Blood Born by Linda Howard Page B

opened Hector’s door for me.” He’d always made certain that no one, not even Hector, knew exactly where his homes were located, but abruptly he decided that the fact they even knew the country was more than he wanted them to know. He had other bolt-holes, of course, but they were for emergencies only. Though he was safer from the Council than the average vampire—since no human ever remembered seeing him, no human could give directions to his homes—the Council members did have their own skilled hunters.
    “And you saw his dust?”
    “I didn’t have to.”
    Marie, the oldest and the only blood born on the Council, sat back with a quick, tiny sip of air. “If Lucasays that Hector has been murdered, I believe him. That means … one of us killed him. No one else in the building is powerful enough to have done it.” She stared at him, then looked around at her fellow Council members, the faint shock in her eyes morphing to one of calculation as she considered all the ramifications and how she could use this to her advantage. Hector had been the head of the Council; perhaps she would be elected to succeed him. Her pragmatic Gallic nature meant she wouldn’t waste time regretting that someone she’d known, served with, and respected had finally met an end to his long life; she was a political creature to the core.
    “We’re supposed to believe that you ‘sensed’ this?” Theodore demanded truculently, which was his normal tone. “How do we know
you
didn’t kill him? That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
    Not for the first time, Luca had the thought that the Council members were strong enough to kill him, if even two of them combined to attack. Also not for the first time, he assessed Theodore as not having the balls to be one of those two, because he would always expect the remaining Council members to turn on them. Did it follow, then, that neither would Theodore be likely to have orchestrated the attack on Hector? He thought so, yes. He didn’t miss the irony that the member he least liked was probably the one he could most trust, at least in this matter.
    “Enoch can vouch for me,” he said, the slight hint of boredom in his tone letting Theodore know that his attacks weren’t coming anywhere close to hitting a target.
    Theodore turned to Enoch. “Is that true?”
    “I’ve been with him since he arrived, less than half an hour ago,” Enoch admitted, the normally unflappable house manager uneasy at being put on the spot. Hemade a tiny shift of his weight, which in a vampire was the equivalent of wringing his hands.
    “And Hector has really been murdered?”
    Enoch darted a quick glance at Luca. “He isn’t in his quarters.”
    Nadia threw up her hands. “So we are having all this drama and no one knows for certain if Hector is dead or merely
elsewhere
?”
    “He called me,” Luca said, still watching their faces. “He said there’s a rebel movement to bring open war against the humans.”
    “Why is that a bad thing?” Alma growled in her deep-throated voice. “I’ve said the same thing for years.” She sat near the foot of the table, her pale green eyes slumbrous as she watched him. Alma was a piece of work—ancient, bloodthirsty, beautiful, red-haired, and power hungry. One of the newer Council members, having been seated barely fifty years ago, she was constantly advocating for change in their community and generally making a nuisance of herself with her complaining. Luca was surprised they hadn’t booted her out years ago, though getting rid of a Council member wasn’t as easy as adding one. She
could
be the traitor, but he reserved judgment on that.
    A scan of the other faces at the table told him she wasn’t alone in her opinion. It grated on most vampires that they had to hide their existence, that their
food
had more power than they did.
    Sorting this out was going to be like swimming through a school of piranha. Council members were chosen for their age, their strength, and