Ride the Storm (Cassandra Palmer 8)

I gripped the necklace tighter, until the gaudy setting bit into my palm, remembering how close we’d come. How very, very close. But he was in there. He was safe. And so was I, although it still didn’t feel like it.

Something was wrong.

It wasn’t a sound; all I could hear was the whoosh of the air-conditioning and my own too-loud breathing. It wasn’t a smell; the only scent was the fabric softener the hotel used, and an antiseptic tang from the bandages. And it certainly wasn’t a sight, since I could still barely see my own hand in front of my face. It looked like I’d slept through the day, because I could see a few faint stars gleaming through a crack in the curtains. . . .

I could see stars.

I pushed back the covers and rolled out of bed, and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt, a thousand little and not-so-little pains all suddenly vying for attention. For a moment, I just stood there, swaying slightly on my feet, wondering if this was what it felt like to get old. And what was wrong with my life, that I was asking that question at twenty-four.

Then I sucked it up and limped over to the bank of windows that I almost never looked out of, because the vamps kept the blackout curtains closed most of the time.

There wasn’t much to see anyway. The neon glow from the big Dante’s sign on the roof tinted everything a reddish hue and washed out the stars. Except for tonight, when a few, faint glimmers of light were just visible above the city’s raucous glow, little diamond flecks against the deep midnight of the sky.

Because there was currently nothing to overshadow them.

The great sign had gone dark.

I had to fumble with the balcony doors, my fingers stiff and clumsy on the latches, to slide them open. And to step outside, staring upward as the warm desert wind hit me in the face and threw my hair around. And yet I still saw nothing, because the de

ep red glow had simply vanished.

“End of an era,” someone said behind me, and I whirled to find Marco standing there, cigar tip flaring in the darkness. And then burning brighter when a gust of wind caught it, sending flakes of ash spinning off into the night. “Damn.” He scowled. “That’s one of my Behikes. Come back in before the breeze puts this thing out.”

I came back in, shivering a little despite the heat, and he put a comfortingly large arm around me. I looked up at him in disbelief. “They closed the casino.”

“They closed everything. No choice—there’s not enough of the drag to put in a baggie, and the lobby’s not much better.”

“Then . . .” I swallowed. “Then all that . . . actually happened.”

“Oh, it happened,” Marco said, letting go of me so he could shut the door and stop the curtains from billowing in. He locked the balcony back securely, and then shrugged when he saw me noticing. “Habit. They’ve had wardsmiths crawling over this place all day. I doubt a fly could get in unauthorized.”

“It should have been done a long time ago,” I said, hugging myself. “We were vulnerable in the public spaces—we were even attacked there before. Why did no one think—”

“’Cause the senate isn’t used to feeling vulnerable. You know how long it’s been since anyone challenged them?”

“The Circle challenged them,” I said, thinking of the coup that Jonas, the current head of the Silver Circle, had pulled on Saunders, its corrupt old leader. The battle had played out here, with the two sides fighting each other in a miniature civil war. It had been terrifying.

At least I’d thought so at the time; I had a new definition now.

“Yeah, but that was played off as a fluke,” Marco said. “Rivalry within the Circle that could have taken place anywhere. Saunders just happened to be here.”

“And now?”

“Now the senate got hit two times in twenty-four hours, here and at the consul’s own home last night.”

“So they’re taking action.”

“Oh, I think you can safely assume that,” Marco said dryly. “The other side just gave ’em two black eyes in a row. They just made the senate—the goddamn senate—look bad. Worse, they made ’em look—”

“Weak.”

He nodded. There was no sign of humor on that big, handsome face, because there was no bigger insult in the vampire world, where everything was based on power. Everything.

Life revolved around the power you possessed, to protect your family, your wealth, and your position; the power of your alliances, which allowed you to collectively influence a larger segment of vamp society than you could have done alone; and the power of the senate, the pinnacle of vamp hierarchy, under which you and your whole society functioned.

And you respected that hierarchy, even when you didn’t like it. Even when you chafed under the restrictions it put on you and your business and your personal desires. Even when you hated the senate itself, you stayed firmly in line.

Because you feared them more.