at all. He wouldn't have approved of Rashel
made it in, too, her story must have passed inspection. That was a relief.
Inside, the place looked like hell. Not a shambles. It literally looked like Hell. Hades. The Underworld.
The lights turned it into a place of infernal fire and twisting purple shadows. The music was weird and
dissonant and sounded to Rashel as if it were being played backward.
She caught scraps of conversation as she walked across the floor.
"... going out Dumpster diving later..." "... no money. So I gotta jack somebody..." "... told Mummy I'd
be at the key-dub meeting..." You get a real cross section here, she thought dryly.
Everybody had one thing in common, though; they were young. Kids. The oldest looked about eighteen.
The youngest-well, there were a few girls Rashel would put at twelve. She had an impulse to go back
and insert something wooden into Ivan.
A slow fire that had started in her chest when she first heard about the Crypt was burning hotter and
hotter with everything she saw here. This entire place is a snare, a gigantic Venus' flytrap, she thought as
she took off her coat and added it to a pile on the floor.
But if she wanted to shut it down, she had to stay cool, stick to her plan. Standing by a cast-iron column,
she scanned the room for vampires.
And there, standing with a little group that in-duded Daphne, was Quinn.
It gave Rashel an odd shock to see him, and she wanted to look away. She couldn't. He was laughing,
and somehow that caught hold of her like a fishhook. For a moment the morbid lighting of the room
seemed rainbow-colored in the radiance shed by that laughter.
Appalled, Rashel realized that her face had flushed and her heart was beating fast.
I hate him, she thought, and this was true. She did hate him for what he was doing to her. He made her
feel unmoored and adrift. Confused. Helpless.
She understood why those girls were clustered around him, longing to fling themselves into his darkness
like a bunch of virgin sacrifices jumping into a volcano. I mean, what else do you do with a guy like that?
she thought.
Kill him. It would be the only solution even if he weren't a vampire, she decided with sudden insane
cheer. Because prolonged contact with that smile was obviously going to annihilate her.
Rashel blinked rapidly, getting a grip on herself. All right. Concentrate on that, on the job to be done.
She was going to have to kill him, but not now; right now she had to get herself chosen.
Walking carefully on her heels, she went over to join Quinn's group.
He didn't see her at first. He was facing Daphne and a couple of other girls, laughing frequently- too
frequently. He looked wild and a little feverish
to Rashel. A sort of devilish Mad Hatter at an insane tea party.
"... and I just felt so totally awful that I didn't get to meet you," Daphne was saying, "and I just wish I
knew what happened, because it was just so seriously weird..."
She was telling her story, Rashel realized. At least none of the people listening seemed openly
suspicious.
"I haven't seen you here before," came a voice behind her.
It belonged to a striking girl with dark hair, very pale skin, and eyes like amber or topaz... or a hawk's.
Rashel froze, every muscle tensing, trying to keep her face expressionless.
Another vampire.
She was sure of it. The camellia-petal skin, the light in the eyes... this must be the girl vampire who'd
brought Daphne food in the warehouse.
"No, this is my first time," Rashel said, making her voice light and eager. "My name's Shelly." It was
close enough to her own name that she would turn automatically if anyone said it.
"I'm Lily." The girl said it without warmth, and those hawklike eyes continued to bore straight into
Rashel's.
Rashel had to struggle to stay on her feet.
It's Lily Redfern, she thought, working desperately to keep an idiot smile plastered on her face. I know it
is. How many Lily's can there be who'd be working with Quinn?
I've got a Redfern right here in front of me. I've got Hunter Redfern's daughter here.
For an instant she was tempted to simply make a dash for her knife. Killing a celebrity like Lily seemed
almost worth giving up the enclave.
But on the other hand, Hunter Redfern was a moderate sort of vampire, with a lot of influence on the
Night World Council. He helped keep other vampires in line. Striking at him through his daughter would
just make him mad, and then he might start listening to the Councilors who wanted to slaughter humans in
droves.
And Rashel would lose any hope of getting at the heart of the slave trade, where the real scum were.
I hate politics, Rashel thought. But she was already beaming at Lily, prattling for all she was worth. "It
was my friend Marnie who told me about this place, and I'm really glad I came because it's even better
than I thought, and I've got this poem I wrote-"
"Really. Well, I'm dying not to hear it," Lily said. Her hawklike eyes had lost interest. Her face was filled
with open contempt-she'd dismissed Rashel as a hopeless fawning idiot. She walked away without
glancing back.
Two tests passed. One to go.
"That's what I like about Lily. She's just so absolutely cold," a girl beside Rashel said. She had wavy
bronze hair and bee-stung lips. "Hi, I'm Juanita," she added.
And she's serious, Rashel thought as she introduced herself. Quinn's group had noticed her at last, and
they all seemed to agree with Juanita. They were fascinated by Lily's cold personality, her lack of feeling.