10	SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

SITTING IN THE BACK of his town car, staring out at the city through the tinted windows, Oliver couldn’t help but ruminate on the danger that lurked right below the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life. New York was a dangerous town, even without the Nephilim. He had just left a tiresome meeting with the city’s mayor to discuss closing the streets surrounding the museum on the night of the Four Hundred Ball. The mayor hadn’t been too happy about it, but he’d caved in the end. Oliver didn’t like feeling like a douche, but it came with the territory. That was one of the parts of the position he could do without—the conclave meetings that droned on, and the petty trivial bickering behind the scenes were also atop that list.

But there were parts of his position he did relish, like hanging out with the Venators. As a mortal he’d had a healthy fear of their abilities, but as Regent, Oliver had developed a keen appreciation for their kind. A few years ago he had asked Sam to let him take the test. Just to see if he could pass. If he was going to send them into death and danger, he needed to know what they were up against, if he could do what they could. And so he had walked into dreams, had manipulated human minds, and had shown he could take control without abusing the ability. Sam had assured him he would have made it into the Venator ranks, as he had done well in the exam, and Oliver was proud of that accomplishment. It was good to see his old friends, too. He had never been especially close with Deming and Sam before the war, nor Edon for that matter, but it was good to see their familiar faces during the briefing yesterday. They were part of the team who had defeated Lucifer, and Oliver felt confident that they could do it again, that the hidden enemy—whomever or whatever it was—would not remain hidden for long.

The dead girl weighed hard on his conscience.

His mind churned with possible suspects. It had to be the work of a renegade, a lost and wounded soul, one who had succumbed to the temptation that throbbed below the surface of the Sacred Kiss. It was right there.

The ability to kill.

Life and death hanging in the balance.

It was so easy to tip the other way.

The miracle was that this had never happened before.

Chris Jackson was waiting for him in his office when he arrived back at headquarters.

“Chris.” Oliver smiled tightly, trying to be gracious. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you were here. I hope you weren’t waiting very long.”

“Not at all,” she told him. Christina Carter Jackson was as elegant and frosty as her impeccable designer suit and sharp black bob. She looked exactly like the cold-blooded barracuda she was, which meant she looked almost exactly like she did in high school. She ran with the fast crowd, the beautiful people, the teenagers who were hooking up with party promoters and movie stars at nightclubs like Block 122, while his presence was merely tolerated at school dances. He had a feeling that her obvious dislike for him stemmed from his own humble origins, that she took offense to his lofty position as Regent while she remained a mere conclave member.

Yet she had been an ally once, one of the most vociferous proponents for changing the Code to punish vampires for human abuse. The mortals are of utmost concern, she had said time and time again. Our survival depends on theirs. We are locked in a symbiotic relationship with them.

On this point, she and Oliver firmly agreed. Vampires had written and shaped much if not all of human history. The mortal and the immortal world were bonded to each other in a million intractable ways. The Coven would not survive if the mortals discovered the truth of their existence. There were too many of them and too few of the Fallen, so keeping the mortals in fascination, fear, and admiration for their immortal brethren was key to the Conspiracy’s success and the Coven’s safety.

Oliver regarded her current opposition as a personal affront. He had counted on Chris to be an advocate, not a rival. When he had been elected Regent of the Coven, she could have been a contender for the position, but because of her ties to the former regime—the one that had been corrupted by Lucifer—she had decided to campaign for Oliver instead of run against him. Without her influence, he would never have ascended so high. He was perplexed and irritated by her inability to agree with him on the issue of the Four Hundred Ball, among other things.

“I hope you don’t mind, but the fire in here is much more comfortable. Fletcher insisted I wait outside, but I made him come around to my way of thinking,” she said with an icy smile.

“I don’t mind at all,” Oliver lied, making a mental note to can his assistant, who couldn’t even keep an unwanted guest out of his office. He put his folders away in the file cabinet and took a seat at his desk across from her. “So what can I do for you, Chris?”

“It’s such a shame about the Holy Heart girl. Do they have any idea who did it?”

“Not yet.”

She fiddled with the pearls around her neck. “Do you think we’ll find him?”

“I have no doubt.”

“You really believe in Lennox, don’t you?” she said with her alligator smile, the one that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“I suppose he was Kingsley Martin’s man all those years. But I heard he’s gotten soft… There was that incident with one of the new Venators not long ago… He showed a terrible lapse in judgment, I would say.”

“It was taken care of,” Oliver said, annoyed that the gossip had gotten out to the Coven at large. He had thought Sam had been able to keep it quiet, but it seemed Venators had big mouths just like everyone else. People thrived on gossip. “In the end there was no harm done to either party.” Although try telling that to Deming, he thought, but kept silent.

“I’m sure. You know some in the conclave say he’s been a little… unstable lately. Letting the noovs get a little out of hand. The Nephilim raid, for instance. Why was the compound burned? We could have gleaned information out of it.”

“Sam felt strongly that it needed to burn, and he’s the chief of police. It was a good call. The premises were cleansed so that nothing could survive,” Oliver said, his voice as cool as the holy water that had burned down that demon hole. “Apologies for being blunt, but why exactly are you here, Chris?”

She crossed her legs and leaned forward. “You need to cancel the ball. As I told Finn the other day, this is wrong. It’s not the right time for it; it brings too much attention, creates too much of a spotlight on us; it’s so public—I think it might be the reason this is happening.”

“This?”

“The dead girl,” she said. “Our enemies attack just as we celebrate our victory. It’s not a coincidence. This is the work of Lucifer’s survivors. It has to be. Why are the Nephilim suddenly back in the city? They’re crawling out of the shadows. There’s a reason for it! We can’t ignore it. They’re planning something. It’s just like Lucifer, to hit us just when we stopped worrying about him. Don’t you remember what we learned from the War? The greatest act of the devil was to convince people he didn’t exist. For hundreds of years the Coven kept its head in the sand and denied what was right in front of us. We discovered the truth almost too late.”

“Lucifer is dead,” Oliver said a little too forcefully. “His remains—what’s left of them, anyway—lie in a blood-locked safe in the Repository. We won the War.” He was irritated, even though what she was saying was exactly what he had said to the Venators earlier and exactly what he believed. But he wasn’t about to admit it, especially to Chris Jackson, who only wanted to see him fail, to let the Coven know they had made a mistake in crowning him Regent and delay his investiture as Regis.

“I’m not going to call it off. It is ludicrous to show cowardice instead of strength, especially at this time.”

“Not cowardly, cautious,” she said. “Put off the party until we’ve found the killer.”

“No,” he said more forcefully than he had intended. Oliver smoothed his necktie, willing himself to remain calm, and not to allow her to see how scared he really was. Because what if what she was saying was correct? What if the Four Hundred Ball was the biggest mistake of his Regency? He was beginning to suspect that the party would be his downfall, he saw gloom and doom in every corner, and it made him furious to hear his secret fears articulated. Chris was wrong. Chris had to be wrong. The War was over and Lucifer had been defeated. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—to fear. Except his wrath, he thought. “I’m sorry, but no. The Venators have assured me that security at the party will be at maximum force; no one from outside the Coven will be able to get inside. We will be perfectly safe.”

“But what if the danger is inside?” she said softly. “What if it’s already here? Remember what happened the last time.”

“How can I forget?” Oliver asked drily.

Finally, she bowed her head. “I didn’t think you would agree,” she said finally. “But I had to try.”

“Is that it, Chris?”

“Well, if you won’t listen to reason, I suppose I should go back to training the younger members.”

“Thank you.”

“Good day, Oliver,” she said as she gathered up her gigantic handbag and headed for the door.

“Good day,” he said to her back.

Oliver stood up from his desk and walked toward the bookshelves, which held his vast collection of classic books as well as a few photographs in sterling silver frames. He didn’t keep very many from his past, but he did keep the one of himself and Schuyler from one summer on Nantucket. The two of them, sunburned, skinny, and young, ice cream running down their chins. Schuyler looked so much like her sister Finn in the photograph; at nine she’d had the same sunny smile, even a few of the same blonde highlights in her dark hair. He picked it up and set it down. Schuyler had not wanted to be part of the new Coven, had wanted peace and quiet after the War. She would have been the queen of the Coven had she stayed. He respected her wishes for distance from the past, and the two hadn’t been in touch in some time. The last time they saw each other was at her college graduation, and that was almost seven years ago. Some days, he wished he, too, spent his days lolling in a vineyard, stomping grapes, and bottling vintages instead of carrying everyone’s fate on his shoulders.

Sighing, he placed the frame back on the shelf, and a slip of paper fell from behind the photograph onto the floor. It was a note from Sky that he had always kept out of sentiment, the one where she told him she loved him and would always love him, friends forever, that he could come to her whenever he needed her, whatever happened to him. He was hit with a pang of loss, struck by how much he missed his old friend. He wondered what she was doing now, if she ever thought about him and Finn and worried about them. He bent down to pick up the note and noticed that the rug was slightly askew. As he knelt to straighten it, something caught his eye, something under the rug. A dark shadow that looked like dirt or paint. He pulled back the edge of the carpet to examine it more closely and the shadow grew and grew, finally revealing a dark shape.

A pentagram.

Burnt into the wood floor, its sinister outline was branded into the center of his office. He inhaled sharply. Someone or something was here. His inner sanctum. How was that possible? He felt his heart beating wildly in his chest. Chris Jackson had asked him just moments before in her raspy smoker’s voice, what if they were already inside? Just like before?

Fletcher entered, looking rumpled and sheepish. Oliver quickly covered up the pentagram, putting the rug back in its place and smoothing out the bump with his shoe.

“Sorry, sir—she put a spell on me. She used to be a Venator, did you know?” Fletcher asked.

“I know.”

“Everything all right, sir?”

Oliver didn’t answer at first. He was recalling his conversation with Sam Lennox after the briefing, when they had discussed the pentagrams all over the city.

“Pentagrams amplify one’s power, but there are other uses for them,” Oliver had said. “Let’s think it through.”

“Well, traditionally in dark magic, pentagrams are used to call up a demon, to trap a dark spirit to do your bidding,” Sam said.

“So whoever is doing this is trying to trap a demon?”

The Venator chief had sighed heavily. “Or let one out of Hell.”

But Lucifer was dead. Schuyler had seen to that.

The greatest act of the devil was to convince people he didn’t exist.

“Sir?” Fletcher asked. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine,” Oliver said, stepping over the carpet with a smile. “Everything is fine.”