I sat up.
The brightest scent in the room was around a chair beside the bed. A woman—a healer, judging by the faint traces of herbs and tinctures—had sat there for some time, and possibly fallen asleep watching over her charges. She’d definitely been the one to bandage the vampire; none of his kind would have bothered. He couldn’t get infections, and he’d heal himself soon enough, something I supposed she hadn’t known.
She’d bandaged me, as well.
Too well.
Mummy, I thought, glimpsing myself in a mirror. The comment came from my still-asleep twin. She thought we looked amusing, like a bikini-wearing mummy, the undergarments almost obscured by bandages and tape.
I didn’t care what we looked like.
I cared about the niggle at the back of my mind. Something familiar, but that I couldn’t quite place. Something wrong.
There was a door across from the bed. I walked over and opened it. No one was outside, not a single guard, which seemed unwise. Did no one here know what I was, what I could do?
But all I saw was an empty hall, and all I smelled was woodsmoke and alcohol. I followed the scents down the corridor, to where it let out into a sitting area. It was mahogany paneled and dimly lit, mostly by the flickering light of a low-burning fire. A small group had gathered around it, including two humans. I automatically synced my heartbeat with that of one of them, but may as well not have bothered. They were too caught up in their conversation to pay me any attention.
And too secure.
Because this place . . . what was this place?
The terrible fog in my head caused by the stun spell had cleared, allowing me to access my abilities again. But what they were telling me seemed impossible. I tried to contact my twin’s mind, but she was too deeply asleep, and batted away the request. It didn’t matter; I was already reaching out, in something like awe, my mind encountering what felt like every vampire on Earth. I brushed mind after mind, all crowded into one place, like a working anthill. And at the center of it all— The queen.
I could see her in my mind’s eye, not here but somewhere close, seated on a dais in the midst of a crowd of her creatures. Silks fluttered, satins gleamed, vampires talked and laughed and moved around her, but I barely saw. Didn’t care.
How can you see the stars when the sun is out?
“—no bloody idea!” That was one of the people around the fire. There were five in all: Radu, a woman in a glittery blouse, the dark-haired master from the fight, another master vampire I didn’t know, and the human man who’d spoken. They seemed to be arguing.
“Then take a guess!” The dark-haired master appeared agitated. He was the only one standing, with an arm on the mantel when he wasn’t striding around the room. He was strong enough to sense my presence, even with precautions, but too distracted to care.
“I can’t!” the man spat. “It’s absurd!”
He was a mage; I could smell the magic on him. His voice boomed around the room as he sat forward, arguing animatedly with a creature who could silence him between one heartbeat and the next. But he wouldn’t.
The vampire wanted something.
“Don’t lie to me!” He was bending over the man now. “I know what you do, in those labs of yours. You experiment on everything! You’re telling me you’ve never—”
“That is what I’m telling you. And get out of my face, vampire!”
“Uncle . . .” That was the glittery woman. She was the healer I’d detected in the bedroom. I could just discern her scent over the smell of the fire, and the cologne her relative wore. He was still in dirty clothes, fine evening wear smeared with dust. He had been at the fight, too, then.
“Don’t ‘uncle’ me,” he told her. “I came here for you, even after everything, and now I’m being bullied!”
“No one can bully you.”
“Well he’s damned well trying!”
I was following their conversation, but it was almost background noise. I was more interested in the queen, or more accurately, in her power. It was astonishing—and strange. The strangest I’d ever encountered.
Most masters have a constant level of power. They can call up more in an emergency, from their own reserves or those of their Children. But normally, they display an average that allows you to guess at their abilities.
Not this one.
I watched the aura around her shrink and expand, shrink and expand, but not like breathing. It was wild, uneven, capricious. Instead of being smooth, it spiked and dipped, ebbed and flowed, in a pulsing, jittering rhythm. At its height, I could not have touched her. I doubted anyone could. But at its depth . . .
At its depth, I could have her.
Our eyes met, and a small smile flirted with her lips. “It would be . . . unwise . . .” she informed me, lighting a cigarette.
And, suddenly, I was back in my head, panting and confused, from what felt like a mental slap.
“—wanted to, how would we obtain any?” The mage was asking. “We’ve experimented with fey flora, now and again—even use some of it on the regular. They have a root that’s a damned good stabilizing agent, better than anything we had before. But their bones? Are you mad?”
“You’re saying you can’t get them?” The dark-haired master sounded skeptical.
“I’m saying I haven’t tried! I’m not a murderer—or an idiot. The Light Fey—”
“I didn’t say anything about the Light Fey. I don’t expect you to go hunting the highborn, but some of the Dark? The type nobody would miss? You’re telling me—”
“I’m through telling you anything!” The man was on his feet now, and furious. I felt his heart rate spike, saw the flex of his fingers at his waistline. They must have taken his weapons before letting him in here.
Probably just as well.
“Uncle, please—” That was the glittery woman, who had put down her drink to jump up and grab his arm.
“Perhaps I should summon Lord Mircea?” the other vampire asked.
“I don’t need Mircea!” the dark-haired master snapped. “I need answers—and I will have them!”
“What you’ll have is nothing if you don’t shut up!” That was the woman, putting herself between her family member and the dark-haired master. She looked at her uncle. “Forget about him. Will you answer a few questions for me?”
He scowled, but after a moment he relented. “Make it fast. Your aunt was still in hysterics when I left, after that damned farce tonight. You’re lucky we got shields up in time, vampire!”
“I would hope you could manage that much,” the dark-haired master sneered. “When we were saving your lives upstairs from some of your own kind!”
“That’s it.” The man’s fury had coalesced into grim resolve. “I won’t stay here and be compared to a bunch of damned black magic users—”
“You think that’s what they were?” the woman asked.
“What the hell else would they be? Normal mages don’t go around experimenting with ground-up bits of fey!”
“Just ground-up bits of vampire,” the dark-haired master said, showing some fang.
“Damn it, man! That was hundreds of years ago!”
“Officially, maybe.” That was the other master, commenting in a smooth, unruffled tone. He sounded like a bureaucrat, and had some sort of device he kept checking. “The traffic continues, in small amounts—”
“Maybe among the Black Circle—”
“That’s always the excuse!” The dark-haired master flushed. “Every time we catch you lot in anything. ‘Oh, it wasn’t us—it was the bad type of mages!’”
“Because it usually is!”
“Not tonight! The Black Circle attacked us several times recently—here and at a stronghold in Las Vegas. They suffered enormous casualties, yet didn’t use these powerful new weapons—not even once. Which makes me suspicious—”
“Are you accusing me, vampire?”
“I’m asking for an explanation! Your own life was imperiled tonight, and your family’s. I’d think—”