“You’re lucky she’s soft on humans. Don’t push her. This tribunal is just as much about her as it is you.” Delilah opened the conference room door. “This is your cue.”
Dwarfed by a giant screen, her black clothes outlined by the light, Cora smiled at Red. She gestured to the long table with a single chair. “We got this, chica.”
Red gulped.
Chapter Four
January 21st, After Sunset, Moon Enterprises, Inglewood, Los Angeles, California
Split video feeds came to life on the wall-length screen. Three unearthly pale faces loomed over the expansive conference room in Moon Enterprises. Mouth drying, Red pinched her leg under the table, hoping it was another nightmare. No joy. This was reality. This really was her tribunal.
“Two of these motherfuckers are a surprise.” Cora put her hand on Red’s shoulder, whispering in her ear, pinched expression turned from the webcam rising from the tabletop.
Red blinked at the female vampires on the screen—one in a black veil and the other in a modest denim dress. They might have been a surprise to Cora, but they were all too familiar to Red. These were enemies that she remembered earning.
Cora turned on the table microphone. “Welcome my brother Marek and sisters Hilde and Sancha, masters most supreme.”
Red already knew their names. Raising a water glass to wet her lips, she tried to drink normally, as the innocent would.
“Enough chitty chat.” In a blue jean dress and wrapped in judgment, Hilde Higbee peered out from the right side of the screen. A golden beehive pinned to her collar was her only concession to decoration. Her thin face hardened. “I have questions.”
Red nearly choked on the water. She had only seen the supreme master vampire from afar, after blowing up a million dollars’ worth of meth stamped with the beehive symbol of the Utah vampires. She recognized Higbee, but hopefully it wasn’t mutual. Technically, Red hadn’t broken any vampire laws in Utah. Vic had. She didn’t have a moment to collect herself.
The onslaught began. Cora’s defense was essentially- ‘yes, but circumstances…’
Facing the vampires behind a long table, Red felt like a courtroom defendant in her dark dress and matching blazer with her red hair pulled back. Sweat rolled down her back. She took notes on a legal pad. It kept her focused on the conversation rather than her thumping heart. She had a story to keep. There was the truth of what had happened, and what Cora Moon told her to say.
From Halloween to Nevaeh being banished to hell along with Maxwell, Hilde Higbee had a question for every detail. Her mousy looks hid a lioness who had scented blood.
Red skirted details like Maxwell’s real vendetta. She made it seem like the two just wanted bodies to hijack. She hadn’t told Cora the truth, and she wouldn’t tell them either. Then there was the omission of Kristoff from Michel’s dramatic rooftop defeat. In the approved version, he had fled to Portland with his brother, Arno, after Delilah and Quinn were arrested.
Dodging and weaving through the interrogation, Red parroted the party line. She didn’t know the details of what underworld deal had been made to keep Kristoff’s reputation pristine to the Bloodliner faction of unsouled vampires, or why Cora wanted to inflate the numbers of souled vampires who had rallied to her aid. She could guess. In the end, they all had something to hide. Red certainly hadn’t given the full story. Curiosity about her allies could wait until after she knew she wouldn’t be sent to some Blood Alliance black site. The script flowed from her mouth.
Maybe a real hunter would have done something different. She didn’t have the Brotherhood to stand with, if she ever really had. Hiding behind vampires, even for self-preservation, felt like a bitter compromise to a new reality. It wasn’t the protection. Or the payroll. Red had worked for the good guys. Who did she work for now? Los Angeles had more shades of compromise than fake tans. Tomorrow, she could ponder the moral ramifications. Right now, she faced two master vampires who might want her in the grave and one who’d allow it if his vassal asked. Red had practiced her lines. She said them as best she could.
Sweating like a boxer in the ring, Red tried to ignore the rolling bead on her forehead. The rapid-fire questions and exchange of evidence had wrung her last drop of brain power. Even knowing that they had reached final statements hadn’t eased the frozen feeling in her spine.
“Finally, I have to repeat myself. Everything that you have heard tonight must be understood in this most important context.” Cora addressed the screen, hand on the table, somber as a lawyer trying to get a man off death row. She jabbed her finger on the metal and paused for emphasis. “Red acted against Nevaeh Morgan and her chained spirits on my orders before the unstable dark witch would have revealed us all. The press had a new story to chase before the sun rose on the solstice. My PR machine successfully engineered a bigger headline for the tabloids about a car chase with a new troubled celebrity du jour. Her actions in the aftermath have escaped notice in the press. As precisely ordered, this human has maintained the veil. The Nevaeh saga is over. Let us close this tribunal on a loyal servant.”
Red held her breath, staring at the screen in the dragged out pause that followed.
Hilde Higbee’s curled blond bangs shook as she leaned closer to her webcam. On the screen, she looked like a colossus in a denim dress that covered her from neck to wrist. She rubbed the beehive pin on her collar. “Red might be useful to you Cora, but I am not satisfied that the hunter can hide her tracks.”
“You haven’t been satisfied this whole meeting.” On the far-left side of the screen, the wry knowing tone sounded eerie coming from the pale child in the designer suit. Prince Marek of Portland looked ten, but he had centuries behind him.
Books couldn’t prepare Red for the unsettling effect of fangs in a baby face. It wasn’t forbidden to turn a child, but most found it distasteful enough that she hadn’t seen in one in her travels. Prince Marek was the vampire most likely to give her a break as Kristoff’s liege supreme, but she’d tried to look at him the least in the trial. She focused on the camera lens instead.
Cora Moon clasped her hands behind her back, crystal bracelets jangling. She used her airy yoga teacher voice. “We’ve gone through the evidence, my friends. Backwards and forwards. The hunter is not a threat.”
Red preferred it to her tone when she ordered an execution. And yet, given the circumstances, she would appreciate some typical vampire power plays from Cora.
“Sancha, I would have imagined you’d have more to share, considering your loss. So recently a widow and now….” Hilde put her small hand to her mouth, long blond eyelashes fluttering down on her unearthly pale cheeks, pausing as if composing her grief into sympathy. One bright eye popped open to look at her screen. “This is the same hunter, isn’t she?”
Glancing up at the center panel of the video conference, Red avoided the narrowed brown eyes of the beautiful vampire studying her. She had learned her lesson about looking into Sancha Constanza’s eyes. Even through a screen, she didn’t trust the recently crowed Queen of the Prairie Dead. Red had made her a monarch once upon a time. The hard way.
It was a secret that could get them both executed. The Blood Alliance punished unsanctioned murders of their loyal city leaders.
“Si, the hair color is the same...” Sancha murmured in the center screen. The soft sound barely moved the black mesh veil draped from her small pill box hat to her chin. Her brunette mane spilled over her black tailored jacket, piped in crimson like a black widow spider, as she tilted her head.
Red held her breath. In DVA custody, she was a loose end that could reveal that Sancha had planned her own husband’s final death. That was enough for a cunning master vampire to see her as a threat even if what happened on the plains still confused Red. One thing had been clear: she couldn’t ever go back to Oklahoma City again. Not after what she did to Cowboy Kurt. Red had seen the dead king in a hallucination in the Dreamland. She’d never expected to see his queen again or her fake grieving widow act.
“But it’s a common box color. This one looks older.” Sancha lifted a thick eyebrow, the move glacially slow. Not quite obscured by the veil, her fangs popped from her berry-tinted lips. The veil shook in dismissal. “Far more worn.”
Biting her tongue, Red froze her features. The dig stung less than the radiating relief. She wasn’t the only one keeping secrets in the tribunal.
“Well, I recognize her!” Hilde scowled. “It has bedeviled me the whole tribunal like a word on the tip of my tongue.”
Throat tightening, Red glanced to Cora. This wasn’t in the script.
“You came to my territory with that werewolf hunter! He killed two of my childer!” Hilde lifted her chin, long neck tensing like a giraffe about to bite. Unmarked by cosmetics, the disdain shone clearly on her thin face. “Thought you had died, little missy. Now, I see you’re making a fuss in LA. She is guilty of murder. This is beyond the Dark Veil.”
“I know that you love all one hundred of your precious childer, but if she didn’t hold the stake, it isn’t her crime.” Cora said, putting her hands up. “Did she kill them?”
“No.” Hilde released the admission with a grimace. “She didn’t, but she still can’t be trusted. She’s hunted our kind. She killed one in Inglewood last month.”
“Those were rebels. Her stake had my will behind it,” Cora insisted. “As far as this tribunal can ascertain, she has never killed one of our kind without sanction. This session is to see if she can keep the Dark Veil, and she can.”
Hilde scowled. “Perhaps she can keep the veil closed, but a wildcard doesn’t change its suit. She needs to be neutralized.”
Cora’s brows slammed together and her arms stiffened as her serenity fizzled. “The nuclear option is not on the table. She’s more valuable to me alive than buried.”
“Cora…” Prince Marek’s thin voice cautioned.
“I’m not looking to cause a fuss,” the Utah supreme explained, her ire growing into a matter of fact calm. “I see your side. Even sore from loss, I still prioritize the greater good for our people. I know from experience that hunters make strong childer. She’s more valuable to you as one of us.”
“That is also not an option.” Cora replied as smoothly as an experienced negotiator rejecting the first offer. Only her glance to Red showed her worry.
“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth.” Hilde clasped her hands over her chest. Earnest fervor bloomed on her face. “That might be in the good book, but it’s a gospel for demonkind too. Our numbers have never recovered from the August Harvest. I’ve lost precious childer, she can be a replacement.”
Red’s eyes widened, mind numbing as the fear-driven thoughts piled up in a traffic jam. She gripped her pen, the plastic bending under her chilled fingers.
“You’re not turning her.” Legal air dropping, Cora snapped. “Not one of mine.”
“Where are my manners? She is your hired human.” Hilde raised hands pressed together in apology, solicitous as if offering the last slice of pizza. “You should turn her.”
Red pressed against the chair back, hand dropping the pen. She hoped the camera didn’t catch her gulp.
“She is claimed by my ambassador,” Prince Marek interjected. Leaning on his elbow, his easy smile revealed the tips of his small fangs. “Poor man’s been waiting lifetimes for this long promised boon.”
Red’s ears flushed. One reference to Juniper lit the burning curiosity of wondering what the child vampire saw when he looked at her. It had been almost refreshing to face vampires that only knew Red and not Juniper.
Hilde tilted her head, arms crossing, ears perking up. “How could I forget? He claimed her so audaciously at the Blood Summit. Fought his own sire, I heard.”
Cora clapped her hands for attention. “Let’s put a pin in the personal talk.”
“I despise gossip as well.” Hilde said primly before leaning forward again. “I will say it’s certainly odd that a claimed human is still working as a hunter in a completely different state from her master. Back in my day, the good days, we knew how to corral our flock.”
“You’re not corralling my flock.” Prince Marek’s small face darkened.
“I misspoke. The relationship is certainly unorthodox.” Hilde uttered a syrupy-sweet apology.
Rubbing her neck, Red looked away, hiding her embarrassment. Delilah had been wrong when she said the tribunal judges wouldn’t be interested in her personal life.
“Kristoff is one of those modern types.” Steel edged his words even as Prince Marek smiled. Baby fat puffed up his cheeks, but the aged gaze tarnished the childlike illusion. “But his territory is clear.”
“We have a solution.” Hilde raised her hands, closing her eyes like at a prayer circle. “Praise Satan. His justice is truly that.”
Red gawked at the Salt Lake Supreme. She hadn’t seemed so pious swearing revenge after Vic and Red blew up one of her meth labs in the Utah desert.
“Pardon me?” Cora’s words were polite, but her features sharpened from irritation as if she were biting the inside of her cheek.
“It’s simple.” Hilde opened her eyes and blessed them with a beatific smile. “Kristoff Novak turns his claimed human by sunset tomorrow and adds to our numbers!”
Holding her breath, Red waited for the two vamps on her side to pipe up.
Prince Marek shrugged with the indolence of an atheist. He raised a full red wine glass into view and drank. “I assume we adjourn then.”
As if slapped, Red jerked back in her chair. The legs squeaked on the ground. Words escaped her as she glanced at Cora Moon.
Face frozen, Cora didn’t meet Red’s eyes. Her bangles rattled a soft warning as she hid her curled fists behind her back. “Kristoff may turn her someday, as is his undisputed right, yet she is still mine to command. In my agreement with Prince Marek, I have guardianship over the hunter as I need her. Our truce with the Brotherhood ensures her safety.”
“She was forbidden from the Brotherhood.” Sancha said quietly from under her widow’s veil. Her unexpected comment silenced the room.
Squinting back startled tears, Red opened her mouth before closing it. How did Sancha know that? The Brotherhood’s might had diminished, but apparently their rumor mill was stronger than ever. Had the knowledge of her connection to Juniper spread? Or was it just news of her blackballing? Red felt Sancha’s words like a kick to the throat.
“Still… She will not be turned tomorrow or the day after that. I find her useful, and Kristoff finds it useful to loan her to me.” Cora dug her fingers into her hips. Amber flashed in her gaze. “You dig it?”
Red glanced at Cora while motioning to herself. She had held back all her sarcasm, frustrations, and rants to follow the ‘speak when asked’ rule. This meeting was escalating. She couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Red?” Fists clenching, Cora asked in a strained voice.
“Yes, the Brotherhood kicked me out. They have a truce with Cora, but they don’t especially like their hunters working so closely with vampires.” Red paused to emphasize the real emotion even if she lied about the true reason. Eyelids lowering, the fresh hurt of that rejection somehow still touched her even in the tribunal. “The point of this meeting is to determine if I’m a threat to the Dark Veil, right? I have just as much reason to hide behind it as you do. If I leaked this, the human world would think I was crazy or just put me in jail. However I got here, I’m claimed by one vampire and working for another. That’s why I’m not a threat.” Red lifted her hands. “I’m in too deep.”
“That’s a weak defense.” Hilde said snidely as she twisted the golden beehive pin on her collar absently.
“It’s the honest one.” Red stared directly into the camera. “You all know it’s true. I’ve obeyed the supreme in everything she has asked me concerning the Dark Veil and I will continue to. I know the score.” She held her breath.
“Then we compromise, ladies.
” Prince Marek rapped a small fist on his desk before raising his glass, crimson liquid glinting even through the video screen. “Red walks the line and serves Cora. If she breaks the Dark Veil again, Kristoff will make her one of us. Either way, everyone wins.”
Hilde crossed her arms. Her curled bangs drooped into her deep-set gaze. Disappointment stiffened her pale lips. “There must be boundaries on this compromise. If she flees LA, the deal is forfeit and your man better hunt her down, Marek. Most importantly, if she takes a life in our community, she gives her own in return.”
“I can handle my people, Hilde.” Fingers curling behind her back, Cora looked ready to reach through the screen to throttle the Salt Lake City supreme.
Eyes darting, the child vampire licked his lips, brow furrowed in uncertainty, before he spoke more like a UN mediator than a fourth grader. “My wise sister supreme Cora clearly holds the reins masterfully, so I must insist that this inquiry end. We’ve reached consensus. I render my satisfaction with the agreement that her guardianship continues over this human.”
Silent, Sancha stared down at Red from the center panel of the wide screen, veiled lips pursed in contemplation as her long red nails tapped her chin.
As the stare dragged on, Red’s heart clenched, tension wrapping around her chest like barbed wire.
The widow inclined her black pill box hat an inch and no more in agreement.
Prince Marek nodded and sipped his wine. “I’ll drink to that.”
Hilde Higbee’s cheeks tightened as a scowl bloomed on her thin lips. She said the words as if they were bile coming out of her mouth. “I yield to the crowd.”
“Bless your heart, Hilde.” Cora’s smile dripped poisoned sugar that could have only been spun in the Deep South.
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