CORY DOCTOROW · 234
tourists, the kind of place where every room came with a goldfish bowl, where the lobby was full of beautiful old people in fine clothes, showing off their plastic surgery results. Normally, the mundanes — our word for non-players — just ignored us, figuring that we were skylarking kids. But that weekend there happened to be an editor for an Italian travel magazine staying, and he took an interest in things. He cornered me as I skulked in the lobby, hoping to spot the clan-master of my rivals and swoop in on him and draw his blood. I was standing against the wall with my arms folded over my chest, being invisible, when he came up to me and asked me, in accented English, what me and my friends were doing in the hotel that weekend? I tried to brush him off, but he wouldn’t be put off. So I figured I’d just make something up and he’d go away. I didn’t imagine that he’d print it. I really didn’t imagine that it would get picked up by the American press. “We’re here because our prince has died, and so we’ve had to come in search of a new ruler.” “A prince?” “Yes,” I said, getting into it. “We’re the Old People. We came to America in the 16th Century and have had our own royal family in the wilds of Pennsylvania ever since. We live simply in the woods. We don’t use modern technology. But the prince was the last of the line and he died last week. Some terrible wasting disease took him. The young men of my clan have left to find the descendants of his great-uncle, who went away to join the modern people in the time of my grandfather. He is said to have multiplied, and we will find the last of his bloodline and bring them back to their rightful home.” I read a lot of fantasy novels. This kind of thing came easily to me. “We found a woman who knew of these descendants. She told us one was staying in this hotel, and we’ve come to find him. But we’ve been tracked here by a rival clan who would keep us from bringing home our prince, to keep us weak and easy to dominate. Thus it is vital we keep to ourselves. We do not talk to the New People when we can help it. Talking to you now causes me great discomfort.” He was watching me shrewdly. I had uncrossed my arms, which meant that I was now “visible” to rival vampires, one of whom had been slowly sneaking up on us. At the last moment, I