“But then who would rescue him?” Jules pointed out.
I nodded. “Don kept telling him he was getting there, he was getting there . . . and he did. Just a little too late.”
Rosier scowled. “This . . . complicates things.”
“Complicates what?”
“The invasion, of course!”
I stopped chewing. “What invasion?”
“What do you mean, what invasion? We’re going to have to invade, aren’t we?”
“Invade . . . what?”
“Invade—” He looked at me incredulously. “Has no one discussed this with you?”
I felt my face flush. There was a chance someone had avoided discussing it with me. “No. What are we invading?”
“Where is the support base for those trying to bring back the gods?” he demanded. “That Antonio of yours and the other vampires he’s allied with, the damn Black Circle, your rogue acolytes, and who knows who else? Where have they all been hiding?”
“Faerie.”
Son of a bitch.
“The senate is still planning to invade,” I said, because of course they were.
“Well, of course they are,” Rosier said. “No one wins a war by staying on the defensive. We have to take the fight to them!”
I glanced at the line of vamps. “And you think vampires are going to be . . . helpful?”
“Not helpful—key.” He suddenly became animated. “A demon or a mage suffers an immediate and significant power loss in Faerie, just as the fey do in ours. But vampires don’t. An army of them could give the fey something to worry about!”
“Maybe,” I said, having heard this argument before. “But even if you’re right, there aren’t that many masters. And anybody below that isn’t going to do you a lot of good in Faerie. And speaking of masters, the other side has them, too.”
“But the other side doesn’t have demons.”
“But demons can’t go into Faerie.”
“Who said we can’t?”
“You just did—”
“I said our power is limited there, which it is, although we could still raise hell in sufficient numbers. But what if we could go into Faerie . . . without going into Faerie?”
Jules and I exchanged a look.
“Think about it,” Rosier said. “Vampires are magical beings, but they don’t use magic—th
ey don’t sling spells or what have you. They simply are, and what they are is supported by the life energy they absorb from others. Feed them enough, and they just keep going. Like Energizer Bunnies. Energizer Bunny tanks. Energizer Bunny tanks full of demons.”
“Oh my God,” Jules said.
“What?” I asked, pretty sure I’d heard wrong.
But Rosier was nodding enthusiastically. “The idea is to have your vampires serve as housing for some of our stronger demons. Load them up, send them in, and just plow the enemy down. And end this, once and for all!”
I looked at him. His face was flushed, his eyes were shining; he looked like a guy who’d just seen God. Or, since it was Rosier, like a guy who was really, really high. Which was also what he sounded like.