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“Dorina!” Mircea shook me. “Stop it—I warned you! This is dangerous!”
“No.” I gripped him back, trying to sort through everything she’d sent. Trying to understand—
“I’m getting you out of here—”
“No!” I gripped him harder, my fingers biting into his arms. “There’s a problem—”
“I know that!”
“Listen to me. Someone’s trying to kill the consul but it isn’t her. It isn’t Dorina. I think—I think she’s trying to stop it, but—”
* * *
* * *
“—augghhh!”
Light exploded everywhere, searing, painful, overwhelming. And blinding. Suddenly, I couldn’t see a thing.
I also couldn’t hear. Or, rather, I could, but far too much. Something was confusing my mental control, letting in the surrounding voices, all of them, all at once. And unlike in a human gathering, these conversations weren’t just audible. There were mental voices, too, many more than could possibly fit into a single room, no matter how large. For there was almost nothing but masters here, pulling me in, smothering me under the weight of their vast families, turning a thousand guests into a million, a sea of voices, threatening to drown me.
I jerked back in self-defense, panting and disoriented, but that left me almost totally without senses, and the threat was growing. I could feel it, crawling along my spine, etching my mind like acid. But I couldn’t find it, even though it was getting closer, even though it was about to spring.
Damn it! I had to see.
But something saw me first. For it had been looking for me, too, feeling me as a subtle presence, as I had felt it. But not being able to locate me, either.
So it had uncloaked itself, showing its true form for the first time. And my body’s reaction to its power had told it exactly where to look. I’d just started to regain control, to begin filtering out the voices, and to dampen down that terrible light, when it hit: vicious pain and blinding static, the defense mechanisms of my prey. They were strong enough to stagger me, to cause me to clench my teeth on a scream as I fell back against the wall, to leave me gasping in agony.
But not strong enough to stop me.
Not this time.
Mircea had stumbled against the column, caught in the attack because of his proximity to me, and was as debilitated as I had been the first time. But this wasn’t my first time, and there’s a truth about pain that most people never learn, unless they’re really unlucky. Or really long-lived, long enough to have felt almost every kind there is. Pain has a signature to it, a type, a song. The first time you experience a new one, it’s a bright, white-hot, cutting edge; or a searing, brain-twisting burn; or a shattering, soul-crushing thud; or any of the thousand other forms it takes to torment you.
But the second time? Or the third? Or the fiftieth? No. It’s still terrible, still rage inducing, still debilitating, but it’s not the same shock as at first. You know this song, all its terrible highs and dismal lows; you can hum it with your eyes closed, because it’s just that familiar. Not like a friend—never that—but like an old enemy you’ve grown to know as well as to hate, his weapons and his limits.
You know what he can do to you.
But you also know what he can’t.
Which is why I came off the wall with a roar that scattered people in front of me, like a school of fish parting when a shark swims by. It would have been interesting another time, to catalogue the different reactions: young vampires spilling drinks on themselves in shock, or sinking to the floor in horror. Older, mid-level vamps, all but disappearing through doors and stairways, melting into the darkness, going dim. And then there were the oldest ones, bright, bright, so incredibly bright, their power eclipsing that of the others around them, wherever they were standing.
They did not run. They did not hide. But they also did not attack, holding back, seeing what I would do.
And looking vaguely surprised when I passed them by, uninterested.
For I was after something else, something deadlier than any of them, something I’d encountered before. Something that was still attacking: cutting, harsh and cruel. But not enough.
This time, I would have it. This time, I would kill it. But I had to find it first.
And it was no longer riding the woman I’d seen earlier. I found her, looking wide-eyed and shell-shocked, being supported by two others. So my prey wasn’t just riding, then, but controlling.
Who was it controlling now?
I didn’t know, and it was getting harder to concentrate. The creature knew I was hunting it, but wasn’t concerned, was laughing at me, and sending static from all sides now. I couldn’t see anything but leering vampire faces; couldn’t hear anything above the static’s awful roar; couldn’t use my inner eye, not with the massive crowd everywhere, hiding the one I needed to see. There were so many voices—
Until I screamed, the psychic shock waves spreading across the room like a scythe through wheat. Vampires, mages, human servants—they all went down. All except two. The vampire queen, standing still and terrible at the top of her dais, and the man suddenly running at her from across the room.
