After recovering from their shock, Nikolai and Murdoch drew away and conferred in harsh whispers, pointing at their sisters and father as they debated something.

They did not seem to be discussing Conrad, unconscious on the floor, or Sebastian himself. Had the younger brothers' fates already been decided?

Even in his delirium, Sebastian understood that somehow the two had been changed—changed into something his fevered mind could scarcely comprehend. Their teeth were different—their canines were longer, and the brothers seemed to bare them in fury and dread. Their eyes were fully black, yet they glowed in the shadowy hall.

As a boy, Sebastian had listened to his grandfather's tales of fanged devils that lived in the nearby marshes.

Vampiir.

They could disappear into thin air and reappear at will, traveling easily that way, and now, through the still-open doorway, Sebastian spied no sweat-slicked horses outside, tethered in haste.

They were baby snatchers and blood drinkers who fed on humans as if they were cattle. Or, worse, they turned humans into their kind.

Sebastian knew his brothers were now among those cursed demons—and he feared they sought to damn their entire family as well.

"Do not do this thing," Sebastian whispered.

Nikolai heard him from too far across the room and strode to him. Kneeling beside him, he asked, "You know what we are now?"

Sebastian nodded weakly, staring up in disbelief at Nikolai's black irises. Between gasping breaths, he said, "And I suspect that... I know what you contemplate."

"We will turn you and the family as we were turned."

"I will not have this for me," Sebastian said. "I do not want it."

"You must, brother," Nikolai murmured. Were his eerie eyes glinting? "Otherwise you die tonight."

"Good," Sebastian rasped. "Life has long been wearying. And now with the girls dying—"