When we finished, Benicio dismissed the others. I could tell they wanted to stay and see if it worked, but this next part wasn’t for public viewing. This next part could mean that two of our friends gave their lives—mortal and immortal—for my brother.

Cassandra and Aaron lay on mats beside the ritual circle. They were hooked up to heart-rate monitors. They’d been conscious until the final incantation. Then they’d gone still, eyes closed, the machines remaining dark and silent.

“How long will it take?” I murmured to Adam, who’d been supervising the ritual. “Something should be happening, right?”

He rubbed my good arm, but said nothing. What could he say? This ritual wasn’t in any of his books. It wasn’t in anyone’s books.

I knelt beside Cassandra’s mat.

“Come on, Cass,” I whispered.

As I stared down at her pale, still face, my heart started to hammer. What if she didn’t wake up? I hadn’t said good-bye. Nobody had, as if not daring to admit that they thought this could fail. If she was gone, we couldn’t even contact her through Jaime. When vampires passed, no one knew where they went. No one even knew for sure that they went anywhere, and that vampirehood wasn’t their afterlife. An eternity as a ghost traded for a few hundred years more on earth.

“Come on, Cass,” I whispered. “Please.”

The machine blipped. I jumped and looked over. It blipped again. Then again.

Cassandra shot upright, eyes snapping open. She looked around. Then she grabbed her chest, eyes going wide.

“What’s—?” I began, leaping to my feet. “Someone—” Cassandra gasped. She blinked hard as she slowly, almost tentative inhaled and exhaled.

“Forgot that part, huh?” Adam said, grinning. “Yep, you gotta breathe now, Cass.”

“That’s inconvenient,” she said.

She blinked some more, then reached over toward the ritual circle and snatched up a knife.

“Hey!” I said. “What—?”

She ran the blade across her palm before I could stop her. Blood welled up. She studied it, then closed and opened her fist. The wound continued to bleed.

“That’s very inconvenient.” She turned toward Aaron. “I hope you’re satisfied. You do realize I’m probably going to die in my sleep from forgetting to breathe. Or from stepping in front of a bullet because I forgot—”

She stopped. Aaron lay there, his machine silent.

She scrambled up and went to him. She shook him by the shoulders.

“Aaron?”

No response. She shook harder, panic lighting her green eyes.

“Aaron!”

She spun to us.

“Don’t just stand there. Get him a doctor. Where are the doctors? Goddamn it! He risked his life for you and you can’t even provide proper—”

“Are you sure you want her alive?” said a voice behind Cassandra.

Aaron’s eyes opened. He yawned. Cassandra’s gaze shot to his monitor, still dark and silent.

“It—The ritual didn’t work for you?” she said.

Aaron reached up and fussed with the monitor, discreetly pulling at something under it. The machine started up.

“Nope, it worked. The machine just screwed up.” He glanced at Benicio. “Better have someone take a look at it.”

Cassandra glared at him. “You did that on purpose.”

“As long-delayed revenge for leaving me with an angry mob in Romania? That would be petty of me.”

He smiled and tugged her over. She sniffed, but sat beside him on the mat.

“Though,” he mused, “if I did want to scare you, it was probably because I hoped to hear abject apologies for past mis-treatment. Or, at the very least, heartfelt declarations of eternal love. Not cursing out your friends for failing to ensure proper medical surveillance of the procedure.”

“That’s how Cass says ‘I love you,’?” I said.

He grinned. “I think it is.” He pulled her down in a kiss and, behind her back, waved for us all to leave.

We did.

*

There had been a doctor nearby, waiting to be called in. Why only one? Because the others were all busy rushing the ritual potion to Bryce.

Despite my moment of panic, Cassandra and Aaron’s recovery had been near-instantaneous. Not so with Bryce. After they treated him, there was nothing to do except wait. His vital signs remained stable and that was the main thing.

The doctors hung around for the first thirty minutes. Then all but one left. By the two-hour mark, they were all working on other patients, rotating through every ten minutes to check on Bryce.

Sean and I sat with him. Adam stayed, too, at first just sitting with me, then running errands, like getting dinner.

“I’m coming out,” Sean said as we ate our Vietnamese take-out. “As soon as I get back to L.A. I suspect the politic thing would be to wait until everything has calmed down and a decision has been reached—whether the split is permanent or Uncle Josef and I can come to some agreement.”

“Only if that agreement includes you handing him the CEO crown,” I muttered.

“Probably. But I’m not going to be the one to break up the Cabal. I’m willing to negotiate. If he isn’t, so be it. I could wait for all that to die down. On a business level, that would be smart. But it’s not fair. If the Cabal stays split, Uncle Josef and I will be campaigning for the loyalty of the employees. I need to be upfront with them.”

“And if you don’t do it now, it’ll get harder to do it later,” I said.

“I know. Bite the bullet. Take the risk.”

“It’ll be fine.”

He shrugged, and I could tell by his expression that he thought I was being as hopelessly optimistic as he’d been about reaching a settlement with Josef. I disagreed. Sure, he might lose a few employees, but for most his sexual orientation wouldn’t matter, and even if it did, they’d be working for him, not marrying him. He’d proven himself as a company leader for years. He’d continue to do so, whether he led the Nast Cabal or half of the Nast Cabal.

His cell phone buzzed. He looked down at it and sighed.

“I really need to take this,” he said.

“And I need to run a few errands of my own,” Adam said.

“I’ll be back soon.”