That day, I had a nightmare.

It is true; vampire sleep during the day and walk at night, but it is not that we cannot stay awake during the daylight hours. Rather, it is because dawn brings the danger of the sun.

Like humans, I only need eight or so hours of sleep, but I tend to get them in while dawn broke the sky; busy people went to work and the world of mortals begins anew. While lawns were being mowed, children sent to school, and traffic was starting up, I was asleep in my bed, hidden behind nice thick walls that blocked out most sounds and boarded-up windows.

It could have been caused by a number of things—the new setting, the unfamiliar hotel room, the smell of strangers, the tense paranormal politics, or the murders that had followed me from Jarlsberg.

Perhaps I was merely unsettled from all the power I had been throwing around the last few days.

Whatever it was, I dreamed of horrifying things—giant spiders and deformed faces, and of hot breath and sticky hands.

I woke up to the shrill laughter of children and felt anxious.

My stomach twisted, and I found my hands cool. I would have been sweating if I was human.

It was not until the bedside lamp smashed and the chair beside my bed flew across the room that I realized what was wrong—I had unleashed a feral phantasm.

It had been so long since it had happened that I sat in stunned silence as the illusion roamed around the room. It was looking for a threat, looking to destroy something. Why were all my phantasms so angry when I was not controlling them?

I exhaled, and then I realized something else had woken me. My cell phone was ringing.

I did not recognize the number, but that did not mean much. I had received a lot of new numbers and calls recently.

“Hello?”

“Oh, I am sorry, Jester, did I wake you?” I did not recognise the man’s voice on the other side of the line.

The phantasm ripped the sheets from the bed. I stood and moved away—although, it was useless. The thing would follow me all night until I calmed down enough to banish it.

“No—I mean, yes, but it doesn’t matter. Who is this?”

“James Sherlock.”

It took a second for that name to mean anything to me.

“Investigator, forgive me for not recognising your voice earlier.”

“I thought I might call you with my findings, but I have only been given permission now to do so. I understand that there has been another killing in Capita?”

“Yes; a werewolf. However, the creature was attacked in a manner that doesn’t seem to indicate it was connected to the King’s death.” I did not ask how he knew; to do so was like asking a telepath if they could read minds—an exercise in rhetorical questions.

“Your voice doesn’t sound sure of this, Jester.” He rolled his ‘s’s into z’s, and I had an image in my mind of him with his little monocle and moustache.

“I have a small and healthy amount of paranoia, Investigator.”

He cleared his throat, he was thinking of debating that, but instead went back on topic, “The King was beheaded in one stroke, with a thick axe—the kind executioners used to use.”

The Impaler loved those kinds of axes; I had seen my fair share of them although never in use.

I swallowed my dread, “How did the killer get that inside the hotel? It’s not exactly conspicuous.”

“I am more curious of how they got the King to stand perfectly still during the attack. He has no defensive wounds, so he either did not see it coming or some sort of paralytic was used that did not show up in my analysis of his blood. Although, when our kind are poisoned, it can vanish from the autopsy with little warning—our process of blood is not like that of a human.”

“What about the ceiling?” I had no doubt he would ramble on if I did not pull the topic back.

“That is the strangest part—it was done deliberately, and it had been done before the conference even started. You know what that means.”

I swallowed a cold lump in my throat. The location of the council meeting was released no more than two days before the event. It was almost inconceivable that anyone but another Dominus could have done it. Thus, I had to consider a troubling thought.

While it was not impossible that some outside force had been involved, it was very, very unlikely. I did not like where my mind was going with that.

“I do not know if I have permission to tell you this, Investigator, but the werewolf was killed in an unusual fashion, too.”

“You are telling me because you think there is a correlation.”

It was not a question.

“Just as you are telling me this information because you know that the correlation is not me.”

He was quiet.

I was also quiet, but there were several screaming thoughts now hurrying through my head. The first and foremost of which—was I in serious danger here?

“If a Dominus is killed in something other than a duel, would the Emperor take steps to stop the killer?”

“Only if the killer could threaten our laws, Jester.”

“This is only a theory,” I sounded childish, as if I was asking if the bogeyman was really real.

“You are small and weak, Jester, but still a Dominus.”

He hung up.

Fantastic.

The phantasm tore the phone from my hands and began tearing it into small plastic bits.

I stood in my darkened room, wearing nothing but a little spaghetti top and short-pajama pants. Suddenly, I was cold. I was cold all over—and shaking.

I was probably just hungry.

The events of the council meeting came back to me. Even before the King had gone missing, someone had told people I was going to Capita. Someone had known that I would have to go, because I would not be staying in Jarlsberg—because I would not have a choice.

I exhaled slowly, gaining control over my breathing and nerves so I could calm the feral phantasm down. It was not easy to push aside the thoughts screaming through my head, but I had a lot of practice at being calm enough to control my own emotions—old stage tricks and sage wisdom from performers.

After a few minutes, the phantasm faded away into nothing but a bad dream and I exhaled deeply.

“Tim,” I threw open the door to my adjourning rooms, noting the surprised groan from the bed of sleeping donors. “Tim, I’m hungry.”

“Why are you up so early, Avery?” One of the men grumbled, checking a wrist-watch with one eye cracked open.

“I had a phone call. Where is Tim?”

“He’s out helping pick a showground. George... ugh, George, go feed the cranky vampire.”

George was booted from the six-person bed with an annoyed grunt. He yawned and stretched, showing off his muscles.

I checked the roster someone had kindly posted on the door.

I had eighteen regular donors, and we had a simple shift system to ensure no accidents happened. I had been using the system since I was about three hundred. Currently, only a few of my boys were on hand.

George would do.

He leaned against the doorway, running a hand down my arm. “Well, Avery, where would you like to eat?”

“The shower; I’m cold.”

His brow creased at that, but he did not say anything more until we were in the shower, naked and with me wrapped around his waist.

I did not weigh much.

George had one hand bracing against the tiles, the other around my thigh. He pressed inside me, firm and ready after a little teasing. Normally, I went through a little more effort for my donors, but today I just wanted comfort.

I ran my fangs across his neck, inhaling the scent of his blood and his desire. It was a familiar, safe scent—one that spoke of home and comfort.

George groaned, bucking his hips against me. I bit down, sliding my incisors into his flesh, a hiss from his end rewarding the action. Unlike normal human bites, vampire bites were more like a gentle pressure; our fangs were incredibly sharp when we were hungry.

His blood flowed into my mouth and I tasted cigarettes, climbing chalk, seventy dollar cologne and the burning hunger that I had come to expect of all donors.

The desire and need drowned me; it was a safe, comfortable drowning.

The water felt warm, and the touch of his skin under my palm—the feel of his chest against my breasts—was euphoric.

He came without a sound, his fingers gripping my thighs tightly. I let him rock against me.

Feeding was good for me, too but Dante was right—it was not like sex with another of our kind. True sex with a vampire was something more than this.

“Do you believe in love, George?”

“Sometimes.” He murmured, leaning against the wall a little heavier now.

Blood loss and climax could make a guy lightheaded, and I did like my showers to be scalding hot.

I let him set me down and leaned against the warm tiles as he ran a hand over my virtually flat chest, teasing and tempting my nipples. I was shivering against him, staring up at his face from almost a foot-and-a-half of height difference.

He had large hands; it was one of the things I liked about him.

But this kind of foreplay was like five minute masturbation for me. I would get a little flustered, but it did not go very far. Eventually, my interest waned—my desire had no outlet. It was simply foreplay, no matter how much I wanted to deny it.

“Sometimes?”

“Times like these, I mean. I wonder if a regular girl could make me feel like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are everything, all a guy could want—amazing, intelligent, funny.”

“A regular girl is all those things.”

“Yeah, but a normal girl doesn’t kiss like you do.”

“All of my boys love me, George. It’s just the addiction.”

“Yeah. Boss; are you afraid of something?” He stopped teasing me and raised my chin so I was looking in his eyes.

“What would an old, evil vampire like me, be afraid of?”

“You’ve been in Jarlsberg since before the microwave was invented—It was home. Now we’re working for a new guy in a new city, and you’re busier than normal with functions. Why did we leave?”

I swallowed and stared at the misty glass behind him, “Because the King is dead.”

“Did his people suspect you, or something?” George asked like it was impossible that I had been the one to kill Caine.

My Donors had no idea how vampire society really worked, and I was happy to keep it that way. They could not do anything about it anyhow. For all my boys knew, I was the only thing in the world.

“No. But I wasn’t allowed to stay in Jarlsberg. It’s just how these things work.”

“What about this new guy we’re working for—this Dante you mentioned?”

I turned off the shower, stepping out and wrapping myself in a towel. We had already rinsed and scrubbed anyway, I was just pruning under the water, and it was wasteful.

He realized I was not going to answer him and stopped pressing. We towelled off, he went back to the boy’s room to get food, and I dressed and opened my computer up. What was the story about the girl sitting on a tuffet?

I stared at my fingers, remembering how the Spider had pressed against me, the feel of him, the need to let him touch me—to be touched.

Should I have been frightened away like Little Miss Muffet? I wanted what Dante could give me, but did I want it if it had cost Caine his life? Had the Spider killed the King?

Did I really want to know if he had?