I inspected it all with eyes built for the night and with hearing that missed nothing. As I dropped lower, soaring on the breeze, candlelight bloomed inside the nonchapel and brightened, shining, flickering through the arched windows, throwing muted hues of color onto the white shell walkway. The stained-glass windows were all in shades of blood—ruby, wine, burgundy, the pink of watered blood—bloody light spilling onto the ground.
A vampire stepped from the doorway, smoothing her dress. She was old. Her skin was the white of the full moon, her face grooved. She was dressed all in white, the toes of her shoes, her long dress, the nunlike wimple on her head, hiding her hair; her hands were pocketed beneath an apron like a vampire mother superior. A distant car purred. She stopped moving, the stillness of stone, a carved statue, fit for a graveyard. The sight of her brought me to myself.
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin as if she were going into battle, and I saw that she had black brows and a beaked nose. Mediterranean ethnicity, perhaps Greek. Not beautiful, but imposing and serene, as if she had made peace with herself and her world.
The car crunched down the shell-gravel lane. The smell of vampire rose on the air. I canted my flight feathers and dropped lower, silent on the wind, wings making no sound at all as I chose a tree to land. Tall. Dead. Branches white and stripped of bark. Close to the land where the vampires went to earth. Close enough for my owl ears to hear them speak. I stretched my wings full, spread my flight feathers, and raised my breast. Reached out with legs and talons. Back-winged to break my forward movement. Gripped the barkless branch. I was down. I shrugged my raptor shoulders and fluttered my flight feathers as balance and gravity took over. I settled on the deadwood, my wings folding tight against me.
The woman vampire turned as I landed, seeing me in the tree. I called, owl sound, lonely in the night. Not an owl of this place, but she wouldn’t know the difference. After a moment, she turned away to the first limousine, watching as it rocked near and its tires ground to a halt.
Vampires slid from the long car, seven of them, all moving fast, at full vamp speed, all well fed, the smell of fresh blood on them. All wore black, somber suits and tailored gowns in summer wool or silk, shimmering in the night. They were dressed as if for a funeral or a party.
More cars moved up the drive as the first circled and headed out, lights passing, like birds in flight. Like a dance. Dozens of cars approached, some depositing one occupant, some many, until there were nearly a hundred vamps gathered under the young moon. Lastly came a hearse, white, gleaming pearlescent in the night. It bumped to a stop in the midst of the vampires.
Two males jumped out and raced to the rear of the hearse. They were human, ungraceful, slow moving, and one carried a roll of fat around his middle. No vampire ever managed extra weight, most living at near starvation, gaunt as a winter hunt. The vampires moved subtly closer, tightening a circle around the hearse. The humans’ fear grew as they unloaded a white coffin. Near panic leached from their pores and tainted the night wind.
“You sure you can bury her without . . . ? Never mind,” one said.
One of the vampires laughed, the sound sly and cruel, enjoying the terror that increased tenfold on its echo. The two humans rushed back and slammed the hearse doors. The locks clicked, though mechanical locks and glass windows gave them no protection at all. The mocking vampire laughed again. I saw him lick his lips, heard the smack of dead flesh.
The hearse roared and spat loose shell like gunshots as it pulled away. It fishtailed at the entry to the graveyard, tires shrieking as they caught on the pavement. The hearse roared all the way down the road. When it was gone, the old vampire, the one in the nun’s wimple who had lit candles in the nonchapel, moved to the coffin and placed her hand atop it.
“Gather,” she said, soft and compelling. I leaned from my branch, coercion pulling on my flesh and bones, urging me to come. It was a kind of vamp calling, full of enticement. “Gather and give the gift of blood,” she said, “that our sister might be healed.” Her words rose above the crowd, dancing on the air, full of beauty. Age made her voice potent, mellow. Her words chimed and rang inside my head, commanding and demanding. My talons danced on the old wood. Dark sparks of energy and magic soared through me. I spread my wings to fly to her.
“I challenge the right to blood ceremony,” a man said.
Startled, I snapped my wings tight to my side.
The crowd shifted and sighed, as if expectation was satisfied. Those closest stepped away from the new speaker until he stood apart, opening a path from him to the pale coffin. He seemed amused at the way his kindred moved. The vamp was slender and willowy, even by vamp standards. Dark, delicate, but not effete, he walked through the space in the gathering the way a fencer might, feet placed with care and with a thought to balance. When he stood in front of the old woman he said, “Rafael Torrez, heir of Clan Mearkanis. Challenger.”