Free Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel by M.L. Brennan

meeting was being held. Antique furniture (though when my mother had purchased it, it was probably new) was upholstered in pink damask and satin, and mother-of-pearl was inlaid into as much of the woodwork as possible. For once the TV, constantly set to the twenty-four-hour-news network, was off.
    Chivalry, casual in beige slacks and an argyle sweater, sat beside me, making thoughtful “hmm” sounds of active listening as he listened to my presentation on the succubi. His movie-star-vampire handsome face was carefully neutral, giving me plenty to worry about as I tried to emphasize the few benefits that the succubi had to offer while downplaying their notable issues. Loren had done her best with the documentation, hiding the financial information behind several stock photos that she must’ve grabbed from the Las Vegas tourism board, but it’s hard to fight against numbers, and these were all too clear.
    My sister, Prudence, was sitting across from me on the matching love seat, and she was making it very plain from her expression that she was not being distracted by my emphasis on how easy it would be for us to help the succubi find gainful employment in the Connecticut casino industry. She was dressed for a day at her office, where she and a horde of stockbrokers did alchemic things with money and markets and turned profits in ways that I wasn’t even sure were feasible, much less legal.
    Madeline, our mother, would normally have been orchestrating our meeting from her favorite chair, but that had been quietly replaced several weeks ago by an elegant chaise longue where she could recline in style. She was stretched out on it, the oversize nineteen eighties grandma glasses that she wore primarily for appearance perched neatly on her face as she perused the material and seemed to give me half her attention. All of us had been sneaking glances at her since we walked in. While she almost never left her suite of rooms before the sun went down (our sensitivity to sunlight increased with age—while I had no problems walking around at any time of day, Madeline had been born in the fourteenth century, and her suite had been built to carefully obscure its lack of windows), she had always been precise in her personal presentation, even though her style might’ve mimicked Betty White on
Golden Girls
. Today, though, she was wrapped in a magnificent dressing gown of silver and pink that actually had small seed pearls sewn along the sleeves, and was swathed with blankets. She was in her pajamas.
    I’d learned months ago that my mother, who was old even by vampire standards, was beginning to decline in health. But when I’d heard that, I assumed that she had decades left to live. I was starting to suspect that I was wrong. In the three days since I’d seen her last, she looked more fragile and delicate. Tinier, as if she was collapsing in on herself like an old barn. She’d been ensconced on her chaise longue when the three of us were ushered into her presence by her personal maid, Patricia. I was wondering whether she had been able to walk, or whether one of the staff members had carried her to the chair from her bed.
    As if sensing my thoughts, she glanced up at me and smiled, deliberately flashing a set of long, fixed fangs that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a tiger. Fragile was definitely a relative thing when thinking about my mother. Prudence and Chivalry had thin, retractable fangs that were discreet and functioned like hypodermic needles. I had a set of teeth so innocuously normal that I still kept my six-month dental checkups.
    I cleared my throat loudly. “And there you have it,” I said, addressing my family. “The succubi have suffered a major setback by a hostile force, but I think that they would be a good addition to this territory. Low-risk, hard workers, and willing to offer substantial tithes for the protection we can offer them. I move that we offer them immediate entry.”
    Prudence gave me a flat