mouth full of pizza; and with my jaw swollen to chipmunk size from a tooth extraction.
I'd hated them at first, hated waking up every day to grotesque versions of myself that I'd started to see reflected in the mirror whenever I looked too long. But I hadn't dared to take down Alphonse's offerings, which soon circled the room and started on another row. And, slowly, as my collection grew, I began to change my mind.
Alphonse's favorite model was his girlfriend, a buxom blonde with arms as thickly muscled as a man's, known as One-Eyed Sal. Her appearance lived up to her nickname, with the scar that ran through her left eye slanting down her cheek to just lift the corner of her mouth. She'd lost the eye in the California gold rush to another saloon girl who knew how to wield a broken bottle better than she did. Shortly thereafter, Tony had decided to add her to his stable. Body parts lost before the change don't regenerate, so Sal was one-eyed permanently. Alphonse didn't seem to mind, though, and her lopsided smile and scarred face featured prominently in his collection.
I'd been staring at his most recent shot of me one day, my eyes passing from my acne-covered cheeks and chin, which Alphonse had enhanced with a red filter to resemble a landscape on Mars, to a photo of Tony sprawled on his throne, looking even more bloated than usual. I'd barely even noticed Sal's newest photo in the middle, despite the fact that the lens had lingered lovingly on her scars. Between the two of us, she'd looked perfectly normal. Through Alphonse's lens, I'd realized, everyone was ugly; or maybe, through his lens, everyone was beautiful.
I still found it confusing, but I'd never looked at my photos quite the same way again. I'd even started to think that, compared to the frilly, posed shots my governess preferred, some of them were actually kind of interesting. Alphonse might be a murdering bastard, but unlike a certain war mage I could name, he occasionally made sense. And I was really getting tired of dealing with people I didn't understand.
I'd spent the last few weeks wandering around Pritkin's world, where I was supposed to belong, feeling like someone visiting a foreign country who only halfway spoke the language. Most of the time, I had no freaking clue what was going on, and once or twice I'd reached a state of confusion so severe that it felt like it might be causing brain damage. I couldn't win the game—hell, I couldn't even play—when I didn't understand the rules. I needed to level the playing field. I needed the vamps.
"Alphonse might be a first-class badass, but he isn't a first-level master," I reminded Rafe. "If Mircea dies, he'll be in the same boat with you, forced to fight for position within whatever family absorbs him."
"He needn't worry. There are many who would gladly add his…special talents…to their arsenal."
"Yeah, but how many do you think would be willing to make him their second?" Alphonse might carve out a niche for himself sooner or later, but no way was he going to end up second in command again. Not for centuries, maybe not ever. And I didn't think that would sit too well with the vamp I'd known.
"The Consul has forbidden anyone to help you," Rafe reminded me.
"Alphonse isn't so great at following orders," I reminded him right back. "I think he'll risk it." If I'd been giving odds, I'd have put them at ten to one at least. I was his best chance to hold on to his current position, which made me his new best friend. No matter what the Consul said. "I need Alphonse and a team of his craziest thugs. Can you get him?"
"I can contact him," Rafe reluctantly admitted. "But even if he agrees, I don't know if any of this will be soon enough."
"Soon enough for what?" I asked impatiently. "I know where the Codex is, Rafe. I just need help to get to it!"
"Yes, but Mircea…he's getting worse. And if he loses his faculties, will the counterspell reverse the damage? Or will he be left that way permanently?" Despite our position, which was a little too close to the ovens for comfort, he shivered.
I sat back in my chair, feeling dizzy. I'd assumed that once I had the spell, everything would go back to normal. But what if it didn't? And with the Senate in the middle of a war,