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“Bravado and insults are two of my best things.”

He smiled, still holding my hand. “Indeed, ma petite, indeed. Put the gun away. I am not saying do not use it, but have a care who you shoot. Not everything you will meet tonight can be harmed by silver bullets.” He cocked his head to one side as if thinking. “Though come to that, I’ve never seen anyone try to kill a council member with modern silver ammunition.” He smiled. “It might work.” He shook his head as if to rid himself of the image. “But if it comes to trying to slay the council by bullets, then all is lost and all that will be left is to take as many of them with us as we can.”

“Let’s save as many of our people as we can, too,” I said.

“You don’t understand them, ma petite. If we are dead, there will be no mercy for those who are loyal to us. Any good revolution kills the loyalists first.” He touched the back of my right hand lightly, reminding. I still had the gun out. Somehow, I just didn’t want to put it away.

But I did. I put the safety on. I didn’t want them to know the gun was there, so I couldn’t keep holding it. I put the safety on because I didn’t want to shoot myself in the leg. It would be embarrassing as well as painful and probably wouldn’t impress the council one little bit. I didn’t understand “the game,” but I’d hung around vampires long enough to know that if you could impress them, sometimes you walked out alive. Of course, sometimes they killed you anyway. Sometimes a show of bravado just earned you a slower death, like it did with some American Indian tribes that only tortured enemies they thought worthy of the honor. An honor I could do without. But sometimes in the midst of being tormented you could get away. If they just tore your throat out, all options were over. We were definitely going for impressive. If we could impress them, we’d kill them. If we couldn’t kill them…they’d kill us. Liv had just been the beginning of the evening’s entertainment.

The living room was a bare stone room once again. Jean-Claude’s efforts at redecorating lay in piles of black-and-white cloth and broken wood. The only thing untouched was the portrait above the false fireplace. Jean-Claude, Julianna, and an unscarred Asher gazed down at the ruins. I expected an unpleasant surprise to be waiting for us. There was only Willie McCoy standing in front of the cold fireplace. He had his back to us, hands clasped behind him. His pea-green suit clashed with his slicked-back black hair. One sleeve was torn and bloodstained. He turned towards us. Blood seeped from a gash on his forehead. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief covered in dancing skeletons. It was silk and had been a gift from his girlfriend, a century-old vamp who had recently joined us. Hannah was as tall, leggy, and lovely as Willie was short, badly dressed, and well…Willie.

He smiled at us. “So good of you to join us.”

“Can the sarcasm,” I said. “Where is everybody?” I started walking towards him, but Jean-Claude stopped me with a hand on my arm.

Willie’s smile was almost gentle. He stared at Jean-Claude with a look of expectancy. It was an expression I’d never seen on Willie’s face.

I glanced at Jean-Claude’s perfect mask of a face, closed and careful. No—fearful.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Ma petite, may I introduce the Traveler.”

I frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

Willie laughed, and it was the same irritating bray he’d always had, but it ended in a low, chuckling growl that raised the hairs at the base of my neck. I looked at him and knew the shock showed on my face.

I had to swallow before I could talk, even then I didn’t know what to say. “Willie?”

“He can no longer answer your call, ma petite.”

Willie stood there staring at me. He had been an awkward person alive. Dead, he hadn’t been much better. He hadn’t been dead long enough to master that otherworldly movement that the others had. He walked towards us in a wave of his own liquid grace. It wasn’t Willie.

“Shit,” I said softly. “Is it permanent?”

The stranger in Willie’s body laughed again. “I am merely borrowing