know this is true. We’ve encountered rogue vampires.”
“Yes, and when we do, we destroy them. We police ourselves, unlike these weak-willed, morally bankrupt beasts who seek to destroy whatever they do not understand.” She shot Roland a glare, but he only winked at her, which had the effect of softening her expression immediately. Rhiannon sighed, and looked again at Lucy, then at Will and finally at James. “I assume it was the three of you who saved us from a fiery death?”
James nodded. “Not bad for a trio of filthy mortals, huh?”
“So we annihilate all but the good ones,” she hissed. “That will leave a dozen or so left breathing.”
“We’re in your debt,” Roland said, with a deep and formal bow toward James and Lucy. “What is the plan, James? Where are we going?”
“More importantly,” Rhiannon asked, “where is your sister? Tell me we didn’t leave her behind with this kind of mayhem—” she waved an arm toward the TV “—breaking out in the world of man.”
Brigit waited until sundown to send out a mental call. Not a spoken message, no words went out from her mind. No directions. There were a handful of mortals in the world who could pick up on telepathic exchanges, and she didn’t want to give her location away. At ten minutes past dusk she simply closed her eyes and imagined a beam of light shooting from her to them. The vampires. To any and all of them who might pick up on it. It was a brief flash, a beacon. Long enough, and strong enough, she prayed, for the undead to recognize it as legitimate and to home in on its source. Assuming there were any on the mainland who were still alive to pick it up.
She waited a half hour, and then she did it once again.
By the third time Brigit sent out her invisible call, her beacon, she was able to feel them gathering in the shadows just beyond the isolated stretch of beach where she stood. As the moon began to rise at her back, she felt no hint of mortals nearby, and so she lifted her arms to get the vampires’ attention—in case she didn’t have it already.
“I’m Brigit Poe,” she said. “I am one of the so-called mongrel twins. The children of Amber Lily and Edge. And I have summoned you here because we need to organize, to band together, or else we’re going to be wiped out. Our kind faces annihilation. It is up to us to fight back.”
She paused there, hearing the muttering, seeing the pale faces in the darkness nodding in agreement.
“First, please, I must ask, have any of you had word of my family? The Poes, the Bryants, the Marquands?”
Someone shouted out, “I saw Eric and Tamara Marquand last eve. They were heading to some island they’d heard was a refuge. Urged me to go, but I wanted to wait, to find my family.” That pale face lowered, head shaking slowly side to side. “I found them too late. Burned while they slept.”
Brigit sighed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Is it true? Is there an island refuge?”
“Yes,” Brigit said. “There is. If you begin heading north by northeast, and scan continuously, you’ll pick up on the energy of others. But they won’t be transmitting mentally, you’ll just have to use your senses to locate them. Trust your abilities. Do not use your telepathy, or you run the risk of leading the murderous mortals straight to them.”
Again there was muttering. Brigit looked around them as they drew closer, and she found herself stunned by how few there were. Thirty, perhaps thirty-five. This couldn’t be all that remained, could it? There had to be more.
She cleared her throat, tried to refocus on her mission. “It must be obvious to all of you by now that the mortal world has learned of our existence. Vigilante groups have formed with the purpose of murdering vampires. They’re burning our homes, not to mention the homes of ordinary mortals with nocturnal tendencies. You are no longer safe where you live.”
There was muttering in the ranks, and she gave it a moment before going on. “I have two options to offer you now, tonight. First, my brother and the elders—Rhiannon, Roland, even Gilgamesh himself—are creating a safe haven on the island of which we’ve been speaking. It was formerly known as the Isle of the Impaler. Those of you who do not know of it, speak to those who do. Quietly, and not telepathically. Or