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The people were clustered together in a little knot far below, in the center of the cavernous space. It wasn’t a storehouse like some of the others. There were large pieces of rusting machinery hunched in the shadows, like sleeping giants, visible against the starlight filtering in from a gap in the roof. The faint light also glinted off the crossbeams cutting through the air just below, like the one on which I was balanced.
A factory, then. But one long abandoned and unused, with no slick smell of oil or harsh tang of gasoline. Just dust and rust and rot. And a bright thread of life running through it from the grasses pushing up through the cracked concrete floor.
It was not echoed in most of the people, despite the fact that all of them were on their feet and some were quite animated.
If that had been true for all, they could have met mentally and saved themselves the danger of an assembly. But there were humans in the mix, hotter, brighter lights next to the cool colors of the vampires. And, to my surprise, even a few fey, burning like candles against the dark. And most humans and some fey are mind-blind, requiring a face-to-face meeting.
They did not appear to be enjoying it.
The air shimmered around them in wildly fluctuating colors, nervous purple, angry red, and the sickly yellow-green of fear, blending into a cloud the hue of a bruise that stank of suspicion, recriminations, panic. No, it was less like a bruise than a gathering storm, with the sparks like threads of lightning in the heavy atmosphere.
And then someone chuckled.
“You think this is a joke?” one of the vamps lashed out at another. He was a large man, swarthy, with hard black eyes and an off-center nose he hadn’t bothered to try to conceal. He was dressed in jeans, a generic polo and a Windbreaker, the cheapness of the outfit belied by the expensive watch on one hairy wrist. He was one of the more powerful of the assembled vampires, third-level easily, perhaps a weak second. And he was angry.
“Yeah,” another vamp said, crushing a cigarette under his heel. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I think it is.” He was smaller, slimmer, fairer, and dressed so well as to look almost foppish next to the larger man. But he was also the only one who rivaled him in power.
“Then share the gag. The rest of us could use a laugh!”
“It’s the almighty Senate and their holier-than-thou lectures on the rules. Rules they don’t bother to follow when it’s easier to slit our gullets and dump us in a portal!”
“And that’s what you call funny?” one of the other vamps demanded. His power swirled around him in a dark blue haze, but was shot through with streaks of the larger vampire’s crimson. A senior servant, then.
“It’s called irony, genius. Look it up.”
“If it was the Senate,” one of the fey said mildly, her light, lilting voice at odds with the vamps’ harsh tones.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” the first vamp demanded.
“I think you know. That it could be one of us.”
“Bullshit!”
“No, not ‘bullshit,’” she said, making the ugly word almost musical. “We are competitors. A major force has been removed. Someone must fill that gap.”
“I agree,” said another vamp. Short, blond, innocuous-looking. And dressed like the teenager he was pretending to be. “Why should the Senate resort to murder when they can have a big trial, show how powerful they are? It’s not like they ever pass up the chance.”
“It isn’t one of us,” the first vamp said impatiently.
“You so sure of that?”
“Sure enough to invite you all to meet. If I thought one of you was some kinda modern-day Jack the Ripper—”
“Naw, he’s on the Senate,” someone said. And this time a few in the group gave genuine, if nervous, laughs.
“—would I have got you together? So you could kill me easier?”
“You might if you knew you were safe,” one of the humans pointed out. A small, dark man, he matched the two others he’d brought with him closely enough that they were likely related. They were also all enveloped in a grayish tan smog, a muddle of colors for the muddle of different magical devices they were using, each of which had probably originated from a different source. It swirled around them like a borrowed cloak, not theirs, but serviceable enough.
Which probably explained why no one had yet tried to drain them.
“And exactly how would I know that?” the big vamp demanded.
“If the one killing everybody was you.”
His servant’s power flared, going from navy to cerulean in an instant. But just as fast, the crimson streaks of his master’s power brightened, and then tightened around his like a clenched fist. The servant went pale and backed down, and the master glared at the mage.
“Shut it!” Arrogant humans were not popular, even when tempers were not running high.
