“Hold on,” a woman’s voice called out. It was the one he called Beatriz again. She was now standing at the base of the far-off tree she had been thrown against. She bent her knees and leapt, closing the fifty feet or so in a second with my eyes barely able to follow her. She landed near the boy and started walking toward him. Her arm was bent at an unnatural angle and it dangled lifelessly at her side. “Why the hell are you telling them anything? They’re human.”

She stopped in front of the boy and he ignored her words, looking instead at a bit of bone protruding from just below her elbow. “You’re hurt.”

He reached for her wounded arm, but she batted him away with her good arm.

“Never mind that,” Beatriz said. “What were you doing visiting this Connor person anyway?”

Aidan’s eyes lingered on hers. He took her arm in his hands and pulled at the lower part of it until the bone disappeared under the skin. Using his thumb to trace the spot where it had reentered, he felt around for a second before pressing on it. As I heard bone scraping bone, Beatriz’s eyes widened.

“Dammit!” she hissed, pushing him away. She clutched her arm as I watched the hole in her skin close and the flesh knit itself together over it, leaving only a small amount of blood as a reminder of what had happened. Aidan reached out with his hand, extending his finger to touch the spot, and cleaned up the blood. He raised it to his lips, his eyes rolling back into his head as he tasted it. Beatriz moved closer to him, tension in her body.

When Aidan’s eyes returned to normal, she was still glaring at him.

“Well?”

“Well,” he repeated with exasperation in his voice, “I’m not sure.”

Aidan’s uncertainty washed out over us in a wave of raw emotion. Even the crowd around us felt it and roared to life in confusion and frustration. We were outnumbered by vampires by a wide margin. The bat in my hands had never felt more useless, and I could feel the anger and excitement of the crowd rush into me, making my nerves stand on end.

Beatriz raised her hands to beat on his chest, but Aidan wrapped his arms around her, holding her too close to do anything that effective.

“Contacting humans like this,” she said, pissed. “That’s not your decision to make!”

He smiled at her. “It’s not yours, either.” He looked around at the other vampires. They were visibly upset and eyeing Connor and me like we were blood-soaked Lunchables. Aidan looked worried. He looked back down at Beatriz with a hint of tenderness in his eyes. “He’ll know what to do.”

Connor stood at my side, still dazed from the sudden shock of discovering his brother was alive. Well, alive-ish, anyway. It felt like it was up to me to get some answers.

“He who?” I asked. “Whose decision-making abilities are we talking about here?”

“Brandon,” Aidan said. “He…”

Beatriz hit him hard in the chest, stopping him. “Let’s not introduce the entire clan, shall we? God, we don’t want these blood bags to put everyone on their hit list just yet.”

At the mention of the word “blood,” the rest of the vampires went wild, barely keeping their distance.

“Take us to him,” I said.

“Are you nuts?” Connor said, finally speaking up, disgusted. “Kid, you want to go deeper into the dragon’s lair?”

I looked back over my shoulder at the distant entry doors now closed behind us. They may as well have been miles away given the speed at which these creatures moved. “Would you rather take your chances with this lot?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Aidan added. He lowered his voice. “I don’t think I can take all of them, and frankly, I don’t think I want to. They are family, after all.”

“Family…” Connor muttered, and gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t talk to me about family.” He held his hand up in a Vulcan salute. “Fine, then. Take us to your leader.”

As we approached the distant castle, it was difficult processing all of this. My mind knew that outside the Gibson-Case Center, the hustle and bustle of New York continued on, but in here it was another world-the thick forest all around us and now a castle that looked big enough to take up the whole city block by itself. The exterior-wall fortifications of it were made of rough-hewn stone blocks that stacked up at least forty feet tall. Aidan led us across a drawbridge over a moat and through the main portcullis into an area that opened up into a courtyard. Several smaller buildings lined the open area along with a host of people, but I didn’t have much of a chance to check any of them out. Aidan was already across the yard and heading into an ornate building that looked like it was the castle proper. Inside the building, the interior stonework was finer than the outside and the walls were lit by electric sconces, giving the place a somewhat cheaper Medieval Times feel. We ran to keep up with the vampire while Aidan led us through a dizzying array of corridors until I lost all sense of direction. If he wanted to kill us now, his odds were pretty damn good before I stood a chance of finding an exit. To comfort myself, I threw my bat up on my shoulder as we walked along. Aidan turned to me.

“You can put your bat away now,” Aidan offered.

“I’m good,” I said, keeping it out. “Thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Aidan said after a moment of giving me a dark look. “Not a good way to enter into things, if you ask me.”

Connor had been silent the whole time, giving his undead brother wary looks as he followed along.

“Yeah,” I said, “about that. Just what are we getting into here?”

“That’s not really for me to say,” he said and fell silent. “Just be happy I got you out of there, okay? The clan’s a little peeved that I’m bringing you to the castle.”

“Why are you bringing us here?” I asked. “Wait; don’t tell me. I suppose that’s not really for you to say, either?”

Aidan smiled, showing me his fangs again. “You learn quickly,” he said. “Not bad for a mortal.”

Aidan stopped at an intersection of halls, checking in all directions. As the three of us stood there, I noticed a certain stillness in him, then realized it was his complete absence of respiration. I looked at his boyish features-Connor’s features, really.

As we walked through the castle corridors, curiosity got the better of me. “So your name is Aidan, right?”

“Yes,” Aidan said. “Although how he knew that, I have no idea.”

“He who?” I asked.

Aidan jerked his head in Connor’s direction. “Him.”

“Hold on,” I said, stopping. “You didn’t know his name before I said it earlier?”

Aidan stopped and turned to the two of us. “You said he was Connor. I’m sorry; where are my manners? Gentleman, my name is Aidan.” He gave a low bow, the hood on his sweatshirt flopping forward. He stood back up. “And you might be…?”

“I’m Simon,” I said, “and this is my bat. It doesn’t have a name yet, although I’m thinking of going with Swingy.”

“I’m Connor,” Connor said. He held out his hand. Aidan reached out and shook it. As I watched, I was a little disappointed. There was no sweep of violins or any grand moment of reunion. They simply shook hands with no sense of recognition on Aidan’s face at all. He spun around on his heels, shoved his hands deep into his sweatshirt pockets, and walked off.

I gave Connor a look, but he held his finger up to his lips. He mouthed the words, He really doesn’t know.

Before it could even sink in, Aidan called back to us. “Anytime, fellas…”

Connor took off first, looking confused but full of questions.

“So this Brandon you mentioned before, is that who you’re taking us to?” Connor asked.

“Affirmative,” Aidan said. “Think of him as king around here, not that we’re feudal or anything.”

“Let me get this straight,” Connor said. “The king of your little undead castle here is named Brandon?”

Aidan shrugged. “It’s what he calls himself now, anyway. That’s all you need to know.”