Afterlight

the Gullah men take a step forward. “A bloodline rarely heard of outside of Romanian tales and folklore. We are all considered members of the Kindred, all with a vein of strigoi blood, but there are differences. We are immortal and crave human blood, but our hunger has been satisfied in other ways — humane ways — by the Preacher, and his ancestors before him. The Arcoses have been entombed for over a hundred and fifty years, and now they’re out, and they’re not humane. They’re hunting.” His face was so close to mine, I could see the various flecks of color in his angry eyes. “They have no mercy, no remorse; they cannot be satiated. And they will not stop.”

My thoughts jumped to the dead man in the alley, the distorted way his lifeless body lay, the way his flesh had been ripped open, the blood, and Eligius didn’t let go of my arm. He held it, steady, his gaze not once leaving mine. My heart slammed into my rib cage, and my skin tingled where he touched. At once, the entire room didn’t exist; only us. He’d been the one to give me straight answers, so I asked one more straight question. “What are you?” I said, my voice strong but shaky. I kept my eyes boldly trained on his as I awaited an answer, and I vaguely noticed the flinch in his expression at the word what.

“We are vampiric, but not like them,” he said heatedly, under his breath, and it was the first time I realized the slightest trace of an accent was French. The muscles in his jaws tensed, and again my eyes were drawn to his full lips. “As my father said, we made a contract with your brethren. They have sustained our lives, and we have protected the city against rogue vampires.” With his head lowered, his eyes searched mine, and his voice lowered. “But the Arcoses have been freed, and now we have a major fucking problem, ma chère.”

“Son, that’s enough,” said Elise, her voice sweet and strong at the same time. A slight shift in the air brushed across my face and made me wince, and when I opened my eyes, Eligius was across the room, leaning against the wall as though he’d never moved.

I looked directly at Gilles. “How does any of this help my brother?” I asked, then sought out Preacher, who stood quietly against the door. “How?” Suddenly, the weight of what couldn’t possibly be happening hit me full force in the chest, and I sagged where I stood, unable to breathe. “Seth,” I choked my brother’s name out, and the lining in my throat burned.

Preacher was immediately at my side, and while he didn’t say anything, his reassuring hands on my shoulders put me at as much ease as I could be.

“Your brother is in the quickening,” said Gilles, and I didn’t miss the sympathetic note in his voice. “And it takes a moon’s full cycle for transformation to complete. We feel that he and his friends, because of their unintentional aid to the Arcoses, are safe for now. Had the brothers wanted to kill them, they indeed would be dead already, I assure you.”

It was too much, even for me, to take in. My mind reeled at everything I’d been told, at what I’d seen, and no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I knew of Preacher and his beliefs, I had a hell of a time believing I was standing in one of Savannah’s prominent historic buildings with a loving family claiming to be vampires descended from France and Romania; that there were two dangerous, bloodthirsty rogue vampires loose in the city; and that my baby brother was running with them.

That he was going to become one of them. My stomach felt sick.

Everything that had happened that night at Bonaventure washed over me in a heavy, suffocating wave: the uneasy feeling I’d gotten, the absence of cicadas, and Seth’s slow transformation from sweet, lovable brother to the cold, detached boy I barely recognized. Chaz had noticed it, too, and suddenly all of the symptoms made sense. Seth slept all the time, had hypersensitivity to light and no appetite. At first fevered, he’d grown . . . cooler. Not cold, but notably cooler in temperature. He’d almost attacked me. He’d thrown Chaz across the room. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to breathe. “Oh, God,” I muttered, a pain so fierce lodging deep in the pit of my stomach that it nearly made me double over. I wrapped my arms around my middle. “How can it be true?” I turned to Preacher. “How?”

“There are many things in this world of which most mortals haven’t a clue exist,” said Gilles, directly by my side now. “Until it’s too late, of course.”

I turned my gaze on him, unable to do little more than stare. I then took in the room, the Dupré family, my Gullah friends. My brain was in overload and could take not another second more. I turned to Preacher. “I’ve got to get out of here.” He simply kept his gaze trained on me, wordless.

“We thought it may be too much at once,” said Gilles, his hands folded behind his back. The weighty expression on his face didn’t sit so well with me. “But there’s one more thing you should know.”

I looked at him. “What’s that?”

“You’ve a rare blood type, Riley Poe. Only the second mortal I’ve ever encountered with it in my entire existence.”

“I’m O positive,” I replied. “That’s not rare.”

He inclined his head. “Have you given any thought as to why so many of your brethren are with us today?”

Glancing quickly around the room, I shrugged. “Not really.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder, and every single Gullah took a step forward. Gilles smiled. “They’re here to protect you, child. Your blood type is especially rare . . . to us.”

“Gilles, stop scaring the girl,” said Elise, suddenly by his side. She looked at me and spoke freely for the first time. “Your Preacher has masked your blood potency for years,” she said softly. “You’re in no real danger here, chère, and your fellows are here because they love and cherish you. They’re just being cautious, and it is that fierce loyalty which has kept our families and the contract bound for centuries. And it shall remain that way.”

Preacher put his hand against the small of my back. “Your tea dat you drink every mornin’? It keeps your blood masked.”

I looked at him with wide eyes. “You’ve been drugging me?”

The corner of his mouth lifted, ever so slightly, in a smile only I recognized. “For your own good,” he said gently. “We’ve known of your powerful blood since you was a baby, right. Now, listen to him,” he said, inclining his head to Gilles. “Dere’s somethin’ we have to do for now.”

I nodded and gave my full attention to Gilles. “I’m listening.” Although I had a difficult time realizing that I was like a filet mignon to these guys.

Gilles clasped his hands in front of him. “The Arcoses will not be stopped easily. They will be difficult to find — as will your brother and his friends. They hide during the daylight and move through shadows in the darkness.”

I hadn’t thought about that. No wonder Riggs was acting so ridiculous in the shop.

“And I feel they are on more than a hunt. Retaliation in the end, no doubt.” He turned to me and studied my face with intensity. “You see, Victorian and Valerian are youths — all of twenty-one and twenty-two years — although extremely cunning and deadly. Their appearances will fool you — never trust them. Their faces are beautiful and innocent; their souls are damned. We will do everything in our power to lure them out of hiding, and we’ll need your help.”

Again, I nodded, even though everything Gilles was saying felt as though he was saying it to someone else, not me. “What can I do?”

“They’re building an army,” Gilles said gravely. “From our city’s youth — your brother included. It’s what they’d intended a hundred and fifty years ago, and it’s why they were entombed. They will seek out their troops and victims from the darkest dregs of the city. Now, times are more dangerous, and this time they shall be destroyed.” He inclined his head. “You know the underground, oui?”

“Underground as in . . . what, exactly?” I asked, although I sort of guessed what he meant. I didn’t like it.

“Dark places, drugs,” Preacher clarified. “Dem dark dancin’ clubs you used to go to, and dos bad folk you hung out wit when you was a youngun.”

Inside, I cringed. I’d sworn — vowed — that I’d never go back to that life again. I’d put it behind me for good. But this was my brother being dragged into stuff way worse than I ever dreamed of doing. I looked Gilles Dupré in the eye. “I said I’ll do anything.”

Briefly, Gilles closed his eyes, and a slight smile tipped his mouth upward. “Bon. For now, we must watch, wait, and try to protect as many as possible. The city has grown — it won’t be as easy as