He was a tall, thin man with pale skin, paler hair, and eyes that were a weird milky white. I wasn’t entirely sure if the coloring was natural or something
that had happened after he’d become Maelle’s thrall—a process I really didn’t know a whole lot about aside from the fact it involved magic and the consumption of her flesh, and basically gave him eternal life.
“You’re in a rather good mood tonight,” I commented. “I take it your mistress has recently fed?”
I didn’t bother lowering my voice. The music was loud enough here that even if there had been someone near, they probably wouldn’t have heard the comment. Maelle didn’t encourage conversation; she wanted her patrons dancing and drinking.
Which, given the number currently on the dance floor, plenty were willing to do.
“Indeed she has,” he said. “The replacement feeders have worked out better than we’d hoped.”
A shudder I couldn’t quite control ran through me at the thought of willingly becoming a vampire’s meal ticket. Maelle might be a generous benefactor—as far as I’d seen, anyway—when it came to her feeders, but I was sure there were plenty of others who weren’t. I’d been bitten only once in my life—by the vamp who’d come here seeking revenge—and I had no intention of ever repeating the experience. Maelle could assure me her bite would be utterly different as much as she wanted, but it was never going to happen.
The amusement briefly glinting in Roger’s eyes suggested he’d caught the shudder, but all he said was, “I take it—given your attire—that this is a formal visit rather than a pleasurable one?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then my mistress will be down in a few minutes. In the meantime, allow me to get you a drink.”
He turned and led me toward the bar. The crowd parted silently before him, though I doubted they were even aware of it. It made me wonder if there was some sort of psychic ability or even magic involved. Just because I couldn’t feel either didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Maelle was capable of magic—she’d admitted that more than once—so it was totally possible her creature was similarly gifted. Or perhaps—given she could see and speak through him if she so desired—it was more a case of her allowing him to use some of her mind tricks and magic.
I turned my gaze to the vast room. The inside area had been painted battleship gray rather than black, but biomechanical and alien forms still adorned the multi-arched ceiling. At the point where they all met, Maelle had built a dark glass and metal room that—despite the strobe lighting—was all but invisible. Only the occasional glimmer of light across its dark surface gave its position away. The room wasn’t only Maelle’s lair—a place from which she could keep an eye on everything happening within her small kingdom—but also her safe place.
Few people were invited into it.
I rather suspected the uninvited never got out of it.
Roger motioned me to one of two spare chairs in front of the bar—a vast twisted metal and glass construction that dominated this side of the upper tier. As I sat on the alien-themed barstool, a bartender appeared and gave me a bright smile.
“What can I get for you?”
“Just a sparkling water, thanks.”
“That’s a rather staid choice given it’s on the house,” Roger commented.
“Yes, but I’m driving, so better safe than sorry.”
A smile twitched his lips. “I’m thinking one drink would not tip you over and, even if it did, our ranger would not charge you.”
“Then your thinking would be wrong.”
Awareness prickled my spine, and I turned to see Maelle approaching. She was wearing a dark green riding habit—the sort women in the Jane Austen era might have worn—and her rich chestnut hair had been plaited and curled around the top of her head. Under the bar’s cool lighting, it looked rather crown-like. Her porcelain skin was perfect and her lips a deep, ruby red—a sign of just how recently she’d fed. There were no lines on her face and absolutely no indication that she was, in fact, centuries old.
If not older.
“I tend to agree with you, young Elizabeth.” Her softly accented voice carried easily over the noise. “The ranger is nothing if not a stickler for the rules.”
“He has a job to do,” I said, somehow managing to keep the surge of annoyance out of my voice. “It’s not about being a stickler, more about keeping this reservation—and everyone within it—safe.”
She perched on the vacant seat beside me, her movements oddly regal. “I would think the true guardian of this reservation is not a ranger, but rather a certain witch.”
The bartender appeared with my drink. I gave him a nod of thanks and tried to ignore the sliver of alarm that ran through me. Not so much because of what she said, but because it oddly matched my own nebulous but nevertheless strengthening feeling.
“I rather think this reservation deserves far more than an underpowered witch.”
She studied me for a moment, the pale depths of her eyes giving very little away. “As I have said before, this reservation seems to have other ideas.”
“This land—and the magic within it—isn’t sentient, Maelle. It can’t decide anything.”