“I don’t like this, Mister Gavin. It feels wrong.”

Gavin frowned at Angelina where she shifted nervously from foot to foot next to the car. She wasn’t a powerful witch as such things were judged, and she never relied upon her magic much preferring the more reliable technological weapons she habitually carried, but when a witch—even a little witch—said something felt wrong, it was best to heed the warning. It wasn’t her so obvious anxiety that made him frown at her however. It was that her words so mirrored his own thoughts and feelings. Something wasn’t right, but he wasn’t sure what exactly. The message had been legitimate enough. That Stephen wanted to use a neutral venue for their meeting was within expectation, but his haste was not. Still, Stephen and he had lived amicably for almost fifty years now. They respected one another’s strength and territory. Although Stephen was the younger and less powerful due to that happenstance, he would make a formidable enemy. Unlike him, Stephen had broken with tradition and did not live alone. He had allied himself with shifters too, but Gavin didn’t expect any unpleasantness. Not really. What concerned him was the reason for the meeting, not the meeting itself.

“You should have let me bring Flex and the others,” Angelina said anxiously when he didn’t respond. “He could take us out easy.”

“Not so easy,” Spencer said from the shadows on the other side of the car. “Stephen would warn us first.”

“But that’s stupid, Spence!”

Gavin smiled tolerantly. “Stephen is an honourable man. He will abide by our agreement. We’re not here to fight.”

“Then why do you need us?”

“Because the appearance of strength can often forestall unpleasantness. You and Spencer add to my power.”

“Spence does, sure, but me? I can’t do what he does, Mister Gavin.”

“Nor do I expect it. You add to my strength in other ways. It seems strange to you I know, but trust me. They’ll be impressed.”

Angelina just shook her head and settled her weapons more comfortably beneath the coat he had bought her.

Stephen would be impressed with Angelina; he hadn’t lied about that, and it wouldn’t be the clothes she was wearing either. He had bought her an outfit that subtly accentuated her beauty while emphasising her other attributes. She knew how to look after herself. She was no innocent, as anyone would find should they try to cross her. The long coat covered a slim woman wearing a biker’s leather pants and boots. The dark blouse she wore blended with the coat to hide enough firepower to start a war. Oh yes, Stephen would be impressed all right, but it would be her obvious loyalty and love for him and Spencer that would impress him the most, not her readiness for mayhem.

Gavin led the way through the parking structure and up the steps into the stadium. Spencer prowled on his left leaving the right for Angelina to cover. The meeting was to take place in the open. Centre field to be exact. With the stadium empty and the floods unlit, the stands could have hidden an army, but they didn’t. Darkness hid nothing from him and his kind. Indeed, even as dark as it was, Spencer and he could see perfectly. Shifters were well suited to hunting in the dark, and the night was all Gavin’s world. Besides, he didn’t need eyes to know that they were the first to arrive and that the stadium was empty. He had other senses that could tell such things.

Angelina muttered something about taking foolish chances as they descended toward the field. Her eyes would take longer to adjust.

“We’re alone, take your time.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mister Gavin,” Angelina said. “I can see well enough to pull the trigger.”

“I’m sure,” Spencer said sarcastically from Gavin’s other side. “Just so you remember not to hit me. Bullets smart.”

Gavin chuckled.

They reached centre field without incident and waited. Perhaps five minutes of bantering among themselves found them joined by Stephen. Gavin turned to watch him approach accompanied by two others as agreed. Both were revenants. He knew Danyelle as Stephen’s oldest companion, but he had never met the man with her. Spencer advanced a couple of paces and moved off to the side. Angelina did likewise so that should Stephen’s allies attempt an attack, she would have a clear field of fire.

Gavin stood where he was unmoving.

Stephen’s glamour was wasted on him. They were both strong enough to see through such things. With or without glamour, Stephen was an impressive looking man to his jaded eyes. He had night dark hair braided into an intricate rope, intensely blue eyes, high cheekbones, and aristocratic jaw. He was wearing a custom-made suit and a gold coloured wristband. A plain and battered looking wedding ring adorned one finger. Gavin had asked him about it once. Stephen said to ask again when they knew each other better. That was over forty years ago. The very real pain in Stephen’s voice had convinced him to wait another century or so.

Stephen kept his distance and said, “Spencer.”

Spencer nodded amiably. “Stephen.”

“You’re well?”

“Can’t complain. A few years older, a few years wiser.”

Stephen smiled at that and turned to Gavin. “Would you care to introduce me to your charming companion?”

“Angelina, allow me to present Stephen Edmonton, an old friend.”

“Charmed,” Stephen said with a smile and small bow.

Angelina kept her eyes firmly fixed on Stephen’s shoulder. “Call me Angel, everyone does.”

“Not everyone it seems,” Stephen said with a raised eyebrow at Gavin. “But Angel is such an apt name for you.”

“How true,” Danyelle said sweetly. “Angel is a very pretty name. You surround yourself with weakness, Gavin.”

He did not quite smile. “We define weakness differently. We always have.”

“She is merely human. Any one of us could snap her neck before she knew it was time to scream. If Stephen gave the word, Lee and I could kill you before she moved.”

“I prefer to associate with the living not the dead,” he said and this time it was Stephen he was talking to. Stephen frowned at the jibe. “You will find her more than prepared should you wish to test her. Angelina, show her what you’re holding under the coat.”

Angelina opened her mouth to protest, but then she shrugged and opened her coat with her left hand. Her right was seemingly buried in her coat pocket, but upon opening the coat things were made clear. She had removed the pockets so that her hands could reach through to the submachine gun she was holding aimed at Danyelle. The second sub gun was still in its holster under her arm. She left it where it was for the moment.

“It’s an Ares FMG-P90 sub-machine gun, and comes in the box with laser sight and stunner attachment. I left them at home.” Angelina said helpfully. “Made in Belgium… Europe?” Danyelle scowled at the mockery. “It fires nine hundred rounds a minute, and has a fifty round magazine. I have plenty with me should you be wondering. It will cut you in half, and I’m being literal. I tested it on a vamp once.”

Stephen laughed aloud at Danyelle’s dumbfounded expression and Gavin grinned. They stepped forward and embraced each other heartily.

“How have you been, Stephen, did the thing with the night club work out?”

Stephen nodded. “It’s called Lost Souls. Appropriate no?”

“I’ve heard the name, but I didn’t realise it was yours.”

“You should visit. It’s the best place for our kind. There’s no need to wander the streets looking for food. It comes to me.”

“Perhaps I will someday,” he said but he wouldn’t do that. He meant it when he said that he preferred associating with the living. Stephen’s club might be a wonderful place, he was willing to concede the possibility, but he would find more than blood, music, and dancing there. Danyelle wasn’t the only revenant allied to Stephen. There was Lee for one. “Lee is new isn’t he?”

“He joined me just a couple of months ago. He’s part of what I want to talk about.”

“I assume by your choice of venue that the others are coming?”

“They’ll be here in a while. I wanted to talk to you first.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow at that. “Oh?”

“We two are the oldest in LA. What do you know of the Arcadian?”

Gavin stiffened. “The Arcadian?”

Stephen nodded watching him intently.

“I know that he’s dead.”

“You know it, or you heard it? It’s important, Gavin.”

He frowned at the urgency he heard in Stephen’s voice. The Arcadian had been a revenant he’d met not long after his exile began. They had despised one another the instant they met. He had been newly dead and still possessed of the qualities he had carried in life, and struggling to reconcile his new existence with the dictates of honourable conduct. The Arcadian stepped boldly into his life one day and shattered what little he had built. The Arcadian was old. Not just old in years, but truly old. Where Gavin’s life was measured in centuries now, the Arcadian’s existence had been measured in millennia even back then. He had been ancient in more than just his years. He was ancient in his thinking and evil to the very core of his being. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had been mad and probably the oldest living creature in the world.

“I saw him die,” he said reluctantly and Danyelle gasped. The Arcadian was like a bogeyman to their kind. To hear that he had truly existed was a shock for her. Meeting him in person certainly had been. “I helped William and Francis destroy him.”

Stephen sagged in relief. “Thank the goddess. I had hoped, but I wasn’t sure. You have never been one to share your past, but I knew that William was involved. He let slip some of it to me many years ago and you two knew each other back then. No matter. If you say you destroyed him that’s enough for me.”

Gavin shifted uneasily as he remembered those times. He had helped William and Francis capture the Arcadian to destroy him, but he hadn’t witnessed the deed. William was hurt during the capture and he had wanted to care for him. Francis had wielded the axe, he remembered, but he had seen the body burned afterwards. The Arcadian was dead. Irrevocably dead.

“Why ask about this now?”

“I had wanted to wait for the others to explain, but no matter. People have been dying and in a way that points to one of us.”

“I haven’t killed anyone recently,” he said then frowned only just then remembering the two boys in Ellen’s apartment. “Who has died?”

“I do not accuse you. I merely state a fact. Eight dead women have been found in such a way that I think one of us is responsible. That’s bad enough. I don’t need police sniffing around. I can influence them one at a time of course, but this case is big news. There are dozens of reporters hanging around my club looking for a story and not just mine.”

“And Lee has a part in this?”

“In a way,” Stephen agreed with a nod. “Things are… unsettled in the world. Forces are moving. We have managed to keep our internal struggles hidden for so long without discovery that some of us have become careless.”

“You speak of what happened in Chicago last fall?”

“That and what is happening the world over right now.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Of course you don’t!” someone called from out of the darkness.

Gavin and Stephen pivoted on the instant both caught unawares by the arrival of Rachelle and her bodyguard.

Angelina and Spencer moved along with Danyelle and Lee to bracket the newcomers. Rachelle smiled mockingly at them but continued her advance forcing them to retreat or else lose good position. The result left Gavin, Stephen, and Rachelle in close proximity and the six bodyguards warily eyeing each other in a ragged ring around their combined charges. Angelina went to one knee looking outward at a tangent to the ring so that she might sweep the newcomers with fire while at the same time lower the risk of hitting Gavin.

He was aware of Angelina’s preparations, and that Spencer was growling low in his throat at one of Rachelle’s bodyguards. The woman was sneering at Spencer. He obviously knew her and didn’t like her. She was a human but there was something about her aura that said she was more. It took a moment of concentration, but he felt the darkness hovering about her. She was a practitioner, not in the same league as true magi, but she was vastly more powerful than Angelina was. Her magic had been enough to hide Rachelle’s approach and it was a dark power she wielded.

“Spencer,” Gavin said warningly.

Spencer didn’t take his eyes from the witch. “She reeks. Her foul magic soils us all.”

The woman scowled.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said, though all he felt was darkness in her aura, not evil. Shifters were more sensitive to magic. “We are not here to fight. Do nothing.”

Spencer quit growling but continued to glare at the witch. He wouldn’t take his eyes off her now.

Gavin took Spencer’s silence as assent and turned his attention to Rachelle. They had known each other off and on for more than a century. He had lived in dozens of cities over the years and their paths had crossed many times. He had rarely stayed in one place for longer than a decade or two before moving on. If he stayed longer than that, people began to notice his lack of ageing and he preferred not to be labelled as vampire. It was something of an experiment that he had chosen to live in LA for so long. By purchasing the building he currently occupied, he had created a buffer around himself. His neighbours were not only his tenants, they were his people—his to protect as much as those of Lochlain had been. They protected him in their turn from the outside world. Wagging tongues had been silenced at last. LA was the closest thing to a home he’d had in a long time.

“Welcome to LA, Rachelle,” he said with a small polite bow.

Stephen cleared his throat. “Ah, she has lived in LA for almost five years now.”

“Five years? But our last meeting—”

“Was almost eight years ago my friend.”

He blinked in surprise. Eight years? Had so much time flown by so soon? He had long ago stopped counting the years of his exile, but when had he stopped living those years?

“You see?” Rachelle was saying to Stephen. “I told you he wouldn’t help. He doesn’t even know what’s going on!”

He shook off his confusion. “Stephen was just telling me about the murders.”

“Bah! What care I if eight sluts get themselves killed? Eight or eight hundred, there are always more. This goes way beyond a few dead whores.”

“She’s right,” Stephen said quietly. “I simply mentioned their deaths to make my point.”

“What point?”

“That things are happening here that we need to look into, that what happened in Chicago is happening here, that forces are moving.”

“What kind of forces and what evidence that the Chicago business has come here?”

“I said Lee came to me a couple of months ago. That’s true. What I didn’t say is that there are others. Not all have sought me out. Some went to Rachelle; some went to Michael. He should be here by now. I don’t know what’s keeping him.”

Gavin frowned as he remembered the revenant he had felt upon awakening a few days ago. He hadn’t recognised his aura and now Stephen spoke of the dire happenings in Chicago last fall. Could such be happening here and him all unaware of it? He didn’t like to think that was possible, but it very well might be. He had been drifting, he realised. With no purpose to his existence, he had simply drifted hardly aware as the years rolled by.

“I would have felt it,” he said uncertainly.

“I felt it,” Stephen said.

“As did I,” Rachelle said. “You’ve grown old, Gavin. Old and careless in your ways. You’ve retreated from the world just as Alexander did in Chicago before he fell.”

He stiffened, stung by the accusation. “You accuse me?”

Stephen stepped figuratively between them as threat built in the air. “No! No Gavin. We do not live like Alexander and his brood and we certainly don’t call you our master. You or anyone else either. We have no masters. We live free here.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that one of us… no that’s wrong. One of our kind is trying to re-create what Alexander built in Chicago.”

“Foolishness,” Gavin hissed between his teeth. “The human authorities—”

“Are already suspicious!” Rachelle cried. “I’m not talking about the police or the dead whores. I’m talking about the feds! Their so-called Office of Special Investigations is taking an interest in these serial killings. OSI was involved in Chicago. That bullshit on the news about a gas explosion was a cover for an operation they conducted against Alexander’s get—an operation that went badly for them and us. It should never have come to that!”

Gavin could only agree. Alexander had been a fool to turn so many. He had built himself an empire based on crime and controlled by other revenants he had made. When he lost control, they fought and died over his empire in a war lasting months. The FBI was called in as the body count rose and then the OSI was brought in when it became obvious something beyond the pale was involved. Very few of Alexander’s brood survived the operations mounted by OSI. Those that did had scattered across the country where they were hunted down by local vampires trying to live in the traditional manner—quietly.

“I told you that forces are moving,” Stephen continued. “OSI learned far too much about us in Chicago. The government has been keeping the truth about our territories and disputes quiet, but they know.”

“What do you think they’ll do about it?”

“Maybe a purge. It would be an inquisition the like of which the world has not seen since the War of Races so long ago. A war between OSI and us could never be kept quiet. I don’t know where it would end. We must police ourselves if we want to remain free. If we don’t, OSI or some other government group will do it for us and they won’t care who they kill as long as it has fangs. Do nothing and we play directly into their hands and into the hands of those AML fanatics.”

A purge. Gavin looked from Stephen to Rachelle and back again and saw the fear there. They were right to be afraid. Dozens of revenants were destroyed in Chicago and the same could happen here. Alexander had been a fool to believe the human authorities would allow him to build his empire unopposed. He was even more a fool to build it by creating more vampires. It was not in their nature to live peacefully together, yet he had made it work long enough that when the disaster finally befell him it was cataclysmic.

He had always lived apart, yet Stephen and Danyelle lived together and seemed content with their situation. He had to wonder how long that would last now that Lee had joined them. He also wondered about those joining Rachelle and Michael. How many did each of them have and did they not see how it looked from the outside? They were following Alexander’s example without even realising it.

“We should disperse,” he said.

Stephen scowled. “I knew you would say that. I don’t want to leave my club.”

“I won’t be chased out,” Rachelle added. “I might leave in a year or ten years, but I won’t be forced. I make my own choices.”

He felt the same way, but scattering was the sensible thing to do in this situation. “And is it your choice to surround yourselves with revenants like Alexander did?”

“I only took in three,” Rachelle said defensively. “They’re not strong, but they do offer me some protection from the OSI thugs. At least they will slow them down a little.”

“Just two for me,” Stephen said.

“And Michael?”

“I don’t know,” Stephen said with a worried frown. “I hope he’s all right. He said he would come to the meeting.”

“But he hasn’t. We three, and Michael if he comes, are the oldest. The others come and go by our leave. We should close the city to them. That first of all.”

“That will make waves,” Rachelle warned.

“So it will, but I don’t care. The trouble it causes won’t be here in my city now will it? If they make enough fuss about not being allowed in, they might draw the Fed’s attention away from us.”

Rachelle’s eyes glowed in approval. “That’s good. That’s good that is.”

Gavin looked away and into the darkness. Good? No, it wasn’t good. It was all there was. They had to calm the situation down. Give OSI nothing to investigate and they would go away. There were too many drifters constantly passing through for him to control them all. He dared not take them in and that was the only way to exert control over them. Gathering into large groups would draw too much attention. He frowned at Lee who looked nervously away. Rachelle and Stephen had already started along a road that could lead them all to disaster.

“Take in no more strangers,” Gavin ordered. “Put the word out that the city is closed to them until this all blows over.”

“If it blows over,” Stephen muttered.

“If it doesn’t we will most likely be beyond caring. I will hunt down this killer of women and put an end to him. That should remove any reason for OSI to be here. While I do that, you two must look into this matter of empire building. Find out who or what is behind it.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

Rachelle nodded her agreement.

“I will send someone to Michael with word of our decision to close the city,” Gavin said. He gestured for Spencer and Angelina to join him. “We go.”