Free Midnight Reign by Chris Marie Green Page B

his full gaze upon him. “Rise.”
    Mr. Crockett wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his upper lip.
    “You think Limpet and Associates is harmless,” Sorin said, “even if their tiny detective—the one who is said to have the sixth sense—was touching you, as if to know your thoughts.”
    “I think they only suspect that I’m a basic familiar and that I know more about Robby than it appears to the public.”
    “You do not think this psychic looked into you?”
    “I blocked my thoughts as soon as I felt him touching me.”
    That might be true, but Sorin was not a vampire who traded on maybe’s. “I hope you are correct, Mr. Crockett. Surely you recall how Robby and Nathan Pennybaker leaked information about our home to these detectives.”
    The Servant nodded, gaze fixed to the ground.
    It was not enough to assuage Sorin.
    Having been present at the scene of Robby’s final betrayal, the Guards had informed Sorin, their keeper, of every last detail. What Dawn Madison and her friends had learned concerned him a great deal, yet the Master remained insistent that they wait for a “better” time to attack. A time when they knew with absolute certainty that Limpet and Associates was hunting the Underground and not merely investigating Robby Pennybaker. A time when they could ascertain if this “Limpet” was perhaps even a master from a rival Underground, an “other” to be avoided at all costs.
    Others forced takeovers, and Sorin knew this all too well.
    Though it was true that, since parting ways over a century ago, not every master had become a dangerous one—some only had the ambition to peacefully join with existing Undergrounds out of pure loneliness—Dr. Eternity had been attacked and beaten before. And, long ago, Sorin and his Master had determined that this would never happen again. Never .
    As Sorin’s silence forced Milton Crockett to keep staring at the ground in his shame, Sorin thought of how the loss of the first Underground had negatively affected the Master. Fear of a second attack had plunged their leader into a recurring numbness. This depression had sapped his will, urging him to ignore the hint of another master in the area before the situation had grown more serious with Robby. Perhaps he had only been attempting to avoid repeating one of the most devastating moments of his vampire life by refusing to acknowledge the threat of another losing battle.
    But now, after Robby’s security breach, the Master was no longer ambivalent, thank the day.
    The Underground was preparing to defend, not provoke, because if they should launch an effective attack against the PIs only to be mistaken, this would force an end to the Underground. Utilizing their full powers Above—going beyond simple shielding to avoid detection—would announce their whispered presence to those who knew how to read such signals. It would mean surrendering their safe haven, exposing them to perhaps a real master who could, in turn, attack.
    Fear was no way to live.
    Sorin felt his maker shift closer to the Servant, and he knew his father was restless.
    “Mr. Crockett,” Sorin said, calling the human’s attention.
    The lawyer, a man who loved the Underground as much as any full-vampire citizen, lifted his chin and spread out his hands. “Please, Master, I can take care of this situation without any attention focusing on our society. That’s what I do Above. That’s what I have been doing for the Pennybaker case, as well as Lee’s.”
    Sorin nodded. Since Lee Tomlinson had used vampire methods to murder Klara Monaghan for what he thought was the good of the Underground, he had marked their society for human attention. The lawyers Above knew there was no way around this, so they had improvised, taking great advantage of a subculture some humans embraced—a vampiric Goth lifestyle. They had convinced the public that Lee Tomlinson was one of those shadow numbers, diverting suspicion from the reality. Their philosophy