I gave a little smile and a shrug. “Thanks.” I gave Eli a quick assessment, and he looked just as mouthwatering as he had before. “Not so bad yourself. Ready?”

Shaking his head, Eli moved toward the kitchen table and grabbed a box. He handed it to me. “For you.”

With brow raised, I gave him a skeptical look and took the box. “What is it?” I said as I opened it.

“Protection,” he answered.

I nodded. “This size box could hold a lot of condoms,” I said, grinning, and Eli chuckled. Once I got the flap opened, I peered inside and was surprised to see a flat black half helmet with a metallic purple tattooed butterfly painted on the side. I lifted it out and looked at Eli. “Cool. Thanks.” I grinned and gave an approving nod. “Biker chic.”

He shrugged indifferently. “No problem. I already took Chaz out. Let’s go.”

I stopped long enough to scrub the fur between Chaz’s ears, and we stepped outside into the fading daylight. “Where exactly am I going to fit on that bike?” I asked, knowing that Eli’s Silverback had a single scooped seat. I didn’t have a wide ass, but that was definitely a seat made just for one. Then I looked beneath the streetlight at his bike and noticed a single seat had been mounted on the back, and a set of foot pegs had been placed directly behind Eli’s.

“I had it done while we were getting pierced,” he said. “No room for you on the scoop.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said, and walked to the bike and inspected the seat. I gave it a tug.

Eli pulled on a solid black half helmet, I did the same, and once he’d started the bike I climbed on behind him. The rumble of the engine hummed through my entire body as I settled my heeled boots onto the foot pegs; I wrapped my arms around Eli’s waist, and he took off. As he pulled out of Factor’s Walk, he turned left. I leaned close to him. “You’re going the wrong way,” I said, knowing the Panic Room was off Martin Luther King Boulevard on Williamson.

“You said we had some time to kill, right?” Eli answered, and continued on his way. “There’s something I want to check out first.”

As we rode along President Street, then Highway 80 toward Tybee, I nearly forgot that I sat clutching a nineteenth-century vampire and we were looking for others. Eli’s muscles flinched beneath my hands, and I could feel the ripped abs under his T-shirt. He seemed like an average hot guy riding a chopper; I knew he was anything but, and I found myself wishing hard that things were different, and that Eli wasn’t a vampire, and that Seth wasn’t becoming one. It was useless wishing and an utter waste of time, and yet I found myself constantly doing it. Pissed me off, really.

Highway 80 had its usual backed-up traffic, so it was slow going toward the island. The air was thick with pending rain; it carried that indisputable scent, and it even permeated, or enhanced, the heavy brine of the marsh. It was low tide — I could tell without even seeing the water. The rotting sea life was always thicker at low tide. Cattails and oyster shoals sat visible in the river muck as we crept along.

After we crossed over the main bridge to Tybee, Eli turned into the first subdivision and down several streets before stopping at a stilted house at the end of a cul-desac. An old white caddy sat parked in the driveway. I climbed down, and Eli turned the engine off, threw his leg over the tank, sat, took off his shades, and looked at me.

“What?” I asked, and looked around. “What’re we doing here?”

“There’s something you need to know,” he said, and beneath the streetlight I saw his eyes studying me.

I had no idea what to expect. “Okay,” I said, and waited.

“Remember when you asked if any of Preacher’s people had changed, way back when?” he asked. “And I told you a mortal quickening couldn’t occur unless they drank the blood of a vampire?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, not liking at all where this was going. “So?”

“Well,” he said just as slowly. “That’s not completely true.”

I could do nothing more than stare and wait for the rest of the explanation.

“More than just the Gullah were used, at first. If a mortal is fed upon, and too much blood is taken, they die. Plain and simple. But if they’re bitten and live, they gain . . . tendencies.” He gauged my reaction. “Vampiric tendencies.”

I shifted my weight and cocked my head. “And they include . . . ?”

Eli shrugged. “It all depends on who did the biting, their genetic makeup. Excessive speed. Ability to jump high, maybe defy gravity for a while. Read thoughts. Crave raw meat.” He shrugged again. “They live longer, with a slow rate of aging. They also have the ability to rapidly heal.”

“Okay,” I said, not fully understanding. “And are there a lot of these people still around?”

“Yes.”

I nodded and considered that enlightening news. “All right. Weird, but okay. So why are we here?” I inclined my head to the stilt house.

“Ned Gillespie. Bitten in 1912, when he was fourteen years old.”

I stared in disbelief. “You bit a kid?”

Eli shook his head. “Josie did.” He looked at me. “But back then, yeah — I would have. We were just learning to be humane, Riley. We couldn’t help it.”

“So why are we here to see Ned Gillespie?” I asked, glancing at the two-story house perched above the marsh.

“He and Josie were . . . close, I guess, until they outgrew one another,” he answered. “Ned knows about the Arcoses — can sniff a vampire thirty miles away.” He climbed off the bike. “I thought maybe he’d heard something or . . . smelled something.” He nodded toward the house. “Come on.”

As we walked up the inclined drive, I glanced at Eli. “Is Ned going to freak me out?” I could only imagine what tendencies he might have.

“Yep,” Eli answered, and I took a deep breath and followed him to the door. Just as we walked under the porch light, the front door opened; there stood a young guy, mid-to late twenties, with crazy brown hair and frosted tips, a yellow and black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and destroyed jeans. His eyes crinkled in the corners as he grinned and bumped fists with Eli.

“Dude, what’s up? Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said to Eli, then looked at me. “Whoa. Who’s the babe?” He leaned closer to Eli. “Is she a bloodsucker? That’s sick, man.” Then his eyes landed on my dragons. “Damn — sweet tats.” He walked around me, looking. “Sweet.”

Eli shook his head and laughed. “No, Ned. She’s” — he looked at me — “a friend. A mortal friend.” He inclined his head. “Ned Gillespie, Riley Poe.”

Ned stuck out his hand to shake mine, and I allowed it, although I was in shock to see Ned as a young guy instead of a hundred-and-twelve-year-old. Weird. “Well, Riley Poe, this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, don’t ya think? Vamps, Tendies, and mortals, chillin’ together. Pretty awesome, huh?”

I shot a quick glance at Eli. “Yeah, sure.” I thought I’d fallen through a time warp and straight into one of Bill and Ted’s excellent adventures.

“Well, come on in to my humble abode,” he said. “Come in.”

Eli gave me a glance and a nod, and I went inside first. It was an open floor plan, with cathedral ceilings and a walkway at the top that encircled the entire room. No sooner did Ned close the door behind us than a cell phone rang, and he patted his pockets, then cursed.

“Be right back,” he said, and swear to God, had I not seen it with my own two eyes, I’d never have believed it — even knowing what I now know about vampires, I wouldn’t have believed it. In one leap Ned cleared the wooden railing of the walkway — an easy twenty feet if not more. He disappeared into a room, and in the next second he was leaping down again. He looked at me as he landed.

“Missed call,” he said, as if what he’d done was absolutely normal.

I could do nothing more than lift my brows in astonishment.

“Listen, Ned,” Eli said. “Have you sensed any other vampires lately?”