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"Cain called an emergency meeting," he said when the pair was close enough.
"Yeah," Nikki replied. "Because we heard some stuff at the diner. Seems there's one big downside to having this many of us in one place. Too many bodies have gone missing."
Thane immediately looked at Dahlia. "How many?"
"The waitress knew about seven, but people were saying there were too many happening too fast." Dahlia lifted a hand, begging him to let her finish before he worried too much. "This area is known for high crime. There are multiple active gangs, and murders aren't uncommon. It's just that people are starting to say the ones who went missing aren't the kind to be involved in problematic things."
Thane nodded slowly. "That helps, but how long until people start looking at us? An entire group of people moves into the same apartment complex and only a few days later, bodies start piling up?" He lifted a brow. "The Church is monitoring social media too."
"Which is why Cain called the meeting," Dahlia said, shifting the bag of crosses higher onto her shoulder unconsciously. "Somehow, we have to convince everyone to stop killing and start fucking."
"Are you sure they all know they can fuck to feed?" Roarke asked. "I didn't for the longest time. Fifty years?"
Dahlia gestured for them to keep moving even as she grumbled under her breath, "Fuck."
When they got to Cain's apartment, the door was open. Inside, there were only about six people. The group with Dahlia brought that number up to ten, which meant they were still waiting for more. Standing in the kitchen, Cain kept glancing at his watch even while he was typing seriously on his phone.
"Grace," he snapped, not even bothering to look up, "I need you to go get Vivian, Laci, Karsen, Zion, and Hudson. Make sure they know this meeting is not optional."
The girl quickly jumped up and hurried out the door. Dahlia moved to find a spot along the wall, dropping the bag down by her feet, and Thane placed himself beside her. Nikki went straight for the kitchen to help Cain, but Roarke took one of the chairs. Thankfully, it didn't take long before the missing eidolon decided to grace the rest with their presence. Even better, none of them seemed to react to the crosses she'd just brought into the room.
"Roarke, close the door," Cain ordered. As soon as it was shut, the oldest of the eidolon turned to address the rest. "Who here has killed someone this week?" He raised his own hand.
Nikki timidly raised hers, so after glancing at Thane, Dahlia did the same. Slowly, one by one, most of the rest did the same. Oddly, Roarke, Isabella, and Surya were the only ones who didn't end up with their hands in the air. Well, and Thane, but he didn't exactly count.
"This," Cain said, "is a problem. Now, I'm not going to ask how many people you've killed. I'm also not going to try to pretend like I'm also not to blame. Still, if each of us only killed one person, that is eleven murders within four blocks over the course of seven days. Who here thinks the police aren't going to notice that trend?"
Thane leaned towards Dahlia's ear and whispered, "You killed someone?"
"When the three of us went hunting together," she whispered back. "The one I told you about."
Thane nodded as if he accepted that, but she couldn't tell if that meant he was okay with it. Sadly, now was not the time to ask. Yes, she'd talked to him. She'd told him that not all of her meals were sexual, but she hadn't exactly gone into too many details. Dahlia assumed that the last thing Thane would want to know was who she fucked and who she ate. From her experience with the living, they seem to look down on the idea of their lover chewing on raw human flesh. Unfortunately, being undead meant she didn't exactly get a whole lot of options.
But Cain was still going. "And the police aren't our only problem. All of us came here for the same reason, and that's because the Inquisition is not here. What some of you may not realize is that they're still watching. I don't care what year you were born or how long you've been dead. This, people, is the digital age. There are cameras on every street corner, and almost all of you are carrying a cell phone, which can be tracked. Burner or not, it can still be tracked."
"So what do you want us to do?" Laci asked.
"Sex," Dahlia said, answering before Cain could. "We want to make a community where we can fly under the radar, so we need to start feeding through sex, not blood, and not flesh."
"And if we aren't in the mood to fuck?" Christos, the siren, asked.
Surprisingly, it was Thane who had the answer. "Make a schedule. Cain and Dahlia picked this area because a few screw-ups could happen without getting caught. The city is big enough, there's not a church in the state, and crime rates are variable. So, if you figure out how many murders are common in the area, and then set a schedule where everyone is allowed a kill within a certain space of time, then it won't tip off the Church of the Holy Inquisition."
"And what if we're not in the mood when it's our turn?" Vivian asked. "In case you missed it, we didn't come here to live by somebody else's rules. We came here because you said we could be free."
"And we certainly didn't ask for an inquisitor to start telling us what to do," Karsen grumbled.
"You can only befreewhen the Inquisition is gone," Dahlia snapped. "I know most of you have never seen what they can do, but there's a reason why there's a big gap between when I died and when the rest of you died. During the Spanish Inquisition, I was in Asia. All of the eidolon who went to Europe to enjoy the high society there were killed. So were a bunch of humans who got caught up in the whole mess."
"Yeah, and they can't get away with witch hunts in the modern world," Zion pointed out. "That means the Inquisition is more limited than we are. We don't exist. They're real people."
"They have Words!" Dahlia yelled. "One of them causes a bubble that prevents anyone around from seeing what's going on. We don't exist. We won't be missed. There's no trail to signal that we vanished, so there's nothing stopping the Church from coming after us. They also no longer have trials. If an inquisitor spots you, they kill you."
"The Church teaches that demons will turn to dust," Thane told them. "And for those we kill who don't turn to dust, they just say they were possessed. The human host was killed as the demon was expelled. It's nice. It's tidy. It's bullshit, but the followers of the Church of the Holy Inquisition can't complain. Questioning the elder priests is a good way to get accused of blasphemy. The punishment for that? A stake in the heart. It kills the living just as quickly as it kills the undead."
"So if there's no hope," Hudson, the vampire, said, "then we should enjoy what we can. I don't know about anyone else, but I came here so I could finally stop having these cravings. I have no intention of fucking for my next meal. I'm a goddamn vampire.I drink blood." He looked over at Thane pointedly. "I like drinking blood. I want to taste the hormones pumping through their body and savor the drugs or alcohol they've consumed in the one way that will get me fucked up. Why shouldn't I be allowed to do that?"
"Because if you do," Cain said, "then Vivian might be the one the inquisitors put a stake in. We came here to live as a community. That means we now have a responsibility to each other. If you want to get the benefits of being a part of a group, then you have to deal with the responsibilities that come with it. In this case, it means that you don't always get to have everything you want. If your actions cause risk to the rest of us? Then take your ass somewhere else."
