The Ming of Glass I knew would never have appeared looking like this. I had a feeling she slept perfectly coiffed, with a dozen blades on the bed beside her. She was dangerous and dignified and scary. Not fuzzy robed. Not barefooted. Never. As she spun in a slow circle, I spotted earbuds.
She whirled again, her robe flapping open to reveal naked legs, which shocked me. Thanks to my upbringing, even partial nudity sometimes made me uncomfortable.
Ming started singing, something that sounded as if it came from Bollywood, the notes not Western and the rhythmdifferent from the jazzy and bluesy stuff Rick LaFleur listened to and different also from the music FireWind liked.
She opened her eyes. And saw me.
“Maggoty Girl! You came!”
Ming of Glass popped across the counter faster than I could see and threw her arms around me, hugging me. I went stiff and still and forgot to breathe until she unwrapped from me and opened the wine fridge.
“You requested my presence,” I said, my voice breathy, not the firm tone I wanted. “About a dead body.”
She flapped her hand at me, pulled out a different bottle from the one Aya had touched, and opened it with vampiric speed using a steel corkscrew I hadn’t seen her pick up. She tilted up the bottle and drank. When she lowered the bottle, she focused on the two men. “Put them away.” She pointed the bottle at their weapons. “You two. Go to the front room. Maggoty Girl. You will come with me.” Ming tottered away and pushed through two doors that swung closed behind her, like doors in an old-fashioned western.
“Ingram,” FireWind said softly. “Video. Now.”
“Oh. Right.” Ming was acting strange. Everyone would want to see and hear. I turned my cell to record and tucked the cell into my upper jacket pocket, giving the camera a good view. We had already checked comms, so we had an audio recording and now video backup.
After a last glance at the bosses, I pushed open the doors, following our hostess, revealing a different small parlor from the one I had seen before. Ming was sitting in a puffy chair in front of a gas fire, the flames turned down low but putting off heat. She tilted the bottle up again and drank. I walked into the room. The doors swung closed behind me.
Ming of Glass pointed at the chair to her side and I sat gingerly, on the edge. There was a thick rug beneath my chair and the chair had no exterior wooden parts, nothing I could draw power from.
“Maggoty Girl. What have you done to my scions? They are walking into the sun. Three burned at dawn today. Two the day before.”
“I haven’t done anything,” I said carefully, remembering the circles on the river side of the property. Walking into the sun was a term vampires used when they killed themselves at dawn,letting the sun burn them to death. “No one in PsyLED knows what’s happening, only that there have been reports of Mithrans across the country acting—” I stopped. Not crazy. Not as if they were all in the midst of mental breakdowns. Either might get my head ripped off. “Acting unlike their usual selves. I did nothing at all, not to anyone.”
“Our blood-servants are…” She waved the half-empty bottle in the air. “Volatile. At first they were happy. Now many are leaving us. We have had to negotiate new contracts with them. It is costing us much money.”
“That sounds…difficult,” I lied. “You said there was a dead body?”
Ming turned her black eyes to me. She was vamping out, her pupils already dilated, the white of her sclera bleeding scarlet. Her fangs snapped down on the little hinges. My breath hitched and stopped. Ming was in full hunting mode. I started to call for the guys. My fingers twitched for my weapon.
Ming smiled behind her fangs.
I froze as she leaned closer. She could hear my heart racing. She could smell my sweat-fear. I didn’t know much about vampires, but I knew I was in danger. If I called for help, Ming could rip out my throat before my bosses could react. Before I got out more than a squeak. And I was taking too long to reply. I had to deal with this.
Possibilities flitted through my mind. I forced out my breath. Inhaled.
“Ming of Glass,” I managed. “Master of the City of Knoxville. I see you are…disturbed.” That should let Rick and Aya know there were problems. “PsyLED Eighteen has been called here about a dead body. How may we assist?”
I always carried some of the life of my land within me, but I hadn’t had time to go to the roof of HQ and sit in my garden spot, a raised bed full of Soulwood soil. I hadn’t replenished myself.
“Yoooou,” Ming said. “Maggoty Girl. You broughtlifeto the undead Mithrans. And because of you, my city is cursed.”
“I didn’t do anything. What could I have done to cause you, the…the illustrious Ming of Glass, discomfort?”
Ming leaned in a hair closer and breathed in the air I exhaled. I clamped down on the desire to run. Vampires were fast,and running would mark me as prey. I’d not make one step before I triggered her predator instincts.
I wasn’t on Soulwood. I wasn’t even standing on the ground or on wood that came from local trees. But Soulwood wasn’t that far away. I began to gather the power of Soulwood to me. The land, as always,hungered. It wanted sacrifice. If I had to fight her—
Ming shifted. Raised the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle and pointed her index finger at me. She touched my forehead with her fingertip. It was icy, cold as a dead body. I didn’t pull away, but it was a close thing.
The vampire pressed her finger harder into my flesh, feeling my life force, my own magic. It rose fast against her. But I held it tightly. Her single touch was different from what vampires usually felt like. It wasn’t nearly so maggoty, not the sensation of a rotting opossum corpse (from which I got the name Maggot) or the feel of icy death. It wasdifferent. Ming wasn’t justemotionallydifferent. Something about the vampire wasmagicallyandphysicallydifferent. Just like the impressions of her land.
The swinging doors behind her opened slowly. Rick stood there, a gun aimed at the back of Ming’s head in a two-hand grip. Aya stepped up beside him. I reined in my relief, holding it just as tight as I did my fear and my power.
“I feel the life of the earth in you,” Ming said. “I wonder if there is a similar life in your sisters, in the children born on your land, land you call Soulwood.” Ming drew back her finger and stared at its tip. Licked it. “Dogs and leaves.You taste of nothing butdogs and leaves. All of your kind should be exterminated.”
