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“You must be much older than you feel,” I said.
“I thought it was your gift to know the age of every vampire you met?”
“You must have some power that I haven’t seen before, because I can’t tell with you. That’s very impressive,” I said; flattery will get a long way with most men, even the undead ones.
“Our dark queen gave power to me and the others she created. You cannot be blamed for not understanding the difference between modern vampires and what we once were.”
“Tell me the difference, Trappolino.”
“Let me show you, Anita.” His eyes started to glow like fire behind dark glass, his face thinning down until it was flesh over bone.I was wrapped so close to him that I could feel his entire body losing flesh so that it was like hugging a corpse that had decayed somewhere dry. His face was nothing but a skull with a thin layer of flesh hiding bone; his eyes were like staring into brown fire or burning water. I had the sense of hidden depths that were inviting me to dive into them and be lost.
I blinked and was back to hugging an animated corpse, while we floated in the star-filled sky defying gravity as if that apple had never hit Newton in the head.
“I should have known you could gaze into my eyes and not be caught,” he said as his body started to fill back out. I’d never touched a vampire while they reversed the process and came back to “life.” It was weirdly more unnerving in reverse. Then I realized that the vampire I was holding on to had changed skin tone. He’d started out the utter white of a Caucasian vampire; now he was Black. He didn’t even have that slightly sickly pallor that all vampires had regardless of skin tone. If I had seen him on the street I’d have passed him by as human. But it was more than that, his features had changed to match the darker skin.
“Now that is interesting,” I said.
“Have I truly impressed you at last?” he asked.
“Yes, and honestly the whole floating-as-if-it’s-effortless-and-you-could-do-it-forever thing is impressive, too.”
He smiled, then frowned. “Why am I so happy that I’ve impressed you?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Liar,” he said.
“I’ve never met a shapeshifter that could change into different people before,” I said.
“I am not a shapeshifter.”
“Then how did you change yourself so completely?”
“Why are your king and your knight not coming?”
I didn’t want to answer the question, so I asked one instead.“Why did Deimos decide to kill Jean-Claude instead of taking over his power base?”
“He still wants that.”
“Then why do you want to kill Jean-Claude?”
“Because Deimos does not share power. He consumes it, but he allows no one else at his feast.”
“Jean-Claude shares. I share.”
“I will gain nothing from a vampire kiss that exists on seduction alone for its power.”
“Are you sure of that?”
He frowned at me with his new face. “It is the necromancy that attracts us like moths to a flame; I thought I was proof against your wiles.”
“Why does Deimos not sharing power make you want to kill Jean-Claude?”
“If Deimos will not share power, then I want to take every bit of it away from him.”
“Then let’s do that,” I said.
“Let us do what?” he asked.
