“I’m not promising anything. I’m telling you how it works. Some people have the drive, the determination, the—” I stopped, because conversation had burst out everywhere. Most of the vamps didn’t appear to be from the same families, and so couldn’t communicate mentally with each other, at least not yet. That was another master’s perk, one they had probably wondered if they’d ever see.
And which they were currently making up for with shouting.
“Shut up!” she told them, and for a wonder, they did. She looked back at me, expression fierce. But her voice was surprisingly polite when she said, “Please continue.”
“Um, I was just saying that there’s no guarantees. Part of what makes up a master is power, sure, but the rest?” I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Some can hold on to the power that comes their way; some can’t. But what this gives you,” I told her—and the rest of them, since most of them were staring at me now—“is the chance to find out.”
“And what if we find out we’re not?” a tall, thin guy asked, out of a face that was mostly nose. “Cut out for it, I mean?”
I shrugged. “Then you’re not. Some enjoy a life of service—” There was a burst of derisive sounds from different parts of the crowd, but the thin guy wasn’t one of them. “—and there’s nothing wrong with that,” I added. “Those who feel that way probably shouldn’t go. And let’s be clear: not everybody who goes will return a master. It took Casanova two hundred years to hit that mark, even with Rian’s help—”
“But we could shave off time. We could shave off a lot of time!” That was Latin Lover again, looking a lot less loverlike and a lot more martial suddenly.
“You could,” I agreed. “Some of you might even go all the way; others might speed up the process for themselves considerably. But some might get very little out of it, unable to hold on to the power that becomes available. And some . . . will die.”
The crowd was suddenly quiet again. It looked like all this was new to them, like nobody had talked to them at all. And they probably hadn’t. They’d been ordered here by their masters like so many guinea pigs, with no chance to say no, with no chance to say anything. Because who gave them a voice?
“I’ve seen something of what the fey can do in battle,” I said. “The demons give us an advantage: the fey don’t know them like they do us, can’t predict them as well. But it’s not going to be an easy fight. Whatever power you get, you’ll earn. But . . .”
I stopped for a moment, trying to find the right words. I hadn’t expected to do this, hadn’t come prepared. But I wasn’t sure it mattered. They didn’t need a pretty speech; they needed the truth.
And they deserved it.
“We’re not doing this for the usual reasons,” I said. “We’re not going in for power or wealth or . . . or any advantage at all. We’re doing this because, if we don’t, we’re not going to have to worry about who’s master and who’s not. I’ve seen the creatures we’re fighting, and they don’t care if you’re a baby or a master or a senator. It’s all the same to them. They hate us equally and they will kill us equally, unless we find a way to fight them. That’s what we’re doing today. That’s why we’re here.
“And we could really use your help.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Good speech,” Jules said, when I rejoined him.
“But did it work?”
“I think you convinced some of them.” He looked over my head at the vamps, who had burst into conversation as soon as I left. “You were doing better till you got on the whole death thing.”
“If the gods return, it’s not going to matter if we’re here or in Faerie. They have to know that.”
He looked down at me, blue eyes rueful. “Unfortunately, that’s the thing about imminent demise. People tend not to take it seriously until it’s, you know, imminent.”
I nodded, because he was right, and then had to stop to stifle a huge yawn.
He eyed me. “You look like you could use some caffeine.”
“Is there coffee?” I asked hopefully, trying to see what the tables being used as a bar had going on.
“No such luck. There’s a Coke machine, though, at the end of the hall.” He nodded at the door.
“The consul has a Coke machine?”
“We human types get thirsty.”
“And she makes you pay for your own?”
He laughed. “You know it. Got a preference?”
I shook my head. “Anything’s fine.”
He left and I made my way back to Adra, who had found himself a perch in the stands to watch vamps and masters have it out. It seemed like the demons had bothered to give Possession 101, after all; it just hadn’t been communicated. It was being communicated now, and the result was . . . really weird.