Inside I’m squealing because he told them I’m his girlfriend. I’m Jay Gatsby’s girlfriend.

But I say coolly, “That could just be politeness.”

“But it’s not. They all love me. When I go to these things, they give me the best snacks.”

“Ah, so that’s why you attend.”

“Daisy. I have, like, a billion dollars. I can buy any snacks I want, or have Hestia order them online, or ask Henry to run out and buy them, or hire a personal chef to make them—”

“Okay, I get it. You’re super rich, and you’re also kind of a cult leader.”

A passing car’s headlights flash over his face. He looks deeply revolted and offended, and I can’t help giggling.

“I know you think you’re being funny,” he says slowly, “but that’s one reason I don’t always participate in my own parties. I don’t want that kind of treatment. It’s weird. And if you knew how the First Gens act—Wolfsheim in particular—you’d understand the difference. He demands complete obedience and unquestioning worship. He views himself as a messiah or a prophet, a divinely appointed emissary to the chosen few.”

I roll my eyes. “That’s so cliché.”

“Maybe so, but Wolfsheim actually believes it. And his followers—the other First Gens and their Progeny—are intensely fanatical.”

A trickle of fear runs through my heart. “And these are the people you and Cody pissed off? The ones you keep defying over and over?”

He winces. “Yeah. But Wolfsheim is in Colorado, and he’s got his own business to handle. He might fuss, but he won’t bother us. And even if he does pay us a visit, we’ll just show him our operation and tell him about the precautions we’re taking. I mean, it’s not like he and his people don’t turn humans into vampires, too. They just do it on a very limited scale, and they don’t charge money for it. Each First Gen is allowed to turn one human every five years. The candidates for Progeny are carefully selected, and they must serve their progenitor for five years after their transformation—if they survive.”

“And the First Gens use the more brutal method. The one with all the agony.”

“The drinking of the vampire’s blood.” He nods. “They believe old vampire legends are actually prophecies to be followed in the present. To them, transformation by drinking raw blood is the only pure way to create a new vampire. Like a test of the human’s worthiness.”

“That’s total bull.”

“Of course it is. A lot of religious traditions are. You’ve got to cut away all the extra crap people have added to get anywhere near the truth.” He takes a sharp turn on the dark mountainside, and I gasp as the trees fall away on the right side of the car. A few feet from my window, the road drops into a deep gorge. There’s no guardrail here.

“This is really dangerous. I should have let you turn me already,” I mumble.

“I’m being careful. I’ll go slower if you want.”

“Yes, please.”

He decelerates, taking the next hairpin curve with a precision that eases my nerves a little.

“You really are the best boyfriend.” I stroke his thigh lightly.

He sucks in a quick breath. “Are you trying to distract me? I thought you wanted safe driving.”

“Sorry.” I withdraw my hand. “How close are we?”

“Nearly there.”

The car lurches to the left again, up a dirt road I couldn’t even see in the dark. “Do you have better night vision than a human?”

“Nope. But I’ve been here before.”

“They must have really good snacks.” Or someone hot he likes to see. No, I shouldn’t even be thinking that way. That’s the Tom baggage talking. Jay loves me; he’s proved it time and time again. Still, I can’t help myself. I try not to ask but it slips out, way more pathetic-sounding than I intended. “There’s no other attraction, right? No hot little vampire girl, or guy…”

“You know I’m straight. And you also know I’m yours. Helplessly, devotedly yours.” The car grinds to a stop in front of a house so nestled in trees and darkness that I can’t tell its size. Orange light glows from the windows, warm and welcoming.

“You sound like a book again,” I say wryly, releasing the latch of my seat belt.

“Fine. You want it straight up? I’m your damn slave, Daisy. And that’s not going to change. It wouldn’t change, even if you stayed human and got old and soft and whiskery and white-haired. You’d still be beautiful to me. It wouldn’t change even if the hottest woman on earth strutted in front of me naked and begged me to sleep with her—I’d say no, and I’d go find you instead. No one else will ever be to me what you are. No matter how sick or sad or mad you get, no matter how bad you mess up or where you go, it’s only you, and that’s it. You never, ever have to be afraid that I’ll stop loving you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I reply in a stunned whisper. I want a moment to hold the gift he just gave me, to tuck it deep inside myself where it will keep me warm forever.

Jay leans over and gives me a quick kiss. “Come on, let’s go inside. They have really good snacks.”

“You’re impossible.” I shove myself out of the car, and he does the same. We crunch across the gravel, up weather-beaten steps, and across the creaky porch to the front door where Jay knocks. “The bell doesn’t work,” he explains.

The night is full of music, the sawing and chirping and singing of a million tiny creatures. Night is never black, not really. It’s deep blue, sugared with stars, fringed with the silhouettes of trees, frosted with scraps of dark-gray clouds.

Jay knocks again, louder, and leans toward the door. “I don’t hear anyone talking.”

“Do we have the wrong night?”

“No.” There’s an edge to his voice. “This is the right night. See the other cars, there, and over there? There are people here, but they’re not talking, or moving, or—”

His nostrils flare and his face changes, as if he has scented something that horrifies him. “Oh god.”

He flings himself against the door, ramming it with his shoulder, but it’s a solid piece of wood and it doesn’t yield. “Fuck. I have to get in there. I’m breaking a window.”

“Wait…” Tentatively I reach out and try the handle. It moves down, and the door swings open, flooding us both in amber light.

The smell hits me first. Raw, meaty, coppery, tinged with ammonia.

23

“Don’t look, Daisy. Don’t look.” Jay’s voice is a shattered plea, as if his words can erase the scene already pressing into my memory. He’s braced in the doorway, rigid with emotions I can’t fathom, because he knew every one of the bodies crumpled in the room beyond. He made them all.

“If you have to look at it, so will I.” I wrap his fingers in mine and step inside, pulling him with me.

We’ve entered a cozy living space, with a cluster of couches around a thick wooden slab of a coffee table. Slumped on the couches and sprawled on the floor are headless bodies, leaking blood into the brown upholstery, into the shag carpeting.

A dead body is one thing—a headless body is something else. A deeper atrocity, the symptom of a vile hatred and disrespect.

Jay stands helpless and motionless while I walk forward, drawn into the center of that terrible room. Beyond the seating area there’s an open kitchen with a broad island, where trays of snacks filter savory smells through the reek of death. The stuffed mushrooms, bowls of herb-flecked dip, dishes of chips—they’re all splattered with blood.

Two more bodies lie behind the island on the floor. One of them slipped down in front of the open refrigerator, propping its door open, and the cold pale light casts an uncanny glow over the shoulders and the severed neck.

I’m going to be sick.

I race back outside and heave the contents of my stomach onto the grass. The acid sears my throat, burns in my sinus passages. I spit and cough, my shaking hands braced on my thighs.