June 19, 2016

There appeared to be nothing sinister about Volterra, Italy.

The architecture was beautiful, the weather was perfectly pleasant, and the food was fantastic. Small groups of tourists milled about in the sunshine in the Piazza dei Priori, snapping pictures or chattering in different languages, but the place was not too crowded, even in the summer. Beautiful though it was, Volterra was just one beautiful place in a country filled with beautiful places, and not as easy to get to as some others. The closest airports were Pisa and Florence, and to get there from either of those cities you would need to take a train and then a bus or taxi unless you wanted to rent a car.

Diana had opted for the taxi. She had been in the city for three days now, and she was beginning to wonder what she was doing.

The call from her sister had come on the first Friday of June. She'd texted first, of course. At 11:12 am, Can I call you? And then, less than a minute later, I know you're at work but I don't know when I'll be able to call you again.

Diana hadn't liked the sound of that at all. She'd called her sister immediately.

"What's going on?"

Mac sighed. In the background Diana could hear the muted sound of a crowd. "Promise you won't freak out."

Never a good way to start. Diana clenched her jaw. "What has she done now."

Mac didn't deserve the harsh tone. It wasn't her Diana was worried about. Their mother, on the other hand, Diana worried about very much.

"We're going on vacation?" Mac said uncertainly. Diana could practically see her wincing, biting her lip and waiting for the reaction.

"Where?" Diana demanded, alarmed. "With what money?"

Their mother's reckless, impulsive behavior had prompted Diana to put a credit freeze on Mac's name when her sister was only ten. She didn't think her mother had the financial savvy to get around that, but if she was taking Mac on a spur of the moment vacation—

"Greece. At least to start, I think it's like a bus tour or something. She says she won a contest, or something, it's free."

"Either she's lying or it's a scam."

A weary sigh on the other end of the line. "Yeah, that's what she said you'd say. She didn't even tell me we were going anywhere until this morning because she didn't want you to 'be all high and mighty, like you know better than her'."

"I do know better than her," Diana said sharply. Then, with mounting dread, "Greece? Mac, you don't even have a passport."

"Mom said we don't have to worry about that."

"I'm very worried about that." A free international trip, no passport required? There was looking a gift horse in the mouth, and then there was too good to be true. "Are you at the airport right now?"

"Yeah."

"Don't get on the plane. I'll buy you a ticket to New York, you can stay with me—"

"Di, I can't just leave Mom—" Mac's voice grew distant, and Diana could hear the high, falsely-friendly tone of her mother in the background, though she couldn't make out the words. "Yeah, it is. She says—"

Her mother's voice, slightly muffled but incredibly smug: "You can talk to her later, Mackenzie. We're boarding!"

"Put Mom on the phone," Diana said desperately, panicked now. "Let me talk to her."

"Di wants to—"

"Rain on our parade, I'm sure. Well, not today. You can tell your sister I told her so when you send her photos from the pantheon."

"Parthenon," Diana snapped automatically. But that wasn't the point. "Mac, don't do this. Please. You don't have to go with her. This doesn't just sound fishy, it sounds dangerous."

"Sorry, Di." Mac sounded genuinely regretful. "I can't just bail on her."

"Yes, you can!"

"I'll message you when we get to Greece."

She didn't.

That phone call was the last time she'd heard from her sister. Diana had never received the promised message, and Mac never responded to any of her increasingly frantic attempts to reach her. Her mother, too, was completely unreachable.

Diana already feared the worst by the time three days had gone by with no word. She feared what sort of people would be daring enough to trick someone like her mother into bringing a thirteen year old girl outside the United States without a passport. She was already worrying about human trafficking and black market organ sales when she called the police.

Of course, contacting the police was nothing but a waste of time. Mac and her mother hadn't been gone long enough for the police to be concerned, especially when their supposed vacation was such a ready explanation for their absence. The most they would do without any indication of a crime being committed was a welfare check—a quick knock on the door to confirm that nobody was home. After that, the police had dismissed her concerns, telling her to inform them if anything changed or she still hadn't heard from them in a few weeks.

Mac didn't have weeks.

Diana called out sick from work and flew to Virginia, speeding to her mother's house and listening tensely as the private investigator one of her colleagues had referred her to tried to walk her through her options over speakerphone.

"You're sure she didn't have a passport?" he confirmed, not for the first time.

"Yes, I'm sure."

A tired sigh. "That's not good, Diana."

"I'm well aware of that. I need you to tell me how not good it is."

There was a shuffling noise on the other end of the line. "There are two likely options. The first is that you'll get a message in the next week demanding a ransom for the return of your sister. That's the best case scenario."

Diana made a sharp right turn and grit her teeth, cursing her mother for the fact that she was being put in a position where she had to hope someone was holding her baby sister for ransom. "And the other option?"

"You already know the other option."

Diana pushed away the worry that threatened to make her nauseous. She couldn't allow her concern to debilitate her. She had to hold onto the anger, because the anger was what kept her going and pushing and fighting.

"I'm almost to the house. I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Good luck." There was a pause, like he was going to say something else but thought better of it. He hung up.

Letting herself into the house, Diana could believe that her mother had dragged Mac on some spur of the moment trip. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and the opened closet doors and smattering of shoes tossed about the floor suggested a rushed attempt at packing. Their suitcases were missing.

She didn't waste any more time looking at the state of the house. Instead she proceeded directly to the far end of the living room, where her mother's old desktop computer sat on a desk cluttered with a chaotic assortment of bills and junk mail. When a quick jiggle of the mouse prompted her for a password to log in, Diana rolled her eyes and typed in the password. Muttering to herself how amazing it was that her mother hadn't had her identity stolen ten times over by now, Diana navigated the cluttered desktop and opened her mother's email account. The password for this was a little more complicated, but Diana didn't have to guess it. A quick reshuffle of the papers on the desk revealed a worn sticky note at the bottom of the monitor which read Mac2004!

What she found in her mother's email was not reassuring. Among all the spam, daily horoscope emails, and chain letters, she found the email about the supposed contest. Her mother and one guest were lucky winners of an all-expenses paid European tour, starting in Athens and ending in Paris.

The address which had sent the email was deactivated. The links within the email were all broken, leading to blank webpages. There was no phone number, no address, no way to contact anyone who ran this supposed 'contest' at all. A Google search of the company's name revealed no website at all. There were a couple of forum posts saying that they'd received an email from the company offering a free vacation and wondering if it was a scam, to which the responses were a resounding yes, but she couldn't find anything else.

Her mother had been frustratingly smart about her stupidity, this time. She knew enough about scams to know that Diana would never allow her to drag Mac along on something so clearly shady. But she was still stupid and stubborn enough to think she deserved something for nothing, and took the bait.

If Mac wasn't involved, Diana wouldn't have cared. Hell, her mother disappearing to Europe and having her kidneys sold on the black market would be doing Diana a favor, because then she could finally get custody of her sister and get her away from the delusional narcissist who'd birthed them both.

But she had dragged Mac into it. Which was what brought Diana to Volterra.

Mac might not have responded to her messages, but the last known location of her phone, according to the Find My iPhone service, was here. Volterra, Italy. A location which was very much not on the bogus itinerary in her mother's email.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting to find here. In her most optimistic daydreams she stumbled on Mac sitting on a sunny cafe patio innocently eating gelato, wondering what her Diana was doing following her all the way to Europe.

The private investigator had strongly advised her not to go. He'd warned her that it was dangerous, and that she should wait for the authorities. Diana had asked him bluntly just what he thought the authorities would do, and whether her sister would still be alive if they found her.

He hadn't had an answer to that. In the end he just told her to be careful, and to stay in touch.

And she was still in touch, daily, with him and a handful of other people. She'd carefully documented everything she found so far, and all of that information was set to be sent automatically to friends, colleagues, a few reporters, and the U.S. State Department should she fail to log into her email for more than 24 hours. Going around Italy asking if anyone had seen her sister might get her in trouble, but the authorities would not be able to ignore Diana's disappearance if she, too, vanished. She wouldn't let them.

But no one in Volterra had seen Mac, or her mother. The taxi drivers, the bus drivers, the hotel managers, the cafe employees—everyone she talked to regretfully shook their heads and told her that they couldn't recall seeing the girl in the photo. And they would have remembered seeing her if they had, more than one person had assured her. It would be hard to miss the girl's long, bright strawberry blonde hair, the same shade as Diana's own.

The last hotel manager she'd spoken to, a very old Italian man with a shock of fluffy white hair and watery, mournful eyes, had looked at the picture on Diana's phone for a very long time, his lips pressed together. Finally he murmured something in Italian, sounding weary.

The younger desk clerk, a tall man with a narrow face and dark hair, hesitated for a long moment before translating. "He says that you should go home. That you will not find your sister here."

"I'm not going home without her," Diana had insisted.

The old man had merely shaken his head, and repeated, "Andare a casa." Then he'd wandered off, leaving Diana staring after him with her jaw clenched.

The desk clerk had hesitated again. "You intend to keep asking questions?"

"Until I find my sister," Diana had confirmed stubbornly. And so the clerk had told her haltingly about the buses which came every other Sunday, delivering tourists to the Piazza dei Priori at midday and leaving only a few hours later. Perhaps, he'd said, her sister had been on one of those.

So now Diana sat at a cafe on the edge of the Piazza, waiting for a bus to arrive.


The bus did arrive. Diana watched as a motley group of tourists disembarked, nattering on in various languages and trailing away inside the Palazzo dei Priori. Diana left the cafe and approached the bus driver as he stepped out of the bus to light himself a cigarette.

"Scusi." Diana watched the bus driver look up warily, then relax slightly at the sight of her. His eyes dipped low, the automatic male-gaze once-over that Diana had long become accustomed to.

"Si, signora?"

"Have you seen this girl?" Diana held out her phone, presenting the picture of Mac she'd been showing around. It was recent, taken a few months ago when she'd brought her sister to New York for her spring break. Mac was smiling crookedly, her braces glinting in the sun, Times Square lit up behind her. "Hai visto mia sorella?"

The man's eyes widened. He glanced at the Palazzo behind her and then shook his head. "No. No, non l'ho vista. I have not seen her."

But he had. It was obvious by his reaction, and Diana stepped forward desperately.

"Prego—" She didn't know how to say her next words in Italian, so she hoped he knew enough English to understand her. "Please. I'm not with the police, or anything. I'm just trying to find my sister."

The man was still shaking his head adamantly, muttering denials under his breath. Heart racing, Diana ripped her wallet from her handbag and pulled out all the Euros she had on hand, several hundred in notes. The man stopped shaking his head and looked between Diana and the money, clearly torn.

"Please. Tell me."

The man closed his eyes, frowning. Then he dropped his cigarette, crushing it under his heel. Diana sucked in a relieved breath as he opened his eyes and took the money, hope building even though he wouldn't look her in the eye anymore. He tucked the money into his shirt pocket and gestured for her to follow him.

He led her into the Palazzo. Instead of proceeding through the building he walked down a side corridor and opened a fire door into a set of stairs which descended below. Diana's sense of foreboding grew with every step downward, and with every minute spent winding through long, dim hallways. She was remembering now what sorts of nightmares she'd had about what might be happening to Mac, and the stern warnings from the private investigator about just what could happen to her if she messed with the wrong people.

Too late to worry about that now. Still, as the bus driver ushered her into an elevator, Diana decided it couldn't hurt to mention that, "People will know if I go missing." She said it neutrally, without accusation. Just a simple fact. She looked to see the man's reaction as she said slowly, "The government. Reporters. You understand?"

The man nodded slowly, looking troubled. Diana couldn't say for sure, but she thought he looked a shade paler under the lights of the elevator.

The elevator came to a halt. The man led her out into a lavish reception area scattered with pale leather couches, at the end of which sat a rich wooden desk with a pretty dark haired secretary behind it. She looked surprised to see the two of them, then briefly dismayed, glancing at a set of doors behind her. Gathering herself, she put on a strained smile and offered the bus driver a rapid greeting that Diana couldn't catch. The man shot Diana a sharp glance and then began speaking to the woman in low, rushed Italian. After a long minute of this the secretary stepped away from him and addressed Diana directly.

"Angelo tells me you are looking for your sister, yes?"

"Yes." Diana pulled out her phone again to show her the photo. "Mackenzie Byrne. Mac. Have you seen her?"

The woman nodded slowly, and Diana's heart leapt. "Yes, I remember. The girl with the beautiful hair." Looking away from the photo she said, "If you follow me, I will take you to the tour guide. She will have seen your sister last."

"Thank you," Diana breathed, relieved. The bus driver was already beating a hasty retreat back to the elevator, but she paid him no mind as the secretary waved her past the large reception desk. She tapped a bell on the desk as she passed, its merry chime ringing in the room, and when she opened the door for Diana another woman stood waiting on the other side.

When Diana thought that this woman was one of the most stunning people she'd ever seen, it was no small compliment. She lived in New York, where beautiful people came to try to make it big. This woman, though, was something else—almost uncannily pretty, with long legs, rich brown hair, and eyes that Diana would have sworn were more violet than blue.

"Heidi," the secretary greeted respectfully. "Our visitor is trying to find her sister. I believe she was on the tour the week before last. Would you be so kind as to introduce her to the tour guide?"

Heidi's eyebrows rose, a flash of surprise that quickly smoothed away with a charming smile. "Certainly. This way, please. They're just down the hall."

They were being very calm and polite about everything, Diana mused as she followed Heidi down the hall. She wasn't sure if that was a good sign, or a bad one. Despite her better judgment, looking at Heidi's pleasant face had made her begin to wonder if this all wasn't some big misunderstanding. Maybe the tour wasn't a scam after all—maybe Mac had just misplaced her phone and it was currently sitting in the lost and found in the secretary's desk.

Heidi bypassed a set of ornate golden doors and halted in front of a plain wooden one. She opened it with another dazzling smile, inclining her head invitingly to encourage Diana to go first. Diana obeyed unthinkingly. Beyond the door was a small, plain stone antechamber, and beyond that—

Bodies.

Dozens of them, heaped in a pile on the floor, their sightless eyes wide with horror.

A scream tore its way from Diana's chest even before the image had fully processed, and she instinctively backpedaled—straight into Heidi. The woman might as well have been a marble statue come to life, the hands that seized her arms were so cold and hard. They were also, despite Diana's best efforts, utterly unyielding.

A low, delighted laugh echoed off the high ceiling. "Heidi brought dessert."

Still straining against Heidi's arms, Diana looked toward the man who'd spoken. He was a giant, taller than anyone she'd ever seen before, with pale, pale skin that contrasted sharply with his eyes—his red eyes. They were the precise color of fresh blood, and watching her hungrily.

As were the others. There were dozens of people gathered around the room, unbothered by the pile of corpses, all pale and perfect, all watching her.

"Dear Heidi," said another voice, softly. The room went quiet, all attention focusing on the speaker immediately. His cloak was pitch black, as was his hair. The sun, where it shone down from high windows, refracted off his skin as if he was made of living crystal. Hazy red eyes flicked from Heidi to Diana. "This is most unusual."

There was an unspoken question in his tone. In response Heidi strode forward, effortlessly pushing Diana along with her. She noticed absently, through the haze of her panic, that the black-cloaked man was not the only one glittering. The unnaturally beautiful statue-people sparkled like diamonds wherever the sun shone on their bare skin.

Heidi brought Diana to a halt in front of the man in the black cloak. Keeping her vice grip with Diana's right hand, she extended her left out to him, as if offering it for a kiss. The cloaked man glided forward, taking Heidi's hand eagerly in both of his own. For the briefest moment he went utterly still, and then in the next he was stepping back, a small, indulgent smile on his face.

"Ah," he breathed, looking to Diana again, his gaze curious now. "How interesting. This is unprecedented. Though, I admit, I have been expecting something like this to happen for some time now."

"Something like what?" Another man in a black cloak stepped forward, his hair white, his expression sour.

"This young lady," said the dark-haired one delicately, "has come here looking for her sister. Who, I understand, was here the week before last." His eyes flicked briefly to the pile of bodies in the center of the floor.

There was a beat of silence as the white-haired man and the other red-eyed statues around the room took that in, broken only by Diana's panicked breathing, loud in the stone chamber. Then the white-haired man snapped something irritably at Heidi, but Diana was no longer listening. Her mind kept replaying the quick glance toward the pile of corpses, kept repeating was here the week before last.

"No," Diana rasped, squeezing her eyes shut.

This was a nightmare. A horribly vivid nightmare, brought on by lack of sleep and worry. Any minute now she'd wake up in her little hotel room in Volterra and go right back to searching until she found Mac. And she would find her, and find her alive, because Mac had only been thirteen years old and she hadn't even had a passport and there was no way, no way she'd been slaughtered like an animal in a dusty stone room in Italy.

"No, no, no…"

"How did this happen, then?" The harsh voice of the white-haired man spoke over her.

"Let's find out, shall we?"

A waft of cold air stirred Diana's hair. She flinched backward, eyes shooting open, but Heidi's steel grip kept her in place. The dark-haired one was leaning down towards her, a slightly patronizing smile playing on his lips as one pale hand reached out toward her. Diana tried to jerk her head back, out of reach, but there was nowhere to go.

Cold fingers cradled her cheek. Diana shivered and watched as the man's eyes went distant for long seconds. Then, abruptly, he released her, straightening and backing away, looking down at his own hand as if curious.

"Diana, Diana…" He sounded fondly exasperated. Diana's breath caught, wondering what the hell had just happened and how this red-eyed monster knew her name. He was watching her with some amusement now. "You are morbidly determined, aren't you?"

"Aro," snapped the white-haired one.

"Of course, Caius," Aro said agreeably. "It appears Heidi's fishing net inadvertently caught someone who would be missed very much. Diana here was able to track her sister's mobile phone to the city, where she went around asking questions until one of the locals pointed her in our direction."

Caius hissed in quiet outrage. Aro tilted his head thoughtfully at Diana, dark hair cascading with the movement.

"Now… what to do with you? That is our question."

"Question?" Caius repeated sharply. "There is no question. Kill her and be done with it."

Diana closed her eyes in acceptance. She was beyond fear now. What did it matter what happened to her, anyway? Mac was dead. She'd been dead for weeks already. Diana had failed her—her baby sister, who she'd practically raised herself. Gone. In that moment, Diana would have preferred to become just another dead body on the pile than to live with the guilt and the grief.

"It is not so simple as that," Aro said lightly. "You see, clever Diana did have some idea that she was walking into a dangerous situation. She took precautions." A pause, then, "I'm afraid that killing her now would risk exposing us all."

Diana opened her eyes in time to catch the dark look on Caius's face as he insisted, "You've read her mind. Surely we can deal with whatever plans she's concocted."

As Diana reeled, taking in this impossible information, Aro shook his head slowly. "Not without her participation."

So, the red-eyed monster could read her mind. That explained how he knew her name. He had also, apparently, learned about the pre-scheduled emails she'd rigged to alert her colleagues and the State Department if she didn't log back into her computer. Accessing her account to delete the emails would require two-factor authentication, and while he might now know her passwords, they would be useless without her phone, which required her fingerprint to unlock. Hence, needing her participation.

Diana smiled bitterly. "You might as well kill me now," she said, her voice scratchy but certain. "I'm not participating in shit with you."

Caius scoffed. "We have ways of obtaining your cooperation."

Diana barked a humorless laugh. "If you're going to torture me you'll have to be quick about it. The emails go out in less than four hours. You killed my baby sister—I can suffer that long before I die if it'll fuck you over."

"She would." An unfamiliar voice this time, quiet and deep. Caius's head snapped to look as another black-cloaked, dark-haired man stepped forward. This one looked almost bored, eyes skittering disinterestedly over Diana as he offered Aro his hand. Aro took it for less than a second, then nodded thoughtfully.

"Thank you, Marcus. I had suspected as much, but I had not quite grasped the strength of it." To Caius he said, "No, brother, I'm afraid your preferred method of persuasion would be fruitless."

Caius scowled. "What, then?"

Aro smiled, clasping his hands together. "Dear Diana is a woman of the law," he said brightly. "I will argue our case."


"Sit, please," Aro invited. "Make yourself comfortable."

Diana was too exhausted by recent events to be contrary on principle. She sank into a rich leather armchair, one of three such chairs in the equally richly appointed study Aro had led her to after ordering Heidi to release her. He made no effort to touch her again himself, and had merely informed her casually as they walked that it would be most unwise to attempt to run.

Diana hadn't even been considering it. A large part of her was already resigned to death. She didn't see the point in fighting for her life—not when surviving meant going on without Mac.

So instead she relaxed into the comfortable armchair, and when a moment later the secretary knocked on the door and delivered a bottle of red wine, she did not hesitate to take the glass that Aro poured her. If it was poisoned, all the better.

"I will ask that you don't drink too quickly." Diana watched as Aro glided past her to one of the other armchairs, his movements so fluid he seemed to float more than walk. "I intend to appeal to your better judgment."

Diana swirled the wine, breathing in the bouquet as she considered that. Confessed softly, "I'm no longer convinced I have any." She sipped, then closed her eyes in pleasure, humming a little as she savored the warmth on her tongue.

"You give yourself too little credit," Aro sighed regretfully. "It is a shame that we could not have met under better circumstances. Truly, it's an unfortunate situation all around. You must understand, Diana, that we do not wish to prey upon people like your beloved sister."

Diana's eyebrows shot up at his word choice. Aro smiled knowingly. "Of course. The reality of what we are has not yet occurred to you. You think of us as monsters, yes, but can you not name what we are?"

"You have less than four hours to appeal to my better judgment and you want to use that time to make me play guessing games?" Diana said dryly. Aro's smile widened. It would be a charming expression were it not for the red eyes and the unnatural perfection of his teeth.

"I assure you it's quite critical to my case. And you will be less likely to disbelieve it if you arrive at the conclusion yourself." He paused, considering. "You have all the information you need, but you have been understandably distracted, so I will restate the evidence.

"We must kill humans to eat, but we do not consume their bodies. As Heidi demonstrated, we are unnaturally fast, strong, and cold to the touch. And then there is myself and my dear brother Caius, both of us bearing names that have been out of fashion in this part of the world for well over a thousand years." Aro leaned forward, his voice low, like he was divulging a secret. "What sort of monster would you call that?"

When he laid it out like that, all signs pointed to vampire. Which would have been ridiculous, had she not witnessed the lifeless bodies of the tour group which had preceded her into that grisly chamber. She had assumed the paleness of the bodies was a result of their death, but in retrospect they couldn't possibly have been dead long enough for their skin to have gone so pale. Being drained of blood, though—that would certainly explain it.

Still, she struggled with the idea. A vampire cult she could have understood—humans drinking blood in some dark occult ritual wasn't that far fetched compared to some other cult beliefs. Maybe they'd even deluded themselves into believing that they were vampires. That, too, she could have believed.

But then, as he'd said, there was the bizarre strength, the unnaturally cool touch of his and Heidi's skin. Their eyes might be explained away by contact lenses, but living humans didn't get that cold unless they'd just stepped out of a freezer. Still.

"The sun didn't seem to bother you at all." Diana sipped her wine again and added, "And I've never read Dracula but I'm pretty sure vampires don't read minds."

Aro let out a small, delighted laugh. "Most cannot. I am one of only two, to my knowledge. But as for your Dracula—yes. Human myths and movies get more wrong than they do right, quite by design." He sobered a little, his tone becoming more serious. "Secrecy is our greatest strength, but misinformation, too, has its place. We need no invitation to creep into your home. We have no fear of sunlight or garlic or religious symbolatry. Holy water cannot repel us. Stakes and bullets cannot harm us. And we have no need for coffins or grave soil, because we do not sleep."

He seemed very confident, but it was still difficult for Diana to believe. Maybe she would have an easier time believing that the coldly attractive man sitting across from her was a vampire who'd lived for over a thousand years if she'd actually walked in on them in the act feasting on the blood of the tourists—but she wasn't about to ask for a demonstration. Not like that, anyway.

Diana frowned thoughtfully. "Do you have a heartbeat?"

Aro did not blink. Now that she thought of it, she wasn't sure he had ever blinked. "No."

That was easy enough to test. And it wasn't like she had anything to lose by asking. She gestured towards his chest. "May I?..."

Aro, looking deeply amused, said, "You may."

As Diana set down her wine and reached slowly towards him, he obligingly leaned forward and caught her outstretched hand in his own cold fingers. He guided her hand to the center-left of his chest, where any normal human's heart would be, and pressed it there.

Nothing.

No steady pulse under her fingers to indicate a beating heart. No gentle rise and fall of the chest with each breath. Not trusting the sensitivity of her fingers, Diana pulled her hand away—and Aro, reading her intentions, tilted his neck and allowed her to press her fingers along his carotid artery, eyes glimmering with amusement.

Perfect stillness.

Diana sat back into her chair, feeling shaken.

"Satisfied?" Aro asked airily.

Diana jerked a nod. She picked up the wine glass again with both hands, not trusting her grip with the trembling in her fingers. After a long gulp under Aro's still-unblinking gaze, she said blankly, "Vampires are real."

"Yes."

"And you eat people." She clenched her jaw as anger overpowered her shock. "You ate my sister."

"Well, not me personally," Aro hedged. Seeing that Diana's glare did not falter, he sighed. "But yes, well. As I said… regrettable."

"Regrettable." She repeated the word flatly, hoping to convey just how unimpressed she was.

"It is not in our interest to take people who will be missed," Aro explained in a perfectly reasonable tone, as if he were not talking about systematic murder. "People whose loved ones might come looking and, like you, threaten to expose us."

"I can't possibly be the only person who's come looking."

"No, of course not," Aro agreed. "Nor are you even the most intelligent, considering your reckless disregard for your own safety. But you are, I believe, the most cunning and doggedly determined truth-seeker of the last century, and those qualities combined with modern technology have put us in a rather delicate position."

Aro rose. Diana could not help but stiffen, even as the vampire smiled benignly and drifted toward the wine bottle.

"As to your safeguards—I'm sure you've realized by now that we do not strictly require your cooperation to dismantle them." Aro poured a more generous amount of wine into her glass and set the bottle on the side table next to her as he continued matter-of-factly, "It would be simplicity itself to render you unconscious, use your fingerprint to unlock your phone, and delete all of the emails you have scheduled. I do, after all, know your passwords."

She had not realized that. Still, even if they did all of that, they would still have a problem, and Diana pointed it out to him as he returned to his own chair.

"People would still come looking for me."

"Precisely," Aro agreed. "Hence, our delicate position. Naturally we have the means to stage some sort of accident, but in light of your dear sister and the communication you've left behind I fear such a course might only raise more suspicion. Not to mention that your own cell phone data would show that you spent an extended amount of time here, in Volterra." Aro sighed and shook his head slowly. "No. Smoothing this over, reassuring your friends and colleagues… these are things best done in person."

Aro's head tilted slightly, and it occurred to Diana that his words were something of a suggestion, and he was awaiting her reaction. Voice choked with disbelief, she realized aloud, "You want me to cover up the murder of my own sister."

A small frown flickered across his face, as if he took issue with the phrasing, but it was gone in the next moment. In the same gentle, reasonable tone, he said, "Think, for a moment, of the alternative. At best, you will be putting your friends and colleagues in danger of falling into the very same trap you now find yourself in. At worst… our secret is revealed."

He paused, presumably waiting for some sort of reaction. Diana took a large sip of the wine and said nothing, relying on the set of her eyebrows to communicate just how little she cared about keeping secrets for monsters. Aro sighed again.

"Diana," he said, and she did not care for the almost parental fondness in the way he said it. "You must understand that we do not keep this secret out of fear of what humanity might do to us. We are very nearly indestructible. While a bomb of sufficient power might kill us if we stood still long enough to be caught in its blast—such a bomb dropping on Volterra would not be the end of vampires, my dear Diana. It would be the end of humanity."

"Bold claim."

"The simple truth," Aro countered. "There are hundreds of vampires in this world. Most are not so civilized. They are nomads, drifting from place to place, feeding only on the dregs of human society—but not because they wish to. The only reason they do not slaughter and drink whoever and however much they please is fear of the law. Fear of us, the Volturi, the law-keepers of the vampire world."

Diana raised her eyebrows. Aro leaned forward, his eyes gleaming as he went on. "There was a time, before we came to power, when things were different. When humans served vampires and worshiped us as gods, gladly offering themselves up in sacrifice. It is we Volturi who have liberated mankind from this tyranny. It is under our reign that you have been allowed to flourish and multiply, to create art, to pursue the sciences. But there are ever those who would see us return to the way things were before. To see you all subjugated beneath the boot of the superior race. So you see, Diana, however horrible we may be in your eyes, we are the ones who protect your kind from the uninhibited desires of the real monsters of this world."

It was a very dramatic speech. She could picture it, too—if vampires were real and were as powerful and beautiful as the creatures she'd seen here today, she wouldn't be surprised if they were the true source of many of the myths and legends of gods and goddesses around the world. And she could see, too, how such beings might rankle at the thought of slinking in the shadows to avoid the notice of the species they considered their prey.

Worse, she could imagine the human reaction if this knowledge were to become widespread. There would be fear and violence, of course, and undoubtedly there would be attempts to kill the vampire population. But there were also far too many humans who would be attracted to the idea of an immortal life. Many people would pay quite a lot to be young and beautiful forever, no matter the unsavory dietary requirements. She could easily envision a dystopia where the rich and powerful of today bargained for their own immortality in exchange for the subjugation of the human race. It hardly mattered who would come out on top in that sort of conflict—the victor would inevitably claim a broken world.

"I imagine," Diana mused, "that this is where my better judgment is supposed to come in."

Aro nodded. "That is my hope."

Diana hummed. "I wasn't joking when I said I wasn't sure if I had any," she remarked mildly. "Because I do believe you. I believe that exposing this secret could mean the end of the world." She paused, swirling her wine in her glass again. Aro waited.

"But I'm still inclined to let it happen." She turned her gaze from the wine to Aro, catching his unblinking red eyes. "I think I might let the world burn, so long as you burned with it."

Aro was very still for a long moment. It was a little fascinating to watch, Diana thought, in the way that living statue performers were fascinating to watch. You didn't realize how much the average person fidgeted and breathed and moved until you were confronted with someone who exhibited perfect, unnatural stillness.

"There is no need to make your decision today," Aro said at last, briskly. His smile was a shade overly genial and accommodating, and Diana got the sense that her words had shaken him a little. "Take a week. Consider carefully."

"A week," Diana repeated, surprised. "Here?"

"So long as you don't leave Volterra, I see no reason why you should not be allowed to return to your hotel," Aro said, back to that agreeable tone. "It will be simpler and far less suspicious than having someone steal your computer from your room and forcing you to disable your safeguards."

"And if I did attempt to leave Volterra?" Diana asked, curious.

"You would not succeed," Aro said simply. "And even if you did—well. You are already aware that some of us, like myself, possess unique talents. One of the guard happens to be an unparalleled tracker. Now that he has seen you, there is nowhere on this earth you could run where he would not be able to find you."

"Ah."

Aro seemed to interpret this as agreement. "If you have no further questions, my dear Diana, then I will escort you back to the lobby."

She had quite a lot more questions, but none of them were particularly important at the moment. Uncaring about a vampire's opinion about her manners, Diana knocked back the remaining half-glass of wine before standing to follow Aro from the room. He led her down dim, winding hallways until she again stood before the door which opened into the reception area.

"Angelica will call a taxi to take you back to your hotel," he said. "In seven days, after sundown, someone will escort you back here, where we shall be eagerly awaiting your answer."

Diana halted as she reached for the door. It occurred to her suddenly that she did have one last question, one which wouldn't wait, even if she was already positive she knew the answer. She turned to study Aro with narrowed eyes.

"If I did decide to cooperate… you're still going to kill me. Aren't you?"

"Ah." Aro paused. "Not necessarily."

It was an unimpressive lie. Diana felt, inexplicably, rather disappointed. For all that Aro was a blood-drinking monster, she had the sense that he had thus far been a truthful one. She turned to go.

A cold hand caught her by the shoulder. "I do not mean to deceive you," Aro said carefully. Diana turned and waited, eyebrows raised expectantly. "You are quite right that no human who learns our secret may survive. The law demands that any mortal who discovers us must either be killed or turned."

"Turned," she repeated flatly. "Into a vampire."

"Into an immortal, yes." Aro took a half-step closer, his gaze turning speculative. "I admit I'm curious… there is a certain fire in you. What sort of talent might you develop, I wonder…"

"I'd rather die." Diana stepped back. Though Aro could have easily held her in place, he obligingly released her shoulder. He looked even more curious than before, and she was eager to escape his unsettling stare. "I'll see you in a week."