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I dump my clothes out of my bag onto the bed and spread them out a bit.
“What are you doing?” Lauren asks, fascinated.
“Tristan and Clive have this thing about creases,” I grumble.
She looks at the jumbled mess on my bed. “That’s not going to prevent creases.”
I shrug and make for the door. “Maybe not, but when they ask, I can say I unpacked. Let’s get some scones.”
Chapter 22
I didn’t actually think Tristan was serious when he said I’d need to socialise. Why would I? I’ve been working for him for a month, and aside from that one meeting last week, it’s never come up. I figured he was trying to annoy me the same way I’m always trying to (respectfully) annoy him. It’s a thing we do.
Turns out, he was serious.
Which is why on my second night in Sydney I’m in the back seat of the car with Tristan beside me and Anna anxiously repeating the security protocol for the nine millionth time while she navigates Sydney traffic. In the passenger seat beside her, Pierce has been nonstop texting since we got into the car fifteen minutes ago.
“Adam, what did I just say?” Anna demands, and I hold in a sigh. She’s worried about my safety, though I’m not completely sure why. Tristan will be with me, and I doubt he’d have brought me along if he couldn’t take anyone who wants to cause trouble.
“If I feel even a tiny bit uneasy and Tristan’s not in sight, I call or text you,” I parrot. “But I swear I’ll stay glued to Tristan’s side all night. I peed before we left, so I should be good.”
Tristan stirs, probably because he’s uptight about bodily functions being openly talked about, and I send a big grin his way. “You’re stuck with me tonight, boss. Hey, is there anything you need me to do? Should I be, like, trying to charm someone?”
The car jerks as Anna’s foot stutters on the brake, and Pierce stops texting and actually turns to look at me incredulously. “You? Charming?”
“I can be charming,” I protest. “I can charm the pants off people.”
“Please don’t do that tonight,” Tristan murmurs. “I’m here to smooth over problems, not have my feeder cause new ones.”
Ouch. Though… valid. Pants-off action probably isn’t what tonight’s all about. Shame.
“Okay, so what are the problems you’re smoothing? What should I be watching out for?”
“Your own safety,” Anna insists, glaring at me in the rearview mirror.
I roll my eyes. “Anna, I’ll be fine. I’m not going to be alone the whole night.” Her insistence on this is starting to worry me, though. What the hell is going on that I need to be so careful? Is this just because she won’t be inside with us, or is there something else? I turn my most solemn look on Tristan. “Seriously, I’m going to be on my best behaviour. I know I can be a shit sometimes, but I wouldn’t embarrass you in public.” Not intentionally, anyway. I wanna keep this job.
Tristan studies me for a moment, then nods. “I don’t imagine you would. Very well. You’re aware of the situation with the”—his lip curls with disgust—“Blood Reign movement?”
“Yeah.” Aside from what I found out that day at my parents’ place, I’ve been very active on the Dish since. Geoffrey and the older vampires pulling his strings have been ramping up their efforts to smear Tristan, claiming that all they want is the freedom to live and feed as nature intended, and that Tristan and the Council are persecuting them. They’re very good at talking around the subject in a very wide circle that skims over the fact that they want to be able to prey on humans without consent or compensation. The scary part is, there’s a decent chunk of the vampire community, both here and overseas, that’s starting to listen. Geoffrey might have been a Renfield wannabe who got lucky, but he’s a gifted salesman, and his pitch is given more weight because of his situation before he was made. Vampires argue that if he thinks humans should be cattle, after having been pretty much treated that way, then there might be some validity to what he’s saying.
That means that instead of being able to eviscerate those involved with Vampremacy, Tristan’s forced to negotiate with them. He can’t risk the balance of support tipping too far toward them. That’s what Geoffrey was doing at the house that day, though negotiations stalled when his first demand was for the right to drink humans dry, aka kill them.
Incidentally, Misha isn’t officially affiliated with Vampremacy, but everyone knows he supports their policies. He’s never been happy with the Council and the feeder law. Nobody can say for sure why he doesn’t join the movement, but it works in our favour. Right now, a lot of vampires who want to go back to the old ways are holding back because they think Misha knows something about Vampremacy that’s stopping him from joining them.
Also, I learned a lot more about Misha, and I seriously regret ever letting him notice me.
“I know you’ve heard that in the last few weeks, there has been a spate of attacks and forced feedings here in Sydney. Humans have been arriving at the Association office here claiming that they blacked out in a public place and came to holding the Association’s business card and feeling a strong need to go there. Some of them were injured.”
My stomach sinks. “That’s a mind wipe, right? And compulsion.” All vampires have the ability to wipe memories, but only some can actually control minds. Even then, it’s super limited—which is a good thing for humanity.
“Indeed. The medics at the Association report that, aside from the obvious violence, those humans show signs of having been fed from and far more blood taken than is legal. None of them were registered or had any knowledge of vampires, and none of them remember anything out of the ordinary before they ‘blacked out.’”
“Have there been any deaths?” Anxiety claws at my chest. This is way heavier than I was expecting.
“Not that we can connect to this. There has been an increase in deaths with burnt corpses in recent months, but as yet we have no way to prove they were killed by vampires.”
Fun fact: Fire has always been a tool vampires used to hide their kills. Bite marks and bruises are harder—if not impossible—to discern from charred flesh, and the heat of the flames removes the water content of blood, making it difficult to tell how much is missing. If there’s been a rash of barbecued dead people, it’s a fair bet that a vampire is on a killing spree.
