“Welcome to the heart of Blood City,” he said, walking over to one of the banks of computers where one of the vampires sat. Working at the computer console made the vampires look even more lifeless than usual. “Move.”

The vampire stirred, letting out a long, deliberate sigh, and stood up. “God, I hate working a double,” he said to Nicholas. “I mean, living for an eternity is one thing, but try spending it at one of these stations…? It’s boring times ten thousand.” The vampire noticed me standing there, and then turned back to Nicholas with a grin. “You bring your lunch to work today, boss?”

“Hush.” Nicholas gave him a stern look and the grin disappeared off the vampire’s face. He sat down at the console’s only chair. “He’s my guest.”

“Sorry,” the other vampire said. He looked around, blurred away from us, and reappeared moments later with a second chair. He pushed it toward me. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” I said. The other vampire nodded and was gone.

“Now, then,” Nicholas said, tapping away at the keyboard, “let’s see what the Gibson-Case Center can tell us.” A series of camera feeds popped up on the wall of monitors and began whirring by quickly. “This may take a while.”

“Good,” I said, “then maybe we can get back to what I just asked you. What is this place?”

“Think of the Gibson-Case Center as a human body of sorts,” Nicholas said. “Consider this room, then, as the heart. No, better yet, the brain.”

“Did you design all this?” I asked.

Nicholas nodded and gave a smile that looked a little sad.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “When you told me you were an architect, I assumed it had been for the castle.”

“Some of that was my handiwork, yes,” he said, “but all of this modern-world design rising up around us is my doing as well.”

“All of this?” I said. “Impressive.”

“Thank y-” Nicholas started, but he stopped as he darted his hands out at the keyboard.

“Here we are,” he said, reaching for the mouse and selecting one of the frozen images on the screen. He clicked it, enlarging it to full screen. He pressed “play” and from the feed of a high-angle camera we watched the image from earlier of Jane being sucked into the information kiosk while I stood by, ineffectual. I turned away from the final moments of it feeling rather humiliated.

“It is as you spoke,” Nicholas said. “I am sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” I said, still pained by the image. “Sorry for my loss?”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said, “because until I saw it for myself, I doubted the validity of your claim.”

I was puzzled. “Why would I make something like this up?”

Nicholas looked sheepish and leaned back in his computer chair. “We’re not the most trusting when it comes to dealing with humanity, given our history together. I know Brandon told me to help you, but I was still wary when I was told I was supposed to help someone from your organization.”

“Excuse me?”

Nicholas held up his hands defensively. “Try to see it from my perspective. Your organization has done its fair share of damage to our kind.”

I could feel my temper rising, even though I was here for his help.

“Yeah, well, maybe our distrust of you has something to do with your people constantly draining our blood,” I said, perhaps a little too loud. The room around me fell silent, except for the sound of chairs pushing out and rolling back. Every last vampire was standing, fangs popped, and watching the two of us.

Nicholas stood, but took his time. “May I remind you that you are a guest here?” Nicholas said. His face drew tight. “And I am trying to help you.”

Realizing that I was outnumbered by a considerable margin, I sat myself back down in the chair. “Sorry.”

Nicholas sat and turned back to the screen. The rest of the room settled down as well.

Nicholas went back to working at the keyboard. “I’m going to run the time stamp of this event against the rest of the systems in the building. See if anything anomalous comes up…”

“Great,” I said, then added, “Thank you.”

“Although perhaps I should take you back to the castle,” he said.

Had I pissed him off? I looked around the room. Most of the vampires had returned to what they had been doing. “I’m fine, really.”

Nicholas shook his head, his face softening. “It’s not that. This is going to take a while.”

I nodded. “Fine,” I said. “I should probably check in on Connor and Aidan anyway.”

At the mention of Aidan’s name, Nicholas turned away, but not before I saw a flare of hatred well up in his eyes. It reminded me of the tension I had felt when the two of them had run into each other in castle corridors with us.

“Whoa, there,” I said. “Did I say something wrong? What’s wrong with you two anyway?”

Nicholas stood. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Come, let me take you back to the castle.”

“Wait,” I said. “Do you have something against Aidan? Is there something I should know? He’s Connor’s brother so I’d like to know if I should be keeping an eye on him.”

Nicholas paused, taking his time to weigh something, and then spoke.

“I’d definitely keep your eye on him,” he said. “I wouldn’t exactly call him… trustworthy. I would not… What is the expression? Ah, yes, I would not trust him as far as I could throw him, which is a considerable distance.”

“What did he do to cross you?” I asked.

“Let’s just leave it at the fact that he isn’t trustworthy,” Nicholas said. He headed for the main doors leading out of the control center. They hissed open like we were leaving the bridge of the USS Enterprise. From the petulant way he was walking off, he might as well have been stomping and pouting. “Come. I have much to do if I am to help you and protect my building’s systems at the same time. I don’t have time to babysit.”

“Sure thing, Nick,” I said, letting the subject go for now. I had enough problems of my own to contend with.

18

Nicholas led me in silence to Aidan’s quarters in the castle and left me outside his door. He refused to enter, but left with a promise to keep working on the whereabouts of Jane.

I knocked on Aidan’s chamber door and it opened. Aidan was standing there, his eyes hidden deep within the skull-and-bones hoodie he was wearing. He looked bored, but turned and led me into his private rooms without a word. The woman he had thrown across the forest floor, Beatriz, was also there, lounging back on an antique sofa. Connor was sitting across from her on a velvety red throne.

“Your pet’s here,” Aidan said, crossing the room. Connor looked up. He was a little more composed-looking than I’d seen him in the past few days.

“Any news on Jane yet, kid?” he asked.

I shook my head as I crossed the room and threw my exhausted self down into one of the many puffy chairs arranged around the main space. “Nothing yet. Nicholas said it might take a while to go through all the high tech of the building to see what’s going on, but…”

“Nicholas?” Aidan said, sitting down on the couch next to Beatriz and rolling his eyes. “Ugh.”

“You have a real problem with him, don’t you?” I asked.

“Other way around,” Aidan said. “I think he has a problem with me.”

Beatriz leaned forward. “You know me and Nicky were an item, right?”

Suddenly, Nicholas’s reaction to Aidan’s name made sense. It seemed even vamps were capable of trading up in the dating world. Beatriz had given up the architect to be with one of Brandon’s enforcers. I didn’t see the appeal. Maybe she had been instructed to babysit Brandon’s bargaining chip.

“Beatriz and Nicholas are old news,” Aidan said, bristling a bit. He threw his arm protectively around Beatriz and pulled her back on the couch toward him. As the two of them started pawing at each other, I tried to stop them with conversation. I tapped Connor on the arm and then looked over at Aidan.