Speaking of a need to update a wardrobe, the vamp next to Mircea—the same one who had been loitering around the waiting room—looked like a GQ ad, if the magazine had been printed in the seventeenth century. Considering that I'd spent a lot of time in a Goth club, I didn't object to the embroidered frock coat, frothy shirt and knee britches he was wearing. I'd seen weirder getups, and at least this one was flattering—silk hose shows off legs better than most modern styles, and his were worth playing up. The sticking point was that the whole deal was in buttercup yellow satin. I'm sorry, but a vamp in yellow is just wrong, especially when you throw in bright blue eyes and glossy auburn curls cascading halfway down his back. He was very handsome, with one of those open, honest faces you automatically trust. It really irritated me that it belonged to a vamp. I gave him a tentative smile anyway on the theory that it couldn't hurt, and thought maybe I'd get a brownie point for being the only other one in yellow in the room. Of course, my happy-face T wasn't looking its best at the moment, which maybe explains why he didn't smile back. He was watching me almost hungrily, the weight of his gaze so intense that I spared a thought to hope he'd already eaten. I needed to get this blood off me before I started looking to someone like a walking hors d'oeuvre.
The remaining vamps, two on the far side of the Consul, were so alike that I assumed they had to be related. I found out later that it was a coincidence. The man was almost as old as the Consul, having started life as one of Nero's bodyguards even though his mother had been a slave captured somewhere much farther north than Italy. He'd been one of the emperor's favorites for having even more sadistic tastes than his master: want to guess who really burned Rome? The woman, who looked so much like Portia that I did a double take, had been born in the antebellum South. She was said to have killed more Union soldiers in the twenty miles or so around her family home than the Confederate military did, and to have mourned the end of the war and the easy hunting that had gone with it. So, different eras, countries and backgrounds, but they looked like twins with their milky complexions and wavy dark hair. They even had similar eye color, a light brownish gold, like the light through autumn leaves, and were dressed in complementary outfits of white and silver. Admittedly, his was a toga while she looked like she was on her way to a Savannah ball, but they looked good together.
The Consul gave me time to size everyone up before she spoke, but when she did, I had no desire to look anywhere else. Wherever her kohl-rimmed gaze landed, it felt like tiny pinpricks along my skin. The sensation was not quite painful, but I had the impression that the pins could become swords very easily. "You see how many of our seats are empty, how many voices silenced." I blinked in surprise. I'd assumed there was a problem, but not that—four ancient vampires aren't exactly easy to kill. But she confirmed it. "We are greatly weakened. The loss of some of the greatest among us is felt keenly by all in this room, but if it continues, it will echo around the world."
She stopped, and at first I thought it was for a dramatic pause, but then she zoned out on me. Some of the really old ones do that sometimes, drawing into themselves for a minute or an hour or a day, and forgetting that anyone else exists. I'd gotten used to little time-outs with Tony, so I didn't let it bother me. I noticed that Tomas had been joined at the door by yet another guy I didn't know. What looked like a life-sized statue stood near him, a rather crude one with no paint to cover its clay exterior and poorly defined features. Tomas and the new guy seemed to be arguing about something, but their voices were too low to hear. I had a brief moment of nostalgia for Tony's audience hall, where most of those present were murderous scumbags, but at least I knew their names. I was jumpy enough standing in blood-soaked clothing in front of a group of vamps powerful enough to kill me with little more than a thought, without also having to work in the dark. Rafe was a comfort at my back, but I'd have preferred someone whose specialty was more in the guns-and-knives line.
"We are missing six of our number," the Consul abruptly continued. "Four are irrecoverable, and two others hover on the edge of the abyss. If any power known to us can restore them, it will be done. But it may well be that we strive in vain, for our enemy has lately obtained a new weapon, which can undo us at our very conception." I resisted the urge to glance back at Rafe, whom I hoped was following this better than I was. Maybe he could fill me in later if the Consul never got around to making sense.
"Tomas, attend us." She had barely finished speaking before Tomas appeared beside me. "Can she be of use?" He was resolutely not looking at me. I wanted to yell at him, to ask what kind of coward couldn't even hold my gaze while he betrayed me, but Rafe's fingers tightened almost painfully and I regained control.
"I believe so. She occasionally speaks when there seems to be no one there, and tonight… I cannot explain what happened to one of the assassins. There were five. I killed three, and her ward dealt with another; but as for the last…"
"Tomas, don't." I definitely did not want him to finish that sentence. It would not be good if the Senate decided I was a threat, and if they found out about the exploding vamp, they might feel a tad on edge. How can even an ancient master fight against something she can't see or feel? Of course, Portia's intervention had been a fluke—I don't go around with an army of ghosts and I sure as hell can't command any that I meet up with to fight for me—but there was no way the Senate could know that. I somehow doubted they'd take my word. Most ghosts are too weak to do what Portia's friends had managed; she must have called every active spirit in the cemetery and, even working together, they had barely had enough power. It wasn't something I could duplicate, but if the Senate didn't believe that, it could get me killed.
Tomas' jaw tightened, but he didn't look at me. Big surprise. "I am not sure how the last assassin died. Cassandra must have killed it, but I did not see how." That was true, but he had definitely seen frozen vamp parts all over the aisle, and there weren't a lot of ways they could have gotten there. I was surprised he'd hedged his reply for me, but it didn't matter. One glance at the Consul was enough to show that she wasn't fooled.
Before she could call him on it, the short blond who'd been eavesdropping from the doorway suddenly darted around the guards and ran towards us. I wasn't worried; it was easy to see by the way he moved and the suntan on his cheeks that this was no vampire. Two of the guards followed, so quickly that they were just smears of color against the red sandstone walls, then overtook him. They reached us first and put themselves between Rafe and me and the newcomer, although they didn't try to restrain him. In fact, they seemed more interested in keeping an eye on me.
"I will speak, Consul, and you had best instruct your servants not to lay hands on me unless you wish to escalate this to war!" The blond's booming voice was well-educated British, but his outfit didn't match it. His hair was the only normal thing about him—close cropped and without noticeable style. But his T-shirt was crossed with enough ammunition to take out a platoon, and he had a tool belt slung low on his hips that, along with a strap across his back, looked like it carried one of every type of handheld weapon on the market. I recognized a machete, two knives, a sawed-off shotgun, a crossbow, two handguns—one strapped to his thigh—and a couple of honest-to-God grenades. There were other things I couldn't identify, including a row of cork-topped bottles along the front of the belt. The getup, sort of mad scientist meets Rambo, would have made me smile, except that I believe in showing respect for someone carrying that much hardware.