"You assume he's thought that far ahead." Dean pauses. "Perhaps he will claim you are using illusion to impersonate them. People will believe whatever it is that makes life simpler."
I grunt. I forget how simple the common folk can be, but I have seen it to be true. One speech can sway hundreds, one lie change the minds of thousands, and once they are seduced by their fear and lies and a charismatic charlatan who feeds on their basest instincts, no amount of fact or truth or reality will shake them from their madness.
"Have you heard from Asher?" I whisper. "Has he plans to fight this?"
"If he does, he has not shared them with me.’" Dean stands back up, dusting off his black cloak. "He does not support Levi however, that is clear. He will try to expose this for the farce it is."
I nod, and then notice a man approaching us. His cloak is gray and torn and covers his face. He keeps his head tilted down, his identity hidden. He brushes by my shoulder. "The Prince of War still lives," he says. Then he stops, silent, and I realize he’s waiting for a response.
"The Prince of War still lives," I say.
The man nods. "Go to the Bloody Mare Inn. Tell the man there what you just told me, and may the blood bless you." He walks away then, slipping down an alley.
"Well, should we go?" asks Dean. "Sounds like fun."
"Or a trap."
"No one knows who we are—"
"A trap for those who still support Fenris Vane, no matter who they are."
Dean pauses. "Oh, good point. Well, if it is a trap in some rundown inn, we’ll just fight our way out. We couldn’t do it out here in the open, but we could sure do it there."
I nod, and then lead Dean to the inn. It’s still early, but the clouds turn dark with a coming storm, and rain begins to fall. The Bloody Mare stands in the oldest part of town, the rotten corner by the wall where beggars and whores dwell and bandits practice their trade. I make sure my cloak doesn’t cover my blade to keep the hungry and desperate away. People will turn into beasts when all human things are taken from them. And I do not blame them.
A man and woman scuffle down an alley. At first, I think it a brawl, but then I see the blood on her neck. He’s feeding off her. I charge forward and ram my fist into the vampire’s gut. The woman, a human with pale skin and dark eyes recoils away. At first I do not know why, but then I see it. She fears me. Even more than him. She thinks I beat him so I can take her for myself. The very thought disgusts me. "Leave. Both of you." As the man scrambles away, I turn to the woman. "Get somewhere safe. Not all have forgotten the way things were. Soon, Stonehill will be a place of peace once more."
She nods, though I can see in her eyes she does not believe me. Then she runs.
Dean puts a hand on my shoulder. "Do not blame yourself, brother. This is Levi’s doing."
"It is my failure that gives him the power." I look away, the human blood in the mud drawing at my senses. I have prohibited human feeding in Stonehill for ages. And Levi has desecrated even that.
Before the pull of blood grows stronger, I continue on, and reach the inn, where a sign of a red mare hangs.
I knock on the door just as the sky turns dark and thunder crashes. Someone opens a slit in the wood. "Closed we are," says a man. "We be making repairs."
I lean in closer and speak softly. "Fenris Vane still lives."
The man closes the slit in the door. Then metal screeches as a lock is unlocked and the inn opens. "Welcome, brothers. Welcome!" The man wraps me in a hug so hard my spine cracks, and I see he is even larger than I. "I be Bolsten," he says. Then motions to the rest of the inn, a collection of men and women, some vampire, some Shade, drinking and smoking in the dim light cast by torches. "This here be all those who don’t support that lying-son-of-a-whore Levi."
Dean raises a finger. "If Levi was born to a whore, what does that make his brothers?"
Bolsten shakes his head. "No way Levi and the other princes share a mum. Just no bloody way."
I can’t help but grin. "I believe you’re right, my friend. I believe you’re right more than you know." Bolsten smiles and steps to the side, and Dean and I take seats at the bar. My brother orders drinks.
The liquid is thick with blood and alcohol and something sweet. I don't usually partake in drink, but after today? To hell with it.
After a while, the alcohol begins to take effect, and I begin to mingle more than I usually would. This does not seem a trap, for a trap would have already sprung. I drink some more and listen to the others.
"I can’t believe they hanged the prince," says Mary, an elderly woman who was once human, but was turned many hundreds of years ago.
"No they didn’t," says Roke, a tall, spindly Shade who pours the drinks. "I’ve met the prince. He’s far taller than that bloke they beheaded."
"And where was his wolf?" says Veni, a Shade girl with bright green hair, smoking a pipe in the corner. "Everyone knows he never goes anywhere without his wolf."