Serena Whingate had nearly reached the garden when she heard the first shot.
Until then, the evening had been familiar enough to pass without notice. Her slippers brushed the runner along the western gallery. Lamps burned beneath arches darkened by centuries of smoke, their light touching the gold thread in tapestries she had long ago stopped studying. At the turn of the passage, a guardian lowered its helmet in acknowledgment.
She inclined her head in return.
Beyond the windows, water spilled into the garden basin. The roses needed cutting back. Sabine had promised to see to them, which usually meant she would stand beside Serena offering instructions while Serena did the work.
Serena had been preparing an objection to this arrangement when the sound came.
She stopped.
The guardian turned toward the library.
A second report cracked through the gallery. Wood splintered, and something heavy struck the other side of the doors.
They burst open.
Another guardian staggered across the threshold. Its black armor had split beneath the breastplate, exposing a pale, shifting substance Serena had never seen outside its casing. One arm hung uselessly. It took another step toward the man following it.
He wore a hood over a dark suit.
The object in his hands flashed.
The guardian struck the floor.
For a moment, Serena could only look at it. These creatures had stood outside her rooms, beside the stairs, beneath the gates, for as long as she had called Casa Val home. She had never wondered what one would look like unable to rise.
The man lifted his weapon toward her.
She moved before he fired.
Stone chipped beside her face. She rounded the corner, caught the wall to steady herself, and ran toward Sabine’s chambers.
Voices rose below. Heavy feet crossed the courtyard. Through an opening between pillars, she saw two more hooded men advancing behind the wreckage of a guardian. One carried an ordinary pistol. The other held something longer, its dull metal cut with narrow grooves that shone when he raised it.
They had come prepared.
That frightened her more than their numbers.
Casa Val had survived discovery before. Sabine’s stories always ended with the doors secured, the injured tended, the survivors driven away.
Serena had believed the endings.
At the foot of the upper stairs, smoke drifted beneath a doorway. Its bitterness caught in her throat. She pulled her sleeve across her mouth and climbed.
A man stepped into her path.
She struck him across the chest. He hit the banister hard enough to break it and disappeared backward through the splintered wood.
The effort left her strangely weak.
She stared at her hand, then kept moving.
Somewhere behind her, a man shouted for the others to keep moving.
For an instant, she remembered Sabine describing other men forcing their way into other homes.
In those stories, the enemy had cried, “For the Coven!” Sabine had repeated the words without explaining what the Coven was.
Serena had imagined a religion. A cruel one, belonging to a distant war.
She had never expected those stories to feel so near.
Sabine’s door stood open.
One hinge had torn away from the frame. Beyond it, lamplight shone against polished onyx and the silver edge of a fallen hairbrush.
“Mother?”
Sabine lay beside the bed.
Serena crossed the room and dropped to her knees so quickly that pain shot through them. She barely felt it.
Blood had spread beneath Sabine’s neck. Her pale face was turned toward the door, her mouth slightly open as though someone had interrupted her. A torn length of dark cloth remained caught in one hand.
Serena pressed her fingers against the wound.
“Mother.”
Sabine had endured injuries before. Serena had seen her pull a blade from her own body with more irritation than alarm. There ought to have been movement beneath her hand, some sign of the flesh drawing together.
There was nothing.
Serena bent close.
“Please.”
She waited for an instruction. Sabine always knew what to do, and Serena would obey this time without arguing, without demanding a reason first.
A crash sounded in the corridor.
She looked toward it, then back at the woman on the floor.
Sabine had found her when other people believed they owned her. She had given Serena another life and stayed beside her through the frightening work of learning how to live it. Even after Serena no longer needed constant help, some part of her had continued to expect that hand at her shoulder.
Now she could not make herself let go.
She gathered Sabine into her arms.
The resting coffin stood in its alcove beneath a carved screen. Serena carried her there, struggling less with the weight than with the terrible slackness of her body. She settled Sabine inside, straightened the fabric at her shoulder, and freed the cloth from her hand.
There was blood on everything Serena touched.
She wiped at Sabine’s cheek with the cleanest part of her sleeve.
“I’m sorry.”
The lid closed softly.
Serena rested both arms across it and bowed her head.
Something pricked beneath her shoulder.
She turned.
A man stood in the doorway, a small weapon braced in both hands.
Serena reached for the dart caught in her gown. Her fingers found it, but the room had already begun to tilt. She tried to stand, to reach him, to make him afraid.
Her knees struck the floor.
The last thing she saw was his careful approach.
She woke with her arms stretched above her head.
For several seconds, she did not understand the ceiling. The light was too white. Exposed pipes ran across stained concrete, and somewhere nearby a machine hummed without pause.
Then she tried to move.
A strap pressed across her chest. Others held her waist and legs against a metal table. Her wrists were fastened separately.
Serena pulled.
The restraints creaked.
A man beside the table stepped back.
“Still some in her.”
“Then don’t stand so close.”
Three of them. One near the door, another holding a folder, and an older man with his jacket draped over a chair. There was dried blood at his collar. His fingers were swollen around a ring that no longer fitted properly.
They had been hurt.
She hoped Sabine had done it.
The thought came so fiercely that she pulled again. A dull pressure spread through her limbs. The strength she expected would not gather.
The older man watched the effort.
“There’s no need for that.”
Serena looked from his face to the door.
He followed her gaze and smiled.
“No one’s coming.”
The room smelled of damp concrete and unfamiliar chemicals. Beneath those, she could smell blood, fear, and the stale sweat of men who had not rested after a fight.
The older man came closer. He caught the edge of her torn gown between two fingers, examining the material before letting it fall.
She flinched from his hand.
He noticed that too.
“We know what your people can do,” he said. “How long you live. How quickly you heal.”
Serena said nothing.
“You’re going to explain it.”
The man with the folder shifted his weight.
“And you’re going to help us.”
She thought of the coffin. Of leaving Sabine alone in a house full of strangers.
“No.”
The older man’s expression hardened.
A shout came from beyond the door.
All three turned.
Another voice answered, too muffled to understand.
Then a gunshot cracked down the passage.
The man nearest the door drew a pistol and stepped outside.
A second shot sent him stumbling back across the threshold.
Serena jerked against the restraints.
Someone entered behind him.
A young Black man in an open dark hoodie, one sleeve wet with blood. He held a pistol in both hands, although one seemed to be doing most of the work. His face shone with sweat.
The older man reached inside his shirt.
The stranger fired.
The room became noise and movement. Serena pressed her head against the table, unable to turn far enough away. Something struck metal beside her. A body fell against her legs and slid to the floor.
Then the shooting stopped.
Her ears rang.
The stranger remained beside the door, staring at the men on the ground.
His chest rose and fell too quickly.
He looked at Serena.
For a moment, neither moved.
“Shit,” he said.
He approached the table, set the pistol where he could reach it, and fumbled with the fastening above her wrist.
His hand was warm.
Serena watched his face. He seemed scarcely able to look at hers.
The first restraint opened. She pulled her arm free so quickly that he recoiled.
She stopped.
He waited a heartbeat, then reached for the other wrist.
“Can you get the rest?”
She nodded.
Her fingers were clumsy, but they obeyed. Between them, they loosened the straps.
He picked up his weapon and stepped back.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
Serena sat up. The room swayed.
The stranger leaned against the wall.
“You too,” she said.
“Yeah.”
He pushed away from it.
His knee buckled.
Serena caught him before his head struck the table.
He made a sharp sound through his teeth, then tried to pull himself upright.
“Wait.”
She put his arm across her shoulders.
He looked at her, confused by how easily she took his weight.
“Can you walk?”
“Trying to.”
“Then try with me.”
The corridor contained more blood than she wanted to look at.
Her rescuer kept his pistol lowered, his attention moving from doorway to doorway. Serena concentrated on placing one foot ahead of the other. Whatever they had given her still made the edges of things blur.
A wounded man stirred beside the stairs.
His eyes fixed on her companion.
“Fucking two-bit gangsta,” he rasped. “Mercer. We’re going to kill you.”
The arm across Serena’s shoulders tightened.
Her companion did not answer.
They climbed.
Outside, cold air touched her face. Electric lights shone along a street she did not recognize. Somewhere an engine idled. A paper cup rolled beneath a parked car.
No towers. No garden wall.
They had taken her away from the estate.
“This one,” he said.
He pointed with the keys.
Serena helped him into the car, then knelt beside the open door. Beneath his shirt, a heavy protective vest had caught some of the shots. Blood seeped from a graze along his upper arm.
She tore a strip from the cleaner part of his ruined hoodie.
“That was my good one.”
She looked up.
He shut his eyes.
“Never mind.”
She pressed the cloth against the wound.
He swore, but held still.
“Thank you,” she said. “Sir Gangsta Mercer.”
His eyes opened.
“What?”
“The man inside called you—”
“I heard him.”
“Then I have said it wrong?”
“I’m not a gangsta.”
She considered his expression.
“You need not deny it out of modesty.”
Despite the pain, he stared at her.
“Lady, that was not a compliment.”
She looked back toward the building.
“He seemed frightened of you.”
“So am I right now.”
The answer quieted her.
He reached for his phone with his better hand. She kept pressure on the wound while he made a call.
“It’s done,” he said. “I got out.”
He listened.
“No. Listen to me. I need you to check on my cousin.”
Another pause.
“And somebody needs to look at my arm.”
Serena watched the light from the screen against his face. Exhaustion was beginning to replace whatever had carried him into that room.
When he lowered the phone, she asked, “Did you come for me?”
He shook his head.
“They were going to kill me and my cousin. They already killed a friend of mine. I couldn’t just wait.”
She looked down at the cloth beneath her hands.
“But you stopped.”
He followed her gaze.
“You were tied to a table.”
He said it as though that explained everything.
For Serena, it explained enough.
His home smelled of cardboard, fresh paint, and a meal eaten some time ago.
Boxes stood against the walls. A lamp rested on the floor beside a couch. Through an open doorway, Serena saw a bed with its packaging still gathered in one corner.
He locked the door, checked it, then checked his phone.
“Bedroom’s there,” he said. “Bathroom beside it.”
“Where will you rest?”
“Couch.”
“You are injured.”
“I noticed.”
“The bed is large enough.”
He looked toward it, then at her.
“I’m good here.”
She did not understand the objection, but there was too much strain in his face to press him.
“What is your name?”
He seemed surprised.
“Ezekiel. Ezekiel Mercer.”
“Serena Whingate.”
“Okay, Serena.”
He lowered himself onto the couch.
She remained beside the doorway until he looked up again.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
It had been a long time since someone had spoken her name without knowing anything that came with it.
The person who came to tend Ezekiel’s injuries spoke quietly and asked few questions.
Serena waited in the bedroom, listening to water running, drawers opening, and Ezekiel trying unsuccessfully to conceal how much something hurt. When the front door finally closed, she looked down at her gown.
Blood had dried stiff along its folds.
She could not bear to keep wearing it.
Ezekiel let her take a clean shirt from a bag behind the couch. She washed, changed, and spent several minutes trying to clean Sabine’s blood from beneath her nails.
When she returned, he was staring at his phone.
“Your cousin?”
“With somebody I trust.”
“And you?”
He glanced at the bandage beneath his sleeve.
“Apparently I’ve got instructions.”
“Will you follow them?”
“Everybody’s got jokes tonight.”
She sat in the other chair.
His phone lit again. He read the message, shook his head, and put it facedown.
For a while, they listened to the refrigerator.
“The poison is wearing away,” Serena said.
He looked up.
“The dart?”
“Yes. And whatever else they used.”
“They knew how to keep you there.”
She rubbed one wrist.
“Yes.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know.”
He studied her.
“Some of them worked around here. I knew that much. But they had equipment I’d never seen before. And half of them looked like they’d already been through a war.”
“They attacked my home.”
His expression changed.
“They killed my mother.”
The words came out more plainly than she expected. She looked at her hands, waiting for the sentence to become bearable.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded once.
He did not ask another question until she looked up.
“Why?”
“They wanted what I am.”
“What does that mean?”
Serena considered lying. She could tell him she did not understand either, accept the bed, and leave before daylight.
He had walked away from an open door to undo her restraints.
“My people call us Draculina,” she said. “You would probably say vampire.”
Ezekiel watched her for several seconds.
Then he rubbed his face with his uninjured hand.
“I cannot do another thing tonight.”
“I am not asking you to do anything.”
“You just said vampire.”
“Yes.”
“As in—”
She let him see.
Her teeth lengthened. The muted orange of her eyes brightened until red light touched the edge of her vision.
Ezekiel went still.
His gaze flicked toward the hallway, measuring the distance.
Serena let the change recede.
“I will not hurt you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I thought showing you would be easier.”
“Easier for who?”
She lowered her eyes.
“That was poorly considered.”
He breathed out slowly. His hand remained tight against the couch cushion.
“Those men knew?”
“Enough.”
“And they wanted you to make them like that?”
“I believe so.”
He looked at the front door.
Serena could hear his heartbeat. She wished, suddenly, that she could not. It made his fear impossible to overlook.
“The stories people tell about us are not all true,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Many are insulting.”
“Serena, I found out you exist about thirty seconds ago. I’m going to need a minute before we get to insulting.”
She almost smiled.
It surprised her enough that the expression vanished immediately.
He saw that and looked away, giving her the small kindness of not mentioning it.
Later, when he could look at her without checking her mouth, Ezekiel asked whether anyone had hunted her people before.
“My mother told stories about men who did. They used to shout, ‘For the Coven.’”
He shook his head.
“Mean something to you?”
“I think it is a religion.”
“You think?”
“My mother told stories about enemies who used those words. I never met them.”
“Enemies from here?”
Serena drew her borrowed shirt closer around herself.
“From before.”
He waited.
“There was a war. My people lost. Badly.” She hesitated. “There were were-folk in the stories. Whole armies. A Hero who made a way out when there should not have been one.”
Ezekiel said nothing.
“Some of our enemies followed. Later, when our people defeated them here, they let survivors live.”
“And these are the same people?”
“I don’t know.”
She disliked how often she had said it.
She remembered listening while Sabine combed her hair, asking questions about the Hero and none about the people left behind. She had wanted to know how a passage could cross worlds. Whether someone could walk back through it. Whether the Hero had known what the sacrifice would cost.
Dates, names, the shape of the war—those had seemed less important.
“I wasn’t there,” she said. “They were stories to me.”
Ezekiel leaned back carefully.
“All right.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe something happened to your family. I believe those men knew more than I did.” He glanced at her eyes. “The rest might take a little longer.”
She accepted that.
His hands had begun to shake again.
Serena watched him fold them together.
“Was tonight the first time?”
He understood without asking.
“Yeah.”
She moved to the end of the couch, leaving space between them.
“They killed my friend a month ago,” he said. “Then they started talking about my cousin. Like it was funny. Like I was supposed to know they could do whatever they wanted.”
His jaw tightened.
“I kept telling myself I knew what I had to do.”
She waited.
“Turns out knowing doesn’t make it feel how you think it’s going to feel.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You saved me,” she said. “That happened tonight too.”
For a long time, he did not answer.
Then he nodded.
When Serena finally stood, she paused beside the bedroom door.
“Among my people, what happened between us would mean something.”
Ezekiel looked tired enough to fall asleep sitting upright.
“What would?”
“You freed me. I brought you out. We have shared blood.”
He glanced at his ruined sleeve.
“Mostly mine.”
“A bond,” she said. “If you want it. A promise that we do not abandon each other.”
He looked at her more carefully.
“Does that involve biting?”
“No.”
“Probably should lead with that.”
“I am trying to be serious.”
“I know.”
He rubbed his face, then let his hand fall.
“We look out for each other,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I can do that.”
She held his gaze.
“So can I.”
He reached for the blanket over the arm of the couch.
“Tomorrow I need to see my cousin.”
“Then we will.”
“And you need clothes.”
She looked down at his shirt.
“That too.”
He settled back, wincing.
“Good night, Serena.”
For a moment, she could not answer.
Then she said it back and closed the bedroom door.
The unfamiliar bed gave beneath her weight. From the other room came the small sounds of Ezekiel trying to make himself comfortable without moving his arm.
Serena lay on her side.
She could still feel Sabine’s weight when she lifted her. The awkward turn toward the coffin. The hair caught beneath one shoulder that she had carefully freed.
She pressed her hand over her mouth.
Tomorrow there would be questions. She would learn where she was, what had survived, and who had known how to break into her home.
Tonight she had left her mother behind.
On the other side of the wall, Ezekiel remained awake. Once, he reached for his phone. Once, he started to rise.
Then he sat back down and listened, uncertain what comfort he had any right to offer.
After a while, he spoke loudly enough for her to hear.
“Serena?”
She swallowed.
“Yes?”
“I’m here.”
She closed her eyes.
“I know.”