Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

again, down into the dark. But this time, instead of falling away, she fell toward —she fell toward a blue-haired warrior with flames in his eyes.

Chapter 18
    St. Louis
     
    Vonos materialized in the roomy den of the mansion in St. Louis‟s nouveau riche suburb of Ladue, and it was clear that nobody had been expecting him. They‟d been looking for the recently deceased Xinon, and they‟d not expected him until later in the week. So they were totally unprepared for the vampire to show up in their midst.
    Which was just how Vonos liked it.
    Dressed in a meticulously creased custom-made Savile Row suit, complete with exquisite Zegna tie and Ferragamo shoes, he knew exactly the impression he made upon the polo-shirt-and-khaki-pants-clad humans in the room. He did nothing without deliberate purpose behind it, even down to the choice of what to wear to help these idiotic sheep underestimate him.
    The supermodel vampire , the press had labeled him. The Primator of haute couture . They didn‟t know whether to admire him or ridicule him for his polished-to-perfection appearance.
    A human politician would have been booted out of Congress for being too elitist. Not a “man of the people.”
    The thought amused Vonos. He was a man of the people. He just preferred to eat them.
    In any event, the fascination—and fear—that he provoked in the populace was only enhanced by his carefully cultivated style. He was the leader of the Primus, the new, vampire-only, third house of Congress, and his constituents would never respect one who was not more powerful than they.
    He finally deigned to notice the humans huddled around the desk. They were gaping at him like a particularly mindless species of carp. However, one who possessed, possibly, an iota of intelligence bowed deeply. “My Lord Primator. To what do we owe this honor?”
    “Honor is an interesting word, human. May I call you human? Or do you prefer to tell me your name, which I will then immediately forget as I do most petty annoyances?” Vonos smiled widely enough to show his fangs and was amused when one of the men, a skeletally thin man with a very bad haircut, collapsed into a faint.
    But the man who‟d first spoken and must be some sort of leader had more presence of mind.
    “You may call me whatever you wish, of course, Primator Vonos, but my name is Rodriguez.”
    “Of course it is. How fitting. Do you know that I first resided in your lovely environs back when it was Spanish territory? They called it Northern Louisiana, I believe.” He smiled at the memory, but then frowned as the pleasant recollection of simpler times and plentiful humans to feed on gave way to another, far more disagreeable memory. This wasn‟t the first time Atlanteans had confronted him on this turf. More than two centuries ago, a band of them had come to town and, with the help of both the colonial settlers and the native Illini, viciously murdered nearly all of his blood pride. Naturally, faced with the death of his vampire family, he‟d been forced to flee. Discretion, valor, et cetera, et cetera.
    “I will never flee again,” he said, his nails digging into the edge of the desk so hard the wood cracked.
    The human flinched. “Sir?”
    “Never mind. I have learned your group is very ambitious when it comes to gathering members of the Apostates, Mr. Rodriguez.”
    A measure of the man‟s nervousness subsided, and he leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, it has been my privilege. I hope to be at the forefront of a new wave of converts. We can definitely see the future, and it involves interspecies cooperation.”
    Vonos was always amazed at the human capacity for utter and complete denial. Somehow, in the sheep‟s mind, subjugation had become cooperation. Well, as they said, whatever gets you through the day.
    “We find ourselves unhappy with the actions of the local vampire and his blood pride,”
    Vonos said. “From this moment on, you will coordinate all recruiting efforts through my office and through my local representative, whom I will introduce to you in the coming days.”
    One of the men cowering behind the leader muttered something that was too garbled for Vonos to make out. “Would you like to repeat that?” Vonos asked. “By all means, share with the group.”
    He did so enjoy these quaint human concepts.
    “I didn‟t . . . I don‟t . . .” The man was stuttering too hard to get the words out. Fear tended to destroy conversational ability in the