The Brucolac sat and listened to the pontifications and bad reasoning of the councilors, who were terrified of change, concerned for the balance of power. He endured preposterous and meaningless abstractions quite divorced from the real nature of the problem. There were arguments over the precise nature of the Lovers’ transgression. There were suggestions that they might appeal to the bureaucrats of Garwater below their rulers’ noses-fleshless and unworkable ideas, without systematicity.

At one point, someone around the table mentioned the name Simon Fench. No one knew who he was, but his name was mentioned more and more frequently among that minority opposed to the Summoning. The Brucolac waited, eager to hear some concrete suggestion. But the debate degenerated again, quickly, into wasted air. He waited and waited, but nothing valid was said.

He could feel the passage of the sun below the world. A little more than an hour before dawn, he gave up trying to contain himself.

"Gods and fuck," he growled in his graveyard whisper. The councilors were silent instantly, and aghast. He stood and spread out his arms. "I have been listening to you for hours," he hissed, "spewing your trite horseshit. Platitudes and desperation. You are ineffectual." He made the word sound like a soul-blasting curse. "You are failures. You are pointless. Get out of my boat."

There was a moment’s silence before the mass of councilors began to scramble to their feet, trying and failing to retain at least a part of their dignity. One of them-Vordakine, one of the better ones, a woman for whom the Brucolac retained a scrap or two of respect-opened her mouth to remonstrate with him. Her face was white, but she stood her ground.

The Brucolac curved his arms above has head like wings and opened his mouth, unrolling his tongue and letting his poisoned fangs snap down, his hands crooked and feral.

Vordakine’s mouth swiftly closed, and she followed her colleagues to the door, anger and fear on her face.

When they had all left, and he was alone, the Brucolac sank back into his chair. Run home, you little fuck bloodbags, he thought. He gave a sudden bone-cold grin, thinking of his absurd pantomime at the end. Moon’s tits, he thought wryly, they probably think I can change into a bat.

Recalling their terror, he suddenly remembered the only other place he had ever lived openly as ab-dead, and he shuddered. The exception to his rule, the only place where the payoff of fear between quick and vampir did not apply.

Thank the bloodlords, the shriven, the gods of salt and fire, I will never have to go back there again. To that place where he was free-forced to be free-of all pretense, all illusion. Where the true nature of the quick, the dead, and the ab-dead was laid bare.