As we neared the white sandy beach, Sam gasped loudly. There was Norm flipping burgers, hotdogs, and steaks on a barbeque grill. Not far from the grill was a large bonfire around which some members of the legion stood drinking beer-flavoured NSTs. There was also a reggae band sitting there expectantly, waiting to be given the signal to play. And, in a typical beach set up, Norm and Fletcher had decorated the space with bamboo tiki torches, colourful lights, and lantern garlands.

Fletcher elbowed Sam. “Well, what do you think? I knew you’d be bored and miserable as hell in that parlour – ooh, no offense, your Grandness.” His expression was one of total innocence when he smiled at the Keja vampire not far behind him.

Antonio’s mouth twitched. “It’s quite all right.”

Fletcher mouthed ‘phew’ at Sam before speaking again. “Anyway, I knew you’d be more comfortable having a gathering like this.”

She hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”

Sensing Sam’s spirits instantly lifting, I nodded my thanks at him. In all honesty, I’d have preferred a barbeque on the beach to champagne in a grand mansion any day. It seemed that everybody else did, too, because the atmosphere became much more relaxed and there was a lot of laughing as opposed to formal chatter.

Fletcher had even set up a beach bar and elected Damien to be the cocktail barman, ordering him to wear a brightly coloured shirt that matched the ones being worn by the reggae band. He didn’t look too happy about that. Not only was Norm serving hotdogs, burgers, and steaks, but also baked potatoes, salads, and kebabs. None of it went to waste.

Hell, they’d even arranged for party entertainers to do fire eating and fire juggling. To add to that, they had provided beach balls and water guns for the more immature members of the legion – the ones who weren’t so unbelievably childish that they were burying each other in the sand, anyway. Yes, Fletcher and Norm had pretty much outdone themselves. I knew they’d mostly done it for Sam because they adored her, but I was still grateful.

Relaxing with Sam between my legs on one of the many beach loungers that were gathered around the bonfire, I laughed as Wes told funny stories about Antonio’s first years as a vampire. Apparently, he hadn’t been much different from me back then. I wondered if maybe one of the reasons he had selected me to be part of the legion was that he had seen something of himself in me.

“Evan,” drawled a sultry voice that had the effect of nails on a chalkboard to me. “Aren’t you going to tell us some stories about what Jared was like in the early years…maybe even his childhood?”

Of course Magda had known exactly what she was doing, just as she had known that Sam would instantly tense up. What Magda hadn’t known – I doubted that any of us had been expecting it – was that her hair was suddenly going to catch fire.

Eating her kebab, Sam watched in an almost detached interest as a screaming Magda shot up from the lounger beside ours, patting her hair. Then, still looking bored, Sam raised her hand and sent a gush of water at Magda, calming the flames.

With her soaking wet hair plastered to her head, a quivering extremely-cheesed-off Magda honed in on the amazing female between my legs.

Sam merely shrugged one shoulder delicately. “I did warn you.” How she managed to keep a straight face when the majority of people around her – including me – were shaking with silent laughter, I had no idea.

Somehow, Magda remained dignified as she left with her consort in tow. That was when everyone erupted into laughter again, not bothering to keep their laughs quiet this time.

Sensing Sam’s smugness, I couldn’t help smiling. Cupping her chin, I turned her head and brought her face to meet mine, speaking against her mouth. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

She gasped in mock horror. “You can’t seriously be insinuating that I enjoy inflicting pain on another person?” She jiggled her head. “All right, I did. But she’s not a person, she’s a bitch who hurt you, so I don’t give a f**k.”

Who wouldn’t love a girl who’d set someone on fire for you?

The person who was laughing the loudest was actually Wes. He even nodded approvingly at Sam. I felt that she was surprised by it. I wasn’t. Earlier, I’d noticed that Wes was testing Sam. It might have ticked me off if I hadn’t been one hundred percent positive that nothing he did could faze her.

Sure, a huge part of me had wanted to tell him to back off and leave her alone, but then she’d have whipped my ass for fighting her battles for her. However, if she hadn’t passed his test I would have definitely stepped in, because the guy would have then done everything he could to separate us. I’d never let anyone, or anything, do that. Not even her.

(Sam)

Pain. So much pain. Every single part of me hurt, just as it had when the brothers had done something to me. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to curse and writhe in sheer agony. But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t move at all, not even to open my eyelids.

I had expected Jared to sense my pain, to wake and help me. But I could hear him breathing evenly beside me, totally relaxed. Whatever was happening wasn’t simply paralysing me, it was interfering with my connection to Jared. And didn’t that just spook the crap out of me, increasing my panic.

The whole thing made me think of ‘intraoperative awareness’ – incidences when people who were anaesthetised could see, hear, and feel but were unable to move or communicate this in any way. Despite feeling like someone’s hands were tearing into me and rummaging around in my abdomen, despite feeling as though those same hands were crushing my insides, I couldn’t give in to that primal urge to scream.

Instead, I screamed in my head at the feeling of invisible, harsh, merciless fingers torturing my body and poking inside my head. Then, suddenly, the pain stopped, and I jack-knifed to a sitting position, panting as utter terror continued to flow through me.

Jared’s hands framed my face, searching my expression. “What is it, baby? Bad dream?”

“No, I woke up to this horrible pain. I was hurting all over, but I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t move.”

He crushed me to him, kissing my temple. “You sure you weren’t dreaming?”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

His voice was like a blade. “Was it the same pain you felt when the brothers hurt you?”

I nodded. “Do you think Antonio’s researchers will find out anything?”

“If there’s something worth finding out, those guys will find it.” The confidence in his voice made me breathe better. If they were so good that Jared relaxed at the mere thought of them, they had to be extremely capable.

“What do you think the brothers did to me?” My voice was quiet, almost vulnerable.

Jared squeezed me tightly. “I swear I’ll find out what they did, and I’ll get them to fix it.”

“I know.”

It was only an hour or so after breakfast that I, Jared, Denny, Max, Harvey, and Jude were stood outside the block of apartments where Janine Peterson lived – or had lived – with her boyfriend. Ten minutes before, Antonio had informed us that the boyfriend had returned from whatever trip he had been on. Jared had teleported us all there, and now it was time to get some answers.

Jude was obviously raring to get those answers, but Jared and I had instructed her not to interrupt our interrogation. Providing she didn’t interfere, the boyfriend would be all hers once we were done questioning him.

As we ascended the graffiti-covered stairs, we past many drugged humans – some of whom were injecting themselves right there, right then. Although I wasn’t a Keja, I – like all vampires – had an otherworldly lure that made humans take notice. And they did take notice of each and every one of us. I was pretty sure that if Jude and I had been on our own, we would have been attacked − not that our attackers would have gotten very far, of course. The ‘f**k off’ looks that Jared and the squad were wearing hadn’t been ignored. Wise of the humans.

Finally outside the apartment number on Janine’s driver’s license, we didn’t bother knocking. Nor did we force our way inside. The last thing we needed was to have a door we couldn’t lock behind us, as that would allow others to glimpse inside. There would be much worth seeing tonight, and although it was unlikely that any human – particularly a drugged one – would have been believed if they had reported what they witnessed, it was always important to be careful.

One thing that science fiction had got right was that there were indeed human government divisions that fully believed vampires existed, and these divisions were absolutely intent on getting hold of one. Maybe they even had caught a vampire at some point, but if they had, they weren’t content with just the one. They investigated each and every report that even had a hint of vampirism to it, no matter how small or how ridiculous, in the hope that it might lead them somewhere. It was best to not help them out with that.

Seeing that the hallway was totally clear, Denny reduced himself to mush and slipped under the door. When the door opened enough to allow us all to enter, we then locked it behind us. Instantly we found ourselves in a small, cluttered living area that stunk heavily of smoke, sweat, stale food, and the distinctive scent of cannabis. Refraining from balking had been a challenge for every one of us.

At the sound of a toilet flushing, our heads whipped around to our left. One of the three doors further down the hallway opened, and out stepped a tall, gangly guy with dark unkempt hair and skin almost as pale as mine. Upon seeing us, he – Leon, I remembered Janine calling him – froze.

The movement might not have registered to a human before it was too late, but it was like slow motion to a vampire when Leon reached behind him and retrieved a gun from the waistband of his jeans. He had barely had a chance to aim it at us when Harvey used his telekinesis to snatch the weapon and pull it to him.

Leon’s eyes widened to saucers. To his credit, he didn’t freeze with fear like others might have done. But before he could take more than one step backwards – I assumed he wanted to head for his bedroom where there was most likely another gun – Denny had sprayed yellowy-green ooze out of his thumbs and smallest fingers, trapping him. Denny then used the sticky ooze to bounce Leon from the hallway to the ragged sofa. At Jared’s command, Denny didn’t release the human from the grip of the ooze.

Jared and I stood in front of the sofa, looking down at him. My voice was deceptively pleasant. “You must be Leon. Glad you’re finally back.” The poor bugger looked like he might piss himself. I hoped not. The place smelled foul enough as it was. “I’ll bet you’re wishing you’d stayed away a little longer though, eh?”

He swallowed hard. “Whatever it is you’re looking for, I didn’t take it.”

That statement was sort of the equivalent of a child suddenly saying ‘Mummy, I didn’t do anything with your scissors’, and then you turn to find your curtains have been chopped up. “So Janine was telling the truth. You like to take what isn’t yours to take.”

“J-Janine?”

“Yes, we had an interesting conversation with her. She’s a lovely girl. I noticed that she was pregnant. How long does she have left before the birth?”

“A month or so,” he lied easily.

In my experience, most thieves were, in fact, good liars. I supposed they had to be. “How sweet.”

“Look, I haven’t done any jobs for months now. I’ve been trying to get myself clean.”

“Tell me, are you a kleptomaniac, or are you just one of those people who are lazy and greedy and have a sense of entitlement?”

His brow crinkled. “Kleptomaniac?”

“A kleptomaniac is someone who is addicted to thieving. They get the same kind of high from it that a drug addict would get from coc**ne.”

His face scrunched up into a defensive expression. “It’s not like the people I steal – stole – from can’t easily replace what I took.”

“And that’s how you justify it to yourself, is it? Tell me, how do you justify helping unborn babies being stolen from their mothers?”

His mouth bobbed open and closed like a landed fish. Eventually, he shrugged, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jared snickered, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure there’s much point in you playing dumb. We know about the criminal organisation. We know about the Scouts, the Deliverers, and the Medics. But there’s more, isn’t there, Leon? So much more. What we really want are names. Janine was quite informative, but she was unable to give us any names. She seemed to think that you, however, might just be able to.”

Leon’s eyes danced between Jared and me. “Janine wouldn’t have said anything. She’s not stupid.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “Are you sure she’d be so tight-lipped if, say, someone had done this right before her very eyes?” Using the energy I’d absorbed from around me, I manipulated it into my energy whip. Leon blanched.

“Janine had pretty much the same reaction,” Jared told him. “But come on, are you really that shocked when you’re wrapped in ooze and you watched someone take your gun without even touching it?”

Leon swallowed hard again. He was trembling now. “I snorted a lot of shit earlier.”

“Ah, and you’re hoping to convince yourself it’s just the drugs?” I had to smile at that. “I can promise you right now, Leon, you are certainly not hallucinating or dreaming. I could pinch you just so you can be sure? Or maybe I’ll just do this.” I cracked my whip at him, catching his earlobe. Leon jerked, hissing.