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Possession tends to weird vampires out, mainly because it’s supposed to be impossible. Even low-level vamps are able to evict an unwanted guest with a little effort, and the stronger ones have shields formidable enough to ensure that nothing takes up residence in the first place. But Marcello had preferred allowing a hitchhiker aboard to suffering his master’s punishment. So far, he’d behaved himself, staying quiet and not attempting to wrest back control. I wondered how long that was going to last.
Outside the limo, neon-lit streets melted by in chaotic smears, shimmers of light and color and noise. Billy and I were headed out of the city to our rendezvous with the Senate. I’d slipped away without telling Pritkin, mainly because he and the Consul hadn’t exactly hit it off the first time they met and I didn’t need any help making a bad impression. But also because as soon as I got my hands on Mircea, I was off to get the Codex and finish this thing. And I still wasn’t convinced that Pritkin was all that interested in saving a vampire’s life—especially not now.
It still felt strange not having him there, though: like an empty holster where there should be a gun. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on his particular brand of insanity. It was too bad; what we were attempting tonight would have been right up his alley.
So I had about a thousand things to worry about and less help than I’d planned. Yet not only did that not keep Billy from bitching, but it didn’t even slow him down. “You were out of it for almost a day,” I pointed out.
“Well, forgive me for exhausting myself saving your life!” he snapped. “Not to mention that you were supposed to be sleeping! Not running around with gangsters planning a hit on the Senate!”
“We’re not hitting the Senate,” I told him patiently for maybe the sixth time. “We’re going in, grabbing Mircea and getting out. No big deal.” It was what I needed to believe, anyway.
“Right. Which is why you’re too scared to stay in your own body.” Billy paused, fidgeting.
“What?”
“My boobs don’t fit in this dress. And no, I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Don’t do that,” I batted his hands away from a part of my anatomy they did not need to know any better. “You’re supposed to look dignified.”
“In these shoes? I’ll be lucky if I don’t break your neck.”
“Women do this all the time. You have it for one night. Stop with the whining.”
“Whining? You really want to go there, Cass? Because we can go there. We can so go there.”
“I take it back,” Sal told me. She and the rest of Alphonse’s boys had been watching the exchange with slightly interested expressions—which, since they were vamps, meant they were pretty much fascinated. Her boyfriend and Casanova were in the other limo, presumably to demonstrate family solidarity to anyone who might have heard about the fight. “If this is what you put up with every day, you deserve to whine.”
“I don’t whine,” I snapped.
“Gee, thanks for the input, Bonnie. Feel free to jump into a private conversation just any old time,” Billy added. Immediately after meeting them, he’d started calling Sal and Alphonse “Bonnie and Clyde,” and nothing seemed to be stopping him. And since he was in my body for the moment, I really wished he’d shut up so maybe Sal would stop fingering her automatic.
Billy fidgeted with my anatomy some more, but succeeded only in getting one breast stuck higher than the other. He regarded them sadly, head tilted slightly to the side. “You know, death has been a lot weirder than I thought.”
I looked out the window at the sunset that was painting the desert a deep bloodred. We’d just left Vegas, so we were nowhere near MAGIC yet. But I could feel Mircea’s presence growing with every mile, like a magnet drawing me closer. “Life can be pretty strange, too,” I said.
The outside of MAGIC is a group of nondescript stucco buildings in the middle of a sea of not-too-interesting canyons. There’s nothing to distinguish it from any other ranch except its isolation and the fact that there aren’t any horses or day-trippers in sight. But its looks are the least of its protections. Area 51 has less security; of course, it also has less to hide.
We arrived just as the place was starting to liven up. Not that it was obvious from the exterior, which was mostly housing for the human staff members, but thanks to Marcello’s senses, I could feel the activity happening beneath the ground. There was the hum of magical wards, the bright wells of energy that meant vampires, the totally different magical signatures that indicated mages and other, less familiar sensations that might be Weres or the occasional Fey. It felt how a seismic meter might look right before an earthquake hit: too much activity in too small a space, just waiting to explode. I tried not to think about how accurate that simile might be.
I followed everyone else in, trying to remember not to duck through doorways. The low ceilings could accommodate my new height, but they still felt too close, too hard. Billy, wearing my skin, was escorted into an antechamber of the main senate hall along with Sal and Alphonse to cool their heels and await the Consul’s pleasure. Considering how much she liked me, I assumed they’d be there a while. The other family members were ushered straight to Lord Mircea’s rooms to hang out while the important types did their business.
The vamps had housed me upstairs with the other humans the one and only time I’d accepted their hospitality. Looking around, I could see why. Mircea’s suite was a little too impressive, like an underground Renaissance palace, with lots of inlaid-marble floors, rich tapestries and crystal chandeliers reflected in too many mirrors. Three different hallways broke off from the foyer and an honest-to-God butler conducted us to a library where refreshments were milling around. The simple room I’d been housed in before was more welcoming, and far more Mircea, than this opulent blandness.
After a couple minutes of fighting off would-be blood donors, I started threading my way through the crowd. I’d almost made it to the hall when I stopped dead. Standing in the middle of the doorway was a vampire with big brown eyes, messy brown curls and a cheerful goateed face. Charming, if you ignored the whole cold-blooded murderer thing.
I could feel Marcello’s unease mount at sight of the Consul’s chief spy. I really couldn’t blame him—it wasn’t making me any happier. I didn’t know why Marlowe was slumming with the help, especially with an important meeting about to start, but it probably wasn’t a good sign. He tended to show up where the action was, but there was no way he could know anything interesting was about to happen here.
“You’re not hungry?” he asked cheerfully.
“Ate before we left,” I said, in Marcello’s low voice. I was glad I didn’t need my borrowed heart to beat, because it was suddenly in my throat. “I thought I’d pay my respects to the master.”
“Lord Mircea is indisposed.”
“Then I’ll keep it short.”
Casanova joined us, a suave figure in cool blue and white, with a bright print tie. He looked like he was heading for a posh party on a private yacht and managed to make Marlowe’s dark, Elizabethan-era attire look like it came from a bad stage production. “I’d like to see him, too,” he commented, “to thank him for my new position.”
“I thought it was merely an interim appointment.”
