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“But there’s a metric ton of master vampires here!”
“Belonging to other senates. Who do not wish to waste their resources on a fight which is not theirs.”
“Not…Then whose fight is it?” I demanded. “The fey are coming to slaughter them, or didn’t they get the memo?” Marlowe would have had more than enough time now to flash a thought around, telling everyone what was going on.
“They heard, but they do not believe. The fey have never attacked us, they say; why should they do so now? Undeclared?”
“Because that’s the best way to win?”
“They do not believe a king of the fey would be so dishonorable.”
“Then what do they think is happening?”
“That our consul is staging this, to force them to do what they have been avoiding, and to put their forces under her control.”
I just looked at her for a moment. “What?”
She nodded. “Our kind can sometimes be too suspicious. It has hurt us before.”
“Fuck hurt; it’s about to kill you!” I snarled, before Ray dragged me away.
“I think I know what’s in the basement,” he told me.
“What?”
“The shield’s power source. Marlowe must have sent his people to reactivate it, once the other side brought it down.”
“But they haven’t.” And I couldn’t think of a single reason for that that didn’t involve something nasty.
“No. But as soon as they do—or as soon as someone does—the shield goes back up.”
“Trapping us in here with the mutant squad!” I pointed out.
“But keeping out the fey army,” he pointed out right back.
He won.
And even better, this was something I could do. Exhausted or not, I could activate a freaking shield charm. We had one in the basement; it wasn’t hard.
“All right, I’m going,” I told him. “Stay—”
“We’re going,” he said, cutting me off.
“You—” I stopped checking the master’s pockets for ammo. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, crabby as ever. “What if there’s a problem with the shield? You don’t know anything about that stuff. But I can jury-rig something out of almost nothing.”
That was true.
“It could be dangerous.”
“Like
this isn’t?”
“Okay, it could be more dangerous.”
Ray crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m coming.” It was flat.
