“Language,” I murmured.
“But this is Cassandra DuCharme,” Brittany said. “A real …” She didn’t finish that. Even managed to look guilty for thinking it. “You know what I mean. She’s, like, the Queen of the Vampires.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Cass murmured.
“You are,” Brittany said. “You’re the oldest one around, right?” Cass stiffened. Brittany didn’t notice and barreled on. “You must have the most amazing stories.”
“I’m sure Zoe does, too.”
“Sure, but none she’ll tell me.”
Cass hesitated, and then seemed to remember why I might not be eager to share my past with Brittany. Might not be willing to share it with anyone I actually want to stay friends with. Cass knows what I was like in the early days. It’s just been so long that she forgets.
“Well, maybe they weren’t that interesting,” Cass said. “You know Zoe. She has two modes: stealing things and partying. Both terribly exciting in the short term, but after a hundred and fifty years? Quite dull, I’m sure. The settings may change, but Zoe Takano does not.”
Brittany tensed at the insult and looked over, waiting for me to react. When I didn’t, her annoyance shifted my way. Even when I was insulted in my own home, I didn’t rouse myself to fight back. But Cass was actually saving my ass with her insults—giving an excuse for me not telling those old stories.
“What do you need, Cass?” Now that you’ve finished buttering me up.
“I don’t need anything. However, the council will eventually be in need of a new delegate. My term won’t last much longer, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“I thought delegates served for as long as they wanted,” Brittany said.
Cass meant her life term was ending. Our immortality comes with an expiry date, and by all accounts Cassandra DuCharme’s had passed years ago.
“Are you asking me …?” I said.
“Of course not.” Her words came out clipped. “The council is asking you. I thought it would be better if Aaron came, but he insisted I do it.”
She muttered something uncomplimentary about Aaron. She didn’t mean it. If there’s one person in this world that Cassandra DuCharme cares about, it’s Aaron. They were lovers for over a hundred years before she betrayed him, leaving him to a Romanian mob while she fled. He’d spent the next century avoiding her, but rumor had it they were back together. Did he forgive her? Probably. If Cass is the bitchiest vampire you’ll ever meet, Aaron is the nicest.
But if Aaron sent Cass to ask me to sign up as his co-delegate, that could mean only one thing.
“Britt?” I said. “I think you should leave.”
“Hell, no. This is just getting—”
She stopped as she saw my look.
“I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll get some training in.”
She hauled herself off the chair, managing to sigh the entire time. She made it to the hall and then turned to Cass.
“Are you staying long?” she asked. “In Toronto?”
“No.” Cassandra paused. “But if you are interested in the council, perhaps we can speak tomorrow. Briefly. My plane leaves at noon.”
“Sounds good. Sorry you aren’t staying, but that’s probably just as well. It’s a bad time to be a vampire in Toronto. Zoe’s been having trouble with some immortality questers.” She looked at me. “You were going to warn Cassandra about that, right?”
“Of course.”
Brittany’s look called me a liar, but she only shook her head and left.
When she was gone, Cass said, “Immortality questers?”
“Wild and crazy supernaturals who want to live forever and think we can help them do it. Preferably by decapitating us, carving us up, and seeing what makes us tick—and keep on ticking.”
“Obviously, I know what an immortality quester is, Zoe. If you’re having problems with them—”
“Nah. There are always a few in town. Every now and then they get annoying. I haven’t lost my head over it yet. So, Aaron sent you here to ask me about the delegate post. He wants you to apologize, doesn’t he?”
“For what?”
“Ha-ha.”
She sighed. “If you mean that business back in the twenties …”
“Thirties. Nineteen thirty-four, to be exact. Spring in Venice. A perfect time for love.”
“She was human, Zoe.”
“No law against that. Which didn’t stop you from interfering.”
“I misunderstood the situation.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t trust me.”
She straightened. “Which was understandable, given your past—”
“Ten years. I fucked up for ten years. Then I got my head on straight, and I hadn’t caused one speck of trouble in decades.”
“Given your line of work, I’d hardly say you don’t cause trouble.”
I glowered at her. For a vampire, stealing was about as serious as jaywalking. “I’m as clean as they come, in every way that counts. Yet you interfered. You cost me someone I cared about. Someone I loved.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“No, you just drove her away and made sure she’d never want to speak to me again.”
“It wouldn’t have worked out.”
“Then it wouldn’t have worked out. She wasn’t in danger. You know how I was turned.”
Silence. A look passed over Cass’s face. It seemed almost like compassion, but I’m sure it was a trick of the light. They say it’s impossible to make someone a vampire against her will. It’s not. That’s what my first lover did to me, when I refused her “gift.” It was a hell beyond imagining.
“Then you know I would never, ever do that to someone else,” I said, my voice low. “I would not have told her what I was. I would never have asked her to join me. She was safe. And you interfered.”
“That was a very long time ago, Zoe.”
“So no apology?”
“I don’t believe I owe—”
I stood. “Then find yourself another delegate. Tell Aaron I’m sorry. He’ll understand.”
“This isn’t about me, Zoe. The council—”
“—will be fine with one delegate. Aaron can handle it. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”
I escorted her out the door.
Cass was right. Agreeing to replace her on the council didn’t help her. It helped Aaron, whom I liked. It helped the werewolf delegates, whom I also liked. Hell, I knew most of the council. Good people doing good work. I wasn’t much of a joiner, but I wasn’t exactly antisocial. I could help. I probably should. And I would, just as soon as I got something from Cass.
Aaron had sent Cass here to make amends. Put her affairs in order. One could argue that Cassandra DuCharme didn’t give a shit who she’d mowed down in the last four hundred years. A cast of thousands, I was sure. But if she truly didn’t care, Aaron wouldn’t have sent her on this quest for forgiveness. So I’d get my apology, for her own good.
“Five hundred,” Rudy said when I told him my plan.
I snorted a laugh.
“Six hundred, then,” he said. “You keep arguing, the price keeps rising. I need my cut, Zoe.”
“If I pay you six hundred, then your cut will be the whole six hundred, because whoever you hire will work for a bottle of booze. Cheap booze, which you’ll write off as spoilage. I’ll give you what you’d get with the standard fifty percent cut of five hundred. Two hundred and fifty.”
“Three.”
“Three and you wipe my tab.” I counted out the money on the bar before he could argue.