“Why’d you hit him, Jorgen?” The wolfman didn’t respond. “Jorgen?” I resisted the temptation to shake him, to try to wake him up. There was so much blood, and Jorgen’s breathing was shallow.

I could kill him for sure with the knife. Carve it down and slice his intestines through. But I knew what a stab wound through the gut felt like. I didn’t have it in me. I stood, shaking.

“Don’t follow me if you get up.” I reached down, yanked out the knife, and headed for the limousine.

* * *

I stepped on my ID badge on the way to the limo. I freed it from the muck and shoved it into my pocket, lanyard and all, and then got into my ride.

Most of the blood on me wasn’t mine, but my knuckles and thighs throbbed. The heat was on in the limo, keys still in the ignition, so I revved it up and pulled away.

The limo had GPS, and the driver, now dead and gnawed on in my parking lot, had been kind enough to enter in his final destination before he left.

Driving it was like driving a boat. Luckily it was automatic, not stick.

I didn’t look at myself in the rearview mirror. I knew that would be a bad idea. I knew bruises were welting up all over my body, that my jeans were torn, that my sweater was covered in were-blood, and what else, who goddamn knew.

No matter how much I might have loved a monster once—I didn’t sign up for this.

If I let go of the steering wheel, the limo would slide to the side of the road, into a snowbank, and I would cry, and be frozen there like a woolly mammoth until a snowplow happened by or the first thaw of spring. No, I would not look up, and I would not look down. I would only watch the road and the little blue dot on the GPS’s screen that meant we were heading toward something, somewhere else. I followed that little blue dot, went out of town, and out into the countryside, until it pulled me into a parking lot circled by a white picket fence. I looked out.

It had once been a church.

* * *

I pulled the limo up. This parking lot was huge, so the church must have been prestigious, before … the fire. I nodded to myself. Snow didn’t hide all the charred blackness of the roof, and I could see blue tarps underneath it, trying to keep some of the weather out. I bet the congregation hadn’t had enough money or time to rebuild before winter, and now, this.

I parked the limousine. I didn’t want to leave it. It was warm here, and it was safe, and I was starting to stick to the seat. A knock on the window startled me.

“You’re late!” Sike said as I opened the door. I could tell she didn’t expect to see me driving. “You stink of were-blood. What happened?”

“Your driver got jumped.”

“How are you?” she said, and for the first time, I felt she meant it. She put out her hand.

I stood even with her, so she could see all of me. “I’m fine. But after this, I’m fucking through. You’re getting me out.” I knew she had no say in the matter, but saying it firmed my resolve.

“When you’re done here, you should probably go to Y4. To get were-shots.” She touched a hand to an earpiece I hadn’t realized she had. “We need a disposal team at the Ambassador’s personal residence. Driver two is gone.” Then she gestured. “Please, follow me.”

Some Ambassador I was tonight. Limping, I followed.

* * *

Seeing as the church had holes in some walls, it was freaking cold inside. It wouldn’t bother the vampires, but it irritated me. I’d been through enough already tonight, I didn’t need to freeze too.

The inside of the church had at one time been a Catholic affair. There was a clean space on a blackened wall where a crucifix had been removed, like an inverse cross. The rest of the inside was hollowed out, gutted by the fire. After that, I bet congregants had taken everything they could salvage. Construction lights made everything cast long shadows.

“Why the hell are we here?” I asked Sike.

“We wanted the most neutral ground possible. Churches make all vampires uncomfortable,” she said as she led me in. “Plus, it has a sense of flair.”

“Remind me to never go shopping with you,” I muttered, following behind her, holding Anna’s knife.

Because the pews were gone, vampires stood where the congregation should be, clustered together in their tribes. Sike led me around them and up to the raised altar at the front. I recognized the other people standing there. Gideon, Veronica, Mr. Galeman—a prior patient of mine whom Anna had bitten—Sike and I took our place by their side. Veronica still looked as feral as she had at my house, and as if to make up for it, Gideon was eerily calm.

“How’d they rope you into this,” I asked Mr. Galeman, who stood beside me.

“Free beer,” he whispered back. Sike hissed down the line at us, then glared at us to keep quiet.

Well. That. Was. Encouraging. I stood there, exhausted, and my legs kept complaining, each claw mark stung—I wasn’t going to need just rabies shots, but tetanus as well. I looked like that chick from Carrie, or one of any number of segments from Battle Royale.

“Now the ceremony can begin,” said a vampire I didn’t recognize from the side. Organ music welled up, pretentious, dramatic.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Sike.

She glared at me. “Shut it.”

* * *

Anna walked in from off stage. She was dressed simply, in white. It made her already fair skin paler; her blond hair gave her the only color she had.

She made her way down us, like she was in a receiving line. She spoke to Veronica and Gideon first, then Mr. Galeman, then me.

Anna looked me up and down. “You’re magnificent.”

“I’m not feeling it right now.”

She slipped her hand into mine briefly. Then she smiled at Sike and went to the front of the stage.

“Bathory isn’t here,” Sike whispered, barely breathing beside me. She took her earpiece out of her ear.

“What does that mean?”

“They’re not voting.”

I tried to stare out past the lights, to figure out by the crowds where the lines of allegiances ran.

A vampire who appeared to be the master of ceremonies took the stage. He gestured for Anna to join him. “Anna Arsov, begin.”

Anna opened up her arms to include everyone in the gathering. She looked so young beside him, and with all the lights shining down, her shadow was slight. “I have passed every test that you’ve given me. I have shown grand restraint, and I have known grave thirst. All the positions on my court have been filled. Who here would dispute my right to ascend?”

“House Arachne!” A lone vampire in the middle of an empty area of seats stood. “House Arachne does not recognize the right of the Arsinov to ascend to the Sanguine of the Rose Throne!”

“Old, but not as old as we are,” Sike murmured just for my ear. “Powers include insect and small animal servants. Spiders, birds, and the like.”

“And why would you dispute me?”

“You picked this place, so you have no taste. Worse yet, you picked these people—”

Anna cut her off. “It was within my rights to choose the locale, and to choose my own people. I have done nothing wrong.”

“Many of them hate the church. They believe in the power it holds over them.” Sike continued her narration.

“And you?” I asked of Sike.

“I believe in her,” she whispered back.

“Does anyone else dispute?” the vampire overseeing the proceedings intoned.

A young woman in a tight burgundy velvet dress with swooping sleeves came forward. “The House of Bathory is undecided. We choose to abstain.”

“Nouveau riche pretenders,” Sike murmured to me. “Weak.”

“Is that all?” the ceremony master asked, taking a moment to look around. “Together, two Houses cannot sway the vote. Sanguine rules of order say we should proceeed.” He turned toward me. “Human, can you present your knife?”

I’d forgotten I had it. I held it out. He took it with a gloved hand and spun the hourglass in the hilt.

“There’s blood on it—but none of it’s in you. That’s what counts.” He put it in his own robe. “We may begin,” he said, and snapped his fingers.

One of the hovering observers came up with a small brass box. It had a crank handle and was set on a silver tray.

Anna turned to me and pointed at the box. “Edie, please.”

I didn’t want to ask what it was. I wish she’d told me more. I picked it up carefully and looked at the handle, then the sides, and finally underneath. There were grooves cut into the bottom, lined with tiny blades. The metal was old. The blades were unclean.

A scarificator. I recognized it from our introduction to nursing class, when our teachers had explained how far medical practices had come, and how far it had to go, and how we, the nurses of the next generation, were going to take it there. It was meant to bleed people, from olden times, when just lancing someone wouldn’t do. Shown to be medically useless, despite the esteem it once held. Just like cocaine-spiked Coke, magnet treatments, and the benefits of smoking.

No one made them anymore—because no one believed in the health benefits of bleeding.

Except for vampires.

Anna rolled up her white sleeve and proffered me her wrist. Another observer brought up a golden urn that had been fitted with a delicate tap.

“I trust you,” she said, looking down at me. I knew what the stakes were, but—“Edie. It will be okay. I trust you.”

I knew I couldn’t hurt her—doing this wouldn’t hurt her. And many times vampires, and even sometimes me, found pleasure inside pain. But still.

Where was the difference between piercing someone’s skin with a needle, for their own good, and setting this thing’s blackened grinding blades onto her? How many times had I hurt to make things better—hurt other people, and hurt myself?

She wanted me to do it. If I didn’t, it might be the end of her. And the end of us.