Son of a bitch.
“The senate is still planning to invade,” I said, because of course they were.
“Well, of course they are,” Rosier said. “No one wins a war by staying on the defensive. We have to take the fight to them!”
I glanced at the line of vamps. “And you think vampires are going to be . . . helpful?”
“Not helpful—key.” He suddenly became animated. “A demon or a mage suffers an immediate and significant power loss in Faerie, just as the fey do in ours. But vampires don’t. An army of them could give the fey something to worry about!”
“Maybe,” I said, having heard this argument before. “But even if you’re right, there aren’t that many masters. And anybody below that isn’t going to do you a lot of good in Faerie. And speaking of masters, the other side has them, too.”
“But the other side doesn’t have demons.”
“But demons can’t go into Faerie.”
“Who said we can’t?”
“You just did—”
“I said our power is limited there, which it is, although we could still raise hell in sufficient numbers. But what if we could go into Faerie . . . without going into Faerie?”
Jules and I exchanged a look.
“Think about it,” Rosier said. “Vampires are magical beings, but they don’t use magic—they don’t sling spells or what have you. They simply are, and what they are is supported by the life energy they absorb from others. Feed them enough, and they just keep going. Like Energizer Bunnies. Energizer Bunny tanks. Energizer Bunny tanks full of demons.”
“Oh my God,” Jules said.
“What?” I asked, pretty sure I’d heard wrong.
But Rosier was nodding enthusiastically. “The idea is to have your vampires serve as housing for some of our stronger demons. Load them up, send them in, and just plow the enemy down. And end this, once and for all!”
I looked at him. His face was flushed, his eyes were shining; he looked like a guy who’d just seen God. Or, since it was Rosier, like a guy who was really, really high. Which was also what he sounded like.
“What?”
Some of the glow faded. “It could work.”
“No.” I shook my head hard enough to flop my hair around. “No, it can’t.”
“And why not?”
“Why not? For one thing, if your power doesn’t work in Faerie, then it doesn’t work. Whether you go in alone or with some vamps doesn’t change that!”
“But it won’t be working in Faerie,” he said impatiently. “It will be working in the vampires. And as vampires are immune to the effects of that terrible place, so should we be, as long as we remain inside them. That’s what a possession is—a symbiotic merging with another. We receive their immunity—”
“And what do they get?” Jules interrupted.
“Depends on the type of demon they end up with,” Rosier said, frowning at him. “But at the very least, we can make them stronger than they already are, faster, more resilient, more deadly—”
Jules rolled his eyes.
“But vampires feed off blood,” I said. “And not the fey variety. And only masters can pull enough from family to sustain themselves in combat.” It was one of the main reasons Mircea had wanted me to make him an army of masters. Regular old vamps, which the senate had plenty of, would starve in Faerie.
“Vampires feed off life energy,” Rosier corrected. “They just obtain it through blood. That’s their conduit, as lust is for my kind. The method isn’t important—the energy is. And with my people feeding them directly, they won’t need a conduit, now, will they?”
“But . . . but spirits manifest with bodies in Faerie,” I said, because this was starting to sound weirdly possible. “I don’t know if that works with spirits who are already inside one, but if it does—”
“It doesn’t. Adra tested it, with the help of your senate, yesterday,” he said, talking about the head of the demon high council. “It was a very short trip, but no one exploded.”
“Exploded?” Jules said faintly.
“Yesterday?” I repeated.
“When we ally with someone, we don’t waste time,” Rosier said proudly. “Your lot have been . . . Well, frankly, I don’t know what you’ve been doing. But in case you haven’t noticed, we are under siege. And the people inside a castle’s walls, facing a determined enemy, don’t just sit around waiting for the enemy to find a way in! Walls buy you time; good ones buy you a great deal of time. And however much I may despise her, your mother built a damn good wall. But it won’t hold forever.”
“Exploded?” Jules said, again.
The baby vampire ate cookies with a vengeance.
I just sat there, realizing that I’d been had. “Casanova—that whole thing with him, it was a setup, wasn’t it?”
I was talking about a contest two days ago, between the world’s whiniest hotel manager, who also happened to be the world’s only demon-possessed vamp, and a monster from literally the pits of hell. Adra had set it up, supposedly to punish Casanova for an infraction of demon law.
Or, you know, to find out if a hybrid warrior would really work.
“Call it a test,” Rosier said, seeing my face.
“Casanova was almost killed.”
“And what do you think we’re going to be? We can’t keep having to win every battle just to stay at stalemate! This is the best chance either of our people are going to have—”
“But there are ways to do things. You don’t just sell out your own side!”
“Yeah, like sending a vamp through a portal, with a demon inside,” Jules said, low and angry. “One that might just manifest a body and rip him to shreds!”
“He didn’t die,” Rosier said, casting an irritated look at Jules. “Neither of them died—”
“But they could have!” I said, because he still didn’t get this.
“People die in war all the time,” he told me, proving my point. “But far less of them will do so this way. And vampires aren’t just useful as troops. Reconnaissance is easy when you don’t have to breathe or have a heartbeat or show other signs of life unless you choose. And then there’s transport, for those who prove capable—”
“Transport?”
“That’s what Adra and I were discussing when you interrupted us a few days ago, or whenever it was. I can’t tell anymore. But if a vampire can carry one passenger, so to speak, why not two? Or a hundred? Or a thousand?”
“A thousand?”
“All right, possibly not a thousand. Possessions of that type tend to turn . . . odd.”
“Imagine,” I said, my head reeling.
“But a hundred is certainly—”
“And just how are these ‘passengers’ going to help when they’re trapped inside a body?” Jules asked, leaning forward.
“Why trapped?” Rosier said crossly. “Is any spirit trapped? One vampire can transport a whole squadron of demons, with no one being the wiser. Like a fanged version of a Trojan horse. Get inside a fortress and hey, presto. Instant army.”