again. Outwardly, anyway. I was pretty sure my stomach was still somewhere in the region of my knees.
Once that was done, he held out his hand. It took a long moment for me to realize he meant to help me up. I hesitated at the idea of putting my hand in his, and worse yet, it was noticeable. He actually smiled, amused rather than annoyed.
“I don’t bite without permission, Ms. Waynest. Or did you want to stay and chat?”
Oh no. No, no, no. I shook my head vehemently, probably too much so, taking his hand and rising quickly to my feet with little help on his part. He probably felt me shaking despite how brief the contact was. I certainly felt how cool his flesh was; it made my skin crawl.
“Do you need me to see you out?”
After swallowing my heart, I managed a few words. “No, I can find my way.” I hesitated again. What I said next felt like the equivalent of forcing ground glass out from behind my teeth. “Thank you, Mr. Royce. I’ll be in touch.”
I got a glimpse of fang as he grinned again before he turned away and moved toward the windows overlooking the river. He clasped his hands behind his back, his words seeming distant through my haze of fear. “The pleasure was all mine, Ms. Waynest. I’m sure we’ll speak again soon. Good night.”
Chapter 6
When I got home, all I wanted to do was collapse in bed. I had the shakes in the car all the way across the river. I still had them when I shoved the key in the lock after the third try. Even after I turned on every light and snapped every lock and deadbolt in the apartment, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
What the hell was it about vamps that scared me so much? They’d come out of the closet, so to speak, along with the rest of the supernatural community shortly after 9/11. It was pretty creepy for most people to find out they’d been doing lunch with an elf in the next cube for the last few years and that a Were had been giving them their manicures. That the janitor was a vamp flunky. The plumber was a warlock. That the state representative they voted for was a mage and the one they didn’t was a Were. The initial panic that hit most people settled down when a handful of prominent celebrities, businesspeople, and even some government officials all came forward to let the world know they had supernatural origins.
Actually, that kind of explains a lot.
Anyway, it was common knowledge now that vamps, along with the rest of the underworld, have been around for ages plodding alongside the rest of humankind as we worked together and shaped what now passes for civilization. Even though they hid their identities and usually no more than scraped by in the past, making a living as best they could without giving away their origins, the layers of secrecy surrounding their existence are slowly coming undone. They’ve been here through our good times and bad, fighting and bleeding and dying alongside us in our wars, not to mention in their own secret turf wars in the shadows.
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, a Were known as Rohrik Donovan came forth, offering the aid of his pack members in searching the rubble of the Twin Towers for survivors. They worked hard and long into the night side-by-side with the police and firefighters, digging desperately through the remains of the collapsed buildings and using their superior sense of smell, blinded as it was by the toxic mix of chemicals and ash thick in the air, to find any signs of life. Actually, some of the firefighters first on the scene were Weres, and only revealed themselves after Rohrik announced the Moonwalker tribe’s offer of assistance that day.
At the same time, magi and vampires found it became necessary, because of their ties to the financial sector, to reveal themselves once the World Trade Center collapsed. While the stock market was already in flux over the act of terrorism, The Circle stepped forward a few days later with offers to dip into their coffers to give the halting economy a much-needed boost in the days following the country’s near collapse, as well as to use their supernatural skills to fortify strongholds in some major cities in the event of future attacks.
Royce, soon followed by a few other vampires, also stepped into the limelight to add his support to The Circle and speak on behalf of other vampires their wish to see the United States fortified against future acts of terrorism and rebuilt stronger than ever.
Their acts of charity in the name of patriotism and the deep shock people the world over had already suffered from the terrorist attacks was probably the only thing that saved the Others from the hysterical panic of the masses. Those who had stepped forth in other countries were not so fortunate.
Owing to their efforts, these days racism was simply not done when it came to creatures not fully human. It had become more than just a social no-no. If you were going to discriminate, you needed to be prepared to deal with it in court. Royce was the one who brought that about, actually. A. D. Royce Industries v. Amaretto Confections was notable not only because the plaintiff was a vamp, but because the vamp was suing a distributor for discriminating against his restaurants by jacking up their prices and treating his staff like crap whenever they placed an order. He’d gathered the evidence and proven that they, along with a number of other businesses, charged more to Other-run establishments. Word on the street said The Circle was still bitter that he got to keep the majority of the winnings from the case since they hedged too long about joining the potential class action suit.
The result was more rights and privileges for our undead or otherwise nonfullblood citizens. There were other supernaturals who had made it a point to push for equal rights, and after the first few riots and massacres that broke out, things were settling down and they were actually getting their wishes. In the United States, at least, the Others are now considered to have the same rights as fullblood humans, perhaps more because of their minority status.
These days, it was illegal not only to inquire as to potential employees’ national origins or religion, but also to ask whether they were “daylight impaired” or for other clues to their not-quite-full-blood status, since Weres and vamps now fell under the Americans with Disabilities Act (don’t ask me how, I’m no lawyer). You couldn’t kick someone out of a theater or off a bus for being Other-blood. You also couldn’t expect to hunt or assault an Other without consequences, or vice versa. When a vamp sucked someone dry or turned the person without signed papers, they got staked after a quick, low-hassle trial. When someone staked a vamp without a signed warrant, in thirty-four states they got twenty to life for murder. The way the other sixteen states handle killers of Others varied between lethal injection and a bounty from the local authorities for “getting rid of varmints.”
I wanted to be enlightened and tolerant about vamps, but all I could do was be scared shitless when met face-to-face with one. Me and a good percentage of the human population were extremely thankful for the legislation that had been rushed through Congress to both protect them from us fullbloods, and vice versa. At least it meant Royce couldn’t legally touch me without my written consent. Though whether that written consent came before or after the fact could be fudged, I’d sooner cut off my own hand than sign those papers.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not completely anti-Other. I only had a minor spastic fit when I found out that my last boyfriend was a Were. We still talked now and then. I haven’t quite gotten around to forgiving him for showing me instead of telling me what he was. He did a great job hiding it from me and lying about all the little tell-tales right up until he wanted me to sign a contract. Instead of leading up to it in conversation, his way of explaining was to suddenly turn into a timber wolf in my living room.
It was good that he at least knew better than to take his freaky half-man, half-wolf form in front of me. If the cops had shown up with him like that, they would’ve shot first and asked questions later. I mean, they would have seen this big, hairy something straight out of an eighties B-movie lumbering around my living room. Okay,
