So, at some point this week I was probably going to have to face the vampire who tried to take over Denver, probably on behalf of my archnemesis.
“That’s so not cool,” I stated.
“Ned called a truce, right?” Ben said. “What can she do?”
“I hesitate to even imagine,” I said.
“What you’re saying is I ought to keep a couple of stakes handy,” Cormac said.
“You mean you don’t anyway?” I said.
He shrugged. “There’s handy, then there’s handy.”
We rounded a corner and passed a stretch of sloping lawn lined with trees that were brilliant with new foliage. Andy identified it as Hyde Park. Wolf perked up her ears at the wide open space in the middle of the city— would it be useful in a pinch? I didn’t particularly want to find out. But as urban pastoral spaces went, the place was gorgeous.
I’d asked Ned and Emma about the local werewolves, and he’d said he’d be sure to introduce me to the alpha at the earliest opportunity.
There’d be time.
The neighborhood where Ned’s place was located looked like it had traveled through time: blocks full of stately façades, rows of windows, decorated molding, wrought-iron accents, elegant in the midday light. I flashed on any number of Jane Austen films or Sherlock Holmes reruns on PBS. There should have been fancy horse-drawn carriages clopping past.
The car turned onto an impossibly narrow lane packed with town houses, and through a gateway into a small, cobbled yard with a lovely, reaching tree in the corner. The building overlooking the yard was four stories of pale brick. The windows had white frames and stone balconies to lean on, and the roof was made of sloped gray slate.
Andy let us in through the front door. The interior was as much a time capsule as the neighborhood. A vestibule let out into a parlor with brocade wallpaper, age-darkened paintings decorating the walls, a carved mahogany mantelpiece over a marble fireplace, and so on.
“He did say make ourselves at home, right?” Ben said. “I feel like I’m going to break something.”
“It does feel a little like a museum, doesn’t it?” I said.
Cormac gave a shrug and slumped into a velvet-upholstered wingback chair, sprawling out and propping his booted feet on what must have been an extraordinarily valuable lacquered circular coffee table. “It’s a little much,” he said.
I had to admit, the right kind of vampire hospitality was impressive.
We were directed to bedrooms upstairs. There were six, and we got to pick. I pounced on the one in the corner, with a view down the street which gave me the feeling of falling back through time. I could imagine the horse-drawn carriages, the women in huge bell skirts and men in frock coats, walking on the cobbled streets, the glow of gaslights and smoke curling from clay chimneys.
We battled jet lag by taking a walk. Found Hyde Park, then Green Park, and explored all the way to Buckingham Palace, which seemed even more excessive with all its gilt, statuary, and unflinching guards. Thinking of someone living there was a little like thinking of someone being a billionaire. I had no frame of reference.
“What do you think of Ned?” Ben asked us both.
“He’s a vampire,” Cormac said. “Talks a lot. Who knows what he really wants.”
“I’m still getting over him knowing Shakespeare,” I said, sighing.
“Don’t get too starry-eyed,” Cormac warned.
“I know,” I said. “I don’t know what to think. Alette trusts him or she wouldn’t have put me in touch with him. He seems to be taking good care of Emma.”
“They’re all vampires,” Cormac said. Which meant that we ought to be careful about trusting any of them, including Emma.
“We don’t have to stay at Ned’s place,” I said. “It’s not too late to find a hotel.”
We walked several steps before Ben said, “It’ll be fine. This way we can keep an eye on him, right?”
Cormac made a noise that was almost a laugh.
AFTER A good night’s sleep, Ben and I went downstairs in the morning to find breakfast—and Cormac— waiting in the dining room. We learned that Ned and Emma had arrived before sunrise, after we’d gone to bed, and that we would see them this evening.
Eggs, tea, toast, slices of thick bacon, stewed tomatoes, and beans—which had never even occurred to me to eat for breakfast—waited on expensive-looking china, dense with a blue floral pattern around the edges. One of the staff stood by and seemed pleased at my gaping reaction. Cormac was cleaning up the last bit of egg yolk with a piece of toast.
“Don’t wait for us or anything,” Ben said.
“You’re not going to need me the next couple of days, are you?”
“Why?” I said.
“It’s Amelia,” he said. “She wants to check some things out.”
“What, like her old haunts? No pun intended.”
“Her older brother had kids. Assuming they had kids … she may still have family.”
“That’s so weird,” I said absently. He was talking about kids who were born over a hundred years ago— tracking a family tree for real. “What happens if you do find these great-grandnieces or nephews?”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said, spreading butter on a second slice of toast, not looking at us.
“You okay with this?” Ben said. “Is she making you do this?”
“I want to do this. Why do you follow Kitty around on her crazy expeditions?”
“Hey,” I said, and Ben snorted a chuckle. I considered what Ben’s answer to that question might be, and what that said about Cormac’s answer. I didn’t know why I was worried—he could take care of himself. Rather than dig, I said, “You’re sure we’ll be okay without you standing guard?”
“Keep your eyes open. Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “If you need me, call.”
I looked at Ben for backup, but he just shrugged. Cormac left on his mysterious errand.
Ben and I walked to the conference hotel, which was only a mile and a half away. The housekeeper, manager, whatever she was at Ned’s Mayfair house offered to loan us the use of a car and chauffer, but I declined. I wanted to get a sense of the place. An idea of where the escape routes were.
We were still a block away from the hotel when I heard what sounded like a lot of people shouting, more people than should have been at what was billed as a scientific conference. A rumbling of conversation was punctuated with shouting. Someone hollered through a bullhorn.
Then we saw the signs. People held up poster board on sticks, others strung banners between them.
GOD HATES VAMPIRES!
WOULD YOU TRUST YOUR CHILD WITH THIS? Along with a picture of a snarling rabid wolf.
NO NEW WORLD ORDER!
and
V.L.A.D.: VAMPIRE LEAGUE AGAINST DISCRIMINATION.
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL!
NO MORE BURNING TIMES!
A police barricade separated what turned out to be two different crowds, whose members were screaming at each other. Two sides of the debate, hurling slogans. For the moment, it was just slogans, but the anger simmered. At opposite poles of the debate, they were never going to convince the other of their stance. News crews, vans, and cameras were on hand to cover the chaos. It seemed a perfect display of entropy.
“I suppose it would have been too much to ask, hoping these guys wouldn’t show up,” I said, nodding to a sloppily written sign, red paint on yellow poster board, reading REPENT, WEREWOLVES! If only I could.
