Frankie burst through the cabin door and into the heart of the nightmare.

  No rot or water damage greeted her. Instead, a strangely preserved room, a pocket of time held captive in the belly of the dead ship, defied the decay outside. Through a cracked porthole, Frankie glimpsed a shattered mast, reaching like a skeletal finger towards the dark, churning surface of the ocean. The air hung thick with the cloying smells of old wood, beeswax, and the cold, metallic scent of ancient blood. A heavy oak table dominated the room, its surface covered in curling, yellowed nautical charts. A single, ever-burning lantern cast a sickly yellow-green glow on the scene, its light emanating from no visible flame, a small, malevolent sun.

  And in the center of the room, he waited.

  Captain Blackmane.

  No decaying, skeletal monster from the depths of her nightmare stood before her. This figure stood terrifyingly, unnervingly alive. Tall and gaunt, his long, black hair, braided with tarnished silver wire, cascaded over the shoulders of a tattered but once-elegant naval coat. Ghostly pale skin stretched taut over sharp, aristocratic features. A blood-red eyepatch covered one eye. The other, a burning crimson coal, fixed on her, glowing with an ancient, malevolent intelligence.

  He was not a beast. He was a prince of darkness.

  And he held Dee Dee.

  One arm, like a band of iron, wrapped around her throat, holding her in front of him like a human shield. Terror paled Dee Dee's face, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, but a fierce, defiant fire blazed in her eyes as they met Frankie's. Terrified, but not broken.

  “Ah, the guest of honor arrives,” Blackmane’s voice rasped, the sound a low, contemptuous rumble that vibrated in Frankie’s very bones. “Just in time for the festivities to begin.”

  He gestured with his free hand toward the large, ornate windows at the stern of the cabin. Through the grimy, salt-stained glass, the world outside turned red.

  The lunar eclipse began. A sliver of the moon had already vanished, and the light filtering into the sea cave shifted from pale moonlight to a faint, bloody twilight.

  Blackmane seemed to draw strength from it. He straightened, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his pale lips, revealing teeth too long, too sharp.

  “Do you feel it, child?” he purred, his voice a hypnotic whisper that slithered into her mind. “The turning of the tide. The alignment of the heavens. The world holds its breath. For me. For us.”

  He pulled Dee Dee tighter against him, forcing a small gasp from her. “I must confess, I am impressed. Your little plan with the explosives… it was clever. Foolish and doomed, of course. But spirited. Your ancestor would be proud.”

  He took a step toward Frankie, dragging Dee Dee with him. “But the game is over. The board is set. And you are left with one final, fascinating choice.”

  He stopped, his single, burning eye boring into her. The pressure of his will was a physical force, a suffocating blanket of malice and power.

  “Choice the first,” he said, his voice dropping to a seductive whisper. “You join me. Willingly. You offer the blood of your own free will, as your ancestor’s proxy, to break this tedious curse. In return, I will spare the lives of your noisy friends outside. They will be allowed to crawl away from this place with their pathetic, mortal lives intact. And you… You will be rewarded. You will stand by my side, not as a slave, but as my partner. My queen. You have felt the power I have given you. It is but a pale shadow of what you could become. Together, we will walk out of this forgotten cave and drink the entire world dry.”

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  He let the offer hang in the air, a tempting, poisonous fruit. An end to the fighting. An end to the fear. Safety for her friends. And power. So much power. The monster inside Frankie, the hungry, predatory thing, stirred with a thrill of recognition. Yes, it whispered. This is what we want.

  “Or,” Blackmane continued, his voice losing its seductive edge, becoming as cold and sharp as ice, “there is a choice the second. You can refuse. You can cling to your fleeting, pointless humanity. And I will force you to watch as I drain this little friend of yours dry, right here, at your feet. Then I will have my crew finish off the boy outside. And when you are all alone, broken and screaming, I will take your blood by force, anyway. The ritual will be less… elegant. But the result will be the same. The choice is yours, child. A throne, or a graveyard.”

  An impossible choice. A perfect trap. Her life and soul, or the certain death of her friends.

  Despair, black and absolute, threatened to swallow her whole. Dee Dee’s terrified, defiant face burned in her vision. The image of Ted, bleeding and broken on the boat, flashed in her mind. The thought of Damon, fighting a hopeless battle for a girl he barely knew, twisted a knife in her gut.

  And then, the memory of Henry Rivera surfaced.

  The boy who had faced this same monster, this same overwhelming evil, two hundred years ago. He had no super speed. He had no super strength. He had only his wits and his courage. And he had not just saved himself. He had built a cage. He had sacrificed the rest of his own life to stand guard, to protect the future. To protect her.

  A new thought, a cold, desperate clarity, cut through her fear.

  Blackmane offered her a choice with two options.

  She would make a third.

  She took a deep breath, forcing the terror down, forcing her face into a mask of weary defeat. “You win,” she whispered, her voice a choked, broken sound. She let her shoulders slump. Defiance drained from her eyes, replaced by a hollow emptiness.

  A flicker of triumph sparked in Blackmane’s crimson eye. He had won.

  “A wise decision,” he purred, his grip on Dee Dee relaxing slightly. “Come. Let us seal our new partnership.”

  He pushed Dee Dee to the side. She stumbled against the wall. He beckoned Frankie forward. “Come, my queen. Your throne awaits.”

  Frankie took a slow, shuffling step forward. Then another. She feigned surrender, luring the ancient, arrogant monster in. He pulled her close, his cold, firm hand gripping her arm. The cold, ancient scent of him, the smell of the deep ocean and dried blood, filled her nostrils. He leaned toward her neck, his sharp fangs descending, ready for the ritualistic bite.

  This was it. Her one-second opening.

  “NOW!” she screamed.

  In that exact moment, from the chaotic battle outside, Damon, his face a mask of bloody, defiant rage, launched himself through the cabin doorway. He had no weapon. He had no plan. He only had a refusal to abandon her. He crashed into Blackmane with the force of a linebacker, a desperate, human missile of pure courage.

  The tackle failed to injure the vampire captain, but it did the one thing Frankie needed. It threw him off balance.

  As Blackmane roared in fury, momentarily distracted by Damon, Frankie moved.

  Her hand shot to the small, makeshift detonator tucked into the waistband of her jeans.

  Simultaneously, her other hand shot out, not to push, not to strike, but to grab. Her fingers closed around a jagged, splintered piece of the ship’s mainmast, which a long-ago storm had shattered and now leaned against the cabin wall—a heavy, pointed, two-foot length of dark, petrified wood. A perfect stake.

  Blackmane shoved Damon aside, sending him crashing into the table. He turned back to Frankie, his face a mask of pure, murderous rage, his fangs fully extended.

  His reaction came too late.

  With a final, desperate scream that was a mixture of her name and her ancestor’s, a scream two hundred years in the making, Frankie lunged forward. She put every ounce of her fear, her rage, her grief, and her new, monstrous strength into one, final, perfect motion.

  She drove the shattered piece of the mast forward, aiming for the center of his chest.

  A sound like a wet branch snapping tore through the air.

  A guttural gurgle escaped Blackmane’s lips as his single, crimson eye went wide with pure, shocked disbelief. He looked down. The jagged point of the heavy wooden stake protruded from his chest, right where his dead heart should be.

  He opened his mouth to speak, to curse, to scream.

  But before he could make a sound, Frankie’s thumb pressed the button on the detonator.

  And the world exploded.