“Not that we mind,” Connor said. “It cuts down on a hell of a lot of my day-to-day workload. But why my brother?”

“As I said, we believe you are key to our future, Connor,” Brandon said. “We believe you and Aidan hold the key to our salvation. All of our salvation. It is foretold in our prophecies.”

“Christ,” I said. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Do you know how many supposed ‘prophecies’ get reported in to the Department every week? In Other Division alone we’ve had six different chosen ones since last Tuesday. Believe me when I say Connor’s not your chosen one.”

“Exactly,” Connor said. “I call bullshit. What are you really doing here? Stockpiling resources for some form of bloody coup against us?”

Brandon’s face darkened. His voice came out just as dark, sinister. “Believe me, gentlemen, if what we wanted was a bloodbath, we would surely have it.”

His tone and a sudden wave of his emotions hit me, sending a chill down my spine. I tried to shake it off as best I could. “Then what do you want?” I asked.

Brandon stood and turned to me.

“Long life,” he said, “is tiring. For far too long our people have fought your people.”

“So hold on,” Connor said. “You want us to believe you are vampire pacifists? You want to make peace?”

Brandon shook his head. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “What we really want is to be left alone.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Connor said, a dark look of his own coming over his face. “If you had wanted peace, you should have considered that long before you took my brother and made him… this.” His last word dripped with pain and disgust at what his brother had become. “How come he has no idea I’m his brother? Why doesn’t he remember me?”

Brandon sighed, pausing before he started to speak. “When I turned him,” he said, “I took precautions to assure that Aidan’s mind would be free of his past, at least for the time being. The transition would be less painful for him that way and, selfishly, it served to keep him unaware of my purposes regarding our prophecy. It appears, however, my efforts were not as strong as I would have liked. You heard Aidan talking about the dreams he’s been having… Those are memories of his past, of you, manifesting themselves back into his consciousness, causing him to seek you without even knowing who you are. The fact that he hunted you out and stalked you, being driven only by his dreams, proves his value to my people. He’s quite a resourceful young vampire.”

Connor looked livid. “To what end?”

Brandon smiled at him.

“Whether you choose to believe in our prophecy or not, Connor,” Brandon said, “let’s just say I thought this day might come between our two worlds. How you choose to deal with this information is entirely in your own hands.”

Connor paused and his face changed. The anger faded a little and he jerked his thumb over at me. “The kid here’s got some issues with the whole prophecy thing, but you know what? After the past couple months of where my brain has been, I’m willing to take a look at anything that’s going to help me understand why my brother’s been made a part of Club Dead. Or what it has to do with me.”

Brandon gave a tight-lipped smile as if he were showing restraint. “I know you mean that to be insulting,” Brandon said, “but from my perspective, I consider Aidan’s transformation an… upgrade of sorts. Nonetheless, I think it’s high time both our races start acting civilized toward each other. We live in delicate times, gentlemen. Like your ancestors of generations past, we are saying good-bye to the Old World, the old ways of doing things.”

Connor turned to meet my eyes, his cynicism returning to his face. “I don’t know, kid. When we broach the subject with the Department, I don’t really think this is going to fly.”

My biggest concern was what type of conniption Allorah Daniels might have when she got wind of this all-you-can-stake vampire buffet. Still, truth be told, I was feeling pretty good about the situation. By the odds I calculated in my head, I figured I should have been long dead from hanging out here in New York’s largest nest of vampires. Any extra time I was still among the living felt like a bonus level in a video game to me.

“So we make it fly,” I said. “Connor, think of your brother. He’s one of them now. Less than an hour ago you thought he was still dead and gone. Now you know that he’s just dead. That’s a positive… of a sort.”

Connor looked on the verge of crying. The accumulated weight of the past month of mental stress seemed to crush down on him at once. “I wouldn’t call this any kind of life,” Connor said. “You know our training. Vampires are an abomination. Maybe I should have saved that stake to release Aidan from all this.”

I grabbed Connor by the lapels of his coat and got in his face. “He’s your brother! Think about what you’re saying. You can’t kill him.”

Brandon coughed, a totally artificial gesture on his part. “He’s our family, too,” Brandon added, holding up a finger.

“I wouldn’t allow that.”

Connor turned and looked at him. “I guess that’s part of my problem,” Connor said. “You say you people want to be left alone, but I don’t think it would stay that way long. Look what you’ve done to my brother. I’ve been around him less than an hour and I’ve already seen how ferocious he can become. We watched him throw this dark-haired girl across your little faux forest out there.”

Brandon looked surprised. “He did that to Beatriz?” he asked. “That’s rather harsh to be doing to his girlfriend, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “They’re a couple?”

“Fits my point exactly,” Connor said. “If that’s how he treats his girlfriend, what’s he or the others going to do to regular humans on the street who they don’t even know?”

Brandon looked at us like we were stupid. “Aidan doles out exactly what he knows our people can take when it comes to keeping the law around here. He’s one of my key enforcers. He can’t simply go easier on Beatriz, especially around the others. If he gave his girlfriend special treatment, what would the others think? It’s clan politics, and you can’t be too soft around that mentality. It simply wouldn’t do. It would be a show of weakness, and we can’t have that. Besides, he’s young.”

“He’s thirty-seven,” I said.

“Young by our standards,” Brandon corrected, “which explains some of his more interesting outbursts. He gets a bit irked when we’re all out socially. He always gets carded. You have to understand that for the vampire, the mind changes at a different rate, between immortality and the fact that the body never ages. All of us grow differently.”

“What?” I asked. “No finishing school for vampires?” This seemed to agitate Brandon and I could feel it radiating from him. His face was somber.

“We still have much to discuss,” Brandon said, “but that can wait till later. For now, I think it wise we all digest what has happened here today, on both sides.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “You’re just going to let us walk out of here?”

Brandon looked annoyed. “I could have some of my men chase you out of here, if you prefer.”

“Walking out is just fine,” Connor said.

“But I do need something from you,” Brandon said. “An assurance that you will approach this historic meeting with some delicacy when you talk to your superiors. This is history in the making, history we’ve waited on for a long time.”

“That’s awfully trusting,” I said. “What makes you think we’re not going to send in the troops on this?”

Brandon shrugged and tapped the side of his forehead. “Prophecy, remember?” He turned to Connor and gave him a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “Besides, you’ve got your brother to think about in all this, haven’t you?”

Connor’s face went dark. “That’s why you did this to him,” he said, “thinking you’d get my cooperation…”