There will be spoilers for book one... obviously.
If you haven't read it already, you might want to pick up Honor at Stake.
Preferably before the sequel comes out.
And now...
Chapter 2: I'll get you my pretty, and
your little human, too
New
York City, April 26th
Robert's rules of order would frown on
two disputants eating each other, but it was unlikely that the man
who wrote the rules of conduct for meetings meant it to apply to
vampires. (It certainly didn't apply to werewolves, since packs were
less of a democracy, and more of an enlightened dictatorship. Some
charitable vampires thought that wolves invented hockey.)
These thoughts drifted through the mind
of Amanda Colt as she wandered into the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall
reserved for the meeting of the New York City Vampires Association.
Of course, the NYC-VA didn't have even ten percent of New York City's
vampire population. This was for the powerful, the affluent, or the
really, really troublesome.
Amanda Colt didn't know what category she
fell under. She had never been invited to the NYC-VA before.
However, Amanda Colt's role as a
troublemaker was assured, even though it wasn't her fault. Marco Catalano was the focus of the trouble.
But, these vampires thought of Marco as
her
human, so she was credited with his trail of destruction, including
the recently re-killed, the property damage, and generally spreading
so much fear through certain ranks of the vampire community that he
bordered on being a terrorist.
So, Amanda didn't quite know if she was
supposed to be there as a member of the general assembly, or if she
was there to be executed as a local troublemaker.
If it was the latter, and they tried to
hold even the semblance
of a trial, she was going to rip them a new one. Maybe a new three or
four, while she was at it.
As she looked around the hall, she could
recognize a few faces. There was a bar owner from the Blood Bank, an
Upper East Side vampire bar not far from Mount Sinai Hospital; he was
a gruff, burly fellow who had
served as an Irish cop in the
nineteenth century. And not far
from him was Kalsey, a tall, well-built and well-dressed Anglo-Indian
vampire who owned The Platelet.
Well, Kalsey had
owned the Platelet, before Marco had gotten there. Amanda heard that
its replacement was still under construction.
Though it didn't seem like losing his
major source of income had hurt Kalsey all that much. He still wore
Armani, carried his well-crafted sword cane, and even had a Rolex Le
President,
top of the line gold.
However, for all that, Kalsey didn't seem
happy.
Amanda didn't even bother sitting, but
stood off to the side. The VFW hall was lined with collapsible
chairs, set up in nice neat rows. However, she didn't expect to be
sitting much, especially if she was called to defend herself—verbally
or physically.
The vampires on the dais were finally
starting to file in. Amanda noted them, and she swore she knew some
of them, but she couldn't remember from where. The one in the center
position was female, blonde, and about Amanda's height, dressed
casually in a comfortable leather jacket and blue jeans.
However, Amanda knew from experience that
vampires were not socially advanced, nor matriarchal. To get to a
position of power, you had to be
powerful, not to mention manipulative, long-sighted, and willing to
stab allies in the back … or whatever angle presented itself.
The blonde thwacked
the gavel down on the table. “This is the twenty-second meeting of
the 235th
session of the New York City Vampire Association, President Jennifer
Bosley presiding. I hereby call this meeting to order,” she said in
a British accent that Amanda could narrow down to London. “First
order of business. Reading of the minutes from the last meeting? Is
there a motion?”
One of the committee members on the dais
raised his hands. “Motion to waive the reading?”
Three hands went up from the crowd.
Jennifer banged the gavel and said, “Motioned, and seconded. Is
there any old business?”
One person stood up in the back of the
room … it was a male vampire in a dress. “Yes,” he said in a
thick accent. “I would like to object, once again, to acknowledging
New York City as it currently stands. This place belongs to the
British, and—”
President Jennifer Bosley slammed down
the gavel again. “Edward, I said old
business, not concluded
business. For the last time, I don't care how old you are, or if you
were the royal governor, the entire continent
has moved on. If you bring this up again, you'll be banned from these
meetings for another
decade. Are we understood?”
She dismissed the three hundred year old vampire as though he was
already dead and dusty. “Next.”
The meeting went on for a while, and it
covered a lot of the topics one would expect: border disputes, blood
supplies, old grudges, territorial haggling due to the latest
construction rearranging geographic markers. Vampire bureaucracy was
like a regular bureaucracy, but worse, since some topics and
situations could drag on for decades,
if not centuries.
There was even one man complaining that
Little Italy should declare war on Chinatown, because Chinatown was
swallowing it whole, and “Back in the days when I was a Centurion
in the Roman Empire—”
That one, at least, was cut off by a
dozen different groans. Even President Jennifer Bosley seemed weary.
She sighed and said, “Giuseppe, you weren't part
of an Empire. Mussolini's ambition did not match his ability. You
were a sergeant in his army, and we're still telling jokes about
that.
Now, shut up and sit down before we revoke your territory … what
little is left of it. As it is, you'll be hiding in your
great-grandson's basement in Howard Beach in another two decades. I
hope you don't mind swimming when it floods. Now, if that's enough of
old business …” Jennifer gave the room a glare that told them it
was, and if they didn't like it, she had a stake in the back room
with their names on it. “New business?”
Kalsey jumped up from his seat so fast,
Amanda half-expected him to shoot straight up to the ceiling. “Yes!”
He thrust his cane at Amanda as though he were stabbing her. “She
and her pet human destroyed my bar, slaughtered some of my most loyal
and valuable retainers, then she had minions poison me with
time-delay release Holy Water capsules. I demand that she, and
her human, make full
restitution.”
Anyway, if you haven't already, you might want to pick up Honor at Stake.
Preferably before you vote for it in the Dragon Awards.
Mussolini 's ambition did not match his ability: should that be the other way around?
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