The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

"Nope. This is even better than my own personal rain cloud." I closed my eyes, imagining the humidity creeping up until it was a hundred percent, followed by the temperature dropping below the dew point. Moisture from the surface of the earth was drawn forth and began to evaporate, condensing, moving upward to cool.

"Oh my god," Sarah said, her voice rife with awe.

I opened my eyes and smiled. "I'm a fog machine!"

"This is incredible," she said, batting at the billows of fog that filled the small room. "I can't believe you can control this!"

"It's an art," I said modestly, admiring the dense fog that began to obscure the objects in the room.

"And you're going to fill the Court with fog in order to sneak in? Oh, this I have to see!"

I opened a window and began to dissipate the fog.

"Erm…Sarah…I don't think the Court would be the best place for you," Theo said, looking uncomfortable.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Well, for one, mortals aren't allowed in it except by special dispensation."

She frowned. "Portia's mortal."

Theo glanced at me. "Yes, but she's a virtue. That means she's on the road to immortality, and can conceivably have legitimate business in the Court."

"That's splitting hairs, and you know it," she said, waving away his objections. "I think I should go with you. No one will see me if it's all foggy, so no one will know I was there."

"She has a point," I said, watching Theo. "We're not supposed to be there either, so what's the difference in her sneaking in along with us? Is there any reason she shouldn't come?"

"Well…"

"Excellent! I'll go get my things," she said, cramming in the last of her toast before dashing from the room, scattering promises to be back before we knew it.

"If she gets caught—" Theo started to say.

I interrupted him. "If we get caught, we're going to be in a whole lot more trouble than she will ever be in. So let's go with the thought that we're not going to get caught, and instead focus on the end goal."

Theo smiled, took my hand, and began nibbling on my fingertips. Little zings of electricity skittered through me at his touch. "You are so delightfully single-minded. Very well, we will hope for the best."

There was a faint echo of unease in the back of his mind, but it was too vague for me to pinpoint. Regardless, I was a bit worried as we drove down the coast to the castle in which the entrance to the Court of Divine Blood was located. What if I couldn't perform when the time came? What would happen if Theo and I were caught? Would Sarah be in any trouble if she was seen? What if the Akashic Record didn't help us?

"Too many ifs," I said to myself.

"What is too manieeee!"

Sarah's screech filled the car, causing me to lurch forward, my hands over my ears, and startling Theo to such extent that the car jerked off the road, bounded over a small hill that ran between the road and the marshy coast, and hurtled down a slippery slope toward a large log which had been washed ashore.

Theo swore, yanking at the steering wheel, pumping the brakes to get the car to stop without flipping.

"Bloody badgers, what's going on here?" a gruff woman's voice asked from the backseat.

"Merciful heaven! Stop!" another woman cried, grabbing Theo by the shoulders and shaking him.

The car fishtailed, hit the rocky shale that merged into the soft, mucky, marshy shore, and finally crashed to a halt in a huge mountain of discarded oyster shells. Seabirds, which had been picking through the shells, rose in a cloud of squawking protests. The screaming from the backseat stopped. I turned, shaking and no doubt white from shock, to look at Theo, asking him at the same time he asked me, "Are you all right?"

"I'm OK," I answered him, craning around to look behind us. Sarah was nowhere to be seen, but two horribly familiar—if disordered—faces stared back at me. "What are you two doing here? And where is Sarah?"

"On the floor. Stop stepping on me." Sarah's head emerged from behind the seat, her hair mussed, her face flushed with emotion. "Ow. I hit my head. What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Theo said, unsnapping his seat belt so he could turn around and glare at the people in the backseat. "Who are you two, and why have you materialized in my car?"

"They are the two women who administered my first trial," I answered, adding my own glare to Theo's. I pointed at the smaller woman. "That's Tansy. She's the one who beat me up."

"I didn't mean to," Tansy answered, wringing her hands. Both women were dressed just as they were a few days ago, Tansy still appearing like someone's beloved grandmother. "But you simply wouldn't defend yourself."

I ignored that. "The other woman is named Letty, I believe."

"Leticia de Maurier," the Dame Margaret woman answered, her voice stiff. She looked down her long nose at us. "We are trial proctors, nephilim. You will not question the ways of those of the Court of Divine Blood."