. I tossed the bag toward Spider-Man, who reacted like it had fallen out of the sky but still caught it before it hit the ground. Everyone was buzzing about the scent. Riley clapped his hands together twice. “Okay, so there’s the dessert I was talking about. The girl will be with the yellow-eyes. And whoever gets to her first gets dessert. Simple as that.” Appreciative growls, competitive growls. Simple, yes, but… wrong. Weren’t we supposed to be destroying the yellow-eyed coven? Unity was supposed to be the key, not a first-come, first-served prize that only one vampire could win. The only guaranteed outcome from this plan was one dead human. I could think of half a dozen more productive ways to motivate this army. The one who kills the most yellow-eyes wins the girl. The one who shows the best team cooperation gets the girl. The one who sticks to the plan best. The one who follows orders best. MVP, etc. The focus should be on the danger, which was definitely not the human. I looked around at the others and decided that none of them were following the same train of thought. Raoul and Kristie were glaring at each other. I heard Sara and Jen arguing in whispers about the possibility of sharing the prize. Well, maybe Fred got it. He was frowning, too.
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“And the last thing,” Riley said. For the first time there was some reluctance in his voice. “This will probably be even harder to accept, so I’ll show you. I won’t ask you to do anything I won’t do. Remember that I’m with you guys every step of the way.” The vampires got real still again. I noticed that Raoul had the ziplock back and was gripping it possessively. “There are so many things you have yet to learn about being a vampire,” Riley said. “Some of them make more sense than others. This is one of those things that won’t sound right at first, but I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ll show you.” He deliberated for a long second. “Four times a year, the sun shines at a certain indirect angle. During that one day, four times a year, it is safe… for us to be outside in the daylight.” Every tiny movement stopped. There was no breathing. Riley was talking to a bunch of statues. “One of those special days is beginning now. The sun that is rising outside today won’t hurt any of us. And we are going to use this rare exception to surprise our enemies.” My thoughts spun around and turned upside down. So Riley knew it was safe for us to go out in the sun. Or he didn’t, and our creator had told him this “four days a year” story. Or… this was true and Diego and I had lucked into one of those days. Except that Diego had been out in the shade before. And Riley was making this into some kind of solstice-y seasonal thing, while Diego and I had been safe in the daylight just four days ago. I could understand that Riley and our creator would want to control us with the fear of the sun. It made sense. But why tell the truth in a very limited way now?
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I would bet it had to do with those scary dark-cloaks. She probably wanted to get a jump on her deadline. The cloaked ones had not promised to let her live when we killed all the yellow-eyes. I guessed she would be off like a shot the second she’d accomplished her objective here. Kill the yellow-eyes and then take an extended vacation in Australia or somewhere else on the other side of the world. And I’d bet she wasn’t going to send us engraved invitations. I would have to get to Diego quick so we could bail, too. In the opposite direction from Riley and our creator. And I ought to tip Fred off. I decided I would as soon as we had a moment alone. There was so much manipulation going on in this one little speech, and I wasn’t sure I was catching it all. I wished Diego were here so we could analyze it together. If Riley was just making up this four-days story on the spot, I guess I could understand why. It’s not like he could have just said, Hey, so I’ve lied to you for your whole lives, but now I’m telling the truth. He wanted us to follow him into battle today; he couldn’t undermine whatever trust he’d earned. “It’s right for you to be terrified at the thought,” Riley told the statues. “The reason you are all still alive is that you paid attention when I told you to be careful. You got home on time, you didn’t make mistakes. You let that fear make you smart and cautious. I don’t expect you to put that intelligent fear aside easily. I don’t expect you to run out that door on my word. But…” He looked around the room once. “I do expect you to follow me out.” His eyes slid away from the audience for just the teensiest
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fraction of a second, touching very briefly on something over my head. “Watch me,” he told us. “Listen to me. Trust me. When you see that I’m okay, believe your eyes. The sun on this one day does have some interesting effects on our skin. You’ll see. It won’t hurt you in any way. I wouldn’t do anything to put you guys in unnecessary danger. You know that.” He started up the stairs. “Riley, can’t we just wait ,” Kristie began. “Just pay attention,” Riley cut her off, still moving up at a measured pace. “This gives us a big advantage. The yellow- eyes know all about this day, but they don’t know that we know.” As he was talking, he opened the door and walked out of the basement into the kitchen. There was no light in the well-shaded kitchen, but everyone still shied away from the open doorway. Everyone but me. His voice continued, moving toward the front door. “It takes most young vampires a while to embrace this exception for good reason. Those who aren’t cautious about the daylight don’t last long.” I felt Fred’s eyes on me. I glanced over at him. He was staring at me urgently, as if he wanted to take off but had nowhere to go. “It’s okay,” I whispered almost silently. “The sun’s not going to hurt us.” You trust him he mouthed back at me. No way. Fred raised an eyebrow and relaxed just slightly. I glanced behind us. What had Riley been looking at?
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Nothing had changed just some family pictures of dead people, a small mirror, and a cuckoo clock. Hmm. Was he checking the time? Maybe our creator had given him a deadline, too. “’Kay, guys, I’m going out,” Riley said. “You don’t have to be afraid today, I promise.” The light burst into the basement through the open door, magnified as only I knew by Riley’s skin. I could see the bright reflections dance on the wall. Hissing and snarling, my coven backed into the corner opposite from Fred’s. Kristie was in the very back. It looked like she was trying to use her gang as a kind of shield. “Relax, everybody,” Riley called down to us. “I am absolutely fine. No pain, no burn. Come and see. C’mon!” No one moved closer to the door. Fred was crouched against the wall beside me, eyeing the light with panic. I waved my hand a tiny bit to get his attention. He looked up at me and measured my total calm for a second. Slowly he straightened up next to me. I smiled encouragingly. Everyone else was waiting for the burn to start. I wondered if I had looked that silly to Diego. “You know,” Riley mused from above, “I’m curious to see who is the bravest one of you. I have a good idea who the first person through that door is going to be, but I’ve been wrong before.” I rolled my eyes. Subtle, Riley. But of course it worked. Raoul started inching his way toward the stairs almost immediately. For once, Kristie was in
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no hurry to compete with him for Riley’s approval. Raoul snapped his fingers at Kevin, and both he and the Spider-Man kid reluctantly moved to flank him. “You can hear me. You know I’m not fried. Don’t be a bunch of babies! You’re vampires. Act like it.” Still, Raoul and his buddies couldn’t get farther than the foot of the stairs. None of the others moved. After a few minutes, Riley came back. In the indirect light from the front door, he shimmered just a tiny bit in the doorway. “Look at me I’m fine. Seriously! I’m embarrassed for you. C’mere, Raoul!” In the end, Riley had to grab Kevin Raoul ducked out of the way as soon as he could see what Riley was thinking and drag him upstairs by force. I saw the moment when they made it into the sun, when the light brightened from their reflections. “Tell them, Kevin,” Riley ordered. “I’m okay, Raoul!” Kevin called down. “Whoa. I’m all… shiny. This is crazy!” He laughed. “Well done, Kevin,” Riley said loudly. That did it for Raoul. He gritted his teeth and marched up the stairs. He didn’t move fast, but soon he was up there sparkling and laughing with Kevin. Even from then on, the process took longer than I would have predicted. It was still a one-by-one thing. Riley got impatient. It was more threats than encouragement now. Fred shot me a look that said, You knew this Yes, I mouthed. He nodded and started up the stairs. There were still about
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ten people, mostly Kristie’s group, huddled against the wall. I went with Fred. Better to come out right in the middle. Let Riley read into that what he would. We could see the shining, disco-ball vampires in the front yard, staring at their hands and each other’s faces with rapt expressions. Fred moved into the light without slowing, which I thought was pretty brave, all things considered. Kristie was a better example of how well Riley had indoctrinated us. She clung to what she knew regardless of the evidence in front of her. Fred and I stood a little space from the others. He examined himself carefully, then looked me over, then stared at the others. It struck me that Fred, though really quiet, was very observant and almost scientific in the way he examined evidence. He’d been evaluating Riley’s words and actions all along. How much had he figured out? Riley had to force Kristie up the stairs, and her gang came with her. Finally we all were out in the sun, most people enjoying how very pretty they were. Riley rounded everyone up for one more quick practice session mostly, I thought, to get them to focus again. It took them a minute, but everyone started to realize that this was it, and they got quieter and more fierce. I could see that the idea of a real fight of being not only allowed but encouraged to rip and burn was almost as exciting as hunting. It appealed to people like Raoul and Jen and Sara. Riley focused on a strategy he’d been trying to drill into them for the last few days once we’d pinpointed the yellow- eyes’ scent, we were going to divide in two and flank them.
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Raoul would charge them head-on while Kristie attacked from the side. The plan suited both their styles, though I wasn’t sure if they were going to be able to follow this strategy in the heat of the hunt. When Riley called everyone together after an hour of practice, Fred immediately started walking backward toward the north; Riley had the others facing south. I stayed close, though I had no idea what he was doing. Fred stopped when we were a good hundred yards away, in the shade of the spruce trees on the fringe of the forest. No one watched us move away. Fred was eyeing Riley, as if waiting to see if he would notice our retreat. Riley began speaking. “We leave now. You’re strong and you’re ready. And you’re thirsty for it, aren’t you? You can feel the burn. You’re ready for dessert.” He was right. All that blood hadn’t slowed the return of the thirst at all. In fact, I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be coming back faster and harder than usual. Maybe overfeeding was counterproductive in some ways. “The yellow-eyes are coming in slowly from the south, feeding along the way, trying to get stronger,” Riley said. “She’s been monitoring them, so I know where to find them. She’s going to meet us there, with Diego” he cast a significant glance toward where I’d just been standing, and then a quick frown that disappeared just as quickly “and we will hit them like a tsunami. We will overwhelm them easily. And then we will celebrate.” He smiled. “Someone’s going to get a jump on the celebration. Raoul give me that.” Riley held out his hand
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imperiously. Raoul reluctantly tossed him the bag with the shirt. It seemed like Raoul was trying to lay claim to the girl by hogging her scent. “Take another whiff, everybody. Let’s get focused!” Focused on the girl? Or the fight? Riley himself walked the shirt around this time, almost like he wanted to make sure everyone was thirsty. And I could see from the reactions that, like me, the burn was back for them all. The scent of the shirt made them scowl and snarl. It wasn’t necessary to give us the scent again; we forgot nothing. So this was probably just a test. Just thinking about the girl’s scent had venom pooling in my mouth. “Are you with me?” Riley bellowed. Everyone screamed his or her assent. “Let’s take them down, kids!” It was like the barracuda again, only on land this time. Fred didn’t move, so I stayed with him, though I knew I was wasting time I needed. If I were going to get to Diego and pull him away before the fighting could start, I would need to be near the front of the attack. I looked after them anxiously. I was still younger than most of them faster. “Riley won’t be able to think of me for about twenty minutes or so,” Fred told me, his voice casual and familiar, like we’d had a million conversations in the past. “I’ve been gauging the time. Even a good distance away, he’ll feel sick if he tries to remember me.” “Really? That’s cool.” Fred smiled. “I’ve been practicing, keeping track of the
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effects. I can make myself totally invisible now. No one can look at me if I don’t want them to.” “I’ve noticed,” I said, then paused and guessed, “You’re not going?” Fred shook his head. “Of course not. It’s obvious we’re not being told what we need to know. I’m not going to be Riley’s pawn.” So Fred had figured it out on his own. “I was going to take off sooner, but then I wanted to talk to you before I left, and there hasn’t been a chance till now.” “I wanted to talk to you, too,” I said. “I thought you should know that Riley’s been lying about the sun. This four-day thing is a total crock. I think Shelly and Steve and the others figured it out, too. And there’s a lot more politics going on with this fight than he’s told us. More than one set of enemies.” I said it fast, feeling with terrible urgency the movement of the sun, the time passing. I had to get to Diego. “I’m not surprised,” Fred said calmly. “And I’m out. I’m going to explore on my own, see the world. Or I was going on my own, but then I thought maybe you might want to come, too. You’d be pretty safe with me. No one will be able to follow us.” I hesitated for a second. The idea of safety was hard to resist in that exact moment. “I’ve got to get Diego,” I said, shaking my head. He nodded thoughtfully. “I get it. You know, if you’re willing to vouch for him, you can bring him along. Seems like sometimes numbers come in handy.” “Yes,” I agreed fervently, remembering how vulnerable I’d felt
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in the tree alone with Diego as the four cloaks had advanced. He raised an eyebrow at my tone. “Riley is lying about at least one more important thing,” I explained. “Be careful. We aren’t supposed to let humans know about us. There are some kind of freaky vampires who stop covens when they get too obvious. I’ve seen them, and you don’t want them to find you. Just keep out of sight in the day, and hunt smart.” I looked south anxiously. “I have to hurry!” He was processing my revelations solemnly. “Okay. Catch up to me if you want. I’d like to hear more. I’ll wait for you in Vancouver for one day. I know the city. I’ll leave you a trail in…” He thought for a second and then chuckled once. “Riley Park. You can follow it to me. But after twenty-four hours I’m taking off.” “I’ll get Diego and catch up to you.” “Good luck, Bree.” “Thanks, Fred! Good luck to you, too. I’ll see you!” I was already running. “I hope so,” I heard him say behind me. I sprinted after the scent of the others, flying along the ground faster than I’d ever run before. I was lucky that they must have paused for something for Riley to yell at them, I was guessing because I caught them sooner than I should have. Or maybe Riley had remembered Fred and stopped to look for us. They were running at a steady pace when I reached them, semi- disciplined like last night. I tried to slide into the group without drawing attention, but I saw Riley’s head flip around once to scan those trailing behind. His eyes zeroed in on me, and then
