“It’s true,” I said. “I was just informed, by a reputable source, that forcible possessions are rarely successful, and often do more harm than good—to both parties. If you’re not on board with this, you won’t be of any use.”
More of them were looking at each other, and at their masters, but nobody got up. Probably being told mentally to stay put. The senate always thought it could order anyone to do anything, and most of the time it was right. But not this time.
I looked over my shoulder. “Was I told wrong?” I asked Adra.
“Oh no,” he said. “A perfect possession, I’ve always thought, is rather like a marriage. It requires commitment in order to work. From both parties.”
“Then you see the situation,” I said, turning back to the vamps. “No one can make you do this—not your masters, not even you. If you were to try, but not be able to fully commit, it still wouldn’t work. So, yes. If you don’t want to be here, you can go.”
Some of the former guinea pigs were maintaining the proper blank face of a vamp talking to a human, but a lot more were showing serious signs of relief. Several were openly grinning, and the fat little chef in the back row was all but vibrating. A black girl at the end of the first row jumped to her feet, with a toss of her braids and a defiant look at somebody behind me.
She would almost certainly pay for that later, but she didn’t look like she cared much.
“However, I’d like to ask you one question first, if I could,” I said, and saw her scowl. But at least she didn’t take off. “Do any of you know Casanova—Dante’s general manager?”
Looks were exchanged, and several hands were raised.
“Those of you who don’t can ask the others. I’d like those of you who’ve met him to let this sink in for a moment: Casanova is a third-level master.”
Nobody said anything, but several of them blinked.
Yeah, they knew him.
“Let me repeat that,” I said. “Third. Level. Casanova, the guy with the world’s largest cuff link collection. Casanova, who has his cologne made especially for him in Italy, because he says American scents break him out. Casanova, who once took an entire afternoon off because he accidently drank cut-rate champagne. Casanova, who is almost sure that he dated Marilyn Monroe once, only it was actually a transvestite hooker named Carl and nobody has the heart to tell him. Casanova, who by all rights should never have even made master, but who made it faster than many who eventually go on to become first level. And do you know how?”
“He belongs to Lord Mircea,” a dark-skinned vamp in the front row said, looking envious. I wondered who his master was. Somebody who wasn’t a senator, probably.
“Now, yes,” I agreed. “But it’s recent. He had a guy named Fat Tony for a master originally. Mircea made Tony—it’s true—but you know grandfathered power doesn’t always trickle down. Anyone else?”
“He came from a large family.” That was a woman with hair curlier than mine, almost a blond Afro.
“Good guess; the larger the better, more power circulating around for everyone to share—unless your master is known as Fat Tony partly because he doesn’t like to share. And Casanova’s own crew is about normal-sized. Most of them work security at Dante’s.”
An Asian vamp, one without the tiger tat, raised his hand. “He has a demon. No, it’s true—” he said as several others made noises.
“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. He has a demon. Her name is Rian. Oh yes, they come in female versions,” I said as several of the guys’ eyes widened. “And she’s quite something. She picked him up when he was so new, so green, so fresh-out-of-the-grave confused, that he didn’t know that vampires don’t do possessions. He had no idea. And she was hot, and she told him she could teach him things—”
“I bet,” one of the guys said, until his neighbor elbowed him.
But I smiled. It was good to see a few of them not looking so traumatized anymore. I’d had enough traumatized vamps to last me all day. And it wasn’t like they actually had anything to worry about. Adra wanted this to work; he wouldn’t have brought anybody he wasn’t sure of.
“She did,” I told the guy, who was a Latin lover type himself. “She took a poor farm boy, with no relatives, no connections, not even a decent master, and made him a star. She also did something else, because—did they mention this? Did they tell you?”
“Tell us what?” the Casanova clone asked.
“That when a demon possesses a body, part of its power leaks to that body. I mean, that’s the whole point, right? From your masters’ perspective? That you suddenly become supervamp?
“Well, I saw it happen. Just a few days ago. Casanova got himself into the duel of all duels, and as he’ll tell you himself, he’s a lover, not a fighter. No way was he walking out of there. But then Rian possessed him, and all of a sudden, not only did he win, but he walked away with it. But because of her power, her knowledge, not his—”
“And when they leave?” the black girl who had been first to her feet asked. She was standing to the side of the bleachers, arms crossed, looking far from sold. “Then we’re right back where we started!”
“Are you? Casanova wasn’t. Now, it’s true, nothing happened overnight; he’s almost four hundred years old. But then, he didn’t become a master yesterday, either. And his demon—well, I don’t want to hurt any feelings, but incubi aren’t known to be the strongest demons around, and Rian wasn’t even the strongest incubus, or succubus, in her case.”
The girl frowned, as if this was news to her. “So you’re saying her power leaked . . . and stayed?”
“I’m saying that every time she got a hit, he did, too. They share a body—or they did; she’s gotten powerful enough to make her own now. But while she was in-house, he picked up some of the power she was generating. And over time, it accumulates. Of course, if you have more demons involved, or if they’re stronger, or if they’re using a lot more power than it takes to seduce somebody . . . say, like in a war . . . well, the person in question might not have to wait so long.”
“You’re saying we could be masters,” she said sharply, coming half a step toward me. “Is that it?”