Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,50

that had never been done before, or even attempted, because they mostly hated each other. Fortunately, they hated the gods more. But they still needed to govern their own territories, something that war-related issues might have interfered with.

So they’d decided to have some of their senior members become part of a new governing body to deal exclusively with the conflict. Mircea, for instance, used to be the consul’s go-to diplomat, but was now her general. His official title was Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate, because Enforcer was the senatorial position that did a consul’s dirty work—but in wartime, it amounted to the same thing.

Of course, he’d needed a new staff to help with all the extra responsibilities, hence Batman and a couple hundred others. And so did everybody else who’d snagged a seat. Our senate had expected that, and had somehow figured out places to stow them all when they weren’t working.

What they hadn’t expected was everyone else who kept turning up.

There were senate members from foreign courts who were not on the new body, but who had finagled positions assisting those who were. There were functionaries out the wazoo, because everybody seemed to need a phalanx of aides for everything from taking notes to running back and forth with trays of booze, because the new arrivals drank like fish, from what I’d heard. Then there was the army, with troops pouring in from all over, accompanied by commanders who seemed more worried about the style of their armor than the discipline of their men. And finally, there were the hangers-on, vampires itching to move up the usually rigid hierarchy and seeing the war as an opportunity.

The result was thousands of vamps showing up all the time, and while the majority were not being housed here or even let in the door, there were plenty of sufficient rank that somewhere had to be found for them. I’d heard that from my bodyguards, who’d heard it from others in the family who’d been assigned here. Vampires gossiped like magpies, being constantly in each other’s heads, and nothing stayed secret for long.

Yet I hadn’t heard about this.

Caedmon and I swanned down the huge corridor, and I decided that I’d been wrong. It was longer than a football field. Above our heads, the ceiling arched high enough that I was surprised I didn’t see clouds floating around, and was inset with panels of what looked like hammered gold. They covered the interior of the arch, while more gold coated the finials on huge marble columns supporting the roof. Even more gold covered what looked like massive picture frames on the walls between the columns, inside of which was—

What the hell?

I stopped dead in front of the nearest one.

There was a mural on the wall inside the frame, giving it the look of a gigantic painting. It wasn’t completed; a third of the space was still smooth white plaster with a few pale sketch marks on it. But what it did show—

“That’s not how it happened!” I said. The painter looked down from his ladder—a vamp, despite it being the middle of the day, so not low-ranking. Still, he got down swiftly and bowed to Caedmon. But he was looking at me, and seemed concerned by what I’d said.

“I was instructed to show the grandeur of battle—”

“Grandeur?” I stared at him. “There was no grandeur! It was mud and blood and fear and—”

I stopped, because I got hit with a flashback hard enough to stagger me. For a second, I was back in that hell of butchered men and dying horses. Thunder boomed in my ears, loud as cannon fire; lightning flashed overhead like nuclear blasts; rain hit me in the face, all but blinding me; while blood and panicked sweat and the metallic taste of spent magic clogged my throat, threatening to choke me.

The little scene cut out as abruptly as it had come, leaving me clinging to Caedmon, who had put a hand under my arm, and staring instead at the heroic scene on the wall, which showed the final battle with Ares. The one I’d been refighting in my head ever since it happened. Only, no, that was what it should have shown. But what the artist had actually painted was . . . it was . . .

I didn’t have words, but it felt like a violation.

A golden warrior—Caedmon, I guessed, since he was glowing like a lantern—stood on a hill, lightning wreathing his head and a staff