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Chapter Five
“Someone doesn’t want you here,” Casey said as we stood in the former librarian’s rooms.
I would bet at one point in time they had been neatly kept, but it looked like a tornado had come through the book-lined apartment and torn through all of Alvis’s things. Including his body.
Which was pretty much everywhere.
When a vampire dies it can go one of two ways. The first is the classic dust to dust method of death. The vampire takes a stake to the heart or gets separated from his noggin and suddenly there’s a big old pile of ashes where he’d previously been standing.
Way number two is my least favorite. One of said methods of death occurs and the vampire in question sort of explodes, like a bomb that was filled with blood and guts and bone fragments.
I don’t know why some vamps dust their way to whatever afterlife awaits them and others leave a massive mess behind, but I know which one I prefer. However, dust doesn’t leave a mega-shit-ton of DNA to investigate.
“Why do you think this is about me?” I wasn’t really questioning Casey’s thinking, merely wanted to know the logic behind his reasoning.
“Well, he wasn’t dead yesterday. I talked to him before you got here. He was alive after sunset, and he was looking forward to meeting with you. Sometime between talking to him and Rufus coming to collect him for the meeting, he was murdered.” Casey was way calmer around a dead body than I’d ever remembered him being. Casey was the kid who hadn’t liked to be around blood when he’d first turned.
Yeah, we’d made a lot of fun of him in the beginning.
“We need to figure out how many people know about your mission.” Trent stood in the foyer of Alvis’s apartment, a bit outside the big living room. It was done in dark wood, an elegant, masculine space.
Before all the blood and guts.
I had left the book with Fenrir and Evan, who had explicit instructions to murder anyone who tried to get their hands on it. From the gleam in Evan’s eyes, I got the feeling she wouldn’t hate having that opportunity.
The queen’s daughter was sexually frustrated and ready to take it out on her enemies.
Fen had merely nodded and promised he would protect it before taking Evan’s hand and walking back to our rooms.
I wasn’t sure if he was worried about the assignment or upset I wasn’t taking him with me. If he’d been Lee, I would have expected him to show up at the most inopportune time, but Trent had assured me Fen would follow orders.
“Everyone,” Rufus replied. The leader of the primals stood in the foyer with Trent, his mouth turned down in a frown. “Our council of elders was informed of the happenings outside the nest, that the King of all Vampire and his group had returned. We put it to a vote whether we should aid you in your endeavors. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you that, but we are a democratic society, and working directly with the Nex Apparatus could have consequences.”
“Of course.” I understood the need to have everyone on board, but the whole everyone thing doesn’t usually happen in a democracy. What Rufus didn’t want to tell me was that there had been members of his society who either wanted to remain neutral or wanted to take their chances with Myrddin. Unfortunately, that was knowledge I needed. “Was Alvis on this council?”
“Oh, yes,” Rufus replied. “And he was quite vocal that we should do everything we can to aid the true king.”
“Even using that phrase could cause problems for the primals,” Trent pointed out. “On the surface you’re supposed to remain neutral.”
Rufus’s head shook slightly, a gentle denial. “We’ve sheltered too many of Myrddin’s enemies to believe the witches think we’re truly neutral.”
“Yet they’ve left you alone?” I asked.
“You have to understand that Myrddin’s hold on the plane is tenuous at best,” Rufus began. “He doesn’t have a good grip on the werecreatures, and only a quarter of the vampires have pledged their loyalty to him.”
“All of them warriors?” I knew the academics were on our side, but I needed to know how many warrior vamps should be considered enemies.
“Yes.” Trent took that one. “Sasha and I keep a list. They’re all warriors. The academics are either with us or in safe houses across Europe and Asia. We keep in contact.”
Warriors are the most common type of vampire, and also the most physically strong, but don’t count out the other vampire classes. We would still have plenty of physical strength on our side. “So Myrddin doesn’t attack the primals because he needs to keep the peace while he works on his plans.”
“That’s a good way to describe the situation. In some ways, we’ve all been biding time.” Rufus had a hand against his chest as though he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. “Myrddin hasn’t made good on his deals with the demons, so he needs the plane to stay calm. We have been waiting for the king. We’ve always known if it came to it, we would be on the side of the Council of Supernatural Creatures. It’s the government that formed after the king went missing, an attempt to keep the idea of democracy alive in our world. It’s taken a battering over the last few years, but I have hopes the king can bring it back to life.”
“How many of your own group didn’t want me here?” I was going to have to investigate and potentially win over hearts and minds with my sparkling personality. While we talked, I gingerly made my way around the living space, careful to avoid all of Alvis’s parts.
“Of the council of nine, only three voted against allowing you into the nest,” Rufus explained. “Their reasoning was to keep the peace with the witches.”
“So appeasement, in a sense.” I could tell him that hadn’t worked out during World War II, but I suspected the primals knew their history. Fear and an unwillingness to start a war that would doubtless come anyway would be the reasons for their hesitancy.
