someone immensely powerful was there." He leaned forward, his calm exterior cracking around the edges. "Do you understand how powerful they would have to be for me to sense them, use all my powers to search the room for them, yet not be able to find them?"
I thought about it. Malcolm was no Master of the City, but he was probably one of the top five most powerful vampires in town. He'd be higher, if he weren't so terribly moral. It limited him in some ways.
I licked my lips, careful of the lipstick, and nodded. "Did they want you to know they were there, or was that part an accident?"
He actually showed surprise for a moment before he got control of his face. He played human too much for the media; he was beginning to lose that stillness of features that the old ones have. "I don't know." Even his voice was no longer smooth.
"Did the vamp do it to taunt you, or was it arrogance?"
He shook his head. "I do not know."
I had a moment of revelation. "You came here because you think Jean-Claude should know, but you can't let your congregation see you going to the Master of the City. It would undermine your whole freewill thing."
He settled back into his chair, fighting to keep the anger off his face, and failing. He was even more scared than I thought, to be losing it this badly in front of someone he disliked. Hell, he'd come to me for help. He was desperate.
"But you can come to me, a federal marshal, and tell me. Because you know I'll tell Jean-Claude."
"Think what you like, Ms. Blake."
We weren't on a first-name basis anymore. I'd hit it on the head. "A big, bad vamp checks your church out. You aren't vampire enough to smoke him out, and you come to me, to Jean-Claude and all his immoral power structure. You come to the very people you say you hate."
He stood up. "The crime that Sally is accused of happened less than twenty-four hours after he, it, they came to my church. I do not think that is a coincidence."
"I'm not lying about the second order of execution, Malcolm. It's in my desk drawer, right now, with a driver's license picture of the vampire in question."
He sat back down. "What name is on it?"
"Why, so you can warn... them?" I'd almost said her, because it was another female vamp.
"My people are not perfect, Ms. Blake, but I believe that another vampire has come to town and is framing them."
"Why? Why would someone do that?"
"I don't know."
"No one has bothered Jean-Claude or his people."
"I know," Malcolm said.
"Without a true master, a true blood-oathed, mystically connected master, your congregation are just sheep waiting for the wolves to come get them."
"Jean-Claude said as much a month ago."
"Yeah, he did."
"I thought at first that it was one of the new vampires who has joined Jean-Claude. One of the ones from Europe, but it is not. It is something more powerful than that. Or it is a group of vampires combining their powers through their master's marks. I have felt such power only once before."
"When?" I asked.
He shook his head. "We are forbidden to speak of it, on penalty of death. Only if they contact us directly can we break this silence."
"It sounds like you've already been contacted," I said.
He shook his head again. "They are tampering with me, and my people, because technically I am outside normal vampire law. Did Jean-Claude report to the council that my church had not blood-oathed any of its followers?"
I nodded. "Yes, he did."
He put his big hands over his face and leaned over his knees, almost as if he felt faint. He whispered, "I feared as much."
"Okay, Malcolm, you're moving too fast for me here. What does Jean-Claude's reporting to the council have to do with some group of powerful vamps messing with your church?"
He looked at me, but his eyes had gone gray with worry. "Tell him what I have told you. He will understand."
"But I don't."
"I have until New Year's Day to give Jean-Claude my answer about the blood-oathing. He has been generous and patient, but there are those among the council that are neither of those things. I had hoped they would be proud of what I had accomplished. I thought it would please them, but I fear now that the council is not ready to see my brave new world of free will."