Stupid, she heard Clay tease, with his warm smile and golden hair. She hung onto the image and shook against her restraints once more, letting out a cry of anger.
Reykon
After he’d had a chance to wake up, finding his wounds all but gone, he was immediately pulled into a debrief with the Master of the house, Cain Rothchild Demonte.
Reykon stood, clean and collected, in front of ten vampires and their human toys. The grand hall of the New Mexico Demonte house was modeled after Spanish imperialistic architecture and had creamy orange-pink stone and adobe. Polished marble adorned the floors, and the black and red colors of House Demonte covered every spot where furniture could be placed. Tapestries, flags, the whole nine yards.
“In your words, again, Reykon Thraxos.”
Reykon nodded. “I was charged by Master Magnus to retrieve a girl by the name of Robin Wright, living in Portland. I arrived there three days ago, and we began the trip back to House Demonte that night. By the first evening, it became apparent that a strongblood from House Xander was actively in pursuit of this clandestine effort. We kept moving forward, but on the second night, an attack was launched by Lucidia Draxos, with the intent of taking the girl.”
“I’ve heard of this strongblood girl,” one of the vampires in Cain’s court remarked, leaning forward. The half-conscious human slumped on his arm fell to the couch with an exhausted sigh.
“Yes, yes,” another purred. “Lucidia is quite formidable, is she not?”
“She was Kenzo’s,” another said.
Cain nodded deeply. “Kenzo Draxos’s daughter. Formidable indeed, and disgraced. Tell me, why was she interested in the girl?”
Magnus had given him explicit instructions to keep his charge silent and discreet. He wanted nobody to know about Robin’s heritage. That was why he requested a one-man job, with minimal outside interaction. They were staying in hotels, rather than satellite houses. Obviously, if they could house hop from one Demonte stronghold to another, he would have a much easier trip. But Magnus had ordered no communication except through direct message to himself.
“Master Cain, I cannot discuss the specifics of the mission.”
The head vampire did not like this response.
His burning eyes flared, and he stiffened in his throne.
“What makes you think that you can refuse me, boy?” Cain demanded.
Reykon bowed his head, keeping his eyesight at a submissive forty-five. “My orders come directly from Master Magnus. I’m not permitted to discuss specifics of this effort with anybody but him.”
Cain leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “Convenient.”
“I apologize for the obscurity, Master Cain.”
The vampire made a noise in the back of his throat.
“Will that be all, Master Cain?” Reykon asked.
“No.” Cain stood, and strolled down the steps. “Since this is such an important quest for the master of our House, I’m sure he will be very appreciative to hear that my strongblood subjects were able to salvage the goal. We’re going to conference with him, if you don’t mind. Then, we shall see what details remain personal, and where his confidence lies.”
Cain walked past Reykon, who kept his head down slightly. Once all the vampires had filtered down from their steps, they went into a side room, a smaller office with a long table in the middle and a wide TV at the front of the room.
There’d been significant efforts in the past decade to get the vampires up to speed with technology. Though many of them still employed carrier pigeons (no, that’s not a joke), through careful erosion and demonstration, the human servants responsible for all the grunt work collectively convinced the masters to give technology a try. This started with phone calls and then moved to texting. The past two years had been dedicated to the concept of a ‘conference call’. Finally, after blood, sweat, and tears, they could have conversations between houses while seeing eachother, without the aid of a caster’s communication spell (which was how they did things in the dark ages, when casters had been a shade more cooperative).
Now, various human servants moved around the room, adjusting the microphones that sat in front of the participants, getting the cameras ready, and testing the connection.
Reykon stole a glance to the vampire sitting at the head of the table.
Master Cain was a real ass.
Reykon had known this for a while, through whispers on the grapevine. But seeing him in action was a treat, for sure. Conference calls take coordination, which meant that he’d had the idea to call the Master of House Demonte and personally kiss ass by letting him know about Reykon’s mistakes. Having Reykon meet them in the grand hall for a formal questioning was just a gesture of grandeur, a frivolous power move. As ruthless as Magnus could be, at least he was secure enough in his status to avoid idiotic shows like that.
Now, Cain nodded to a human servant and initiated the call. They were using Skype, and Reykon watched with secret humor as a near-identical conference room with the same strangely clothed, pale, creatures popped up.
He immediately saw Magnus at the head of the table.
Magnus was a hulking vampire, who, in his time, would have been considered a Viking warrior sent from Odin himself. He had blond hair, but not fine and silky, more like coarse fiber. Nearly all of his features were large in some regard: large frame, large features, and large shoulders. He wore deep red and black robes, from some forgotten era. Vampires often lagged behind in trends, unless they wanted to go into the real world for some strange reason; in that case, they cleaned up quite nicely.
It was both comforting and disconcerting seeing the vampire he belonged to.
Comforting because it reminded him that even here in Cain’s house, with all of Cain’s people, the direct strongblood slave of the House Head ranked higher than the Master of a satellite house. Unofficially, that is. On paper, vampires would trump strongbloods.
But Reykon had a direct relationship with Magnus. Magnus, to
