by Helen Keeble
“Your phone call.” Quinns shrugged. “Tracked you from that.”
“How?” I said dubiously. “Magic?”
“Google,” Quinns said dryly. “Had your first name, enough clues. Found a blog post by a girl named Lorraine.” He shifted gear, taking a roundabout at twice the speed limit. “Got full name, then address. Then found the fish. Rest you know.”
“You really did go home,” I said to the goldfish, now resting smugly in a jar between my knees. Mum and Dad sat on either side of me, holding on to my hands as though they’d never let go again. I didn’t want them to. “Good, Brains. I’ll buy you a …” What did you buy an undead evil goldfish? “… coffin fish-tank ornament. To lurk in.” The goldfish waggled its tail in contentment.
“Insisted I follow it.” Quinns rubbed absently at a red bite mark on the side of his neck. “Thankfully.”
Van crossed his arms over his bare chest, scowling out the side window. Quinns had found him a pair of leather trousers—usually used for protection when pruning rosebushes, apparently—but didn’t have a spare shirt. As Van was a good deal stockier and more muscular than his lean, rangy uncle, said trousers were practically skin tight. A bad part of my mind whispered that I really had to find an excuse to walk behind him sometime soon. “I had it under control,” he muttered.
“Mmm,” Quinns murmured with a sideways glance at him. “Evidently.” Van slumped farther down in the passenger seat.
Ebon cleared his throat. He leaned forward a little, careful not to disturb Zack, who was tucked up under his arm, dozing. “Not to wish to appear ungrateful for the rescue, Hunter-General, but I must ask you as to your future intentions. I am well aware that your organization hires out to the Elders, and I know something of some of your recent dealings. Were you not in the employ of Hakon?”
Quinns looked at him in the rearview mirror, his eyes flat and unfriendly. “Weren’t you?”
“Ah.” Ebon went faintly pink. “I found that I had certain feelings that meant I could not continue in his service.”
“Are you in love with Jane?” Sarah twisted round in the front passenger seat to peer at him with interest.
“Sarah!” I yelped. I was horribly aware of my parents on either side of me. Ahead, Van’s shoulders had gone tense.
“Well, it would explain things,” she said matter-of-factly. “Are you?”
Ebon looked aghast. “No!”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” I said after a moment. It came out a little more coldly than I’d intended.
“Ah, that is, I mean no offense,” he stuttered, blushing even harder now. “You are very delightful, Jane, and I, er, hold great affection for you, truly, but …” He sighed. “Forgive me for mentioning a lady’s age, but … you are fifteen. I am nearly two hundred years old. It does put certain limits on our association.”
“So if it’s not Jane,” Sarah said, frowning, “why are you doing this?”
He sighed again. “Truly? It was Zack.”
This time the pause was rather longer, and when my dad spoke his tone was downright arctic. “Excuse me?”
“I could not help but find myself beguiled,” Ebon started, and then noticed the expressions on all our faces. “Good heavens, not like that!” He looked down at Zack’s sleeping face, and tenderness stole across his own features. “He delights in my era,” Ebon said softly. “I have met very few who do. It was one of the darkest periods in vampire history, thanks to the efforts of Lord Hunter-General Abraham Stoker—”
“Wait, Bram Stoker?” I interrupted. “As in Dracula? Bram Stoker was a vampire hunter?”
“And dhampir. Best general we ever had,” Van said reverently. Then, in much more his normal surly growl, he added, “And now we’re all stuck with the idiotic Dracula names in his honor. We could have just put up a damn statue.” Quinns cast him a sardonic look.
“Yes, Stoker was the last known dhampir,” Ebon said. He tilted his head in Van’s direction. “Until now. Anyway, it was not a good time for vampires.” His mouth quirked. “Plus, the fashion for cluttered interior decor meant the Elders could not leave their own barren rooms. I somewhat suspect that’s the source of Hakon’s current obsession with making minimalism fashionable worldwide.” He sighed, his expression turning wistful. “Regardless, it was my time, and sometimes I long for it fiercely. To be able to share that feeling with someone is a rare thing. And then … then there were the rest of you.” Ebon’s pale eyes met each of ours in turn, steadily. “You knew what I was and yet welcomed me in. I have not know such kindness since … for a very long time.”
There was yet another awkward silence.
“Er,” Dad said. “I threatened you with a paintbrush.”
“And I grilled you on French history,” Mum added, sounding uncharacteristically sheepish.
“Indeed,” Ebon said with a grin that made his face suddenly boyish. “And that was still the warmest welcome I have received in over a century. Tragic, am I not?” He hesitated, the smile sliding away, leaving him looking still young, but now vulnerable. “Please. May I stay?”
“Yes,” I said, just as Van muttered, “No,” and Quinns said, “Maybe.”
“Yes,” I repeated firmly. “Ebon’s one of us.”
Quinns kept his eyes on the road. “Don’t like vampires much.”
“Wow, we’ve got something in common then. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a vampire.”
“Yes,” Quinns agreed, voice flat.
A chill went down my back. I realized that Quinns hadn’t yet denied that he worked for the Elders. Seemed that I wasn’t the only one to have that thought, as the atmosphere in the van was suddenly very tense. My parents looked at each other, then, as one, at Quinns. My dad’s hand surreptitiously drifted down to the handle of a nearby shovel, while Mum palmed a pruning hook. “I think,” Dad said, “we’d better talk about what you intend to do with us.”
“We’re going to protect you,” Van said instantly. “All of you. Aren’t we, Uncle?”
The Hunter-General said nothing for a long moment. What I could see of his face was perfectly expressionless. I was beginning to understand where Van got it from.
“Maybe,” Quinns said at last. “Depends.”
“On what?” everyone said at once, voices overlapping. Sarah was eyeing Quinns as if she really wished she still had Lily’s gun, while Van looked poised to push his uncle out the side door. Ebon had gone very, very still, his lip curled to show the barest hint of fang. Both my parents’ hands were white on their makeshift weapons.
Quinns seemed remarkably unfazed for a man on the verge of being murdered at least five times over. “On what you’re doing.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Lily.”
It took me a second to catch his meaning. “You think she’s monitoring us? Hang on, I’ll check.” I focused inward. My attention flowed away up the Bloodline, pulling me across space....
“—one moment,” Lily was saying into a mobile phone. I felt the hard impact of her high heels hitting concrete as she paced back and forth in front of a motorway service station. “I’ve got another call coming in.” She moved the phone a little way from her ear, addressing thin air. “Why, hello, Quincey darling. Long time no see.”
Evidently, Quinns had guessed right. “Um,” I said to him. “She’s saying hi to you, actually. Says it’s been a while.”
“Not long enough,” Quinns growled, the first sign of real emotion I’d seen from him so far.
“Why, Quincey, I’m hurt,” Lily purred. “Is that any way to talk to family?”
“Oh my God,” I said, pieces falling into place. “You really are Van’s mum. And Quinns is actually his dad, right?”
The van lurched, throwing me into Mum’s side, as Quinns jerked hard on the steering wheel. Lily whooped with laughter. “Oh, Xanthe darling,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “Grant me some modicum of good taste.”
Van stared at Quinns. “You’re my father?”
; “No!” Quinns snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Of course he isn’t,” Lily said cheerfully. “I am.”
“Uh … what?” I said. I held one finger up at Van in a “wait a sec” gesture.
“Dear Lucy Helsing,” Lily said with what sounded awfully like genuine fondness. “We did have some good times. Jolly fine girl. Ever so practical too. I needed a dhampir, but I could hardly carry a baby myself for nine months without Hakon finding out about it. So Lucy and I came to a little mutually beneficial agreement.” She took a long drag on her cigarette, and added, “You were never quite so keen on the deal, were you, Quincey dear? Should have guessed you’d end up keeping the boy to yourself.”
“So the hunters did collude with you in creating the dhampir,” said a clear, cold voice from Lily’s phone. Ice ran through my veins. Hakon. “You are a foolish child, Lily. You know nothing of history, so blithely tempting the hunters with such a weapon again.”
“I had him perfectly under my control,” Lily retorted. “Until you blundered in.”
I jumped as Sarah prodded me in the shoulder. “What’s going on?” she said impatiently. “What’s Lily doing?” Her face bore a strange, half-hungry, half-apprehensive expression.
“Uh, telling Hakon all about how she did a deal with Van’s mum,” I said, distracted. “And that she’s his father. Van’s, I mean, not Hakon’s.”
“What?” Van looked like he’d been whacked upside the head with a brick.
Quinns let out a long, resigned sigh. “It’s true.”
We all stared at him.
“Shape-shifter,” said Quinns. This appeared to be all the explanation he felt was necessary.
“Lily can turn into anyone,” I said to my puzzled parents. I remembered the male appearance she’d briefly assumed. “Including guys. Guess it’s quite a, um, complete transformation.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Van demanded of his uncle. His voice shook with barely controlled anger and shock. “Why? You lied!”
“Didn’t,” Quinns said, sharp as a knife blade. “Not about the important things, that Lucy loved you, vampires took her, you had to hide.” His voice calmed again. “Needed you to hate them. Afraid you might not, might have been curious about Lily, if you knew the truth. Had to stop you from going to her.”
Van digested this. “Oh.”
“Didn’t go so well,” added Quinns with a sour twist to his mouth.
Lily made a low, throaty laugh. “All I had to do was snap my fingers”—she clicked her varnished nails in demonstration—“and the boy came running. Poor Quincey. You should know by now that I always get what I want.”
“You didn’t this time,” I said to her. “We got away. You lost.”
“Really?” Lily flicked ash off her cigarette. “Always have a plan B, darling.” She turned back to her phone. “Speaking of which … Hakon?”
“I am more minded to simply hunt you down like the rabid dog you are, Lily, and so end the threat of both you and your progeny,” Hakon snarled. “You have released the whirlwind upon us. If another Bloodline brings Xanthe Jane to heel first—”
“And they will do so, if you don’t accept my proposal,” Lily interrupted. “You send a single one of your thugs after me, Hakon, and I’m taking this deal straight to another Elder. I’m the only one who can easily find our dear Xanthe Jane, but anyone with a large enough force could use my information to recapture her. And once one has Jane, her parents will surrender, which gives one the key to controlling Jane … a neat circle. Any Elder would offer me protection in return for such power. Maybe I’ll call up, oh, say, to pick a name completely at random, Ilmari.” I felt a smug, vicious smile curve Lily’s lips at Hakon’s sharp intake of breath. “My, what do you think an Elder like him would do with someone of Jane’s potency, hmm?”
A pause, then Hakon spat out a long stream of archaic Swedish.
“Why, thank you,” Lily said, her smile widening. “I’ll assume that was a lovely compliment.” She ground her cigarette butt daintily under one heel. “Let me make it crystal clear for you, little boy. You can shake off your silly cultural baggage, hold your nose, and work with me, or you can watch your empire burn. Now, should I start calling round and inviting the highest bid, or do we have a deal?”
A much longer pause. Then, “Deal,” Hakon said, sounding as though the word were being pulled out of him on barbed wire. “Alliance between us, as long as your progeny lives. And, Xanthe Jane Greene?”
“Yeah?” I said, fighting down a shudder at the leashed rage in Hakon’s voice.
“Tell Quincey Helsing I know his plan for the dhampir. And I shall make sure every Bloodline in existence knows too.” Lily’s phone clicked as Hakon hung up.
“Goodness, now there’s a poor loser,” Lily observed, snapping her phone shut. “Still listening, Xanthe darling? Really now. I should start running, if I were you.”
I pulled back from the connection, feeling like I’d been for a dip in a rancid pond. “Uh, I don’t think Hakon’s real pleased with you,” I told Quinns. “He said something about knowing what you’re up to with Van, and that he’d tell all the other vampires too. He sounded like it was a really big deal.”
Quinns let out his breath. “Over a hundred years of secrecy,” he said rather grimly. “Thrown away.” He glared, narrow-eyed, at Van. “You are very grounded.”
“Secrecy?” Ebon said, frowning. “Hunter-General, all vampires are quite aware that your group became corrupt after Stoker’s death. It is hardly a secret that you are vampire minions rather than vampire hunters.”
“What we wanted you to think,” Quinns said. “Had to, or you would have wiped us out after Stoker. Really, we are vampire hunters. Always have been. But we’re not hunting vampires.”
“Want to be a little more cryptic?” Sarah snapped.
“Being accurate.” Quinns shrugged one shoulder. “Not hunting vampires. Hunting a vampire. That’s the secret.”
“Only one vampire?” I frowned. Quinns didn’t strike me as a personal vendetta kind of guy. “Which one?”
“The first.”
There was a pause, while we all contemplated that.
“That’s … an admirably logical plan,” my mum said at last.
“Thanks.” Quinns drove in silence for a moment. “Slow, hard work, though. Got to stay low, appease the vampires, keep researching. Lucy didn’t like it. Kept looking for shortcuts, like creating a dhampir.” He shook his head. “Warned Lucy that Lily had to be playing her. Didn’t listen. Like you,” he added, cocking an eyebrow at Van. “Impatient.”
“While you’re sitting around researching, people are getting hurt,” Van muttered.
“People always getting hurt.” It sounded like a well-worn and long-running argument. “Bigger picture.” Quinns sighed in exasperation. “Doesn’t matter now. Cover blown. Traded for a handful of humans and a couple of teenage vampires. Ha.” Van glared.
“Wrong,” I said. Crap, it was contagious. Too much time in Quinns’s company, and we’d all just be grunting at each other.
“Oh?” Quinns said, neutral.
“Wrong,” I repeated. “Traded for”—I swung my finger to point at Van, Ebon, and Sarah in turn—“a supernaturally good fighter that no one can hide from, a shape-shifting spy who’s been close to one of your greatest enemies, and a budding evil genius who thinks more like a vampire than the vampires do. And me,” I added. “The world’s only unkillable supervamp.” I sat back, folding my arms and ignoring the way everyone except Quinns was staring at me. I glared at the back of the Hunter-General’s head. “If you can’t defeat the bad guys with that lot, then you seriously suck.”
“Baby Jane,” my dad said slowly. “What are you doing?”
“Angling for a job, I think,” Quinns said, a hint of amusement in his level voice. Nonetheless, his eyes were thoughtful, serious, as he studied me in the mirror. “We’ll have a conflict of interests eventually, you know.”
My G
od, a complete sentence. I must have seriously impressed him. “I know,” I agreed. “But until then, we can help each other out.” I paused. “I warn you, I’m not coming cheap though.”
Quinns’s mouth quirked. “Suspected not.”
“You’ve got to take care of my family. And Sarah. Ebon too, if he wants. Keep them safe, hidden from the vampires.” I frowned, thinking. “And I want a credit card. Unlimited. I’m going to be doing a lot of traveling, and there’s no way I’m sleeping in sewers. Not to mention all the new clothes and stuff I’ll need.”
Mum gripped my arm. “But you’re staying with us, Xanthe. You need—”
“I need to keep away,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Mum, Dad, Lily’s working with Hakon, and she can always find me. Until I’ve captured her, I can’t be in the same place as you.” I squeezed her hand. “It won’t be forever. I promise. And we’ll still be able to talk.” I looked at Sarah. “You okay to stay with them?”
“The ‘evil genius’ has always been more into directing minions from her dark fortress rather than getting her own hands dirty,” Sarah said dryly. Turning to my parents, she gestured at her forehead. “We’re linked together. You’ll be able to check up on her whenever you want.” She flashed me a wicked grin. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing she can hide from me.”
“So,” I said to Quinns. “Deal?”
His face cracked in a slow smile. “Deal.”
I sank back against the side of the van, feeling the tension ease from my muscles. My hands found my parents’ again. I knew that soon I’d have to leave, but I could enjoy this moment of peace for a little while longer.
Funding, a purpose, and my family safe. What more could a teenage vampire fangirl want?
Well … maybe one more thing.
“Hey, Van,” I said. “Want to go hunt some vampires?”
Acknowledgments
There are a vast horde of people without whom this book would not exist, but I must personally thank a few in particular:
First, enormous thanks to my agent, the redoubtable Nephele Tempest, for finding the perfect home for the manuscript. And second, to my amazing editor, Erica Sussman, and her equally amazing assistant, Tyler Infinger, for their sterling work removing the suck and adding the awesome.