Low Midnight

Chapter 26

AMELIA WORKED for a week, printed pages from the grimoire on one side of the table, blank sheets where she deciphered the writing on the other. The stack of deciphered pages grew. For now, she didn’t worry about reading them, about picking apart the meaning. Just get it all translated, then read. Cormac had to force her to take breaks; she might have been disembodied, but he had to eat and sleep.

What they initially gleaned from Amy’s spellbook: She had written about the lore she encountered, the spells and rituals, and poured out her thoughts about what they meant, how they might have developed, and how she might use them. This was before she met Kumarbis. After she met Kumarbis, she wrote what she learned from him. The stories he told her, the spells he taught her. Her tone became starstruck early on, as she grew enamored of the sheer weight of history behind him—he’d existed for more than three thousand years, Kitty estimated. Amy wanted to be a part of the story. She embraced his quest and did what she could to solve the puzzle of what he was trying to do—exactly how, once the vampire had collected enough allies and power, he was going to assert himself on the world and defeat Roman. Kumarbis knew everything about Roman—up to a point. Amy had tried to examine everything about that point she could. The trouble was, Kumarbis simply didn’t know everything about Roman, Dux Bellorum. Once the two had gone their separate ways, Kumarbis was cut off.

It could have been me, Amelia observed, nearing the end of her decoding. If Kumarbis had found me in Istanbul or Baghdad or any of the other cities I spent time in, I’d have been just as starstruck. I’d have followed him just as eagerly as Amy did, so I could learn more. Learn everything. Perhaps we do have much in common.

The whole thing made Cormac a little bit sad.

When Cormac had some kind of handle on the narrative and the information it held, he called Kitty.

“Oh my God,” she said, before hello even. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“I’ve been busy,” he said curtly.

“Well yeah, obviously, but you can’t at least check in once in a while?”

“Were you worried about me?”

He heard amusement in her voice. “I only worry when I get calls from the police about you.” Well. That was fair. “And Ben drove by your apartment and saw your Jeep parked there, and he said that probably meant you were working and you’d call when you were good and ready.”

Also fair. Made him nervous sometimes, how well Ben knew him. Nervous, and lucky.

“We have to talk,” he said. “I got the key to decoding Amy’s book, and I think I found something.”

She paused a moment, then said, “You should probably come over.”

HE ARRIVED at their house and found a home-cooked dinner waiting. He felt another one of those moments of displacement. On the one hand, this wasn’t him, this house in the suburbs and dinner with glasses of wine and actual domesticity; on the other hand, he could get used to it. It left him standing at the edge of the kitchen, bundle of papers under his arm, torn in two directions.

Amelia nudged him to say “thank you” and take his seat at the table to share in salad and pasta marinara. By unspoken agreement, they waited until after food to talk. Even so, Kitty still had food on her plate when she leaned forward, eyes wide, and asked, “Well?”

“Where should I start?” Cormac asked. The story was a tangle that he was still working out.

“Start with the hundred-and-fifteen-year-old murder,” Ben asked. “You didn’t actually figure it out, did you?”

“I believe I did,” Cormac answered smugly, and told a trimmed-down version of the whole thing. He left out the parts where he committed arson, failed to report a suspicious death to the proper authorities, and beat the crap out of Anderson Layne. By the skeptical looks on their faces, he was pretty sure Ben and Kitty guessed he was leaving out details. They were smart enough not to push him.

“And Judi gave you the key, just like that?” Kitty said.

“Whole code, all laid out.”

“So she could have helped you all along.”

He said, “I think they wanted to make sure I was serious. That I wasn’t just screwing around.”

“So it really was a test like in a fairy tale.” Kitty wrinkled her nose.

“Whatever it was—the key worked. Amelia decoded the whole thing.” He thumbed the stack of pages he’d brought. He figured Kitty would appreciate the reading. “I also asked your Web guy to take down the online version. Figure we didn’t need it hanging around anymore.”

“And … what?” she said, and sure enough she was reaching for the stack with curved, clawlike fingers. “You find anything? Did she say anything?”

He could sit there with half a grin on his face and drive her nuts, but he didn’t. He had the page folded down, the one where Amy explained why Kumarbis dedicated himself to destroying Roman, and drew it out to hand to Kitty.

Her eyes scanned over the lines, written in Amelia’s pointed cursive, and she started reading out loud.

“‘So amazing, thinking that such a power might exist. And yet utterly chilling. Kumarbis, for all his vague notions, for all his damaged psyche, is right—even if Dux Bellorum did nothing else, what he did at Herculaneum means he is viciously dangerous and must be stopped.’”

“Herculaneum?” Ben said. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

Cormac said, “Herculaneum is another town buried by the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii.”

“I know, but what does it have to do—”

“Wait. Be quiet, I have to think.” Kitty put up her hand, scrunched up her face, held her head as if she could squeeze the memory out. “It was something Kumarbis said, but it was right before everything went to hell. It’s all a mess … I can’t remember.” She opened her eyes wide. “Herculaneum. When I asked him about the Manus Herculei, that artifact Roman was going after, he said it didn’t refer to Hercules, it was Herculaneum. I just remember thinking, what the hell is that? Then I had other things to deal with.” Her thoughts darkened, turned inward. The trauma surfaced, sometimes. But she buried it quickly.

Ben was the one who broke the heavy silence. “Wait—so we are saying that Roman used magic to cause the eruption of Vesuvius? That’s the implication here, right?”

Because this wasn’t the first time Cormac and Amelia had been presented with that possibility, they weren’t surprised.

“Could he do it again?” Kitty asked softly.

That was the implication. They still weren’t any closer to finding Roman or knowing how to stop him.

Ben said, “So, what, we need a geologist on the team now? We can’t guard every active volcano on the planet. Even if he was able to make a volcano explode, why would he do it? What would it accomplish? Who’s to say he didn’t just, I don’t know, hate Pompeii?”

Kitty reached for the bottle of wine to pour another glass, but it was empty. She sighed. “I’ll spread the word. I’ll let everyone know what we’ve found. Maybe the old vampires like Marid can shed some light on things. Um, no pun intended.” She considered her empty glass of wine and furrowed her brow.

Meanwhile, Ben had gone to the cupboard to fetch another bottle, and he refilled Kitty’s glass. Cormac shook his head at the offer of more. He needed to hit the road soon.

He’d gone and solved a whole collection of mysteries, a hundred-year-old murder and a magician’s secret code. He even got paid—even if it was Layne’s dirty money. Still spent the same. He ought to feel satisfied. Instead, he had a nagging suspicion he was missing something.

CORMAC LAID them all out on his table at home: one of the mangled coins of Dux Bellorum, the first one that had belonged to Kumarbis himself; a pair of goggles with very dark glass and aged leather that once belonged to a demon who might very well have come from Hell; the USB drive that had belonged to Amy Scanlon, in its reliquary; and Milo Kuzniak’s mirrored amulet, which didn’t have anything to do with the others, but he might as well keep it with the rest of the trophies. The rest of the clues. Mysteries with loose ends hanging.

If only objects could talk, to find out where this had come from, who it had belonged to, and did the elder Kuzniak find it or steal it, and on and on. He still didn’t have a way to look into the future to see what was coming next.

We could find a practitioner of psychometry—

No. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t important. What was important: looking forward.

The Long Game—it’s bigger than the vampires, isn’t it?

Likely. But he was betting the only vampire who knew that was Roman. He was manipulating the whole thing, gathering power, collecting spells and rituals, and it couldn’t be for any good purpose.

He could walk away. This wasn’t his fight.

But you won’t. You can’t.

Kitty and Ben wouldn’t walk away. He wasn’t in this to figure out what Roman was really up to and what he planned next. He was here to make sure they didn’t get themselves killed or worse. That was good enough for him.

SINCE SOLVING the problem of Amy’s book, he hadn’t checked the e-mail tied to the online version, which the Webmaster had left active. Before heading to bed for the night, he looked and found unread messages waiting for him, including one from his learned correspondent. The one Amelia had a crush on.

Not a crush. Professional admiration.

Right, whatever you say. Cormac read the e-mail.

“I notice you removed Amy Scanlon’s book from your Web site. I assume that means you successfully decoded it?”

He had a dilemma. He didn’t want to say yes—that would show way too much of his hand, and this guy was way too interested. He typed out a carefully ambiguous response: “Still working on it, but I decided having it online wasn’t solving anything.”

Hard, not to sit there staring at the screen, waiting for a response. He was inclined to take a walk around the block, even this late at night, but Amelia suggested reading a book instead—a history of Pompeii and the eruption of Vesuvius. He kept glancing up at the screen.

It’s the illusion of being instantaneous, Amelia complained. It raises expectations intolerably.

When the e-mail arrived, an hour or so later, the computer dinged its arrival.

The response read: “I would like to meet you. You have skills and knowledge, and I can use someone with both.”

Well, that was interesting.

We are looking for employment, aren’t we?

“That depends. I get the feeling this guy isn’t offering employment, but something else.”

You’re nervous.

“You bet I am.” He typed in a response: “I don’t know anything about you. Who are you?”

They waited. The next message arrived.

“I am called Roman.”

The words swam, then grew large. Coincidence. Maybe it was a coincidence.

Not fucking likely.

Cormac grit his teeth and raced to come up with a reply, because this was happening real time now and any pause would raise suspicions. He couldn’t let on that he’d heard the name before, that he knew who his correspondent was. He ought to shut down communications entirely—but that would also raise suspicions. And this—it was too good a lead. If only he could figure out exactly what to say, the words that wouldn’t make Roman suspect he was talking to an enemy. This had to sound ordinary, to make Roman complacent. Draw him in without bringing doom on himself. He’d never hunted anything like this.

I have good reason to believe that the eruption of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii was instigated by magic, the man had written before. Oh, Cormac just bet he did.

Tell him this, Amelia said.

Cormac typed out, “My name is Amelia Parker. Let’s do meet.” And hit SEND.

She was crazy. He never should have let her do that, but the words were already gone. On the other hand … They wanted to stop Roman—this was the best chance anyone had had to do it. Meet the guy, put a nice solid stake in his chest before he even knew what was happening. Done and done.

But I have so many questions.…

No. We stake this guy on sight, no hesitation.

Amelia didn’t argue.

“Very good to meet you, Amelia Parker. I’ll be in touch,” the man called Roman replied. And that was that. Cormac didn’t have anything to say after that.

He didn’t know if Kitty was going to be happy about this, or kill him.

“YOU ENJOY it. The hunt, the anticipation,” Amelia said.

“Not sure enjoy is the right word.” It was a rush, a thrill. An addiction. Possibly the only thing he was good at.

She wore a thin smile, immensely satisfied at the work they’d done. Even the curveball at the end couldn’t dull her enthusiasm. It was another mystery to chase, more knowledge to be won.

The meadow was sunny today. High summer, a haze hanging in the air, insects flitting above the creek. Nice contrast to the winter chill in the waking world. He could tip his face up, feel the sun, and never get a sunburn. They sat on their pair of rocks, close enough to touch if he wanted to.

“This could get us killed,” he said. It was what he’d been thinking about. “Roman’s seen me, he knows what I look like and who I am. If we really set up a meeting and go through with it, he’ll know something’s wrong. He won’t give us a chance to say anything. It’ll be another one of your gunfights at high noon.”

“Or midnight, rather, considering what he is. You don’t think we can win against him in a face-to-face meeting.”

“He’s two thousand years old and he’s spent all that time getting more dangerous. I think we have a chance. Just not a very good one. I just want to make sure you’re okay with that.”

“You think because I so assiduously avoided death once, I’m loathe to face it again?” She pulled her knees up, tucked under her long skirt, and her gaze was downcast. “Of course I’d rather not face it again. I’m well aware that when you die, I likely will as well. I don’t believe the fabric of my soul can survive that trial a second time. And it’s your life, Cormac. It’s your decision to make.”

But it wasn’t. Not entirely, not anymore. What a weird thought.

Amelia was watching him, studying him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being here. Your life would be very different, if not for me. I would hate to think that I’ve damaged you in some way. Altered what you would have been without me.”

Good odds that what he would have been was dead. Or back in prison, or back to hunting and damn the consequences. He gave a wry smile. “You didn’t much care about damaging me at the start.”

“A lot’s happened since then.”

Yes, it had. What hadn’t changed: even without the guns, he kept getting in trouble and someday, somehow he was likely to get himself killed. It didn’t scare him.

He said, “You being here means that whenever I die, however it happens, if it’s going up against Roman or something else that gets us—I won’t be alone.”

He held out his hand to her, and she took it.