I was shaking, my mind numb, my limbs paralyzed, and sensations tingled across the skin where his lips moved so erotically. I didn’t want this, or his touch. I couldn’t help but crave it. I breathed, squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, gathered my strength—God only knew where it came from—lifted my hands to his chest and pushed. Hard. Victorian flew backward and landed on his back several feet away. He lay there, staring at me and smiling.

When next I blinked, he stood in front of me, close, crowding me once more, his hands grasping my wrists and grating my knuckles against the brick wall at my back. He lowered his head, his lips whispering against mine.

“Your tendencies do nothing more than fascinate me”—his mouth moved against mine—“and excite me even more.” He pulled back and looked at me. “What other tricks do you possess that I might enjoy?” His alluring scent surrounded me as his mouth covered mine—

“Riley?” A hand grasped my shoulder and shook—hard. “Riley, wake up, dammit.”

I gasped; my eyes fluttered open and I stared, confused, into Eli’s questioning gaze. Behind him, early-morning sun streamed in through my bedroom window, casting a hazy glow on his face. He frowned. “You’ve been dreaming of him again,” he said, his eyes hard and accusing. “Haven’t you?”

I glanced down. I still wore the same black yoga pants and sports bra I’d gone for a run in the night before. I’d encountered Victorian on that run. Hadn’t I? Or had it all really been a dream? I looked at my knuckles; the skin across them was scraped raw.

Inside my head,Victorian’s seductive laugh resonated.

Now, either that little fucker was messing with me, or I was losing my goddamn mind.

Part Three

TERRORS

“Death is when the monsters get you.”

—Stephen King, Salem’s Lot

“I’ve started having … visions. Night terrors.

Day terrors. And they’re not of Victorian. It’s

something—or someone—else; I get the sick

feeling they’re weirdly familiar. I’m seeing in-

nocents die horrible deaths at the hands of a

vicious monster; watching it happen through

my own eyes as though it’s me doing the kill-

ing; as if I’m the monster. I even feel what the

monster is experiencing, and it’s … disgusting.

I’m not kidding—something’s gotta give be-

cause I can’t freaking take it anymore.”

—Riley Poe

By the time I’d closed Inksomnia’s doors a few nights later, I’d realized with complete lucidity that our lives—all of our lives—would never be the same again. There were no rose-colored glasses here. Nope. My goggles were scratch free and squeaky-clean, and, to be honest, I suppose I’d rather it be that way. Better to know what’s coming than to ignorantly stand around with your thumb up your butt, waiting for junk to happen.

For instance, Preacher and Estelle no longer had to what the Gullah referred to as “fix” me. Let’s face it. My DNA was royally screwed up, so I no longer needed that particular concoction of God-Knows-What from Preacher’s special behind-the-haint-blue-curtain herb collection. I still had to have something—I mean, I was still human after all—but not such a heavy dose, and my Gullah grandparents no longer had to trick me daily into drinking my protective tea. I willingly did so and kept a mammoth canister of it on my kitchen counter. Gilles said that because I had the venom of two strigoi vampires’ mixed with my DNA, my blood would slowly start morphing into something unique, and soon I wouldn’t even need the tea. I’m not sure if I should have been happy or freaked about that. Lucky for my brother, he had the venom of only one strigoi mixed with his DNA. We’re both pretty messed up, though, I guess you could say. Messed up, but not stupid.

Another thing I’ve noticed, and this just since getting back home, is my senses. They’re changing. I mean, I’d known about the whole werewolf/Arcos bit, but damn—I didn’t realize it’d get so intense. Or that it’d continue to alter as it has. My hearing is ridiculously acute. I’m starting to hear the most insane sounds, like the nuns over at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (aka Cinderella’s Castle by Seth and me), and that’s all the way over on East Harris Street. I can literally hear them praying. At first, it was nothing more than a cluster of hushed murmuring whispers; but, by the second day, the whispers were totally clear and I could understand every word being muttered—every single word. It made me feel like some freaky eavesdropping voyeur or something. Weird. Even weirder was that I could now pick up heartbeats, and only God knew how far away they were. I heard them everywhere, and after a while it began to seriously grate on the nerves. Thump thump thump thump thump thump. Thump freaking thump. Eli promised to teach me how to channel it, tune it out, or make use of it. I was looking forward to learning those tricks and hopefully soon, because I felt as if I’ were constantly holed up in a crowded bar with some drunken idiot banging a set of drums. The softer the sound, the louder it was inside my head. It was driving me frickin’ nuts.

And my sense of smell was almost just as crazy. I could detect everything from a joint being toked three blocks away in an upstairs apartment, to some nasty drunk dude farting batter-fried onion rings in the corner booth at Spanky’s.

I was standing in my kitchen, steeping strong Gullah tea, when the first terror-vision hit me. I wished to God it was my last. It wasn’t. I remember glancing at the time on my Kit-Cat Klock—8:44 a.m.

A paralyzing grip suddenly snatched control of my body; I dropped the spoon I was using to stir sugar into my tea, and it clattered against the granite countertop, then hit the floor. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes, and, at first, I couldn’t breathe. The insides of my eyes, behind the sockets, turned boiling hot, then frigidly cold. A loud ringing in my ears drowned out any and all noises, including the ones I heard blocks away. Then everything went pitch-black. I tried to speak, but my vocal cords were paralyzed, too. Panic, mixed with anger, seized me.

All at once, a live scene flashed behind my lids. It was nightfall, and I was following a girl out of the mall. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the place, but it definitely wasn’t Savannah. Young, petite, and blond, looking to be in her early twenties, wearing red flip-flops, holey jeans, and a purple tank top, she swung her hips as she made her way toward the covered parking garage. She happily chatted to someone on her cell and didn’t seem to notice me. A horn blew from somewhere in the garage, and the girl squealed, then giggled to her phone companion. I grew closer. In the distance, sounds of traffic filled the night air.

Long shadows, birthed from low light cast from the overhead lamps bracketed onto concrete pillars, fell over the row of sparsely parked cars. Not many people were about on a weeknight; no one was in the direct vicinity of the girl. She turned down the row with a white metal sign marked by a black capital B. I watched her closely. She dug through her purse and retrieved a set of keys. At the same time, she stopped at a white Camry and pushed the key release. The horn gave one short blast as it unlocked the doors. With her chin she held her cell, and she reached for the door handle.

Hands not my own grabbed her, whipped her around, and slammed her back against the car. Large blue eyes widened in fear and confusion as they stared, horrified, into mine. Tremors of fear wracked her body; I could feel them. Adrenaline rushed through her veins; I could hear the swooshing sound it made as though magnified, only to my ears. Her heart slammed rapidly against her ribs, faster, harder. At the indention in her throat, her pulse beckoned me. The moment she filled her lungs with air to scream, I lunged at her neck and sank my teeth into her flesh. The scream died in her throat as I ripped through her larynx and her vocal cords, until the vessel I sought popped; a rush of wet warmth, sweet, erotic, and heady, saturated the inside of my mouth. I suckled her blood, excitement rushing through me as I felt the liquid slide down my throat. The girl’s body jerked, involuntarily, as life left her. The jerks were hard at first, then weaker. The instant she sagged against me, her heart having stilled and her eyes dull and lifeless, I dropped her body. It crumpled into a heap at my feet, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Riley!”

Strong hands gripped my shoulders and shook me until my blurred vision cleared, and Seth’s worried face came into view. He shook me again and shouted so loud my ears rang. “Ri, wake up!”

“Whoa, back off, Bro,” I said, and shook his hands off me. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, and looked around. Slowly, my surroundings came into focus. I glanced at the Kit-Cat Klock on the wall. It was 8:50 a.m. Six minutes had passed.

What the fu—

“Your eyes were blank, but your face … ,” he said, and it was then I noticed for the first time his voice had deepened.

“What about my face?” I asked. I moved to the sink, flipped the faucet on, and splashed myself with cold water.

Seth passed me the hand towel. “You looked, I don’t know,” he said, then looked at me with his expressive green eyes. “Mean. You looked mean, Ri. Scary-mean. Not yourself.”

I dried my face and thought about that. “Did I say anything?”

Seth shook his head, a hank of dark hair falling into his eyes. He pushed it back. “No. You just stood there, staring, and looking … hateful.”

The memory of the vision struck me, rushing back full force. I met my brother’s worried gaze. “I saw something, Seth. Like a daydream, only it was so freaking real. It was”—I searched for the right word—“sickening.”

“What was it?” he asked, and I noticed then how worried he truly was. His brows pulled into a frown, his mouth thin. “Tell me.”

I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into the sockets, rubbing hard. I looked at my brother. “I saw a kill. I saw a vampire feed.”

Seth’s face grew pale, and his eyes widened. “What?”