Without an organized, targeted campaign of charm to keep them from asking too many questions, some reporters came perilously close to exposing succubi kind to the world. While the news cycle gloried in how government officials, some at the highest levels of power, knew about secret experiments performed on innocent citizens, a handful of journalists uncovered the shadow conspiracy at the core of the American experiment: namely that succubi had, from its inception, commanded positions of power and influence in the United States. While they set policy for the humans, they likewise ruled succubus Society. If not for a last-minute effort organized by several prominent legislators and civil servants to charm those reporters into rewriting their stories, the world would have known the truth.
Rose wasn’t ready for that sort of change. Who knew what regular people would do if they discovered much of modern life was a sham perpetrated on them by beings they considered mythological creatures? It wouldn’t be pretty.
And she had almost caused it.
Alice, scrutinizing Rose’s face, gave a decisive nod. “You can’t call me a liar because everything I’ve said is true.” She turned to Graylen, who flinched under her gaze. “I’m sorry for what was done to you. The fear draw is severely policed in Ireland and all our coalition nations. Those who use it without permission, and strict adherence to the law, are put to death. When we’re in control here, we’ll find everyone associated with the fear factory, and we will end them. You have my lawful word on that.”
Where the hell was Piper? Given the right incentive, the vampire could run nearly a hundred miles an hour. That aside, she was driving a Lotus the last time Rose saw her. Any second now, Rose expected to hear a commotion outside—the sound of Piper’s daughters attacking whatever force Alice had brought with her. But even with draw-enhanced hearing, Rose heard nothing besides the incessant chirrup of crickets and muted roar of distant traffic.
Briefly, she contemplated attacking Alice. What could her goons do with their mistress in the middle of a fight? Would they risk harming Alice to get at Rose? By the looks of them—the one with the scar appeared more ape than man—Rose worried they might not care. Alice’s confident expression gave her pause as well. Rose had no idea what abilities Alice might possess, but she doubted the Irish leader would have waltzed into the house without tremendous personal power. She had to be a sime, a succubus capable of drawing more than one ability at a time from her votaries. Given her position as a leader in one of the world’s most powerful Societies, she could be nothing less. What would that mean for her votary count? It had to be high. Could it rival Rose’s own? And did Rose want to find out here in her parent’s living room?
Definitely not.
But neither was she about to join some foreign Society just to appease this stranger. Asking Alice to leave hadn’t worked. Perhaps it was time for a new strategy.
Rose turned to Melody. The sight of her filled Rose with a loathsome, burning hatred she had no reason to feign. What she planned to say would upset her parents, she knew, but it was better than an all-out battle that might get them hurt or killed.
Rose pointed at their parents. “You see what you did to them?”
Melody frowned, her first real sign of emotion since she had arrived. “Me? I did nothing to them. I was in the fear factory, too.”
“What? For a day?” Rose had never gotten the full story of her sister’s rise from a factory votary chained to a bed to a member of the Indrawn Breath, the succubi responsible for placing people in that hellhole.
“Want someone to blame? Start with him.” Melody pointed at Graylen, who looked momentarily incensed before cringing back against his shuddering wife.
“You blame the victims?”
“I was a victim!” Melody’s face flushed scarlet, her eyes wide. “I was a goddamned teenager—a child. I relied on my father to protect me, and what did he do? Nothing! He moved us from town to town, spouting nonsense about how it would protect us from Society.”
“No!” Graylen wailed, his hands over his ears, his expression broken. “I kept us ahead of them. I made you safe.”
“You made me vulnerable!” Melody’s voice, strengthened by a draw, shook the house’s windows in their panes and rattled knickknacks on the coffee table. “You knew about Society. You could have been teaching us, showing us how to grow strong. Instead, you stuck your head in the sand. You want me to feel bad about that, Anna? I should get all teary-eyed because Dad bloodied his nose shoving his head in the ground?”
Sarah, crying like a heartsick child, collapsed and would have hit the floor had Graylen not caught her. Her horrified expression, matched by his, reminded Rose of their gaunt visages the night she located them in the fear factory. How like skulls they looked, their mouths open, their dark eyes streaming tears.
Yes, you should feel shame, Melody, you should feel remorse, but you never will. You care about one thing in this world, and that’ s yourself. Well, sister, I’m not going to feel any remorse either.
“You want me to join your coalition?” Rose turned back to Alice. Her voice shook with anger, and she could feel hot tears wanting to well up at the corners of her eyes. She drew calm to beat them back and huffed out a heavy sigh. “Give me my sister, and I’ll join tonight.”
“Rose, don’t.” Matt might have been a man witnessing a bus crash. He had eased a near-catatonic Troy onto the couch but now sprang to his feet.
“Don’t be making sudden moves like that, mister,” said the goon leaning against the bookshelf. Though he remained still, his ease somehow punctuated the menace he posed.
Alice, her green eyes far away, tapped her chin with two fingers as she stared at Melody.
“You can’t be considering this bullshit.” Melody, whose expression had morphed from rage to questioning fear, watched Alice like a mouse who has found herself under a lion’s gaze.
“You would kill her? Your own sister?” Alice’s tone remained as mild as a woman discussing the price of butter.
Sarah screamed and cried harder at the mention of Rose harming Melody. In vain, she struggled to escape Graylen’s hold on her her.
“I’d see her turned over to someone who can judge her crimes. I’m not that person.”
“She would do that?” Alice focused her question on Matt.
“She would.”
“You can’t be seriously considering taking her up on this. She’s lying. She’ll kill me the second you leave; she’s threatened to before.”
That much was true. Rose had promised to kill Melody once for executing Rose’s best friend, Leslie. Could she follow through with that promise? Maybe. But she liked to think she wouldn’t stoop so low, especially with Matt there to help her see the moral way of doing things.
“It’s a tempting offer,” Alice said, “but I can’t do it. Melody’s made an oath to me—she’s one of mine now. What sort of leader would I be if I broke my word?”
“It’s that or nothing,” Rose said. She drew strength and speed, preparing for a fight.
“Oh, I doubt that. I believe you’ll see things my way before the year turns, though I’m sad you’re unwilling to make that decision now.”
“I might not know much about world politics, but I know you don’t have the power to threaten us. The elites in Washington might not like me all that much, but nothing would galvanize them faster than you making a martyr of me. You can’t touch us. Any of us.”
“You might be surprised.”
“I doubt it.” Rose stepped closer to Alice so they stood nose to nose. “No one wants your meddling here. We have plenty of Americans doing that already. Now kindly get the fuck out of my house before things get messy.”
For an instant, Rose worried Alice might react physically, but then a slow smile turned up the corners of her mouth. She backed away a couple of steps, gave Rose a nod like a fencer acknowledging a touch, and exited the house. Melody and Alice’s thugs followed close on her heels.
“Melody, no! Stay with us!” Sarah cried
as she struggled to run after her departing daughter, but Graylen kept her from leaving the couch.
“I feel like we just got served a subpoena,” Matt said.
“No, you can ignore a subpoena, and the worst that happens is you go to jail.” Rose leaned on the table, her heart beating hard. “If we ignore this, we’ll end up dead.”
5
Ties that Blind
The scent of homemade, or at least handmade, biscuits and gravy, roasted pork, and snap peas filled Rose’s nose. The caterers she hired specialized in upscale southern cuisine, and they had put on quite a spread. The succubi dignitaries in attendance, most from right here in the United States, others from far-flung parts of the world, seemed to enjoy the stuff.
Rose didn't know. She was too nervous to eat.
“It’s a good turnout.” Renni Rogers surveyed the crowd from their spot at the back of the room. The elderly succubus, who had become like a grandmother to Rose, wore a sequined black dress and a pleased grin. “Wouldn’t have said it before, but I was worried—thought we’d probably entice five, maybe ten people to show up.”
“Even that would have been better than nothing,” Rose said. This crowd wasn’t a patch on the one they managed to wrangle back in DC, in numbers or sheer political might, but it far outstripped anything Rose, or even Matt, could have put together on their own.
Renni and her husband, Lee, had retired from public service as FBI agents and later security consultants nearly fifty years ago. Despite that, they retained several contacts within Society, due to their friendly natures and ability to schmooze like pros, but also owing to succubus longevity. Many of the youngsters they had worked with in the mid and late twentieth century held positions of power in the government today. Not a few of them owed their lives, either politically or literally, to the aged couple. When Renni and Lee invited them to Atlanta for a formal dinner and discussion about Society’s way forward, those in the know donned their best evening wear and came running.
It didn’t hurt that one of the couple’s daughters, a succubus named Emily Walsh, happened to work in Washington as well. Emily served as executive secretary to Sheila Isaacson, a junior senator out of Ohio. Though Emily’s position carried little clout with this set, she had nonetheless helped her parents reach as many Society elites as they could for this rally, and Rose appreciated it.
“I had hoped the Kennedys would at least send one of the lesser-known cousins.” Lee, who cut a dapper yet remarkably uncomfortable figure in black tie, munched a finger sandwich. “I guess they’ve forgotten how we helped make that little car wreck disappear from newsrooms back in the day.”
“I’m pleased we got so many foreigners.” Renni leaned heavily on a cane with a floral print, her smile tired but satisfied.
“I’m not,” Rose said. “I don’t see what good they’ll do. The Order needs ties here in the States if we want to remain relevant. How are German or Malaysian or Egyptian succubi supposed to help American slinkers? We need strong ties in the American government.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You might be surprised what a coalition can accomplish.” Lee popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and dusted off his hands, either unaware or unfazed by the haughty eye rolls some of the guests leveled on him. Though he, unlike Rose, had been born into Succubus Society, he nevertheless exuded an uncouth air disdainful of popularity. Anyone who might frown at Lee for his lack of manners was beneath his notice. That brought a smile to Rose’s lips. Renni smiled too but also shook her head at her husband’s lack of decorum.
Matt, who had been chatting with a succubi delegation from Italy, sauntered over in time to catch Lee’s words. He wrinkled his nose. “That’s what the Irish are offering us: a coalition. No thanks. They’re scarier than Breathers. I don’t want any part of them.”
“Harry Drake—” Lee waved a hand to indicate a slim, bearded incubus across the room chatting with several DC bigwigs, “—he tells me they’ve been approaching most anybody with power and influence outside the mainstream leadership. I guess they don’t want to deal with the likes of Barbara Griffith and her usual crowd.”
Though Rose rarely recognized the power players in Succubus Society, which had led to some awkward situations since her rise to fame, she knew of Drake. A financier and major stockholder in several of the world’s largest banks, Drake commanded considerable influence in American Society. There had been talk the last several months that he might take a leadership position, perhaps even seize the reins altogether during the power vacuum left after the Indrawn Breath collapsed. He hadn’t. Like so many of Society’s elite, he appeared content to sit by while others vied for dominance.
For Rose, as much an outsider to this world as would have been a regular human, the situation made no damned sense. Rule within Society was next to impossible to quantify. It had no particular offices of leadership and no votes to fill them. While many of the most powerful and respected succubi held positions in the US government or governmental agencies, those seats had little to do with an individual’s political clout. The FBI chief might hold more sway over Society than the president. An undersecretary in some state cabinet might have the standing to give the Speaker of the House orders. How such things were determined remained an ineffable mystery to Rose, an enigma as opaque to her as fashion trends or the whims of internet taste makers.
Was money the determining factor? Yes, but also no. Each of the elites in this room possessed more money than a single person could spend in a lifetime. A million more here or there made no never mind to them. Jason Kraft, who had managed to install his own governing body and subsequently rule Society for more than thirty years, had never been as wealthy as many of the succubi who had followed him.
What about votaries? If that was the yardstick, then Rose could have counted herself somewhere near the top. She wasn’t even close. Her win over Kraft, and the subsequent fall of the Indrawn Breath, made her a curiosity to the upper crust, as had her legion of votaries tied to her by a hungry fandom. None of that meant she could walk into a leadership position. Succubus elites might be vague when it came to allegiances—they certainly marched to the beat of their own EDM machines—but Rose had no doubt they’d come together against her instantly should she make a play for the ethereal throne, no matter how many votaries she claimed.
Not that she had any inclination to do that sort of thing. All she wanted was a place at the table for the Order. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be standing here, willing herself not to sweat and trying to think of ways to woo people who, frankly, made her ill. Slinkers had long been the downtrodden masses of the succubus world. It was time they got a fair shake. If that meant Rose had to give a few speeches and glad-hand a bunch of snobs, so be it. No matter who eventually came out on top, she was determined they recognize her people and make a place for them at the proverbial table.
A chime toned, and conversation ceased. Gloria Torres, a woman who had once been Rose’s sergeant in succubus boot camp, and was now a true friend, mounted a low stage set up in front of the tables as the crowd took their seats.
When Rose and Matt had put out the call for volunteers to enter public life, Torres had traded in her tac gear and boots for conservative dress suits and pumps. Though in no way enamored with the idea of becoming a senator representing Georgia, like a good soldier, Torres had thrown herself into the role. To her astonishment, though not Rose’s, Torres was a natural.
“Ladies and gentlemen, succubi and incubi, thank you for joining us tonight.” Torres stood straight-backed and confident, her dark eyes roaming from face to face amongst the crowd. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Gloria Torres, and I am running for Senate. I do so not merely to win the seat and represent the people of Georgia, though I plan to serve honorably, but also to stand up for a long-unacknowledged and oft-disenfranchised sector of our kind, those known as slinkers.”
Though they had written Torres’s speech together and practiced it several times on stage and at ho
me, this portion still sent a shiver through Rose’s belly. She felt somehow the shock of stating their intentions outright might send the audience scurrying for the exits. To her relief, no one left. In fact, a few even nodded.
Torres kept her talk short. She stuck to the basic facts of her history and that of the Order, the countermovement founded by Robin Ambrose, Matt’s mother. The Order had given Torres, and Rose as well, a place in the world of succubi. They, and many other slinkers, had united under the Order’s banner to combat, and eventually defeat, Jason Kraft and his illegitimate rule. Now, the Order was seeking representation in Society, a chance to make their plight known, and even the playing field between them and those who would keep them oppressed. Gaining that sort of recognition wouldn’t come easy. The Order needed allies within Society to plead their case and make it understood they had support in joining the succubi ruling body.
This last statement led to whispered conversations and head shaking amongst the Americans, but not as much as Rose had feared. The international guests showed almost no reaction. Rose couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
“After Robin Ambrose’s untimely death, leadership of the Order fell to my good friends, Rose Carver and Matthew Snow. They are the reason I’m standing before you today. Without them, I might well have ended up in a fear factory instead of campaigning for the Senate. I’d like to invite them on to the stage to speak with you. This is an open forum. All questions are welcome.” Torres gestured toward the back of the hall, beaming.
“You ready?” Matt whispered as he took Rose’s hand.
“No, but let’s do it anyway.”
All eyes followed the couple as they made their way forward. Rose felt like a thief trying to sneak through a gauntlet of armed guards and making a hash of it. It didn’t pass her notice that no one clapped. The captains of industry and government arrayed before her hadn’t come here to ally themselves with the Order or with Rose in particular. Curiosity drove them more than any other factor, that and fidelity to old friends like Renni and Lee. If Rose and Matt had any hope of securing alliances here, it lay solely on impressing the crowd from the get-go, and they had to do it without using charm.
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