Aaron turned and met her gaze. “Cass, you stopped doing that years ago. Decades. You’re not…You’re not part of anything anymore. You’re disconnected.”

“Disconnected?”

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time. There have always been two vampire delegates for a reason, one as a resource and one as an ombudsman. Now that Lawrence is gone, you’ve taken over his old role and, well, someone needs to do yours.”

When she didn’t respond, he touched her elbow, but she yanked her arm back.

“I am not disconnected,” she said.

Aaron sighed, and looked at me. “Think about it.”

I nodded. We finished up and left.

The New Orleans Vampire Situation

I SWITCHED THE CELL PHONE TO MY OTHER EAR AND walked into a quieter corner of the airport. “We have a flight for New Orleans leaving in an hour, so I’ll be stuck there overnight.”

“Perhaps I should have come along,” Lucas said. “I haven’t accomplished much here. My father convened an intra-Cabal meeting this afternoon, and he says that no one recalls any dealings with vampires. That, of course, is preposterous. Even if no vampires have approached them, they must have encountered one or two in the course of business. Either they think I’m stupid or they just can’t be bothered to lie more creatively.”

I let out an oath.

“My sentiments exactly. Now, my father has admitted to one recent Cortez Cabal encounter with a vampire. Apparently one tried to arrange a private meeting with him in July. The request was denied, of course, and the matter ended there.”

“What did this vampire want to speak to him about?”

“No one bothered to ask. As soon as they found out he was a vampire, they didn’t care to hear anything else. Not a reason, not a name, nothing. And as much as I’m predisposed to think my father is withholding information, I must admit that this is exactly how Cabal employees are trained to deal with vampires.”

“Can I just say ‘arghh!’ When this is over, we don’t ever have to work with these nice people again, right?”

“You have my word on that. Perhaps then, one good thing will come of this. It might persuade you to join me in future anti-Cabal work.”

“Hey, no one needed to convince me. I was always willing to help. You just had to ask.”

Silence buzzed down the line. Cassandra appeared at my shoulder to say that the plane was boarding. I motioned that I’d be right there.

“I have to go,” I said to Lucas.

“I heard. About working together, I was always under the impression—that is to say—” He paused. “You need to run, but I’d like to discuss this later. And don’t forget to call me when you get to New Orleans.”

“I won’t.”

Cassandra had said little since we’d left Aaron. Again, she bought me afirst-class ticket. I knew Cassandra had money, lots of it, and I doubted she ever flew coach, but it was still a nice gesture. She also offered me her in-flight meal, which I refused, though I did accept her package of cocktail nuts. By the time I finished dinner, she was on her second wine, which told me something was wrong. I’d never seen Cassandra drink more than half a glass at a sitting.

When the flight attendant came by with dessert, I looked at the gelatinous square they called lemon meringue pie, and opted for a tea instead. Cassandra motioned to her wineglass for a refill.

“How long have you been attending council meetings, Paige?” Cassandra asked as the attendant left. “Five, six years?”

“Almost twelve.”

“Twelve years, then.” She fingered the stem of her glass. “You’ve always had a good memory, so perhaps you’ll remember better than I can. When’s the last time we investigated a vampire concern?”

“In ’98. Dallas, Texas. We had a report of a killer draining his victims’ blood. Turned out it was a human killer, though, so I suppose that doesn’t really count as a vampire concern.” I paused. “Let’s see, before that it would have been ’96. A vacationing Russian vampire was raising a ruckus—”

“Yes, yes, I remember that. I meant when did I last bring a concern before the council?”

“Like what Aaron was talking about? A situation that’s worrying vampires in general?”

“Exactly.”

I took my tea from the attendant and pulled out the bag. “You’ve never done that.”

“Oh, come now, Paige. Of course I have.” She leaned back in her seat. “Never mind. You were only a child, and you were always goofing off with Adam—”

“Hey, I never goofed off in a meeting. Don’t you remember all those times Robert gave Adam shit for not paying attention like I did? Drove Adam crazy. Then he’d take it out on me afterward, teasing me about brown-nosing—” I stopped, noticing Cassandra’s attention had wandered to her wineglass. “Point is, I paid attention. I took notes. Quiz me if you like. Dates, places, I can name them. In twelve years, you’ve never brought a vampire concern to the council.”

“That didn’t strike you as odd?”

I shrugged. “Numbers-wise, vampires are rare, and you’re all pretty self-sufficient, so I figured you didn’t have concerns. It never bothered anyone else, so it didn’t bother me. Lawrence didn’t bring up concerns when he was your codelegate.”

“That’s because Lawrence was so old, he didn’t care about anyone but himself.” She fluttered her hands over her table. “Took off to Europe and never even bothered to tell us he wasn’t coming back. I may be self-centered, but I’d never do that.”