“But,” Connor continued, “you’ve seen it happen before. You’ve seen the future read.”

“What?” I said, laughing out loud. “From Mrs. Teasley as she sits in the back of the Lovecraft Café reading piles of cold, used coffee grounds? I’d be hard-pressed to call her predictions anything close to accurate. It’s mostly guesswork.”

Aidan turned to me. “I was made this way for a reason…”

“That’s just bad luck,” I said. I was burning with anger now. “Not everything happens for a reason. That’s a crock of shit, just like predestination. The future isn’t written yet.” I turned to Brandon. “And besides, if I’m supposed to believe your prophecy is real and you know the future so well, why did you send a letter to scare Connor away from ever meeting Aidan?”

Brandon’s eyes narrowed. “What letter?”

Connor crossed to him. “Allow me,” Connor said. He dug into his trench coat, rustled around, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it out to Brandon, but I grabbed it from him, unfolding and reading it.

“It says: ‘Aidan is ours. Stop looking or he dies.’ ”

Brandon snatched it away from me in a blink and it was like magic as it disappeared from my hand. He looked at the words on the page. Aidan joined him and read it over his shoulder.

“I see,” Brandon said when he was done. He handed the letter back to Connor. “Interesting, but I didn’t send you this letter.”

“Yeah, right,” Connor said, taking it. He folded it and slipped it back inside his coat. “Well, someone sent it…”

“It seems we have enemies from within,” Brandon said. “Clearly someone is trying to sabotage our efforts toward a lasting peace.”

“Good luck with that,” Aidan said. Everyone turned to look at him. “All I mean is… no one can stop what will happen. It’s prophecy; all of this is written. It’s inevitable, right?”

“We can wait out inevitability,” Brandon said with a laugh. “Or have you forgotten what we are?”

“Listen,” I said. “I doubt the streets are going to run red with blood tonight, right? No one other than the two of us humans knows you’re here. I personally don’t buy into your prophecy, but either way, I’m a bit too exhausted to be your savior even if you’ve interpreted your book correctly. I’m leaving. Just let me get the hell out of here and get some sleep. I’m not tackling your fancy book or saving anything or anyone tonight.”

I walked off toward the chamber doors. Nobody moved to stop me.

“But the prophecy says…” Brandon started.

“Don’t say it!” I shouted, interrupting him.

“You’re the chosen one,” he finished.

I threw open the heavy wooden doors and turned to face the lord of the vampires.

I pointed back to the stacks of movies and the flat-screen television. “Someone’s been binge-watching one too many seasons of old television series,” I said. “Too bad you didn’t try Sunnydale High. You want the Slayer. I’m just a government drone with a stack of casework back at my desk and bags under my eyes.”

20

I worked my way out of the castle and across the open courtyard, heading toward the portcullis and gates leading out. I had lost track of what time of day or night it was in the outside world, but in here it was currently night. If the torches lighting the way were fake or part of the fancy electrical wiring of the Gibson-Case Center surrounding us, I couldn’t tell. I’d find out soon enough what the real world had in store for me when I got outside.

Despite it being artificial night in here, the castle grounds were relatively quiet given the nocturnal nature of its occupants. That meant real night must be in effect out in the city with most of the vampires out enjoying a night on the town instead of cooped up in the Epcot version of rural Transylvania.

When I passed the gate hanging overhead at the castle entrance, the sound of my lone footsteps echoed out as I crossed the bridge over the fake moat. Despite knowing full well that I was in the center of Manhattan, the replication of the foreign countryside at night had me spooked. I kept my pace slow and steady to keep my nerves in check, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.

I stopped once I was off the bridge and safely on the cobblestones leading off to the exit guarded by the living statues. The spooked feeling wouldn’t let go. I looked around with caution, the surrounding forest full of shadows and trees whose limbs reminded me of the haunted forest from The Wizard of Oz. Through them, I saw a set of the familiar red exit markings and headed toward it.

Only to see the red exit lights start to move, and before I had time to react, the realization hit me. “Those aren’t exit lights,” I said, dropping to the ground as they dashed toward me. I hit the ground hard, avoiding injury by landing in my leather coat as something hit me. Eyes with blood-red irises and red-black pupils met mine as a leathery, dry-skinned creature pinned me in place. Its veins were drawn tight over its skin and they were everywhere. It hissed at me with vicious fangs showing and the stench of rot on its breath. I knew this type of monstrosity, but this time I didn’t have a grocery store arsenal to defend myself with.

For a second, fear paralyzed me into inaction, but I remembered my training and shook it off. Agents died in the field marveling at the monstrosities that attacked them. I was determined not to be one of those statistics.

I felt for my bat, but with signs of my movement, the creature dug its talonlike nails into my arms. The pain was excruciating, but thanks again to my jacket, they didn’t pierce my skin.

“You’re just as fugly a little thing as the other one was, aren’t you?” I asked it.

I don’t know if it understood me or merely sensed that I was mocking it in an effort to calm my fear, but it reared back, its mouth showing its devastating array of sharklike teeth crisscrossing back and forth in its open maw. Something fleshy fell from its mouth onto my neck and I tried not to panic. The creature let out a primal cry, but then I noticed it wasn’t focusing on me anymore.

A shadowy blur of motion blazed over me, grappling the creature and pulling it off of me. I sat up on my elbows to follow the action. Aidan Christos stood about fifteen feet away, the creature hugged tight against his chest. It tore and squirmed for its freedom, but Aidan wasn’t having any of it. After a moment or two of struggle, it broke one of its arms free and started clawing at Aidan’s face. Vain to the end, Aidan immediately let go of it and felt to see if he had been harmed. The creature dashed off into the darkness of the surrounding forest. Several other dark flashes flew around the edge of the forest as well.

I ran over to Aidan. He looked at me, panicked.

“Am I okay?” he said, still feeling around.

“Are you okay? I was pinned under that thing! You’ve at least got the ability to heal.”

Aidan’s face relaxed a little. “So I’m okay?”

“Yeah, you’re still looking like the poster boy for emo,” I said. “Now, do you mind telling me what the fuck was that thing, er, things?”

“One of us,” Aidan said, taking his time to walk a circle around us, looking, trying to pick the creatures from out of the darkness.

I looked, too. If it was out there, I couldn’t see it. “One of you?” I asked. “That thing is so not like you.”

Aidan’s eyes lit up and he turned to me. “Sorry about your arm.”

“Huh?” I asked. “There’s nothing wrong with my arm…”

Before I could say another word, Aidan lashed out and grabbed my right arm hard around the wrist. He looked overhead, searched high above, and then jumped straight up, taking me with him. It felt like my shoulder had exploded, but we were already flying through the air when one of the creatures swooped back, right where I’d been standing.

I screamed.