Page 126 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

Binding a vampire’s ability to use their powers is one of the most extreme routes of protection and is typically used as a last-resort punishment for unruly clan members. To bind a powerful vampire, the binder or binders must be at least half as strong collectively as the vampire or vampires they are binding.

Banishment

Banishment is the practice of limiting a vampire’s area of access by keeping them out of certain places, or restricted to a certain area.While simple environmental wards keep all low-level vampires from entering certain places, banishment is effective on all levels of vampires, and is a targeted effect that keeps one or more vampires from being able to move freely past the bounds of the banishment.

Thrall

A vampire’s thrall is the high-level vampire’s most accessible weapon, allowing them to temporarily incapacitate an enemy or prey. It coaxes the enthralled into a dreamlike state. Mild, dazing thralls take very little power, but deeper, longer-lasting thralls require high-level abilities and ongoing focus to maintain.

It’s important to remember that these protective measures are reserved for higher-level vampires and clan leaders. You should count on your clan leaders for defense, and if you need help addressing a conflict, please reach out to them for additional aid.

The thing was, when Brennan thought about it logically, they were kind of fucked.

The ball was a gathering of humans and vampires alike, so any combination with vampire blood would be bad. At best, the vampires would go berserk and start biting everyone; at worst, those attacks would also turn those humans into more vampires. Either way, vampires would get exposed. Lose-lose situations all around.

Brennan threw himself into research, trying to find everything he could on vampire blood, vampire thralls and how to break them, and defeating an all-powerful millennia-old vampire. Shockingly, the research was neither straightforward nor conclusive.

He didn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and put off drinking as long as possible to ration his supply. (Dr. Morris would say that not taking care of yourself is a form of self-harm. Whatever.)

It took him two days of radio silence from Cole to work up the courage to venture into the library, partially for research, partially in hopes of groveling.

Except Cole wasn’t there.

Brennan stayed holed up in the library for twenty-four hours and Cole never showed up.

Finally, he asked one of the other library aides when Cole was scheduled.

The blue-haired librarian Brennan had seen with Cole a few times smiled sadly at him. “Cole’s not at the library anymore. He has some new internship. It sucks, we love him around here.”

Brennan retreated to his corner of the silent floor, the one he and Cole always used to occupy, and imagined Cole was there, too. Head in his lap, reading while Brennan leafed through a pamphlet that would have all the answers.

The library was no longer the comfort it used to be. He could only think of all the nights spent here with Cole, and how empty it felt without him. He tried to ignore the stinging feeling of the absence.

He knew this was how it would end all along, really. But somewhere along the way, he’d grown the audacity to think he could cling to his humanity. He thought he could be both vampire and human, that his life didn’t have to be over even though it technically ended. That he could be normal. But his vampirism was real, it was his, and he had to deal with it as it inevitably blew up in his face.

He just wished Cole hadn’t been collateral damage. Even if he’d offered help, being threatened by Travis and letting Brennan bite him had clearly shaken him, and Brennan couldn’t blame him.

It washisfault Cole was in the cross fire.

He was taking notes on a pamphlet about vampire thralls, having lost track of the time ages ago, when Mari found him in his corner of the stacks.

Brennan pulled his attention from his notebook, dread building in his stomach.

“I know I messed up,” Brennan said before she could speak. “Whatever you want to say, know it won’t be worse than what I’m already saying to myself.”

She had her backpack on, her short hair was pulled back in a wild, stubby ponytail, and she held a mug of something steaming. Coffee, by the smell wafting toward him.

“Jesus,” Mari said. “I figured you were having a pity party, but this is pretty pathetic.”

Some sarcastic retort died on his lips when Mari slid the mug of coffee toward him in offering. Brennan stared at her neatly trimmed fingernails pushing it forward, at the sloshing black liquid, at the mug itself, which readTEAM JACOB.

“Thanks,” Brennan said. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been holed up in the corner.

“I overheard one of the library aides saying a guy has been camped out on the third floor for more than forty-eight hours,” Mari explained. “I had a guess it might’ve been you.”

Brennan blinked, rubbing his eyes, pulling himself out of his research coma and back to reality. “Guilty,” he said. “What day is it?”

“Friday.”