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“Freaky shit. You should see my arm.” He wore a jacket but displayed the appendage as though I could see his injury. “It’s cut to ribbons from their claws. Jerry nearly lost an eye. Fuckers pecked his face. It was some fucked up Edgar Allan Poe bullshit, let me tell you.”

I nodded, commiserating.

When Lou continued to seem undecided, I cursed Mordecai and Cristofer. It wasn’t working. He knew me. At any moment, the pieces would click, and we’d be fucked. Correction, I’d be finished.

I stuffed a hand in my pocket and withdrew my phone. “Do you want me to get someone on the line who can vouch for me?”

My heart jackrabbited with the bluff. I had no clue what I would do if Lou said yes, and beads of perspiration peppered my forehead. Great, if they saw me sweating when the temperature was barely five degrees, and my breath plumbed with every exhale, the jig would be up.

But Lou shook his head, and the tension bled from his shoulders. “Nah, we’re good. Welcome aboard.”

“Wonder why Lenny didn’t give us a heads-up?” another man inquired.

“Who cares? Let’s go,” said a guy who looked ten kinds of bored.

I followed the men to the boat launch and went across with the first group. Five hunters and me. We left the other four on the mainland for when the boat came back.

Halfway across the Sydenham, movement in the sky caught my attention, and I peered up as a pair of dark blots crossed the partly veiled moon.

Goose bumps raised the hair on my arms.

I flicked my attention to my companions, but no one else seemed to notice the inky flecks in the sky. Mordecai and I had never properly discussed his abilities. Listening to him recount his reconnaissance mission, I surmised that he could meld into shadow, which I assumed meant he could move without being seen, but it didn’t explain how he’d gotten through a trapdoor without the hunters noticing.

Subconsciously, I understood his powers were complex. I’d seen the mist at the dam. I’d seen him summon a pack of coyotes at the mansion. I’d read stories and watched films about vampires, but knowing something and seeing it with your own eyes was entirely different. I didn’t question how Mordecai and Cristofer would get to the island, even when I knew they weren’t planning to use the rowboat or swim.

I also knew birds didn’t typically fly at night.

But bats did.

I made a mental note to discuss my boyfriend’s shape-shifting abilities when this was said and done. How dare he hold stuff back.

We reached dry land and got out. Two men secured the boat before we headed into the trees. This was the part that worried me. I kept my head down, aiming to blend with the group.

Emerging into a clearing—Lou warned me not to trip on a barely visible wire surrounding the camp—we rendezvoused with six other hunters. The other three on this rotation must have still been underground. I scanned for the trapdoor and spotted a mound of dainty white flowers on fine stalks. Wild garlic blossoms, Mordecai had said. Until today, I’d never seen garlic blossoms.

Lou introduced me as a recent transfer, and I shook a few hands. No one flinched. The ruse seemed too easy. The men reported a quiet day and left. By the time the second half of our crew arrived, the last of the day shift emerged from underground, barely sparing me a glance. They knocked fists with a few guys and headed to where the boat was docked.

“Too fucking easy,” I mumbled under my breath.

The trapdoor sat wide open. No one seemed alarmed or concerned. I wanted to peer into the hole, but Mordecai had warned me not to rush or look too eager.

The underground guard rotation was decided with a coin toss. The men selected groaned, clearly unhappy. After a short chat, they descended, and Lou and another guy replaced the garlic over top of the door, spreading it so not an inch of the steel surface remained visible.

A younger hunter, lanky, midtwenties, nudged my arm as I watched them work. “Gotta cover the cracks. They can slip through otherwise. Turn into oil or something. At least that’s what I heard. Not sure I believe it. You ever seen one?”

“Yeah. A couple.”

“No shit.” The kid’s eyes sparkled. “Ever kill one?”

“No.”

The kid’s shoulders fell on a sigh. His fellow war hero had proved inadequate. My stomach churned, realizing he would have much rather heard a story about a gruesome vampire slaying. What a sickening thought. It was what these guys did. Hunted and killed vampires. Vampires like Mordecai and Cristofer and hundreds more exactly like them. Vampires who had once been living, breathing people with histories and families and stories that went back decades or centuries.

Were they a threat? Some, maybe. Valerius sounded evil to his rotten core. But Mordecai hadn’t asked for this life. He was a victim.

“So, what’s the deal?” I asked Lou once the men took their positions around the clearing.

“Suppose you’re used to patrolling a city, huh?”