Kitty Steals the Show

That broke the spell. “Oh, don’t even start with that. It’s not even up for debate.” But I looked at Ned sidelong. “Is it?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Good. You know, you could end a lot of epic academic debates if you’d just come out and say that.”

“And ruin all the fun? Not me.”

I sighed. “What was it like? All of it—I mean, did he have any idea? Did Shakespeare have a clue that people would be performing his plays four hundred years later, that they’d be held up as the pinnacle not just of theater but of literature?”

Ned shook his head. “You must understand, we weren’t trying to create fine art. We were trying to tell stories. All of us, we loved to tell stories. Well, and we loved the attention. For those who were successful at it, the theater was a very good way to make money. Several of us, including Will, made our fortunes at it, but not from writing or acting—it was from investing in the theaters themselves. We worked for shares and retired when we had enough cash to do so. Of course, most of us didn’t mind a little fame in the meantime. I admit, it’s been an odd experience watching what’s happened to Will’s work over the years.”

“Oh my God. You’re on a first-name basis with William Shakespeare.” My vision went a bit hazy.

“Perhaps a little more scotch, there,” he said, and poured another finger into my tumbler.

My companions hadn’t taken more than the tiniest sips of their own drinks. Ben sat next to me on a sofa, but Cormac had taken a seat apart, in his own chair, and had been studying the room around us, maintaining a bodyguard’s stance.

Now, he leaned forward, setting his glass back on the tray. “I imagine a lot of folks are coming in from out of town for this conference. You probably know just about all of them.”

“You want to know if there’s anyone you need to worry about? Anyone with designs on our Kitty?” Ned said, and Cormac gave an offhand shrug in agreement. “I imagine there are. Many of the Master vampires of Europe or their representatives are here, as well as some from farther afield, along with their entourages. Lycanthropes are attending the conference in some official human capacity or another. Others are here simply because they’re curious. Many vampires and lycanthropes are unhappy with the light that Kitty and others have been shining on our activities, and are here to add their opinions to the conversation. Those are just the ones I know about—there are shadow realms that I know little about and have no control over that surely have a presence here. It’s as if everyone wants to see what’s going to happen next. In the meantime, I’ve declared London neutral territory for the duration of the conference. No battles, figurative or literal, will be fought here. No one will act against you, or they’ll face me. I so will it.”

Cormac turned away to hide a wry grin, which gave us all an idea of what he thought of Ned’s will. “You aren’t worried? All those rivals, right in your backyard.”

“No,” Ned said evenly, a smile curling. “I’m not. If they make a move against me or mine, they lose any protection they had here and their existences are forfeit.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said to Cormac, more for something to say than trying to be reassuring. I wasn’t sure I could be reassuring—the assembled vampire aristocracy of Europe? Not at all intimidating … I asked Ned, “You’ll be there, right? At the conference. There’s a whole track on vampirism.”

“We’ll be keeping an eye on things from a distance,” Ned said.

“If that many vampire Masters are going to be there, don’t you think you’d better be there, too?”

“You’re assuming they’re going to be at the hotel with all the hoi polloi. May I make a suggestion?” Ned asked.

“Sure.”

“A convocation assembles Monday night. Come and meet them.”

“Convocation?”

“A gathering of the vampires who’ve come to London. A little conference of our own,” he said. “You’ll get a good look at them all, they’ll get a look at you. No surprises on either side. What do you think?”

I looked at Ben for his opinion.

“Walking into a room full of Master vampires?” he said with a huff. “You’d either be a rock star or completely screwed.”

“You’d have my protection,” Ned said.

“Until you leave the room,” Cormac added.

The vampire turned to me, chuckling. “You have staunch defenders.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “I think I’d rather face them all at once. Get a good look at them. Besides, it’ll be interesting.”

“You always say that just before we get into the weirdest shit,” Ben said.

No doubt. One of these days I’d have to go for uninteresting. Spend the weekend in front of the TV eating popcorn. What were the odds?

Chapter 4

WE SPENT the night at Fortune House, in rooms that would have outdone the most spectacular five-star hotel: antique furniture, silk sheets, attentive room service bringing eggs and toast and fresh-squeezed juice for breakfast, and views of a quiet suburb out the window. In the morning, a horde of teenage boys decked in blue jerseys flooded one of the pristine grassy lawns outside the school to play soccer. Football, rather. It was a scene from a movie.

We got more of Ned’s story. He’d founded Dulwich College, at least its earliest incarnation as a charity hospital, back in his previous life, at the start of the seventeenth century. He’d had no children of his own so he funneled his fortune into various charities. He’d been watching over them ever since. I still didn’t know how a man who’d lived a full life, been famous and successful, became a vampire at the age of sixty. I’d looked up the official date of his death. There was some debate about the exact day—with a three day difference, which suddenly made sense, if you knew about the vampirism. An infected person lay effectively dead for three days before rising again. I wondered if Ned had been attacked and turned against his will, and I wondered if he’d ever tell me how it had happened.

Emma and Ned had made plans to send us on ahead to Ned’s Mayfair town house, where he stayed when he wanted to be in London proper. It was near the conference, and we’d have a day to get settled, sleep off more of the jet lag, and take a look around before the conference started. Andy the driver took us north in the sleek black cab, and I got my first look of Britain in daylight.

The city was a mix of ancient, modern, and everything in between. Nineteenth-century brick row houses mingled with 1960’s concrete office blocks, then suddenly the gray stone spire of an old church would rise in the distance, past supermarkets and subdivisions. Springtime made everything green—green lawns in parks, a bright green fuzz on trees, carpets of daffodils blooming on roundabouts. I had to quell an instinctive panic from being on the wrong side of the road.

London proper was a big city, with countless traffic-filled streets, tall buildings occupying entire blocks, and the sense that I had seen all this before in a movie. I imagined people felt the same thing when they visited New York City or Los Angeles.

Ben nudged me. “Kitty, look.” He pointed out the window to an iconic red double-decker bus. I started to “ooh” in admiration, when I realized he was actually pointing to the ad on the side of the bus: MERCEDES COOK IN CONCERT, THIS WEEK ONLY! The vampire’s gorgeous, smiling picture showed her in a spectacular black sequined gown, arms flung out to take in the audience she was singing to.

Oh, just great. Just horrible.

If I was the world’s first celebrity werewolf, Mercedes Cook was its first celebrity vampire. She’d been a star on Broadway since the sixties, and people had started to notice that she was looking remarkably well-preserved for her age. She hadn’t graduated to crazy mother and grandmother roles like most of the actresses of her generation. Turned out she was well preserved because she was undead. A vampire. She broke the story on The Midnight Hour, and I’d thought we were friends. Right up until she plotted to get my friend Rick killed, to prevent him from taking over as Master of Denver. She failed, he took over, and sent Mercedes packing.