“Sa’han Ulbrine.” Trisk came forward, nervously touching her damp hair and thinking herself untidy in the same jeans and casual shirt she’d put on to pack up her life. “I’m so glad to see you.” She glanced up at Pelhan and away. It still felt funny using the elven honorific in public, and the worry of the last few days rose up anew. People were dying, but with Ulbrine here, everything would get sorted out and her proposed action would move forward.
Still smiling, Ulbrine touched her shoulder familiarly in greeting. But there was a hesitancy lurking at the fringes of his unspoken thought. It merged with his fond, slightly domineering smile to take her back to being a student and standing on the presentation floor with the shattered protection chandelier strewn at her feet.
Slowly the fear of having done wrong seeped out of the cracks of her resolve. “I heard about Detroit,” she said as she pushed the sensation away. “Are you okay?”
His hand dropped from her. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” Ulbrine asked. His smile was gone, and her worry deepened.
“My office.” Pelhan’s expression was guarded as he watched the play of emotions between her and Ulbrine. “This way,” he added, gesturing deeper into the building.
Three abreast with her in the middle, they went down the hall, Ulbrine moving even slower as his stress and the late hour began to show. Most of the few officers still about were dozing at their desks, but those actually working seemed to have a new industry, a show of hope and camaraderie that had crossed the species barrier with an ease she’d never seen before. It was almost as if the lack of humans had reminded them of their shared incongruities, that they were not alone, and that together they were more than the sum of their differences.
“Trisk, I have to thank you,” Pelhan said as his gaze rose from his people as well. “Under your counsel, I’ve been able to bring more of my men back in. We’ve also had far fewer vamp confrontations once we took your advice to send a ley line witch out with each squad.”
“You’re very welcome,” she said, returning his relieved expression.
“Advice?” Ulbrine said, but Trisk could hear his irritation that she’d voiced her opinion in matters he clearly thought were out of her span of knowledge.
“Our basic assumptions were wrong.” Pelhan gestured for them to enter a large office at the end of the hall. There was a secretary desk outside it, but it was unmanned and looked as if it had been for some time. “Without exception, vampires quiet right down at a hint of magic. Their masters have cultivated them to be docile when facing a superior force, but six armed men aren’t a threat the way a single witch tapped into a ley line is. That, coupled with uncertainty of what said witch might do, pushed them out of fight mode and into a weird compliant state.” Pelhan smiled at her, his gratitude obvious. “They come right in and settle down in the cell with their master. Our biggest problem now is keeping them supplied with the wine they prefer.”
“We’ve always been proud of how Trisk sees a problem and devises a solution,” Ulbrine said, but the praise struck Trisk as demeaning somehow. Her name was Dr. Cambri, and the university had never been proud of her for anything. If Ulbrine was publicly acknowledging her, something was wrong, and her foreboding grew as she was escorted into Pelhan’s office.
“Let me get that for you,” Pelhan said, swooping in past her to take the file box off the room’s only visitor chair and putting it on the floor. Trisk gingerly sat. Pelhan’s office was a mess, but the clutter looked new. There was a bulky intercom next to a phone on the desk. A typewriter was dead center behind the chair, sitting on a stack of paper and probably taken from his secretary’s desk. Three mugs with varying amounts of cold coffee sat in a cluster to the side.
“These are master vampire files,” Pelhan said as he leaned out of his office and snagged one of the hall chairs for Ulbrine. “I’ve been reviewing them when I get an odd hour here and there. You’d be surprised at how structured they are. Very family oriented.”
“That’s been my experience as well.” Ulbrine said as he sat down.
“We’re looking into giving a few some power on the street as we’ve done with the Weres.” Pelhan moved the bulk of his clutter to the floor before sitting behind his desk with a heavy sigh. “In the sudden dearth of humans, we think they’ll do better policing themselves than us trying to enforce the law. My only question is if it would be better to give the task to a young, rising family or one of the older, more established ones.”
“I’d say the older,” Trisk said, and Ulbrine’s eyes widened, his affront that she had an opinion obvious.
“Why is that?” Ulbrine asked, and she forced herself not to react in kind.
“If you give something to the younger master, the older will only covet it, and you will have a hidden turf war in three days, dead vampires in four. The undead masters are even more afraid, more volatile than their living children. But if you give them power, they’ll follow the rules. That’s all the undead have. Rules. The longer-lived undead follow them better than most. That’s why they’re still undead.”
“That makes sense.” Pelhan tapped the table in thought.