“I’m not a vamp anymore—”
“Jules!”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry.”
“Tell him.”
“It’s—that probably wasn’t true,” he said to the terrified vamp. “It was just a story I heard. And I thought it sounded unlikely—”
“See?” I asked the vamp.
“—cutting it out and sending it to his next of kin is really much more her style—”
“Jules!”
“—but it doesn’t hurt to advertise, just in case anybody else has the same idea. So that was the story they put around. See? Nothing to worry about.” Jules clapped him on the back.
The vamp looked tragically at both of us, like meeting us had been the worst thing that had ever happened to him, including death. But at least the noise had stopped. And a moment later, we started to move again.
I turned my attention back to Jules. “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why was Anthony not named Enforcer instead? I know he’s a consul—”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. Most of the choice seats in the combined senate will go to consuls. You think they’re going to let their own subjects decide policy that they have to follow?”
“So, what’s the problem?”
Jules shrugged. “Everybody hates him? He’s had two thousand years to make enemies. From what I hear, he’s done a good job.”
“And nobody hates Mircea?”
“I wouldn’t say nobody; you know how vamps are,” said the guy who had been one a week ago. “But he’s got more friends than the reverse, which is kind of unusual. And even more people think he’s sort of trustworthy.”
“Trustworthy?” I didn’t think vamps knew that term.
Jules smiled. “Meaning he’s slightly less likely than the next guy to screw their forces over, to give his senate an advantage once the war ends.”
“Trust vampires to think of that now,” I muttered.
“You have to look ahead. Everyone else will.”
“That still doesn’t explain why he had to agree. He’s done enough for the alliance!”
Mircea was the consul’s chief adviser and go-to ambassador. The one people had started calling a miracle worker after he successfully achieved a union—if only for the war—of the six vampire senates. No other vamp alive would have even tried that, and he’d pulled it off. And this was the thanks he got?
“I’m not sure it was exactly a choice,” Jules said dryly.
“Mircea isn’t a baby vamp! He’s a senator who has put his life on the line more than once. He could say no if he felt like it—”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Simple or not, it’s better than dying!”
“Turn in here,” Jules said abruptly, pulling on my ride. And redirecting us into a small alcove with a phone.
“Silence spell,” he said, gesturing around. “On the outside. Which doesn’t mean the phone’s not tapped, but we’re not using it.”
“So why are we in here?”
“So I can tell you to shut up?”