something, they all burst into laughter. Dahlia looked for one half-demon computer geek she knew better than the others. With a frisson of pleasure, she spotted Melponeus’s reddish skin and chestnut curls in the cluster. Their eyes met. The half-demon and Dahlia exchanged personal smiles. They had had some memorable evenings together in Dahlia’s bedroom on the lower level of the mansion. The glitter in Melponeus’s pale eyes told Dahlia that the demon wouldn’t mind a replay.
She might retrieve some pleasure from this dismal evening, after all.
A few creatures Dahlia didn’t recognize were scattered through the crowd. No fairies, of course; vampires loved fairies to death, literally. But there were other creatures of the fae present, and a witch. Joaquin had a reputation as a liberal, and he’d made up the party list and presented it to Lakeisha, who’d retained her post as the executive assistant to the sheriff despite the change in regimes. Lakeisha had sniffed at some of the inclusions, but she had obeyed without a verbal comment. All the vampires were walking softly and carefully until they learned their new leader’s character. Since he’d lived on his own, not in the nest, until his appointment as sheriff, Joaquin was a largely unknown element.
As Taffy took Dahlia’s arm to steer her over to the buffet to join Don, Dahlia said, “I’m not enjoying myself, though I ought to be.”
“Why not?” Taffy asked. “The humans will be gone soon, and we can be ourselves. It’s not like we haven’t seen this coming. Cedric has been getting more and more set in his ways. He’s lazy. He’s sloppy. A waistcoat every day. So dated! He can’t even pretend to belong to this century.”
Like all successful vampires, Dahlia knew that the key to surviving for centuries was adaptation. And the most conspicuous adaptation was following the trend in clothes and language. This had been essential when vampires existed in secret, so they could blend in with a crowd long enough to cut out their prey. Vampires were an increasingly familiar presence in business and politics, but they found that society still accepted them more easily if they mimicked modern Americans. It was true, too, that old habits died hard. It had been only six years since the undead had “come out,” and to vampires that was less than the blink of an eye.
“I did see that Cedric would have to be replaced,” Dahlia said. “I don’t know Joaquin well, and maybe I’m worried about how he will rule, and how living in the nest will be with him in residence. At least he had a very conventional ascension.”
“It couldn’t have been more standard,” Taffy agreed. “And soon the guests will be gone and we can amuse ourselves. I’m pleased with Joaquin’s first steps. The mansion is looking beautiful, more beautiful than it did for my wedding.” Taffy tapped the newly polished wooden floor with the toe of her boot. The reception room, which was large and full of dark leather furniture and scattered rugs, was at the back of the mansion and looked out onto the garden. Taffy had gotten married in that garden one memorable night. Though the night was chilly the fountain was splashing away in the dimly lit courtyard outside the French doors. The lights didn’t need to be bright; vampires have excellent night vision.
Dahlia was proud that the mansion, which housed the vampire nest of Rhodes and was the area headquarters for all vampires, was polished and sparkling, clean and newly redecorated. However, Dahlia’s pride had a certain nostalgic tinge. Though for decades they’d all tried to prod the old sheriff, Cedric, into installing new carpet and modernizing the bathrooms, she found that she missed the old fixtures. And she missed the former sheriff, too. Maybe he counted as an old fixture.
“I’m going to talk to Cedric,” she said.
“Not the smartest move, homes,” Taffy cautioned. Taffy always tried to use current slang, though sometimes she got it wrong or was off by five years . . . or ten.
“I know,” Dahlia said. The new sheriff, Joaquin, was certainly keeping an eye open to see who approached Cedric; but Dahlia was not afraid of Joaquin, though she did regard him with a certain respect for his devious ways. The ousting of Cedric had been handled with a sort of ruthless finesse. Cedric, sunk into what he thought would always be his cushy job, had been foolishly complacent and unaware. “I’ll join you later,” she told Taffy. “Though I may stop to have a word with Melponeus, too.”
“Playing with fire,” Taffy said, grinning broadly.
“Yes, we did that last time.” Even half-demons could produce fireballs. The memory caused Dahlia to have her own tight smile on her lips as she approached the former sheriff.
“Cedric,” she said, inclining her head very slightly. Even Dahlia didn’t care to provoke Joaquin by appearing to offer Cedric obeisance.
“Dahlia,” he said, his voice laden with melancholy. “See how the peacock preens?”
Joaquin, in the center of a cluster of other vampires, was dressed to kill. Obviously Joaquin felt like the king of the world on his ascension night. In his thin, dark hand he held a goblet of Royalty (a blend of the blood of various European royals, who could keep their crumbling castles open with the money they made by tapping into their own veins). His favorite artiste, Jennifer Lopez, was playing in the background. He was wearing a very sharp dark gray suit with a pale gray silk shirt, and in his crimson tie was an antique pearl stickpin. Fawning all over Joaquin was Glenda, a flapper-era vamp who had never been Dahlia’s favorite nest sister.
“You could use a little preening, Cedric,” she observed. Cedric was wearing fawn-colored pants and a white linen shirt with a flowered waistcoat, his favorite ensemble. He had many near-duplicates of all three pieces hanging in his closet.
Cedric ignored her comment. “Glenda looks good,” he said. In the past Glenda had slipped into Cedric’s bedroom from time to time, more to keep the sheriff sweet than from any great affection. Dahlia had often seen the two clipping roses in the mansion garden at night. They’d both been ardent rose growers in life—or at least, Glenda said she had been.
Glenda, who was no more than ninety, did actually look very tempting this evening in a thin blue silk slip dress with absolutely no undergarments. She was smoothing Joaquin’s shirt with the air of someone who knew what lay beneath the silk. Dahlia harbored a certain appreciation for Glenda’s cleverness.
“You know she’s trash,” Dahlia told Cedric.
“But such delicious trash.” After tossing his head to get his long pale hair out of his way, Cedric took a pull on his bottle of Red Stuff, a cheap brand of the synthetic blood vampires drank so they could pretend they didn’t crave or require the real thing. This was sheer affectation; Dahlia had watched Cedric approach a donor.
Red Stuff was a far cry from Royalty in a crystal goblet. Cedric’s mustache drooped, and even the golden flowers and vines in the pattern on his waistcoat looked withered.
Having served their purpose, the human donors were being ushered out of the large reception room by a smiling young vampire. They’d be taken to the kitchen and fed a snack, allowed to recover from their “donation,” and returned to their collection point. This had been found to be the most efficient method of dealing with the humans the agency sent. If they weren’t shepherded every step of the way, these humans showed a distressing tendency to want to hide in the mansion so they could donate again and again. Some vampires weren’t strong- willed enough to resist, and then . . . dead donors and unwelcome attention from the police followed.
The only donor left in the room was the young man who’d irritated Dahlia. He seemed to be in the process of irritating Don, Taffy’s husband, packmaster of Rhodes. That proved his stupidity. Dahlia turned back to Cedric.
“Will you stay in the nest?” Dahlia asked. She was genuinely curious. If she’d found herself in Cedric’s position, she would have packed her bags the second the king chose Joaquin.
“I’ll find an apartment elsewhere, sooner or later,” Cedric said indifferently, and Dahlia thought that this perfectly illustrated Cedric’s drawbacks as a leader.
Though he’d been a dynamic sheriff in his heyday, Cedric had gradually become slow . . . and that was the nicest way to put it. This indolence and complacency, creeping into Cedric’s rulings and decisions over the decades, had been his downfall. It was no surprise to anyone but Cedric that he’d been challenged and ousted. To the newer vamps, the only surprise was that Cedric had ever been named to the position in the first place.
“The situation won’t change,” Dahlia said. Cedric would make himself a figure of fun if he gloomed around the mansion during Joaquin’s reign. “I’m sure you’ve saved money during your time in office,” she added, by way of encouragement. After all, all the vampires who lived in the nest contributed to their sheriff’s bank account, and so did the other vampires of Rhodes who chose to live on their own.
“Not as much as you would think,” Cedric said, and Dahlia could not restrain a tiny gesture of irritation. Her sympathy with the ex-sheriff was exhausted. She excused herself. “Melponeus has asked to speak to me,” she lied.
Cedric waved a dismissive hand with a ghost of his former graciousness.
