The great sign had gone dark.
I had to fumble with the balcony doors, my fingers stiff and clumsy on the latches, to slide them open. And to step outside, staring upward as the warm desert wind hit me in the face and threw my hair around. And yet I still saw nothing, because the deep red glow had simply vanished.
“End of an era,” someone said behind me, and I whirled to find Marco standing there, cigar tip flaring in the darkness. And then burning brighter when a gust of wind caught it, sending flakes of ash spinning off into the night. “Damn.” He scowled. “That’s one of my Behikes. Come back in before the breeze puts this thing out.”
I came back in, shivering a little despite the heat, and he put a comfortingly large arm around me. I looked up at him in disbelief. “They closed the casino.”
“They closed everything. No choice—there’s not enough of the drag to put in a baggie, and the lobby’s not much better.”
“Then . . .” I swallowed. “Then all that . . . actually happened.”
“Oh, it happened,” Marco said, letting go of me so he could shut the door and stop the curtains from billowing in. He locked the balcony back securely, and then shrugged when he saw me noticing. “Habit. They’ve had wardsmiths crawling over this place all day. I doubt a fly could get in unauthorized.”
“It should have been done a long time ago,” I said, hugging myself. “We were vulnerable in the public spaces—we were even attacked there before. Why did no one think—”
“’Cause the senate isn’t used to feeling vulnerable. You know how long it’s been since anyone challenged them?”
“The Circle challenged them,” I said, thinking of the coup that Jonas, the current head of the Silver Circle, had pulled on Saunders, its corrupt old leader. The battle had played out here, with the two sides fighting each other in a miniature civil war. It had been terrifying.
At least I’d thought so at the time; I had a new definition now.
“Yeah, but that was played off as a fluke,” Marco said. “Rivalry within the Circle that could have taken place anywhere. Saunders just happened to be here.”
“And now?”
“Now the senate got hit two times in twenty-four hours, here and at the consul’s own home last night.”
“So they’re taking action.”
“Oh, I think you can safely assume that,” Marco said dryly. “The other side just gave ’em two black eyes in a row. They just made the senate—the goddamn senate—look bad. Worse, they made ’em look—”
“Weak.”
He nodded. There was no sign of humor on that big, handsome face, because there was no bigger insult in the vampire world, where everything was based on power. Everything.
Life revolved around the power you possessed, to protect your family, your wealth, and your position; the power of your alliances, which allowed you to collectively influence a larger segment of vamp society than you could have done alone; and the power of the senate, the pinnacle of vamp hierarchy, under which you and your whole society functioned.
And you respected that hierarchy, even when you didn’t like it. Even when you chafed under the restrictions it put on you and your business and your personal desires. Even when you hated the senate itself, you stayed firmly in line.
Because you feared them more.
Because they had power almost beyond your comprehension. Because they made anyone who forgot that very, very sorry or very, very dead. Because ruling with an iron fist wasn’t the exception; it was the rule, and you knew the rule and feared the rule and kept the rule, their rule, their law, because anything else was unthinkable.
At least it had been, until today.
I didn’t know exactly what the senate would do now; I’d never seen them challenged like this. No one had. But I knew what a master vampire would do with his back against the wall, his power and authority in question, and his enemies gunning for him and everything he held dear.
And the senate had many, many more resources than any single vamp. So whatever form it took, their response would be big, it would be swift, and it would be vicious. I stared at the darkened Dante’s sign, what little I could see of it, and a shudder went through me.
Marco hugged my shoulders again. “Come on, there’s been enough of that for one day. You need to eat—”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am,” he lied, “and I’m going to order the biggest steak I can find. If you’re nice, I might give you a bite.”
I smiled slightly.
“And in the meantime, I thought you might like to see someone.”
“Someone?”
Marco looked at me mockingly. “No, you don’t need to eat at all.”
“What?” I blinked at him. And then I remembered. “Rhea!”
He grinned at me, the cigar clamped firmly between big white teeth.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’d like to see her.”
“Thought so.”
He pulled me out the door.
The hallway outside felt odd, too, although this time, I knew exactly why. “Where are all the cots?”
It should have been full of them, or else they should have been scattered in my bedroom, tripping me up on the way to the balcony. I had a couple dozen initiates who all needed a place to sleep, which was why this place had been lousy with cots lately—in the bedrooms, living room, and lounge. Or, when the girls were up, stacked in the corners of the hallway so we had room to walk.
But now there was nothing.
“We made other arrangements,” Marco said, lips twitching.
“What other arrangements?”
“You know, that can probably wait.”
“Marco.” I grabbed a forearm the size of my leg. Or maybe a little bigger, ’cause skinny legs have always been a bane of my existence. “Where is my court?”
“They’re fine,” he told me, reassuringly. “And they’re close,” he added, when I still looked alarmed, because my court managed to get in almost as much trouble as I did.
Then he shushed me, having just cracked open the door to the guest bedroom down the hall.
It was dark, too, but the drapes were open on a wall of windows, showing glimmers of the golden city beyond. It was also empty, except for a lump under the bedspread and a vamp in a chair. The vamp was reading a book, because to his eyes the room was perfectly well lit. But he looked up when we peered inside.
I couldn’t tell what the book was, but the vamp was Rico, dark good looks showing to advantage in jeans and a tight white tee, and raising a finger to his lips before we said anything.
“How is she?” I whispered, to either of them, because they could both hear me just fine.
“Better,” Marco said, after a pause, probably to ask Rico mentally. “Doc was here earlier, said she’s gonna be out of it for a few days, and easily winded for a week after that, while her body replaces the blood she lost. That bastard of a mage did a number on her.”
“He didn’t,” I said, my eyes on Rhea.
“What?”
“The mage. He wanted—that is, he was trying to trade her for Lizzie—”