CAST OF CHARACTERS
HUMANS
August Pfeiffer: Aka Auggie. Good at art, bad at math, possibly Earth’s only chance to prevent the apocalypse.
Daphne Banks: Auggie’s math tutor, a college student whose vampire-hunter parents taught her a few tricks of the trade.
Adriana Verdugo: Auggie’s best friend, an aspirant witch.
Hope Cheng: The only other student in Auggie’s independent art study, and the girl of Adriana’s dreams.
Ximena Rosales: Adriana’s grandmother, an experienced bruja. The best cook in Fulton Heights, Illinois.
Gunnar Larsen: Mostly competent barista, partial to cool dude-necklaces. The boy of Auggie’s dreams.
The Brotherhood of Perseus: Aka “the Brotherhood,” aka “the Knights,” aka “the Perseans.” A chivalric order of mortal knights, established in the twelfth century, with a sacred mission to protect humankind from the undead. A secret society that continues to this day.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova: Youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia. Executed with her family in 1918.
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France: Wife of King Louis XVI, wearer of enormous wigs. Executed in Place de la Révolution in 1793.
Anne Boleyn, Queen of England: Second wife of King Henry VIII, mother of Queen Elizabeth I. Executed at the Tower of London in 1536.
Mac Bethad mac Findlaích: Mormaer of Moray, later King of Scotland, killed at the Battle of Lumphanan in 1057. The inspiration for Shakespeare’s infamous tragedy, Macbeth.
VAMPIRES
The Syndicate of Vampires: An ancient association of undead bloodlines. Headquartered in the Carpathian Mountains, it is the closest thing the undead have to a governing body.
The League of the Dark Star: Aka “the League.” An undead society founded in the sixteenth century by Erasmus Kramer. Now led by Viviane Duclos, it is devoted to the myths of the Corrupter.
The Mystic Order of the Northern Wolf: Aka “the Order,” aka “Northern Wolf.” A Corrupter cult established in the early twentieth century by Grigori Rasputin. Dangerous and unpredictable, its membership is unknown.
Jude Marlowe: Born ca. 1590 in London, England, and Turned in 1607, he works for the Syndicate of Vampires. His bloodline is led by Hecuba.
Viviane Duclos: French sorceress, leader of the League of the Dark Star. Born in 1662 outside Chantilly, France, and condemned to die in 1681, she was rescued from her jail cell and Turned by Erasmus Kramer.
Grigori Rasputin: Russian mystic, faith healer for the Romanov family, founder of the Mystic Order of the Northern Wolf. Born in Siberia in 1869, he was Turned ca. 1916, shortly before his officially recorded death.
Hecuba: Age unknown. Having gone by many names, she is one of the twelve original Syndics who formed the Syndicate of Vampires.
Erasmus Kramer: German mystic, founder of the League of the Dark Star. Age at death unknown. He rescued Viviane Duclos from certain death during the Affair of the Poisons but died sometime in the late 1700s.
OTHER
Brixia, Ket, and Sulis: Free agents. Origins unknown; ages unknown; agenda unknown.
The Nexus: A convergence of two ley lines at the exact coordinates of Fulton Heights, Illinois. Nothing but trouble.
The Corrupter: Also called the Dark Star, the Endless One, and the Shining Immortal. A spectral entity that supposedly returns to the earthly realm once every generation. Unverified. Some venerate it, and some fear it; but if the legends are true, it portends the actual apocalypse …
Yekaterinburg, Russia
1918
Even before she opened her eyes, the girl knew that death had come for her. Again. The dark air was thickened with its pall, tangible as humidity and just as lush, and it settled over her with a gentle caress. This body was healthy and young, and it could have had a long life. But instead it would be sacrificed in a grab for power—that much had been written on the wall for months, years—because the only thing mortals prized more than the preciousness of life was their ability to destroy it.
“Your Highness?” A man hovered at her bedside, one hand on her shoulder. It was Botkin, the physician, his high forehead laddered with concern. He was a kind man, loyal—and doomed. The second she met his gaze, the fate that awaited him unrolled in her mind’s eye. It would be ugly. “You need to get up.”
“Is something wrong with Alexei?” The question came automatically, dredged from the grooves of instinct and a rebellious part of her consciousness that wouldn’t let go.
“It … the tsarevich is fine, Your Highness,” Botkin answered soothingly. Across the room, Olga was already on her feet, and Tatiana was stretching her limbs. “But it seems we’re being moved again. There’s been violence in the city, and they fear it will get worse.”
Taking a deep breath, she let the thick air coat her tongue and fill her body, her senses crackling. Rage, and hatred, and—yes, violence. But not in the city; it was here. Under this roof. It gathered like a thunderhead, and soon it would burst. Casting her covers aside, she sat up. “All right, then. I’ll get dressed.”
They moved quickly. Of the four sisters forced to share this room, she alone realized what was to come, and there was no point warning the others. Foreknowledge would be its own torture, and there was nothing to be done about it, anyway. She could stop it, of course, if she wanted to. But what would be the point? As healthy as her body was, it wouldn’t survive what would be required of it, and it might make things harder next time around. Next time. A pity. She was hungry for chaos now.
With care, the four girls strapped themselves into corsets, the fabric panels packed tightly with precious stones—a fortune in hidden diamonds that the revolutionaries would have seized, had they thought to look. Bulletproof, the girl observed grimly, death so close she couldn’t shut out the visions if she’d wanted to. And then the guards came for them.
They were hustled through the dining room, with all its ostentatious furniture, and something whispered across her skin. She turned, the sensation tugging her attention, and glimpsed the dark outline of a woman standing in the shadowed passageway leading to the kitchen. Faceless in the dark, the energy she radiated was as clear as a fingerprint.
A smile played on the girl’s lips, in spite of everything. The men herding them were drunk on power and self-importance—completely ignorant of how fragile they really were. How small and insignificant, how close to their own deaths. Their lives were as delicate as fairy floss, and one, two, three, they’d all be in their graves before their grandchildren were old enough to remember them. She could see it all, entropy scattering their futures.
Down the stairs and through the courtyard, the girls were reunited with their parents and brother, and then escorted into a basement room with scarred floors. They were told to wait, and Mama asked for chairs—one for herself, and one for poor, pallid Alexei—and the request was granted. Not for the first time, the girl wished her mother’s cleric and faith healer, Grigori, was still with them; he’d been a scoundrel and a fraud, but most unwilling to die. If anyone could have gotten them out of here alive …
“Where do you think they’re taking us this time?” Olga asked in a worried murmur, perhaps sensing the tension in the air. The younger girl had no answer to give, so she allowed her sister to find comfort in a squeeze of the hand, a listless shrug.