Chapter One
In two days, the people of London would learn vampires were real.
Felicity Sorrow carefully ascended a rickety ladder and rubbed a cloth across the surface of an oval mirror. Spread beneath it was a table filled with five determined years of effort.
The Sloan House was not the ideal host for her exhibit, but it was the only museum that had not outright dismissed her.
The curator, Mr. Blackwood, was fascinated by the occult.
He’d accepted his post shortly after an Act of Parliament had transformed the former home of the eccentric architect Sir William Sloan into a museum.
She nudged the gold-edged frame of a painting beside the mirror into a better position so that the faint light from the hallway reflected better on the face of the man in the portrait.
The Earl of Kingsbury, Marcus Deville.
She clenched her teeth. If it hadn’t been for that blackguard, the artifacts in her exhibit would have been in a Glasgow museum, she wouldn’t have lost her brother, uncle, and best friend.
Almost six years had passed since that awful night, but she’d never forget the warmth of Vincent’s severed head clutched to her chest, the patter of blood raining from Uncle Ethan’s body, and the confused expression on Winifred’s face as she’d tumbled out a window.
Now Felicity had no one, and Great-Uncle Ezra, who had returned to take over the family, had forbidden her from joining the nightly patrols as punishment for failing to kill the earl when she’d had the chance.
Instead of scoring a resounding victory against one of the most powerful vampires in Britain, her actions had resulted in Lord Kingsbury being declared off-limits.
“It’s a remarkable likeness,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
A chill went down Felicity’s spine. It can’t be. She looked in the mirror at her own pale reflection. There was no one else in the room. Yet when she turned her head, the woman who had once been her best friend was standing in the open doorway to the hall with her arms crossed and her head tilted.
The cloth slipped out of Felicity’s limp hands.
Winifred Deville, now Countess of Kingsbury, was almost unrecognizable in an emerald silk evening gown with an off-the-shoulder neckline and elbow-length cream silk gloves.
Her usually uncontrollable brown curls were artfully arranged around her heart-shaped face, and her skin was much paler than Felicity remembered.
The sun-shaped scar between her collarbones was also strangely absent, but that could have been the work of a determined lady’s maid and a powder puff.
Tears welled in Felicity’s eyes, and she almost jumped off the ladder to embrace her friend, until she noticed Winifred’s irises. Instead of light brown, they were bright blue.
“No,” Felicity whispered. She returned her gaze to the mirror. The door was open, with no one standing between her and the window on the other side of the hallway. Winifred had no reflection. “Please, God, no…”
After everything Felicity had been through, now she had to deal with the fact that Winifred was a vampire. She grabbed the crossbow sitting on the table, hastily slotted it with a silver-tipped arrow, and leveled it at her cousin’s heart. “Don’t move.”
Winifred winced. “There’s no need for that, Fel. I would never hurt you. I wish only to talk.”
Felicity’s hands trembled, but she kept her finger firmly on the trigger, just as Uncle Ethan had trained her, before Winifred’s husband had skewered him on a tree of solidified blood.
Not Winifred, Felicity thought.
The physical form of her cousin was the same, but there was no longer a soul inside. What lived in Winifred’s body was an immortal beast, a creature without conscience that drank the blood of the innocent and possessed abilities no human could master.
Winifred was a monster, and Felicity hunted monsters.
“You can’t proceed with this exhibit,” Winifred said.
Felicity stepped closer, keeping the point of the arrow sticking out of her crossbow straight toward her former best friend’s heart. “Leave. Now. Before I’m forced to kill you.”
It was a bluff, of course. Felicity dared not fire. If she missed, the sound might attract museum watchmen, which would draw innocent civilians into a conflict they had no chance of surviving.
Winifred removed a white calling card from her pocket and held it out. “In case you change your mind.”
Felicity stared at the card but did not reach for it. Winifred could not think so little of her. The moment she relaxed her stance, she would lose her only advantage.
“You would reveal your haven?” Felicity asked. The daylight resting places of vampires were closely guarded secrets.
Winifred shook her head. “I wish I could trust you that much, Fel. No, this is only a waypoint for messages.” Then, as Felicity watched in growing horror, Winifred walked to the nearest table, gently lifted the centerpiece of Felicity’s exhibit, and tucked the card beneath it.
She didn’t know.
Winifred didn’t know what she’d touched.
The illuminated manuscript within Winifred’s reach held hundreds of years of her ancestors’ knowledge and the names and descriptions of known vampires and their victims dating back to the sixteenth century.
“Leave!” Felicity shouted.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Winifred said.
Felicity kept her gaze firmly on her cousin—her enemy. If Winifred moved any closer, Felicity would fire.
Winifred swallowed and took a step backward. “I… I’m sorry.” Then she spun around and fled.
Felicity dropped the crossbow. Her aching arms and shoulders protested the weight despite the exercises she did regularly. Daggers were her usual choice of weapon, but drawing the ones strapped to her thighs would have meant getting uncomfortably close to the thing that had once been her cousin.
She slammed her weapon onto the nearest table and tore Winifred’s calling card to pieces. She couldn’t think about her cousin. If she did, the agonized scream that was building in her throat would burst free, and once she started, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
Her hands moved of their own accord, adjusting the artifacts on the table.
Eventually, her family would discover she’d taken them from the Sorrow archive without permission, but if her plan worked, it wouldn’t matter.
The vampires depicted in the portraits would be chased out of hiding and her family would be too busy hunting them down to care about her disobedience.
She wouldn’t let Winifred or anyone else get in her way.
But the museum’s security wouldn’t be enough now that she’d attracted vampiric attention.
Her gaze returned to the illuminated manuscript.
The spells inside were forbidden. They had been ever since Great-Uncle Hector had accidentally blown up a hunter outpost while trying to cast a truth spell on a captured vampire.
There was a reason hunters weren’t allowed to use the trickle of magic that had passed through their bloodline from a distant Fae ancestor.
When it came to spellcasting, intention was more important than ability.
Hunters were so dedicated to the eradication of vampires that it was nearly impossible to achieve the mental clarity necessary to become a true witch.
The creak of the door closing, likely set into motion by a member of the night staff, had her turning and racing toward the exit until the heavy, black wool of her skirt caught in her legs. As she hit the floor, the room descended into darkness.
She curled onto her side and slapped her palms over her ears, but it did not stop her from being catapulted into a memory.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and peered through a gap in the doors of the cupboard in which Father had told her to hide. Wind whooshed through a shattered window in the hallway and fluttered the long coat of the black-veiled woman standing in front of Mother and Father.
The woman flipped her veil over her head, and Felicity hissed in a breath. The woman’s eyes glowed a bright, vibrant blue, and her straight, black hair was completely dry despite the storm.
Vampire.
The creature lifted a cane that was topped with the gold head of a dog with a chipped ear and pointed at the cupboard.
Father paled. “No.”
Mother dropped onto her knees. “Please! Anything but that!”
The black-veiled vampire twisted the head of her cane, releasing a serrated dagger. Mother scrambled to her feet with a cry. Father ran for the crossbow mounted on the wall.
They were too slow.
The vampire brought the hilt of its dagger down on Mother’s temple with an awful crunch that made the back of Felicity’s throat burn with bile. She should have done something—screamed or called for help—but her words refused to come.
The sound of church bells in the distance drew Felicity back to the present.
She tried to take a deep breath, but it was like the walls had closed around her chest. With great difficulty, she got her stiff, frozen legs moving until she could turn the handle of the door and fling it open.
Only then did the tension in her body drain away.
She stumbled forward and bumped into an unusually pale, black-haired man wearing a shabby overcoat. It was the same man she’d seen in Scotland, at Winifred’s… Her head filled with static. No, that wasn’t right. The man in front of her had seemed familiar, but he was definitely a stranger.
“Hello there,” he said with a sly grin. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his black trousers and swept his gaze down her body as if assessing her like an artifact on display.
She tugged at the fabric of her bodice and clasped her hands together at her waist. “I apologize, sir, but the museum is closed.”
He snorted. “You need even more help than I thought.”
A chill passed through her. His voice was deeper than she’d expected. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
He let out a loud, booming laugh that echoed down the hallway. “No. I doubt you’ve ever met anyone like me.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Why is that?
The man’s sly grin returned. “Because I’m a thief.”