Kitty Rocks the House

Chapter 19

THE OILY vortex had expanded to include most of the church and sidewalk around it. The boundary markers of Cormac’s spell had vanished and no longer had meaning.

Cormac had gotten himself out of the way by running toward us. He dug in his pockets, but the yarn and sprigs of herbs he pulled out flew from his hand, caught in the gusts. He tried holding his broken arm up, using the sling as a shield, but the wind pinned him down to the sidewalk. Hide or cast a spell, but not both.

Leaning all my weight against the wind in order to move, I went to Hardin. Every step was an effort. The detective held her gun in one hand and minicrossbow in the other; her head was bent away from flying debris, and her ponytail lay smashed against her cheek.

“We have to help him!” I shouted at her ear and pointed at Cormac, who was bent to the ground in the shelter of a lamppost.

Huddling together, we lurched toward him. At least, we tried. She made it. On the other hand, I fell back, crashing to the sidewalk and rolling away from the others. I didn’t lose my balance, I didn’t trip or stumble. In fact, I would have sworn that someone grabbed my shoulders and yanked me to the ground. I could feel the start of bruises where the fingers had dug in.

Then Rick was kneeling beside me, helping me up. I clung to him. A sharp smacking noise came from the next gust that struck us, and Rick’s head whipped to the side—punched, hard. He didn’t hesitate, but sprang up, cocking back to strike whatever had chosen to do battle with us. He was a blur, moving so quickly I couldn’t see him, his vampiric speed and strength at the fore.

But the tendril of wind that had struck us was gone.

My heaving breaths came out as growls. I braced on all fours, Wolf ready, but no enemy presented itself, I had nothing to attack.

Hardin abandoned the crossbow and pointed her gun at us, bracing it before her with both hands. Not at us, rather, but at whatever had attacked us. She couldn’t see it, either, and swung her aim away from us. Her jaw was set.

A voice rang out, even over the blasts of wind. Father Columban, speaking from the church steps, a booming chant cast against the storm, definitely in Latin. He was praying, arms raised before him. His gaze focused on something close to us, though I couldn’t make out any details amid the swarming dust and smoke. There might have been a million insects attacking us and I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Rick, arm bent before his face, watched Columban and inched toward the staircase. He was murmuring—I couldn’t hear very well, but he seemed to be matching Columban’s words, adding to the prayer.

Whatever they were saying didn’t seem to be helping.

Hands closed around my neck.

Again, I could feel the action, make out the pressure of fingers on my throat, note the strength of the arms that hauled me backward. I thrashed, fighting against it, ignoring the fact that it had cut off my air. Didn’t need air, just had to get free. Claws wouldn’t do me any good—I had nothing to slash. When I reached back, my hands passed through nothing.

But I heard a voice near my ear, soft, a murmur under the wind. “My bounty is for the priest, but you’ll do.” Indistinct, impossible, like the whisper of a tornado.

I struggled harder, but how did you escape a storm when you couldn’t run? Especially one that seemed to be speaking to you?

Rick flew. Or seemed to. His leap had sent him into the wind, and he sailed above the space between me and the steps.

He couldn’t see our opponent any more than I could, so he grabbed onto me, wrenching me down as he dropped back to the ground. My captor kept its grip and would rip my head off, I thought. I wouldn’t survive that, and I twisted to try to keep whole. My muscle and bone seemed to crack. Suddenly, it let go, and I fell along with Rick.

Visible above me, I finally saw something clearly: a weapon—a long staff with a sharpened point reaching out of the black wind. A wooden staff, expressly designed for killing vampires. My bounty is for the priest …

The spear aimed at Rick.

I lunged at it, hoping to shove it away, maybe even take the strike meant for him. I’d survive it, even if it struck my heart. It was only wood. But the spear withdrew, looped around me, and thrust again. Rick dodged, of course he did. Impossibly, though, the staff anticipated his movement. As fast as the vampire was, the spear tracked him, moving just as fast. He couldn’t escape.

Columban shouted. “No!” He leapt from the stairs, toward the battle.

Rick fell away from the spear; Columban pushed him. And the spear went into Columban.

The priest fell, gripping the wooden shaft that protruded from his chest.

Columban was old, and in seconds his body returned to the state it would have been, buried in the ground all this time: rotting, blackened skin crumbling to ash, revealing muscle and bone that also crumbled to ash, his cassock decaying along with the flesh. Rick stumbled, staring at the disintegrating body with shock-widened eyes. The dust scattered, dispersing into the wind, leaving nothing behind. Columban might never have existed.

Rick stayed frozen at the spot where the vampire priest had been. I could have knocked him over myself. I paced around him, back and forth, manically trying to keep myself between him and the spear, which had pulled back into the whirling smoke. The point of it still tracked us. Since Rick wasn’t paying attention, I had to defend him. It might strike at any moment.

Now Cormac was chanting, and it wasn’t Latin.

He might have been at it for a while, and I hadn’t noticed. Hardin was beside him, holding something—an extra hand to make up for Cormac’s broken one. In his good hand, Cormac held a lighter, though getting it to work in the tempest would be a trick. They pressed toward us, opposing the gusts of wind. Hardin cupped both hands together, protecting whatever she held.

Rick looked up at Cormac, and his expression darkened into rage.

“Rick,” I muttered, my voice rasping, dried out from the wind and full of repressed growling. That spear still lurked, and I prepared to leap at it, an attack of desperation.

Cormac’s chanting increased in speed and volume, doing battle with the blasting of the wind until it reached a climax, a series of shouted, individual words. Then he flicked the lighter, using his body as a windbreak. Amazingly—magically, even—the flame came to life, flaring yellow. At the same moment, Hardin threw her handful into the air. Bits of dried herbs, shredded paper, who knew what else. The potpourri passed over the lighter flame and caught fire.

The burning debris rocketed toward us, propelled by the wind, by the spell, by Cormac’s chanting. I ducked, pulling a still-stunned Rick down with me.

The spear had been moving toward Rick, ready to strike—but the cloud of fiery debris hit it. And vanished.

So did the smoke, wind, swirling dust, and oily vortex that had engulfed the church for what seemed like hours, but had probably only been a minute or two. The world fell still, and I could see the sky again, its dark arc and haze of reflected city lights. I gave a deep sigh—I’d been holding my breath. The air smelled burned.

A figure stood nearby, holding the spear. A woman. And she was bound. Flickering yellow ribbons, like fire given solid form, wrapped around the wooden shaft of her spear; around her arms, pulling them from her body so that she couldn’t move; and around her legs and torso, anchoring her in place. Color and light slid along the bindings, giving the illusion of movement. But the figure remained immobilized.

She seemed tall—hard to tell how tall, because I was on the ground at her feet, looking up. From my vantage, she seemed to fill the sky. Muscular, she wore a close-fitting jacket, thick leather pants, tall boots. A biker’s armor. Her dark hair was short, spiky. Straps fitting across her chest and around her waist held weapons. More wooden spears, along with blades, whips, a sword across her back, a nightstick at her hip. Nothing with moving parts, no guns, nothing apparently explosive, but lethal in so many ways all the same. She also wore tinted goggles strapped to her head, sealed tightly to her face, making her eyes seem huge, stark, against her pale skin. I couldn’t tell if she was looking back at us. Her chest worked, taking in deep breaths, as if she were exhausted. A lingering cloud of black fog roiled in a layer at her feet.

Her mouth twisting, she lunged against ribbons that bound her. They didn’t budge, and she threw herself forward again. The bindings only tightened. She didn’t waste her energy struggling for long, and after the second attempt, she simply stared. At least, she seemed to. Who could tell with those goggles? Her lips pressed into a thin line. She might have been admitting defeat.

“Cormac…” I murmured.

“Huh,” he said, as if surprised how this had turned out. “Hoped we’d catch something.”

He hoped?

“Who the fuck are you?” Hardin said, gasping to recover her breath as much as the rest of us. All of us except Rick, at least.

The woman tipped up her chin in stoic refusal, like a prisoner of war.

“Do you have any idea who she is? Do you?” Hardin demanded of Cormac and Rick in turn.

Rick murmured, “I might have some ideas.”

At the same time Cormac nodded, “Yeah, I think I do.”

“I want to see her eyes,” I said vaguely, frustrated at the dark lenses that made her expression blank. The face turned to me, and I flinched. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could feel her attention.

“The light hurts her eyes,” Rick said. “It’s dark where she comes from.”

“But it’s night,” I said. “There isn’t any light.”

“It’s very dark, where she comes from.”

She let a smile flash. Just a tilting of her lips. One gloved hand flexed on the spear; the other closed into a fist. I hoped Cormac’s spell held.

Moments passed. The scene froze, the area around the church remaining incongruously quiet. Hardin’s backup officers stood a ways off, guns at their sides, but they didn’t know what to do next any more than the rest of us.

“Now that we’ve got her, what do we do with her?” I asked. What was she? Demon, I was guessing. But that covered so much ground and didn’t tell me anything.

“Can I arrest her?” Hardin said. She was probably put out that she didn’t get Columban after all.

Father Columban, who’d known what was coming all along. This demon had been hunting him, maybe for centuries. And now he was gone.

The first thing to do when you wanted information was to ask. Nicely, if possible. I stood and faced her. “You said you had a bounty on the priest, but that ‘I’d do.’ Father Columban said that all three of us were in danger.” I gestured to include Rick, and asked, “Why?”

She actually answered, in clipped words. I couldn’t place her accent. “He was a traitor. Like him. Like you.”

“A traitor?” I said, indignant. “I’m not a traitor, I haven’t betrayed anyone—”

“A bounty,” Rick said, interrupting. “Placed by whom? Whom do you serve?”

She bared her teeth—straight, white, normal. I expected them to be sharpened, vicious. She gave the impression of laughing at us and said nothing.

“Did Roman send you?” I asked. “Dux Bellorum, Gaius Albinus?” He probably had a dozen other names I didn’t know.

Now she did laugh, a short and mirthless sound. “Idiots.”

“If not him, then who?” I said. Pleading.

“You know so little,” she said, showing her teeth again.

“Then tell me. Educate me. What are we up against here?”

She said, “I was sent by the one who commands Dux Bellorum.”

I tilted my head, as if that would help me hear better, though I’d heard her perfectly well. “And who is that?” I said.

Rick answered me: “Dux Bellorum is the general. The one who leads the army. Not the one who rules the nation. That would be Caesar.”

I stared at Rick. I had never considered such a proposition, and now it rattled in my brain like bells. Church bells, sonorous, tolling doom.

Hardin was getting frustrated. “You still haven’t said if I can arrest her or not.”

“No,” Cormac said. “I don’t think you can.”

“Well, I can’t condone killing her if that’s your other option.”

“You don’t kill something like this,” Cormac said. “You banish it.”

“Then you know what she is?” I said, my ears still ringing. Who was Caesar?

“Demon,” Cormac said, which I’d already known—

I heard the wind before I felt it, a sucking noise, a single, powerful blast of air. The oily vortex reappeared. Narrow this time, it focused on a point—on the woman in leather. She braced against her bindings and tilted her head back.

Dust and debris smacked my face, but I didn’t want to turn away. The tornado shrank, closing the demon in its circle, sucking black smoke into the ground. She opened her mouth, and I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or screaming. The vortex collapsed, taking her with it, wind, dust, smoke, and demon, all of it falling into the ground, to nothing. The firelit ribbons that had bound her fell to the sidewalk, then turned to ash and scattered.

The air fell still, dust and smoke vanished. She was gone. My nose itched with the smell of soot.

Hardin spoke first. “What happened?” She looked around, not questioning anyone in particular.

I looked at Cormac. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Cormac said.

“Yes you did, something happened—”

“That wasn’t me. Something yanked her back before I could do anything.”

“Yanked her back? What? To where?” I asked.

“To wherever she came from. I don’t know.” Turning away, he rubbed his forehead, like he had a headache. I know I did.

Beside me, Rick looked lost for a moment, glancing around him, returning again and again to the spot where Columban had been. His expression was stark, eyes unblinking. I wanted to reach out to him—anyone else I would have hugged, tried to comfort. Tried to share the grief. But I couldn’t touch him. I reached out my hand, then drew it back.

“Rick,” I said softly.

Rick’s gaze came to rest on Cormac. “You might as well have killed him yourself.”

The vampire closed on him in a second, almost invisible with speed. Cormac had a stake in hand just as the vampire reached him. The tip of the stake rested on Rick’s chest, but Rick’s hands gripped Cormac’s neck and squeezed. Cormac choked, but his hold on the stake didn’t waver. Both were ready to deliver killing blows. Rick bared his teeth, showing prominent fangs. He was usually so good at keeping them hidden.

Shouting, I ran, the strength of my Wolf carrying me in a couple of long strides, and crashed between them. “Stop it!”

They fell back. Cormac held the stake at the ready; Rick was braced to fight. But they waited. Really, they didn’t have to listen to me. But they did. I held out my arms, keeping a space between them.

Rick spat his words past me. “You knew what would happen when you broke his protections. You knew something would attack.”

“Question is, did you?” Cormac appeared calm, but he was sweating with nerves. “Did he tell you what was after you both?”

“Both of you shut up,” I said, the words growling, my teeth bared.

They looked at me, and might have shown some concern for my state of mind. I felt fur prickling just under the skin, and wished Ben were here, because all he’d have to do was touch my arm and I’d calm down. But hell, if me threatening to shift uncontrollably got them to stand down, so be it.

Rick lowered his arms, but Cormac wasn’t moving that stake an inch. If I had to stay here all night, I would. I wasn’t going to let them near each other.

Hardin had been at the curb along the street, talking to the uniformed officers she’d brought. They’d walked off, probably searching the area for any evidence, or random destruction, or whatever. I doubted they’d find anything. Seeing the three of us in a standoff, she put her hand on her holster and walked over.

“There a problem?”

I wasn’t going to say anything—let one of them back down. When none of us answered, she continued. “Right, then who’s going to explain to me what the hell just happened?”

Good question. I wanted someone to do the same for me. But Cormac and Rick kept glaring daggers at each other.

Maybe if I started thinking out loud. “Columban knew he was being hunted. I’m betting that fire in Hungary was part of it. He knew how to protect himself, but when the shield was destroyed—”

“I got all that,” she said. “What about you and him? All that stuff she said at the end about being traitors? And Dux Bellorum? That’s Roman, right? That megalomaniac vampire freak who came through a couple years ago? And where did she go?”

Right to the heart of it. How big was this really? Was this a backstreet scuffle, or a battle in an ongoing war? I knew where I was putting my money.

“You don’t really want to know,” I said weakly.

“Oh, yes I do.” Her expression blazed.

“The Long Game,” I said, swallowing to get control of my voice, to pull Wolf back to her cage.

“I’ve heard you both talk about that before. It’s got something to do with Roman?”

“He’s worse than you think, detective,” I said.

“Kitty,” Rick said. “You don’t have to explain to her. You don’t have to bring her into this.”

On the contrary, I thought it was long past time we explained everything to her. I said to him, “We’re looking for allies. I consider her an ally.”

He nodded at Cormac. “You consider him an ally, too, and look what happened.”

“Rick—” I begged.

The vampire glared at Cormac, who might very well have turned to a flaming crisp if he hadn’t been wearing sunglasses to protect him from meeting Rick’s gaze.

“I do not ever want to see you again,” Rick said. “Be grateful I’m not forcing you to leave my city.”

“What makes you think you could?”

“Don’t push me.”

For a moment, I thought Rick was going to try, right then and there. A demonstration, because however brash Cormac acted, Rick could get around that stake and overcome him. But I kept myself between them. I even caught Rick’s gaze. Looked him in his blue eyes. He could have used his hypnotic power, commanded me to step aside, brought me under his control. But he didn’t. Please, I tried to tell him, even though he wasn’t telepathic. I was pretty sure he wasn’t telepathic.

Rick turned and stalked off. In three strides, he’d vanished into the church’s shadow. If I ran after him, he’d be gone. Again, he was gone.

“A little uptight, isn’t he?” Cormac said. Humor covering nerves. He was still holding the stake in a white-knuckled grip.

“Lay off him.” My lip curled in a snarl.

He glanced at Hardin, back at me. Frowned. “You want to know where that demon came from, I’ve got some research to do.” He stalked away, to the street and his Jeep.

“Cormac—”

He ignored me, just like I expected him to.

Where did that leave me? I looked around. The place didn’t look any different than it had a week ago. The confrontation hadn’t left any evidence behind. Not so much as a streak of soot on the concrete. Even the air smelled normal, full of people and cars, brick and asphalt, with a hint of distant mountains. A fire engine siren echoed somewhere.

Columban’s markings, the ones that drew out the boundary of his protective circle, were gone.

“Are you okay?” Hardin asked. She’d put her gun away and stood, arms crossed.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I will be.”

“Can I take you out for a cup of coffee?”

That sounded like a marvelous idea to me.

We ended up at a twenty-four-hour diner a few blocks away, on Colfax. The waitstaff recognized Hardin and sat us in a booth in back, in relative quiet and privacy.

I called Ben.

“Hey,” he said. “I was just going to call you. Shaun and I tracked Darren. He’s out of here. Loaded up his car and drove. I don’t think we have to worry.”

“Okay,” I said, my voice flat. “Good.”

“Kitty—what’s wrong?”

My breath shuddered out of me. I didn’t know where to start. “We had a bit of a showdown at the church. It … didn’t go well.”

“Are you okay? Where are you? I’ll come get you—”

“I’m fine, I’m with Detective Hardin.”

“You’re not under arrest, are you?” He didn’t sound like he’d be surprised if I were, which made me smile.

“No. We’re having coffee and talking. I’ll come home straight after, probably in an hour or so.”

“You’re sure?”

“It makes me really happy that you’d rush over here to get me, you know that?” Even after a thirty-second conversation with him, I felt better.

“Good, I guess. But I don’t think I’ll be happy until you get home. So hurry.”

“I will.” I clicked off the phone.

The coffee arrived, and Hardin looked at me. “I don’t want to hold you up too long, but I really need to know what happened, and what I’m supposed to tell my Interpol guy about Columban.”

I took a long drink. What was it about hot caffeine that made everything better? Even Wolf settled. My skin stopped itching with prickling fur.

“I don’t have all the answers. I can only tell you my side of it.”

“Well then, why don’t you get started?”

I told her about the Long Game, or what I knew of it. That there were networks of vampires, some of who were gathering power, others who opposed them. Roman, his followers, the coins they possessed. They were trying to take our cities from us, and we had to try to hold the line. No matter how much I learned, there was always more I didn’t know. I peeled back layers of the onion, and I always found more underneath. But this was all coming to a head. The two sides would clash. We had to be ready.

“What?” Hardin said, staring at me like I was crazy; or worse, worried that I was right. “Like a literal war? Some kind of battle?”

“I don’t know. Something. Roman’s gathering allies, and they’re everywhere. We’ve been trying to collect allies of our own, but it all seems to go wrong. Columban was supposed to be an ally.” My lips turned in a wince.

“He was wanted for murder.”

“Or was he defending himself against that demon? Did he start the fire, or did that demon, when she tried to attack him?”

Turning thoughtful, she looked away. “I thought I was starting to get a handle on this shit.”

“I don’t think it’s possible.” You thought you knew, and then the universe opened a vortex and dropped a bounty-hunting demon in your lap. What a world. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your Interpol contact has some wind of the Long Game. Maybe even of Roman or some of his allies. Maybe they have some mashed-up coins in evidence.”

She ran a hand through her hair, which was coming loose from its ponytail. “I’ve got enough to worry about just looking after Denver. I don’t know if I can take on any more.”

I said, “If there’s any way you guys can pool information, set up some kind of database, compare cases—”

“You think we’ll find patterns.”

“Yeah, I think you will. I don’t know if it’ll help, but it couldn’t hurt.”

After a moment of thought, she gave a fatalistic nod. “All right. I’m in.”

I HAD to see Rick. Somehow. The next night, I went to Obsidian and knocked on the basement door. I brought him a present, wrapped in a brown paper bag.

Angelo answered. Instead of his usual smirk and put-down, he stared at me with stark desperation, silently, as if he couldn’t find words. He smelled frightened, sweaty. What had happened to him? The hairs on my neck stood up, but I tried to act neutral. Normal.

“Is he in?” I asked, gesturing hopefully to the back hallway. “In and willing to talk to me, I mean?”

Gripping the door frame, he glanced over his shoulder, turned an anxious gaze back to me. “You have to talk some sense into him, please. He won’t listen to any of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s packing to leave.” That was the expression he was showing me, I realized: that of a person whose spouse was walking out, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

There had to be a mistake. “But—he told me last night he’d decided to stay—”

“That was before. Please, talk to him.” He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me through the doorway.

Baring my teeth, I snarled and shoved him off, backing into the hallway, away from him. What the hell was going on here?

“Please, Kitty, talk to him!”

“I can’t believe he’d just abandon all his ties here,” I said, but the argument didn’t sound persuasive.

“Rick doesn’t have any ties here,” Angelo said.

“But you’re his Family, you all are connected, surely he’ll listen—”

“None of us are Rick’s progeny. Not directly. Most of us were Arturo’s, and we became connected to Rick through him when Rick took his blood. As far as I know, from everything I’ve heard, Rick has never created another vampire.”

That sounded impossible. “At all? Ever? In five hundred years of existence?”

“Not one,” Angelo said.

The Master vampires gained power by creating minions and maintaining control over their progeny. Rick—he’d traveled through his five hundred years alone. All his power was his own.

“You have to talk to him,” Angelo said. “You’re the only one he listens to.”

“You’re giving me way too much credit.”

“Please, try,” he said, and pointed down the hallway to the closed door of Rick’s office and living room.

My nerves were on fire as I walked the last few paces to that door. Angelo stayed where he was, slumped against the wall, hugging himself, anguished.

I knocked on the door and called, “Rick? Can I talk to you for a minute?” Tried to sound casual and nonthreatening. The paper bag crinkled in my grip.

Time ticked on. After what happened last night, I wouldn’t blame Rick if he decided never to speak to me again. But finally the door opened, and there he was. I looked up, earnest and hopeful, probably close to the sad little puppy I felt like.

He appeared much as he had at the church, though the jeans and T-shirt were fresh. His dark hair was ruffled, as if he’d been pulling at it. The suave aristocrat in the silk shirt he usually showed to the world was gone.

After regarding me blank-faced for a moment, he turned away, leaving the door open. I took that as an invitation. He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at me, just went straight back to his desk at one end of the room. Its drawers were open, and he was putting items into a black canvas duffel bag. Packing, as Angelo had said.

“I brought you a present,” I said, holding up the bag.

“I’m sorry, I’ll probably have to leave it behind. I’m traveling light.”

My throat tightened, and I had to work to talk like nothing was wrong. “Where are you going?”

“Italy,” he said. “Vatican City.” He moved a pair of small, ancient-looking leather-bound books into the bag, then wrapped a chipped clay cup in a scarf and packed it away.

“I thought you said you were going to stay,” I said, pleading.

“I have to tell them what happened to Father Columban.”

“Can’t you call? Write a letter?”

Pausing, he leaned on the desk a moment. A living human would have taken a deep breath, but he gathered his thoughts silently. “I thought it best that I tell them in person.”

“You think you have to replace him in the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows.”

He bowed his head. His hands, resting on the desk, clenched into fists. “I—I would like to meet the other members of the order. It’s important to me.”

“But you’ll be back?”

The pursed lips, the glance away, were something of an answer.

“Would you like to sit?” He gestured to the sofa on the other side of the room, and he joined me there. I perched on the edge of the cushion, wondering what I could possibly say to change his mind. Surely I could say something.

I just couldn’t think of what.

He radiated the chill of his bloodless, undead vampire nature. It should have felt unnatural, making me nervous, but he was just Rick. He’d always been like that. No heartbeat, no breath. But still human, somehow. He studied his hands, resting on his lap.

He said, “Father Columban told me a very strange thing—the order knew about Fray Juan, the vampire who made me. He used to be one of them, but turned apostate and fled. They assumed he had been destroyed during the Inquisition. Many vampires were. But they never imagined he’d fled to the colonies to start his own empire. Columban actually thanked me for destroying him and preventing that. Because Columban didn’t just know Fray Juan—he was the one who made him a vampire. So Columban was my grand-progenitor. I could have learned so much from him.”

“You and Columban were shut up in there for days. Is that what you did all that time? Talk about history, where you came from?”

“Isn’t it enough?” he said. “We talked, told stories, prayed. Confessed. A lot of sins to confess, after five hundred years. Many acts of contrition to say. It was … good. To feel some sort of absolution.”

“A Catholic vampire. Well then.”

“So you understand why I must go, to tell them what happened. To learn whatever I can, to help them.”

“I don’t understand.” Except that I did. He’d had a glimpse of something he thought he’d lost. He wanted more. I shook my head. “I’m sorry about what happened. If I hadn’t set Cormac on the trail—”

“Blame doesn’t solve anything. Only forgiveness. You did what you thought was right. So did Cormac and Detective Hardin for that matter.”

“That woman—the demon—she would have killed us, if Cormac hadn’t stopped her. I’m pretty sure a few of her knives were silver.”

“Yes. Father Columban knew that the three of us were in danger,” he said. “She was after us, the vampires and lycanthropes.”

“Why?”

“Because of what we are. Is there another reason?”

I pondered that. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. “Is she gone for good, or will she be back?”

“I don’t know. We have enemies, we already knew that. The details hardly matter.”

Unless the details told us how to kick their asses. I imagined Rick was taking the long view here, as usual.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I asked.

“I do,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “I think you’d been a werewolf for all of six months. Everything terrified you.”

“Can you blame me?” I had almost forgotten those days myself. Repressed them. I had no idea what it must have looked like from the outside. But Rick would remember.

“Not at all,” he said. “Around all those hardened wolves you were so…”

“So what?”

“Unworn. Fresh. It’s an odd piece of fate that threw you among Carl’s folk. Trial by fire.”

“Wasn’t so bad,” I said, but the words felt false. I only said that because I knew now, after meeting dozens of other werewolves and seeing other packs, how much worse it could have been. Or I honestly didn’t remember how bad it had been. Just as well, probably. Darren was more right about me and how I started out than he knew. “But that wasn’t what I expected you to say. More like inexperienced. Naïve.”

“It’s a matter of perspective, I think. Others saw you as weak. I thought you had a lot of promise. You were a survivor.”

I looked at my hands twisted together, because my eyes had started stinging. I didn’t want to cry, not here. “The first time we met, you were the only one in that crowd, all the werewolves and vampires jockeying for status and position, who treated me like a person. You didn’t care if I was weak or strong, you didn’t expect me to behave a certain way. You asked how I was doing. And then you listened. I don’t even remember what I said, I think I rambled for a long time about nothing in particular.”

“You said you were doing all right, but you weren’t. You were sad and nervous and confused, but couldn’t say it so you talked around it.”

“And then you backed me up when I started doing the show. Everyone else wanted me to quit.”

“That was about the time you stopped being so confused.”

“I’m still confused.”

“But not about who you are. Not like you were then.”

“Is that because I’m more comfortable with the werewolf thing, or because I’ve gotten older?”

“Yes,” he said, his smile turning lopsided.

“I guess you would know about getting older.”

“I would.”

Rick had become one of my favorite people in the world. Bloodsucking vampire and all. How had that happened?

I bit my lip. “Angelo told me you’ve never made another vampire. You may be Master of the city but you don’t have vampires of your own. Is that true?”

“Angelo must be smitten with you, to start telling you my secrets.”

I chuckled. “I don’t know about that. So, is it true?”

“It’s true. It’s simple, really. Why would I inflict on anyone else what happened to me? It would bring me power. But no. I wouldn’t put that burden on my soul.”

“You’re a good person, you know that?”

“I’ve at least come to believe that I’m not entirely damned.”

There wasn’t going to be a good moment for this, but I’d dragged the thing all this way so I might as well go through with it.

“I brought you a present,” I said, retrieving the paper bag and handing it to him.

“And it’s not even my birthday,” he said. Peeling back the opening, he reached for the object within and drew it out to the open.

It was the vampire crystal skull. Rick held it before him, staring at it eye to eye. In the muted lamplight, the thing glowed golden. The little crystal fangs glinted.

“Alas, poor Yorick?” Rick said at last.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” I said, grinning.

“Well, happy to oblige. I expect it’ll make a nice bookend. Unless there’s some ancient Mayan curse on this I should know about?”

“Naw,” I said, turning it over to point at the base. “It has MADE IN INDIA etched on the bottom. I just didn’t mention that part on the show.”

“Thank you. I think.” He stood and went to the bookshelves on the wall, where he found a niche for it. But then he returned to the duffel bag and zipped it closed. “Angelo will look after the city while I’m gone,” he said.

Like I thought a kitsch item, however lovingly given, would convince him to stay.

“Angelo doesn’t want the job,” I said, standing, begging. “He’s a wreck out there. I thought he was going to cry.”

“He’ll grow into the part.”

I had my doubts about that. “As soon as they hear you’re gone, Roman’s minions will be all over the city,” I said.

“I don’t think they will,” he said. “They know you’re here, after all.”

“Rick—”

“Kitty. I have to go.” He came around the desk to stand in front of me. He seemed so calm. At peace, even. He ought to be on the edge of tears and shouting, like me.

When he stepped forward, arms open, I fell into his hug. We stood like that for a good long moment, me gripping his shoulders, him holding me.

“Take care of yourself, all right?” he ordered, as we pulled apart.

I nodded, unable to say a word.

AND THEN I left.

Angelo was still sulking by the outside door. He glanced up when I approached. “Well?”

“He’s leaving,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s an idiot,” he muttered. The anguish from before seemed to have fallen away. Now, he just seemed tired, slumped against the wall, frowning deeply.

I was going to have to deal with this guy on a regular basis. All that posturing, when he was a minion who got off on treating me like a stupid werewolf—we’d have to leave that behind. Water under the bridge. We had a city to protect.

“He’s a man with a mission. For what it’s worth, he seems to think you’ll do just fine as Master of Denver.”

The man’s chuckle was bitter. “It’s not being Master of the city I’m worried about. I can handle that. I can even work with you, if I have to. But I’m not sure I can stand up against Dux Bellorum the way you and Rick have.”

That was where the fear came from, then. He wasn’t even wrong to be afraid, even without knowing the whole story. My smile might have been a little stiff, thinking of the goggle-eyed demon and a theoretical Caesar.

“Oh, it’s not Dux Bellorum we have to worry about,” I said.

He stared at me as I walked past him and into the night.