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1

The Oracle

From the moment Dominique Marchant crawled out of the dune at sunset, Serge, already up and waiting for him, had been on a cheerful, prattling roll. Tonight, they would hunt together as that rarest of all blood-drinker social structures, a team. The only question that remained was where.

Until it wasn’t.

“Blood-child, I crave the flavors of Miami. The spices are unmatched on this side of the continent, and we haven’t been there in…in…” Serge’s enthusiastic chatter faded away. As did the mood of light-hearted anticipation.

Dominique didn’t need to look to know his friend and mentor had gone statue-still behind him. He could almost feel those glassy eyes drill holes into his skull. Though he pretended not to notice, the back of his neck crawled. Instead, he finished releasing the lock on the shed behind the beach cottage he shared with the human Cassidy, the feline Eddie, and, sometimes, the maybe-clairvoyant vampire Serge.

“Miami is too far tonight. I don’t want to be gone that long,” Dominique said, hanging up the lock on a hook just inside the door. “There should be plenty of Latin flavors in Fort Lauderdale for you.” Please let this be it, he thought, already knowing it wasn’t, and determined not to let his friend’s eccentricities derail him. As hollowed out by hunger as he was, he had little patience left.

Dominique scanned the shed’s dark interior. The usual smells of engine grease and dank brine hung in the air. No signs of human intrusion, no trace of hunters. But there was a small, new pile of sand in one corner where something had dug under the edge of the sheet metal wall. Tiny tracks led away from the excavation, and a soft clicking noise came from underneath the cover fastened over his motorcycle—a cover that now sported a new hole. “Merde.”

The cover came off in a whoosh, revealing the sleek, black BMW bike beneath, along with a passenger. The crab, half the size of his hand, reared up on the seat, pincers extended and open, ready to inflict damage…or reach for the handlebars. Any other night, he might have laughed. Picking up the creature by its carapace, he handed it to Serge who had traipsed in after him. “Take this outside and be quick. We need to be on our way.”

Serge didn’t move.

Dominique reluctantly looked up from inspecting the bike for additional hitchhikers. There he was, the madman he hadn’t seen in months, frozen still and staring at him with glistening round eyes while the crab mountaineered up his ragged shirtsleeve. Serge was lost in his visions, seeing what only he could see: Dominique’s immediate future supposedly, his ultimate fate maybe, chaos most certainly. Hard to know, really. Serge never explained himself in terms that made sense.

No, you are not doing this to me, vieux fou. Not tonight. With a determined flick of his wrist, Dominique zipped up his black leather jacket, then snatched up the helmet and wedged it over his head. Grabbing the handlebars, he collapsed the kickstand. “Fort Lauderdale, then?”

The would-be oracle blinked his great brown eyes as if waking from a dream, but his child-like exuberance was gone, replaced by fatalistic gloom. The crab, now on his shoulder, explored the tangled curls springing around his broad face. “Yes,” Serge said quietly and shuffled his bare feet out the door. “It’s time you were gone, blood-child.”

Dominique’s turn to pause. Serge never passed up an opportunity to ride—or “surf”—the back of the bike. Whatever Serge had seen or imagined just now rattled him into a quiet daze that was, if possible, even more unsettling than the wide-eyed stare.

No, I don’t have time for this, Dominique admonished himself and resolutely pushed the bike outside. “I’m hungry, old fool. Don’t play your games with me tonight.”

“Games,” Serge murmured and retrieved the crab from inside his shirt collar. “It’s the night for them, yes.” His bushy brows bunched together. “And hunger, too. Like no other.”

“What—”

“Go and see what will be.” He gave the agitated crab a pat. It promptly whacked his grubby finger. Serge didn’t seem to notice. “I will be busy here with this little one.”

“There is not much blood in that,” Dominique said, trying for a far lighter tone than he felt. Serge just looked at him.

This was bad. Beyond bad. Serge, three hundred years old and onetime pirate, was many things—quietly fatalistic wasn’t one of them. Dominique gave only the most grudging credence to his friend’s powers of clairvoyance, but right now, if not for the hunger raking his gut, he would have been tempted to put the bike back in the shed and crawl into Cassidy’s arms. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “What did you see?”

“What do I ever see?”

Dominique shook his head. Riddles, of course. “My ‘destiny’ awaits again? Is that it? And you don’t want to ‘meddle’ with ‘what must be?’ So, you will stay here and play with the crab?”

This, at last, brought the familiar gab-toothed smile. “See? You know all.” The crab in question was now clamped onto the side of his hand. Serge pulled it off and studied the waving pincers. “She will need some persuading, this one.”

Cursing below his breath, Dominique straddled the bike and pulled on his gloves. Why did he bother? Why did he let the unhinged babbling get under his skin like this? Nothing good ever came from that. “You will be the end of me.”

“No, blood-child, no end for you. A beginning,” Serge intoned solemnly.

This was more than Serge had ever shared about his supposed glimpses into the future, which had an unnerving way of coming to pass in twisted, inconvenient, and often perilous ways. Dominique was reluctantly reassured by the positive spin on this one. At least until Serge spoke again.

“If you are strong enough, blood-child. Only if you are strong enough.”

2

A Hunger Like No Other

Over the past few months, Dominique had let the officers patrolling the southern-most portion of I-95 pull him over without protest. Then, once he was face-to-face with them, he convinced them that a motorcycle pushing two hundred miles per hour was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a glitch in their radar units, a trick of the light in their eyes.