“The chains would have to be real,” Lucien said. “He, above all others, knows what will hold you and what won’t—I’ll have to use heavy steel, but we can loosen a few links. Understand? It will all have to seem very, very real.”
“Yes,” Gavriel said, so softly that it was almost an exhalation of breath. “And there must be some sign of struggle. Marks on my body and face, as though we really fought.”
Lucien’s lips pulled back from his teeth in an expression that was half smile and half snarl.
“What is the plan, exactly?” Tana asked. Lucien glanced at her in annoyance, before his face very deliberately smoothed out. Maybe he’d realized that she couldn’t help Gavriel stick to a plan she didn’t understand. Or maybe he’d remembered he was trying to make her like him.
“It’s simple, really,” he said, waving a hand in Gavriel’s direction. “The Spider is going to come pick up his prize. We’re going to truss up Gavriel, and when the Spider gets close enough—and he will, he won’t be able to resist gloating—Gavriel will pull free from the restraints and kill him.”
Gavriel nodded his agreement. “And then Lucien’s people will fall upon his Corps.”
“And thus will the new world triumph over the old,” finished Lucien.
“Nice,” Tana said, feeling as though she ought to say something, but also as though everything she thought of seemed insufficient. That odd feeling of the surreal descended on her again.
Some vampires were going to murder some other vampires.
Lucien and Gavriel, best vampire frenemies, were going to murder some other vampires.
She put her hand in front of her mouth, smothering a smile.
Once upon a time, she and Pauline had had a big falling out over a leather jacket that Tana had borrowed and their mutual friend Ana puked on. There’d been a huge screaming fight and then avoiding each other for a week, eating lunch at different tables and upsetting their mutual friends with their endless snarking. But then Pauline got cast as a lead in a play and turned up at Tana’s house to run lines. The fight was over, just like that.
Could Gavriel feel that way about Lucien, though? Was it possible to forgive someone who caused the death of his sister, whose necklace he’d carried with him for more than a century? Was it possible to forgive someone whose fault it was that he’d been locked in a cell and lost his mind?
Lucien stood up and started toward the door.
Quietly, Gavriel spoke, mouth curling up at one corner. “There is one more thing I would say to you.”
Lucien turned, and something about Gavriel froze him in place.
“You won’t betray me,” Gavriel said. “But can you tell me the reason why?”
“Because I know you can kill him and I want him dead.” Lucien frowned, speaking slowly, as if to a child. “You specialize in killing our own kind. And I want the Spider gone—he hates vampires who display themselves before mortals, vampires like me, who’ve become celebrities—so you’re giving me what I want at a very small cost to myself. Besides which, you are my progeny, of which I am most proud.”
Gavriel smiled. “No, you won’t betray me, because if you do, I will tell the Spider your secret. I know why you gave me over to him so swiftly. I didn’t realize at first, but being in a cage for a decade gives one a long time to think.”
Lucien glanced up at the wall, above a painting, and then back. It was only a moment’s change of gaze, but when Tana followed it, she saw the tiny glare of a camera lens.
Of course he was recording Gavriel. Of course.
It couldn’t be part of the live feed, though, not if Lucien was casually discussing secrets. Unless Lucien was betraying Gavriel in the most obvious way possible—literally broadcasting their plan to the Spider. But even though the footage was likely to be hidden away in Lucien’s vault somewhere, he looked nervous, as though he didn’t want whatever Gavriel was about to say on a recording of any kind.
Gavriel turned toward Tana and directed the next part to her. He sounded chillingly sane. “Long ago, no new vampires could be turned without the approval of a small number of very old vampires. They pretended that they were worried about the spread of vampirism, but what they mostly worried about was one of their own progeny making an army and moving against them. As a Thorn, I hunted any progeny that stepped out of line. But what I mostly hunted were mistakes.
“Some vampires are foolish or sloppy. Some are interrupted in the middle of feeding, surprised by sunlight, or even fought off by the person being attacked. That victim goes Cold, turns, then not knowing any better, feeds without killing. She probably tries to feed without killing. But in the process, she makes more vampires and soon, it’s an outbreak.”
Tana couldn’t help imagining Gavriel being interrupted by some frantic vampire, waving around his hands, trying to explain the terrible error he’d just made.