The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

to the mare's desk.

I'm sorry about that, but I will not stand by while you prostitute yourself in order to get this woman to understand I haven't done anything wrong!

He sighed into my head. My using a bit of charm on the mare in order that she might understand our point of view has nothing to do with our relationship. You have no reason to feel threatened by other women.

The mare lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. The hail was growing in size and scope, until the rug in the entire room was covered in a white blanket of ice the size of small marbles. The bailiff looked questioningly at the mare. The latter looked angry.

Portia, stop the dramatics!

I can't! I'm trying to make the cloud go away, but it won't!

I can assure you that the sovereign takes very dim views of people who treat officers of the Court with such antipathy!

The hail came down even harder.

The mare suddenly picked up a book and slammed it down onto her desk. 'Cease this display!' she bellowed.

'I can't! I don't know how!' I yelled back, waving my hands desperately as if that would help disperse the cloud over my head.

'Such insolence!' the bailiff said, jerking me back when I moved forward to brush the hail off the mare's desk. 'This will not be tolerated.'

'Your grace, please—' Theo started to say, but the mare interrupted him.

She pointed at me, her voice loud enough to rattle the windows in the room, looking like some sort of Nordic goddess as the hail swirled around her. 'You are out of control and a danger to others, as well as yourself. For that reason, and that reason alone, I will bypass the justice calendar and commit you to an immediate hearing concerning the charge of murder that has been leveled against you. You will report to Petitioner's Park at Nones. You will not leave the Court without permission. You will not discuss your case with anyone but the appropriate authorities. You will not utilize your Gift without permission. Do you understand what I have said?'

I blinked a couple of times, surprised that she didn't order me clamped into irons and thrown into the nearest dungeon, to be left to rot for a few years before someone remembered me. 'I…yes. Thank you.'

The mare took a deep breath. 'Now get out of here!'

Reluctantly, the bailiff released my arm.

What just happened? I asked Theo.

I believe she realized the truth in what we were saying about you not having any experience with the powers of a virtue.

Just because I couldn't control the hail?

Yes. Anyone who intended to become a virtue would have a basic understanding of the role, and better control over those elements in her domain. This may actually be a good thing. 'Thank you for your generosity, your grace.'

The look she gave Theo as he made another bow was enough to raise my hackles, but I gritted my teeth and reminded myself of what Theo had said.

The cloud disappeared as I left the room.

'We really do need to get you through the rest of the trials so you can take control of your Gift,' Theo said in a low voice as he hustled me out of the library.

'You're telling me. When is Nones?'

Theo glanced at the sky. 'Another hour. Time enough for us to get some answers…and food. You are hungry.'

'So are you,' I said, aware of the hot need that growled inside him.

'Yes. We will seek the dapifer. This way.'

A dapifer, it turned out, was some sort of steward responsible for caring for visitors to the Court. Or so Theo explained as we met with a small bespectacled man who wrung his hands when we asked for a room and food.

'We don't normally allow nephilim in the apartments, but if her grace said it was all right…'

I bit back the desire to state the obvious about such a ridiculous policy.

'I don't suppose there are any phones here?' I asked instead as the dapifer showed us to a room in the keep that housed the noble apartments. It was furnished in an odd mixture of old and new, with a huge, canopied bed, candles in sconces on the wall, and an armoire that contained a TV, DVD player, and popular video game machine. A small, modern bathroom led off the main room. It was comfortable, though, and I certainly wasn't in any position to comment about the eccentric decorating schemes of the sovereign.

'Gracious me, no, no telephones are allowed! Contact with the outside is strictly prohibited in the Court,' he told me, looking horrified at the very thought. He gave us both a curt little bow. 'I will have a meal delivered to you immediately.'

I thanked him, sinking onto the bed with an exhausted sigh as he left. 'I wanted to call Sarah and tell her I'd be late, but I guess that's out. Unless your cell phone…' I looked hopefully at Theo.

He shook his head. 'Won't work here. Only certain officials are allowed access to the outside world.'

'Damn. I hope Sarah doesn't worry. We were supposed to go to another haunted house tonight.'

Theo stretched, pushing aside a heavy maroon curtain to look out the double-glazed, diamond-paned window. 'Time operates differently in the Court than outside. We could be here for days, and only an hour or two would pass outside. Or a year. It just depends.'

'Depends on what? How can the time variable be so diverse?'

'It depends on the whim of the sovereign, I suppose. I knew a man who was here for a few days, and only an hour passed outside. His wife, who was with him, left at the same time only to find three years had gone by in her absence.'

'That doesn't make any sense.' I spent a few minutes trying to calculate the equations necessary for such an impossible thing, but gave it up when a headache bloomed to life. 'No, that can't be right. It's not logical at all.'

'Shades of grey, sweetling, shades of grey.'

'Oh, I've been shades-of-greying ever since we met that demon, but that is asking too much. Even here, even in this Court, there has to be an underlying, fundamental structure of physical properties upon which reality is built. To say that no laws keep the structure consistent is impossible.'

'That's where faith comes in,' he said dryly.

I let the matter drop. It didn't do any good to argue with Theo. I was willing to accept that a different set of physical laws applied to the Court, but exist they must. And I was just the person to explore what sort of glue held together this bizarre world I had joined.

'The only other time I was in Court, I was not allowed to stay in the keep,' Theo said after a few minutes of silence.

'Why not?' I asked, pushing aside my concerns to watch him. So many emotions rolled around inside him that I had a hard time separating them.

'I was considered unworthy.' He turned to look at me, a smile on his lips. 'If nothing else, sweetling, you have elevated me beyond obscurity.'

I made a face. 'I'm willing to bet you would have preferred not being known as the boyfriend of the woman who hailed on a mare.'

'Boyfriend?'

'Well…what's the male equivalent to Beloved?'

'Dark One.'

'That's rather a general-purpose label, not one indicative of a man so completely wrapped around his woman's little finger.'

'Is that what you think I am?' he asked, one eyebrow cocked in inquiry.

I smiled, kicked off my shoes, and slid back on the bed, wiggling my toes in invitation. 'Aren't you?'

Hunger roared through him with such intensity it made me gasp. He started toward me, his eyes black as