Page 28 of Grave Throbbing
That was all about to change, though. Harley had two carafes of to-go blood from Blood Drive and handed out paper cups to any who wanted some. When he reached Key and Greed, Empress Marcella frowned until they both not only took a cup but also downed half the contents.
Satisfied, she turned to Harley. "Sit with me, won't you?" She motioned to the seat remaining at her table.
Harley met his gaze and gave him an encouraging nod from across the aisle.
Empress Marcella remained standing and moved to the center of the room before the judge's bench. "It's the head councilor's job to oversee these proceedings, but Boston's head councilor was murdered last night. Our first order of business is to vote on a new leader. If you think of the leader you'd prefer, I will read your minds and tally the votes."
Key almost laughed out loud at the creepiness factor. For once, he was grateful he wasn't higher up the vampire food chain. He and Greed didn't get a vote, which meant Empress Marcella kept her claws out of their brains.
"Councilor Adelaide Newton, you will be my head representative in Boston, overseeing the northeastern quadrant of the United States. Please come forward and take your seat at the judge's bench."
A dark-skinned vampire wearing a maroon suit with a pencil skirt and a double-breasted jacket over a cream silk blouse, daring even in the age of to-go blood cups, stepped up to the judge's seat behind the bench. In a blur, the empress approached the bench, said some words, and skated back to take her seat.
The new head councilor cleared her throat. "We are here tonight to discuss the right of the vampire siblings Ciarán and Margaret O'Shea to live on their own without council supervision in Boston."
"What?" Greed started to rise from her seat, but Key shoved her back into it.
"Our first witness is our Empress Marcella." The high councilor started rattling off titles, but the empress silenced her with a head shake, and possibly an inner monologue.
Empress Marcella took the stand. Key wanted to argue that this was a farce, but he kept his mouth shut. He wouldn't know the full brunt of the case against them until she spoke.
"I will relay the facts as I see them," she said as she stared at Key. "Ciarán came to our attention when he bit his sire and fled her Midtown Manhattan residence in the early nineteen hundreds. He was less than a year turned and already able to flee a century-old vampire."
She shifted her gaze to Harley. "I sailed to New York. I'd never been, and the vampires in the new world had a reputation for being unruly, even after I trained Harley and sent him to Boston."
She sighed. "I wanted to change that. I intended to kill Ciarán myself, since he was sired without permission, but he bit me the same way he'd bitten his sire, and …" She paused so long the vampires behind Key began to fidget. "I don't remember what happened after that. When my thoughts returned, I was still on my feet, and Ciarán was between two of my guards. They held him and waited for my response on what to do with him."
She frowned, and her eyes narrowed to slits. "I still don't know what to do with him. I told him never to bite another vampire, but then I learned he's been conducting experiments on Harley, my liaison. I feared he would be able to pass his gift to one like Dobbins, who could steal other vampires' powers, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Harley also shared Ciarán can control his bite so that it doesn't always paralyze in fear. It can also bring … pleasure."
Her eyes seemed to bore holes through Key's heart as it hammered in his throat. "Did you beguile my liaison against his will?"
"Empress Marcella, that's absurd!" Harley was fully out of his seat before the guard behind him pushed him down by his shoulders.
"Is it?" Her gaze never left Key's. "You asked about Harley when last we met. I helped you break your sire bond over your sister, and this is how you repay me?"
"It wasn't like that," Key said.
"How was it, then?"
"You introduced Harley to me in New York, before I turned Greed. I liked him then, but I knew we couldn't be together. He'd learn about my sister, or she'd find out about him, and I didn't want that added secrecy. Her life was hard enough."
He glanced at Greed, and she grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
"You'd thrown me to the wolves with that celebration. You said I would either learn to enthrall humans without a seductive bite or I would starve. I couldn't starve, because that meant Greed would starve, so I persevered."
"I knew you would," Empress Marcella said. "That's why I didn't kill you outright when you begged permission to turn her."
"I didn't know turning her would … I didn't know about the sire bond."
"Your sister's bite isn't like yours," Empress Marcella said, more for the court than for Key's or Greed's sake.
"She's got the usual vampire bite that gives humans bliss and makes them forget all about us, yes."
"You hunt together?"
"We did. We don't hunt any more. We buy blood in paper cups from a drive-through chain."
Empress Marcella nodded. "As do we all. The benefits of modern technology."
