"Defeat this god of yours. We cannot reach him—he isn't in this world; a situation we hope continues—but his followers are. To eradicate the threat, we must remove them. All of them. But such an operation will require a combined effort."
A combined effort. Why did I see a problem there? "If the other senates agree, who will lead them?" I asked slowly. "The Consul?"
Mircea sighed and rubbed his eyes again. "That is one of many sticking points. None of the consuls are accustomed to taking anyone else's direction, nor have they been for hundreds of years."
"So it's your job to convince the world's five most powerful vampires to take orders from her?"
"Essentially."
"And I thought my job sucked."
He smiled slightly. "In fact, I do not expect to persuade them all. The Consul has a reasonably good relationship with the European and African consuls, which is how we were able to convince them to visit. And I have some influence at the Chinese court. But we have little leverage with the Indian durbar and none at all in Latin America. If we bring even one of those around, it will surprise me."
"But still, even three or four senates united has to be some kind of record, right?"
"If we can pull it off, yes. But half the senators hate the other half, in many cases because of slights hundreds of years old. Not to mention jealousies, rivalries and too-sensitive egos. Without any real proof of our allegations to offer them, I am not sanguine about our chances."
"We're at war. That seems pretty tangible to me!"
"But against whom? Apollo is not here. All they see are the same old enemies—the Black Circle and a few rogue vampires—with whom our senate has successfully dealt on previous occasions. As a result, they are extremely suspicious of the necessity for an alliance. I believe they suspect us of inventing the divine connection in an attempt to bring them under the Consul's subjugation."
I blinked, absorbing all that. I hadn't seen much of Mircea in the last few days, but I'd assumed that I was just really good at avoiding him. Or, more likely, that he'd noticed the distinct lack of Cassie in his vicinity right away and hadn't cared. But that had made me feel pathetically like a kicked puppy, so I'd focused on the fact that he had a perfectly good reason to be absent.
Mircea and I had both been affected by the love spell gone haywire, but he'd been hit by it far harder and, because of some time complications, had had to deal with it far longer than I had. I'd assumed he was taking some time to recover and had been glad of it, considering how he'd looked when I last saw him. But it didn't sound like he'd been getting any rest at all. And now this family thing had cropped up, whatever it was.
"You should try to take it easy for a while," I said, frowning. "You aren't exactly at your best right now."
One of those expressive eyebrows went up. "I beg your pardon?"
I sighed. That hadn't come out right. "I mean, everybody thinks master vampires are pretty much invincible. Only that's not true, is it? You can get tired and. . and things." I'd seen him hurt and vulnerable recently, and the image had stuck with me. It was yet another reason for keeping my distance.
I'd learned the lesson years ago—never let people get too close. Care, but not too much, because sooner or later, I was going to lose them. My mother's attempt at a new life had ended in a car bomb arranged by a vampire who'd wanted a Seer at his court. She was too smart to take the job, but he thought her daughter would be perfect—if only I didn't have pesky parents around to tell me what a jerk he was.
Tony, the vamp in question, had also tortured my childhood governess to death in a fit of pique, after I'd grown up enough to figure things out and flee from him. Others I'd left behind, either at Tony's or while moving about from place to place, trying to stay one step ahead of the servants he had searching for me. But however it happened, sooner or later, I'd look around and the people who meant something were gone. I'd learned the hard way that keeping my distance made it easier for everyone in the end.
Keep it superficial, stay far enough away, and no one even noticed when you left.
"Is something wrong, dulceaƫă?"
"No." I swallowed. "Nothing. I just wish. ."
"Yes?"
"I wish you could take some time off," I told him.
Mircea's face still looked grave, but his eyes were smiling. "I'm afraid a vacation is out of the question at the moment."
"Well, maybe you could think of something else that relaxes you."
Amber sparked somewhere deep in his eyes. "A few things do come to mind."
I gave him a look. "I mean, maybe you could work on something different for a while? They say a change is as good as a rest."
The growing amber flecks seemed to hold the light and warm it. "I am always happy to experiment." He tucked a stray curl behind my ear. "Did you have anything particular in mind?"
I licked suddenly dry lips, trying not to think about what five hundred years of experience could dream up. "N-not really."
"Then I suppose we'll have to wing it." He pressed me back against the sinfully soft couch cushions and kissed me. When his tongue touched mine, my brain suddenly started suggesting all sorts of interesting possibilities.
And then the captain came on the intercom to announce our successful landing. I looked around in surprise. I hadn't even noticed the descent.
"We could stay here for a while," someone who sounded a lot like me said breathlessly.
Mircea kissed me again, quickly this time, before getting up. "Tempting. But I have to go."
"You mean, we have to go."
"I brought you with me to keep you safe—not to put you in more danger." He started to walk away, but I grabbed his sleeve, managing to put a few wrinkles in its perfect drape.
"Danger? I thought we were visiting your brother."
"I am. You are staying here. Radu is having a few problems and I don't wish you involved in them."
"Maybe I can help," I said, starting to get up. Only to find that I couldn't.
I looked down to see a familiar silver bracelet tight around my wrist. I pulled on it, but it was securely fastened through the arm of the couch, caught on something inside the plush leather—the frame, by the feel of it. Damn it, I'd forgotten to ask for the cuffs back!
"Mircea!"
"This shouldn't take long, and you will be well cared for until I return," he said. And then he just walked out.
I yelled and rattled the cuffs loud enough to wake the dead, but nobody came to help me. I tried shifting and ended up on the tarmac outside the plane—still attached to the couch—in time to watch Mircea drive away. I didn't know where Radu lived, so I couldn't follow him. Not to mention that it was kind of hard to envision being of much use chained to a huge piece of furniture.
I shifted back onto the plane, fuming, and a ghost popped in. That wouldn't normally require comment, as it happens to me all the time—one of the annoyances of being clairvoyant. But this was a little different since this ghost I knew.
Billy Joe was wearing the jaunty Stetson and the ruffled shirt he'd died in a century and a half ago. Normally, the shirt is a brilliant crimson that easily catches the eye. At the moment, it was a pale, faded color, like it had been left out on a wash line too long. It got that way only when his energy levels were close to bottoming out.
"Don't start," I told him before he could open his mouth. "I tried to find you before we left. I knew you needed a draw." Billy and I had a long-standing arrangement in which I fed him extra energy and he fed me information. Neither of us ever got as much as we wanted out of the deal, but it was better than nothing.