with something a little more conservative. I wore a sleek calf-length black dress with a low-cut back. My tiger’s iron pendant, a gift from my grandmere, rested between my breasts, the gold streak in the middle glowing in the dim underground light.
Grandmere had told me the necklace warded against evil. Frankly, I was willing to take protection wherever I could get it.
I fidgeted outside the door to the great hall, some twenty-five feet under the streets of New York City. Behind me, Brigit was toying with the hem of her crimson red ’50s-style party dress. She looked unassuming, but the deep red color set off her pale skin and hair, making her seem a little dangerous.
A month earlier I’d petitioned the other two members of the Tribunal to allow Brigit full warden status. She’d been a vampire for a year and was successfully living on her own, feeding from humans without risking the sanctity of vampires everywhere. She was, as far as I was concerned, more than ready to become a contributing member of the council.
Sig, the leader of the Tribunal, had agreed. He had been the one to assign Brigit to me in the first place, so I think it pleased him to see me taking interest in her status. Juan Carlos, on the other hand, shot the idea down immediately.
“She’s too young,” he’d insisted.
“She’s been a vampire for a year,” I argued.
“And that blink of the eye should matter to us? She is a child.”
“But she has proven herself time and again. She’s ready.”
“It will be for the council to decide.”
Without a unanimous agreement from the Tribunal, it would have to be up to the council of vampire elders to settle Brigit’s fate as a warden. And since I had been the one to petition for her, it was up to me to present her to the elders.
And the elders waited for no one. Not even a Tribunal leader with a bullet hole in her shoulder that was barely closed over.
“You ready for this?” I asked Brigit.
“Do you think they’ll make me do anything?”
I looked over my shoulder at her. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Feats of strength? Skill-testing questions?”
“It’s not a Festivus party, Bri. I don’t think they’ll make you fight to the death or anything. I’d like to think we’re a little more advanced as a society than that.”
At the words fight to the death her already pale skin went positively ashen. “Are you sure?”
Before I could answer, the big double doors in front of us swung open.
“Good afternoon, Tribunal Leader Secret,” a warden greeted us, bowing his head to me in a show of respect, then gave a polite nod to Brigit since he outranked her. “The council of elders is ready for you.”
“Thank you.” I rotated my shoulder. A hand of aching pain pushed back from inside, protesting the movement. The pain would have to shut up sooner or later because I didn’t like being anything other than one hundred percent. Right now I was at seventy-five percent, if that. I didn’t look back at Brigit because I couldn’t be seen to depend on her. It would be a sign of weakness. “Ready?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Chin up.” I smiled at the warden, but my words were all for my ward. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Brigit sighed. “I really wish you hadn’t said it like that.”
The warden stepped out of the way, letting us see into the council chamber for the first time. I’d only been here a handful of times before, in spite of technically being responsible for all the members within the room. The thing I liked about the council of elders was they tended to mind their own business and rely on the Tribunal only when necessary.
The thing I hated about the council was how I didn’t know enough about what went on behind their closed doors, and I didn’t think twelve vampires over the age of six hundred should be allowed that much privacy.
It was something I’d learned from Lucas—give a dog too much leash and he won’t appreciate the illusion of freedom. He’ll just find a way to strangle you with it.
Located above the Tribunal chambers but still well below street level, the council room was significantly larger than the one Sig, Juan Carlos and I called home. Instead of three raised thrones, though, the council elders sat in low, armless wooden chairs in a half-circle, with an empty space of hard-packed dirt in the middle of