Blood Lines

years, he could recognize when he'd been outmaneuvered.
    'This is good. This is very good." He looked out into the room filled with powerful men and women and in his mind's eyes saw them bowing before the altar of Akhekh, giving their power and those it commanded into the hands of his god.
    George Zottie bowed his head, pleased that his master was pleased.
    'I will move amongst them for a time. You may introduce me as you see fit. Later, when they hold thoughts of me and I can touch their ka, you will bring them to the room I have prepared, so I may speak with them one at a time."
    Henry had no need to use any persuasion to get into the Solicitor General's large house on Summerside Drive nor did he expect to have to use much to stay. Arrival at this type of party implied the right to attend. He nodded at the young man who opened the door and swept past him toward the greatest concentration of sound. Servants did not require an explanation, something modern society tended to forget.
    The huge formal living,'dining room had been decorated in subdued Halloween. Black and orange candles glowed in a pair of antique silver candelabra, the table had been covered by a brilliant orange cloth, the flowers both in vases and in the large centerpiece were black roses and the wine glasses were black crystal-Henry assumed the wine had not been colored orange. Even the waiters, who moved gracefully among the crowd with trays of canapés or drinks, wore orange and black plaid cummerbunds and ties.
    He took a glass of mineral water, smiled in a way that set the server's pulse pounding, and moved further into the room. Many of the women wore floor-length gowns from a variety of periods and just for an instant he saw his father's court at Windsor, the palace of the Sun King at Versailles, the Prince Regent's ballroom in Brighton.
    Smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from the front of his jacket, he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't have taken the opportunity to indulge in the peacock colors this age normally denied to men.
    The costumes on the men ranged from flamboyant to minor variations on street wear-unless the brown tweed suit stood for something or someone Henry didn't recognize. Two additional vampires glared at each other across the broad shoulders of a Keystone Cop. Having joined their various police departments before the height requirements had been relaxed, all the police present were large, usually tall and burly both. A couple, after years of patrolling a desk, had added an insulating layer of fat. The politicians scattered throughout the crowd were easily spotted by their lack of functional bulk.
    Henry was not only the shortest man in the room, by some inches, but he also appeared to be the youngest. Neither mattered. These were people who recognized power, height and age came a distant second.
    'Hello, I'm Sue Zottie."
    The Solicitor General's wife was a tiny woman with luminous dark eyes, and a coil of chestnut hair piled regally upon her head. Her dark green velvet Tudor gown added majesty to what had been labeled more than once in society pages as a quiet beauty. Instinct took over and Henry raised the offered hand to his lips. She didn't seem to mind.
    'Henry Fitzroy."
    'Have-have we met before?"
    He smiled and her breathing grew a little ragged. "No, we haven't."
    'Oh." She meant to ask him what police force he was with or if, perhaps, he was a junior member of her husband's staff, but the questions got lost in his eyes. "George is in the library with Mr. Tawfik, if you need to speak with him.
    The two of them have been in there for most of the evening."
    'Thank you."
    She'd never felt quite so completely thanked before and walked away wondering why George had never invited that lovely young man over for dinner.
    Henry took a sip of his mineral water. Tawfik. His quarry, it seemed, was in the library.
    It was cold in the car with the window open, but sightless, Vicki couldn't afford to block off her other senses. The wind smelled of woodsmoke and decaying leaves and expensive perfume-she supposed the latter was endemic to the neighborhood-and brought her the noise of distant traffic; a door, fairly close, opening and closing; a phone, either very close or beside an open window, demanding to be answered; a late trick-or-treater imploring his mother to cover just one more block. Two teenaged girls, too old for candy, reviewed the day as they walked down the other side of the street. As her eyes got steadily worse, her