"They don't want me dead," I said. "Not from this." I didn't have much time. I stalked past the refreshments table to a potted fern and bent over it. I heard Michael take up a position behind me, guarding my back. I shoved a finger down my throat. Simple, quick, nasty. The wine burned my throat coming back up, and the fern's fronds tickled the back of my neck as I spat it back out into the base of the plant. My head spun as I sat back up again, and when I looked back toward Michael, everything blurred for a moment before it snapped back into focus. A slow, delicious numbness spread over my fingers.

"Everyone," I mumbled.

"What?" Michael knelt down in front of me and gripped my shoulder with one arm. "Harry, are you all right?"

"I'm fuzzy," I said. Vampire venom. Naturally. It felt good to have it in me again, and I wondered, for a moment, what I was so worried about. It was just that nice. "It's for everyone. They're drugging everyone's wine. Vamp venom. That way they can say they weren't just targeting me." I wobbled, and then stood up. "Recreational poisoning. Put everyone in the party mood."

Thomas mused. "Rather ham-handed, I suppose, but effective." He looked around at the growing numbers of young people joining the first few upon the ground in ecstatic stupor. His fingers stroked Justine's flank absently, and she shivered, pressing closer to him. "I suppose I'm prejudiced. I prefer my prey a little more lively."

"We've got to get you out of here," Michael said.

I gritted my teeth, and tried to push the pleasant sensations aside. The venom had to have an enormously quick absorption rate. Even if I'd brought the wine back up, I must have gotten a fairly good dose. "No," I managed after a moment. "That's what they want me to do."

"Harry, you can barely stand up," Michael objected.

"You are looking a bit peaked," Thomas said.

"Bah. If they want me incapacitated, it means they've got something to hide."

"Or just that they want you to get killed," Michael said. "Or drugged enough to agree to let one of them feed on you."

"No," I disagreed. "If they wanted to seduce me, they'd have tried something else. They're trying to scare me off. Or keep me from finding something out."

"I hate to point out the obvious," Thomas said, "but why on earth would Bianca invite you if she didn't want you to be here?"

"She's obligated to invite the Council to witness. That means me, in this town. And she didn't expect me to actually show-pretty much everyone was surprised to see me at all."

"They didn't think you'd come," Michael murmured.