Life. Again
Yup, just when I think I'm going to be able to keep up with things, life happens. This usually involves some flavor of "shit, meet fan. Fan, shit."
Since the last time I posted, work's gone through several feral phases, our old lady Miss Tia left us after a short but unpleasant kidney failure, and we've gained a new cat who rejoices in the name Little Bugger. (don't ask. All I'm saying on this is that my husband is never naming a pet again.) I will say he's doing his very best to live up - or down - to his name. Miss Shani's fluff is somewhat ruffled, but she's getting used to having the berserker farting kitten running around trying to play with her.
Miss Tia looking sweet - taken a month or two before we lost her.
Little Bugger in one of the few moments he's not actually berserker everywhere.
In other news Fate Fantastic is out, my story still reads pretty well, and I'm headed for WFC on Thursday. Still need to order a bunch of copies for Xmas gifts.
Meanwhile, I'm writing when I can. Waiting on a read of the Evile Elves from ye overloaded Sarah before it starts the rounds. Working on a truly warped piece involving a vampire, several demons, an under cover angel undercover with at least one succubus, the Undead Porn Club and the Eye of Argon. Chapters going up in Sarah's Diner over on Baen's Bar as I write them. I'm not really expecting anything from this, just having fun. Of course the various Tuckerizations and red-shirtings might disagree. When I do satire it tends to involve sarcasm piled on with a shovel, or possibly a bull-dozer.
And just as a teaser, the start of the weird stuff with the vampire and friends.
Another convention, another con hotel. After a while, they blur together into an indistinguishable mass of faux-elegance and bizarrely costumed fans. I usually go in what you could call Olde Worlde Vampire - three piece suit, John Lennon glasses, cane with a pewter wolf-head topper. Take Gary Oldman in that appalling Dracula movie, and you have the basic idea, except I wear black and my hair is darker. And short.
No-one's ever given me a second look. It suits me that way: I don't need people trying to find out more about me.
Even the smell's the same as usual, the flat, rolled out smell of years of smoke, disinfectant and inadequate hygiene recycled endlessly through the hotel air conditioning. No, not quite the same.
I frowned, tasting the air. The back of my neck prickled, hair rising as age-old instinct whispered to me of something wrong.
Blood.
Not the warm, fresh-meat smell of everyone around me: I'd grown used to that in the last few years. I'd even learned to live with the sour reek of what the SCA folk called 'period hygiene'.
This was the metallic tang of shed blood, old enough to have lost its warmth, but not so old that decay had begun. For me to notice it amidst the mingling faux-Klingons, other costumed exotica, and the unwashed tee-shirted crowds, someone somewhere nearby had lost a lot of blood. A fatal amount of blood.
Wonderful. Being a vampire was difficult enough, what with all the extra security added after September 11. Being a vampire at a convention where someone had recently - at minimum - tried to kill somebody... excuse the bad pun, but it sucked.
I sidled around a tall woman whose corset took what had undoubtedly been an impressive bosom and elevated it to a weapon of mass distraction. Her height put the weapon in question about level with my nose: it was a good thing my sunglasses made it impossible for her to guess whether I was trying to peer into the jiggling depths or not.
Actually, I was trying to look elsewhere. The reaction all that warm, moving flesh had on me wasn't the one she wanted, and this wasn't the time to take a nibble. I'd do that later, privately, with someone I could entice into inviting me to her room. Or his room. Nourishment was nourishment.
Once I'd successfully circumnavigated the corseted one, I had to ease my way past a man whose geisha costume and makeup was so perfect it was unnerving. If he had been short enough to pass for a real geisha, I might have wondered if he was actually female, although the lines of his face were definitely male. So was his voice -- a resonant bass that sounded quite odd from the rosebud lips.
The reedy baritone voice of the equally well-costumed Sailor Moon was just another layer of strangeness. There were times when I wondered if the devil himself would get anything more than a cursory glance, should he decide to visit one of these events.
I slipped between two clusters of fen, male and female overweight and pasty-faced, tacky tee shirts worn loose over faded jeans. According to my nose, perhaps half of them were familiar with the esoteric custom of regular bathing. For the oversized fen that was a low ranking: it was the skinny ones that were more likely to be hygiene-optional. The skinny ones were also more likely to smell of illegal substances.
The sharper senses of a vampire were not always to my advantage.
Another scent caught my attention once I was free of the crowd. Here, the air had the empty, endlessly recycled taste of hotel air, without the overwhelming eau de SF con. It also had, in addition to the tang of spilled blood, the distinctive musky overtones of a mature werewolf.
I looked around. Werekind usually loathed vampires, and with reason. We could create weres by some weird magical commingling of animal and human DNA, and we could command them. Of course they hated us.
"Hey, Hickey!"
With one exception. But then, I'm not your typical vampire, either. I turned to the shout, and waved to the speaker, a young-looking fellow with untidy blond hair. Naturally Sean was in human form, but he still carried enough of his true nature to affect the humans around him.
Sean and I get along just fine. He's not a typical werewolf, having chosen to run solo rather than join a pack. I don't do the vampire mind-games except what I need to keep myself fed and healthy. We often meet up at conventions and just have fun being in each other's company.
Oh, and my name isn't 'Hickey'. The silly wolf calls me that because he thinks I leave love-bites on my meals. The name he knows me by is Jim. It's not my real name -- I outgrew that years ago.
Sean's getting old enough that he's going to have to change his name soon. When you're going to look nineteen for eternity, it's an occupational hazard.
He ambled over to me, big grin plastered across his face. As usual, he was wearing jeans and a black tee shirt, both clean enough I could smell the soap. I could see the tension in his face despite the grin: like me, he would have smelled the blood.
"Do you know what caused it?" Typical Sean -- cut straight to the point without a hint of messing around with the usual niceties.
I shook my head. "Not a clue." Which neatly summed up the fen gathering in the hotel lobby, of course. "Have you seen any others around?" Sean and I weren't the only immortals to have realized cons made for good hunting grounds. I knew at least two demons who did the circuit, although I had yet to work out why they bothered when all the souls here were mortgaged to caffeine and alcohol. We immortal regulars had something of an agreement. We left each other alone, and didn't do anything that might incite a howling mob.
"Raph's around somewhere." Sean shrugged. "None of the others that I know of."
Wonderful. Raph, the world's most debauched angel. And yes, he is still an angel. Don't ask me how he gets away with it. I don't want to know. I will say he takes his official status as an undercover agent entirely too literally when it comes to covers, and being under them.
At least I could be certain he wasn't involved in the attempted killing. Murder wasn't Raph's style. "Do you know when it happened?"
Sean shook his head. "It's weird. There wasn't anything sudden. It just sort of drifted. I don't even know when I realized it was there." He scratched his chest, not quite distracted enough to let claws extend - which was just as well. When he was in human form, Sean went though tee shirts like he had an infinite supply.
I kept my face under careful control. I'd made science fiction cons my hunting ground because no matter how weird I was I could strip naked and dance on tables and not get more than a few invitations. That didn't mean I wanted to draw attention to myself. I worked by not being noticed unless I chose. Usually I only let my prey notice me, and then only long enough to take my little nibbles and leave them with the memory of some horizontal gymnastics with a good looking fellow whose face they could not quite remember.
So long as I didn't take the same person more than once or twice in a month, it worked.
Well, mostly. Whenever immortals discovered that cons could meet their needs without drawing unwanted attention, we regulars had to do some interesting negotiations to make sure no-one overstepped the boundaries.
I let my senses drift, seeking the source of the blood. "Stay close," I murmured. "I'm going to fade."
Sean moved closer to me, and I began to project the sense of 'nothing here'. It isn't exactly invisibility, more like everyone ignores me when I fade. Anyone or anything close enough fades right along with me.
Once I had the projection down, I nodded to Sean. He tilted his head back, sniffing as he turned a slow circle. His nose was sharper than mine, though with different priorities. He was more tuned to humans as prey, alive, dead or dying. I focused more on blood, particularly when it was still inside its owner.
After a while, he nodded decisively. "Near the dealer rooms."
"On my way." I ambled in the direction of the dealer rooms with Sean on my heels. There weren't too many mingling yet: most of the activity clustered around the registration tables. There'd be crowds later.
The dealer rooms were a ballroom with the partition walls they could use to cream more bookings off any groups small enough to cram into half size or quarter size ballroom spaces. They'd set off a half-size section for the merchandisers, and a quarter size for the art show.
If I remembered the map right, the rest of the ballroom was reserved for the organizers to do whatever convention organizers did.
I didn't need Sean's nose once we got close enough. The doors to the merchandise area stood wide open while people wheeled trolleys filled with... well, stuff. In the time it took me to get from the edge of the atrium to the wall, I saw books, comics, magazines, costumes, jewelry of the faux-occult persuasion, and even a few pieces that were actual occult, not wannabe. I hoped the sellers knew what they were doing with those.
The door to the art section was closed and ignored. I can't feel magic, but the way no-one noticed the art show door was so much like the way my fading worked it had to be magical. That's one in favor of my immunity to magic. It didn't balance the mess with the succubus at the last con I'd done.
I eased over to the plain door -- only the sign saying 'Art Show' distinguished it from any other door in this or any other hotel -- and leaned against it. People's eyes slid over me like I wasn't there. Beside me, Sean growled, low in his throat. He had the prickly, glazed look he got when he was close to a shift.
"Easy there, Wolfie." I've seen Sean in his wolf form, and there's no way anyone would think he was in costume. He's downright primeval, actually. People get nervous several rooms away. And if there's an attractive woman around, well... He could sit down with his tongue hanging out the way dogs do, and still commit sexual harassment on women three rooms away. I really hoped there weren’t any succubi here -- last time had been bad enough.
"'s'magic," he growled. This close to a shift, his speech slurred as his muscles and bones strained to break free from their human shapes. "Bad."
Just wonderful. I tried not to wonder what else could go wrong, in case I ended up finding out. Fact was, right now there wasn't a single way this could work out well for me or Sean. Even the weirdest fen had limits, and the likes of me and Sean were well beyond them.
The door wasn't physically locked: it opened as soon as I turned the handle. I slipped inside with Sean close behind me. The click it made when it swung closed seemed horribly loud in the hushed room.
Free-standing display boards made a kind of bizarre maze, cramping the room and making it seem much smaller than it actually was. It would be even worse when the art was up and fen crammed every inch of floor space. The smell of blood made my face ache.
The changed tone of Sean's growl told me he'd changed. I glanced his way, and sagged a little with relief to see his shirt and jeans in a crumpled pile on the floor. Better that than shredded by the very different shape of his body.
I trod delicately on plush carpet worn to a shapeless mat by untold thousands of feet. At the back of the room, hidden by the display board maze, I found the source of the blood smell.
She was female, young, and would probably have been pretty if her skin hadn't taken on the gray-blue of exsanguination. She lay on one of the tables reserved for sculptures and the like, sprawled out as though she slept. Her left arm hung down from the table, blood seeping from a cut that should not have drained her like that. There weren't any more injuries - her nakedness made that quite clear.
A black bowl on the carpet caught the drops, shimmering with unclean light. If that were not sign enough that someone was up to no good, the wall above where she lay had been daubed with a symbol even clueless humans could recognize as demonic in origin - a horned beast rising from flames. I didn't need vampire senses to know what had been used instead of ink.
A tiny shudder ran through the woman's body, reminding me that she wasn't dead - yet.
Something half-familiar jolted through me when I touched her, magic discharging around and through me. It didn't damage me, but the protection circle cast around the woman left a ring of scorched carpet.
Sean whined.
"Get your ass back into human shape," I told him. "She's alive."
I lifted the woman carefully, draping her left arm over her chest. I made sure I didn't disturb anything else, although I doubted the inevitable police swarm would find anything identifiable.
By the time I turned around, Sean was back in human form and dressed. I could see the after-echo of his wolf shape: evidence the shift wasn't entirely complete.
He opened the door for me, and bellowed out "Someone call 911!"
The spell blocking the art room cracked open with a sizzling sound and the smell of scorched meat. Like most of the more subtle spells, it couldn't take the scrutiny of several hundred people all turning to stare at Sean.
They stared at Sean. They gaped at me - or rather, at the naked girl in my arms.
One of the tee-shirted fen darted forward and offered a heavy cloak that really didn't work with the cutesy fairy on her shirt or her faded jeans. "I'm a registered nurse. Lie her down, and cover her with this. We need to warm her up."
I knelt, pretending I needed Sean's help to perform what would have been an awkward maneuver for a mortal. Once I could reach the floor, I laid the girl on the cloak, then helped the nurse-fen wrap her in it. "Thanks. All I know is I found her in there." I jerked my head in the direction of the art room. "Someone sliced her arm open."
Sean's bellow roared out again. "No-one goes in there until the cops get here!" I could feel the teeth in it. Just by sheer personality he pushed the gawpers back a few steps.
The nurse frowned. "And no way to guess what blood type she is. Damn."
I know about blood type, of course, but I could hardly tell the nurse that it was an academic question for me. Besides, whoever tried to kill the girl had done a pretty thorough job of it, and I didn't want to attract the attention of either the would-be killer or whatever nefarious forces the ritual had been intended to summon.
***
By the time cops and paramedics arrived, Sean and I were in the middle of a crowd of gawping con-goers. The nurse -- her name was Gina -- and I kept guard over the girl, while Sean had some of the hotel security people helping him keep the door clear.
The presence of uniformed, armed cops did what nothing else could do. The onlookers faded off to other things. I doubted any of them had anything to fear, but the whole science fiction scene is kind of weird that way. Paranoia is the norm, not the exception.
At least I could do the vampire mind thing and make sure they believed what I told them. Not that it was anything exotic -- everything except the reason Sean and I went into the art room was bare truth. If they checked out my credentials, they'd find it all matched up, too. I've been careful with that. Always make sure the paper trail matches your cover. Getting locked up on suspicion because your credentials don't match up can do really bad things to your quality of life.
All told, it was a relief when the cops left. For maybe five seconds.
Raph's voice behind me put an end to any happy thoughts I might have wanted to harbor. "Lil says you'll need help with this one."
I didn't groan. Yet. Instead, I turned around to face him. Presumably the succubus with him was 'Lil'. She oozed seduction, of course. The Star Trek costume helped -- the original series, with the tight-tight minidress that showed off her legs and other... assets. This was one Uhura who had probably done the entire crew several times over. Even Scotty would have inspected that engine.
Raph was done up as Spock, complete with pointy ears and strange eyebrows. It would be the only time in history that anything involving Leonard Nimoy actually looked sexy. And no, I don't swing that way, but I know hot when I see it. Raph sizzled.
It wasn't that he was an angel, either. Most angels I've met aren't earthy enough to be sexy. They're more ethereal. Raph... I guess he takes his undercover work seriously enough to project like an incubus, only he doesn't quite manage it. Typically your incubi and succubi project a kind of illicit sexiness. Raph gets the sex part, but it's kind of wholesome sexy, if that makes sense.
"Thanks." I might as well be polite -- I'd never figured out precisely where we made immortals fit in with the natural immortals, and it never hurt to be on good terms with representatives of the current management. Besides, Lil was right.
I nodded to the succubus. "Pleased to meet you, Lil."
She smiled, the kind of demure, almost shy smile that would have been ordinary from anyone else. From her, it was practically an invitation. "The pleasure is all mine."
Yes, she purred. Succubi do. It's part of what they are.
Raph slipped his right arm around her waist. "You promised you wouldn't go after the regulars, remember?"
Fat chance. Succubi and incubi are sex on legs. One of them thinking with their brain counted as a miracle in my book. "I'm immune." I shrugged. "You might want to tone it down around Sean, though. He goes wolf when he's aroused, and I'm not going to tweak the entire con because you couldn't control yourself." I had to do that last time, and it takes all the fun out of it.
Lil giggled. "I'll be good." She turned a sly look on Raph that got the expected reaction. "You're going to make it up to me Raphie darlin' right?"
That tight costume didn't leave any room for imagination. Raph was trying to make it up to her right then and there. I half expected the spandex to tear.
"Get a room." Sean's low growl crawled up my spine. There wasn't a hint of civilized in it. I hoped he was holding onto his human shape, because I really wasn't ready to deal with another convention fiasco.
Raph blinked, and his eagerness deflated. Some. "Um." He actually looked embarrassed. "Sorry."
Lil tried to simper in Sean's direction, and froze when he snarled. I got a glimpse of her true shape before she controlled herself: take away the hair and add wings, scales and a tail, and you've more or less got it.
Raph ignored her slip. "As far as I know, we're the only regulars here. I haven't come across any newcomers, either." He shrugged. "Nothing to suggest any of the mortals are dabbling with anything, either. All the interesting items in the dealer's room are well warded."
Pretty thorough, but then, that kind of thing is part of Raph's job. Neither side is all that keen on a war -- not what you'll hear from those who are supposed to know these things, but most of them are fooling themselves. The world's been pretty much neutral ground for years. Occasionally Someone will nudge, but for the most part it's just people doing what people do.
Depressing thought, really.
I turned my attention back to the more pressing issue. "Did either of you pick up anything from the... site?" I really didn't want to call that setup in the Art Room a sacrificial altar. Old superstition, I guess.
Lil nibbled on her lower lip. "I think it was supposed to be a gateway anchor." With her eyes downcast while she thought, she looked almost demure.
I've seen Raph's skin in circumstances I don't want to think about, and I've never seen him this pale. "You're sure about that?"
She nodded. "You big boys don't need them."
A few minutes ago I would have sworn a succubus couldn't say anything like that and not sound flirtatious. You learn something every day.
"Mortals use them, same as we lesser demons, if we want to bring in one of the big players."
Lovely. Major demons. Just freaking wonderful.
***
Kate
Since the last time I posted, work's gone through several feral phases, our old lady Miss Tia left us after a short but unpleasant kidney failure, and we've gained a new cat who rejoices in the name Little Bugger. (don't ask. All I'm saying on this is that my husband is never naming a pet again.) I will say he's doing his very best to live up - or down - to his name. Miss Shani's fluff is somewhat ruffled, but she's getting used to having the berserker farting kitten running around trying to play with her.
Miss Tia looking sweet - taken a month or two before we lost her.
Little Bugger in one of the few moments he's not actually berserker everywhere.
In other news Fate Fantastic is out, my story still reads pretty well, and I'm headed for WFC on Thursday. Still need to order a bunch of copies for Xmas gifts.
Meanwhile, I'm writing when I can. Waiting on a read of the Evile Elves from ye overloaded Sarah before it starts the rounds. Working on a truly warped piece involving a vampire, several demons, an under cover angel undercover with at least one succubus, the Undead Porn Club and the Eye of Argon. Chapters going up in Sarah's Diner over on Baen's Bar as I write them. I'm not really expecting anything from this, just having fun. Of course the various Tuckerizations and red-shirtings might disagree. When I do satire it tends to involve sarcasm piled on with a shovel, or possibly a bull-dozer.
And just as a teaser, the start of the weird stuff with the vampire and friends.
Another convention, another con hotel. After a while, they blur together into an indistinguishable mass of faux-elegance and bizarrely costumed fans. I usually go in what you could call Olde Worlde Vampire - three piece suit, John Lennon glasses, cane with a pewter wolf-head topper. Take Gary Oldman in that appalling Dracula movie, and you have the basic idea, except I wear black and my hair is darker. And short.
No-one's ever given me a second look. It suits me that way: I don't need people trying to find out more about me.
Even the smell's the same as usual, the flat, rolled out smell of years of smoke, disinfectant and inadequate hygiene recycled endlessly through the hotel air conditioning. No, not quite the same.
I frowned, tasting the air. The back of my neck prickled, hair rising as age-old instinct whispered to me of something wrong.
Blood.
Not the warm, fresh-meat smell of everyone around me: I'd grown used to that in the last few years. I'd even learned to live with the sour reek of what the SCA folk called 'period hygiene'.
This was the metallic tang of shed blood, old enough to have lost its warmth, but not so old that decay had begun. For me to notice it amidst the mingling faux-Klingons, other costumed exotica, and the unwashed tee-shirted crowds, someone somewhere nearby had lost a lot of blood. A fatal amount of blood.
Wonderful. Being a vampire was difficult enough, what with all the extra security added after September 11. Being a vampire at a convention where someone had recently - at minimum - tried to kill somebody... excuse the bad pun, but it sucked.
I sidled around a tall woman whose corset took what had undoubtedly been an impressive bosom and elevated it to a weapon of mass distraction. Her height put the weapon in question about level with my nose: it was a good thing my sunglasses made it impossible for her to guess whether I was trying to peer into the jiggling depths or not.
Actually, I was trying to look elsewhere. The reaction all that warm, moving flesh had on me wasn't the one she wanted, and this wasn't the time to take a nibble. I'd do that later, privately, with someone I could entice into inviting me to her room. Or his room. Nourishment was nourishment.
Once I'd successfully circumnavigated the corseted one, I had to ease my way past a man whose geisha costume and makeup was so perfect it was unnerving. If he had been short enough to pass for a real geisha, I might have wondered if he was actually female, although the lines of his face were definitely male. So was his voice -- a resonant bass that sounded quite odd from the rosebud lips.
The reedy baritone voice of the equally well-costumed Sailor Moon was just another layer of strangeness. There were times when I wondered if the devil himself would get anything more than a cursory glance, should he decide to visit one of these events.
I slipped between two clusters of fen, male and female overweight and pasty-faced, tacky tee shirts worn loose over faded jeans. According to my nose, perhaps half of them were familiar with the esoteric custom of regular bathing. For the oversized fen that was a low ranking: it was the skinny ones that were more likely to be hygiene-optional. The skinny ones were also more likely to smell of illegal substances.
The sharper senses of a vampire were not always to my advantage.
Another scent caught my attention once I was free of the crowd. Here, the air had the empty, endlessly recycled taste of hotel air, without the overwhelming eau de SF con. It also had, in addition to the tang of spilled blood, the distinctive musky overtones of a mature werewolf.
I looked around. Werekind usually loathed vampires, and with reason. We could create weres by some weird magical commingling of animal and human DNA, and we could command them. Of course they hated us.
"Hey, Hickey!"
With one exception. But then, I'm not your typical vampire, either. I turned to the shout, and waved to the speaker, a young-looking fellow with untidy blond hair. Naturally Sean was in human form, but he still carried enough of his true nature to affect the humans around him.
Sean and I get along just fine. He's not a typical werewolf, having chosen to run solo rather than join a pack. I don't do the vampire mind-games except what I need to keep myself fed and healthy. We often meet up at conventions and just have fun being in each other's company.
Oh, and my name isn't 'Hickey'. The silly wolf calls me that because he thinks I leave love-bites on my meals. The name he knows me by is Jim. It's not my real name -- I outgrew that years ago.
Sean's getting old enough that he's going to have to change his name soon. When you're going to look nineteen for eternity, it's an occupational hazard.
He ambled over to me, big grin plastered across his face. As usual, he was wearing jeans and a black tee shirt, both clean enough I could smell the soap. I could see the tension in his face despite the grin: like me, he would have smelled the blood.
"Do you know what caused it?" Typical Sean -- cut straight to the point without a hint of messing around with the usual niceties.
I shook my head. "Not a clue." Which neatly summed up the fen gathering in the hotel lobby, of course. "Have you seen any others around?" Sean and I weren't the only immortals to have realized cons made for good hunting grounds. I knew at least two demons who did the circuit, although I had yet to work out why they bothered when all the souls here were mortgaged to caffeine and alcohol. We immortal regulars had something of an agreement. We left each other alone, and didn't do anything that might incite a howling mob.
"Raph's around somewhere." Sean shrugged. "None of the others that I know of."
Wonderful. Raph, the world's most debauched angel. And yes, he is still an angel. Don't ask me how he gets away with it. I don't want to know. I will say he takes his official status as an undercover agent entirely too literally when it comes to covers, and being under them.
At least I could be certain he wasn't involved in the attempted killing. Murder wasn't Raph's style. "Do you know when it happened?"
Sean shook his head. "It's weird. There wasn't anything sudden. It just sort of drifted. I don't even know when I realized it was there." He scratched his chest, not quite distracted enough to let claws extend - which was just as well. When he was in human form, Sean went though tee shirts like he had an infinite supply.
I kept my face under careful control. I'd made science fiction cons my hunting ground because no matter how weird I was I could strip naked and dance on tables and not get more than a few invitations. That didn't mean I wanted to draw attention to myself. I worked by not being noticed unless I chose. Usually I only let my prey notice me, and then only long enough to take my little nibbles and leave them with the memory of some horizontal gymnastics with a good looking fellow whose face they could not quite remember.
So long as I didn't take the same person more than once or twice in a month, it worked.
Well, mostly. Whenever immortals discovered that cons could meet their needs without drawing unwanted attention, we regulars had to do some interesting negotiations to make sure no-one overstepped the boundaries.
I let my senses drift, seeking the source of the blood. "Stay close," I murmured. "I'm going to fade."
Sean moved closer to me, and I began to project the sense of 'nothing here'. It isn't exactly invisibility, more like everyone ignores me when I fade. Anyone or anything close enough fades right along with me.
Once I had the projection down, I nodded to Sean. He tilted his head back, sniffing as he turned a slow circle. His nose was sharper than mine, though with different priorities. He was more tuned to humans as prey, alive, dead or dying. I focused more on blood, particularly when it was still inside its owner.
After a while, he nodded decisively. "Near the dealer rooms."
"On my way." I ambled in the direction of the dealer rooms with Sean on my heels. There weren't too many mingling yet: most of the activity clustered around the registration tables. There'd be crowds later.
The dealer rooms were a ballroom with the partition walls they could use to cream more bookings off any groups small enough to cram into half size or quarter size ballroom spaces. They'd set off a half-size section for the merchandisers, and a quarter size for the art show.
If I remembered the map right, the rest of the ballroom was reserved for the organizers to do whatever convention organizers did.
I didn't need Sean's nose once we got close enough. The doors to the merchandise area stood wide open while people wheeled trolleys filled with... well, stuff. In the time it took me to get from the edge of the atrium to the wall, I saw books, comics, magazines, costumes, jewelry of the faux-occult persuasion, and even a few pieces that were actual occult, not wannabe. I hoped the sellers knew what they were doing with those.
The door to the art section was closed and ignored. I can't feel magic, but the way no-one noticed the art show door was so much like the way my fading worked it had to be magical. That's one in favor of my immunity to magic. It didn't balance the mess with the succubus at the last con I'd done.
I eased over to the plain door -- only the sign saying 'Art Show' distinguished it from any other door in this or any other hotel -- and leaned against it. People's eyes slid over me like I wasn't there. Beside me, Sean growled, low in his throat. He had the prickly, glazed look he got when he was close to a shift.
"Easy there, Wolfie." I've seen Sean in his wolf form, and there's no way anyone would think he was in costume. He's downright primeval, actually. People get nervous several rooms away. And if there's an attractive woman around, well... He could sit down with his tongue hanging out the way dogs do, and still commit sexual harassment on women three rooms away. I really hoped there weren’t any succubi here -- last time had been bad enough.
"'s'magic," he growled. This close to a shift, his speech slurred as his muscles and bones strained to break free from their human shapes. "Bad."
Just wonderful. I tried not to wonder what else could go wrong, in case I ended up finding out. Fact was, right now there wasn't a single way this could work out well for me or Sean. Even the weirdest fen had limits, and the likes of me and Sean were well beyond them.
The door wasn't physically locked: it opened as soon as I turned the handle. I slipped inside with Sean close behind me. The click it made when it swung closed seemed horribly loud in the hushed room.
Free-standing display boards made a kind of bizarre maze, cramping the room and making it seem much smaller than it actually was. It would be even worse when the art was up and fen crammed every inch of floor space. The smell of blood made my face ache.
The changed tone of Sean's growl told me he'd changed. I glanced his way, and sagged a little with relief to see his shirt and jeans in a crumpled pile on the floor. Better that than shredded by the very different shape of his body.
I trod delicately on plush carpet worn to a shapeless mat by untold thousands of feet. At the back of the room, hidden by the display board maze, I found the source of the blood smell.
She was female, young, and would probably have been pretty if her skin hadn't taken on the gray-blue of exsanguination. She lay on one of the tables reserved for sculptures and the like, sprawled out as though she slept. Her left arm hung down from the table, blood seeping from a cut that should not have drained her like that. There weren't any more injuries - her nakedness made that quite clear.
A black bowl on the carpet caught the drops, shimmering with unclean light. If that were not sign enough that someone was up to no good, the wall above where she lay had been daubed with a symbol even clueless humans could recognize as demonic in origin - a horned beast rising from flames. I didn't need vampire senses to know what had been used instead of ink.
A tiny shudder ran through the woman's body, reminding me that she wasn't dead - yet.
Something half-familiar jolted through me when I touched her, magic discharging around and through me. It didn't damage me, but the protection circle cast around the woman left a ring of scorched carpet.
Sean whined.
"Get your ass back into human shape," I told him. "She's alive."
I lifted the woman carefully, draping her left arm over her chest. I made sure I didn't disturb anything else, although I doubted the inevitable police swarm would find anything identifiable.
By the time I turned around, Sean was back in human form and dressed. I could see the after-echo of his wolf shape: evidence the shift wasn't entirely complete.
He opened the door for me, and bellowed out "Someone call 911!"
The spell blocking the art room cracked open with a sizzling sound and the smell of scorched meat. Like most of the more subtle spells, it couldn't take the scrutiny of several hundred people all turning to stare at Sean.
They stared at Sean. They gaped at me - or rather, at the naked girl in my arms.
One of the tee-shirted fen darted forward and offered a heavy cloak that really didn't work with the cutesy fairy on her shirt or her faded jeans. "I'm a registered nurse. Lie her down, and cover her with this. We need to warm her up."
I knelt, pretending I needed Sean's help to perform what would have been an awkward maneuver for a mortal. Once I could reach the floor, I laid the girl on the cloak, then helped the nurse-fen wrap her in it. "Thanks. All I know is I found her in there." I jerked my head in the direction of the art room. "Someone sliced her arm open."
Sean's bellow roared out again. "No-one goes in there until the cops get here!" I could feel the teeth in it. Just by sheer personality he pushed the gawpers back a few steps.
The nurse frowned. "And no way to guess what blood type she is. Damn."
I know about blood type, of course, but I could hardly tell the nurse that it was an academic question for me. Besides, whoever tried to kill the girl had done a pretty thorough job of it, and I didn't want to attract the attention of either the would-be killer or whatever nefarious forces the ritual had been intended to summon.
***
By the time cops and paramedics arrived, Sean and I were in the middle of a crowd of gawping con-goers. The nurse -- her name was Gina -- and I kept guard over the girl, while Sean had some of the hotel security people helping him keep the door clear.
The presence of uniformed, armed cops did what nothing else could do. The onlookers faded off to other things. I doubted any of them had anything to fear, but the whole science fiction scene is kind of weird that way. Paranoia is the norm, not the exception.
At least I could do the vampire mind thing and make sure they believed what I told them. Not that it was anything exotic -- everything except the reason Sean and I went into the art room was bare truth. If they checked out my credentials, they'd find it all matched up, too. I've been careful with that. Always make sure the paper trail matches your cover. Getting locked up on suspicion because your credentials don't match up can do really bad things to your quality of life.
All told, it was a relief when the cops left. For maybe five seconds.
Raph's voice behind me put an end to any happy thoughts I might have wanted to harbor. "Lil says you'll need help with this one."
I didn't groan. Yet. Instead, I turned around to face him. Presumably the succubus with him was 'Lil'. She oozed seduction, of course. The Star Trek costume helped -- the original series, with the tight-tight minidress that showed off her legs and other... assets. This was one Uhura who had probably done the entire crew several times over. Even Scotty would have inspected that engine.
Raph was done up as Spock, complete with pointy ears and strange eyebrows. It would be the only time in history that anything involving Leonard Nimoy actually looked sexy. And no, I don't swing that way, but I know hot when I see it. Raph sizzled.
It wasn't that he was an angel, either. Most angels I've met aren't earthy enough to be sexy. They're more ethereal. Raph... I guess he takes his undercover work seriously enough to project like an incubus, only he doesn't quite manage it. Typically your incubi and succubi project a kind of illicit sexiness. Raph gets the sex part, but it's kind of wholesome sexy, if that makes sense.
"Thanks." I might as well be polite -- I'd never figured out precisely where we made immortals fit in with the natural immortals, and it never hurt to be on good terms with representatives of the current management. Besides, Lil was right.
I nodded to the succubus. "Pleased to meet you, Lil."
She smiled, the kind of demure, almost shy smile that would have been ordinary from anyone else. From her, it was practically an invitation. "The pleasure is all mine."
Yes, she purred. Succubi do. It's part of what they are.
Raph slipped his right arm around her waist. "You promised you wouldn't go after the regulars, remember?"
Fat chance. Succubi and incubi are sex on legs. One of them thinking with their brain counted as a miracle in my book. "I'm immune." I shrugged. "You might want to tone it down around Sean, though. He goes wolf when he's aroused, and I'm not going to tweak the entire con because you couldn't control yourself." I had to do that last time, and it takes all the fun out of it.
Lil giggled. "I'll be good." She turned a sly look on Raph that got the expected reaction. "You're going to make it up to me Raphie darlin' right?"
That tight costume didn't leave any room for imagination. Raph was trying to make it up to her right then and there. I half expected the spandex to tear.
"Get a room." Sean's low growl crawled up my spine. There wasn't a hint of civilized in it. I hoped he was holding onto his human shape, because I really wasn't ready to deal with another convention fiasco.
Raph blinked, and his eagerness deflated. Some. "Um." He actually looked embarrassed. "Sorry."
Lil tried to simper in Sean's direction, and froze when he snarled. I got a glimpse of her true shape before she controlled herself: take away the hair and add wings, scales and a tail, and you've more or less got it.
Raph ignored her slip. "As far as I know, we're the only regulars here. I haven't come across any newcomers, either." He shrugged. "Nothing to suggest any of the mortals are dabbling with anything, either. All the interesting items in the dealer's room are well warded."
Pretty thorough, but then, that kind of thing is part of Raph's job. Neither side is all that keen on a war -- not what you'll hear from those who are supposed to know these things, but most of them are fooling themselves. The world's been pretty much neutral ground for years. Occasionally Someone will nudge, but for the most part it's just people doing what people do.
Depressing thought, really.
I turned my attention back to the more pressing issue. "Did either of you pick up anything from the... site?" I really didn't want to call that setup in the Art Room a sacrificial altar. Old superstition, I guess.
Lil nibbled on her lower lip. "I think it was supposed to be a gateway anchor." With her eyes downcast while she thought, she looked almost demure.
I've seen Raph's skin in circumstances I don't want to think about, and I've never seen him this pale. "You're sure about that?"
She nodded. "You big boys don't need them."
A few minutes ago I would have sworn a succubus couldn't say anything like that and not sound flirtatious. You learn something every day.
"Mortals use them, same as we lesser demons, if we want to bring in one of the big players."
Lovely. Major demons. Just freaking wonderful.
***
Kate