Up in the king’s pale blue digs, all the Brotherhood was there, filling out the room until everything dainty and proper about it was overpowered: Rhage was unwrapping a Tootsie Pop over by the mantel, a grape one going by the purple wrapper. Vishous and Butch were together on an antique couch, the spindly legs of which you had to worry about. Wrath was behind the desk. Z was in the far corner, arms crossed over his chest, eyes staring straight ahead into the middle of the room.
John shut the door and stayed put. Qhuinn and Blay followed his lead, the three of them barely in the room.
“Here’s what we got,” Wrath said, putting his shitkickers up on the paper-covered desk. “The heads of five of the founding families are dead. Most of what’s left of the glymera is scattered around the eastern seaboard and in safe houses. Finally. Total losses of life are in the high twenties. Although there’s been a massacre or two throughout our history, this is a hit of unprecedented gravity.”
“They should have moved faster,” V muttered. “Damn fools didn’t listen.”
“True, but did we really expect anything different? So here’s where we are. We should expect some kind of negative response from the Princeps Council in the form of a proclamation against me. My guess is they’re going to try to marshal up a civil war. Granted, as long as I’m breathing no one else can be king, but they could make it damn hard for me to rule properly and keep things together.” As the Brothers muttered all kinds of nasty things, Wrath held up his hand to stop the chatter. “Good news is, they’ve got organizational problems, which will give us some time. The Princeps Council’s charter says that it must be physically seated in Caldwell and convene its meetings here. They created the rule a couple of centuries ago to make sure the power base didn’t go elsewhere. As none of them are in town, and-hello-conference calling didn’t exist in 1790 when they drafted the current charter, they can’t convene a meeting to change their bylaws or elect a new leahdyre until they drag their asses back here, at least for an evening. Given the deaths, that’ll be a while, but we’re talking weeks, not months.”
Rhage bit down on his Tootsie Pop, the crack ricocheting around the room. “Do we have an idea of what hasn’t been hit yet?”
Wrath pointed to the far edge of his desk. “I made copies for everyone.”
Rhage went over, picked up the stack of papers, and handed them out… even to Qhuinn and John and Blay.
John looked at the columns. First was a name. Second was an address. Third was an estimate of the number of folks and doggen in the household. Fourth was an approximate value of what was in the place based on the tax roll. Final was whether or not the family had vacated the premises and how much looting had or had not occurred.
“I want you to divvy up the list of the ones we haven’t heard from,” Wrath said. “If there’s anyone still in those houses, I want you to get them out, even if you have to drag them by the hair. John, you and Qhuinn go with Z. Blay, you’re going with Rhage. Any questions?”
For no good reason John found himself looking over at the ugly-ass avocado green chair that was behind Wrath’s desk. It was Tohr’s.
Or had been.
He would have liked Tohr to see him with the list in his hand, ready to go out and defend the race.
“Good,” Wrath said. “Now get the fuck out of here and do what I need you to do.”
On the other side, in the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes, Cormia rolled up the parchment she had been sketching houses and buildings on and placed it on the floor next to her stool. She had no idea what to do with the thing. Maybe burn it? Wastepaper baskets didn’t exist in the Sanctuary.
As she moved a crystal bowl that was full of water from the Scribe Virgin’s fountain in front of her, she thought of the ones Fritz had brought her with her peas in them. She missed that hobby of hers already. Missed the butler. Missed…
The Primale.
Palming the bowl, she began to rub the crystal, creating ripples in the surface of the water that caught the light of the candles. The warmth of her hands and the subtle movement created a swirling effect, and from out of the gentle waves came the vision of exactly who she wanted to see. Once the image appeared, she stopped agitating the water and let the surface smooth out so she could watch and then describe what she saw.
It was the Primale, and he was dressed the way he’d been that night he’d met her at the top of the stairs and looked at her as if he hadn’t seen her for a week. But he wasn’t in the Brotherhood’s mansion. He was racing down a corridor that was marked with streaks of blood and black heel prints. Bodies were crumpled on the floor on either side, the remains of vampires who had been living just moments before.
She watched as the Primale gathered a small group of terrified males and females and put them into a supply closet. She saw his face as he locked them in, saw the dread and the sadness and the anger in his features.
He’d scrambled to save them, to find a way to safety, to take care of them.
When the vision dimmed, she palmed the bowl once more. Now that she had seen what had transpired, she could call it up again, and she watched his actions once more. Then again.
It was as the movie had been back on the far side, only this was real; this was past that had transpired, not a constructed fictional present.
And then there were other things she saw, scenes tied to the Primale and the Brotherhood and the race. Oh, the horror of the killings, of those dead bodies in luxurious houses…the corpses too numerous for her to comprehend. One by one, she saw the faces of those who had been killed by the lessers. Then she saw the Brothers out fighting, their numbers so small that John and Blay and Qhuinn were being forced too early into the war.
If this continued, she thought, the lessers would win…
She frowned and bent down closer to the bowl.
On the surface of the water, she saw a blond lesser, which was not unusual… but it had fangs.
There was a knock, and as she jumped from being startled, the image disappeared.
A muffled voice came from the other side of the temple door. “My sister?”
It was Selena, the previous sequestered scribe.
“Greetings,” Cormia called out.
“Your meal, my sister,” the Chosen said. There was a scraping sound as a tray was slid through a trapdoor. “May it please you.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you any inquiries of me?”
“No. Thank you.”
“I shall come back for the tray.” The excitement in the Chosen’s voice lifted it nearly an octave. “After his arrival.”
Cormia inclined her head, then remembered that her sister couldn’t see her. “As you wish.”
The Chosen left, no doubt to prepare herself for the Primale.
Cormia leaned back over the desk and looked at the bowl, instead of into it. Such a fragile thing, so thin, except at its base, where it was heavy and solid. The lip of the crystal was sharp as a knife.
She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that. But eventually she shook herself out of her numb trance and forced her palms back onto the bowl.
When the Primale came to the surface again, she wasn’t surprised-
She was horrified.
He lay sprawled out on a marble floor, unconscious by a toilet. Just as she was about to leap up to do only the Virgin knew what, the image changed. He was in a bed, a pale lavender bed.
Turning his head, he looked straight out of the water at her and said, “Cormia?”
Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe, the sound made her want to weep.
“Cormia?”