Vràna stuck her head through the fence, and Deven bent to rub her ears. “You seem to be doing very well,” he went on, looking up at Cora. “I must say you look magnificent on that monster’s back.”
Cora patted Isis on the neck. “Isis is no monster. She is a regal and proud lady.”
Deven looked unconvinced, and Isis flicked her ear at him disdainfully, supremely uninterested in his opinion. Cora had to laugh at that.
“I wanted to ask you a favor,” Deven said. “Feel free to say no for any reason.”
Cora dismounted, facing the Prime through the fence. “Anything, my Lord.”
“It’s nothing dramatic. But tonight Jonathan is going into the city with Miranda for her concert, and that leaves me without ears in the Queens’ gathering. I was hoping you might consent to carrying this.” He drew something from his pocket: a tiny device about the size of a button. “I want to know what they’re gossiping about. This will record conversations near you, and I can listen to them later.”
Cora slid her hand through the fence and took the device. “Where do I put it?”
“There’s a clip on it that will fit on the back of your Signet. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
She turned over the device and her Signet, and sure enough, the clip was the perfect length to slide into the amber stone’s setting. “I do not mind at all,” she said, “as long as you do not wish for me to act on whatever I hear—I am neither a warrior nor an agent of yours.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Now what makes you think I have agents, Cora?”
Cora gave him an amused look. “Why, nothing at all, my Lord.”
Deven smiled at her slowly. “You are quite a woman, my Lady Queen. I look forward to a great many years as your ally.”
“Perhaps you can offer a few pointers on how I might get the others to talk to me,” she said. “Otherwise, I may not hear anything useful for you.”
“Flatter them. Women love to be sincerely complimented, and it’s a way to start a conversation:
I love your dress
,
that wart on your neck brings out your eyes
, whatever. If you don’t like them, just pretend you don’t speak whatever language they’re using, and look preoccupied and mysterious.”
“None of them seem to like me much,” she noted, trying not to sound petulant. “I wish I knew why.”
Deven snorted quietly. “By and large, Cora, Queens are shallow bitches who care about nothing but riches and power, just like their Primes. They look down on you because of where you came from, not because of who you are, which proves they’re of no use to you. But they’re not all bad. Aside from Jonathan and Miranda, I would advise you to at least stay on good terms with Mameha of Japan, Virginia Larimer of the Midwestern U.S. … Varati from India is a good friend of your Prime’s, and his Queen is a brilliant woman. Most won’t make the first move, though; that will be up to you, if you want your circle of allies to grow.”
“I will try,” she told him.
He reached through the fence and took her hand. “The most important thing is this: Even if they intimidate you, don’t let them know they do. Walk in like you own the
place. You’ve seen Miranda do it—and even the ones who hate her respect her enough to get out of her way. The Queens who would make good friends will be drawn to you, and you to them. Trust your instincts.”
Cora squeezed his hand back and nodded. “I shall.”
“Then you’ll do fine, my Lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me … I have to go pretend to find any of this interesting, and you should probably dehorse yourself if you want anyone to come near you.”
He gave her a wink, released her hand, and was gone.
Cora sighed, her hand touching her Signet. She had no idea what he was hoping to learn through her tonight, but she would do her best to find it for him.
“Come, Isis,” she told the horse, slipping a hand through her bridle. “Let us retire: you to your pasture and your mate, and I to my very first spy mission.”
Once upon a time, in an era lost to the mists of history, the Signets had been something else: something real, something meaningful. There were no written records as far as anyone knew, but Deven knew that this pageant of peacocks going through the motions of civility wasn’t why they were here.
Despite his age he was a relative newcomer to the Council, having been in power less than a hundred years, but even from the first meeting he had attended, he’d felt the lack of …
something
. Purpose, perhaps.
They had no real power over each other here; Primes could fight and kill each other from across the globe, but when a Prime wanted to hurt another, he did so secretly, using assassins and vampire hunters and by sending someone powerful to take down an enemy and perhaps take his Signet. Diplomacy as it was practiced by the Council changed little … but oh, how they loved their intrigues, their alliances.
Why did they bother with this charade?
None of the others knew anymore. More disturbingly,
no one seemed to care. They performed the ritual of assembling and arguing, then went home and ruled how they liked until the next time, and no one ever questioned
why
.
Deven watched the Primes assemble, some lingering in groups to chat, others already taking their seats along the great table. There were chairs for every territory, although a few Primes rarely, if ever, attended; Demetriou, Prime of the Black Sea territories, hadn’t been brave enough to show this year, and to Deven’s knowledge no one even knew what Dzhamgerchinov looked like … well, except Deven himself, who was probably the only Prime who had any sort of relationship with the oldest vampire in the Council.
The Prime of Russia terrified most of the others even though they’d never admit it. The vampires of his territory were nasty, brutish, and bloodthirsty; some of them barely looked humanoid. A combination of harsh environment and a Prime who had dispensed with the trappings of humanity centuries ago drew them to Dzhamgerchinov. The man himself was about as far from human as it was possible to get … but his friendship was useful.
Not even David knew that Russia and the Western United States had ties. Some things were best left undisclosed.
Human or monster, Deven would have preferred Russia’s company to the oily presence of the Prime who came to stand next to him.
“Prime Deven,” Hart said with that slight hint of disdain that was going to get him castrated one day.
“Hello, James,” Deven replied mildly. “Had any consensual sex lately?”
“You know, you really ought to mind your manners,” Hart replied, his tone calm, almost friendly.
Deven gave him a withering look. “Run along. The adults have business to attend to.”
Hart’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful … your boy over there is treading on thin ice, and you won’t always be around to protect him or his shrew wife. Neither of you has as much influence as you think you do.”
Deven actually laughed. “Oh, James. Your little grudge is so adorable.” He turned his gaze fully on Hart, who had the good sense to look a little uneasy. “So the South gave Cora asylum, and Miranda threw you at a wall. So David’s affection for humans threatens the status quo you’ve been exploiting to deal heroin and women all over the Northeast—yes, I’m well aware of how you make your money. So you think I’m a deviant: Get over it. You can’t touch me, Hart … And if you try anything against the Southern Signet, you’ll wish to God I had killed you here and now.”
As he spoke, Deven’s hand moved down to the hilt of his sword in silent reminder of all the heads Ghostlight had parted from traitorous shoulders. “Now go sit down like a good lad, drink your wine, and keep your fool mouth shut.”
Hart glared at him for a moment before stalking off.
“That looked fun,” David said, moving up beside Deven a few minutes later. “Everything all right?”
“He’s feeling bold,” Deven replied. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.”
They both watched as most of the Primes took their seats; Deven took the lead and started toward his own, David walking with him.
“Congratulations on making the finals,” Deven noted. “We’re going to beat you into next week, but still, you made a good showing.”
David smiled. “Don’t be too sure. Faith has been very driven this year—I think we have a good chance of winning.”
“I hope not. I really don’t want to pay India ten grand. He’d never let me live it down.”
David checked his phone as they took their seats across from each other. When David was worried, a thin line appeared between his eyebrows; it was practically a canyon tonight. Deven knew why; across the city, Miranda was getting ready to perform in front of fifteen thousand people … onstage, vulnerable, and too far away to reach without a dangerous Mist.
Meanwhile, there was a gathering of Queens going on in another room of the Haven; most of them didn’t deal in
politics, so they had their own reception. Deven liked to imagine it involved doilies and drinking tea with extended pinky fingers, but Jonathan insisted he was wrong. Still, Jonathan had happily given up the doily party to accompany Miranda into the city, and Cora was Deven’s informant tonight.
Jonathan never complained about being the only male Consort, but Deven was well aware how alienated he often felt from the others of his kind; no matter what, the Consort stuck out like a giraffe among zebras. He got along well with most of the Queens—his personality was the sort that made friends easily and made people feel comfortable despite their prejudices—but it was still a lonely place to stand. One thing Deven appreciated about Miranda was that she and Jonathan had been immediately taken with each other, and finally, finally Jonathan had a true friend among the Council.
David had felt better about Miranda going once Jonathan was with her. The Prime didn’t doubt his Queen’s strength or courage, but it took only one moment’s lapsed attention, one shot, one unlucky night, to destroy everything.
One shot.
“Let us come to order, my Lords,” Tanaka said from his position at the head of the table. “We will begin with the traditional roll call by territory. When I call the name of your region, please respond with your name …”
Fifteen thousand people, all under the same spell.
Jonathan had first seen Miranda play in her music room at the Haven. He had been floored by her voice, but of course she hadn’t been working her empathy on him, so he knew the full extent of her abilities only via the sales figures for her first album. He had enjoyed watching her singles climb the charts and the CD go first gold, then platinum.
The Austin Live Music Festival main stage was outdoors in the middle of a public park, and the sheer size of the crowd should have generated an insane amount of noise, but just now they all seemed caught in silence,
swaying silently back and forth while the muted strains of a piano melody floated out over them through a network of amps and speakers.
Miranda sang with her eyes closed and her hair down. Her fingers moved like a dreamer’s over the keys, and her voice was almost a whisper, catching the lyrics of the song and spinning them into a spiderweb of wistful longing:
There’s a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on my bed
Oh, you were a vampire and baby I’m the walking dead …
The most amazing thing was that she held the entire audience rapt in the palm of her hand … and she wasn’t using her empathy at all. It was her voice, her music, doing the weaving.
She transitioned from the cover song to an original piece seamlessly, without the pause to banter with the audience that most musicians would take. She tended to talk only when she switched from piano to guitar or while she was changing the settings on the digital keyboard behind her.
There was a hypnotic, drowning quality to her piano playing that was distinctly different from her guitar-based songs; the latter tended to be more fiery and sparked at the edges with emotional urgency. She seemed more at home behind the Bösendorfer than the Martin, but her skill was remarkable either way.
He was watching from the wings, not out in the audience where he’d be jostled and sweated upon by the teeming mass of humanity. There were Elite everywhere in addition to the Festival’s considerable security staff. David had made sure to send as many warriors as he could spare, though that meant stretching them thin tonight as so many were required at the Haven. There was little chance of an incident requiring Elite intervention at the Council meeting, but while a handful were taking part in the tournament, the rest were on duty as a show of strength.
Miranda finished the song to deafening cheers. She rose from her piano bench and bowed, smiling broadly, face flushed with pleasure, hair soaked with sweat from the glaring stage lights.
A tech emerged from offstage and handed her her guitar. She stepped up to the microphone at center stage.
“Thank you,” she said, quieting the applause. “I’d like to thank the Austin Live Music Festival for having me here tonight and all of you for your support … And speaking of support, as we mentioned on the website last week, we’re now featuring a new T-shirt, designed by local artist Simone Veracruz, and one hundred percent of the proceeds will go directly to the Miranda Grey Porphyria Research Foundation.”
Another wave of applause, along with a few shouts of “We love you, Miranda!”
“I have one more song for you tonight,” Miranda went on, “but I’m going to need your help singing the chorus.”
Her hand slid along the guitar’s neck to find the opening chord, and she favored the audience with a mischievous smile.
Just as her pick hit the strings, Jonathan heard something strange: a faint pop and a whistle, then another.
The beginning of the final song screeched into discord as Miranda jerked backward. The microphone caught her gasp as she looked down.
Blood, berry-bright against her pale skin, blossomed from two round holes in her chest and in seconds had flooded down over her breasts and dripped onto the guitar’s glossy wood.
For a few seconds, the entire crowd of fifteen thousand went deathly silent … but that silence turned to screams of horror as Miranda Grey crumpled and fell.