I think Iambeing serious. “These vampires might not even know about Agatha. You might be risking your life for nothing.”
“I’ll be fine, Snow. Have a little faith in me.” He adjusts his cuffs again. (What is even thepointof cuffs that need constant adjusting?) Then he takes out his phone and dials a number.
Penny’s mobile rings. She answers it without saying anything.
Baz slips his phone back into his jacket pocket. He steps around me, opens the door, and holds out his hand: I give him the room key.
Then he’s gone.
Penny puts her arm on my shoulder. “He’ll be fine, Simon.” She pulls me over to one of the beds, and lays her phone down right in the middle, switched to speaker.
We hear Baz’s phone rubbing against his pocket as he walks.…
Then the ping of the lift arriving.…
Doors opening. People talking, laughing.
After a few seconds, another ping, and the people get off.
Then we hear the lift whooshing to the top of the building. “Have a little faith,” Baz whispers.
The lift pings. The doors open.
He’s moving again. The hallway is quiet.
He knocks three times on something solid.
44
BAZ
I knock on the door. Which was apparently a mistake—because the woman who answers it is scowling. I start to say hello, but she leans in and sniffs me, then walks away, waving me in. I suppose I pass her test.
I step inside. It’s the penthouse suite, much larger than ours, and crowded with people.
Not people—vampires. People like me. I worried that I’d be overdressed, but Shepard was right: Everyone here has gone a bit over the top. Men in suits, women in gowns and capes. Everyone dripping jewels and gold chains and feathers.…
It’s nothing like the club that Simon and I visited in London. Those vampires were lying low. These vampireswantto be seen—and admired. They aren’t especially beautiful. (Though some are.) That’s a myth, I think—vampire beauty. What they are is especially rich. And especially… liquid. They move like oil, like shadows. Like cats.
Is this what I look like? Like I don’t have any parts that stick?
Everyone is drinking. So I look for the bar and find it alongthe wall. I pour myself something golden, just to have something to do with my hands.
I told Simon I’d be fine here, and I will be. I’ve been to a hundred of my parents’ parties—I know how to stand around wealthy people and look bored. Though these people don’t look bored.…
A few of them are dancing. There isn’t a dance floor; they’re just dancing wherever they happen to be standing. Two women are kissing very passionately in one of the window seats.
There are Normals here, too. At least a few. I smell their heartbeats. If Penelope and Simon were here, that’d be it—they’d do whatever they had to do to save the Normals.
But I want to save Agatha.
And I want to crush these NowNext people before they take hold. The dragon was right, vampires mustn’t learn to Speak—no one should be allowed to be both.
I walk up to a group of four or five people, hoping to introduce myself, but they break up shortly after I join them. I stand there for a moment staring down at my drink, pretending I intended it to go that way.
A very beautiful woman—a girl my age—stumbles past me, laughing. There’s blood streaked down her neck, and she isn’t wearing shoes. My nostrils burn. A few of the other vampires turn away from their conversations to glance at her. Four hands catch her by the waist and pull her into the crowd.
“Hello,” someone says over my shoulder. I turn away from the girl’s scent.
