A Field Guide to Vampires: Annotated by Lucy Hamilton
Date: 2012-04-16 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Vampires; Paranormal; Young Adult; Fantasy; Romance; Short Stories; Urban Fantasy; Supernatural; Novella; Teen
Description: Every new recruit to the Helios-Ra Society is issued this guidebook, with secrets to the inner workings of the League the vampires they are hunting. But when new recruit Lucy Hamilton gets her hands on a copy, she can’t contain her inner snark-especially because she has first-hand knowledge of the various vampire societies that sometimes contradicts the conventional wisdom of her new academy.
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Rights: All rights reserved

ALYXANDRA HARVEY

A Field Guide to Vampires

For the Students of the Helios-Ra Academy

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

1. Official Welcome

2. Helios-Ra, An Overview

3. School Essentials

4. Victims

5. Approved Weapons List

6. Vampire Hunters of Note

7. Traditional Vampire Lore (Mostly Debunked)

8. Basic Vampire Statistics

9. Vampire History

10. The Host

11. The Hel-Blar

12. The Hounds

13. The Drake Family (Local Clan)

14. Supernatural Miscellany

Lucky Hamilton Class Schedule

The Drake Chronicles

Read the Drake Chronicles

Hearts at Stake

Also by Alyxandra Harvey

Haunting Violet

Stolen Away

About the Author

Imprint

A Field Guide to Vampires
For the Students of the Helios-Ra Academy
Violet Hill edition

With Additional Notes by Lucy Hamilton

1.
Official Welcome

Welcome to the Academy.

Welcome to the noble and ancient ranks of the Helios-Ra. Ours is a sacred duty and a privilege passed down from generation to generation. To be a hunter is not merely to hunt; it is to protect.

We serve the human race that it may live and grow and advance, unburdened by those creatures that dwell in the darkness. It is no accident that society at large believes vampires to be myth or literary device. We have worked long and hard to keep it so. Nothing would be served by mass panic or vigilantes. The governments of the world and the Helios-Ra both agree on this point and work together to keep it thus.

The vampires are no less eager to have their presence known. And so long as they keep to the shadows, so too must we.

But we will be revealed to those who know such things by the symbol of the sun; Helios of the Greeks and Ra of the Egyptians.

We serve the sun.

I knew they had government connections. Hart totally has that James Bond thing going for him.

2.
Helios-Ra, An Overview

Oath of Fealty

In the name of Helios and Ra and of my brethren, be it known to all, present and future, that I have voluntarily sworn an oath of fealty to the order of Helios-Ra. I swear to be true and faithful, and love all which the order loves and shun all which the order shuns, according to the laws and traditions of the order.

I hereby swear to cultivate the virtues of honor and courage, to defend the weak and the unknowing against all manner of creatures, to fight the vampire and never be seduced by them.

I stand tall to be counted among the valiant and I shall be known to my brethren by the symbol of the sun, which I wear willingly and with all due humility.

Yeah, I’m so not swearing that oath. Nicholas can seduce me if he wants to.

A Short History

Helios-Ra was officially formed in 99 C.E., brought across Europe and Egypt by the conquering armies of Rome. Before this time, hunters worked alone or in small tribal groups who rarely crossed territory lines. Their methods were effective but varied greatly, and were vulnerable to the political ruling powers of the time as well as intertribal warfare.

In 892, a hunter of some reputation, Alric Skallagrim, called a council of hunters. He summoned them from as far as the Russian steppes to the southernmost tip of India with the intent to unite them under one banner and one purpose. He called the group Helios-Ra after the mythical sun gods, and designed the sun emblem we use to this day. In 899, our history was officially set down in the Helios-Ra Codex by an Irish monk of the order Brother Phinean, at Alric’s request.

Our traditions were also considerably solidified in the early Middle Ages when several more wars made it necessary to further strengthen our allegiances. Our traditional oath-taking and initiation ceremony, though somewhat altered, dates to this time period.

Helios-Ra came to the New World in 1671 through Marie-Adelle Chevalier, a Fille du Roi (one of the "Daughters of the King": orphaned French girls who traveled to the New World to marry). Her sons continued her work and were instrumental in making sure Helios-Ra gained strong roots in New France, and later, America. Helios-Ra also had a strong presence in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 1692 witch trials.

Scholars have always been welcome among the ranks of hunters, and in 1967, paranormal scholars were also invited to serve in our ranks that we might broaden the scope of our research and defense. Other supernatural creatures, such as werewolves, witches, and ghosts, have since been studied and their actions controlled when necessary.

Over the years we have either successfully infiltrated or been officially welcomed to most world governments as well as underground rebel groups. Our one aim is to eradicate vampires and make the world safe for humanity, by any means possible. A warning must be issued to all new recruits to avoid the temptations of political power. This is not our goal and can only serve as a distraction.

Traditional Helios-Ra burials used to involve burying the body with rose thorns, salt, and a mouthful of garlic. A whitethorn stake was also driven through the heart. Modern hunters often choose to be cremated instead.

Head of the League, North American (1900-present)

Avril Chevalier (1953-1971)

Kendall McMullan (1971-72)

Luis Mendez (1972-2001)

Roarke Black (2001-2009) (died in office, 2009)

Mom said she met Kieran’s dad once in the 80s with Helena. And she said Helena had teased hair. Solange and I are still searching for photographic proof.

Hart Black and Hope Jones (2009-?)

Hope was a traitor. She killed Kieran’s dad. She was also annoyingly perky.

The Secret Handshake

There is no secret handshake.

Oh, come on. There is so a secret handshake, you’re just not sharing!

Treaties

In recent decades, treaties have become another weapon in the kit of the modern vampire hunter. Some vampire clans, such as the Drake family of Violet Hill, have agreed to terms with the League. Solitary vampires are also sometimes inclined to such treaties, having a smaller defense system to rely on.

Though controversial, these treaties are to our benefit. Not only do they protect the human populace at large, but they free up finite resources to fight more immediate threats such as the Hel-Blar and Lady Natasha (see section 9).

She was like an evil prom queen. Also, kinda dead now.

Treaties generally include clauses for both parties. Families such as the Drakes agree not to feed on human victims without prior consent and never to the point of endangering said human. As long as this main clause is not broken, the League agrees not to hunt the "treaty vampire."

3.
School Essentials

1. Students are not allowed off campus unchaperoned after sunset until they reach the age of sixteen. At sixteen, they’re allowed only with permission. No exceptions.

2. The academy and the League are secret institutions and are required to be safeguarded as such.

3. No fraternizing of any kind with vampires. Treaty vampires require prior League and academy approval.

School Crest: Rising sun over horizon line

School Motto: Diligence, Duty, and Daring

Departments of Study: Hunting, Science and Technology, Paranormal Studies

New student kits include the following: handbook, map of Violet Hill, night-vision goggles, wooden stake, pepper eggs, holy water.

Demerit System: Five allowed per school year. A sixth leads to expulsion. Detention and kitchen duty assigned for most infractions. Bathroom duty assigned for violent altercations.

Miscellaneous
a) Random testing in the form of speed and stealth drills. Be prepared.

This is the reason Kieran is such a boy scout! I wonder if there’s such a thing as vampire hunting badges.

b) The Student Memorial Garden is behind the pond. Please be quiet and respectful when visiting.

c) In the event of an emergency lockdown on campus, high-UV lightbulbs will automatically switch on, and bars may block windows.

d) Visitor passes are given out to preapproved guests only.

Do vampire boyfriends count? I’m so going to get kicked out of this school, aren’t I?

4.
Victims

Victim recognition

Victims who do not expire immediately can be recognized as newly turned vampires by the following indicators: paleness, weakness, anemia, scars on the neck or wrists; also, the use of scarves or long sleeves (even during summer) or wide bracelets to hide such marks.

Another sort of victim, less easily dealt with than the others, is the victim who believes he or she is a vampire. This sort of delusional individual is best left to undergo psychological evaluation. Do not engage in the field.

Seriously, who writes this crap?

Victims tend to be found in crowded areas, such as bars and sporting events, or in secluded wooded areas with a reliable measure of privacy. City parks are a particular favorite. Victims do not always sport the obvious bite marks on their necks; bites can be given anywhere on the body. Preferred locations are the neck, the inside crook of the elbow, and the wrist.

Victims of Hel-Blar attacks (see section 11) are especially likely to have their throats torn out. Pay judicious attention to news stories involving wild-dog attacks or gang-related activity not involving gunplay.

In the rare event of interrupting a Hel-Blar attack, the optimal distraction is to shine your flashlight directly into the eyes of the vampire. They are even more sensitive to light than other vampires; this is thought to be a direct result of their time spent in dark caves without electric lighting of any kind. This technique will not stop the Hel-Blar from feeding, of course, but it may distract them long enough to attempt a rescue of the victim. Do not attempt if you are a new student or graduate. This is an old-fashioned strategy, included for posterity and only to be used in case your other weapons are unavailable.

Bloodslaves

Bloodslaves are brainwashed humans who willingly allow themselves to be bitten and have their blood drunk to sustain their master. Look for scars at throat and elbow.

Oh, bite me.

Hunting, Tracking

Tracking vampires requires skill, a keen eye, and a little bit of luck. They move with preternatural speed, sometimes so quickly that they float a few inches above the ground. For this reason, finding tracks can be exceedingly difficult. Look for broken twigs above ground level, animals abruptly clearing the area, or the effects of a windstorm when none has occurred. In a cityscape, look for confused individuals or paper litter moving when there is no wind.

Or in the case of the Drake brothers, especially Quinn, look for drooling girls. Seriously.

5.
Approved Weapons List

Wooden Stake:

This is the classic weapon of choice against vampires, traditionally made of whitethorn, and should not be discounted. It is unlikely to malfunction and can be made of any material, not just wood. Broken branches, fireplace pokers, fence posts, even chopsticks can be used.

Mine are covered in pink rhinestones. And pirate skulls. We can fight the Hel-Blar and still have a sense of humor. Despite what this hokey League might think!

Crossbow:

This is the more modern version of the longbow, which was a popular weapon of the Helios-Ra during the early Middle Ages. Arrows have the advantage of keeping you out of range. Crossbows can’t always be reloaded quickly, so do practice. Good aim is also crucial.

Okay, now we’re talking. Finally, something cool.

Swords and Daggers:

Another holdover from our medieval days, swords and daggers can slow a vampire down long enough for a strike to the heart. They are not ideal, though, as vampires heal quickly and are faster and stronger than we are. Decapitation will kill a vampire but it is a surprisingly difficult maneuver, and messy.

Also, it makes them cranky if you miss. I’d like to see them try it with Helena!

Holy Water:

This is not the traditional holy water blessed by a priest or other holy person. Such water is not effective and is a product of legend and wishful thinking. The Helios-Ra has developed water charged with UV rays and large doses of vitamin D that is harmful to all vampires. It burns and eats away at their skin, slowing their healing process while inflicting pain. These wounds do not always heal entirely.

Aunt Hyacinth still has the scars to prove it. Stupid Hope and her stupid rogue unit.

UV Bullets:

In the last few decades, we have also developed bullets filled with Holy Water, which fit most guns and rifles. This is the cleanest kill, if the bullet catches the heart. As with archery, aim is crucial.

Nose Plugs:

Do not underestimate the power of vampire pheromones. Nose plugs will save your mission and likely, your life.

Hypnos:

This is the strongest and most current weapon at our disposal. This powder is made from a sample of blood from the oldest known vampire, Enheduanna (Sumerian origin), as well as several zombie herbs and a powdered form of horse tranquilizer. The magical ingredients cannot be discussed with anyone outside the Paranormal division of the order.

Hypnos works by hypnotizing whoever breathes in the powder. Vampires are especially vulnerable, due to the addition of Enheduanna’s blood, even at such a small quantity. For a short amount of time (about 10-15 minutes reliably) the vampire is completely unable to do anything but follow orders. This is especially good for general disarming as well as disbanding Hel-Blar nests. It is also effective for wiping memories of human victims or bystanders, for their own protection. The use of Hypnos is strictly regulated; not every graduate will be awarded a portion.

Kieran dosed me once. It’s even worse than it sounds. It makes you feel claustrophobic and anxious. You can think clearly but you can’t seem to make your body do what you want. You literally have no choice but to obey. It’s awful.

Pepper Eggs:

Eggs are a relatively new invention, based on ninja-style weapons. Helios-Ra "eggs" are made of thin putty made to break upon impact and are filled with a mixture of ground glass, cayenne pepper, and Hypnos.

6.
Vampire Hunters of Note

From Folktale and Family Stories:

Agrippa(Roman)

Roman slave girl named after the Empress Agrippina, also a slave girl before she married Claudius. Nero, her son, had her murdered. Agrippa dove for pearls and was trained by her Roman lover, a centurion stationed in the area. By all accounts she was beautiful and deadly, taking out several vampire nests.

Dugan (Celtic)

Druid priest believed to be from either the Caledonii tribe or the Brigantes. He trained on the isle of Mona and was adept at many forms of magical healing and recognizable by his numerous woad tattoos. After his sister was killed by a rogue vampire, he turned to vampire hunting. Legend says he lived to be 192, but there is no corroborating evidence.

Eirik the Shield (Icelandic)

Viking warrior and sailor who traveled widely, hunting vampires in the Netherlands, Britain, France, and, occasionally, Spain.

Documented Hunters of Note:

Conrad the Black (British, sixth-century)

Rumored to have fought alongside King Arthur.

Alric Skallagrim (Norse, 870-913)

Famed vampire hunter and founder of the Helios-Ra. See "A Short History of Helios-Ra." Born at the foot of a lightning-struck oak tree said to be sacred to Thor. Lost his twin sister, Astrid, to a vampire attack, which fueled his creation of the Helios-Ra League.

Hakeem Mamoud (Egyptian, tenth century)

Founded the first League Headquarters in Egypt in an abandoned ancient temple to Ra.

Marie-Adelle Chevalier (French, sixteenth century)

Brought the League to North America (specifically, New France).

Cheng-Hu (Chinese, seventeenth century)

Trained noblewomen in the secret arts of vampire hunting until he was beheaded for trying to run away with a married woman.

Yoska Shandor (Roman, eighteenth century)

Relayed messages between vampire hunters all over Europe by means of his family caravan. Joined after his son was found drained of blood.

Ravi Srinapadam (Indian, eighteenth century)

Married daughter of Amrita clan (see Raktapa Council). Amrita vampires give birth to daughters the way Drakes give birth to sons. Ravi married their eldest daughter in 1789 and wrote the first League-vampire treaty after being disbarred. He was reindicted into the League on the strength of this treaty.

Zachariah Jones (American, eighteenth century)

One of the first hunters to settle in the Violet Hill area, after tracking the Drake family to the town in 1752. When his lover died, Zachariah retreated to the mountains and was never heard from again. His journals are still being searched for today.

Philippa Drake, nee Philippa Wallace (British, nineteenth century)

Founded a Ladies Paranormal Society in 1888, after marrying Thomas Drake and being exiled by both her family and the League. Her father was the Head of the Helios-Ra at the time.

Current Families with Unbroken Service (Western Division):

Chevalier, Wallace, Shandor, Reeves, Stephenson, Black, Greenberg, Olafson, Wild.

Other Hunters of Note:

Sisters of the Sanguine Heart

A sect of vampire-hunter nuns, founded in France in 1222. They whittled the crosses of their wooden rosaries into stakes and taught hunting along with catechism. Later became famous for saving a small village from a Hel-Blar infestation after Montmartre passed through the area. Currently inactive.

Richard the Lionheart, Joan of Arc, and Emily Bronte were said to have been members of the order but this has never been definitely proven.

7.
Traditional Vampire Lore (Mostly Debunked)

Habitat:

-Anywhere as long as soil from homeland is nearby—a jar’s worth is enough (debunked)

-Old castles and basements preferred (debunked)

Characteristics:

-Pale skin

-Fangs

-Cast no reflection (debunked)

Of course they cast a reflection. Do you think Logan could dress the way he does without a mirror?

-Shapeshift into bat, wolf, or mist (debunked)

-Sleep in coffins (debunked)

Strengths:

-Very fast and strong

-Can fly or levitate (debunked)

-Strong sense of smell and sharp eyesight

And they can smell a lie.

Weaknesses:

-Cannot enter without invitation (debunked)

-Wooden stake in the heart

-Decapitation

-Garlic (debunked)

-Traditional holy water (debunked)

-Crosses, churches (debunked)

-Sunlight

8.
Basic Vampire Statistics

This handbook focuses on the two major types of vampires generally dealt with by the Western Division. This is meant as a brief introduction as there are too many vampiric creatures across the world to properly explore in this handbook.

I’ve heard that there are vampire watermelons in the Balkans and that in Russia, vampires can turn into butterflies. That’s seriously weird. Now I kind of want to keep a butterfly in my room and freak out my roommate Sarita by telling her it’s Nicholas.

Habitat:

Any topography, nighttime preferred. Rarely found in desert settings. Live in tribal family groups. Some prefer to live together for safety; others are more solitary by nature. Look for blacked-out windows.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

-Sunlight weakens the young; elders can withstand indirect light for short periods of time.

-Elongated retractable canines (fangs)

-Vampire pheromones not consciously detectable to human noses but still have effect. A few vampires have exceptionally strong pheromones, which may be processed through the body as the scent of lilies and chocolate. In insect and animal populations, pheromones are used to trigger alarms before an attack, to mark territory, or to call a mate. In vampire populations, pheromones are used to attract victims and make them willing and/or forgetful.

-Irises of eyes grow paler with age; common eye colors are blue, green, gray, and hazel

-Age very slowly

-Low body temperatures

-Pale skin

-Vampires cling to the fashions and traditions of their youth.

Ever seen a vampire turned in the 80s? It’s not pretty.

-Find it difficult to resist fleeing prey

Food:

-Blood, both animal and human

-Human blood preferred when ill or wounded

Strengths:

-Heal quickly

-Move with incredible speed

-Well-developed sense of smell and sight

-Extremely strong, especially during newborn hunger frenzy at sunset

Weaknesses:

-Allergic reaction to sunlight

-Wounds through heart do not heal; vampires disintegrate entirely at moment of death. (This is thought to be a natural stealth process meant to hide their presence from the general population, even in death. Research is understandably difficult to apply.)

-Decapitation leads to instant death.

-Vampires sleep or are unconscious during daylight hours.

-Transformation ("bloodchange") can be painful and leaves the victim vulnerable.

Reproduction:

-Vampires are created when a vampire drinks a human’s blood, usually through a bite, and offers his or her own blood to the human in return. The bloodchange can be quite violent, and subjects do not always retain sanity, should they survive.

-In rare ancient families (currently surviving: Drake, Joiik, Amrita), vampire children are born to human females. In some cultures, they are known as dhampirs. The ancient families are not traditional dhampirs, in that they transform on their sixteenth birthday. Regular dhampirs are born vampiric. The Council families have been known to change, as families occasionally die out and are replaced.

Young:

-In those rare families, the children born to human mothers age naturally until their sixteenth birthday, when they weaken and die unless human blood is given to complete the transformation into a vampire.

-Once transformed, vampires age normally up to and through puberty, until they reach a biological age equivalent to their early twenties. Some variations occur.

Political Structure:

-Family/tribal groups are generally ruled by the oldest member of the lineage and his or her consort. If their leader is incapable of ruling, consensus rules generally apply. In some cases, the successor is named well in advance; in other cases trial by combat still prevails.

-A nation of families/tribes can be ruled by a single king or queen. This is not necessary and may cause intertribal warfare. This is to our advantage as it weakens them and makes it easier to hunt and dispatch.

9.
Vampire History

The basic structure of vampire society is a combination of feudal medieval values and tribal autonomy. Vampires cling to their youthful cultures and deeply respect tradition and ritual.

They can be ruled by a king or queen and their royal court. Primogeniture is not the general mode of royal succession, though it can sometimes be relied upon. Usually the right to rule is determined by political worth and/or usurpation. There has never been, to our knowledge, a monarch that rules over all the vampires of the world. Usually, kingdoms are determined by modern country territory lines, though some earlier historical lines may also be used. Most families are more concerned with following their matriarch or patriarch, or their personal sires.

Solitaries and renegades reject the power of the family unit, the sire, and the royal courts.

Royal Crest: Ruby crown with sword

Current Queen (self-styled): Lady Natasha (long white-blond hair)

Not in power anymore, thank God!

Lady Natasha was abandoned by her sire, the shaman-king Leopold, in 1722, Switzerland. She survived and was adopted into a Russian vampire family (Romanikovs) in 1851. She took over the North American vampire throne in 1957 when the king (Edward Gopi) was mysteriously chained to a tree and died at sunrise. The culprit was never found though popular belief points to Lady Natasha. "Lady" is a title she appropriated from her aristocratic foster family. The only remaining family member is her step-sister Juliana Romanikov.

She ate a raw deer heart thinking it belonged to Solange. She was way scary.

The Araksaka:

Lady Natasha’s personal guard. Marked with a tattoo of three raven feathers on the left side of their faces.

Reapers:

In the 1980s Lady Natasha sent her reapers through the streets of Violet Hill. She was staying in the royal caves inside one of the more remote Violet Hill mountains, once said to belong to the Hounds (see section 12), and demanded victims be brought to her to feed on. Her favorite reapers were the Domokos siblings, Elisabet and Lyle. They were dispatched in 1983.

Mom helped with that! And so did Bruno. And I think they might have dated but neither of them will admit to it.

Raktapa Council:

The three ancient families of Drake, Joiik, and Amrita form the Raktapa Council. They hold some sway over other vampire tribes, but exactly how much is not known.

10.
The Host

Leander Montmartre is known to all vampires and hunters. He has been creating his own army of vampires for centuries. They are known as his "Host." Once a lover to Lady Natasha. Reason for separation unknown.

Montmartre was a creepy old perv.

Habitat:

-Manor houses in private countryside settings

Distinguishing Characteristics:

-Fealty oaths sworn to Montmartre

-Act as his personal bodyguard and army

-Uniform of brown leather tunics

Food:

-Blood, preferably human. Take unwilling donors.

Strengths:

-Trained fighters

-Extremely fast and strong, well-developed sense of smell and sight, quick healers

-Unified in purpose

-Loyalty

Weaknesses:

-Usual vampire weaknesses (see section 8)

-Arrogance, blind obedience to Montmartre, power-lust

Reproduction:

- The Host are turned by a vampire bite (from Montmartre, traditionally) and abandoned to suffer the bloodchange without guidance or a sufficient quantity of the sire’s blood. This is believed to make them strong. If they survive, Montmartre returns to claim them as his own. This process is notoriously unstable and vampires often go mad. This is how many of the current Hel-Blar plague were created.

Political Structure:

-Medieval-style fealty to Leander Montmartre

11.
The Hel-Blar

Hel-Blar were at one time considered to be rare. They were mostly human victims who were infected and turned into vampires without knowledge of the process and were driven mad by bloodlust and insufficient feeding. Some retain speech and reason but many are rendered insane beyond cognitive functions.

Ew. Seriously. These guys are gross.

Now dangerously common, especially in small European towns and Violet Hill, due to Montmartre’s attempt to create his own army. Hel-Blar numbers more than tripled as he perfected his creation of the Host.

Hel-Blar means "blue death" in ancient Viking dialect.

Habitat:

-Nesting tendencies in abandoned houses and thick forests

Distinguishing Characteristics:

-Sharpened, elongated teeth; every tooth is a fang. Unretractable.

-Blue-tinted skin

-Smell like rotting mushrooms and swampy water

Food:

-Blood. From any source.

Strengths:

-Strong fighters

-Feral

Weaknesses:

-Usual vampire weaknesses (see section 8)

-Can lose themselves in battle frenzy, as did the Viking Beserkers.

Reproduction:

-The Hel-Blar bite is known as a "kiss" and, unlike a regular vampire bite, can turn the victim without the need for blood exchange. Saliva in an open wound is sometimes enough.

-Even other vampires fear this bite because of the contagious effect on other vampires.

-Always made, never born, even in ancient families.

Political Structure:

-None, beyond nesting. Work in small clans or tribes.

12.
The Hounds

The Hounds are notoriously secretive and information is difficult to gather and decipher. They know themselves as the Cwn Mamau, “The Hounds of the Mother.”

Habitat:

-Prefer caves, the more remote the better. Walls are painted with scenes from their ancestral myths. Details unknown.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

-Sharpened, elongated teeth; double set of retractable fangs

-Very misunderstood; little is known about them

-Superstitious

-Wild demeanor and appearance is common.

-Pale skin

-Wear bone beads and amulets

-Dogs taken into their tribes as totem-type animal companions

Food:

-Blood, both human and animal

Strengths:

-Strong fighters

-Fiercely independent

-Extremely fast and strong

-Well-developed sense of smell and sight

-Quick healers

-Good trackers and hunters

-Magical knowledge about which we have little information

Weaknesses:

-Usual vampire weaknesses (see section 8)

Reproduction:

-Many of the modern Hounds were turned by a vampire bite and abandoned to become one of Montmartre’s Host. Instead of being reclaimed by Montmartre or another unrelated sire, they are rescued by other Hounds and adopted into the tribe in elaborate initiation rituals.

Political Structure and Miscellaneous Customs:

-By all accounts the Hounds do not swear an oath to a particular royal bloodline. They prefer to follow a shamanka (sometimes a shaman) who rules through the use of ritual magic and superstition. They can be recognized by the bone bead necklaces they wear carved into the shape of their particular animal totem. Teeth pulled from previous shamanka totems are also worn.

My dad wears necklaces like that too.

-Braiding of the hair is an initiatory practice. Seven braids is said to be the number of luck for the shamanka, five for their apprentice, four for the sire of a tribe, three for the ordinary warrior. Newly turned Hounds wear no braids until their first kill; afterward a single braid.

-The Hounds are among some of the oldest vampires known. They are fierce and strong and very solitary. They have managed to avoid entanglement in human history and conflict, preferring life in the deep woods or caves.

Current Shamanka:

Kala: (white hair in braids and dreadlocks, blue eyes, painted ritual deer cloak)

Little is known. She is at least three hundred years old, rumored by some to be as old as two thousand. She spent several hundred years living alone in the mountains until she took the mantle of shamanka when the last shaman-king was killed. Her witch-dogs are famous for tracking and finding abandoned vampires during the transformational process of becoming Host or Hel-Blar. Currently the only shamanka we have intel on; if there are others, they are unknown to us.

Hound Princess: Kala’s handmaiden

Isabeau St. Croix: (long black hair, green eyes, favors fighting in leathers with sleeveless shirt and chain mail)

Turned: during French Revolution and left for dead

Distinguishing Characteristics: beauty mark on right cheekbone, petite, double set of fangs, French accent, numerous tattoos (Celtic knot work, greyhound, fleur-de-lis)

Personality: very reclusive, polite, strong

Strengths: good fighter, determined, loyal to shamanka, magical training

Companion: gray wolfhound “Charlemagne,” Magda (Hound), Finn (Initiated Hound)

Point of Interest: parents killed by guillotine during the French Revolution

There’s a whole new vampire race the League didn’t even know about called the Na-Foir. They’re something between a Hel-Blar and a Hound. They were more reclusive than even the Hounds, because their veins are so blue they get mistaken for Hel-Blar a lot and shot on sight. My cousin Christabel was kidnapped by them so she could be a political liaison. They thought she was me. I’m still not sure what to think about that.

13.
The Drake Family (Local Clan)

The Drakes are of particular interest as they are the current linchpin to most political intrigue within North American vampire society, especially in Violet Hill. Only sons have been born to this lineage since the Middle Ages, until the birth of Solange Drake (b. 1993) to Liam Drake (b. 1901) and Helena Drake (b. 1953-died/turned 1994).

As mentioned previously, a historic treaty is in effect between the Drakes and the Helios-Ra. The Drakes do not drink from humans without consent and never drink enough to cause irreparable damage. We do not hunt the Drakes at this time. A bulletin will be issued should this change.

Exiled but still powerful. Not enough is known about the prophecy regarding Solange Drake.

Because it’s none of your business!

The surname Drake is thought to have originated from the Old English word “Draca,” or possibly from Old Danish “Draki,” both meaning “Dragon.”

Family Motto: “Nox Noctis, nostra domina”(Latin for “Night our Mistress”)

I need my own motto. And maybe a theme song. But I’ll leave the superhero capes to Kieran and Hunter.

Family Crest: Dragon with ivy in its mouth

Origins:

William Drake is thought to be the first Drake vampire, turned circa late eleventh century–early twelfth century. In 1148, he married Veronique Dubois, lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in France. She gave birth to twins (Arnaud and Christophe) in 1149 and would have died in childbirth if William had not turned her. They were chased out of Aquitaine when the twins sickened on their sixteenth birthday and would only be cured by the drinking of human blood, which turned them fully in 1165.

Exiled from the royal courts by Lady Natasha due to prophecy.

Habitat:

The main Drake homestead is in the outskirts of Violet Hill, near the mountains. Several farms comprise the compound and are patrolled by both human and vampire guards. The Violet Hill area is also home to the caves used by the Hounds, until they were taken over by Lady Natasha.

Current Generation

Father:

Liam Drake (born 1901, turned 1917)

Blue eyes, dark hair; diplomatic strengths

Mother:

Helena Drake, née Cole (born 1966, turned 1994)

Black hair, blue eyes; skilled in several martial arts (including Tae Kwon Do, Akido), as well as fencing, kickboxing, and hunting, even before she was turned. Do not antagonize.

Sons:

Nicholas (born 1992, turned 2008)

Gray eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: Drake training, mechanics, newly turned, need to prove himself, over-protective of his little sister, Solange, and of Lucky Hamilton

Logan (born 1991, turned 2007)

Green eyes, brown hair

Noteworthy: Drake training, wears frock coats and Goth attire, father’s ability to charm, fastidious, cocky

Connor (born 1990, turned 2006)

Blue eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: twin (Quinn), Drake training, computer tech

Quinn (born 1990, turned 2006)

Blue eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: twin (Connor), Drake training, charm, overconfidence, especially strong pheromones?

Duncan (born 1988, turned 2004)

Green eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: Drake training, mechanics, antisocial

Marcus (born 1987, turned 2003)

Blue eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: Drake training, shy, very intelligent, science/biology

Sebastian (born 1986, turned 2002)

Amber eyes, dark brown hair

Noteworthy: Drake training, reclusive, very quiet, little else known

Daughter:

Solange (born 1993, bloodchange expected on August 23, 2009)

Blue eyes, black hair

Companion: Lucky “Lucy” Hamilton (person of interest, human)

Noteworthy: Drake training, acupressure, fencing, solitary, pottery; quiet, seems calmer than her brothers

Point of Interest: First and only daughter born to the Drake clan. Assumed to be the one mentioned in a vampire prophecy to become queen (written down during the reign of Henry VIII, but no other information is available).

Drake Persons of Note:

Hyacinth Drake (born 1857, turned 1877): married to Edward Drake (born 1789, turned 1805, died 1914); lives at the main Drake house, Violet Hill compound.

Geoffrey Drake (born 1910, turned 1926): brother of Liam Drake; biology teacher at local college, Violet Hill. Lives on family compound.

Ruby Drake

Little is known about her. Loss of family is said to have driven her mad. Avoid.

London Drake (of the British Drakes): oathed to royal house, currently Lady Natasha (acting vampire queen)

She’s cranky.

Victoria Drake

Poet

I’ve never met her, but sounds like she’d have a lot in common with my cousin Christabel.

Associated Humans of Interest:

The MacAlister/Hamilton family has strong ties to the Drakes.

Posy MacAlister aided the effort to defeat Lady Natasha’s reapers in the 80s. She dispatched many vampires before and after that event, with her own gang of ex-bikers. Her daughter Janet (changed name to Cassiopeia) retired from vampire killing but has maintained strong ties with Helena Drake. Cass married Stuart Hamilton and their daughter Lucky is close to Solange Drake.

Lucky Moon Hamilton (born 1993)

Look, I’m famous!

Brown eyes, brown hair

Noteworthy: mostly immune to vampire pheromones, especially Drake pheromones. Brash, protective, reckless, good aim with crossbow, annoys Nicholas Drake.

Hey!

Bruno MacGregor (born 1964)

Brown eyes, brown/shaved hair

Noteworthy: Scottish, Drake bodyguard, ex-biker, tattoos; proficient in mixed martial arts, street fighting, gun use, daggers, motorcycles.

14.
Supernatural Miscellany

(basic; see Paranormal Division guide for more in-depth analysis)

It has come to our attention that other creatures may be using the Violet Hill mountains and forests as their base. Local unsubstantiated lore mentions the following: faery folk, werewolves, witches, zombies, demons. Use discretion.

We need a Vampire Relations Department.

Lucky Hamilton
Class Schedule

Grade 11

10:30 a.m. Breakfast (optional)

12:30 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. English Literature (2nd semester: History)

2:00 p.m. Math (2nd semester: Art)

3:00 p.m. Science (2nd semester: Independent Study)

4:30 p.m. Major (Paranormal Division, Science and Technology Division, Hunting Division)

5:30 p.m. Study Hall. Gym. Quiet curfew in effect.

6:30 p.m. Dinner

7:30 p.m. League History

8:30 p.m. Archery/Gun Range

9:30 p.m. Vampire History

10:30 p.m. Kickboxing

11:30 p.m. Supernatural Studies (2nd semester: Technology)

1:00 a.m. Curfew, Snack provided in Common Room

1:30 a.m. Lights Out

The Drake Chronicles

On Solange’s sixteenth birthday, she is going to wake up dead. As if that’s not bad enough, she also has to outwit her seven overprotective older brothers, avoid the politics involved with being the only daughter born to an ancient vampire dynasty, and elude an anti-vampire league.

This sixteenth birthday isn’t looking so sweet …

HEARTS AT STAKE

Book 1

Kieran Black, an agent of an anti-vampire league searching for his father’s killer, is intent on staking Solange and her entire family.

Luckily she has her own secret weapon–her human best friend Lucy, who is willing to defend Solange’s right to a normal life, whether she’s being smothered by her well-intentioned brothers or abducted by a power-hungry queen. Two unlikely alliances are formed in a race to save Solange’s eternal life–Lucy and Solange’s brother Nicholas, and Solange and Kieran Black–in a dual romance that is guaranteed to jump-start any romance-lover’s heart.

BLOOD FEUD

Book 2

Isabeau St. Croix barely survived the French Revolution and now she’s made her way back to the living. She must face the ultimate test by confronting the evil British lord who left her for dead the day she turned into a vampire–that’s if she can control her affection for Logan Drake, a vampire whose bite is as sweet as the revenge she seeks.

In this second adventure–told from both Logan’s and Isabeau’s perspectives, the clans are gathering for the royal coronation of the next vampire queen–and new alliances are beginning to form. But with a new common enemy, Leander Montmarte–a vicious leader who hopes to force Solange to marry him and usurp the power of the throne for himself–the clans must stand together to preserve the peace he threatens to destroy.

OUT FOR BLOOD

Book 3

Hunter Wild is the youngest in a long line of elite vampire hunters, a legacy that is both a blessing and a curse at the secret Helios-Ra Academy, where she excels at just about everything. Thanks to her friendship with Kieran Black, Hunter receives a special invitation to attend the coronation of Helena Drake, and for the first time, she sees the difference between vampires that must be hunted and vampires that can become friends–or even more.

When students at the academy fall victim to a mysterious illness, Hunter suspects they are under attack from within. She will need someone she can trust to help her save the future of Helios-Ra … help that shockingly comes in the form of Quinn Drake, a drop-dead -gorgeous vampire. Who said senior year would be easy?

BLEEDING HEARTS

Book 4

Violet Hill is under attack by the ruthless Hel-Blar vampires, who are determined to take their rightful place alongside the other vampire clans at the Blood Moon gathering. The royal Drakes might be powerful, but their love for a mere human-Lucy-leaves them vulnerable. The Hel-Blar’s plan to exploit that weakness goes horribly wrong when they try to kidnap Lucy but take her cousin Christabel by mistake.

Connor Drake immediately heads off in pursuit, willing to put his own life on the line for the girl he has grown to care so much about. Can he save Christabel, the Blood Moon, and his mother’s newly forged vampire alliance?

AND COMING SOON …

BLOOD MOON

Book 5

When the vampire tribes convene for the rare Blood Moon ceremonies, Solange’s fight with her feral nature, a mysterious stranger, family secrets, and forbidden magic put all of the Drakes in danger.

And when Nicholas is caught between saving his little sister, Solange, or his girlfriend, Lucy, who will he choose?

Read the Drake Chronicles

from the beginning …

Ruling Passion—includes Hearts at Stake,
Blood Feud, and Out for Blood

Find out more about the Drakes at
www.thedrakechronicles.com

And the passion continues, with three
original e-novellas featuring your favorite
characters from the Drake Chronicles …

To know the Drakes is to love them…

Don’t miss where all the spine-tingling
romance began.

PROLOGUE

Lucy

Friday, early evening

Normally I wouldn’t have been caught dead at a field party.

If you’ll pardon the pun.

This was a supreme sacrifice on my part for my best friend, Solange, who was having a really bad day, which was about to turn into a really bad week. Her sixteenth birthday was coming up, and we weren’t talking a new car and a pink dress for her sweet sixteen. Not in her family.

This wasn’t much better though.

She was standing in the middle of a field, trying to drink cheap wine and pretend she didn’t want to be anywhere but here. The music was passable but that was about all it had to recommend it. The cars were parked in a wide circle, the sun setting behind the trees with all the colors of a blood orange pulled into pieces. Practically my entire high school was here; there wasn’t much else to do on one of the last weekends before school started. People danced and flirted in a sea of baseball caps and faded denim. Someone burped loudly.

“This was such a bad idea,” I muttered.

Solange smiled softly, abandoning her plastic cup on the hood of someone’s rusted truck.

“It was a nice thought.”

“It was stupid,” I admitted. She just looked so sad lately, I’d hoped a complete change of pace might distract her from all that worrying. Instead it made me want to bare my pitifully human teeth at the rowdies. Someone’s shoe nudged my heel, and when I looked back at it, I was greeted with way too much information about the mating habits of my fellow students. I kicked hard at the boot.

“No one needs to see that,” I said, turning away quickly before more clothing came off. The couple giggled and went deeper into the corn. I stared at Solange. “What the hell was I thinking?”

She half grinned.

“It is rather unlike you.”

Darren, from my math class last year, tripped over his own feet and sprawled in the dirt in front of us before I could answer. His grin was sloppy. He was nice enough usually; in fact, he was the reason I hadn’t entirely flunked out of math. But he was drunk and desperate to fit in.

“Hi, Lucy.” Apparently beer made him lisp. My name came out as “Loothee”—which was marginally better than my real name, which was Lucky. I had those kind of parents, but I’d made everyone at school call me Lucy since the first day of first grade.

“Hi, Darren.”

He blinked at Solange. Even in jeans and a tank top she looked dramatic. It was all that pale skin and those pale eyes. Her black bangs were choppy because she trimmed them herself. The rest was long and hung past her shoulders. Mine was plain old brown and cut in a wedged bob to my chin. My glasses were retro—dark rimmed and vaguely cat’s-eye shaped. I didn’t need them to see the way Darren was drooling over Solange. All guys drooled over her. She was beautiful, end of discussion.

“Who’s your friend? She’s hot.”

“You’ve met her before.” Solange was homeschooled, but I dragged her around when I could. “Sober up, Darren. This isn’t a good look for you.”

“’Kay.” He spat grass out of his mouth.

I slung my arm through hers. “Let’s get out of here. The sun’s starting to set anyway, and maybe we can salvage the rest of the night.”

The wind was soft through the corn, rustling the stalks as we wandered away. The stars were starting to peek out, like animal eyes in the dark. We could still hear the music and the occasional shout of laughter. Twilight was starting to settle like a soft blue veil. We’d walked from my house, which was a half hour away. We’d probably waited too long. We picked up our pace.

And then Solange paused.

“What?” I froze beside her, my shoulders tensing until I was practically wearing them as earmuffs. I was all too aware of what could be out there. I should never have suggested this. I’d just put her into even more danger. I was an idiot.

She held up her hand, her eyes so pale suddenly that they were nearly colorless, a ring of ice around a black lake. And because I was scared, I scowled into the gathering shadows around us. Mom always said bravado was a karmic debt I had to work through. She was basically saying I’d been mouthy and obnoxious for several lifetimes now. But somehow I didn’t think this particular situation called for a round of oms, which was my mother’s favorite way of cleansing karmic baggage. Most babies were sung lullabies; I got “Om Namah Shivaya” when I was really fussy.

“Cops?” I suggested, mostly because they seemed like the better alternative. “They always break up these parties.”

She shook her head. She looked delicate and ethereal, as if she were made of lily petals. Few people knew the marble all that softness concealed.

“They’re close,” she murmured. “Watching.”

“Run?” I suggested. “Like, right now?”

She shook her head again, but we did at least start walking.

“If we act like prey, they’ll act like predators.”

I tried not to hyperventilate, tried to walk quickly but confidently, as if we weren’t being stalked. Sometimes I really hated Solange’s life. It was totally unfair.

“You’re getting angry,” she said softly.

“Damn right I am. Those undead bastards think they can do this to you just because—”

“When you’re angry, your heart beats faster. It’s like the cherry on a hot fudge sundae.”

“Oh. Right.” I always forgot that little detail. Maybe my mom was right. I needed to take up meditating.

“Lucy, I want you to run.”

“Shut up,” I said, disbelief making my voice squeaky.

“They’ll follow me if I run in the opposite direction.”

“That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” I grumbled, fighting the urge to look over my shoulder. Stupid creepy cornfields. Stupid creepy stalkers. A cricket sang suddenly from the tall corn and my heart nearly shot straight out of my chest. I actually pressed my hand against my rib cage, half-worried. The cricket went quiet and was replaced by the rumble of car tires on the ground. Cornstalks snapped. A familiar jeep skidded to a dusty halt in front of us.

“Nicholas,” Solange breathed, relieved.

“Get in,” he snapped.

I was slightly less enamored with her older brother, but I had to admit he had good timing. In his black shirt and dark hair, he blended into the night. Only his eyes gave him away, silver and fierce. He was gorgeous, there was no use in denying it, but he always knew just how to make me want to poke him in the eye with a fork.

Like right now.

“Drive,” he said to their brother Logan, who was behind the steering wheel. He didn’t even wait for me to get in. Logan lifted his foot off the brake. The car rolled forward.

“Hey!” I shouted.

“Nicholas Drake, you let her in the car right now.” Solange leaned forward between the front seats.

“She’s fine. We have to get you out of here.”

I grabbed on to the half-opened window. Logan slowed down.

“Sorry, Lucy, I thought you were in already,” he said.

“Don’t you read?” I asked Nicholas, disgusted. “If you leave me here now that you’ve got Solange all safe, they’ll grab me to get to her.”

Solange opened the back door and I leaped in. The car sped off. Shadows flitted beside us, menacing, hungry. I shivered. Then I smacked the back of Nicholas’s head.

“Idiot.”

CHAPTER 1

Solange

“I can’t believe you were actually going to just leave her there,” I grumbled again as Logan pulled into our lane, which was overgrown with hedges. The unnatural glint of unnatural eyes had faded, and there was nothing but ripe blackberries and crickets in the bushes. Not only was our farm well protected, but it was also surrounded by other family farms, with forest surrounding all of them. Drakes have lived in this area since it was considered wild and dangerous, best left to gunslingers and outlaws. Now it was just home.

But dangerous all the same.

“She was fine,” Nicholas said testily. “She was safe as soon as we got you away from her.” He only ever called her “she,” except to her face, when he called her Lucky because it annoyed her so much. They’d been getting on each other’s nerves since we were kids. There was a family joke that Lucy’s first words were, “Nicholas is bugging me.” I couldn’t remember ever not knowing her. She’d drawn me out of my shell, even when we were little, though it wasn’t until my fifth birthday that I’d started calling her my best friend, after she threw a mud ball at Nicholas’s head for stealing my chocolate cupcake. We’d learned to ride bikes together and liked the same movies and talked all night whenever we had slumber parties.

“She was fine,” Nicholas insisted, catching my glare. “Despite being reckless.”

“She was just trying to help me.”

“She’s human,” he said, as if it were a debilitating disease, as if he wasn’t human as well, despite the bloodchange. We aren’t undead, like the horror novels say, though we definitely look it during our transformation. That particular stereotype clings so deeply that sometimes it’s easier to embrace it. Lucy’s mom calls us “differently abled.”

“And you’re a jerk.” I touched his sleeve. “But thanks for coming to get me.”

“You’re welcome,” he muttered. “You know you shouldn’t let her talk you into stuff. It never turns out well.”

“I know. But you know how Lucy is. And she meant well.”

He grunted. Logan grinned.

“She’s getting cuter. Especially from behind.”

“She is not,” Nicholas said. “And quit looking at her butt.”

I was so totally going to tell Lucy they’d been talking about her butt.

“You’re such an old man,” Logan said scornfully, turning off the ignition. “We have all this power. We should use it.”

“Flirting is not a power,” I told him drily.

“It is if you’re good at it. And I’m very good at it.”

“So you keep telling us.”

“Being charming’s my gift,” he said modestly. No one else could have pulled off such an old-fashioned shirt with lace cuffs and such a pretty face. The pheromones that vampires emit like a dangerous perfume keep humans enticed and befuddled with longing, and Logan’s are especially well tuned. They don’t have an actual smell that can be described, except lately in my case. It’s more subliminal than that, with the power to hypnotize. Kind of like the way wild animals can smell each other out in the forest, especially during mating season. If a vampire is particularly strong, humans don’t even remember being a meal; they just have a craving for rare steak or spinach. If we drink too much, they become anemic.

The pheromones don’t work on other vampires, except, of course, for mine, which are rapidly becoming a beacon for all of vampire kind. I’m special, and not in a good way, if you ask me. Vampires are rarely born, except in certain ancient families…Exhibit A, me and my seven obnoxious older brothers.

But I’m the only girl.

In about nine hundred years.

And the closer I get to my sixteenth birthday, the more I attract the others to me. It’s all very Snow White, except I don’t call bluebirds and deer out of the woods—only bloodthirsty vampires who want to kidnap me or kill me. Vampire politics are messy at best, and all Drakes have been exiled from the royal court since the very hour I was born. I’m considered a threat to the current ruler, Lady Natasha, because my genealogy is so impressive and because there’s some stupid prophecy from centuries ago that says the vampire tribes will be properly united under the rule of a daughter born to an ancient family.

And Lady Natasha, unlike me, wasn’t born into an ancient family—even if she considers herself to be the reigning vampire queen.

As if that’s my fault.

Luckily, my family much prefers living in quiet exile in the woods. I’d heard enough rumors about our ruler to be glad we’d never actually met. She feeds off humans and is barely circumspect about it; in fact, she loves the attention and the vampire groupies. She apparently doesn’t like pretty young girls; they never seem to survive her mood swings.

Technically, she shouldn’t be feeding off humans, and certainly not so nonchalantly. It was becoming an issue, even among her own people. There are royalists who follow her just because she’s so powerful, not because they particularly respect her. Fear, as always, is a great motivator.

And lately she’s been turning more and more humans into vampires, in order to gather more followers. The council makes her nervous, and I make her nervous, but most of all Leander Montmartre makes her nervous.

He has that affect on all of us.

He’s been turning humans for nearly three hundred years now, and he’s so violent and careless about it, he’s basically created a new breed of vampire. He leaves them half-turned and usually buried under the ground, to conquer the bloodchange on their own without any help at all. The thirst is so strong that it twists them and gives them a double set of fangs instead of just our one retractable pair. The ones that stay loyal to Montmartre are called the Host. The ones who defect call themselves the Cwn Mamau, the Hounds of the Mothers. They were either strong enough to survive alone, or were rescued and trained by other Hounds. Everyone knew they wanted to kill Montmartre, but they were so reclusive they wouldn’t accept outside help. They are fiercely independent, live in caves, serve a shamanka (female shaman), and wear bone beads in their hair. They’re kind of scary, but nowhere near as scary as the most dangerous of Montmartre’s creations called the Hel-Blar, who have blue-tinted skin, and teeth that are all fangs, sharpened like needles and unretractable. Hel-Blar means “blue death” in some ancient Viking language. Their bite, known as a “kiss,” can infect without any blood exchange, and it’s rumored they can turn both vampires and humans into Hel-Blar. Even Montmartre avoids them as much as possible. He’s not big on cleaning up his own mess. And they want him dead even more than the Hounds do—when they’re lucid enough to want anything more than blood. The Host and the Hounds managed to stay sane, unlike the Hel-Blar. No one can control them, not even Montmartre.

We live peacefully with other humans, and our family is one of the few ancient clans of the Raktapa Council. The council was formed ages ago when the families realized that we weren’t like other vampires: our change is genetic. We transform without being bitten, but we need vampire blood to survive that transformation. Afterward, we’re nearly immortal, like the others, vulnerable only to a stake through the heart, too much sunlight, or decapitation.

“Do Mom and Dad know about what happened after the party?” I asked, finally getting out of the car and facing the house. The original building had burned down during the Salem witch trials, even though we were nowhere near Salem. The locals had been superstitious and scared of every little thing. The house was rebuilt farther into the sheltering forest. It was simple and a little shabby from the outside, but the pioneer-style log cabin hid a luxurious heart full of velvet couches and stone fireplaces. The rosebushes under the leaded-glass windows were a little scraggly, the oak trees old and stately. I loved every single treated inch of it. Even my mother’s pinched and disapproving face behind the glass.

“Busted,” Logan murmured.

Moths flung themselves at the lamps. The screen door creaked when I pushed it open.

“Solange Rosamund Drake.”

I winced. Behind me, both my brothers did the same. My mother, Helena, was intimidating at the best of times with her long black hair and her pale eyes, and the fact that she can take down someone twice her size with a sword, a stake, or her petite bare hands.

“Ouch—middle name.” Logan shot me a sympathetic smile before easing into the living room and out of the crossfire.

“Snitch.” I pinched Nicholas. He only raised an eyebrow.

“Nicholas didn’t tell us anything.” My mom pinned him with a pointed glare. He squirmed a little. I’d known grown men to back away physically from that look. “One of your aunts was patrolling the perimeter and saw your escape.”

“Escape.” I rolled my eyes. “It was barely anything. They didn’t even come out of the cornfields. They were just sniffing me.”

“You have to be more careful,” my father, Liam, said calmly from his favorite chair. It kind of looked like a medieval throne. No surprise there. He’d only been born in 1901 but he carried himself like a king.

“I feel fine,” I said, exasperated. He was drinking brandy. I could smell it across the room, just like I could smell Uncle Geoffrey’s cologne, Aunt Hyacinth’s pug, and the thick perfume of roses. Just another one of our little gifts. I rubbed my nose so I wouldn’t sneeze.

“What’s with all the flowers?” I asked, noticing the roses. There were dozens and dozens of them everywhere, in every shade of red, stuffed in crystal vases, teacups, and jam jars.

“From your … admirers,” my father told me grimly.

“What?” Admirers, ha! They were only coming around because of my pheromones. It’s not my fault I smell funny. I shower every day, but apparently I still stink of lilies and warm chocolate and something else no one can accurately describe. Even Lucy commented on it once, and she’s nearly immune to us, having practically grown up here. No one else was smelly in such an obvious way; pheromones are usually subtle and mysterious. I really hope it fades once I fully turn.

The prophecy and my family’s legacy in the vampire world won’t, though.

Sometimes it sucks having a family that’s so old and powerful.

“Darling, it’s a great compliment, I’m sure,” my aunt Hyacinth said. She was technically my great-great-great-aunt. She didn’t look much over forty, even though she clung to the fashions of her youth in the privacy of the tribe, like most vampires. Her dress was Victorian in style, with a lace corset and jet beads. “When I was your age I had the best time. There’s nothing like the rush of being a debutante. All those men hungering after you.” She gave a delicate shiver.

“Hyacinth.” Dad grimaced. “You hadn’t even been turned then, and this is hardly a debutante’s ball. They don’t want to waltz, damn it.” My great-great-great-uncle Edward had married Aunt Hyacinth in 1853 and turned her in 1877, at her insistence. She was inspired by Queen Victoria’s undying love for her own husband and wanted to live for centuries by Edward’s side. I’d never met him, though, because he’d died in World War I, shot one night on a spy mission for the Allies because he was determined to do his part. She’d been alone ever since.

I glanced at a thick cream-colored paper card pinned to an enormous bouquet of white roses in a red box and froze.

“Montmartre?” I squeaked. “He sent me flowers?”

Dad flicked the box a baleful glare. “Yes.”

“I’m putting them down the incinerator,” I said darkly. The last thing I wanted was Montmartre or his Host to know who I was. I was also hoping to slip out while everyone else was distracted. I should have known better.

“You can do that later.” Mom pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

I dropped onto a velvet settee. Nicholas sat as well, joining my other brothers, who were all watching me grimly.

“Don’t you lot have anything better to do?” I asked.

“Than protecting our annoying baby sister?” Quinn drawled. “No.”

Being the only girl in a family of boys would have been tough enough to navigate, never mind a family with the rare ability to give birth to mostly male vampires. Even among the Drakes, that ability is rare. Most vampires are “made,” not born. My mom, for example, had been human until my dad turned her shortly after I was born and they’d decided they didn’t want any more children. He’d been born human too, like my brothers, until his sixteenth birthday—when he’d sickened, the way we all did—and would have died if my aunt hadn’t given him her blood to drink.

Family legend has it that the first of our clan was William Drake. No one knows how he was turned. We did know he married Veronique DuBois, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. A year after their wedding, she went into labor with their firstborn. After twenty-seven hours of childbirth, the midwife told William that Veronique was not going to survive the birth. In desperation, William turned her, and their twins were born healthy. By their sixteenth birthday, though, the twins weakened and grew unnaturally sensitive to the sunlight. They were hungry but couldn’t eat, thirsty but couldn’t drink. Nothing tempted them.

Except blood.

And so the Drake vampire family began.

Veronique, as the oldest surviving Drake, is our family matriarch. William was staked by a hunter during the reign of Henry VIII. Veronique rarely visited, preferring to have us come to her once we’d survived the change and she could afford to get attached. At least she hadn’t joined us tonight, which meant it wasn’t a formal meeting, just a family ambush. She was scary enough that she probably could have given Lady Natasha a run for her crown if she’d wanted it. Luckily for everyone, she preferred embroidery to court intrigue.

“Solange, are you listening to me?”

I jerked my head up.

“Yes.” I’d heard this particular lecture enough times over the last few months to know it intimately. “Nothing happened. You’re all overreacting.” I did feel guilty; I just knew better than to show it.

“There were at least three of them in that field tonight, maybe more.” Nicholas scowled. “You know they don’t all send flowers. Most of them just want to grab you and run.”

I scowled back. “I could have handled it. It wasn’t even full dark yet. Besides, if they were so dangerous, why’d you nearly leave Lucy behind?”

“You were going to leave Lucy there?” my mom sputtered, and Nicholas narrowed his eyes at me. I crossed my eyes smugly. Growing up with so many brothers taught me the fine art of misdirection, self-preservation, and revenge, if nothing else.

“She was fine.” I knew Nicholas was trying not to slump in his chair. “They weren’t after her. And she’s not fragile, for God’s sake.”

“She’s under the protection of this family,” my father said.

“I know, but she can look after herself. Broke my nose last summer, didn’t she?”

“Be that as it may.”

“Okay, okay.” Nicholas backed down.

“And you, young lady.” Dad turned to me. Every single one of my traitor brothers smirked. They look enough alike that people usually assume they’re all sets of twins. Only Quinn and Connor are actually twins. Quinn keeps his hair long and Connor, like Sebastian, prefers to fade quietly into the background. Logan is the flamboyant one, and Nicholas spends most of his free time worrying about me. Marcus and Duncan just came home from a road trip. They’re all gorgeous; it’s like living with a bunch of male models. And it makes girls stupid around them.

“You have to take this seriously.”

“I do, Dad,” I said quietly. “You know I do.”

“What I know is that they’re coming for you and soon you’ll be weaker than a blind kitten.”

“I know.” This totally sucked. I was getting in trouble over a party I hadn’t wanted to go to in the first place. I like being alone and staying on the farm. But I hate being trapped and hovered over.

“Let the girl be,” Hyacinth said, drinking delicately from a goblet. It looked like cherry cordial. It wasn’t.

“Thank you.” I swallowed thickly.

Did I mention?

I was squeamish about blood.

CHAPTER 2

Lucy

“Lucy, is that you?”

I kicked the door shut with my heel, still muttering under my breath. Nicholas was so infuriating. What was wrong with him anyway?

“Lucy?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I called out.

“Where have you been? We nearly started without you, kiddo.” Dad came out of the kitchen with a bowl of hot popcorn, made from the corn he’d grown in the backyard. It was as close to junk food as my parents came. His long hair was in its usual ponytail, his sleeves rolled up to display his wolf and turtle tattoos. The wolf was his personal totem, and the turtle was our family totem.

“Pick out a movie, honey.” Mom looked up from the beads spread out on the coffee table. She was sitting cross-legged in old jeans and a peasant blouse, stringing a hundred and eight rose quartz beads together to make prayer malas. She makes them to give away as gifts at the ashram. My parents went every year, and they were leaving tomorrow morning before dawn. “What’s wrong? Is Solange all right?”

“She’s fine.” Mostly.

“Tell her we’ve asked the swami to pray for her. Why do you look so grumpy?”

“It’s Nicholas. He just makes me so mad sometimes.”

“Honey, you know anger poisons your body. You’ve always been too quick to get mad. Why do you think you have allergies? Your body’s always on hyper defense.”

“Mom.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. Dad winked at me and passed the popcorn. “Are you going to be all right here on your own while we’re away? I stocked the fridge.”

“With tofu?” I grimaced.

“I don’t want you gorging on junk food while we’re away, young lady.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, I’m not eating weird tofu casseroles for two weeks.” My parents had passed on their sense of social justice, even if they chose to fight with sit-ins and I preferred to swing a punch. Call it family rebellion. I felt the same way about tofu as I did about sit-ins. I’m sure they’re both good for the soul, but I’d once breathed in a lungful of tear gas when my parents took me to a global warming protest and I swore I’d never lay limp in the road again. One time, Dad was hit by a rubber bullet, and the bruises on his chest had scared me more than any polluting global corporation or vicious dictator could have. Even scarier was the fact that he hadn’t gotten angry, had actually lain down for it. When I turned fifteen, I was finally able to convince them to leave me behind when they went on their annual retreat.

“Maybe we should call your aunt to come stay with you,” Mom said.

Not that they didn’t worry.

“I was fine last year and I’ll be fine this year, Mom. Besides, Lucinda’s in Vegas with her new girlfriend, remember?” I crunched some popcorn. “Stop fretting, it’s bad for your chi.”

“She’s got you there.” Dad grinned.

“I’ll probably stay at the Drakes’ most nights anyway, just like last year,” I assured her. “So, can we just watch the movie now?” I turned up the volume before she could find something else to worry about.

When the movie was over, my parents went to bed and I went back to Solange’s. I’d only had my license for a few months, but the car already practically drove itself there. Although I didn’t see a single person, I knew I was spotted by various guards and family members before I’d even made it onto the outskirts of the Drake compound. I didn’t know why Mom was so worried; she’d already asked Bruno, the Drakes’ head bodyguard, to check up on me.

The dogs didn’t bother to bark when I got out. There were three of them, big, shaggy gray-black Bouviers, which looked more like bears than dogs. They might have been intimidating if they weren’t currently shoving their damp noses in my pockets and whimpering for treats. I had more to fear from the windstorm they might cause with the ferocious wagging of their stubby tails.

The lamps were lit—soft yellow light gleamed through the windows. The light was always soft in the Drake house. I went around to the side, hoping Solange’s bedroom window was open. I could have knocked. I usually did. It wasn’t as if anyone would be asleep, and they could usually smell my presence anyway. But I didn’t know if I was in trouble. I’d apologize if I was, but I hated going in unprepared. Regular parents were bad enough, but vampire parents were in a class all their own. Solange’s window was closed, so I texted her. Nothing.

“Lucky.”

I yelped like a scalded cat, whirling so fast I made myself dizzy. My phone landed in the bushes. Nicholas smirked at me, easing languidly out of the shadows. His pale eyes gleamed. I gasped for breath, thumping my chest. That was the second time in one night I’d practically choked on my own heart. Nicholas licked his lips. I remembered Solange’s warning and tried to calm my pulse.

“What the hell, Nicky!” I muttered. He hated being called that as much as I hated being called Lucky. He stepped closer, totally invading my personal space. I hated that he was so handsome, with his tousled dark hair and his serious expression, like some ancient scholar. There was something else in his expression suddenly, something slightly wicked. I took a step back, wondering why my stomach felt funny. He advanced and I backed away some more, suspicious, until I bumped into the log wall of the house. I remembered, too late, Solange’s simplest warning about vampires: if you ran, they chased. It was just in their nature.

I stopped abruptly and lifted my chin, trying to pretend my shoulder blades weren’t pressing into the log wall and I had nowhere to go.

“What?”

He was close enough that his legs practically brushed mine.

He was close enough, in point of fact, to kiss.

I was instantly horrified the thought had even crossed my mind. I tried to comfort myself with the idea that it was probably just those legendary pheromones. I was used to them, but I wasn’t completely immune. And the fact was, he was looking at me the way I looked at chocolate fudge.

I bit my lower lip. He blinked, and then his face went impassive again, nearly cold; but I noticed the flare of heat in his eerie eyes.

“That was a stupid thing you did,” he said.

And there was the Nicholas I knew. Of course he hadn’t been flirting with me. What had I been thinking?

“It was just a party.”

“It was reckless.” He jerked a hand through his hair, messing it further. “We’re trying to protect her. You’re not making it any easier.”

“You’re smothering her.” I scowled. “And I was protecting her, too.”

“By putting her in needless danger just to flirt with some drunk kid? This isn’t a game.”

“I know that,” I snapped. “But you don’t know her like I do. And she’s been so stressed out by you and your overbearing baboon brothers, I just wanted to cheer her up.”

He paused, and when he spoke again it was quietly. “She can’t protect herself if she’s worried about protecting you.”

Ouch. Direct hit. The indignation whooshed out of me, leaving me feeling deflated and foolish.

“Oh.” I really hated it when he was right. “All right. Fine.”

I was spared his self-satisfied reply when his cell phone rang discreetly from inside the pocket of his black cargo pants. He barely glanced at me.

“Go home. Now.”

He walked away, leaving me staring at his back. I retrieved my phone to text Solange: I do not like your brother. I stomped all the way back to the car. The dogs had abandoned me to follow Nicholas, growling low in their throats. I kind of hoped they’d bite him. Right on the ass.

Just as I was reaching for the car door handle, a hand clamped over my shoulder and spun me around. Before I could make a single sound, Nicholas’s mouth covered mine completely. He yanked me closer. His eyes were the misty gray of rain. His lips moved, briefly. It wasn’t even a whisper but even that sound was hidden under the almost-but-not-quite kiss.

“We’re not alone.”

I stiffened.

“Shhh.” He bent his head. Anyone watching would have assumed he was kissing me and enjoying it. I admit, I was enjoying it too.

A shadow moved near the hedges, too quickly to be natural. The crickets went silent. Knowing the sharpness of vampire hearing, I darted a glance pointedly over Nicholas’s left shoulder. He didn’t speak, didn’t even nod, but I knew he understood. He kept kissing me, his tongue darting out to touch mine. It was totally distracting. He was edging me away from the car, guiding me backward, toward the house.

“Don’t run.” He nipped my lower lip.

“I know.” Afraid I was the only one experiencing all these interesting feelings, I nipped back. His hands tightened. His mouth was on my ear when we reached the porch. By the lower step his palms moved over my waist, my hips. His lips were clever, wicked.

Perfect.

At the front door he stopped and shoved me abruptly into the foyer. I stumbled, knocking over a vase of roses. Glass shards, red petals, and water scattered over the stone floor. My lips felt swollen, tingly. Focus, Lucy. The hallway was already full of grim-mouthed Drake boys before I’d even caught my breath. Solange’s mom pushed past me, leading them out. Nicholas was a blur between the oak trees. There were the unmistakable sounds of fighting: grunts, hissing, bones snapping.

“Are you okay?” Solange practically leaped on me.

“I’m fine.”

She was heading out after her brothers when her father’s voice cut through the foyer.

“Solange.”

She stopped, looked over her shoulder. “They might need help.”

“No.”

“Dad.”

“No. They’re here for you. If you go out there, it will only make things worse.”

I knew that look on her face. She was biting her tongue. I knew how much she hated this. Helena was the warrior in the family, had been even when she was winning martial arts competitions as a human, and she’d trained her children well. Even I’d gotten the benefit of a few tricks, but none of it would do us any good tonight. Still, I was really glad I knew how to break someone’s kneecap and three ways to incapacitate using only my thumb. And to think I used to worry about midterms.

The foyer was warm and civilized, lit by warmly glowing Tiffany lamps. Liam stood between us and the battle raging in the bedraggled garden. He was nearly tall enough to obscure our vision, but we leaned sideways around him. Part of me didn’t want to see what was happening; the rest of me absolutely couldn’t handle not knowing. The shadows coalesced, and I watched fangs gleam and bodies jump higher than they should have been able to. The snarls lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

Nicholas was fast and clever but I’d never seen him like this before. His face was hard as he leaped and dodged, sent his boot into the midsection of a vampire not much older than us, with long blond hair. They both tumbled, but only Nicholas landed on his feet. I felt inordinately proud about that.

All of Solange’s brothers held their own, but only Quinn appeared to be enjoying himself. He grinned even as a fist, moving so fast it was a flesh-colored blur, broke his nose. Blood trickled down to his lip and he licked it. Helena laughed behind him, somersaulting out of the way of a stake and landing behind her attacker. He disintegrated in a cloud of dust at her feet.

“I want one alive and able to speak,” Liam called out. He shook his head at Solange. “Honestly, your mother’s worse than the boys. Helena”—he raised his voice slightly—“leave me one, damn it.”

“Spoilsport,” she muttered before reining herself in. Her flying kick only knocked the vampire into a tree instead of shattering his ribs. Hyacinth made a small sound behind us. The jet beads around her neck caught the light, glimmered.

“That’s hardly ladylike,” she said disapprovingly. Which was amusing since I’d heard the stories of what she did in her spare time—and it wasn’t taking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches.

A vampire fled, disappearing into the woods. One of them shuddered, turned to ash, and drifted into the hedges. The stake tumbled to the ground. Solange’s oldest brother, Sebastian, wiped his hands off dispassionately and then turned to help his mother drag the half-conscious vampire she’d thrown into the tree toward the house. Connor was speaking quietly into his cell phone to Bruno.

I pressed my back against the wall as a parade of teeth and feral smiles passed me. When they were all gathered in the parlor, I followed. I went to my favorite purple velvet armchair by the fireplace. Solange stood next to me, her eyes never leaving that of the young man currently being tied up. His shirt was torn, his dark reddish brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. I wouldn’t have opened them either if all seven Drake brothers were standing around me, glaring. Never mind Helena, who waved them aside with barely a flick of her wrist. She sniffed once, delicately.

“He smells like kith.” She whispered but shook her head. “Kind of.”

Liam frowned, sniffed as well.

“Something’s not right.” His gaze narrowed, sharpened. “Left arm.”

We all looked even though I didn’t know what I was looking at. The tip of a tattoo poked out from under his pushed-up sleeve. It looked like a stylized tribal-style sun but I couldn’t be sure.

“Damn,” Nicholas muttered. “Helios-Ra.”

Everyone looked totally bummed out over such a comic-book name. He stirred. There was a gentle waft of lilies and chocolate, almost right, but not quite. Everyone else was still scenting the air like hunting hounds, nostrils flared.

“What?” I whispered to Solange. “What’s with all the sniffing? It’s creeping me out.”

She didn’t have time to answer because he opened his eyes, suddenly, as if he’d been poked with something sharp. His eyes weren’t pale, not like every other vampire’s I’d ever seen.

They were very black and very hostile.

Also by Alyxandra Harvey

Haunting Violet

Violet Willoughby doesn’t believe in ghosts. But they believe in her. After spending years participating in her mother’s elaborate ruse as a fraudulent medium, Violet is about as skeptical as they come in all matters supernatural. Now that she is being visited by a very persistent ghost, one who suffered a violent death, Violet can no longer ignore her unique ability. She must figure out what this ghost is trying to communicate, and quickly because the killer is still on the loose.

Afraid of ruining her chance to escape her mother’s scheming through an advantageous marriage, Violet must keep her ability secret. The only person who can help her is Colin, a friend she’s known since childhood and whom she has grown to love. He understands the true Violet, but helping her on this path means they might never be together. Can Violet find a way to help the ghost without ruining her own chance at a future free of lies?

Stolen Away

When a cute guy dressed like a Victorian pirate kneels in front of Eloise the day after her seventeenth birthday, she knows that something strange is going on-and that’s before he vows to be her champion.

But this appearance isn’t a coincidence, and when Eloise is attacked and pushed into an alternate world called Faery, she becomes embroiled in the underground politics of their world. Her captor is Lord Strahan, the ruler of Faery, who is desperately clinging to his throne and will do anything to keep it. The only one who can break his power is his wife, Eloise’s aunt Antonia-and Eloise has become his bargaining chip.

Now Eloise must find a way to save her aunt from Lord Strahan, and she’ll need the help of her best friends Jo and Devin, along with the other Fae captives of Strahan’s hall, including his son, Eldric. With a whole world of Faeries out to get her, Eloise must stop Strahan before both worlds are thrust into complete chaos.

Don’t miss
Alyxandra Harvey’s darkly romantic,
spine-chilling ghost story

CHAPTER 1

1872

A lady does not dance more than two dances with the same gentleman.

The daughter of an earl precedes the wife of the youngest son of a marquis but not the wife of the youngest son of a duke.

And I was the daughter of a Spiritualist medium lately from Cheapside.

I was used to simple rules: don’t get caught.

I went back to memorizing the many intricate and involved rules of the British aristocracy, because as convoluted and boring as they were, it was still preferable to talking to my mother.

A lady eats what she is served at dinner without comment.

I was usually hungry enough to eat what I was given without comment, but if the earl served boiled tongue or calves’ foot jelly, I fully intended to wrap it in my napkin and hide it in the nearest umbrella stand.

A well-bred lady always removes her gloves at dinner but never at a ball. She should also travel with two sets of silk gloves and one of kid.

Never mind that I had only two pairs of gloves to my name to begin with, I wasn’t a well-bred lady. I might look the part in my secondhand dresses with the added silk ruchings and delicate embroidery, but I’d done all that work myself, sewing until my fingers bled, to have them ready for this journey.

It was all a pretense.

And it might work well enough in our London parlor for an hour or two, but this trip was a different matter altogether. I’d never dined with earls or dowager countesses or even wealthy tradesmen. Frankly, I’d rather walk alone on the outskirts of Whitechapel. At least I knew what I was about there; I knew what the dangers were and how to avoid them.

An earl’s country estate might as well be deepest India.

When the train reached the next station, I slipped onto the platform before my mother could start another lecture on regal bearing under the cover of the noise of the crowds and the steam engine.

I knew I shouldn’t venture out into the crowd unaccompanied, but I needed a few moments away from my mother and the starched and proper aristocrats with whom we shared the car. They knew we didn’t belong there. I knew we didn’t belong there. Only my mother seemed determined to ignore that fact with sniffs of disdain and complaints about the violent rocking of the train and what it was doing to her delicate sensibilities.

Mother was delicate the way badgers were delicate.

Since this was likely to be my last moment to myself until later in the evening when we reached Lord Jasper’s estate in Hampshire, I rushed out, accidentally bumping into a countess with a tiered bustle that took up the space of three people. I didn’t even stop to apologize properly.

Because if I had to be shut up in that box for another minute, I’d run mad.

Mother would say it was frightfully ungrateful of me, but it was true nonetheless. She’d been hours without her glass of medicinal sherry and that alone was enough to make her cross, never mind the fine ladies looking down their noses at us.

We were situated in the first-class car, which was far and above the most luxurious place I’d ever seen. It was set with chandeliers hanging from the decorated ceiling, carved mahogany tables, and blue silk cushions and was better appointed than the parlor in our house. The movement might have rattled my teeth alarmingly, but I didn’t care. I did, however, feel rather bad for Colin and Marjorie stuck in the last car, with no walls to shield them from the elements or the dust and no seats to speak of. At least it wasn’t raining.

I’d never been on a train before, with the great roar of sound, the billows of steam like a dragon’s breath, and the rapid blur of London tenement houses followed by fields of sheep and oak groves. I rather liked it; it made me feel as if I were leaving my old life behind me.

If only that were true.

I attached myself to a tired-looking woman and her five daughters, all dressed in browns, like plump, happy sparrows. I trailed behind them as if I were a member of the family, a sixth daughter in a black-and-white striped dress. It wasn’t a traveling dress exactly since I’d never had occasion to travel, but it was dashing and hid the dirt well enough. My adopted family afforded me enough protection to see me to the ladies’ necessity and then to a lounge set aside for ladies to procure tea and soup. I didn’t have money for tea but I didn’t care. I didn’t even know what station we were at. I only knew it wasn’t our narrow house near Wimpole Street and that was good enough for me.

Our house was far and above beyond anything of our previous residences, but it felt tainted. We’d only been able to afford it after Miss Hartington died last year. She’d outlived Mrs. Gordon, which was a surprise to us all. We’d been visiting once a month for years, facilitating conversations with her dead husband and daughter. She finally joined them, but Miss Hartington, though older and more cross, stubbornly lived on. More surprising still, when she finally succumbed to a lung fever, her solicitor contacted us with a tidy and surprising sum of three hundred and fifty pounds, which she had willed to me, having no other children or close living relations of her own. Mother took every farthing and rented us a house within walking distance of a very fine neighborhood.

Now we had the veneer of respectability, heaven help us, and doors opened to Mother all over London. When she wasn’t drunk on sherry, she was drunk on fame.

But this was our trickiest demonstration yet. Lord Jasper wasn’t just an earl; he was clever and kind and well versed in Spiritualist matters. Not to mention that we were traveling to him, instead of working in the comfort of our specially rigged parlor. There were so many pitfalls it hardly bore thinking about.

The crowd had thinned on the platform, with most passengers still in the lounges, lingering over their supper. The air was thick with steam and burning coal, the wind pushing the iron hinges of the wooden signs into constant creaking. I skirted a pile of trunks, taller than I was and teetering dangerously, and ran straight into three boys about my age.

They looked to be from the second-class compartments by the state of their suits and smart waistcoats. And they were smiling that certain kind of smile that sent an alarm through me, lifting the hairs on the back of my neck.

I should have preferred being crushed by the luggage.

“Well, what have we here, lads?”

I looked away, refusing to meet their eyes. Colin told me once that if I came upon an angry dog, I shouldn’t meet his eyes as it would be interpreted as a challenge. I adjusted my grip on my parasol. It was plain, with no ruffles or silk roses, but pointy all the same.

“Traveling all alone, are you?” one of them asked with what could be described only as a leer worthy of any penny dreadful.

Blast.

“Let me pass,” I demanded. Where the devil was everyone?

“There’s a toll, love,” he insisted. “Didn’t you know?”

We were well hidden by the luggage and a shroud of steam, thick as London fog. The third boy looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to stop his companions but didn’t know how. Fat lot of good his squirming would do me.

“Give us a kiss, then.”

When the ringleader reached for me, I jabbed my parasol at him. I was rather proud of my aim. It should have hit him painfully between the ribs. If I hadn’t been wearing a corset and had a proper range of motion, that is. I wasn’t used to wearing corsets, nor the way they restricted my movements and altered my ability to breathe properly.

The young man just grabbed the end of my parasol and held on, smirking. I tugged. He tugged back harder, and I lost my footing slightly. The edge of the tracks loomed close. The bone stays of my corset poked me in the ribs. His friends laughed.

“Now that’s not nice, is it?” he asked. I gave up the struggle and decided to follow with his last yank of the parasol. My sudden weight took him by surprise, nearly toppling him. One of them grabbed my elbow.

I opened my mouth to scream.

A gloved hand closed over my chin, fingers digging into my lips. “None of that now.”

And then suddenly I was free, sailing backward without warning.

“Get off her!”

I hit the trunks, bruising my shoulder. A hat box fell to the ground. I pushed my hair out of my eyes just in time to see Colin rearing back to punch the ringleader.

“No!” I leaped forward, grabbing his arm. The momentum of his swing had me sliding forward but at least it stopped his fist from connecting. They glared at each other as the passengers began to trickle around us, returning to their cars. Colin frowned down at me.

“Violet,” he muttered, shaking me loose. “Are you daft?”

“Are you?” I shot back as the crowd pulled us away from them.

“I could’ve taken that tosser,” he said, clearly insulted.

“I know that, but they were rich, or rich enough, anyway. Do you think they would have shrugged it off if one of them had had their nose broken by a manservant from third class?” And no doubt he would have done just that. He was taller than each of them and had broader shoulders, for all that he was only eighteen years old. And he’d survived the alleys of London, whereas the others hadn’t likely ever made it east of Covent Garden.

“Did they hurt you?” His voice was gentle, his blue eyes searching.

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”

“What the devil are you doing wandering about alone?” he snapped. “And dressed like a bloomin’ lady, the way you are. You have to be careful now, princess.”

And there was the Colin I knew.

“ ’Tisn’t proper,” he insisted as he led me along the platform like a petulant child. His Irish accent always thickened when he was upset. I jerked my arm out of his grasp.

“Proper?” I echoed, nodding to my mother, who was flirting with no fewer than two earls from our compartment and three gentlemen from the car behind us. As if any impropriety I might muster could even hope to compete with my mother’s expertise.

She still didn’t know I’d discovered her real name: Mary Morgan. Mary Morgan was just another poor girl, scratching out a living, trying to keep her belly full while she yearned for pretty dresses and carriage rides. Celeste Willoughby was a gifted widow, crushed by the tragic death of her husband, leaving her young, beautiful, and with child.

Never mind that Mother had never married.

Or that she sometimes claimed my father was a great lord who had dallied with her when she had been a lady’s maid in Wiltshire. I couldn’t even be sure she’d ever stepped foot out of London. More often than not, she just muttered that I ought to be grateful she’d kept me at all. I’d only gotten that much out of her because she’d had one too many glasses of sherry.

Mother thought drinking sherry was dignified and sophisticated.

And if one glass was what the Beau Monde drank, then surely three glasses must be three times more sophisticated.

She was right, I supposed. Not about the sherry, of course, but that I ought to be grateful. She could have left me at some drafty orphanage or sent me to the workhouse—something she pointed out to me on a weekly basis. I was pretty enough to be useful now; pretty girls, after all, can marry rich no matter what their station. And even better, I was not so beautiful as to draw any attention away from her. My place was comfortably in her shadow.

If there was one thing she craved even more than expensive liqueur, it was to be the toast of polite society, to be invited to lavish dinner parties and weekends in the country. And Mary, with her Cockney accent and her questionable past, could never accomplish such a feat, no matter her physical attributes.

Mrs. Celeste Willoughby, however, could.

Colin sighed. “You’d best go. And I should see how Marjorie’s getting on.”

Mother liked the idea of arriving with a manservant and our own lady’s maid, even though Marjorie was actually just a maid-of-all-work. Mother had rescued Marjorie from a brothel just after we’d moved into our new house.

In my less charitable moments, I wondered if she’d rescued Marjorie and Colin so they would serve her out of loyalty and never ask for proper payment.

Colin acted as butler when necessary, servant boy when heavy things needed lifting, and as a guard for my mother when it would add to her mystique. She liked to tell people that her spirit guides had cautioned her to have her own protector, as her gifts were such a weighty responsibility.

I didn’t believe in spirit guides. Or spirits.

Colin and I exchanged a commiserating roll of the eyes before I made my way to my mother’s side. Her dark hair was coiled under a small black hat edged with a lace veil, carefully pinned back so it wouldn’t obscure her face. To be fair, she was uncommonly beautiful; the trouble was, she knew it.

“Mo—,” I cut myself off. She hated it when I called her Mother in front of handsome men. It made her peevish and sour for hours afterward. I swallowed, trying not to notice the way she stood far too close to a man with prodigious whiskers and a neat mustache.

“Violet, come along,” she said, scolding me. “Where on earth have you been?” The scolding was for everyone else’s benefit. I knew full well she hadn’t yet realized I had gone. “Inside now, and not another word.” Which meant she was afraid I would give her away.

I hadn’t given her away in the last seven years, since that first visit to Mrs. Gordon, nor at any of the other sittings we provided. I didn’t know why she thought I’d choose to do so on some train platform without a Spiritualist for miles. I found my seat as her giggle tinkled, like champagne flutes touching. Even one of the disapproving matrons in our car lifted her head, momentarily enchanted. Her scowl returned, dark as a thundercloud, when she spotted my mother stepping nimbly up the stair, wasp-waisted and beautiful.

Mother lowered herself gracefully into her seat. “I should have brought my own cushion,” she said, a trifle too loudly. “I can’t think who might have used this one before me.”

The truth was, she loved the blue silk and would hide the cushion under her crinolines to keep, first chance she got. The warning whistle pierced through the steam and the train lurched into movement, jostling us. We left the station and the red roofs of the village, plunging once more into the green countryside. The sun glinted off a meandering creek as it set. There was something lulling about the motion of the train, once you got used to it.

I leaned my temple against the window, content to decipher shapes in the lilac-colored clouds above us and then the stars when it grew too dark to see anything else. We barely saw the stars in London, because of the coal smoke. We barely even saw the sky.

As we approached the village, the glass grew oddly misty, then abruptly bloomed with frost.

It was nearly the end of summer and far too warm for frost of any kind.

I glanced about but no one else seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Mother was resting her eyes so she wouldn’t arrive with lines on her face. Most of the men were reading newspapers; one snored loudly. Two ladies bent over their embroidery hoops. Everyone else appeared to be dozing.

The frost traveled slowly, thickly. The lamplight made it look like lace, but it burned to touch. I snatched my fingers away, sitting up straight, my heart thumping loud and slow under my corset bones. Behind the thin ice, where the glass was still glass, the hills and hamlets that ought to have been dark glowed softly. It wasn’t torchlight I was seeing, or candles in cottage windows. We weren’t that near to the village yet; it was still all fields and oak groves. Otherwise I might have taken the lights for hundreds of candles, even though they flickered with a faintly blue glow, ghostly and cold.

The train cut through swarms of them, like giant fireflies, but not a single passenger noticed. I was the only one gaping at the scene outside. I’d read about corpse candles before, but I’d thought them idle superstition. A quaint folk tradition.

I did not credit them to be the terrifying unearthly light that now fell on my face and made me feel wretched and ill and shiver as if I were up to my neck in a snowdrift. I understood the warning not to follow will-o-the-wisps, to cast your eyes downward when you walked at night.

I thought I saw flashes of pale faces, pale hands, pale teeth.

And then, a face was suddenly there on the other side of the window.

Long translucent hair drifted as if the girl were underwater. There was a cloying scent in the still air, like lilies wilting by green water. She dripped as if it were raining, floated as if she were made of dandelion fluff. She wore a white dress layered with flounces.

Her eyes met mine, cold as starlight. I jerked backward, yelping.

My mother opened one eye crossly. “Violet, really.”

The girl faded, tattering like mist under a spear of strong sunlight.

The ghostly candles guttered and went out.

Love the Drakes?

Prepare to have your heart stolen, as Alyxandra
Harvey’s enchanting new novel transports you
to Faery, where nothing is as it seems …

Prologue
Eloise

Thursday evening

“I hate this town,” Jo complained. “There isn’t a single hot guy anywhere.”

“Hey,” Devin protested mildly, out of habit. We weren’t really listening; we’d heard Jo give this same speech about a hundred times, and frankly, my mint chocolate chip ice cream was more interesting. It was too hot to worry about guys. Only Jo could muster the energy to multitask a tantrum while sweating through her T-shirt and eyeing the carful of perfectly droolworthy guys currently ignoring her. Mind you, I’d seen her flirt with a photograph of Ian Somerhalder in a magazine once. A little drought wouldn’t stop her.

“I’m hot,” Devin added, wiping his forehead. “Literally.”

We were at the ice cream parlor where everyone hung out because there was nothing else to do in the bustling metropolis of Rowan, population 8,011. In winter we drove up and down Main Street, and in nicer weather we stood around the parking lot. It was October, and even though the sun had just set, the pavement was still warm and slightly soft under our shoes. I’d already eaten more ice cream during this drought than in the last ten years put together.

“You don’t count,” Jo told him. “You know what I mean,” she added, patting his shoulder comfortingly. “You’d be hot if I didn’t know you. And if I hadn’t seen you stuff eight Ping-Pong balls in your mouth when you were ten and then spit all over me when you choked.”

He just leaned back against the picnic table, his dark skin gleaming. “Halloween dance last year,” was all he said.

Jo narrowed her eyes at him. “Shut up.”

The stunning and epic failure of her costume was still talked about. I turned red just thinking about it. I’d have died on the spot if the whole gym had turned to stare at me like that.

Something I was considering doing right now, actually.

“Dishy.” Jo smoothed back her waist-length hair as a guy I didn’t recognize crossed the parking lot toward us. People staring at her never fazed Jo; she got more upset when they ignored her. I much, much preferred being ignored.

“I’d snog that.” Jo loved anything British, especially slang, which she used incessantly but incorrectly about half the time. Mostly, she used the swear words.

“Do you even know what that means?” Devin asked.

“It means kissing.”

“Then say kissing.”

The guy was still coming toward us as they bickered. He ignored the girls preening in his wake, and the guys snickering. His eyes were the color of moss, an eerie pale green that I could see even from several feet away. His gaze was touching me all over, like rain. He looked awed. That would have been disconcerting enough, never mind that he was wearing brown leather pants and some kind of gold-embroidered tunic. There was even a sword hanging from his belt. He looked like he belonged under torchlight, not streetlight.

And, did I mention? He totally kneeled on the dirty pavement, right at my feet.

“My lady Eloise,” he said in a voice just made for long summer nights and acoustic guitars. “Finally, you are undressed to our eyes.”

“Whoa.” I took a big step backward. “What?”

Jo was trying so hard not to laugh at the look on my face that I thought ice cream was going to come out of her nose, which would serve her right. Everyone around us turned to watch. Some of the girls even edged closer, especially Bianca. She loved nothing more than watching me squirm, all because two years ago Graham defended me when she laughed at me for getting a volleyball to the face in phys ed. She loved Graham. She hated me. Since she’d been the one to throw the volleyball, I wasn’t too fond of her either.

“Come,” he said to me with polite formality at odds with the scars on his hands. He didn’t even glance at Jo. “We must away, before the others find you.”

I knew I was blushing that special shade of red that makes me look like a boiled beet. Nothing like being a pale, freckled girl who embarrasses easily. “Get up.”

He got to his feet, graceful as water. His hair was dark blond, catching the light. His eyes blazed.

I took another step back. “Um, okay.”

Devin scowled at him. “What’s with the outfit?”

“Is it some sort of theater thing?” Jo asked. “Extra credit for drama? Who are you supposed to be, King Arthur?”

He didn’t glance away from me, not even for a moment. I squirmed. Everyone was still looking at us. The whispers crested, like ocean waves. “You must come with me,” he said urgently. “Please. If I have found you, the others will as well.”

I nearly snorted. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” Why do people always assume that if you’re quiet, you’re also naive? Or downright stupid?

“You are in danger.”

Devin shifted so he was standing closer to us. “Dude, not cool.”

“I’ll go with you, handsome,” Bianca purred. She was wearing a tight tank top and some kind of glitter gel on her cleavage. Jo actually bared her teeth. She was a little territorial, not just about me, but about cute guys too. Each and every one of them belonged to her. In fact, for all that she teased Devin, she was notorious for cornering girls in the locker room if she thought they weren’t being nice enough to him.

“Let’s get out of here.” I grabbed Jo’s arm. “Devin, come on.”

The guy finally looked away from me, noticing all the curious faces looking him over. “Another time, then.”

He bowed. He actually bowed. I could feel Jo fluttering beside me—she loved that sort of quasi-medieval thing. She was probably forcing herself not to curtsy back.

“Soon,” he added.

I honestly didn’t know if I should take that as a promise or a threat.

We circled the picnic table to get to Devin’s car. Jo let me have the front seat, a definite indication that I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt. She never let me have the front; she considered it her personal territory, to be defended at all costs, like Ian Somerhalder and chocolate macaroons. The guy watched us as we drove away, looking determined.

“Cute,” she said as Devin squealed out of the lot. “But what a wanker.”

Chapter 1
Eloise

Friday evening

We went to Rowanwood Park the next night. There were parties every weekend since the weather refused to turn cold. There was a bonfire, but it was mostly for light. No one stood next to it; it was way too humid for that, even at night. The air was thick, that kind of sweaty moisture that chills even as it swelters.

The last thing I wanted to be doing was picking my way around tree roots in the backwoods of the park, but Jo was bored and a bored Jo was a force to be reckoned with. She dragged Devin and me out, despite the fact that I hated parties and Devin would rather be reading about elves. I’d applied an extra coat of my mom’s favorite red lipstick. It matched the red scarf in my short hair and the red stitching on my capri jeans. It was my own personal shield; looking tough was a trick my mom taught me for when I didn’t feel tough. It helped. Not being stuck at a party in the middle of nowhere would help more.

“Over there.” Devin motioned to a moss-covered log on the edge of the clearing. To get over to the log, we went around a few dancers and two girls trying to figure out how to work the keg. Devin and I exchanged a look.

“Now what?” I asked. “Are we having fun yet?”

Jo shook her head. “You two have the socializing skills of rabid dogs. Relax. Have fun.”

“I was having fun,” Devin muttered. “Until you made me come here.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, and popped my chewing gum for emphasis.

“Fairy warrior women with pink hair don’t exist.” Jo grinned at Devin. “No matter how many hours you spend playing video games.”

Devin pulled a bottle of pop out of his knapsack. “Just for that heresy, you go thirsty.” He handed me the ginger ale and got another one for himself, smirking at Jo.

“Maybe he’ll share his drink,” she said, waggling her eyebrows in the direction of a guy I didn’t recognize. He had long dark hair, and even from the back he looked like a rock star, the kind who make girls stupid. I groaned. Jo was doomed. “Seriously. He’s clearly from out of town. No one here is remotely that yummy.”

He tossed his plastic cup aside and left the circle of firelight, between the trees.

“Oh, hell no, I am not letting him get away,” Jo said. “Cover me, I’m going in.” She adjusted her bra.

Devin winced. “I did not need to see that.”

Jo nearly plowed over two guys from our math class in her haste to follow the rock star. For a girl who dressed in long skirts, she could move like a linebacker when she wanted.

Devin sighed. “One day I’m going to have to punch someone on her behalf.”

I grinned. “It’s only fair. She threatens to kick people for you all the time.”

“Seriously, the girl needs a leash. I don’t know why people think guys are dogs, juggling girls and flirting with anything in a skirt. Jo’s worse than any of us.”

“Did you just call her a dog?”

He finished his ginger ale, looking only slightly scared. “I’ll deny it if you tell her.”

I just laughed and drank my own ginger ale. Music blared out of cheap speakers attached to someone’s iPod. A girl squealed when a guy pressed a cold beer bottle to her lower back, under her shirt. There was noise from the bushes that sounded suspiciously like someone throwing up.

“Maybe the cops will bust up the party and we can go home,” I said hopefully.

“You’re so cute when you’re deluded.”

He was right. The cops never broke up these parties; they were too hard to get to, hidden so far back in the forest. They only bothered if we spilled out into the actual park, which we never did. At least if I had to be stuck here, I was stuck with Devin. He didn’t force me into small talk, like most people. He was good with silences. He pulled a novel out of his bag, a book light clipped to its spine. I leaned against him. The fire crackled, and when the wind shifted, I caught a glimpse of the moon, hanging sideways. A dog barked in the distance.

“I’d better go check on Jo,” I said after a while. We could never convince her that chasing after strange guys was stupid, even near a crowd like tonight’s. She was so convinced that romance was enough to protect her. She’d say she was more convinced it was the foghorn she carried in her bag, ready to blast someone into deafness, but I knew better. She was a marshmallow. People just assumed she was tough. And people assumed I was a marshmallow because I didn’t say much, but I’d been raised by a woman who kept drunk bikers in line at the bar where she tended. And Devin was Devin: kind, unruffled, and uninterested in what other people thought about him.

“Want me to come with you?” he asked, getting ready to stand up.

I shook my head. “Nah. She’ll get all pissy if we scare the guy away. If she looks happy I’ll just leave them be. And I need a minute away from all this fun.”

He snorted. “Whoo-hoo,” he agreed drily, and went back to his book.

I ducked into the sparse darkness of the forest. The birch trees glowed in the moonlight, like silver spears between the pines and maples. Fallen leaves crumbled under my shoes. The trees were losing their green summer dresses early this year, taking off their layers in the heat. It was pretty back here, with giant papery mushrooms growing out of the undergrowth and fanning from broken tree trunks. I didn’t feel crowded, and I could breathe easily again.

Until Bianca and three of her friends stepped out to block my path. I hated to admit it, but my palms went damp and my heartbeat doubled. She always had this effect on me and she knew it.

“God, could you look more white trash?” she said, sneering, hands on her hips. Her friends snickered. “Is that even a real tattoo?”

Vines of ivy leaves trailed down my left arm out from under my sleeve. My mom had given in and taken me to get it done on my seventeenth birthday. Since she was covered in ink, she couldn’t exactly forbid me; she just wanted to make it a bonding experience. And make sure I used her artist because he was scrupulously clean and talented. I’d grown up calling him Uncle Art, even though he wasn’t my uncle and his name wasn’t even Art. He’d given me a Tinkerbell “tattoo” with a marker when I was four, and I’d fallen in love with his art on the spot. And now I worked at his shop part-time when his receptionist needed a break.

“Well, you dress like a slutty hillbilly,” Bianca added. “Just like your mother.”

“It’s rockabilly, idiot.” My throat was dry and aching, stuffed with other jagged words I couldn’t quite form. She thought I was afraid of her, that I wilted under any kind of assault. The truth was, I had a secret and dark temper. The kind that would be like a hurricane, when you expected a breeze. “And shut up about my mom.”

I moved to step around them, but one of them shoved me back. They usually bullied me in public, where the weight of so many eyes crippled me. And I put up with a certain amount of bullying because it was easier to ignore it. People assumed I was fragile because I was so quiet.

Quiet and fragile are two very different things.

“Back off,” I said clearly. My heart was still beating fast, but I didn’t feel cornered like a wild animal ready to chew its own paw off to get free of a trap anymore. The laughter and the music of the party were muffled.

“Or what?” Bianca asked. “What are you going to do, white trash?” She was close enough that I could see where her eyeliner had smudged at the corners.

A hawk plunged out of a tree, flying suddenly between us and so close that his feathers fanned the hot air over my cheeks.

I jumped, throwing my hands up to protect my eyes. Bianca shrieked and stumbled back. The hawk landed in another tree, powerful claws digging into the bark. His eyes glittered over his beak. Did hawks attack people? Weren’t they supposed to be asleep in a nest somewhere? I swallowed and edged back. He gave a piercing, whistling cry that shivered around us.

“Please don’t eat me,” I muttered.

He lifted off the branch and then dove for Bianca. She shrieked again and knocked her friends aside as she took off at a dead run. They scrambled after her, also screaming. The hawk circled over my head once and then lifted farther into the dark sky until he disappeared.

I stepped off the path into the wilting ferns and hazel bushes, letting them hide me from view. I had definitely had enough of people today. When I found Jo, we were going home. I didn’t care how hot the rock star guy might be.

I stayed parallel to the path so I wouldn’t get lost, heading toward the caves, where people usually went to make out at these parties. I could see the candles burning between the trees. They were in tall glass containers, usually with pictures of saints on them. They were the cheapest ones the convenience stores in town sold. The smell of smoke tickled my nostrils.

Before I could climb over the huge moss-covered boulders tossed around the caves, an old woman crossed my path. She stopped to dig in the dirt, pulling out pale roots and dropping them into a basket full of acorns. She looked like something from a fairy tale. Her hair was white, her eyes were like black raisins, and she was smoking a corncob pipe. She wore layers of ratty old gray shawls. She stopped foraging to stare at me.

You know, for the woods in the middle of the night, it was getting awfully crowded.

I tried to smile. “Um, hi.” She looked like someone’s grandmother, but she was probably homeless. I didn’t know what to do. Did I ignore her? Did I give her change from my pocket? Was that an insult?

She solved my internal dilemma.

By screaming.

A lot.

I lifted my hands, palms out, as if she had a gun. Her hoarse scream bounced off the trees, off the rocks and the nearby stream. It made my teeth hurt.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” I had to shout, but I wasn’t sure if she could even hear me. For someone who looked about a hundred years old, she sure had a set of lungs on her. I backed away.

“You’ll get us all killed!” she hollered. “Want Himself to break our bones and suck out the marrow?”

“Um, no?”

“Then go! Get away!”

That was when she started to throw things at me.

She flung the roots out of her basket and they tumbled to the ground, looking like pale, disembodied fingers. She plucked up the acorns and whipped them at my head. The first one bounced off my left cheekbone, narrowly missing my eye.

“Hey! Ow!” Three more followed. “Shit!” I dove behind one of the rocks while she continued to pelt me with acorns. She had wicked good aim. “Stop it!” I fumbled for my cell phone, dialing Jo’s number.

“Hello?” She sounded cranky.

I was crankier. “Where are you?”

“In the caves. Is someone screaming?”

“Yes!” I poked my head out. An acorn grazed my hair. “Get out here!” I wasn’t sure what she could do to help, but since it was her fault I was here in the first place, she could get walloped with bits of the forest at my side. It was only fair.

“Where are you?”

“Right outside.”

I hung up and saw a shadow block the candlelight for a brief moment. “El?”

“Over here.”

Jo ran toward me, ducking acorns. She hunkered down beside me, her long hair trailing in the dirt. “Um, Eloise?”

“Yeah?”

“What the hell?”

“Worst night ever.”

“I’m getting that.” She picked up one of the acorns and threw it back. “Why are we throwing acorns at an old woman?”

“She started it!” I inched to another boulder, in the direction of the path. “Where’s the rock star?” I asked.

“Couldn’t find him,” she said, frustrated. “He disappeared.” She shook her head. “Just as well, I guess. He’d really think I was a nutter if he saw us right now.”

“You are a nutter.”

“You’re the one getting beaten up by Granny over there.” She tilted her head. “Is she yelling about deer?”

“I have no idea. Count of three and we make a run for it?” I suggested. “One, two … three!”

We ran. An acorn pinged off the back of my head and then we were on the path, on the other side of a copse of pine trees and out of range. I rubbed my head where I felt a bruise throbbing. Mean girls, wild hawks, and crazy old women were officially too much for one night.

“I’m going home,” I muttered. “Because this party just sucks.”

• • •

Mom and I lived on the second floor of a small brick building near Rowanwood Park. The walls were crammed floor to ceiling with her paintings and photos, with masks and books of every description. Jo’s parents’ house had silk wallpaper and matching furniture from a catalog; under the framed pictures, our walls were magenta. And Jo soon learned that all the books were in order of subject matter; the CDs sorted by mood; and if you forgot to use a coaster on the antique chest we used as a coffee table, you’d get lectured. And then lectured some more.

Which was still nothing to the lectures I’d gotten when Mom caught me trying to pick the chest’s lock with a bobby pin. It had been locked for as long as I could remember; it was the only thing my exhibitionist mother was rabidly private about. Irresistible, right? But the stupid lock held tight no matter how much I tried to jimmy it.

Our cat, Elvis, meowed impatiently at the window leading out to the roof. Mom was on a date with some guy whose name I didn’t know. I hadn’t met him yet, which meant he wouldn’t last the month.

“Okay, your highness,” I muttered when Elvis batted my hand. We had access to the roof, which the landlord let us use as our private balcony. When I opened the window, he streaked out, racing to the spot where the crows usually hung out. They were safely asleep in a tree somewhere, and Elvis sat on his haunches and sulked.

I flicked on the strings of Christmas-tree lights that draped over the railings. There was a plastic patio set in the center and one of those dining tents for shade. Two chairs were tucked inside, and dozens of silver-shot scarves hung from the ceiling poles, like some Berber desert palace. Mom was into all things Middle Eastern right now: belly-dance music, Afghan silver bracelets, and statues of ancient Egyptian gods. The planters around the tent were empty, except for a few dried-up stalks of mint and basil that hadn’t survived the drought. Even the lawns on the fancy side of town were brown from the water shortage.

“Eloise.”

I squawked like a chicken being plucked bald. I had the most attractive reactions; I couldn’t think why I didn’t have a hundred boyfriends eager for my company.

Still, when you found someone hiding in the shadows of your roof garden, a little screeching was healthy. Elvis hissed and darted past me to the safety of the apartment. Fat lot of good he was to me.

“How did you get up here?” The fairy lights caught the silver of his sword hilt. A sword hilt. “Did you follow me?” It was the guy from the ice cream parlor. His eyes were just as green, just as intense. I didn’t think I could beat him to the window, but I edged toward it surreptitiously. If I screamed, would someone down on the street hear me? My heart felt like a plucked guitar string. It was actually vibrating in my chest with fear. I did not want to be run through with a theater sword on my own patio.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly, looking as awed as he had in the parking lot. He was still wearing a tunic, like an extra out of some medieval movie.

I glared at him. “Then go away. My mom’s just in there, you know,” I lied.

He raised his eyebrows.“Lady Jasmine is out front, kissing a man in a leather coat.”

“You know my mom?” Fear receded a little under a rush of hot indignation. I tried to cast a glance over the side of the rail to the sidewalk. I couldn’t see her, but I did see an entire flock of sparrows perched on the edge of the garbage bin.

“I know your family. The blood of the Hart is famous.” The mention of blood made me decidedly nervous. “We honor Antonia’s lineage.”

I gaped at him, well and truly confused. “Okay, you know my aunt too?”

Aunt Antonia, the Hart wild child, had taken off again and we didn’t know where, but that was nothing new. Every spring, she left town and wouldn’t tell us where she was going. Sometimes we got postcards; sometimes we didn’t. Mom said Antonia had been like that since their sixteenth birthday. Mom might look like the boho free spirit, with her tattoos and combat boots, but she was actually the dependable twin. Go figure.

“Have you seen her? Where is she?”

“Hiding until Samhain, as usual.”

“What?” He said it so matter of factly, as if he was making sense. “Look, who are you? Because I’m this close to screaming.”

“Your pardon, lady. I am Lucas Richelieu.” He looked like he was about to kiss my hand so I snatched it behind my back. “We must go,” he said again, urgently. “Anyone can see you now. ’Tisn’t safe.”

“But going off with some stranger in leather pants is?” I crossed my arms. “Go away, Lucas Richelieu.” He looked so taken aback I nearly laughed. “You didn’t really think I was just going to blindly go off with you, did you?” He’d obviously never met my mother, even if he did know her name. Not falling for pretty boys was one of the first lessons she’d ever taught me. “You’re pretty, Lucas, but not so pretty that I’m going to turn into a drooling idiot.”

He sighed, aggrieved. “This was much easier in the old days, when girls were educated.”

“Hey. I’ll have you know I get As. Well, mostly.” I wrinkled my nose. “How old are you anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“One hundred and eighty-seven.”

“Of course you are.” I shook my head. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to complain come Monday that I’d had a boring weekend. He didn’t say anything else, only whirled suddenly when a crow landed on an empty planter. He pulled his sword out of its scabbard.

I stumbled back. “Easy, Conan. It’s just a bird.”

“A crow,” he said tightly. “And a cousin of sorts.”

He said something else in a language I’d never heard before as another crow joined the first, and then another. And another. I’d never seen any at night before. I assumed crows went off and slept somewhere, dreaming crow dreams. But maybe they were nocturnal like owls? That was going to bug me; I’d have to look it up in one of Mom’s encyclopedias. We’d had our Internet shut down again when we couldn’t pay the bill.

“Eloise?”

“Yeah?”

“Take this and go inside,” he said very carefully, very slowly, knees bent as if he was about to launch himself into battle. He shoved a necklace at me, and I noticed his hand was covered in burn blisters over the old scars. They were red, fresh. I expected the pendant to be hot, but it was cold, normal. “Go!”

I wanted to tell him he was overreacting, even for a head case, but there was desperation in his voice, enough to have me slipping a leg over the windowsill.

Crows lifted out of the park like a raucous storm cloud, settling back down over the empty planters, the tent, the chairs, the twinkly lights—every available surface that might provide some kind of perch. I shivered despite the rational part of my brain telling me it was just a bunch of birds. But if there really was something weird about them, shouldn’t I be out there helping him? I was stepping back onto the roof when he turned his head, barely, toward me. “Don’t.”

I climbed inside, kneeling on the window seat, where Elvis was hissing, his every hair on end.

Outside, Lucas swung his sword once, twice.

Crows cawed indignantly, a few flying toward the quiet of the park. He was repeating some kind of rhyme, but I couldn’t make out the words.

A crow landed on the ledge in front of me. I’d always liked the crows.

I didn’t like this one.

His eyes were too yellow, wrong somehow. Elvis swiped out a paw, missed. I could have sworn the crow laughed. A few more joined it—enough of them that I slammed the glass shut and slipped Lucas’s necklace over my head. It was heavy, made of iron nails twisted into the surprisingly delicate shape of a leaping stag with some sort of leaf in its antlers.

One of the crows pecked at the glass so viciously that it cracked, blooming like a frost flower. I almost missed seeing Lucas blur, as if he were a watercolor painting soaked too long. He wavered, shimmered, and leaped off the roof.

The crows fled.

“Shit, oh, shit.” I rushed outside and peered over the railing, holding my breath. I didn’t want to see his broken body on the pavement below. I had to call 911.

I peeked.

He was gone.

“That’s impossible,” I said out loud. I leaned farther out but there was still no trace of Lucas, just a hawk riding an air current.

Disappearing boys in medieval costumes on top of crazy crows and crazier old women. Clearly I was crazy too. Because I should be snuggling under my blanket, dreaming about Robert Pattinson, not on the roof inspecting the balcony for crows and weird cute guys swinging medieval weapons over their head. But there was nothing here: no ladder at the side of the building, no window washer’s scaffolding, nothing to explain Lucas’s vanishing into thin air.

Nothing.

Only moonlight and the neon glow of the bar sign down the street. All perfectly ordinary; so ordinary, in fact, that I might have imagined the whole thing if it weren’t for the iron stag around my neck.

I went back inside and sat on the lumpy couch, staring out the window. Maybe I had the flu. I felt my forehead. I was kind of warm; it could be a fever-induced hallucination. Of course, the stifling heat inside the apartment could explain my clammy skin just as easily. So maybe it was heat-stroke.

Which still didn’t explain the very solid presence of the iron pendant.

I scrubbed at my face, as if that could wipe my brain clean.

Lucas had mentioned my aunt Antonia. I had her cell phone number, but she only ever answered it during the winter. She traveled out of the country during the summer months. I dialed it just in case, but there was no answer.

I put the kettle on for rose hip tea. My mom always made it when she was stressed out. An impending psychiatric breakdown was stressful. I was adding three spoonfuls of honey when Mom came in. She raised her eyebrows at the tea, tossing her keys in the ceramic bowl by the door. She’d made it during her pottery phase, and it was painted with pirate skulls. “Bad night, honey?”

I wasn’t sure how much to tell her. I didn’t want to end up in a doctor’s office until I figured it out. Because I didn’t feel crazy. Then again, wasn’t that a sign of being crazy? The iron stag slipped under the collar of my shirt when I moved to put the kettle back on the stove. The cold iron brushed my skin, grounding me. No, there was definitely something going on. It wasn’t as simple as a hallucination. Besides, I reminded myself, Jo and Devin and even Bianca had seen Lucas at the ice cream parlor. If nothing else, he was real.

“There’s the weirdest thing outside,” she said, crossing to the window and climbing out onto the roof. “Come and see.”

Oh my God. Lucas’s broken body really was on the sidewalk.

I dashed past her and slammed into the railing in my haste to look out. My brain kicked in belatedly. If Lucas was down there lying in his own blood, not only would there be ambulances, but I was pretty sure Mom wouldn’t want me to see that kind of thing.

“Look,” she said softly, pointing to the telephone wire across the street. Bright red cardinals perched on the line, watching us. Another landed on the corner of the building next door. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

We watched them for a long time, their feathers red as raspberries.

“Have you heard from Aunt Antonia lately?” I asked, in what I hoped was a casual, normal tone.

She shook her head. “You know how she is.” Her gaze slid away from mine.

“She’s not in trouble, is she?”

“Why do you ask that?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering. Her cell phone’s off again.”

“She’s probably out of range. Or she’s avoiding collection agencies.”

It was a logical explanation.

But it didn’t ring true for some reason.

Especially when Mom hurried inside to fill a water bottle for the empty birdbath on the roof. She refused to meet my eyes, rushing so that she sloshed water on the floor. She didn’t even stop to wipe it up. She always wiped up spills and messes, even the dust visible only to Mom-eyes.

And she was dismissive of Antonia, even though I knew they were close. Whenever Antonia came home for Christmas, they whispered late into the night, as if they were at a slumber party. But neither of them answered direct questions. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? I felt strange, as if I were waking up from a convoluted dream I could only half remember.

There was definitely something going on.

Especially when she went straight to her room after a quick good night. She shut the door firmly behind her.

I focused on the few details I had. Lucas. The pendant. Antonia. Antonia was the only mystery I could work on right now. Though I did check the phone book for Lucas Richelieu. Not a single person with that last name in Rowan. I’d have to go to Jo’s and use her Internet to google him. In the meantime, I gathered up the family photo albums, even the small one Mom thought I didn’t know about. It was the only one with photos of my father.

I went into my room and sat on the bed, flipping through the albums. Mom and Antonia as babies, my grandparents. Granddad looked kind in his faded pin-striped suit. Grandma just looked kind of scary. The prom night pictures of Mom and Antonia were my favorite. The teased and crimped hair alone offered hours of entertainment. Mom at her first art show, sporting a very pink mohawk; Mom selling brownies at the school bake sale last year. We’d had so much fun that day. At the PTA meeting, the principal had suggested that parents dress appropriately, and everyone knew he meant Mom. So she did her hair in rollers and we wore fifties-style dresses and pearls. She looked like Bettie Page or a particularly evil version of Marilyn Monroe. The other moms had sniffed. But Mom was a better baker than they were, so our table sold out before noon.

There weren’t a lot of pictures of Antonia after she turned sixteen, and the few I could find were from Christmas. Our purple tree glittered in the background, tilting slightly under the weight of handmade ornaments. They were mostly paintings of Elvis Presley and fifties pinup girls that Mom did on the back of coasters she took from the bar.

In one of the photographs, Antonia and Mom toasted the camera with glasses of red wine. Antonia was laughing so hard she was falling over. The flash glinted off a pendant slipping out of her peasant blouse.

An iron stag with a leaf in its antlers.

I heard the murmur of Mom’s voice through the thin walls as I tried to figure out what it meant, if it even meant anything at all. I crept to my open window, knowing hers would be open as well since the building didn’t have air-conditioning. I leaned out, listening carefully. Who could she be calling at one o’clock in the morning? I stretched farther out and caught the last few words.

“Antonia, call me. I think it’s starting.”

About the Author

Alyxandra Harvey is the author of Haunting Violet, Stolen Away, and the Drake Chronicles. She studied creative writing and literature at York University and has had her poetry published in several magazines. When not writing, she is a belly dancer and jewelry maker. She lives in an old farmhouse with her husband and two dogs.

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Copyright © 2012 by Alexandra Harvey

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in April 2012
by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
www.bloomsburyteens.com

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ISBN 978-0-8027-3427-3 (e-book)