The council meeting went as they usually did.

We rarely put up much of a fuss over dead bodies, and if our meeting in Germany had not been stopped by World War I, a single dead vampire wouldn’t do it either; but it did make the reality of my situation sink in.

The major issue was that I needed a new patron, but, judging by the surprise from the Musician and Black about me not taking over the King’s reign, I had larger issues. I didn’t have close friends amongst most of the undead, I was a blip on most radar. All my friends were Caine’s friends- and the look I was getting from some of them said that they were rather angry with me.

I spent most of the meeting going over my possibilities and making a list with the sticky-note application on my phone. Staying with the Emperor was not an option; Tina had made it clear that, if I got in her territory again, I would not be coming back out. The Emperor also had the fickle nature of his body’s apparent age.

I was a rare commodity that came every now and then, but even a child will grow tired of sweets if he has them every day. Letting myself slip into that situation was paramount to signing my own death warrant—or worse, riling someone up enough to make them slip out my only real secret—goodbye, freedom and civil liberties.

Rupert had offered me his patronage, although I had no idea how much that had been in jest and how much it had been wishful thinking; staying with him would ruin the illusion. He was my first choice… but that involved telling him the truth. If I hadn’t done it in two-hundred years, I wasn’t going to do it now.

I found myself angry that the King was dead. He and I had enjoyed a beneficial relationship. I had never worried or fretted over what my future held; I did not have to think about the Black rocking up to my door in the middle of the night, or other vampires finding out my secret—Caine knew, and he did not give a damn. Now, I had to guard my fences, as it were.

Caine had once said, as we bunked down in a small hunter’s cabin off the American trail, that I spent too much time thinking about my secrets. “If we crack your skull open, Justine, I suspect half the secrets of the female race would spill out.”

“Well David, I cannot say. I am certain I would be too frail to hold all that in my little noggin.”

“I would not be so quick to assume you any less capable. Now, are we going to finish our hunt, or must I tell Master Winthrope that we spent six days up here and caught nothing?”

“Please do not. That man is insufferable. If I have to listen to one more lecture on the growth in the tobacco industry, I shan’t be responsible for my actions.”

So, I spent the entire conference tuned out to the various discussions, but watching everyone around me.

The Elders were not an option; they were all about as trusting and capricious as tamed tigers, and I certainly was not going to stay with the Priest—his reputation had stained the Catholic Church ever since the man became interested in the religion and helped spread it to the British Isle. I was not sure he would really care that I was a woman; certainly, I would probably get a smack-down for the deception, but the Priest was known for too many other crimes. He made the Torturer seem like Martha Stewart. Like most of the elders he was of decidedly poor humour and well into the realm of sadistic.

The Musician, like me, was a drifter; but he did have a place that he called home. Although it was hardly a domain with safely established borders, Düsseldorf had the small, five-body harem of vampires that the Musician had embraced, but little else. It was too isolated from mortal society for my tastes, and I did not want to spend the next fifty years trapped in the mountains; that was too much like a punishment.

There were other options. After all, I had not been without other patrons in the past.

There was the Firestarter, for one. He liked a good joke, understood that I liked my personal privacy and he had a young female vampire of his own to amuse himself with; so, if he found out I was female, it would not be a game breaker.

The Firestarter did have an annoying habit though—and I doubted he had broken from it, if the wound on his attendant’s arm was anything to go by. He was highly prejudiced against all other paranormal beings, and tended to pick fights with them. I think it was his age when he was turned—seventeen, although he could pass for older—that caused this. It was a rather aggressive age to stay at for the rest of one’s life.

The Emperor was easily amused; the Firestarter was easily riled.

As options went, the Firestarter was not the worst one. A good sense of humour, at least; however he also had one other turn-off; the Flametongue was still with him. To say that the Flametongue and I did not get along would have been a gross understatement.

Then, there was the Truthseeker. I had spent seventy years with him in the colder reaches of Russia, shortly after I had reached my Dominus status.

The Truthseeker was blind, and while that meant I did not have to waste energy on keeping up illusions around him, my humour routine needed a bit of an adjustment for entertaining him.

He had opened up my tastes in art to a new extent. The trouble was that I did not know how much he knew about me. The man was a psychic; he could unravel a sticky situation as if it was a ball of string. He knew exactly what bothered someone, and he knew how to use it to his advantage. I had no idea what his power actually was, even after seventy years, though I imagined it was telepathy. However, he had never given me any indication that he knew I was a woman, or that he knew I was still hiding something.

The Truthseeker that did not know a truth—it was irony.

It was also risky.

I had not been in his court for four-hundred years. I had no idea how his power might have evolved since then.

There was, of course, Radu.

I regarded my maker from my chair halfway down the table.

Radu was trouble—I remembered saying it to my brother when we were allowed to play in the small hamlet.

When we were invited to the Lord’s Castle Poenari to show him the delights of our troupe’s ability, he had been enthusiastic; I had been dubious.

Then, I had been undead, and my brother had just been dead.

Radu and I got along, when he was reasonable. And I trusted him as much as I trusted any other vampire. But Radu was an Elder.

Radu was trouble.

Every time I was with him, things ended badly for one of us and it was generally me. He had grown bored of me after I had become a Dominus and let me go my own way.

Radu caught me examining his profile and turned, giving me his attention from the distance between us. I blinked at him and shrugged; no, I did not want anything.

He raised a single eyebrow and went back to ignoring me. That was good enough for me.

The trouble of the new patron aside, I also had my financials to worry about.

I was not supposed to have the kind of wealth I did, and I would get in a lot of trouble if the Emperor found out how big my finances had gotten; he did not mind women working for a way to pass the time, but when our wealth got to where mine was, it became troublesome—we started having ideas about independence. I guess I was probably in violation of that, I was too wealthy and too independent.

I owned over a dozen different circus troupes, six of which were international and three with permanent locations in the United States. Then, of course, my interests had branched into other areas of artistic flamboyance. I had bought a number of theatres; that might have been acceptable, except the theatres had done well. Because of their success, I had bought some theatre companies, then a few studios and shares in some large Hollywood productions, then in European productions—I literally had more money than I knew what to do with.

I had theme parks, large amounts of stock and more expensive homes and condos than I could ever possibly use—even with my immortality. I had permanently reserved rooms in my favourite hotels and a resort spa that literally ran for my services alone. The word obscene is probably accurate.

I was rich and, if I was not careful, I would be caught by the Emperor.

It was not my fault that I was good with money.

It also helped that my wealth had been accumulated by at least six different identities. I would have to kill off one of them anyway, now that I could not return to Jarlsberg until someone took the territory.

I had no sooner started working out what I was going to do about my Gary Reinfirst identity—he had a company called Transparent Colours that owned a few of the large contracts in town—that the issue of the city was raised.

“Now we have some recently vacated territory; Jarlsberg belonged to the King. He has three underlings in this area that will now have to be challenged for. His second, Jester, is not opposing the challenge,” The Torturer glanced up from the paper in front of her, pushing a pair of reading glasses up her nose as she spoke, “Any challengers for the King’s holdings and territory?”

I felt eyes on me.

It was not normal that a second would not want the territory that they had spent so long guarding and protecting.

“Why isn’t the Jester challenging?” Someone asked; I could not see who it was, they were in my blind spot and I did not want to look too alarmed at the inquiry.

I felt like a rabbit under the gaze of a hawk again.

I swallowed my thundering panic and answered without looking at anyone in particular, “I cannot hold the territory. I do not have the power to meet a challenge.”

“No one would dispute your claim, Jester, after such a dramatic death,” Again the same person; it sounded like Sparrow Lockhart, the Flametongue.

I wanted to smack him for this. I liked attention when it was attention that I controlled; the thinly veiled implication was that this speaker was not happy with me not being punished for the King’s death.

I leaned forward, pulling a juggling ball from my sleeve and playing with it absently, rolling it across the backs of my hands as I spoke, “I realize I’ve been there for some time now, but it just wouldn’t be home without the King’s presence.”

I felt the stillness of some of the bodies in the room. Did they really think that the King and I had been so close? Spend a few hundred years with someone and everyone thought you were in bed!

The truth was, we had hardly interacted more than once or twice a year, when necessity dictated it. Did they think that I had killed him so I could leave? Or that I had done him away out of boredom, or that I had intended to claim the territory as though no one else wanted it? Ah, but of course, these were vampires. We are self-serving beasts.

Perhaps he had enjoyed having the only secret female Dominus in his rule, perhaps Caine just had wanted peace and quiet from the rest of vampire society.