“Vampires aren’t like humans. There’s no leaving your maker behind, they’re always there, inside of you. Even though I left, Rosanna always knew how to find me. From time to time, she does when the mood strikes her. She found me in Seattle this year.”
“Is that why you left and came here? Because of her?” Maris turns to look at me. I feel the graze of her chin against my cheek when she does.
I lift my head to look up at her. “Yes. I hate her.”
Maris nods. “Then we won’t talk about her anymore,” she says and lifts a hand to run her fingers through my hair. “She doesn’t exist.”
I lean my head on her shoulder, close my eyes and let her comb her fingers through my hair. “As much as I want to say she doesn’t, she does. At least for now. The Varcolacus will no doubt give her the Final Death for her last antic.”
“The what?” Maris bumps me with her shoulder to make me open my eyes. “What the hell is that?”
“Vampire Council. They run our world, run the human world too as a shadow council, but that’s more of a need to know thing.Rosanna made the mistake of being too greedy and attracted the wrong attention. She’s their problem now.”
“Shadow council? This is...alot.”
“You find the prospect of a shadow council to be a lot but not me being a vampire? That’s progress from earlier. I’d say we’re moving in the right direction, wife.”
Maris turns towards me and puts her glass of wine down beside my empty one. I can hardly feel a buzz from alcohol unless I’m drinking it from someone but miraculously I feel the wine tonight. I pick her glass up and down that too while Maris talks.
“People always claim there’s some Illuminati group running things, or lizard people, so a vampire council-”
“The Varcolacus,” I correct. “They’ll want you to know that when you’re turned and address them.”
Her face pales. “I-I have to meet them.”
“If you decide to become like me. Yes. A fucking racket is all it is. They want money and assets from the newly turned.”
Maris looks nervous. She bites her lip and looks down at her clasped hands. “What do you mean money and assets?” she asks, eyes on her hands. I reach for her but she’s like stone beneath my fingers.
What is going through her mind?
“They name a fee for entering our world. They call it Praes. It can be many things depending on the fledgling. Usually, it’s whatever the fledgling might have that the council finds useful or rare.”
Maris sits up tall and looks around her house before she looks at me. “Would Vesper House be something like that?” she asks and I understand the look of worry on her face.
“Yes, it would.”
Thirty-Four
MARIS
Iget up the second Julian tells me that my house might be on the offering table to some vampire council.
“No.” I shake my head and hold up my hands. “I would never give them Vesper House. Ever.”
I mean what I’m saying. The idea of giving Vesper House to strangers, let alone a shadow vampire council, makes me sick. The house shudders beneath my feet like it feels the same. I look out the window. The wind must be picking up.
Julian gives me a sympathetic look from where he still sits. “There’s no saying they would want it. They’re hands off. An appearance before them is usually brief with an inventory of assets. When I was turned, the rules were different. There was no council in those days. I’ve been alive for centuries and never even met them. They’re too greedy to want just a house. They’d go for your money most likely.”
I have money. Tons of fucking money in a trust Isla set up all those years ago. I have trusts from my granny and parents as well. There’s land and buildings in town aside from the Vesper Point Call that belong to me.
“I have plenty of money. I own half this town,” I tell him. It’s true, I do. More than half of downtown is in my name. Thebusinesses there lease from me. There’s a handful of homes in town that I own too, thanks to my family’s investments. The money goes right into my investment accounts before it goes back out again in taxes and donations. I might not be on the best terms with town but I’ve always given my fair share for the upkeep and betterment of Vesper Point. There isn’t a dollar that doesn’t belong to me in some way in this town.
He whistles and looks out the window. “And they still treat you the way they do? Very foolish of them to bite the hand that feeds them.”
I laugh and start to pace. “I think that’s the only reason they’ve let me stay here if I’m honest. They know if I go, the town goes. There is no Vesper Point without my family, and I’m the last one. The last Martinez.”
I don’t mention those idiot cousins in town or my aunt. They don’t count. They haven’t done a thing for this family in decades.
