Mr. D positioned his cowboy hat. “This really don’t feel right.”

Lash narrowed his eyes. Lace curtains hung in front of every one of the windows, but as Clorox bright as the fabric was, the shit was creepy… Whoa, was it moving?

At that moment, he realized it wasn’t lace, but spiderwebs. Populated by white arachnids.

“Them’s…spiders?”

“Yup.” Wouldn’t be Lash’s decor choice, for real, but he didn’t have to live here.

The two of them paused at the first of the three steps up onto the front porch. Man, some open doors were not welcoming, and that was so the case here-less hi-how’re-ya, more come-in-so-your-skin-can-be-used-to-make-a-super-hero-cape-for-one-of-Hannibal-Lecter’s-patients.

Lash grinned. Whoever was in this house was so his peeps.

“You be wantin’ me to go up and ring the doorbell?” Mr. D said. “If there is one?”

“Nope. We wait. They will come to us.”

And what do you know, someone appeared at the far end of the front hall.

What came down toward them had enough robes hanging from its head and shoulders to give a Broadway stage a run for its money. The fabric was an odd, shimmering white, one that caught the light and refracted it in the thick folds, and the weight of it all was captured by a stout brocaded white belt.

Very impressive. If you were into the monarch-as-priest thing.

“Greetings, friend,” came a low, seductive voice. “I am the one whom you seek, the leader of those cast away.”

The Ss were strung out until they were almost their own words, the accent sounding a lot like the warning tremble of a rattler’s tail.

A thrill went through Lash, tingling down into his cock. Power was, after all, better than Ecstasy as a turn-on, and this thing that came to stand between the jambs of the front door was all about authority.

Long, elegant hands reached up to the hood and eased the white folds back. The face of the symphaths’ anointed leader was as smooth as his spectacular robing, the planes of the cheeks and chin cast in elegant, soft angles. The gene pool that had spawned this gorgeous, effete killer was so refined that the sexes were almost as one, male and female characteristics blending, with a preference toward the female.

The smile was stone-cold, though. And the flashing red eyes were shrewd to the point of malevolence.

“Won’t you please come in?”

The snake’s lovely voice blended those words into one another, and Lash found himself liking the sound.

“Yeah,” he said, making his mind up on the spot. “We will.”

As he stepped forward, the king raised his palm.

“One moment, if you will. Please tell your associate to fear not. Nothing will harm you here.” The statements were kind enough on the surface, but the tone was hard-which Lash took to mean that they weren’t welcome in the house if Mr. D’s heat was in his hand.

“Put the gun away,” Lash said softly. “I’ve got us covered.”

Mr. D holstered the.357, his y’sir unspoken, and the symphath moved out of the way of the door.

As they went up the steps, Lash frowned and looked down. Their heavy combat boots made no sound on the wood, and the same happened on the porch slats as they approached the doorway.

“We prefer things quiet.” The symphath smiled, revealing even teeth, which was a surprise. Evidently, the fangs of these creatures, who had once been closely related to vampires, had been bred right out of their mouths. If they did still feed, it couldn’t be very often, not unless they liked knives.

The king swept his arm out to the left. “Shall we adjourn to the sitting room?”

The “sitting room” could more accurately have been described as the “bowling alley with rocking chairs.” The expanse was nothing but glossy floorboards, and walls hung only with white paint. Across the way, four Shaker chairs were clustered in a semicircle around the lit fireplace like they were afraid of all the emptiness and had huddled together for support.

“Won’t you sit down,” the king said as he swept his robing up and out and took a seat in one of the spindly chairs.

“You stay standing,” Lash said to Mr. D, who obligingly took up res behind where Lash parked it.

The flames made no cheery crackle as they ate at the logs that birthed and sustained them. The rockers made no creak as the king and Lash settled their weight. The spiders were silent as each fell into the center of its web, as if they were prepared to be witnesses.

“You and I have a common cause,” Lash said.

“So you seem to believe.”

“I thought your kind would find vengeance attractive.”

As the king smiled, that odd thrill shot down into Lash’s sex. “You would be misinformed. Vengeance is but a crude, emotional defense against a given slight.”

“And you’re telling me that’s beneath you?” Lash leaned back and set his chair in motion, going back and forth. “Hmm…I may have misjudged your kind.”

“We are more sophisticated than that, yes.”

“Or maybe you’re just a bunch of dress-wearing pussies.”

That smile disappeared. “We are far superior to those who believed they imprisoned us. In truth, our preference is for our own company. Do you think we did not engineer this outcome? Foolish of you. Vampires are the crass basis of where we evolved from, chimps to our higher reasoning. Would you care to remain among animals if you could live in civility with your own kind? Of course not. Like finds like. Like requires like. Those of common and superior minds shall be fed only by those of commensurate status.” The king’s lips lifted. “You know this to be true. You have not remained where you began, either, have you.”

“No, I have not.” Lash flashed his fangs, thinking his brand of evil hadn’t fit in among the vampires any better than the sin-eaters’ did. “I am where I need to be now.”

“So you see, had we not desired the very end result we obtained in this colony, we might have taken not vengeance, but corrective action such that our destiny was favorable to our interests.”

Lash stopped rocking. “If you weren’t interested in an alliance, you could have just told me in a fucking e-mail.”

An odd light flashed in the king’s eyes, one that made Lash even hotter, but also disgusted him. He didn’t fly with the homosexual shit, and yet…well, hell, his father liked the males; maybe some of that was in him, too.

And wouldn’t that give Mr. D something to pray over.

“But if I had e-mailed you, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of your acquaintance.” Those ruby red eyes swept down Lash’s body. “And that would have been a robbery to my senses.”

The little Texan cleared his throat, like he was gagging on his tongue.

As the disapproving choke faded, the king’s chair started moving up and back soundlessly. “There is something you could do for me however…which would in turn obligate me to provide you with what you are looking for-and it’s locating vampires, isn’t it. That has long been the struggle of the Lessening Society. Finding vampires within their hidden homes.”

The bastard hit the nail on the head. Lash had known where to raid over the summer because he had been to the estates of the ones he’d killed, having attended the birthday parties of his friends and the weddings of his cousins and the balls of the glymera at those mansions. Now, though, what was left of the vampire elite had scattered out of town or to out-of-state safe houses, the addys of which he didn’t know. And civilians? He didn’t have a clue where to start there, because he’d never socialized with the proletariat.

Symphaths, however, could sense others, humans and vampires alike, seeing them through solid walls and underground basement foundations. He needed that kind of insight if he were going to make progress; it was the one thing that was missing from all the tools his father was giving him.

Lash pushed his combat boot into the floor again and fell into the same rhythm as the king.