Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
With that, he nods to Abe and walks out, steps fading as he returns to the front door. We remain silent until we hear it close behind him, the implicit threat and promise of his visit lingering in the air.
“Well,” Abe says finally, “that was unexpected.”
Lena moves to the windows, watching as Konstantin’s sleek black car pulls away from the house. “Do you think he’s telling the truth? About wanting to take down Cohen?”
“Partially,” Abe replies thoughtfully. “With the Ivanovs gone, he needs new alliances. This is as much about securing his position as it is about justice.”
“But he’s right about Cohen,” I say, joining Lena at the window. “As long as he’s in power, he’s a threat—to the city, to us, to everyone who knows too much about what happened to Elizabeth Short. He’s all that’s wrong with this place.”
“So, we’re considering this?” Lena asks, turning to face me. There’s no judgment in her expression, just genuine inquiry. “Partnering with Konstantin? Going after Cohen?”
I reach for her hand, threading my fingers through hers. Three months ago, I might have rejected the idea outright, clinging to some abstract notion of legal justice. But I’ve changed. The world has changed. And sometimes justice requires methods beyond what human law can provide.
“I think,” I say carefully, “that if anyone deserves to face consequences for their part in the fall of Los Angeles, it’s Cohen.” I pause, considering my next words. “And I think we’re uniquely qualified to ensure those consequences find him.”
A slow smile spreads across Lena’s face—not her stage smile, practiced and perfect, but something wilder, more primal. The smile of a predator scenting prey. “Vampire justice,” she says, the words both question and statement.
“Something like that,” I agree, feeling an answering smile form on my own lips.
Abe watches us with pride in his bright eyes. “I’ll contact Ezra in San Francisco. Send word to Adonis and Valtu in Greece. If we’re doing this, we do it properly. Together.”
The future stretches before us, uncertain but full of possibility. A new home in Silver Lake. A new purpose in vampire society. A new target in Mickey Cohen. And through it all, the unshakable certainty that whatever comes next, we’ll face it as we’ve faced everything since that first night at The Emerald Room.
As one.
EPILOGUE
LENA
20 years later
Golden Gate Park vanishes into the fog, a patchwork dreamscape of visible and invisible. Pathways appear then disappear, the massive trees fading into ghostly silhouettes, their uppermost branches consumed by the rolling mist. It’s a perfect San Francisco summer day for vampires—fifty-five degrees and foggy in July.
“Higher, Mommy, higher!” Olivia demands, her chubby three-year-old legs pumping as I push her on the swing. Her laughter cuts through the fog, bright and clear as a bell.
I oblige, giving her another push that sends her soaring toward the mist-shrouded treetops. Her dark curls bounce with each arc of the swing, her tiny hands gripping the chains with determined strength. Even at three, there’s something of the predator in her movements, in her intense focus, in the way she watches the world around her with those knowing eyes.
“Not too high,” Victor cautions, though his smile belies any real concern. He stands nearby, hands in the pockets of his bell-bottom jeans, looking both perfectly of-the-moment and somehow timeless. His hair is longer now, curling just past his collar in the current fashion, though he’s eschewed the full hippie aesthetic embraced by so many of the young people flooding the Haight this summer.
“She’s fine,” I say, giving Olivia another push. “Vampire baby, remember?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Pre-vampire,” he corrects. “And still breakable.”
Twenty years together, and he still worries. Still protects. Some things never change, even as the world transforms around us.
And what transformations we’ve witnessed. The post-war prosperity giving way to Cold War paranoia, the buttoned-up fifties yielding to this new explosion of color and sound and freedom. San Francisco sits at the epicenter of it all—a crucible of change, of possibility, of the new world struggling to be born.
I look down at my own outfit—a flowing peasant blouse over a long, embroidered skirt, my newly bleached hair falling straight and parted in the middle, reaching nearly to my waist. Summer Breeze, they call me at the club where I’ve been singing this season. Another name, another persona, another way to hide in plain sight.
“Careful of your dress, sweetie,” I tell Olivia as she leaps from the swing at its highest point, landing with preternatural grace on the sand. Her floral sundress is already smudged with dirt and grass stains, evidence of a day spent exploring the park’s many wonders.
She grins up at me, fearless and wild. “I’m a butterfly, Mommy!”
“The prettiest butterfly in the whole park,” I agree, catching her as she launches herself into my arms. I breathe in her scent—sunshine and earth—and marvel again at the miracle of her existence. A vampire child, born against all odds, part of both of us yet entirely her own person.