Victor lowers his head. His lips graze my ear. His voice is low, mesmerizing. “I’m sorry we can’t have this forever.”
My heart gives a little lurch. Is he answering my earlier question when I asked what would become of us? Or is he simply referring to the fact that it’s as though we have no cares?
“What exactly is this, Victor? What can we not have forever?”
A hideous screeching fills the room and the music stops. I glance over to see Richard standing by the phonograph, holding up the needled arm.
“Hate to break up the party, but if we don’t get on the road soon, we’re not going to get to the capital before the sun rises,” he says.
Victor steps away. I want to clutch him back to me. I want to keep dancing. I want to pretend that no dangers exist in our world. But these few moments were only an illusion.
“Stay the night,” Xavier says. “Go tomorrow.”
“We can’t,” Victor tells him. “Richard’s right. We have to go.”
Xavier turns to Faith. “Stay with me.”
Faith smiles and pats his cheek. “I wish I could, but Victor will be taking his place on the Council. I must be there to give him my support.”
“Afterward, come back. You’ll never want for anything. I’ll make you happy. We can dance every night.”
Leaning in, she brushes her lips over his. “We’ll see.”
With that she turns from him, marches across the room, grabs my hand, and begins pulling me toward the door. “Come on, Dawn, we can’t travel in these clothes.”
It seems the moment of pretending all is right with the world has passed.
Half an hour later, we’re hurtling through the night, Victor at the wheel. The tension in the backseat is so thick that I could pierce it with a stake.
“Richard, don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting, Faith.”
“Then don’t be angry or whatever it is, because I don’t like it.”
“I’m not angry, either. I’d just forgotten, that’s all.”
“Forgotten what?”
“That you’re all about flirtation. A new guy steps into your path and off you go.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it, Faith? In Los Angeles, I thought—” He sighs. “Never mind. We have larger issues. I intend to focus on those.”
I dart a glance back to see Richard staring out the window. I can’t blame him for being upset. I know he and Faith have some sort of past. I know he cares about her. While we were in Los Angeles, they actually had a date. I thought maybe they were becoming a couple. I think Richard thought the same thing. Guess we were both wrong.
“This system that VampHu set up doesn’t seem to be a good thing for anyone,” I tell Victor. “It isolates humans and vampires.”
“All humans, not all vampires. We travel as we please, and Old Family tend to socialize with one another whenever we get the chance.”
“If they’re not forced to watch over humans. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the walls came down?”
He glances quickly over at me. “You’re thinking of Crimson Sands.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I am.”
“Their way isn’t practical on a large scale.”
“I think it is.”
“The Council will never go for it. VampHu, the walled cities, they are here to stay.”
“We’ll see,” I murmur.
Chapter 9
The sky has turned from pitch black to shades of blue, signaling the sun’s rise. It’s a familiar color to me. How many nights have I seen it, waiting on the balcony for my parents to come home from Valentine Manor? I always held my breath when I saw the carriage coming down the street, heading home.
Now, I hold my breath again. Through the fading shadows, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’ve only ever heard of this place, never seen a picture. The tallest tower looks as though it could pierce the moon and make it rain blood across the gray city. A place made like this, of stone and mortar, of towers and walls, would take decades if not centuries to build. Yet it’s been completed in only a few years. And as we approach along the road, which has turned from mere dirt and gravel to deeply inset cobblestone, I see how this monolithic city was made. Those who crafted the stone march across the fields, an exhausted race of enslaved Lessers. Dawn is approaching, and their slumped shoulders and dragging feet indicate a need for blood. But where is it? This is the capital, New Vampiria. Shouldn’t it be the most affluent of all?
Then, as we draw closer to the wall, my expectations of a Victorian era reborn are quickly dashed. The wall isn’t a wall at all, but merely the outcropped buildings of the city, small cottages made of ill-fitted stone. Is that where the Lessers live?
In the blink of an eye we’re inside the city itself, the road turning into a street that shoots straight to the massive tower in the center. On all sides we’re surrounded by gray buildings, weathered far beyond what should only have been their short life. Trash litters the street, nothing like the clean upkeep of the Valentine house that I’d expected. Instead of well-dressed vampires, the envy of the Lessers that surround Denver, I see bedraggled vampires looking at our car as though it may offer hope in this place. When we zoom past them, their stares continue to be reflected in our mirrors.
“Not what you expected?” Victor asks, my silence telling him everything.
“It looks . . .”
I struggle to find the words, so Victor does it for me. “Pathetic.”
“Yeah. Not at all like I’d imagined. I mean, it’s the vampire capital. Where’s the grace and elegance? Where’s the spoils from the war that they won?”
“When we talk to the Council, you’ll see why some of them consider the war a defeat instead of a victory.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, angry that the vampires would be so arrogant that after nearly wiping humanity off the map they claim it wasn’t enough. Did the VampHu, which my father helped create, not go far enough in giving the vampires everything they wanted?
“Look around you, Dawn,” Victor says. “The world of isolated, walled cities is a strange one for humans. But a world running rampant with Lessers is stranger still for vampires. Now you’ll see that our grip on humanity is not as strong as we’d like you to believe.”
We pass under arches that connect buildings, walkways that act as tendons bringing the city together. But even from here, at this speed, I can see the cracks forming.
Victor turns down a street, away from the tower in the center.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“We arrived too late to see the Council until tonight. They’ll need to know of my arrival in the city first. It’s been a long time since a Valentine has sat at the table. My father was the patriarch, but he remained on his throne at Valentine Manor. He hated this place.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t like what they were trying to do. He thought the Old Families shouldn’t attempt to create human-like cities. I never agreed with him on things, but I did on that point. The heads of the Old Families live here, but it’s like they’re strangers in their own land. We were never meant to be like this. We were always meant to be in the shadows. Now that we’re in control, we don’t know how to be.”
“Wow.”
“That’s why I’m afraid of Sin,” Victor says. “He wants control. He wants power. And I think he knows exactly how to keep it.”
Victor slows to a stop outside a three-story building. Nothing unique about it. It could easily be mistaken for one of the many that we passed. I remember what Murdoch Valentine once said to me: “We vampires have never had imaginations.” I can see that now. Every building looks as though it was cast from the same mold, thought of by the same designer. But Victor must know this is the right spot as he gets out of the car.