“Lucas is dead,” Balthazar said, “but he was killed by a vampire’s bite. And Bianca had bitten him in the past, so he was already exposed. Prepared.”

Vic looked from Balthazar to me in bewilderment. “What are you saying?”

I whispered, “Lucas will rise from the dead as a vampire.”

Was it possible that Lucas would be able to endure it? He’d hated the idea, always. But I kept remembering what Balthazar had said when Black Cross held him captive: For our kind, death is only the beginning.

This could be our greatest nightmare. But maybe, instead, this would be our only hope of salvation.

Nobody could speak after that. I held Lucas’s head in my hands and stroked his hair. All we could do now was wait for dawn.