S ORIN was near an entrance, the night-tinged mouth of an abandoned quarry where shadows swallowed all vision. A place so harmless to the eye that no one Above ever bothered to wander near.
“You made a valiant attempt,” he said into one of the encrypted cell phones all the Underground used. As a breeze carried the scent of a human summer, he took in the aroma. It was almost a gorgeous night.
On the other end of the line, Paul Aspen’s voice came through as clear as curved glass. “You don’t have to say the rest: you wish I’d been successful in finding out what Dawn knows. But I couldn’t get deep enough. Not with her resisting like that.”
“When I discovered she would be attending your party and I asked you for this favor, I knew she would be a hard mind to read. I do wonder, however, how your encore—your need to bite her—will be received by the populace.” Sorin paused, emphasizing his disdain for the Elite. “Some more than others.”
“You think the bite will be the big issue? Mind wiping bugged me the most, but you asked me to do it.” The actor gave a dramatic pause. “Still, it’s not like I erased all Dawn’s vampire experiences—that would’ve made her pals suspicious if she’d come home wondering about things she’d already shared with them. It was just a superficial wipe to take out what I did, nothing else. I took the precaution with her because you thought it was best. ‘She is not a normal meal,’ you said, ‘and the stakes are too high to depend on just her permission.’”
What he said was true. Usually, the released Elites fed for amusement upon their Servant entourages in between monthly maintenance infusions from the Master, so the concept of mind wiping for them was considered déclassé. Similarly, to every other vampire, it was a method used only in case of emergency, a tool for serious intervention only. All the same, the bite was what bothered Sorin because it was an act of greater intimacy.
Was it not just like an Elite to take what he wanted and damn the bigger picture?
Sorin shook his head. Perhaps recruiting one of their first Hollywood Underground creations for spy work had not been wise. However, Sorin had never been content with the speed of their current spy work, so he had circumvented the Master’s approval this one time and seized the opportunity to improve their information. After all, spies had indicated that Dawn was away from her team and heading for the property of an Elite who had no attachments to her, and the actor had been willing enough to perform quick spy work for the sake of the Underground. Certainly, they had experienced some initial trouble when an unknown spirit had been detected but, over the phone, Sorin had instructed the Elites at the party on how to use their given talents to charm the interloper into a holding vessel.
Sorin would soon be interrogating that captured spirit himself.
He laid his head back against the rock wall. The information culled from raiding Dawn’s mind would have been their greatest asset. If only they had been successful in this reconnaissance.
On the phone, Paul Aspen sighed negligently, and Sorin could imagine the superstar leaning back in a lounging chair by his pool, sipping from a blood cocktail.
“No one down there is going to know about what I did or didn’t do with Dawn Madison anyway, right?” the actor said. “You told me I was doing this for you on the hush. Say, did the real Master even know? That’d be a hoot—the second in command messing around underneath the chief’s nose.”
Sorin bristled. Elites were the only ones who knew of the real Master’s existence. They loved to remind Sorin that he was no more than a glorified bodyguard and merely their sibling.
“I made my vow to you, Edward.” It was Paul’s old name, the fifties matinee-idol moniker that remained in Sorin’s memory. “This must remain a secret.”
“Because you didn’t tell the Master.” The star laughed. “Oh, this is entertaining.”
Only now did Sorin realize how rash this decision had been. “I planned to tell him, Edward, but he is involved with important matters that I dare not interrupt needlessly.”
Yet why should Sorin have to explain to an Elite? Though he was appreciative of the movie star’s aid tonight, the Elite’s act of biting Dawn Madison would cause trouble. In fact, there were two who would be most affected by Sorin’s aggressive decision to sic Paul Aspen on the human.
“I love it,” the actor was saying. “Sorin the minion. You and your superiority. Hah.”
Sorin held his composure, knowing this vampire was younger and, thus, less intelligent in so many ways. An Elite did not contain half as much magic as he—not of the real sort anyway.
Just as he was about to thank the actor once again for his contribution and end their tedious conversation, a bolt of Awareness crashed through his consciousness.