Twice Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 3)

"You're the protector of the keep."

"And that's exactly my point," Tony muttered, tossing a couple of cards on the table with a flick of his wrist. "I am the protector of the keep. And when the time has come to retire to that keep, we do it. We don't convene to 'talk it over.' That is political, strategic bullshit." He glanced over at Ethan. "Vampire bullshit. All due respect, vampire."

"Ditto," Ethan said, a surprising amount of venom in his voice. I bit back a proud smile; he seemed to be adopting a little of my snark.

"Things in Chicago - ," Gabriel began, but he was interrupted by Tony, who put out a hand.

"Things in Chicago don't concern us," Tony said. "There aren't any Packs in Chicago, and there's a damned good reason for that. Chicago isn't a shifter city." Tony's animosity charged the air in the room, that prickle of magic now strong enough to lift the hair on my arms. I shifted uncomfortably, my lungs tight as the pressure in the room shifted, a magical side effect of the buildup of shifter tension.

"Chicago is a city of power," Gabriel said quietly, throwing a card onto the table, plucking a new card from the remainder pile, and adding that one to the fan of cards in his hand.

At least, that was all I saw him do, but those simple motions cut through the magic in the air. I sucked in a breath, the weight lifting from my chest. Apex, indeed.

"And that we don't have an official presence here," Gabe continued, "doesn't mean we won't be affected. Vamps are out. They're in the public eye, for better or worse, and we can't expect that humans will be satisfied with the notion that bleeders are the only supernaturals in the world."

"So that's your position?" asked Jason. "You're bringing us here to, what, get us to agree to announce ourselves?" He shook his head. "I won't do that. The vamps came out of the closet, and they got riots and Congressional hearings. We come out, and what do we get?"

"We get experimented on," said the fourth and final shifter, who must have been Robin, head of the Western Pack. He was the one with the dark sunglasses.

"We get incarcerated in military facilities, shipped to God knows where so stratcom officers can figure out how to use us as weapons." He lifted a hand and flipped up his shades; I nearly flinched at the sight of his eyes - milky blue, staring blankly in our direction. Was he sightless?

"No, thank you," he quietly said, then lowered his sunglasses again. "Count me out, and count out the rest of the Western Pack. We aren't interested."

"I appreciate the fact that you've guessed my agenda and you're ready to vote," Gabriel said dryly. "But this isn't the convocation, and I haven't offered a resolution, so let's keep our fortune-telling to ourselves, shall we?"

There were humphs from the table, but no outright objections.

"What I want," Gabriel continued, "is to state the question and ask the Packs. That's my agenda. Do we stay and face the coming tide?" He glanced up and raised his gaze to Ethan. The two of them stared at each other, fear and power and anger combined in Gabriel's expression, the "coming tide" apparently vampire related. "Or do we leave now?"

"Which of those decisions is safer?" Tony asked.

"And which," Jason put in, "is more irresponsible?"

"Instability," said Robin. "Death. Warfare. And not among shifters. Not among the Packs. Vampire business is not our business. It never has been."

And there's the rub, Ethan silently told me. Their unwillingness to step forward.

No, their unwillingness to sacrifice themselves, their families, on our behalf, I corrected, but kept the thought to myself. It was a decision they'd made before, during the Second Clearing. And while I sympathized with the vampires who'd been lost, I understood the shifters' urge to protect themselves from the chaos. I'd leave it to the philosophers to decide whether what they'd done had been morally repugnant.

"The viability of this world is our business," Gabriel said. "The Packs are large. Social networks.

Businesses. Financial interests weren't an issue two hundred years ago. But they are now." Tony put a card on the table with a decisive snap, then plucked a new one from the stack. "And how much of your friendly new attitude has to do with our sword-wearing buddies over there?" He looked at me, lip curled, hatred and a creepy kind of lust in his eyes. "Particularly the chick?" Gabriel offered a low growl that made the hair at my neck stand on end. I gripped my katana tighter and glared back with menace I didn't have to feign.

"Because you are a guest in this city," Gabriel said, "I'm going to offer you an opportunity to apologize to Merit, to me, and to Tonya."

"Apologies," Tony threw out.

Gabriel rolled his eyes but, maybe in deference to Tony's status, let it pass. He glanced over at Robin.

"Childishness aside, I hear your point, brother. I only bring the issue to the Packs. They'll decide as they will."

The room went silent. After a time, Robin nodded. Jason followed suit.

It was a long, quiet time before Tony spoke again. "When we convened in Tucson," he said, "we pledged to adhere to the rule of the Packs. To let the majority decide the fate of the others." He looked down at the table, shaking his head ruefully. "Damned if we thought the possibility of sending our sons and daughters into war was going to be the result of that decision." When he looked up again, his eyes swirled with something deep and unfathomable. It was the same mystical revelation I'd seen in Gabriel's eyes when we'd first met, right before he made a cryptic remark about our intertwined futures. It was a visual expression, somehow, of a connection to the things he'd seen, the places he'd been, the lives he'd known . . . and lost.

I didn't know what he'd seen, or why his reaction was so strong. I knew what we were asking of shifters - Gabriel had explained it well enough the night before. And Gabriel had mentioned the rumblings of humans unhappy about the fanged among them. But there was a pretty big gap between complaints and violence, and we weren't there yet.

Regardless of the depth of his emotion, or how unwarranted his fear seemed today, he also seemed to understand the numbers were against him. Finally, he relented with a nod.

"We convene two nights hence," Gabriel concluded. "We'll offer a resolution to stay or return, and we'll let the cards fall where they may."

ConPack was a go, and so the game began again.

They played cards for nearly two hours, two nearly silent hours, in which their decisions to call or fold or raise were the only words spoken. Ethan and I stood behind them, one Master vampire and one newbie guard, watching four shape-shifters gamble in the seedy back room of a cabbagey bar.