"Why aren't there other vampires here?" I asked. "He doesn't have all the seethes under his control, right? Aren't any of the other powerful vampires trying to stop him? Why are you and Hao the only ones here?"
"Vampires do not work well together - any more than Alphas work well together. And the Masters who are farther east feel Frost is at the limits of what he can control. An illusion Frost has done his best to foster," Hao answered me.
"And most of them think that Frost's desire to bring out the vampires and allow them to feed where they will is the best idea they've ever heard," said Marsilia. "Stupid. I hate stupid people."
"You don't seem to be in a hurry to plan anything for the fight," said Asil. "And you have two minutes left."
Marsilia looked at him - and for a moment I saw lust in her face again.
Hao bowed to Asil. "Marsilia and I have spoken about this much so our plans are already laid. She will take on Frost. I will take both Wulfe and Shamus. Ms. Hauptman's job is to keep Frost from bespelling either of us. It may be that Frost will be so busy that he has no time for tricks and your ... Alpha's mate can sit on the sidelines and cheer."
I was going to have to come up with a rank for myself besides Alpha's mate. In the pack, I was just Mercy - but if ten more people called me the Alpha's mate, I was going to hit someone. It sounded like a chess move.
"More likely, he has tricks up his sleeves," said Marsilia. "He knew coming to this that he had failed to kill Mercy."
"He has a bunch of ghosts trapped here," I told her. And I remembered Peter brushing Honey's hair. Ghosts who could manipulate the physical world were few and far between. "They could be a problem."
"Ghosts are not problems," said Marsilia dismissively. "They moan and scare silly people."
"Ghosts who can throw rocks and debris are a problem," I told her. "And there's that dead but still-moving-just-fine fae assassin, too. If he animated her, it was because he had a job for her to do. If she is a real zombie, then my understanding of the rules says he can call her to fight with him. Zombies aren't living creatures, they are animated dead with no willpower or thoughts of their own. A zombie would come under the heading of his 'power' right?"
"You take care of the ghosts, then," said Marsilia. "And keep him from trying to control us. We will do the fighting."
Hao smiled and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. I'd been wrong. He did smile when he was happy.
"This should be an interesting fight," he said.
When the fight started, I was about fifteen feet behind the two vampires on my side with orders to stay as far away from the action as possible. My knee hurt, my cheekbone throbbed - and I was as scared as I've ever been.