Kitty Raises Hell

Chapter 9

My last stop had to wait until after nightfall, when I went to see Rick.

Rick occupied his predecessor’s lair, which masqueraded as a high-end art and antique gallery called Obsidian. I’d never seen the place actually open for business, and no hours were posted in the window.

I didn’t go in by the front door but passed right by the glass-fronted, stylish facade and went around back, where a concrete stairway led down to a utility door in the basement—the real vampire lair. I felt like an idiot knocking on the door. I should have had Girl Scout cookies or something.

I wasn’t sure anyone would even answer; usually, we called each other and met someplace. Then the door opened in. A youngish-looking, annoyed guy stood there glaring at me—vampire, of course. He didn’t look any different than anyone else, but the smell gave him away: cold. No warm blood moved under his skin. Rick had vampire minions, about the same number as I had wolves in my pack, some of whom had been Arturo’s followers. I didn’t know how smoothly the transition to the new leadership was going. Maybe I’d find out.

“Hi!” I said, and suppressed the “Avon calling” joke on the tip of my tongue. We have some blush that would really do wonders for your pale complexion... “Is Rick in?”

“Why are you here?” he said.

“I need to see Rick.” My voice went lower, almost into a growl. My shoulders tightened. Wolf felt challenged, and I glared. But didn’t meet his vampiric gaze.

His lip curled, like I’d said something funny. “You don’t have the authority to beg an audience of the Master.”

Oh, great. An old-school freak. I didn’t have any patience for this bullshit.

“If you expect me to stand here and give you some line about how I do have the authority, as the alpha female of the werewolves beseeching his most exaltedness for a bare second of his infinite amount of time, yadda yadda and so on—no. Just no. You tell Rick I need to talk to him, and if he tells me to go away, fine, but I’m not going to argue about it with some flunky who has an inflated sense of his own importance. Being a vampire doesn’t make you God or anything. Which leaves me baffled as to why you all feel the need to act like it.”

His vampire hauteur slipped as he stared at me. Now he just seemed like a guy watching a car wreck.

“You have issues, don’t you?” he said.

“You have no idea.” As soon as I found a therapist who could even begin to deal with those issues, I might do something about it.

“I’m still not going to let you in to see Rick.”

I took a deep breath for another round of arguing.

“Angelo.” Rick appeared behind the gatekeeper, a shoulder to the wall, arms crossed, regarding the scene with amusement. Angelo started as much as I did; neither of us had sensed him approach.

On seeing him, Angelo ducked his head, cowering almost. He lowered his gaze and stepped back. The submissive gesture was almost wolfish.

“Let her through,” Rick said. “I’ll talk to her.”

Without another word, Angelo stepped aside. He glared fiercely at me as I passed by him.

Side by side, Rick and I walked down the nondescript corridor to the inner sanctum.

“What’s his problem?” I said.

“He was one of Arturo’s, and he’s decided he needs to work very hard to prove his loyalty to me. He doesn’t seem to understand that I don’t want to run things quite like Arturo did.”

I was really glad that none of the wolves expected me to run the pack the way the old alphas did, which usually involved beating people up.

Inside the door to the back room, I had to stop and look around. I hadn’t seen the place since Rick moved in. Mostly, it looked like a comfortable living room, or a library reading room. A couple of sofas and armchairs were grouped around a plain wood coffee table. Shelves on the wall were filled with books and boxes, almost cluttered. The walls were wood paneling, and area rugs softened the scuffed hardwood floor. A few lamps gave the whole room a warm glow.

“I like what you’ve done to the place.”

“Thanks,” he said.

Arturo, who’d acted like the king of his own little world, had made the room a baroque fantasy, with tapestries on the walls, Persian rugs, and big red velvet and gilt chairs. Rick’s decoration, practical and welcoming, almost made the place look like home. I might actually start to like spending time here.

On the far end, where Arturo had had what was essentially a throne on a dais, Rick had kept the dais but put a desk and big leather chair on it, turning it into an office. On top of the desk was a computer.

“Ooh!” I said, admiring it. “So vampires aren’t allergic to technology.”

He slid into the chair behind the desk and leaned back—very much like Arturo used to do in his plush and gilt monstrosity—and gave me a look.

I continued, “Now, what does a vampire do with a computer? Keep track of investments? Send e-mail to other vampires as you all plot to take over the world?”

“I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia making corrections to the entries of historical figures I’ve known.”

I blinked at him. “Really?”

“No, Kitty. That was a joke.”

“Oh. Because, you know, maybe you should.”

“What’s wrong? You wouldn’t have come here to talk to me unless something’s happened.”

I pulled out yet another jar of Odysseus Grant’s potion and set it on his desk.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust at it, even as he leaned forward for a closer look.

“What in the world is that?”

I shrugged. I was putting a lot of faith in this. “Ancient Egyptian protection spell. My attacker’s been active the last couple of days.”

“Yes. I heard about New Moon. Is everything going to be all right?”

“I think so. But I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I don’t want to take any chances, so—here. If you want it.”

He didn’t seem any more enthusiastic about it, staring at the jar, vaguely repulsed. “We’re resorting to witchcraft now?”

“You say it like you don’t believe it’ll work.”

“It won’t, against a vampire.” Spoken with true vampire smugness.

I was starting to lose patience with him—it was like he wasn’t listening to me. “I know you think this is part of some vampire plot. But it wasn’t a vampire that tipped that van over or tried to burn down New Moon. This is something else entirely, and I could really use your help.”

“Kitty, I promise, I’m doing everything I can.”

“Like what? What are you doing? Pulling the Batman stunt on the tops of skyscrapers waiting for someone to walk along wearing a sign that says ‘I’m the bad guy’? Do you have minions scouring the far corners of the globe for information? What are you doing?”

He studied me, calm and unflustered. Very little flustered Rick. When it did, he didn’t panic. He just got angry. Calmly and pointedly angry.

“Here’s what I know: This thing is invisible. It displays sentience and motivation. It’s chosen the moments of its attacks carefully. The attacks are elemental, tied to fire. That makes it an old kind of magic—the kind of magic a vampire might use.”

I tried to be calm like Rick. Calm like a vampire. “You’re hunting for vampires. But what if this has nothing to do with vampire politics? This isn’t about vampires, it’s about revenge against me.”

“A group led by a vampire is making attacks in my territory. This may not have begun with vampire politics, but I find it hard to ignore the implications. Magic like this doesn’t come cheap. Is all this really a simple revenge plot?”

I had assumed it was pure revenge. We’d killed their head lycanthrope and several members of their cult and ruined their ritual. Revenge seemed like a good enough reason. “Now who’s being paranoid?”

“When vampires are involved, the web is more tangled than you think,” he said.

He had a point. Damn stupid vampires and their stupid sense of stupid superiority—

Rick turned aside to answer his cell phone. I hadn’t even heard it ring.

“Yes?” A few moments of listening. I couldn’t hear a thing, and I tried. “I’ll be there in a minute. Stay out of sight.”

He folded the phone away. “One of my people spotted a stranger nosing around New Moon. A vampire. We should go check it out. This might be what we’ve been waiting for.”

He might as well have said “I told you so.” Full of purpose now, Rick strode out the door, grabbing his black trench coat from a stand on the way out. I went with him, trying to be dignified and not scurry to keep up. A strange vampire lurking around New Moon? Of course I wanted to check it out; it made me territorial, and I wanted to growl.

I drove, with Rick in the passenger seat. New Moon was only a few blocks away, but speed seemed important. “So how did vampires report in before cell phones?”

“Telepathy,” he said.

“Wait a minute. That’s a joke, right? Because if it was telepathy, you wouldn’t need cell phones.”

He just smiled. Sometimes I really hated vampires.

I pulled into the alley behind the restaurant. Yellow caution tape was stuck over the back door, waiting for the inspections and repairs that would get the place back on its feet. I hadn’t noticed any strange figures lurking around. I climbed out of the car and took a deep breath.

I could still smell the fire, a tinge of wet soot coming from the building. But I didn’t sense anything else. Rick, however, marched straight around the side of the building without hesitation. Again, I had to scurry to keep up.

At the front of the building we found a man standing at the door, regarding it like he was considering breaking it down. Frustration tightened his already sharp features. This, I decided, was a man who was used to getting his way. He wanted into New Moon, and he couldn’t cross that threshold, and not because the door was locked. He acted like that wasn’t what was stopping him.

He was a vampire. On a cool night like tonight, warm bodies made something like rivers through the air, trails of heat, living smells left behind. But a vampire was an island of cold. Almost, I couldn’t sense him at all. Even the clean, dead smell I associated with vampires was muted on him, as if his scent had faded over the years.

I found that idea terrifying.

He turned to watch Rick and me approach. He was tall, thin, his face craggy. His whole body was probably lanky, but it was hidden under a long overcoat, turtleneck, slacks. Expensive shoes. His dark hair was very closely shaved, giving him a severe, stern appearance. He frowned at us.

“You’re Kitty Norville,” he said, looking each of us over. Sizing us up. His expression revealed no conclusions. “What have you done to block the door?” His voice was nondescript. Steady, not particularly deep. Not particularly conversational.

Rick said, “May I ask: Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

He looked at Rick, taking him in in a glance, then gave me the same cursory look-over. Rick may have considered himself more laid-back than the average vampire Master, but he bristled at the perfunctory attention.

“I can help with your problem,” the stranger said to us.

“How do you know we have one?” I said.

“The demon sent by the Band of Tiamat. Your problem.” He turned his gray-eyed gaze on me. I avoided meeting that gaze.

How did he know this? My back went stiff, like hackles. This guy wasn’t suave, blasé, bored, arrogant, or any of the other things I was used to seeing in vampires. Not even constantly, vaguely amused, which even the nice vampires were, like they’d seen it all and viewed the world as a humorous diversion. This guy was impatient, almost. On a mission.

“Demon?” Weird, having a name for it, an identification, whether or not he was right. “Are you some kind of demon hunter?”

“I suppose I’m an investigator. Of a sort.”

“And I suppose you’re trying to get inside to investigate?”

A single nod answered.

Rick said, “Who are you?”

“Roman,” he said. He traced the door, running his hand along the hinges. “I noticed the blood around the outside, but that isn’t what’s blocking me. You haven’t done anything specific to the entrance, have you? You’ve simply filled this place up with you and yours. Made it your own, keeping people like me out.” He almost sounded admiring. Almost.

“There’s really not much to see here. Not anymore. There was a fire,” I said.

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?” he said, sounding amazed, like he couldn’t believe we really were that stupid.

“If you’re trying to endear yourself to us, it’s not working.”

“And you might want to think about endearing yourself. At least to me,” Rick said.

“Ah. Yes. You must be Rick. Or is it Ricardo?”

“I don’t stand on ceremony. Rick is fine.”

“Is there someplace we can talk? Since you don’t seem inclined to invite me in.”

“There’s my place,” Rick said. “A club, it’s not far.”

Rick wanted to get this guy on his home turf and thereby get some kind of advantage. I didn’t argue.

The vampire Roman looked like he might want to try. When he gazed at Rick, eyes narrowed, he seemed to be calculating. Weighing the cost of refusing the request against his need to get what he wanted. I for one definitely wanted to find out why he was here, what he knew about demons, and what he knew about what the Band of Tiamat had released on me.

At last he said, “Fine. Shall we?”

He gestured sideways, across the street—in the direction of Rick’s club, like he already knew where it was. He’d scoped the place out already. This guy was a real player.

Rick stepped off the curb and walked on. Roman fell into step beside him.

What could I do but follow?