Page 11 of Tainted Blood

“I have casual wear and sharper dinner attire, along with a set of workout clothing for each night if I find the time to do so. Your workout clothing will be fine for this trip if you wish to join me for that. I find it’s a good break from the other vampires. It also reminds them I don’t rely entirely on our supernatural gifts.” Standing, he tucked his book under his arm, then in a way only a man like him could, he opened the door to the hallway, waiting for me to follow him. “Let’s relax for the rest of the evening. I can tell you what Isaiah told me about some of the vampires who will be visiting.”

“You didn’t know everything about them before?” I was genuinely surprised. Following him, the torturous fashion show was forgotten.

“No, not at all. There are many who stayed under my radar, so I never bothered to know them. That was always more of Isaiah’s and Jacob’s purview, and I left them to it.”

I was still curious, but the way he explained it seemed perfectly reasonable for him.

“Is there anyone at this thing youdoknow?”

“The other vampires my age, so I didn’t need information about them. There’s only a handful of vampires as old as I am, or thereabout. I needed to ask Isaiah about vampires around his age.”

“Any of them seem as though they want to overthrow Isaiah, kill me, or could have killed Jacob?”

“No, and that’s something else. Isaiah and I spoke throughout the day.”

Frowning, I followed him until we entered his office. Thrown over the back of the chair was the button-up he’d been wearing the night before. It was an odd thing to find, considering Alexius and Rupert were neat freaks. I sat down across from him, getting comfortable as Alexius started shuffling through notes on his desk.

“Now, since we’re six days away, let me explain who you will be meeting in New York. I don’t have pictures and will leave introductions up to Isaiah if he feels we need to personally meet all of them. It’s good to have an idea of what you’re walking into, though. First, there will be four prominent Masters and three prominent Mistresses. The cities represented are… London, Berlin, Rome, Cairo, Rabat, Prague, and Vienna. Mistress Aelia has held Rome since Isaiah left there to come to the New World. Two of her children, who help her in Rome, are also old enough to attend. Isaiah says they will stick together as they always do.”

“You don’t know much else about her?”

“I…” Alexius looked up from his notes as he sat down, sighing as he leaned back in his chair. “Again, I have always left this sort of thing to Jacob and Isaiah. I’ve never particularly wanted to get close to most vampires. Isaiah is highly political, and he’s the edge of what I can tolerate and takes all my patience for it. I know many other vampires and have interacted with them, but in most circumstances, I met them while I was dealing with something. Oftentimes, that means I’m moving around their nest to kill one of their own. You can imagine many do not stay in contact with me. More talked to Jacob. They liked him more.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, so if I’ve never had to work with them or work around them, I’ve never felt the desire to get to know them on a personal level. Remember the Mistress of Vancouver? She got close to me and tried to use it against me when I had to execute her sire. I try not to find myself in that position very often. The less I know, the easier it is for me to do the job I find myself with. I know that seems counterintuitive, but it’s worked for me for centuries.”

“No, I get it,” I said, nodding. “Why are all the oldest nest leaders in Europe or nearby? Unless there are more you don’t know about.”

“These are probably the seven oldest prominent leaders. There are a few explanations for the hub, and all of them apply. First, we were in that region for a long time. It’s… almost the home ground of vampires as it stands. We have deep roots there. We once had more of a presence in the Middle East but were pushed out a long time ago before we properly unified into one society.

“Now, expanding means playing nice. For example, if a large werewolf pack already has a major city, it’s hard for vampires to move there en masse if the werewolves don’t want them there. There are several American cities where that happened.”

“So, everyone is… marking their territory?” I was mostly joking because it was pretty obvious. I wasn’t confused at all, but he didn’t take it that way.

“Exactly. Werewolves quickly came to the New World because they needed the space. Vampires. We moved more slowly because we needed heavily populated areas. We had to wait for humans to make the cities where we could thrive.

“There are also the dangerous beings of an area to contend with. The Americas have rich and powerful local lore, but the humans… Well, let’s say they paved the way for others of us to move to this continent without too much worry. I try to stay clear of the native supernaturals out of respect, and the Tribunal doesn’t give them grief. There are other nations where vampires have a small presence, but they’ll never be able to grow in numbers or influence to compete. India, for example. Werewolves are trying to get a foothold on the subcontinent, but the native supernaturals are powerful. Isolated, but powerful enough to draw a line. They also have connections with the Tribunal. That helps them keep that line drawn.”

“So, there’s just a lot of competition, and vampires have specific needs that stop us from expanding while other supernaturals can expand quickly and with more ease. Plus, there are a lot of powerful supernaturals out there willing to fight over the territory that has belonged to them for a long time.”

“Exactly. It’s not as defined as human nations, but we still have our… hubs. Isaiah and Maria got their footholds in North America and helped us expand, but many of the nests here are young with young leaders. Europe… It's our ancient home. I’m from the Mediterranean. For a long time, it seemed as if our entire culture was in the nations around that sea. Kamose, the Master of Cairo, has been in Egypt for as long as Isaiah can remember. He’s one I regret forgetting and not recognizing his name. He worked with Isaiah a lot, who visited Egypt often. He’s good friends with Jamal, Master of Rabat.”

“My geography isn’t the best. That’s the one city I didn’t recognize.”

“Rabat, the capital of Morocco.”

“Oh…” I nodded, promising myself I would pull up a map later and start memorizing these things. Geography and world history were my strong subjects in school, both primary and secondary. In college, I had suffered through them, just trying to get the assignments done so I could get back to my computer, engineering, and programming classes.

“I’ve written all of this down for you, a general set of notes.” Alexius lifted one of the pieces of paper he had been shuffling around. I took it slowly, feeling as though I would be tested on it later. “You really don’t need to worry so much about this. I don’t have pictures of them for obvious reasons. They won’t expect you to recognize them.”

“But they’ll expect me to know of them and treat them with respect,” I pointed out. “Right?”

Alexius only shrugged a shoulder, and I remembered that I had the worst possible teacher for this. He didn’t, and I knew he didn’t see any reason for me to either.

“So, this is the first part of the list…”

Alexius sighed heavily.

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