“But how do they get back out? Once they’re corporeal, they can’t just climb back into the tank, can they?”
“No. Which gives them a damn good incentive to take the proposed target, doesn’t it?” Rosier asked evilly. “They’ll need its portal to return to earth. Plus, while they are in residence, so to speak, they can give the vampire thousands of years’ worth of information, tactics, strategy, advice—”
And a splitting headache, I thought dizzily.
“—it’s perfect.”
“It’s not perfect,” I said.
“It’s perfect if they do as they’re told. What you just told me is troublesome, however. I’ll have to let Adra know—”
“You can let him know something else while you’re at it.”
“Such as?”
“Such as vamps don’t do possessions.”
“They don’t,” Jules agreed. “They really, really don’t.”
“The senate seems to think otherwise!” Rosier snapped.
“The senate can think anything it wants,” I said. “But remember Don? Vamps aren’t robots. You can’t just order a bunch of them to load up on demons, go into Faerie, and fuck shit up! Oh yeah, and if you fail, you’re stranded there for good because there’s no way to get you out!”
“Yes, we can.”
I sat back. “Well, okay, you can. And maybe you could tape it for me—”
“Damn it!” Rosier turned on me. “Casanova—the whiny little bastard! He was possessed for centuries with no ill effects. If anything, Rian was the making of him!”
Rosier was talking about Casanova’s girlfriend, or his succubus, anyway. When they met, Rian had just left her second host, the famous Italian playboy, and was looking for her third. And she’d been looking carefully.
The incubi on earth were limited to three hosts before they had to return home to make room for other hungry demons. The demon council had imposed the limits to avoid overfeeding, and there was no way around them. Three strikes, that was it, and she was on her last one. She’d needed to make it count.
And she did.
Casanova, who was known as Juan Carlos before he adopted her former host’s name, had been the newly made vamp she’d propositioned. From her perspective, it made sense: he would likely outlive the average human, possibly by centuries. Centuries in which she could continue to stockpile power long after her compatriots went home. From his perspective, he was getting the company of a lovely lady, who taught him how to get even more lovely ladies, along with virtually anyone else who caught his fancy. He just hadn’t known one thing.
“Vamps don’t do possessions,” I repeated. “Casanova was too young to know any better, but the vampires you’re talking about aren’t. They’re not likely to open themselves up to the control of somebody—or something—even for a war. And if you think they are, you don’t know them very well.”
“I don’t know them, other than Casanova, and I’ve frequently wished I didn’t know him,” Rosier said. “But the senate does. And they think it will work!”
“I’ll have to see it.”
“You’re about to,” he told me, and looked up.
At the cloud of demons, now diving for the line of horrified-looking vamps.
Chapter Thirty-six
“Shit!” Jules yelled while I ducked, Rosier grinned, and the baby just sat there, crumbs spilling from his suddenly slack lips.
But the other vamps weren’t so paralyzed. The signs of nervousness I’d seen before had been kept in check, out of pride or fear of their masters. But that tore it.
They broke and ran, scrambling in all different directions. Until booming calls went out, ordering them back into line. And giving Rosier a really good look at Don’s strategy in action.
Because nobody had remembered to say where this line should be.
The result was an incredibly organized group of rioters, who reformed only to tear by us in a nice, straight line, despite the fact that some were still yelling their heads off. And ripping apart the heavy metal door like it was tissue paper, before trampling the battling vampires outside. Until their masters ordered them back again, which resulted in a neat about-face, but no slowing down.
And vamps in a hurry can move. The master’s section itself was plowed into a second later, almost fast enough to give me whiplash, bleachers collapsing, people cursing, demons back to hovering overhead. And if a cloud could look nonplussed, they were managing it.
It looked like they’d been led to believe this would be easier.
I turned to Rosier. “You said Rian was the making of him—”
“What?”
“Casanova. You said Rian was the making of him. What did you mean?”
He told me.
I stood up.
“Where are you going?” Jules said, gripping my arm.
Only he appeared to have grown two left hands.
I looked down to see that the baby had latched on, too. The big brown eyes, made even bigger by the glasses, were pleading. He still couldn’t talk, but the idea was conveyed, all the same.
“I’m not going far,” I told him.
“We’ll go with you,” Jules offered, even while eyeing the door. Which was wide open and hanging off its hinges.
“You can go if you want,” I said. “Both of you—”
“Not if you’re staying.”
“You’re not my bodyguard anymore, Jules,” I reminded him, because I didn’t need another repeat of the scene outside.
“I know that! But there’s things you don’t know about vamps—I know, you grew up with one. But Tony wasn’t a senator. They could try to put something over on you. I can help.”
The baby nodded enthusiastically—why, I had no idea. Maybe because he didn’t want to be left behind with Rosier. I sighed. “Come on, then.”
The senate had been standing on the far side of the gym, I guess to get the best view. It had been a little crowded over there when I came in, packed with senators and assorted flunkies. It was a lot less so now, since many of the latter were helping to retrieve their wayward children. It made it easier to find a familiar face.
Well, sort of familiar.
As usual, it had the nondescript pudding quality of bad glamouries everywhere: round, blond, and unassuming. Its owner kept doing the Mr. Potato Head thing, trying out different stuff—a cleft, a mustache, or for today’s version, dimples—to dress it up. None of it helped. It still looked like what it was, a more or less human facade to cover the not-at-all human thing inside. The not-at-all human thing that, I strongly suspected, would tip me the rest of the way into madness if I saw it, so I was content with the pudding.
I smiled.
Adra, better known as Adramelech, smiled wider, and held out a couple of warm hands to take the one I offered. “Pythia, how fortunate. We were just talking about you.”
“How nice,” I said, smiling at Kit Marlowe, standing to the demon’s left, who was definitely not smiling back.