The only scion-lair I had ever seen had been run by crazy psycho-vamps in New Orleans for their long-chained scions—uncured vamps who had never found sanity and who should have been destroyed centuries earlier. I had no preconceptions except modern fiction and scuttlebutt, which said that nutso young vamps were kept chained to the walls until they cured. Not so. These vamps were in steel-barred cells, maybe eight-by-eight feet. Bare mattresses on stone floors. The uncured-scions-to-be were naked. Vamped out. Rogue. My hackles rose. Cages. I fought down Beast’s growl. She hated cages, and rogues almost as much.
The caged vamps reacted to the sight of company in different ways. One attacked the bars of his cell, throwing himself against the iron, screaming incoherently. One laughed, a chilling, insane sound. One wept, curled on her mattress. Others, frenzied, reached toward the humans, eyes crazed, fangs deployed. Only one looked at me with reason in his eyes. He was wearing a shirt and pants. Shoes. His cell was larger than the others, containing a bed, desk, chair, table, and recliner. A flat screen TV was mounted across the bars and the desk was loaded down with books, a laptop, and various other electronic devices. I made a swift mental sketch: brown and brown, average height, slender, flat nose, as if broken, which was odd. I assumed he was a chained scion who had found himself and was ready to be released into the world. Until he met my eyes, held my gaze. And smiled. His small fangs flipped down and he ran his tongue over the sharp, inch-long tips, the gesture almost taunting. All righty then.
I could feel their hunger, ravenous, demented. It would have been kinder to just stake the pitiful things, but that wasn’t my job. The security arrangements were, which meant I needed to prepare a report on the safety measures of Shaddock’s Clan Home and his scion-lair. Crap. I hated reports. Not hiding my frown, not caring if I threw off anger pheromones, I took in the arrangement of the overhead lighting, each bulb protected by metal grates, the switch by the door, and moved through the room. Security cameras were in the four corners, the dynamic, mobile kind, operated by remote from a secure location. The bars were bolted into the rock floor, rock ceiling, and rock walls with no sign of rust or corrosion. I checked for adequate fire protection, drainage, and a safe manner to feed the caged. There was a large round drain in the sloping floor and sprinklers overhead. A hose to clean the vamps and their cages was curled on a hook. A stainless-steel sink big enough to swim in stood in one corner, and from it a stainless trough ran around the walls.
Shaddock said, “Blood-slaves—or the occasional pig if times get hard—can be bled at the sink, and the blood’ll drain around the room, feeding the vamps who slurp out of the trough.” He sounded proud and I smothered my anger. It was barbaric, not that the scions cared. They were too wacky to care. No one cared that they were kept like prisoners, either. They had signed all the legal documents giving the vamp master permission to control, keep, and care for them for as long as he chose, and then acceding permission to be put down like rabid dogs if they didn’t come out of the devoveo.
Actually, Shaddock had done a good job creating his lair. The Vampira Carta didn’t specify that rogue scions had to have mattresses or space. And all Leo cared was that they wouldn’t starve or get free. I had no choice but to be satisfied. I left the room, the two vamps still talking about the various nutritive techniques and systems of restraint for the chained ones. I was just angry. Deeply, silently angry. Chen watched me leave with flat, cold eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
Leo Pellissier’s Right-Hand Meal
By dawn, the envoy was protected and safe in his windowless suite in the four-star hotel, his blood-servants around to defend and serve him. And I was free to hunt. Almost as important, I was allowed time away from the vamps—who were all sicko killing fiends—and the blood-servants who allowed them to continue living like kings, despots, and feudal lords.
Though I hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours, I was too ticked off to rest. Bruiser, Leo Pellissier’s right-hand meal, had left me a text during the night. “It is in Leo’s best interests for you to hunt down the weres and prove the Mithrans innocent.” Well duh. No kidding. What did it? The national news media filming the protestors out in front of the hotel? Or the report that more campers had been attacked during the night, by something fanged and clawed? A second text added, “Leo has cleared this hunt with the International Association of Weres, who have placed a bounty on their heads. Leo wonders why they were not dispatched when the rest of the pack was exterminated.”