“They don’t fear us—”
“Perfect.” She lifted a long black shift and held it out. “And no, they don’t fear us on that one day. Show up a week later, and you’d have humans pissing themselves. But that one day, we can go out, show everything about ourselves, and they love being terrified by it.”
“Interesting.”
Adelie shook her head. “Humans are so damn weird.”
I laughed and took the dress as she held it out for me. “What the hell is this? Am I dressing up as a nun?”
“No. This is part of the celebration. Everyone wears formless black clothes and paints their faces like a skeleton. But not a regular skeleton.” Opening the computer on the desk, Adelie typed in a few words and the images of painted faces popped up. They were magnificent and colorful while still looking like the dead. “Like this. Now, the only requirement as a vampire at the masquerade is that you have to wear a red hood, but as a candidate for queen, you can do what you like as long as it’s red. I have ideas. That’s how the humans know we live in the castle. They all—”
“The humans? What?” My eyes widened. I had to have heard her wrong.
“The one day a year we invite the locals in and host a party.”
“The villagers? But it’s such a small town. Do we replace the residents every year?”
“We don’t kill them anymore. It’s not efficient. All the drinks are spiked, and the humans are delirious most of the night but happy and high. We use a drug called Molly. Ecstasy. They love it, and they are smiling and… well, you’ll see.”
She gifted me a grin that made my stomach flutter.
I had a feeling this was going to be a wonderful night.
Adelie’s makeup for my face was amazing. Using only red, black, and white, she turned my already pale skin to true white which made me look just like one of the women on the screen; I adored the symbolism. She put a black-black wig on me and tied it back with massive red satin roses, making it look as if I were wearing a crown. That, I really loved.
Helping her dress, I had to step back and let her do her own makeup since I wasn’t as good as she was. Adelie was amazing as she transformed herself into a skeleton with turquoise highlights. She managed it, so we looked nothing alike and nothing like ourselves.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
During the time we were getting ready, the castle had been transformed—I was sure by vampires who were using their speed. The walls and ceilings, draped in streamers, flowers, and balloons of vibrant shades of orange, red, and black. Little light-up ghosts in orange and purple were hung in various places. If it didn’t have a purpose, it was draped with black cloth. I had to say, the hewn rock castle stronghold, typically frightening on a bad day and depressing on a good one, was transformed into a palace that reveled in the magic, strength, and death it harbored inside its walls. Celebrating it, making it something to enjoy.
And enjoy it we would.
The humans from the nearby village, as well as some from farther away, started arriving at dark. There were impressively close to two thousand when it was all tallied. There would be plenty of food along with even more drink for them. Drinks with the concoction in it were labeled in a way the humans wouldn’t suspect.
The vampires mingled with the humans, talking, chatting...and measuring.
This was our Blood Rite.
When I was young, the Blood Rite was gory. The vampires would lure hundreds of humans to a hall or a temple and hold them in Thrall. Every vampire in the area joined in, and the night became an orgy of feeding.
The humans slaughtered and buried by the time the sun came up, while we spent the next day sleeping and recovering. It was a ritual the vampires had always performed to cull the local population and to reinforce the idea humans shouldn’t approach our strongholds, our enclaves. They didn’t know what we were or what we really did; they just knew when you found our homes, our hiding places, you were dead.
In most cases.
Some humans were brave enough to endure and capture the heart or soul of a vampire. Some of us had sought permission to turn those. If the Council denied permission, their vampire lover had to kill them that night.
We showed no mercy.
We put our victims in Thrall to shut them up. Simply to keep them from screaming.
Humans were lambs.
We were the slaughter.
As we moved through the flock of fresh warm blood, it was hard to control the desire to reach out and grab a neck. I had been warned it wasn’t like that anymore for the Blood Rite.
It was better.
What was better than being blood drunk on the night of Blood Rite?
I waited. I was nothing if not patient.
They had promised there would be a signal.
By using the flowers in my hair the way she did, Adelie had marked me as the candidate for queen. There was no mistaking the crown I wore. Several people—humans and vampires—laughed and bowed. I nodded at them as I passed, making a note of the delicious necks I saw around me. There were half a dozen large rooms for me to walk through, observing the people around me and how they interacted. There was one room for the food, another for the tables, one for dancing, one for mingling, and one with dozens of plush couches, chairs, and chaises. Vampires and humans were everywhere.
I laughed in delight at the situation.
Before my Rest, there wouldn’t have been mixing. It would have been brutal drinking, gorging on blood. This was far more entertaining, and I was quick to understand why they had all fought to change the Blood Rite from a messy, gory affair to this subtle dance.
I waited.
All of the humans were drinking. Someone was chugging the punch they had been offered. It didn’t take long for me to start seeing the drink take effect on the humans. They were smiling, giggling, touching. The sense of affection notched up and up in the rooms where the party was held. There were fewer and fewer humans in the dining room.
The five overlords appeared at the entrance, wearing all black. There was no mistaking their arrival as they filled the room with their presence, washing over everyone with a not quite Thrall feeling for the humans.
Adelie found me standing in the doorway seconds later, and smirked.
A moment later, she let her fangs drop.
She pounced on the neck of the human she had been talking to and teasing.
The signal was given, but to my delight, the vampires didn’t strike at the humans as one. It was far more drawn out. I realized, as a people, the vampires had become more subtle, wielding their thirst and power as a precise tool, a surgical instrument. The Blood Rite had been gory and grossly sexual without the sex. This Dia de los Muertos was meant to be lascivious, a dance of seduction and satisfaction for both human and vampire.