by Alexis Hall
“Next time you murder one of the four most powerful vampires in England,” she snarled, “I suggest you tell me. Otherwise, sweeting, we all end up looking very silly.”
“I didn’t murder anyone.” I rolled off the mattress and got to my feet. “There was a fight. He got killed.”
“On the point of your sword. On the point of the sword you were given by the Witch Queen of London.”
“He told me to.” It sounded pathetic even to me.
“I’m sure he did, sweeting, but you have no way to prove it.” Julian paced the length of my cell. “Mercy and Caradoc are out for your blood, and there’s nothing I can do about it because you didn’t bother to mention this three months ago.” She whirled to a halt and glared at me.
It wasn’t so much that I hadn’t bothered. It’s just that it’s hard to find a good time to tell your girlfriend that you’ve stabbed one of her oldest mates. I hadn’t exactly been hiding it, just hoping it would never come up. “I didn’t expect you to do anything. It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Strange as it may seem, Katharine,” she drawled, “this is not about you. How can the Council respect me if I don’t even know what my own girlfriend is up to?”
“What, you mean if you can’t keep your pet mortal in check?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you meant it.”
“I did not. But what you do reflects on me. And if you don’t trust me enough to tell me the truth about something like this, then you make a mockery of...of...” She threw her hands illustratively into the air. “Everything.”
I scowled. “I’m sorry I reflect badly on you. What do you want me to do? Sit at home in a white dress and bake vampire cookies?”
“Sweeting, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here.” She was pacing again. “You didn’t embarrass me at the company picnic. You murdered one of my colleagues, and now the rest of my colleagues are annoyed about it and want to kill us both.”
There was a long silence broken only by Julian’s boot heels striking the stone floor.
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry, okay, but I did what I had to do to save your, y’know, life.”
“Yes, yes, you’re my hero.” She gave a swift, sudden smile. “But where I come from, when you rescue someone, it’s bad manners to get them executed afterwards.”
“How do they even know?”
Julian sighed. “Kauri.”
“He sold me out?” He hadn’t seemed the type.
“He didn’t have a choice. He’s young, and several members of the Council can read minds.”
I didn’t know whether that made it better or worse. He hadn’t betrayed me, but I didn’t like the idea of the vampire gestapo fucking around with his brain. “Is he okay?”
“We’re not psychopaths.” She paused. “Well, most of us. But he probably feels bad for dropping you in it, which by the way, he wouldn’t have been in any position to do if I’d known what had happened.”
I slumped back down onto the mattress and rested my back against the wall. “Okay, I get it, I fucked up. But what could you even have done about it?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, sweeting, I’m a motherfucking vampire prince. There’s always something I can do.”
“What about now?” I asked hopefully.
“That’s the thing. It’s a little late. I could bust you out of here, and we could flee somewhere beyond the reach of the Council, and we could spend our lives dodging assassins and living in youth hostels.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I should just let them have you. I’d be very, very upset for a couple of decades, but I’d get over it. And, rationally, it’s clearly the best option for me.”
I gave her a look. “Rationally, I should have left you chained up in a sewer.”
Julian came over and sat next to me. She snuck a kiss onto my cheek. “Obviously, I’m not going to do that. I have, after all, never been good at being rational.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day. Then again, the last thing somebody said to me was ‘Get in this cellar.’” There was another silence, and Julian took my hand. “So,” I said, “what are we actually going to do?”
“Politics.”
The youth hostel was starting to sound really tempting. “That’s your plan? You go and cut dodgy deals with a bunch of bloodsucking power brokers.”
“No, sweeting, you go and cut dodgy deals with a bunch of bloodsucking power brokers. The Council already thinks you’re my pocket assassin. There’s no way I can protect you and protect myself at the same time. And while I am very, very fond of you, I don’t think we’re in the lay down my life stage of the relationship.”
“Why am I going out with you again?”
“Because, my one, my only, I am spectacularly good in bed.”
I laughed. “I knew there was something.”
Julian lifted her brows. “Many, many things. Many, many times.”
I had the feeling we were getting sidetracked. “How is this going to work? And you do remember I hate politics, right?”
“Not nearly as much as politics hates you.”
“No, seriously. I haven’t got a clue. In case you haven’t noticed, you guys are really fucking secretive. I know there are four princes and you do stuff. And there’s a Council which does stuff. But, beyond that, my knowledge is pretty vague.”
Julian stood up again. “You’re worrying me now, Kate. Quick crash course: the princes are the local powers, the Council is a loose association of twenty-two vampires that monitors Europe, the Near East, and about half of America.”
“So they’re in charge?”
“Not really. They just stop things going too batshit insane. We worked out a long time ago that if too few people have too much power it gets really bad for everyone when they disagree. The Council resolves disputes, recognises princes, and deals with things like, well, this.”
“Holy shit, are you telling me there are twenty-two super powerful vampires in town? And I have to make them all like me? I’m fucked.”
Julian grinned down at me. “The whole Council hasn’t gathered for centuries. You only need eight for quorum, including local princes and equivalents.”
“This sounds remarkably civilised for people who drag you off the street and throw you in cellars.”
“We are civilised creatures, but civilisation is power and control. It does not preclude throwing people into cellars.”
“Or”—I glared—“looming over them, blocking what little light they get in the dungeon you’ve chucked them in.”
She rolled her eyes and hunkered down in a creak of too-tight leather. “Better?”
Well, no, it wasn’t really because, to be honest, the dungeon was bothering me more than the looming. But being pissy about it wasn’t going to help anyone. “So who’s in town?”
“There’s me, sweeting, but I won’t get a vote on this one because I’m rather obviously compromised. Aeglica would have had a vote, but you sort of killed him, and we haven’t chosen his successor yet. Sebastian, the Prince of Wands, has come up from Oxford.”
“Ooh, I’m honoured.”
“And Thomas Pryce, the Prince of Coins, of course.”
“But he hates me. There’s no way he can be impartial.”
She interlaced her fingers between her knees. “It’s not about partiality, it’s about power. Besides, Thomas never lets his emotions override his judgement. It’s one of his many infuriating qualities.”
“I’m so fucked.” I put my head in my hands.
“The Regent of the North is technically entitled to a vote as well, and I heard word he’d be in town for this one.”
I had no idea how all this stuff fit together, but I’d run into Halfdan the Shaper back when I’d been dating Patrick. There’d been a big territory dispute
between him and the local werewolf pack, and I’d been stuck in the middle of it, as usual. I was pretty sure I wasn’t really on his radar anymore, which is how I like to keep it when it comes to shady vampire power brokers.
“That just leaves the Council members: the High Priestess, the Emperor, Justice, Temperance, and Death.”
I looked up again. “And Death?”
“They’re just titles and largely symbolic.”
“Death?”
“I told you, they’re just symbolic, but he is a bit of a fucker. His name is Diego de Flores. He was an inquisitor in life and it shows. He’s coldhearted and ruthless to the point of sadism, and he doesn’t like me very much. But he cares about the truth, and if he genuinely believes you’re innocent, he’ll say so.”
“But I’m not innocent.”
“Everyone’s innocent of something. The hearing isn’t about whether you stabbed Aeglica. It’s about whether you murdered him. Whether you planned his death with, as they say, malice aforethought, and whether I ordered you to do it.” She gave me an odd little half smile. “You know, you’re sort of making history here, sweeting. We’ve never actually put a mortal on trial before.”
For some reason, I didn’t find that particularly comforting. “What makes me so fucking special?”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it: me. I have enemies, Kate, and they can use this. In a way, I’m as much on trial as you are.”
There was a pause. I wasn’t quite sure, but I think I was giving her a look.
She patted my arm consolingly. “Don’t get me wrong. This is only the second time a Prince of England has been destroyed, so you really have achieved something.”
Here lies Kate Kane. She achieved something. Beloved daughter. Sorely missed.
“Okay, so what about the rest of them?” I asked.
Julian eased herself down beside me, tucking her velvets up so they didn’t trail in the dust. “The High Priestess goes by Sybil. She was actually a high priestess of something, back in the day. She’s three parts bonkers and, frankly, I don’t know why she’s here.”
“Great.”
“The Emperor is Abu Ishaq Jabril al-Rashid. He’s a risen vampire, like Aeglica was.”
Risen vampires are a whole different deal to turned vampires. Basically they’re people who were so pissed off about dying that it just didn’t stick. They’re insanely hard to kill—though, as I now knew, not impossible—and they were far more likely to have their own weird powers. Obviously, every vampire bloodline ultimately traces back to one of the Risen at some point.
“There’s an unconfirmed rumour,” added Julian, “that Sir Caradoc killed him at the Siege of Jerusalem back when they were both mortal. So he might be bearing a useful grudge.”
That was all very well in theory but I had no idea how it would work in practice. So, that guy who killed you that one time. Bet you’re mad at him, huh? How about letting me off?
“He’s one of the big players in Istanbul, which means he’s very, very good at politics.”
I slid her a sideways glance. “Why, what’s up with Istanbul?”
“It used to be Byzantium. It was also briefly capital of the Roman Empire. Its vampire population is more than a little factionalised.”
“Who’s next?”
“Justice. That’s Kemsit. She’s another Risen. She spent her first centuries of unlife buried in the tomb of King Aha. She’s a little...disconcerting.”
That did not sound good. “Disconcerting how?”
Julian shrugged. “She looks about twelve, she’s five thousand years old, and she has a creepy obsession with death and judgement.”
That sounded even worse. “Next?”
“Temperance is Dr. Acton Knight—”
“Wait. You mean Patrick’s dad?”
“Oh, is that what he told you?” She managed not to laugh at me, but she made damn sure I knew she’d managed it.
“Yeah, I used to go to dinner with the family all the time.”
“And you never noticed that they looked nothing alike?”
“He had two gay dads. I was pretty sure he was adopted.”
“Well, he was in a sense.” Julian smirked. “He’s one of Acton’s waifs and strays. To be honest, you probably know Acton better than I do.”
“We haven’t spoken in ten years.”
Julian blinked at me. “Vampire. Ten years is nothing. I have people I consider to be reasonably good friends who I haven’t spoken to since the nineteenth century.”
So, to get out of this alive I had to win over two vampire princes, one of whom I’d had thrown out of a window by the guy I’d killed, a bloke I’d met once when I was seventeen, a crazy priestess, a power player from the place that invented plotting, a five-thousand-year-old adolescent, an honest-to-God member of the Spanish Inquisition, and my ex-boyfriend’s dad.
I was so very, very fucked.
Chapter Three
Questions & Cellars
We sat for a while in silence, contemplating how fucked I was, until we heard footsteps outside and the cellar door opened to reveal a slim, olive-skinned youth with startling green eyes.
“Your Highness.” He bowed gracefully. “The Council is in session and requests the attendance of the prisoner.”
There was something about his stillness and the way he stood that reminded me of Elise.
“Thank you, Hephaistion,” said Julian. “We’ll be along directly.”
He nodded and withdrew.
“If you want to make a break for it,” she added, “it’s now or never.”
I honestly thought about it. But if I was going to die, I’d rather it wasn’t in a youth hostel. “No, I’m good.” I climbed to my feet. “Let’s get this over with.”
She led me upstairs, past the dragon skull and into one of the vast empty rooms that Aeglica had never used. They’d assembled an old oak table and a few chairs into a makeshift courtroom. It didn’t seem very stately, but it didn’t have to be. I was in a room with eleven vampires who, if you put them all together, were older than monotheism. Julian was eight hundred, and I’d seen her walk through fire and toss motorcycles around like Frisbees. And since vampires tend to get more powerful with age, I didn’t even like to think about how dangerous some of these people were.
I desperately surveyed the gathering, trying to work out who was who. It was like some kind of dreadful party game or one of those icebreakers where you have to find someone who plays a musical instrument and speaks Portuguese. Except you die if you get it wrong.
I already knew Caradoc, and since Mercy had six-inch talons and was dressed like an Edwardian widow, I would have recognised her anywhere. Acton Knight obviously hadn’t changed in the last ten years on account of being immortal, and wore the same look of well-groomed sincerity he’d had when I’d been dating his “son.” The Regent of the North probably hadn’t changed either, but to be honest, I couldn’t remember that much about him. He seemed shorter and slighter than I remembered, but his eyes were just as bright and just as green. He had his feet on the table. Next to him, the Prince of Coins was watching me coldly—Julian had said he wouldn’t let his feelings get in the way of things, but that wasn’t something I fancied betting my life on. It seemed like all the local vampires were sitting together which meant that the pretty blond with the faraway look in his eyes must have been Sebastian Douglas, the Prince of Wands. The Elise-alike who’d come to summon us was standing beside him, a hand resting lightly on the prince’s shoulder.
So far, so good.
That just left the Council. At the risk of making assumptions, the Middle Eastern gentleman in the sharp suit was probably al-Rashid, the guy dressed like a priest was probably Diego de Flores, and the batty hippie in the floaty dress was probably Sybil.
That just left the incredibly creepy girl sitting cross-le
gged in the middle of the table. She was barefoot and wearing oversized jeans and a faded green T-shirt. This had to be Kemsit. There was a set of brass scales on the table in front of her.
“Katharine Kane, Princess of the Deepwild, Knight of the Witchcourt of London,” she said, “you stand accused of the murder of Aeglica Thrice-Risen, Fenwalker, Shadowdweller, Oathbreaker, Kinkiller, Manslayer, Exile, Hero, who in England was called the Prince of Swords.”
“Uh,” I tried, “not guilty.”
The Inquisitor laughed. I’ve heard some evil laughs in my time, but this guy sounded like he practiced.
Great. I was fucking this up already.
“This is not a mortal court, Katharine Kane.” Kemsit’s voice was, at once, girlish and ancient. And, it went without saying, creepy as fuck. “We care only for the truth.”
“So what am I here for?”
“To give it to us. Now speak.”
I looked at Julian, hoping for a clue, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Thanks a lot, your Highness. I took a deep breath. “I did not murder Aeglica Thrice-Risen.”
“Lies!” cried Caradoc, banging his fist on the table.
Kemsit turned her head slowly and stared at him. I guessed this was some kind of faux pas. Perhaps I’d get really lucky and my enemies would fuck this up worse than I did. Finally, she turned her searchlight gaze back to me. “We have a witness who saw him die on the point of your sword.”
This was where it got tricky. I was not at all comfortable standing in front of a vampire court and presenting a defence that basically came down to well, it depends what you mean by murder.
“We were fighting a faery lord called the King of the Court of Love. Aeglica was caught in full daylight. The only chance we had was for him to pin the creature down while I ran it through.”