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The council chamber was on the highest level of the administrative building. It was a utilitarian room, equipped with modest furnishings and very little decoration. The narrow rectangular windows looked out over the settlement roofs. The guardian wall was a ribbon of gray concrete in the distance. Beyond it, the frontier lurked, haunted by ghost towns and silent, mist-shrouded woods.
The council met at night, to accommodate the settlement’s population of bloodsuckers, but the bulk of its members were warmblooded. They arrived in ones and twos, the five surviving members of the settlement council.
Besides Belasco and Doctor Hempstead there was Marielle Coke, the settlement’s mayor. Mayor Coke was a small lean woman with jet black hair and flashing black eyes. Her mouth was set in a hard, unforgiving line.
Next came the council’s only other Vampire member, a woman named Nancy. Nancy was a tall, slim woman with long blonde hair she wore twisted into a slender plait. She ran the blood farm that supplied the bloodsuckers with most of their physical sustenance. Belasco suspected that she was older than himself, but couldn’t prove it.
The final surviving member of the council was Norman Harvard, the proprietor of the local hardware shop. He was old for a warmblood, white-haired and stoop-backed, but he’d survived Adam’s Lament and seemed to come through it stronger.
They settled around one of the cold, metal tables and began to talk.
The council met at night, to accommodate the settlement’s population of bloodsuckers, but the bulk of its members were warmblooded. They arrived in ones and twos, the five surviving members of the settlement council.
Besides Belasco and Doctor Hempstead there was Marielle Coke, the settlement’s mayor. Mayor Coke was a small lean woman with jet black hair and flashing black eyes. Her mouth was set in a hard, unforgiving line.
Next came the council’s only other Vampire member, a woman named Nancy. Nancy was a tall, slim woman with long blonde hair she wore twisted into a slender plait. She ran the blood farm that supplied the bloodsuckers with most of their physical sustenance. Belasco suspected that she was older than himself, but couldn’t prove it.
The final surviving member of the council was Norman Harvard, the proprietor of the local hardware shop. He was old for a warmblood, white-haired and stoop-backed, but he’d survived Adam’s Lament and seemed to come through it stronger.
They settled around one of the cold, metal tables and began to talk.
