Ben was having a hard time looking away from the corpses that littered the ground of the clearing. Their faces were still red, their eyes still bulged, and pain still riddled their permanently frozen expressions. Their deaths had been so horrific. It had not been a mere execution, it was a punishment.

“Where are the Pieces of Seven?” Christine said, her voice could have cut through a diamond. Ben looked up, suddenly realising that they too might be about to receive a punishment from the Penenden Coven Sorceress.

Christine was not looking at Ben, she was staring directly at Rik.

Rik shook his head, partly in response and partly trying to shake away the shock of what they’d all just witnessed. “I don’t know,” he lied. No fancy vocabulary, no elaborate sentences, just brief and straight to the point. The danger that he had cautioned them of was a surprise even to him. None of them had expected to witness a mass poisoning.

Christine raised one eyebrow. “Liam confessed to you that he was searching my home for the Piece of Seven, he admitted to already having two pieces in his possession, and yet you did not think to take them from him?”

Rik licked his lips and cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice had shaken off the quiet fear that had been present in it a moment before. “I have no interest in Coven fairytales and old trinkets or heirlooms. The Coffin Stone is nothing more than a legend. It’s just as real as Excalibur or the Loch Ness Monster.”

“There’s loads of evidence proving the Loch Ness Monster is real,” said Kieron. In all the murderous dramatics Ben had forgotten about the reason he had even come to the woods in the first place. Kieron’s voice served to remind him. He looked up but not at Kieron, at Grace. He wasn’t at all startled to see her eyes were already on him. Her lips were down-turned and her pasty face wrought with worry. She didn’t know how this was going to play out any more than Ben did. Ben wanted to believe that he was looking at true concern for him, but a part of his mind told him he was only seeing what he wanted to see.

David jumped in before anybody could respond to Kieron’s claim, not that it seemed that anybody was going to. “If you know the Pieces of Seven exist then doesn’t that prove the Coffin Stone is real?” said David.

Rik replied immediately as though he had been expecting the question. “No, it proves the existence of a torn-up parchment. An ancient piece of vellum whose true purpose has been twisted and lost through history. Even if the legend of the covens coming together to hide the Coffin Stone is true, I still wouldn’t dare to endeavour to find it. They buried that thing for a reason and no good can come from digging it back up.” If Ben didn’t know better then he might actually have been convinced by Rik’s denials.

Christine looked at Rik for a moment longer and then her gaze lost some of its iciness. “Most times when you speak those in your presence are subjected to a deluge of utter nonsense that would be better suited for the stage, and then other times you say things of such intelligence that I regret losing you from this coven.” She turned from Rik and faced the members of her coven. “David, go and search the Ringlestone Coven home for the two Pieces of Seven already in their possession. Vanessa, go to my home and search Liam for any Pieces of Seven. Assess the damage he’s caused but don’t tidy anything. I will need to see exactly what his filthy little hands touched for myself.”

David and the young woman with the pixie cut took off without question.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense if I went to my…to the Ringlestone house? I know it better than anyone else,” said Kieron.

Christine tutted and shook her head. “Absolutely not, you’re needed here to complete the ceremony.”

“You’re carrying on with the ceremony?” Ben said in disbelief.

“Why would we not?” asked Christine.

“You mean apart from the fact that this is a massacre and not a wedding?” Ben retorted. He stepped around Christine so he could speak directly to Grace. “Why would you still marry him after all this? He betrayed his own family and condemned them all to death. Is that really the kind of person you want to welcome into your own family?”

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand!” Kieron yelled. He looked like he was ready to murder Ben but Ben did not care.

“They betrayed him first,” said Grace. “They were never a real family to him.”

“Is this…” Ben pointed at the stinking mess of a corpse that was Kieron’s uncle. “…what you want your wedding night to be? Are these the happy memories you want to remember for the rest of your life? You deserve so much better than this.”

Kieron scoffed, “Like you could ever give it to her.”

“Grace, please,” Ben begged, his eyes stinging as he battled to stop them from filling with tears. He was out of arguments and could only plead; he didn’t even care how he looked to the rest of the Coven. All that mattered was stopping the wedding.

Her fingers twiddled with the lacey hem of her sleeve. Her eyes drifted down to the ground, no longer able to meet Ben’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’ve made my decision.”

Ben’s legs lost their substance and if it hadn’t been for Jess he probably would have fallen to his knees. His fledgling appeared at his side and gripped his forearm in a small gesture that lent him more strength than she could know. Her support kept him upright, but it did nothing to halt the creature of despair that was chomping its way through his insides. That creature would leave him hollow and there was nothing that Jess or Rik or anybody else could do about it.

Kieron, beaming like a demon who’d found its way out of Hell, sidled up behind Grace and wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her in tight. “You heard her, mate. Her choice is made. If I were you I’d leave now because we’re about to finish the ceremony and there’s only one step left in the process.”

Grace, at least, had the decency to look ashamed but she did not stop Kieron as his fingers hooked the straps of her dress and pulled them smoothly over her shoulders.

Christine stepped in front of Ben and forced his attention onto her. “I thank the three of you for the service you have provided this coven tonight.” Her gaze lingered on Jess for a moment, the only one she had not yet met. “Riku, our deal remains intact as long as you keep yourself from Coven territory in the future.”

Rik nodded in obedience and Christine turned to Ben. “I will warn you one final time, Benedict, to stay away from my daughter. Not just my daughter but from this coven as a whole. Oh, and you should know that vampiric mesmerisation does not hold on witches the way it does on regular humans, it wears off over time, and if you ever dare to mesmerise one of my witches again…well, simply look around you for all the motivation you need. Now go and do not even think about coming back.”

Ben resisted the overwhelming urge to look at Grace one final time. He knew that to see her up there with Kieron would only provide him with an image that would take an age to forget. He turned from the clearing with his friends and the three of them trudged away from the mass execution ground.

“This is the most fucked up wedding I’ve ever been to,” Jess said before they exited the clearing.

Ben couldn’t bring himself to sit in the car with the others once they’d left the woods. He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to be alone and brood, as Jess had put it. He needed to walk. And so Rik and Jess drove home and Ben began his long, solitary walk back to the apartment.

As he traversed the empty streets of Maidstone in the dark early hours of the morning the only sounds he heard were those made by his own plodding steps. Because it was a Saturday night he did encounter the occasional group of drunken people on their way home after a night of fun. He looked at them all with envy. He would have given anything to trade places with them; to feel the joy of a stressless evening and for them to feel the weight of being spurned. Again.

The image of Kieron’s leering face staring over Grace’s shoulder as he peeled off her dress was emblazoned in Ben’s mind. The bubbling hateful magma that boiled inside him overpowered the grief of Grace’s rejection but only for a moment. Only for so long as he saw that image.

Everything he’d done had been for nothing. She’d dismissed him completely and let her fiancé taunt him. The desire to hurt them both was too strong, he wanted to turn back, storm into the woods, and tear their hearts from their chests. They needed to feel the pain that he felt. But he knew that if he went back the only death would be his own.

Ben had only ever felt like this once before. He’d first felt the fickle touch of love when he was eighteen. That relationship had lasted mere eight months before his girlfriend’s heart had passed to another. He’d thought that pain would last forever, but it had lasted only weeks.

This time it felt worse which made no sense since his time with Grace had been but a fraction of the relationship he’d shared all those years ago. Could he even love Grace after such a short time? Did she love him? Did she care about him at all?

The questions that hounded him from inside his own mind did not matter. Everything that had already happened was done and he could not change that. What mattered was what he did next. What he was not going to do was mope around in the coming weeks. He was determined to get the whole messy situation resolved in his head by the time he reached home. An impossible task he knew, but one he was determined to achieve. If only he knew a powerful vampire of the Dinferi line who could mesmerise him to get over Grace in a heartbeat. But all he had was Erin. He’d just have to ride the waves of melancholy like every other person who had their heart broken.

A car horn blared and headlights caught Ben when he was halfway across the road. He glanced over at the vehicle he’d inadvertently stepped out in front of. He wondered how much damage the car could have done to him. He was about to apologise when the driver honked the horn again letting it blare out for much longer this time.

Swallowing his annoyance, Ben stepped out of the way and watched the midnight blue BMW go by.

“Next time I’ll run you over, Bent-Dick!” the driver shouted through the window as he went by. Ben didn’t see the man inside the car but he knew it was Lewis from his voice alone. That tempest of magma began to rise.

Ben watched as Lewis parked his car and then headed into the twenty-four-hour gym. He strutted across the car park, his gym bag swinging by his side and his chin held high. He acted like he owned the ground he walked on. There was nothing that was going to convince Ben to turn the other cheek tonight. Even if Izzy had been there to play Jimminy Cricket it would have done no good. His pain and his anger had grown too great and Lewis’ pathetic little jibe had been the final push that had broken the damn. Ben squared his shoulders and stormed after his bully, determined to end the dynamic of their abusive relationship at least.

There were very few people using the gym when Ben walked in which looked like a huge waste of the space, but he knew that in the day it would be far busier. The electronic barriers squealed in protest as he pushed his way through them.

“Mate, you need a membership card!” a member of staff said as he hurried over to stop Ben from entering.

Ben caught his eye and said, “No I don’t.”

The staff member immediately forgot all about Ben’s lack of a membership card. A few of the other patrons glanced Ben’s way but none were interested enough to stop their workouts to see what was going on.

Ben cast his eyes over the gym-goers. Most of them had biceps the size of his head and he wondered how much impact their fists might have on him in his vampire form. He did not get to wonder for long because Lewis emerged from the changing room dressed in workout gear. He stopped when he saw Ben, his shock quickly being replaced by amusement.

“You here to work out? I’m not sure you’ll be able to lift much with those skinny twigs you call arms,” Lewis mocked.

“Why bully me?” Ben asked. When he’d followed Lewis into the gym he’d thought he was going to give him a bit of a beating to put him in his place, but now that was here, he just wanted an explanation.

The question staggered Lewis. “What?” he laughed awkwardly.

“You’ve bullied me since school. I thought it would stop when we were both adults but you just carried on like we were still kids. I don’t understand why. I’ve thought back as far as I can remember and I never did anything to make you hate me so much. I never even spoke to you. So, why? Why did you just decide one day that you wanted to torment me and make my life hell, not just in our school days, but apparently forever? For what reason? What was it about me that evoked that in you? What is so wrong with me?”

Lewis gripped his water bottle with both hands, holding it in front of him like it was a shield. Of all the taunts and insults they’d exchanged it was this question that had finally gotten under Lewis’ skin. Finally, after a full minute of squirming, Lewis shook his head and replied. “I don’t know.”

“No, I’m not taking that for an answer,” Ben said. He closed the space between them intending to force the truth out of Lewis.

“Hey buddy, this really isn’t the place for this,” said a man the size of a gorilla as he foolishly took hold of Ben’s shoulder. The man’s towering height would once have frightened Ben, now it only irked him.

“Go and stand in the corner and mind your own business,” Ben commanded.

A couple of confused murmurs could be heard in the room as the bodybuilder turned and obeyed Ben’s order.

“What the hell?” Lewis asked, his eyes on the bodybuilder’s back.

“Hey,” Ben said drawing his attention back to him so he could mesmerise him. “Tell me why you bullied me. The truth,” he commanded.

Lewis took a step back, shaking his head to try and throw off the command but it was futile. “I…” he stammered and for a moment Ben started to think that he truly did not know, that, in fact, he had always bullied Ben for no reason whatsoever.

“Because you were weak,” Lewis said at last. The words left his mouth in such confusion that Ben thought it was perhaps the first time he had ever considered the matter himself. “You were so small and weedy and I just…I don’t know, I just wanted to hurt you.”

When Ben spoke his voice was barely louder than a whisper but the gym had fallen so silent that it carried to every corner of the room with ease. “So, you saw a person who was smaller and weaker than you and the first thing you wanted to do was hurt them?”

Any hope that Lewis had of walking away unharmed vanished with the thoughtless shrug he responded with. “I suppose so.”

Ben slammed his hand into Lewis’ chest and flung him across the room. He crashed into a tower of dumbbells and hit the ground with a howl.

“Oh, what the hell!” a man from the other side of the room yelled.

One man ran at Ben, determined to stop him. Ben raised his leg and booted the oncoming man back to where he came from. Then he turned to the room. Most of the gym-goers were frozen in place but a few were running for the door. Ben zoomed across the room and blocked their exit causing them all to stop moving. When he opened his mouth to speak his fangs were on full display. “Everybody stay where you are and I won’t hurt you.” He couldn’t risk them leaving and bringing back help. He noticed a woman with her phone in her hand. Her thumbs stopped moving when she saw his eyes were on her. He snatched the phone from her grip and tossed it across the room. “No phones,” he told them. Then he turned to the only member of staff and ordered him to lock the door. “This man has tormented me my whole life,” Ben told them. “I’m only here to settle the score with him.”

Nobody said a word. They all stood still, keeping far from Ben, and didn’t dare do anything to draw his attention their way.

“How weak do I look now, Pratt?” Ben asked and strolled over to his foe.

“How did you do that?” Lewis asked as he pushed himself back to his feet. He was trying his hardest to hide his fear. As Ben reached him he swung his arm, a weightless dumbbell bar clutched in his hand. Ben caught him by the forearm and snatched the weapon from his grip.

“I’m a vampire,” he said simply. Then he swung the bar across Lewis’ face. Lewis drew his head back but failed to get completely clear of Ben’s shot. The weapon hit him right in the nose and with such force that his nose tore off his face and landed with a nasty plop on the floor.

Lewis, down on his knees, stared at the disconnected appendage. It took a moment for the pain to hit him and he screamed. His fingers groped around the bloody hole on his face where his nose had been just seconds before.

“Oh, man this is fucked up!” one of the others said.

To his credit, Lewis did not throw in the towel, he continued to fight. He swung a fist at Ben which Ben caught easily enough. Ben grabbed hold of Lewis’ elbow with his free hand and snapped the arm at the joint. Lewis screamed again as his arm flopped around uselessly at his side.

“Your fists will never touch me again,” Ben promised. Lewis’ other hand was splayed on the ground, holding him up, and Ben took the opportunity to stamp on it. He heard every bone in the hand break and when he increased his weight and ground his heel down on the hand, he felt those same bones crush into powder.

One final kick put Lewis flat on his back staring up at Ben. The look of childlike terror on Lewis’ face brought a smile to Ben’s lips. “You put me through years of torture and what you’ve just gone through doesn’t even begin to compare. Look at me now and tell me how weak I am.”

Lewis spat a wad of blood onto the floor and then glared up at Ben, the hate made his tears glisten. “You’re still weak. You can only take me in a fight because you cheated. You’re the same pathetic little boy except now you’re hiding behind superpowers.”

Ben almost took the bait. He almost ended Lewis’ misery there and then. One stomp to the face was all it would have taken. But Lewis deserved more than that. Jess had given her abuser an entire night of torture. Lewis deserved the same, but Ben would not grant him the gift of vampirism afterwards.

“Do not move a muscle,” Ben told him before turning to the room and addressing the terrified patrons of the gym. All of them had armed themselves with various pieces of gym equipment as if any of it would do any good. “You’ve all seen what I can do. How would you like to be able to do the same? How many of you would like to become a vampire?”

It turned out they all did. One by one, Ben gave them the blood they needed to make the change. He drank from each of them to stop his own veins from running dry. When it was done, he addressed the congregation once more.

“The transformation will be long and painful. When it’s done you’ll need to drink blood. Drink his.” Ben pointed at Lewis who was still quivering on the floor, unable to move. “When you’ve all turned and he’s dead, clean up the mess. Wait until nightfall and then burn this place to the ground.”

“And then what?” a woman with keen eyes asked. The same woman whose phone Ben took.

“Then it’s up to you. You can go off on your own and begin your new life alone or you can come to Kingfisher Meadow and join me. The choice is yours.”

Ben knelt down by Lewis’ side. “This is your punishment. You can lie here in tremendous agony for hours. You can listen to the screams of these people as each of them turns into a vampire just like me, and with every scream you hear, and every minute that ticks by, you will know that you are just one step closer to death. It’s your last night on Earth. Do try to enjoy it.” Ben gave lewis a hard pat on the chest that sent a ripple of pain across his body before he walked away from his bully for the last time.

“I want evidence that he’s dead,” Ben told the gym worker as he unlocked the door for him.

“I’ll bring it to Kingfisher Meadow,” the night manager promised.

Ben nodded before stepping outside. It turned out Jess was right, exacting vengeance did feel pretty good and it turned out to be the perfect cure for the worst night of Ben’s life. Of course, the pain of Grace’s decision would return soon enough, but for now, at least, he felt pretty chipper. He walked all the way home with a nice little spring in his vampire step.

Rik and Jess were in the living room drinking hot chocolates and talking animatedly. The chatter died the moment Ben walked into the room and their expressions turned dour.

“For what it’s worth I think Grace is a bitch,” Jess said. She stood up and brought Ben a third mug of hot chocolate. When he took it in his hands he felt that it was still warm.

“You made me a hot chocolate. How did you know I’d be home in time to drink it?” Ben asked, touched by such a simple gesture. After the night he’d had something as small as being made a drink was enough to warm him.

“She didn’t. That’s the second one she’s made you,” Rik said before he took a hearty slurp of his own drink. “I’m not complaining, I’ve had two too, and she makes a mean hot chocolate.”

As Jess handed Ben his drink she noticed the blood spatters on his sleeve and raised an eyebrow. “Good walk?” she asked.

“Yes, really helped me offload some old baggage,” he confessed. He considered telling her what had happened at the gym but decided against it. Jess and Rik would find out tomorrow night when a bunch of new vampires turned up. The two of them shared a smile before Jess retreated to the corner seat of the sofa. That was where Ben liked to sit but he could hardly insist she move after she’d made him a drink.

“It sucks what happened with Grace, but we got to leave without any consequences and we have three of the Pieces of Seven,” said Rik. Ben had no doubt that Rik had hidden the scraps of parchment securely somewhere that he would never share. “Getting the remaining four pieces will be difficult. More so now that the Coven will be watching us.”

“Why will the Coven be watching us?” Ben asked. As far as he was concerned all their issues with the Coven had been left in the woods.

“When Christine discovers her Piece of Seven is missing and it isn’t on Liam’s body, she’ll come to the only logical conclusion that we have it. She’ll have no proof and she won’t outwardly accuse us, but she’ll be watching us like a hawk from now on. I guarantee it.”

“And if she finds evidence that we do have them?”

“She’ll swoop down on us with the full power of the Coven and take them. So, if you want to exit the hunt now then say so. I’ll understand. Tonight was a close call for all of us and I don’t want to push anybody into any further danger.”

Rik shifted awkwardly under Ben’s scrutinising gaze. “You’ve been pushing for us to find this rock for weeks and now you’re giving us the chance to stop just like that? No arguments? No fights?”

“Well, I’m going to keep looking either way and I was rather hoping that you’d stick with me. Despite what happened.”

Ben leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. The heat from his mug spread across his palm and the rich scent of the chocolate wafted up his nose. It would be nice to bow out of the hunt for the Coffin Stone and remove the Coven from his list of problems. He still had Darius and Teremun to deal with. Also, Gideon was still out there somewhere. He hadn’t been seen since Darius had tossed him around but Ben was not naive enough to believe the hunter was gone for good. He was merely licking his wounds and planning an explosive comeback.

“The Coffin Stone will give you unlimited magical power?” Ben asked. An idea was already taking form in his head.

“Well,” Rik squirmed. “Maybe unlimited isn’t quite the right word. There’s no such thing as unlimited magical power. Unrivalled would be a better descriptor.”

“More power than the Coven?”

“A hundred times over if the legends are true.”

“When I drank your blood it made me more powerful than usual. A lot more powerful. If you had that stone could you use it to cast a spell that would replicate those effects on a more permanent basis?”

Rik tilted his head from side to side as he considered the question. “Theoretically, yes. I’d need to devise a workable spell, but the power would be there to execute it. more than enough power, in fact.”

“Could you do the same thing to more than one vampire? Ten vampires? Fifty? A hundred?”

Rik’s eyebrows dipped as he stared across the room at Ben. He placed his empty mug down on the carpet. “Impossible to say for certain since I’ve never seen the Stone before and don’t know its full capabilities. But yes, I believe I could do that. I can tell there’s a lot going on in that head of yours right now so how about you enlighten us as to what exactly your diabolical plan is?”

Ben took a big swig of his drink to really ramp up the suspense before answering the question. “I’ll do exactly what Darius told me to do. I’ll build a nice little vampire army. Then we find the Coffin Stone and use it to make my army the most powerful vampire army in the world. Then we use it to destroy the Black Veil and the Coven and anybody else who wants to come after us. How does that sound for a diabolical plan?”

Rik looked like he’d just been told to type out the entire bible in reverse order but then his expression gave way to a smile and he lifted his mug back off the floor. “I’d say as far as diabolical plans go that one is utterly Mephistophelian. However, I won’t attack anybody who doesn’t throw the first punch.” He held his mug out for a toast.

Ben found Rik’s condition more than reasonable and he leaned forward with his own mug and the two of them waited patiently for Jess.

“What? Am I a part of the planning committee then?”

“Jess, you’re my first vampire. When we build this army you’ll be the general. Of course you’re a part of the committee,” said Ben.

“Oh, well in that case. yeah, I’m in.” She clinked her mug with both of theirs and the deal was struck, the plan made. “Do I get a fancy badge and nifty hat?”

“Can you smell smoke?” Rik asked, completely ruining the moment.

“No, why would…” Ben trailed off as he smelled it too. It was so strong that it was a wonder he hadn’t smelled it already.

All three of them rushed outside, fearful that the Coven had already decided to attack them. The boardwalk was awash in an orange glow and a growing fire crackled from behind the windows of Erin’s apartment. People from the other apartment blocks had started to emerge to investigate the plumes of smoke rising up from the building at the head of the street.

“What happened?” Ben asked Erin who was standing a few feet away with a glass of wine in her hand, watching the fire devour her new home. How she could remain so calm when Ben’s body was already coursing with adrenaline was beyond him.

“I’m just running an experiment,” she said.

Ben had no words to respond to such a bizarre statement. He looked to Jess and Rik, hoping they might be able to articulate the absolute outrage that his shock was stopping him from conveying.

“What experiment?” Rik asked, sounding as calm as Erin did.

“Not the point!” Ben burst out. He pointed at the fire that was licking at Erin’s apartment.

“I’m sick of Aiden sitting around staring at the wall. It’s depressing and pointless. I thought a little life-threatening fire might motivate him to snap out of it,” Erin explained.

“Who’s Aiden?” asked Jess, her voice distant and her eyes glued to the fire that was growing with every passing second.

“Aiden is a vampire who was tortured so much he fell into a catatonic state which is vastly different from having a little sulk and therefore I really don’t think you can motivate him to “snap out of it”. But what is bothering me a lot more than that is the fact that my apartment is connected to the one that is currently on fire and, as I’m sure you’re well aware, fire has a horrible habit of spreading!”

The windows of Erin’s apartment exploded sending a shower of glass over the boardwalk and punctuating Ben’s words nicely.

“Relax Ben, my spells won’t let that fire touch our apartment. The worst it’ll do is give the walls a nice new charcoal colour,” Rik said.

“Oh, well that’s not so bad then,” Ben said.

“What about the guy who’s trapped in there?” asked Jess, sounding genuinely concerned.

Sirens could be heard in the distance drawing closer and threatening to end Erin’s experiment. Quite a crowd had gathered in Kingfisher Meadow to watch the fire that had now reached the roof of the apartment and would soon burst through it. None of them dared come anywhere near the boardwalk on which the vampires and warlock were standing.

“Aiden’s not much good to anybody if he doesn’t find his feet again,” Erin said. “And I’m sick of nursing him.”

“Well aren’t you lovely?” Jess said. For the first time, she looked away from the fire to give Erin a glare of contempt.

Erin held her gaze without flinching; what did she have to fear from a baby vampire? The two women stared each other down like a couple of cowboys at high noon. It was clear that Erin was considering a response and Ben readied himself to intervene. However, he didn’t need to.

A shape sped out of the burning house in a streak of darkness and landed on the ground in front of them all. Aiden, covered in soot from head to toe, was on his hands and knees coughing vigorously to expel the effects of the smoke from his lungs. His t-shirt was smoking and had a couple of burn marks over the shoulders, but otherwise, he looked unharmed.

Ben stared down at the once again animated vampire, completely astounded that Erin’s idea had worked. He’d been convinced they were watching Aiden’s funeral pyre.

“What the…” Aiden tried to say but instead erupted into another coughing fit.

Erin knelt down and gave Aiden a few hearty whacks on the back to help him cough up the soot that was choking him. When he finally stopped coughing he lay down on the boardwalk and stared up at the sky, still breathing deeply.

“See, I knew it would work,” Erin said smugly. “Welcome back.”

Aiden’s red-rimmed eyes found Erin and narrowed. Ben thought he was going to reprimand her for leaving him in a burning building, but instead he said, “Where’s my phone?”

Rik snorted and strolled away as the fire engine pulled up and the firefighters jumped out. It was impressive how quickly they got to work. Hoses were hauled off the truck and drains were pulled open. One of them barked orders at everybody to get well back.

“You’ll have to ask Darius where your phone is,” Erin said and Aiden shuddered. Clearly he remembered his horrendous treatment at the hands of Darius and Mia.

“That woman…” Aiden said, shuddering again.

“Yeah,” Erin said, helping Aiden to his feet. “We’ll deal with her soon enough. That bitch isn’t getting away with what she did to us. Benny needs us to hold off on our revenge plans but I’m getting a bit tired of waiting.” She stared pointedly at Ben.

“Just a little longer. It’s not like Mia’s within your reach right now anyway,” said Ben. Mia wasn’t currently in town, she’d left with Darius.

“You lot need to move now!” a firefighter screamed at them as she ran up the boardwalk steps with her colleagues following behind her.

“Yeah, let’s head into town and see if we can find something to do,” Erin said. She walked through the group and gave Jess a little pat on the shoulder as she passed. “Cheer up, tonight’s a good night,” she added, unaware of the horrors that the others had witnessed.

If anything Jess’ glumness only worsened at Erin’s words. Ben could attest that nothing could irritate you more than being told to cheer up.

“What exactly are we going to do in town at two in the morning?” Rik asked, following Erin and Aiden nonetheless.

“I get the feeling you don’t like Erin very much,” said Ben as he and Jess followed the group down the stairs.

“I don’t dislike her, she just reminds me of someone and I can’t figure out who. It’s like when you have a word on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t think of it fully.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. You do seem pretty down though, is something else bothering you?” Her mood had changed the moment she’d got outside and since she didn't know Aiden, Ben couldn’t see why she’d be so affected by his near demise.

Jess hugged herself tightly as though she were cold, but Ben knew she was not because they rarely got cold now that they were vampires. “It’s just the fire. My parents both died in a house fire and seeing one just kind of got to me.” They could still hear the crackling of the flames behind them.

“I’m really sorry to hear that. Losing your parents so young must have been hard.” Ben suspected that everything he was saying was hollow and meaningless to her, but he didn’t know what to say, and truth be told, there was probably nothing he could say that would comfort her.

“Yeah, I mean I never got on with them much anyway, they only ever liked my brother. But they were still my parents, you know?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”

“My dad was always so shady and all the weirdness around the fire just makes the whole situation worse. We—my brother and me— always suspected he was a gangster or something. It would be nice to have an actual answer though, you know?”

“What weirdness?”

“Oh, there were a few dead cops found in the wreckage and some other randoms as well. It was all very weird and nobody could make heads or tails out of it.”

They passed through the gates of Kingfisher Meadow and out onto the small street beyond. Another fire engine shot by to help tackle the fire. More crowds had gathered outside the gates to watch the inferno. Ben’s group had to push through the morbid onlookers to get by. Ben barely noticed them though. Jess’ words were frozen in his mind, blocking out all other stimuli.

“How many cops were found?” he asked.

“They found three dead cops,” Jess spoke the words as though they were nothing, the information she was delivering was information she’d had for a while and it was old news to her. But to Ben it was something else entirely. To Ben it was nothing short of a horrifying revelation. A ghastly chill had seized him and held him firmly in its grip.

“Who were your parents?”

Ben could already feel his chest starting to tighten. The pieces were snapping into place. Erin had said that Jess was an interesting choice for Ben. It wasn’t just because of her young age. Jess recognised Erin but she couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t just deja vu. The Sponge Bob back that Jess had been wearing the night Ben had first met her. The Sponge Bob bag that Theo had moved from the chair in that house so he could sit down. The very house that they had set on fire to cover their tracks. Jess recognised Erin because Erin had mesmerised her before Ben had turned her into a vampire.

“Leon and Cindy Sullivan. You probably saw their names in the local paper,” Jess said.

Ben had not seen their names in the paper and none of it was a coincidence. Ben had killed Jess’ parents.