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“Fighting?” Nick asked.

“But of course! He is such an idealist, our Armel. It is really quite sweet. But he cannot stay away forever, shooting his guns alongside his friends. I have plans for my sweet Armel. So we called him back… before he gets killed in some stupid way, just when he is finally getting interesting.”

Nick stared at the woman sitting there.

He knew she wasn’t real.

He still had the totally irrational desire to throttle her.

“You and me both,” Kiko muttered.

When Nick glanced at her, she motioned for him to keep going, to keep talking to it.

“These rituals are for him?” Nick heard the revulsion in his own voice. “You are calling these things for him? For your own son?” He swallowed, even though he was a vampire and didn’t need to swallow. “…You are bringing these creatures to him deliberately?”

The woman let out a peal of melodious laughter.

Every note was like the pluck of a harp’s strings, but there was something off about every one of them. Her voice, her eyes, everything about her seemed to pull on him, to drag him into some black pit.

He couldn’t even imagine how frightening this woman must have been when she was alive. Just the memory of her fucking terrified him, and she’d likely been dead for well over two hundred years.

Nick wondered if she really could be Brick’s mother.

“Creatures?” Virginie threw up a hand. “What creatures are you imagining I would bring here…” Her eyes and voice turned hard as glass. “…Vampire?”

Nick blinked.

She knew who he was.

She knew what he was, at least.

Was he really speaking to Brick right now?

Or something a hell of a lot darker?

She smiled at him, and her whole face grew overly bright.

“If you mean the rituals, they are not only for him,” she said dismissively. Smiling, she wagged a finger at him mockingly. “My Armel is sweet, but it would be very greedy for him to harvest the fruits of my hard work all for himself. No, my dear, sweet vampire… this is not only for Armel. It is for all of us. The whole family. But we obviously had to wait for him to return. He must be educated before he can fully join us.”

“Did you educate your husband as well?” Dex pointed at the scythe, disgust in his voice. “Is that whose blood covers the blade? Not to mention your clothing.”

The woman laughed, holding her belly with one bloody hand.

“My Denis? You think I would kill my Denis?” She laughed at Dexter openly, her blue eyes bright with fevered triumph. “Denis is my most devoted husband. My most faithful servant. I would protect him with my life… with everything in me… even from my own son. Denis and I are one. We are one in soul. One in spirit. We will never be parted. Never.”

Her words brought another shiver of unease over Nick’s skin.

He opened his mouth, about to ask her more about her son––

––when a very familiar looking, auburn-haired male walked into the same room.

19

THE SON

For a long-feeling few seconds, Nick could only stare at him.

He’d told himself he knew who Virginie was, who Denis was. He’d told himself he knew who they were to Brick. It was still a shock to see Brick standing there, unmistakably human.