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her stomach.
    He was supposed to be the representative of the unseelie, but he hadn’t participated in the last few days of campaigning. Yet, like Stark, Melchior had people on his behalf working to promote his agenda—specifically, Pierce and Jaycee Hardwick. They were a photogenic couple. The gossip blogs loved them. And they had been working Iowa hard, making visits to Florida, and even kissing a baby or two. The poor babies.
    The unseelie were doing pretty well in the polls without an actual Alpha to lead them. They would have done even better if Melchior had shown up on the campaign trail himself.
    Too bad a dead man couldn’t campaign.
    No matter how hard Deirdre and Rhiannon fought for their factions, Rylie was still leading in the polls. She had a six-point lead over Stark.
    It was disgusting to think that after everything she had done to people, after all the pain Rylie had caused, people were still voting for the incumbent.
    Why? Because she had the best name recognition? Because the idea of a changed government was frightening? Because people were complacent sheep who just wanted to be led by the wolf they knew best?
    Deirdre wanted to believe that it couldn’t be that bad. No precincts were reporting yet, so there were no hard numbers.
    This early in the day, anyone could win.
    She hoped that didn’t mean that the gaean people were going to lose.

    Midnight approached. Deirdre and Geoff swapped positions a few more times, alternating between napping and watching the elementary school.
    Once the night grew black enough, most gaeans disappeared. Someone turned off the lights in the gymnasium and vampires emerged to take their turns voting. It made it impossible to monitor activity inside the school. But there didn’t seem to be a need. Everything was quiet.
    “Come on,” Geoff muttered under his breath. “Someone needs to give me an excuse to shoot them.”
    “Down, boy.” Deirdre was stretched out on the catwalk under a rooftop billboard advertising Synth-O-Neg pods for the Behexed—fake blood in a flavor meant to be universally appealing. Her boot dangled over the side. There was nothing between her kicking foot and the street two dozen stories down.
    Geoff eased back from the rifle. “I was hyped up for today to be a disaster. What a buzzkill.” He made a face at Deirdre. “Aren’t you worried about falling?”
    “Nope.” She rolled onto her side so that she could see him through the catwalk’s latticed metal. Beyond the edge of the building, she could see vampire voters moving around the street. There was a lone news crew—not January Lazar’s—interviewing people under red light to keep from offending their nocturnal eyes. “Are you?”
    “Hell yeah I am,” Geoff said. “That’s why I’m standing on the roof like a sane person while you’re up there doing your best Batman impression.”
    “More like Daredevil,” Deirdre said. “I’m not rich enough to be Batman.”
    He scoffed. “Marvel. You’re sick.”
    Joking about comic books took Deirdre uncomfortably close to thoughts about Niamh, who would be waiting back at the high rise to receive Lucifer’s voters.
    Deirdre pushed the harpy out of her mind.
    “This calm is almost worse than having fights to shoot at,” Geoff said. “It makes me think that the unseelie aren’t taking the election seriously. If they thought that this presented a threat to them, there would be magic dropping left and right.” He mimed bombs falling from the sky with his hands, making dramatic whistling and exploding noises.
    Deirdre wanted to believe it was because the participants in the election had some integrity, but she knew that Geoff was right.
    If Rhiannon wasn’t attacking, then it was because she didn’t need to attack.
    She swung down from the catwalk. Deirdre landed on the roof beside Geoff.
    “It should be fine. There’s no way to subvert the oath that’s binding the Alphas together. As soon as midnight hits…” She checked her