Nobody moved. Conrad’s presence held them in place. It was like a game of chess in the final stages, and any move had the potential to open the king to the enemy queen’s attack. Scott broke the spell. He took hold of the chair nearest to him and pulled it out from the table. The others followed suit and took seats at the far end of the table, putting as much distance between them and Conrad as possible. Only when all four of them had sat did Conrad lower himself into his own chair. He moved slowly — too slowly, like an iguana. His scrutinizing gaze moved over the group, lingering on each of them for a few moments. His eyes were no longer red; they had turned blue but had lost none of their intensity. When his eyes fell on Ruby, she felt like they were burning through her, piercing through the confines of her mind. She fidgeted in her seat, wishing that he’d stop.

  “Close the door, Simon,” he said. The man who had shown them in pushed the door closed before retreating to the corner where he stood like a waiting spider. There was something off about Simon, but Ruby couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. The very sight of him was a sad thing.

  “Introductions are in order. As I already said, my name is Conrad Sinclair.” He gestured at Simon. “This is Simon, he is serving as my attendant whilst I am in this charming city. I know who the three of you are, I remember you so well from your video. James Hickey, Ethan Weller, and Ruby Myers.” He looked at each of them in turn as he spoke their name.

  “It’s Jay,” Jay said, his nervous voice holding a hint of defiance. Ruby turned to him in disbelief. Could he not sit in silence even when his life depended on it?

  Conrad turned back to him, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “I do apologize. I have been told I have a habit of being overly formal. It goes with the territory.” He turned to Scott and the crooked smile that had been on his face slipped away. “You look remarkably different now you’ve had your fill of blood. Who are you, and how did you come to represent these humans?”

  Scott forced himself to meet Conrad’s eyeline when he responded. “My name is Scott Jackson, sir. I sought out these humans after I learned about the video they had uploaded to the internet. I recommended that we come to you together to resolve the matter.”

  Conrad’s eyebrows, thin and elegant, rose high up his pale forehead in surprise. “How very intriguing. I must say I wasn’t expecting to run into you here in Mistwood, let alone for you to be the fourth attendee tonight. However, I am pleasantly surprised as it has saved me a great deal of work. Locating you would have been a more difficult task. Why don’t we start by hearing how you came to be chained and starved in that old house?”

  “Hang on,” Jay said suddenly, planting his hand palm-down on the table. “We came here for Tyler. Where is he?”

  Conrad’s head turned slowly; flat and emotionless eyes pinned Jay in place. Hints of red crept back into his eyes; they were sapphires flecked with red glitter. He didn’t utter a single word. The intensity of his gaze conveyed all the warning Jay needed. Jay stared back but not in defiance. He gulped loudly and slid his hand into his lap, leaning back from the table. His tongue flicked out and licked his dry lips. “I just…” Conrad arched an eyebrow, and Jay’s words died on his tongue.

  The ensuing silence stretched on. Conrad didn’t move, and he didn’t look away. His eyes remained fixed on Jay, who sat squirming in his chair. Ruby reached out for Jay’s hand to give him some reassurance, but the moment her fingers touched his, he snatched his hand away. Ruby pulled her hand back into her lap, scowling at the rejection.

  “Of course!” Conrad said suddenly, breaking the tension in the blink of an eye. “Where are my manners? Simon?” He turned to his assistant expectantly.

  “Sir.” Simon nodded and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “While we wait, Mr Jackson if you would be so good?” He gave him a small nod, a silent command to pick up where they’d left off.

  Now that the attention was off him, Jay reached into Ruby’s lap for her hand. She tensed, sorely tempted to withhold her affection and leave him in the cold as he’d done to her. But now was not the time to be petty. She uncurled her fingers and allowed his hand to slither into hers. As their fingers locked, she realized she needed it as much as he did.

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  “I’m not actually sure how I ended up in that house,” Scott said.

  “Well, that’s rather disappointing,” Conrad said, slumping in his chair. He waited silently for Scott to elaborate.

  “I was attacked a few years back—2019—and I woke up in that house years later.”

  “Are you being deliberately vague, or do you truly not remember any more details than that singular sentence you just uttered?” asked Conrad. His voice was like ice.

  Ruby would have thought that vampires couldn’t blush if she hadn’t seen Scott’s cheeks turn pink. “My apologies, sir. I didn’t mean to be so vague. I’m just nervous, is all,” Scott said, the words falling from his mouth in a jittery tumble. “The last thing I remember was being here in Pennsylvania with my lover and sire.”

  “Your night mother?”

  “Yes, we never used such terms because calling my lover my mother was just a tad too taboo, if you see what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Conrad. “What was her name?”

  “Anna Moore. I met her in Wisconsin back in 1946. I’d not long gotten back from Europe. She never told me much about herself. She didn’t like to talk about her past. All she told me was that she was born on the East Coast and her parents were good to her. She never told me who gave her the Midnight Kiss.”

  “You met a mysterious vampire and fell in love. How quaint.”

  “No, actually, I wanted nothing to do with her in the beginning, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She force-fed me her blood and, well, you know how it goes from there. Anyway, we lived as mistress and thrall for three years. After those first three years, Anna decided she wanted to keep me forever. Those were her exact words — I want to keep you forever, Scott.”

  “She gave you the Midnight Kiss?” said Conrad. Ruby assumed the Midnight Kiss was the name for turning somebody into a vampire. It sounded so intimate, a kiss was something that was supposed to be loving and warm, yet in this context, it sounded creepy as hell.

  Scott nodded. “She made me a vampire so I could be with her forever. Of course, her enthrallment, all the charms of her blood — it all wore off when I became a vampire. But it didn’t matter because somehow, over the years we’d spent together, I had grown to love her. I have no idea how. I should have despised her for stealing my life from me, but I did not. Love is life’s great mystery.”

  “Stockholm Syndrome,” Ruby said. She hadn’t meant to speak, but the words tumbled out of her mouth automatically. When both vampires turned her way, she tensed, preparing for a telling-off or one of those death glares that Conrad had given Jay. She got neither. Conrad gave her a brief assessing look before turning back to Scott.

  “Perhaps young Miss Myers is correct in her assessment. Perhaps you developed such feelings as a means of coping in an inescapable situation,” Conrad said. Ruby hated the way he called her Miss Myers, it made her sound like somebody from the distant past.

  Scott grimaced at the thought. “Well, anyway, in 2019, we were living here in Pennsylvania. Not this town, though. We were in Philadelphia. Anna always liked the bigger cities; they were easy to go unnoticed. One night, we were attacked by a group of vampires. There were so many of them, it was a small army. I thought it was your vampires—The Nytarch. Although, I had no idea what we’d done to upset you. I was seized and sliced open. Drained of my blood. The same happened to Anna right next to me.” Scott paused, lost in his memories. Conrad waited patiently for him to continue.

  “When I woke up, I was in the old house on the hill. Alone. Completely alone. I was starving. I staved off torpor by feeding on rats. They gave me just enough blood to remain awake, but I could barely move. It took so long just to be able to drag myself across the room; it could have been months or years, in my state it was impossible to tell. I was barely able to cobble a full thought together. All I could think about was blood. And then they came in.” He nodded in the direction of Ruby and her friends. “All I could hear was the pulsing beat of their hearts pumping blood around their bodies. The drums grew louder the closer they got, and by the time one of them was standing right by me, his heartbeat was deafening. I lost all control of myself, hypnotized completely by that sound.” Scott looked down at the table in shame. “You saw the rest on the video.”

  Hearing Scott tell his story made his actions more forgivable. Ruby had been introduced to cocaine by an old friend from high school. Ruby watched the struggles she’d gone through as she’d fought to get clean. Ruby had seen her one evening, down on her knees, her makeup smudged all over her face from tears, snot running freely from her nose, as she begged her cousin for just one tiny bump. That scene had been what had motivated Ruby to quit the powder, she didn’t want to end up in that state. Ruby imagined that was what it had been like for Scott as he’d starved in that house. Of course, it was easier for Ruby to forgive him, she wasn’t the one who’d ended up in the hospital. Ethan clearly felt differently as he was staring at Scott in disgust.

  After a moment of silent contemplation, Conrad spoke again. “You don’t remember anything about what your attackers looked like?”

  Scott shook his head. “It all happened so fast. There were a lot. That’s all I remember.”

  “And how did you escape the silver chains you’d been confined in?”

  “Over time I became so emaciated that I slipped right out of them.”

  Conrad let out a low hum as he looked down at the table, contemplating all that he’d learned.

  “Well then, on to the YouTube stars,” Conrad said suddenly, turning back to the others.