The neighborhood is grungy, the buildings the hunched, massive hulks that came into popularity during the Para Wars, where many cities started to develop a look almost like their medieval counterparts and country homes started to look like fortresses.

The house is massive, with thick, steel-reinforced walls and barred windows and interior steel shutters. A twelve-foot-high wall, not enough to stop a vampire or shifter but at least enough to slow most of them down, surrounds the property, and as Cole watches from across the street, one thought goes through his head. Well, if I were going to pick a hideout, this looks like the right sort of place.

The whole building is dark, but Cole can see shapes moving in the darkness, at least a dozen so far. Above the compound, the night seems to glow a purplish green, although whether it’s from hidden lights or some freak atmospheric disturbance, Cole doesn’t know.

A scratching sound reaches his ears, and he lifts his head, seeing Noah with his backpack on the roof of the building, signaling the all-clear. Cole nods, ascending to the rooftop as well. “What do you think?” he asks Noah when he gets to the top.

“I think it is sick with the darkness of the beings inside,” Noah whispers. “Have you gotten any eyes on?”

“The Limo’s still in the parking area, but nobody’s exited,” Cole says. A moment later, the back door of the limo opens, and Gonzalez gets out with Illir and the other detective. Even from across the street, the young detective looks stunned, and both Fae wonder if he’s been drained or somehow put under a thrall already. “Guess instructions are given.”

A female vampire steps out of the building, and despite their best efforts, neither Cole nor Noah can hear what she says, but she leads Gonzalez and the other cop inside. Cole turns to Noah, and Noah sighs, seeing in his eyes that he doesn’t want to just go down there and pound heads.

“Unless you plan on killing every vampire in there without finding out what’s going on, we’re doing reconnaissance,” Cole says. “Leave the weapons.”

Noah growls inside. He’s in the mood for a fight.

“Sorry, but it seems appropriate, considering the situation,” Cole says, carefully setting his sword in a hidden nook of the roof. “Come on.”

They quickly shift and fly across the street undetected, landing by a large window that’s been cracked open to allow fresh night air in. It’s a giant ballroom adorned in red and violet, with at least a hundred vampires gathered around the perimeter. The vampire woman leads Gonzalez and his partner to the wings of the room before stepping out into the middle.

“Members of the Coven,” she says, her voice purring with dark sensuality and violence. To any human man, she’d be irresistible, a forbidden temptress whose offer of darkness and death would be embraced with a desperate eagerness. Her body fills her ballgown in ways that seem incredible, the lushness of her lips hiding the fangs inside. “Tonight, we stand at the doorstep of retaking our futures, our fate. This you know. What you may not know is just how tonight’s chaos will help us. For that, I give you our leader, our Master. I give you the vampire lord who shall stand strong and mighty when New Haven lies in smoking ruins, their citizens drained of every last drop of precious blood. Members of the Coven . . . I give you Marcus.”

The whole gathering is galvanized as Marcus enters the room. A powerful vampire lord, he still looks young because he was turned at only seventeen years old. Still, only a fool would mistake his unlined face and youthful, beardless cheeks with innocence as his eyes hold the gravitas of decades and the violence of thousands of victims.

His pale blue eyes sweep his coven, his all-black Italian suit hugging his lean frame, a cut crystal goblet of blood in his hands as he enters, surveying his people. Powerful and dangerous, the guardians know that there’s no way the humans could handle him, even without Gonzalez apparently being a dirty cop.

“My friends . . . my Coven,” Marcus says, taking a long drink of blood before kissing the female vampire, sharing the mouthful with her. She spasms, so enraptured by her Lord’s blessing she nearly orgasms before he hands her the goblet and steps into the middle of the room. “For years now, the prey has thought that they have become the hunters. The humans, with their UV lasers and silver bullets, have thought that they could control us.”

A ripple of anger flows through the crowd, and Marcus looks around, smiling. “They think they can force us into extinction. Fortunately for them, they were aided, first by the stupid members of our race who pushed too far, too fast. And of course . . . the wolves.”

Vampires openly bare their fangs, growling at the mention of their mortal enemies, and Marcus holds up a hand. “But the humans were stupid, arrogant. Thinking they could fight two fronts of a war at once, secure in their technology and their hateful power, we vampires let ourselves be pushed into retreat. I will admit, for a few years, I tried to be peaceful. I tried to live with the new laws, not because I wanted to. I stayed my hand because of you. Because of your families, those of you with innocents in your own lines . . . for the few children born to our race who have never and will never know what a sunrise looks like, who nursed from the breast not of milk, but of blood. I played the peace for them.”

“We stayed with you, my Lord,” a vampire says, and Marcus nods, wiping at his left eye as a bloody tear trickles down.

“That you did . . . all of you. And for that, we were rewarded with what? Lynchings, stakings, and lies from those who should be our prey!” he explodes, his voice rising. “The peace was a lie, a one-sided claim by the humans where they could attack us with impunity, but if we so much as sipped from anything other than a cold, tasteless plastic bag, we’d be lasered without even a trial!”

The vampires again growl, their anger almost visibly flowing from each of them. “No more!” Marcus continues. “No more deaths, no more having to pick up our sustenance from a line, like cattle! No more will I tolerate telling a wife, a child, a brother, or a sister that their loved one will never return home again because some vigilante, or even worse, a so-called ‘peace officer’ stabbed a stake through their heart! Now, we will teach the humans what they have forgotten. We will teach them that it is right to fear the dark, to lock themselves in their homes. Very soon, we will teach them who is the predator, and who is the prey.”

Another cheer stirs the vampires, but some of them seem unsure as Joe and his partner emerge into the open from the wings. Cole and Noah look over too, wondering what’s going on. Dirty cop, okay? But this? No vampire lord would let a human into such a coven meeting. Could Joe be some sort of vampire, able to somehow mask himself?

Marcus turns, seeing the two policemen, and smiles, waving them forward. “Do not be troubled, my coven. As the humans’ duplicitous nature worked against us in the last war, we shall use it to our own advantage this time. We have friends in well-connected places. Detective?”

Gonzalez smiles, shaking hands with Marcus. “Lord Marcus. Would you grant me the honor?”

Marcus smiles, nodding, and Gonzalez looks around. He clears his throat, nodding as he looks around. “I see around me . . . power. Strength. But until recently, until I met Marcus, I also saw a lot of wasted potential. It was why I worked on the side I did. No more.”

“What do you bring us?” one of the vampires asks, cowering when Marcus glares at him.

Gonzalez holds up a hand, seeming as if he takes no offense. “A fair question. Friday, this city will hold a ceremony to honor the members of the 54th Precinct. The so-called Para Justice Squad. I know where, when, and everything involved with the party. And to top it off, the humans are so foolish, so arrogant, that the party’s happening after sunset.”

The meaning sinks in quickly to the vampires, and they smile, their fangs baring as Marcus takes over. “In two nights, we shall infiltrate the humans’ ceremony, and when the mayor thinks he’s going to get some good TV time putting trinkets around the necks of supposedly good cops, the citizens of New Haven will instead see him get his own heart ripped out of his chest as we feast on the blood of the 54th.”

The crowd erupts into a hearty roar, their eyes blood-red. They’re hungry for blood, humans, and revenge. One vampire steps forward, taking a knee in front of Marcus. “Forgive me, but we all know Detective Gonzalez. He has killed plenty of our kind. And while I will not question your decision to trust him, after we kill every cop and the mayor, how will we deal with the sunlight? Who will rule during the day?”

“What do you think Joe is going to do?” Marcus asks, amused. “The police will need a new Chief, someone to guide the city and to steer whatever political sheep takes over as mayor. Joe has agreed to serve as my right hand to make sure that the new 54th Precinct works to our benefit, not to our peril.”

Joe speaks up. “There will be a new Justice Squad, made up of those who sympathize with vampires. Their hunted will be your enemies, and the shifters, but most of all, the humans who persecute you on nights like tonight.”

The vampires cheer again.

“But what of the faerie cop?” someone asks, dimming the mood. “If Illir’s report was correct, two Fae even attacked the warehouse.”

"She's an outlaw, with illusions of grandeur that she's some magical Fae." He sneers the word as if it tastes sour in his mouth. "Even if she does possess some minor powers and has the support of a few soldiers, we are mighty and numerous. And they are nothing before the power we wield. If you encounter them, tame them and bring them to me. Especially the woman. I have rather special plans for her." The smirk he unleashes leaves no question of the evil he intends for Eve.

Noah and Cole, who until this point had contented themselves with clinging to the rafters and watching silently, glance at each other. Before, protecting Eve was a simple matter, but now, her desire to take care of the vampires is even more important. They must squash the uprising.

Killing Marcus would be the easiest, but he’s surrounded by too many vampires for two unarmed Fae to handle right now. Nodding, Cole creeps along the wood beam to the window, shivering as Marcus calls out again.

“For now, my Coven, let us prepare for our conquest!”

Cole shivers as they gather their things. “We must tell the others and inform Eve about her partner.”

Noah nods. “Yes. And then we’ll crush this uprising and kill this vampire lord.”