THIRTY
I wasn’t dressed for the place, but the doorman at the After Dark let me in anyhow. I suppose being alive in a vampire club is all the cachet you really need to get in. Staying that way may be trickier. But they know me, which is my real ace in the hole.
It was still early for the bloodsucking fraternity and there weren’t very many customers in the place yet. A lot of the early birds were demi-vampires, donors, and subordinate turns waiting for whoever pulled their strings or strung them out. The room was always cold, but now the chill was my sense of the Grey clinging to me like a wet coat. The white marble floors seemed almost reflective in their brightness, and once the room was full, the red-and-black clouds of vampiric auras would give it a stygian cast. I spotted two asetem near the back door, their uncanny glowing eyes free of the usual contact lenses and gleaming orange like hot coals. I imagined the news of my presence would be in Wygan’s ears in minutes. The broadcast station had plenty of phone lines, even if there wasn’t a more arcane method of communication between the Pharaohn and his children that I didn’t know about.
I sat down at what was usually Edward’s table, making a small stir in the thin crowd. I put my sunglasses back on and waited, schooling myself to be still, not to fidget with my bag or look for something to do. It wasn’t too hard: With my shades on, I could close my eyes against the battering light and sound and let the noise of the grid, humming and babbling with every change in the room, be my alarm system. The one positive angle I could see to the increasing apathy I felt as the grid tried to bind me to itself was that I didn’t yet feel any anxiety about this situation. And that made me less interesting to the watching asetem as well.
The crowd was denser half an hour later when Gwen arrived. She slid next to me, as light on the strings of the grid as the stroke of a feather, but I still felt her presence like a cold finger drawn up my spine. “You look ruthless,” she whispered.
“Ruthless?” I asked, opening my eyes and glancing at her.
She was as pale and ineffective-looking as ever, but her eyes gleamed and she gave a tiny, hungry smile. “Yes. Dangerous with an air of power held in check.”
“Hm,” I muttered. The strange change in my perception of the Grey seemed to have an outward expression as well, and that intrigued me a little. Or maybe it was just that the brightness and the noise made me scowl.
I could feel tremors and flutters in the Grey. It was like being a spider in her web the way every disturbance traveled to me. The impression of Cameron’s arrival rippled through the room just a moment ahead of his presence with a gust of Grey whispers. I wondered if psychics felt something like this. It was interesting, but overall, I didn’t care for it. The asetem in the opposite corner were a different matter. They thrived on strong emotional emanations, so they must have been having a delicious time with the hors d’oeuvres of anticipation radiating from most of the people in the room.
There was a palpable wave of anxiety and excitement that rang discordant wind chimes on the grid when Cameron and Sarah walked in. A sussuration of speculation raced and spread like flame, leaping high when Cam paused by the table, looking it over before he chose to sit down in what was usually Edward’s chair.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and made me twitch—I hoped the vampires would take it as a sign that I was as surprised as they about Cameron’s move. Without looking, I squeezed the silence button and sent the call to voice mail. I hoped it was Quinton, but this was not the time to be checking my phone.
Two of Edward’s usual hangers-on sidled close, plainly hoping to talk to Cam about what he was doing and looking askance at Sarah, who had taken the seat on his other side, putting him between her and Gwen. I, the foreign creature with the scary aura, sat at the free end of the group, where I could move at any time. The setting projected “Prince in his court” with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
Cameron gave the two curious vampires a bland “Yes?” that served as opening enough for them to sit down and start whispering at him. The sound grated on my ears, distorted by the noise of the grid into sharp squawks. Cam looked bored and a little annoyed by the two supplicants, but he leaned forward and listened. I wondered if they’d been put up to the scene or if it was just a natural extension of the usual jockeying for position. I let my attention float out into the room on the power lines of the grid, wide enough to thin the noise in my head, but it only helped a little as everyone was focused back toward Cameron’s entourage.
The other vampires and kin in the room stirred and muttered. Some left or moved to new tables, breaking and forming alliances as I watched; most stayed as they were, acting as if nothing going on in the room was important to them. A few sent Cameron glares of open hostility. Cam ignored it all and went on with his conversation.
The place was full and the murmurs and adjustments were dying down when Carlos entered and blew the latent emotions in the room into brilliant flame that roared through the blazing grid. He stopped a single pace inside and studied the scene. A slow boil of black fury rolled off him and he strode toward our table. He did not seem to look at anyone other than Cameron, but I knew he was aware of us all, from the asetem looking avid and excited in the corner to me, playing stone-faced in my personal madhouse while Gwen cringed beside me.
Carlos stopped at the edge of the table and glared at the two whispering vampires next to Sarah. They scuttled away without another word, leaving an insectile chittering on the threads of the Grey.
Cameron looked up, his expression one of pleasant surprise and confusion with a touch of fear that I didn’t think was entirely feigned. He stood up, smiling. “Carlos!” Then he bridled and winced as Carlos redirected his glower to him.
Carlos’s voice was not loud, but it rumbled through the Grey and set waves crashing into one another. “Presumptuous whelp. Do you think you’re Edward’s equal because you are my student?”
Cameron shook his head. Tiny flashes of white and gold exploded in the energy nimbus around him. “No. Of course not. But there’s a void without him and it needs to be filled. I seem to be the only person willing to step in temporarily rather than try to grab it all for myself.”
“Are you? And what if he never comes back? Will you step aside for someone else?”
“I would if it were you. It ought to be you as—”
Carlos hit him, the movement visible only as a black blur. Cam went backward into the wall hard enough to dent it as Sarah tumbled to the floor in the oversweep of Carlos’s strike. Gwen and I both flew to our feet—as did many of the audience—in an instant. Gwen made a slight whimpering noise that echoed in my head as she backed up.
I held my ground, not knowing how this was meant to play out once I’d said my piece but sticking to the short script I had. Cameron’s note had not told me exactly what to expect—there hadn’t been time and, had we done otherwise, the asetem would taste the falseness of our fear and anger. It was all the most desperate kind of improvisation. I hoped. “Carlos, this isn’t necessary. Maintaining peace in this community—” I started.
He whipped his head around to glare at me and his expression was almost a blow. “This is none of your affair, daylighter!” he roared. Even holding fast to the knowledge that it was only an act, I had to clench my jaw and shut my eyes against the buffeting pressure of his voice.
He turned his attention back to Cameron, who’d pushed himself forward off the wall, using his momentum to drive a flat-palmed strike into his mentor’s face. Gleams of gold and silver energy rushed ahead of the movement; Cameron was putting more than his physical strength into hitting Carlos. He’d been only twenty-one when Edward turned him, and his slender frame offered insufficient muscle against the bulkier, older vampire, even with the paranormal advantages of the undead.