83
Thrix woke up a little hungover and very depressed.
‘Poor Donald,’ she thought. ‘That was probably the worst date of his life. How am I going to explain it to Ann?’
“I should never have agreed to go,” she muttered, wrapping herself in a dressing gown and heading for the shower. Malveria had stayed last night in the guest bedroom. As Thrix emerged from the shower the Fire Queen appeared, a broad smile on her face, to wish her a good morning.
“Have you got over the disappointment of last night’s calamitous encounter?”
“Just about.”
“I will make coffee. Do you have any pop-tarts?”
The Enchantress shook her head, bemused that the Fire Queen should make such a request.
The door buzzer rang. Thrix made a face.
“Dominil. I forgot she was coming.”
Thrix hurried to dress while Dominil rode up in the lift. The Fire Queen opened the door to her and greeted her politely. As Dominil walked into the room Malveria eyed her ankle length leather coat with envy. She had several herself, made in her own realm, but she felt that none was quite so finely cut as Dominil’s.
“Thrix will be out shortly. Would you like tea?” asked Malveria, who had decided to play the part of an excellent host.
Dominil nodded. She took a seat and sat in silence. Dominil sat very elegantly, her back straight. As Malveria brought her tea she tried to read her aura. Hiyastas could often learn a lot about a person just by examining them. Dominil’s aura, however, was not very revealing. The white-haired werewolf’s emotions were buried very deeply, too deeply to reveal themselves to a cursory examination from even such a mistress of interpretation as Malveria.
Thrix emerged, looking, Malveria noticed, rather radiant. ‘Ah,’ thought the Fire Queen. ‘She does not wish to suffer in comparison to her cousin’s beauty.’
“Good morning, Dominil. This is an early visit. Are you already settled in London?”
“The Mistress of the Werewolves has made satisfactory arrangements for me,” replied Dominil. “If you will excuse my brevity, I will not remain here for long. I have much to do today.”
“Helping the twins?”
“Yes.”
The Enchantress was as puzzled as everyone else by Dominil’s acceptance of the task, and wondered how she intended to go about it.
“Are you going to make them pop stars?”
“That is not what they require,” replied Dominil. “At least, not yet. First they wish to obtain credibility among their peers.”
“Credibility?”
Dominil nodded.
“It appears that success is not everything. When I suggested that a large sum of money from the MacRinnalch vaults might be enough to buy them successful music careers, they were unenthusiastic. I was surprised. I had assumed it would be possible to purchase everything that was necessary. Songs, musicians, advertising, radio play and such like. And indeed after talking to them I learn that it is possible to gain success of a sort by these methods, but it is not what they wish.”
Thrix, despite being put off by her cousin’s rather formal manner, found herself interested in what she had to say. Dominil explained that the sisters desperately wanted the respect of the people they knew in Camden.
“They live in a community which is full of struggling musicians. Were they to buy their way to success the other struggling musicians would simply hate them. To avoid this it is apparently necessary to do things in a rather more difficult manner. They must play small gigs at which people they know must acknowledge them to be worthwhile. They must attract attention from journalists and record companies on their own merits, rather than by bribery. In short, they must do things with credibility.”
“In particular,” continued Dominil. “They wish to surpass the achievements of four boys who live above a shop not far from them. The twins dislike them. The four boys once mocked them for being rich girls, another reason they refuse to buy their way to success. These four boys have a band of their own and are beginning to generate interest. Beauty and Delicious are eaten up with jealousy. I believe if I can put them on a footing which is even slightly superior to that of their rivals, they may actually be grateful enough to do what the Mistress of the Werewolves wishes, and vote for Markus.
The Enchantress was impressed. Dominil seemed to know what she was talking about.
“You really seem to be making quick progress, Dominil.”
Thrix asked Dominil if she could bring her anything, food or drink, but the white werewolf shook her head.
“If you do get the twins back onstage, isn’t Verasa worried that they might become visible to the hunters?”
“That would be for the Mistress of the Werewolves to worry about,” responded Dominil. “However, this brings me to my reason for visiting you. I have some information. While spending my last night at the castle I hacked into the computers of the Avenaris Guild.”
“You can do that?” said Thrix, surprised.
“Yes.”
“What is this?” asked Malveria.
“I broke through their security system to read their computer files.”
There was a slight delay while Thrix explained it to Malveria, as best she could. Thrix was impressed. She knew that Dominil was the intelligent one of the family but hadn’t been aware that computing at a high level was among her achievements.
“I discovered that the Guild has no knowledge of Butix and Delix. Their files on the MacRinnalchs are extensive but very incomplete. They have no knowledge of me though my father’s name is listed.”
“Do they mention me?” asked Malveria, eagerly.
“No.”
Malveria looked disappointed,
“They’re only interested in werewolves,” said Thrix, reassuringly. She looked at Dominil. “Are you about to tell me they know about me?”
“They know a little. Not your name or location but there was a report that an unknown fashion designer in London could be a MacRinnalch werewolf. Other than that they had no details. I thought I had better warn you. Furthermore, they have a great deal of information about Kalix. Up until a few weeks ago they were actively tailing her and they have a very accurate description of her. They’ve now lost contact, but they’re aware of her status as daughter of the Thane. They count it as a very high priority to kill her.”
Dominil paused, and sipped her tea.
“The Mistress of the Werewolves asked me to inform you of anything I learned about Kalix. It is your job, I believe, to protect her?”
“No,” said Thrix. “It isn’t.”
“I understood from the Mistress that it was.”
“My mother suggested it,” admitted the Enchantress.
“Then it would seem sensible to do it,” said Dominil, pointedly.
Thrix was not pleased to hear Dominil tell her what was sensible for her to do but didn’t want to get into a discussion about it. She thanked Dominil for bringing her the information.
“There is one more thing,” said Dominil. “The Guild have formed an association with a man from Croatia who has a great reputation among the werewolf hunters of Central Europe. His name is Mikulanec.”
“No hunter will ever trouble me,” stated Thrix.
“Yet he might trouble Kalix.”
“Yes all right, I’ll check on her,” responded Thrix, not very graciously.
The phone rang. Expecting it to be her early morning call from Ann, Thrix picked it up. It was the Mistress of the Werewolves. Thrix listened for a few minutes.
“Dominil is here. I’ll tell her.” She put the phone down. “Baron MacAllister is dead.”
“Already? I was not expecting Sarapen to act so quickly.”
The Baron on whom Verasa had worked so assiduously to gain his vote was now dead. The war for the Thaneship had claimed its first casualty.