There is, Monty said, and already Ishmael was as annoyed as he was gratified. He'd have been pissed off if he'd thought that Morales was trying to oust him from the group, sure, but the easiest way to end this interaction as soon as it had started would have been to lie, and say there wasn't. Then Ishmael would have had no choice but to leave.

But of course Monty couldn't make things easy, was instead going to try and make it sound like Ishmael was the problem here. "Spending time with him."

Ishmael folded his arms and leant against the edge of the table. "Believe me, I've got better things to do," he answered, with a dispassionate sneer - he hoped Monty would dwell on that, all those hypothetical better things - "but I didn't think you three cretins would get on very well without me." This was, possibly, strictly, not necessarily true. Ishmael considered himself smarter than the other two - he was definitely more charismatic than them both put together - but he had a few drawbacks they didn't, as a vampire. He stood out for it; couldn't do simple things sometimes, like scout out places without having been first invited in; and, most importantly, couldn't use magic. (For that reason, he didn't always fancy his chances alone.)

All the same, he was a vampire, Ishmael reminded himself. It hardly even mattered that he was quicker and stronger than humans: most humans were terrified enough already, when faced with that.

(And he didn't much like to think of Monty out there getting into trouble alone, either. But that didn't help anything.)

---