I stared at the table, a bleak mood washing through me. “What did Governor Sarkness say about this?”
Camille snorted. “His usual spiel. Such a tragedy, we will find who did it, blah blah blah . . . You know that this isn’t going to bode well for the Vamp Rights bill. Sarkness fought against the Supe Rights bill as well, but that one managed to pass even with his opposition. You know he’s going to find a way to make these attacks bounce back on the victims and claim it’s their own fault. They were asking for it, and if they didn’t want to be attacked, why did they come out of the coffin sort of crap.”
Nerissa shrugged. “I spent today setting up a task force. Once we know who the victims are, we can immediately reach out to their families, if any of them have living kin. I also had to hold a press conference about the incident. Sarkness was there. He was walking a thin line, but Camille’s right. He looked about as sorry as somebody who just won the lottery.”
I sat, mute, for a moment. Then—“Do we have a list of known dead yet?”
Nobody bothered to point out to me that all the victims were already dead. Vernacular was tricky when coping with vampire deaths, but right now, the fact was twenty-three lives had been wiped out by hatred.
Nerissa was about to say something when the phone rang. Camille answered.
Chase, she mouthed, and handed the phone to Nerissa, who motioned to Delilah for a notepad and pen. She began taking down what looked like names.
“Roman’s promised a vampire contingent to guard the city, then?” Camille leaned forward, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t bother Nerissa.
“Yeah, I need to go over there after we talk to Trenyth. He’s going to introduce me to the squad before he leaves to meet with Blood Wyne.” I stretched, feeling too bound up.
Delilah cocked her head. “His mother’s getting involved?”
“I think she has to, don’t you? We have to bring the vampires in against Shadow Wing. It’s time we joined together—banded as a unified force. But attacks like this one are going to make things that much more dicey, though.”
In fact, it was likely to make human-vampire relations pretty damned nasty for a while, and I hoped to hell all the work Wade, Roman, and I had done to establish an acceptable truce between the two factions hadn’t just blown out the window along with the first two floors of the DarkTower Gardens. Vamps were testy creatures—I knew that from personal experience. We were easy to ire, and given the fact that we had a rung or two up the ladder on humans meant that some vamps found it more than acceptable to take advantage of humans as juice boxes, rather than as equals.
Nerissa handed the phone back to Camille. “He gave me the names.” She handed the list to me. I scanned over it. I recognized them all, though none of them were close friends. But they had all been members of the Seattle Vampire Nexus, and at least one of them had been in Roman’s employ as a security guard.
“Fucking wingnuts. Can I have a copy of this for Roman? Or is Chase going to e-mail it over to him?”
“I’ll have him e-mail it. Meanwhile, you guys need to call Trenyth.” Nerissa pulled out her phone as we headed to the living room. The parlor was too small for us to all comfortably fit, so Smoky and Shade carried the Whispering Mirror out to the living room and set it up. Camille, Delilah, and I gathered around it, and the others in back of us. Times used to be, when we’d call, there would be a chance of talking to our father. Now that was gone, along with so much else.
Elqaneve was still clearing out the rubble from the disaster Telazhar had sicced on their doorstep. A good share of the Elfin race was dead, but they were doing their best to pick up the pieces and as much as I didn’t like the basic concept, I understood why the government was putting an emphasis on the fertile women to get pregnant and breed. Even if their husbands had died during the war, they were being encouraged to pick a partner—preferably full-Elfin blood—and get knocked up. Meanwhile, Sharah was doing her best to make being half-elf acceptable, especially since she had a daughter with Chase, but the sentiment of the basic populace wasn’t behind her on that. Especially not now.
As we stood there, waiting while Camille activated the mirror, I said, “It still seems so weird to think of Sharah as a queen.”
“That may be, but she’ll be a good one.” Camille glanced over her shoulder. It suddenly hit me—even though I had known it was going to happen, it really hadn’t registered that Camille was slated to ascend to a throne, as well.
“She’s certainly stepped up. She hasn’t seen Astrid since birth. It has to be tearing her up.” Delilah frowned. “I still think the elves were cruel to make her leave her child hours after the birth.”