Page 34 of Vampire's Choice

“So no one important. I feel like I’ve been blown off.”

Clara’s eyes warmed. “You wear the wiseass persona well.”

“It’s not clothing. It’s an essential part of my charming personality.”

“Noted. Marcellus told me to tell you to go see Gundar. He’s Yvette’s right-hand ringmaster and another of her second marks. We have a performance tomorrow night in Tennessee. He’ll explain how the Circus security works during performances and how you’ll blend, while still watching over me specifically. Marcellus and Dollar, who heads up the security team, will give you more specific guidance in the briefing with them tomorrow.”

A tender smile touched Clara’s lips. “He didn’t leave until he heard you approaching. He’s already decided he likes you being around me when he can’t be, at least when I’m on my ass like this. You can take that as an encouraging sign of job security.”

Ruth noted Clara was shivering. “Do you want the flaps closed?”

“No, I like the cooler air. But if you could bring me that sweater, that would be great. Your coat was wonderful, by the way.”

Ruth retrieved the oversized and shapeless sweater and had Clara lean forward so she could wrap it around her shoulders. “The first time I wore this, Charlie told me I looked like I was wearing a bathmat. In addition to being our healer, she’s our costume designer and dressmaker. But even if it offends her fashion sensibilities, she understands comfort clothing is as important as comfort food.”

Ruth sat on the bed, her hip against Clara’s thigh, under the covers. “This is taking too much out of you. Isn’t it?”

Charlie’s expression had been worried, but it had also held a resignation Ruth didn’t like at all.

“If it keeps on like this, it will kill me,” Clara said simply. “Sooner rather than later. About a year ago, Maddock found a way to block the visions. I just have to agree to try it. But I’ve asked him to look for a way to filter it, instead of stopping them completely.”

Ruth studied her. “You don’t feel you have the right to be that selfish.”

“Wouldn’t you feel the same? Remember what I said, how when I first got my gift, I couldn’t change anything? Back then, I asked the Powers-That-Be why would they give me an ability to look ahead, if there was nothing I could do to change a bad outcome. I realize now I was going through training steps. I had to learn the lesson of what could be changed, and what couldn’t. Now I can save lives. I have the gift for a reason. If it takes my life, it takes it. Your boy Albert Schweitzer says we find the divine through service, suffering and eternal gratitude.”

Clara glanced toward the little book on her side table. It was an old copy, the hardback a faded salmon color, the title in silver stamped lettering. “There’s a part of me that understands that, now more than I ever have.” She tilted her head toward Ruth, her gaze sparking with subdued mischief. “Charlie and Marcellus found it weird that a vampire would read this book.”

“I’ve read a lot of things. It doesn’t stop me from being bloodthirsty. And who are you to talk? You have Reverence of Life stacked on top of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty and the Wonder Woman Golden Age Omnibus. Which has some serious female Dominant imagery and themes.”

“So you’ve read that, too. Of course you have.” Clara smiled. “Jacob loaned me that one. Having met his Mistress, I’m not surprised he has it, and not just because he’s passionate about comic books. I think he wanted to remind me of my inner female power. Whereas Sleeping Beauty…” She shot Ruth a devilish look. “Marcellus likes the way it affects me when I read it.”

Ruth was glad to see the smile, though she knew the need to change their focus might make it disappear. “Should I know anything about your vision today? I don’t want to put you through it all over again, but does it figure into what might come after you?”

Fear flashed through Clara’s gaze. When Ruth clasped the fortune teller’s hand, she didn’t like the weakness of her grip.

“Whatever plan I’m tapping into, the one I think is in charge turned around and looked right at me. Spoke my name.” Clara paused. “His face was blurry, but he’s a vampire. He’s not like you and Adan, or Yvette. You all…you dress nice, enhance all those sexy vampire vibes. He doesn’t care about any of that. He reminds me of a wild animal, except most wild animals don’t look like a homeless dictator about to launch a genocide campaign.”

A knot cinched itself in Ruth’s stomach. “A Trad.”

The Trads were a vampire sect that lived outside the Council structure. They inhabited remote places, preferring to embrace the savage predator in their natures. They sneered at having human servants. Humans were food. Since reproduction was as much of a concern for Trads as all vampires, females were sometimes captured, serving as blood donors while the Trads attempted to plant their seed. When that didn’t happen, as it mostly didn’t, the women were used for blood until they died. Which Ruth hoped didn’t take long.

They’d take a female vampire if the opportunity arose to create a “pure” born vampire, one with two vampire parents. A far rarer occurrence than vampire-human servant offspring, but scientific evidence didn’t seem to figure into their obsession.

“The Trads are always planning some crackpot scheme to destroy all of us who don’t believe the way they do.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t receive a vision about those. Unfortunately, what I get are the things with decent odds of succeeding.” Clara’s face tightened. “I’ve been given forty pieces of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Yvette tells me it’s forty more than we would have had, but it’s still frustrating. Especially when the things I see…”

She swallowed. “No matter how it started for our bad guys, by the time it gets to me, pure hate has taken over. The desire to take, kill, destroy.”

She gave Ruth a look of dull despair. “Beyond the practical details, I’m sucked into the worst parts of a person’s soul. The more often the visions happen, the more I get hit with that side of it.”

She’d lifted her hand to her temple and was massaging it, a firm pressure with thumb and forefinger, as if she could push those thoughts out. Ruth stroked her forearm. “That’s all I need to know. No more. Give yourself a break.”

Over the past few years, rumors and incidents suggested the Trads were getting more organized. The group that boasted of being off the grid, rejecting the Council’s “pretense” of “acting like humans,” might be using the same tactics for their own purposes. Shocker. Mal said hypocrisy was always in the arsenal of those who wanted to justify hurting or taking from someone else.

The Council balanced the vampire need for hierarchy imposed by power, with efforts to preserve the race. They didn’t pretend vampires were anything different from what they were. Which meant Lady Lyssa, the Council, Region Masters and overlords weren’t shy about using brutal methods, if they felt they were necessary.

Vampires not in the upper echelons, like Ruth or Mal, might debate whether the decisions made were right or wrong. However, most agreed that, as long as Lady Lyssa was in charge, her hand firmly on Council’s tiller, the vampire race would be well served.

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