Chapter 18: The Gathering

I parked Truck Nine at the foot of the Hall's steps with the beacon turning.

It sat there in the snow, orange light sliding over the old stone.

"Subtle," Emlyn said.

"It's a plow. It's allowed to be where it wants."

We went up the steps together, and the man in the black coat opened the oak door without a word.

Inside, every candle in the Hall was lit.

Thirty-one vampires sat in the pews or stood along the walls, pale and well dressed.

One of them wore an old sea captain's jacket.

The woman with the ivory cane sat in the front pew.

The heavy man with the tidy grey beard sat across from her, with a black medical bag on his knees.

Ingeborg stood behind the long table with the gavel at her hand.

She looked at us coming down the aisle, and her face showed nothing at all.

"Mr. Trask. Miss Doyle," she said. "Thank you for joining us. You have chosen the front door."

"We have," said Emlyn.

"Then be seated, members of the Compact."

"I'll stand," I said.

"As you like." She lifted the gavel and brought it down.

The Hall went silent.

"I call the Gathering to order. There is one matter before us."

She laid her palms on the wood.

"Emlyn Trask, a suspended member of this Hall, has taken a fourth bite from a human donor in defiance of the Law."

"He did so after releasing her before this Chair. He has done it, I believe, through force of will."

The pews rustled.

"Kept," someone said, in a tone of wonder.

"Mr. Haugen is an old man, and unwell. Miss Doyle is, I fear, no longer herself." Her voice was sorrowful. "She is a thrall."

"She repeats what she has been given."

I could hear my own breathing.

"I ask the Hall for three things," Ingeborg said. "That Mr. Trask be struck from the roll."

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