“Split?” I asked. “Where’s that?”
“Croatia,” Alette said patiently, the same time Ben whispered that maybe I should save my questions. “He had a location, he had a plan to find Roman, and he thought he and his people could end him once and for all.”
And he’d failed. Alette didn’t even have to say it. “Why? Why’d he do that? We were trying to avoid a direct confrontation.”
“I think he wanted to be a hero.” The weird thing was, I kind of understood that. If he thought he could stop Roman, of course he would have taken the chance. “But he left Barcelona undefended. The city is in the hands of Roman’s followers now.”
It was a battle lost, not the war, I told myself. But my stomach turned in on itself. This was a person, Antony, and his whole Family. If we’d only been able to stop Roman sooner—there had to have been a way. Ben moved his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.
“There’s more, Kitty. Antony learned some information that he was able to pass on to Ned. I’m passing it on to you. Antony discovered that Roman was in Split to retrieve an artifact he’d hidden there many centuries ago. Something called the Manus Herculei.”
“Hand of Hercules,” Ben murmured helpfully. The lawyer was pretty good with Latin, it turned out.
“Indeed,” Alette said, and might have sounded impressed.
“And what’s that? Is it magical? What’s he want it for?”
“I can’t say. But if I wanted a weapon to use in my quest for power, I might very well want to acquire something called the Hand of Hercules.”
Oh, God, it was probably some magical atom bomb or something. Next thing on Roman’s “take over the world” to-do list: acquire weapon referencing invincible Greek demigod. My stomach couldn’t feel any sicker. “That sounds really bad,” I said.
“It does, rather,” she said with icy calm.
“Does he have it? Did Roman find it?”
“We don’t know. But we don’t think he’s left Split, so perhaps not.”
“So what do we do?” I asked. Pleaded.
“We wait, I think,” she said with a sigh.
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. We had to do something, didn’t we? “Should we go to Croatia? Send someone? Find out what’s really going on there? Stop him?”
“Just as Antony did? Split is an ancient Roman city. Dux Bellorum’s home territory for some two thousand years. He’s most likely very well protected there, and you think we should send someone to confront him directly?” I let out the tiniest of growls. Antony hadn’t been part of our pack, but he was ours. This felt like an invasion. Alette made a comforting tsk. “We hold our own, Kitty. We watch for an opportunity. We find out what this artifact is, and we learn how to oppose it before Dux Bellorum can use it. We hold the line. Do you agree?”
I tilted the phone away, looked at Ben. I imagined my own expression was as somber as his. He pressed his lips into a thin smile that seemed more fatalistic than comforting, and I snugged closer to his warmth and embrace.
“I—I’m sorry about Antony. I don’t know who else to tell.”
“I’ll pass along your sentiments to Ned. Antony should be commended for contacting Ned and passing along what he could, before the end. He must have felt the information was worth giving up his own safety.”
Yeah, that was a nice way of looking at it, drawing some kind of meaning—any meaning—from Antony’s death, to make ourselves feel better. Only time would tell if we could make Antony’s sacrifice worth it.
Chapter 2
I CALLED ANGELO, the Master of Denver, and Ben’s cousin Cormac and asked them to meet us at New Moon.
New Moon was the downtown bar and restaurant Ben and I owned. I’d wanted a public place where the wolves of our pack could gather safely; that it had become a financially solvent business on its own was a bonus. One of our wolves—Shaun, our lieutenant—managed it for us, and seemed to have a talent for it. He followed his own taste rather than current trends, which meant the place had a funky vibe—the old brick building had been refurbished with exposed ductwork and an open interior, no TVs, lots of good food at the bar, and tables where groups could gather and talk. Shaun was at the bar now, serving drinks, marshaling the troops. Usually the place was a haven, a comforting den to unwind in after doing my show. Tonight we were turning it into a war room.
Cormac arrived before us and occupied a quiet table in the back. Ben and I found him leaning back in his chair and reading a book on police forensics. This seemed very odd to me, not just because he didn’t look like the kind of guy who normally sat in a bar reading a book. He had a rugged cowboy look to him, worn jeans and biker boots, a gray T-shirt under a leather jacket. Rough sandy hair, a permanent frown under a trimmed mustache. Cormac was usually the one causing police crime scenes, not investigating them. He’d picked up the reading habit in prison, and part of the reason for that was Amelia. As I understood the story, Amelia had been executed for a murder she didn’t commit at the very same prison, over a hundred years ago. She didn’t quite die, though. Instead, her spirit, soul, ghost, something, haunted the place, until Cormac came along. They were partners now. They shared a body, was the way I thought of it. Which meant that was her reading about forensics and chewing on his lip.
The pronouns got complicated. I would never be entirely used to it, but I could usually tell which one of them was speaking. Amelia had been upper-class British, and her diction and accent changed Cormac’s voice as well as his manner, when she was at the fore.
I gave Shaun a halfhearted wave as we passed the bar. “Want me to bring over the usual?” he asked. He was in his early thirties, well built, dark-skinned with short-cropped hair, wearing jeans and a polo shirt with New Moon’s crescent logo on it.
The usual was beer, and I had to think about it a moment. My stomach was still turning; I didn’t feel much like drinking anything. “Yes,” Ben said for me. “Thanks.”
Shaun frowned, but nodded. Our somber manners must have washed through the whole place.
“What is it?” Cormac asked as we sat across from him. Shaun brought our beers, and I took a long drink, just to be doing something.
“Roman’s been busy in Europe,” Ben said, and summarized what Alette had told us. Cormac listened thoughtfully, his expression still.
“She’s right,” he said when Ben had finished. “Not much we can do without knowing where he’ll turn up next.”
“The coins,” I said, because I was grasping at straws and this was about the only concrete lead we had. “Have you found out anything at all about the magic in Roman’s coins?” We’d collected several of the artifacts, ancient bronze coins the size of a nickel that somehow bound Roman and his followers. Striking out the image on them nullified the magic. I kept hoping we could find a way to use the things against him. No luck there. Yet. Such a thing might not be possible, but I had to stay optimistic.
Before he could answer, Shaun waved from the bar to get my attention. He pointed at the door. Angelo had arrived.
Angelo was what I called an old-school vampire. Haughty and aristocratic, watching the world down his nose and lecturing lesser beings like me on my, and his, rightful place in the world. He’d done better with that when he had Master vampires to stand behind—Arturo, then Rick. He was an excellent henchvampire and gatekeeper. He wasn’t particularly happy being in charge himself, as the new acting Master of Denver. The “acting” was an odd designation, one that Angelo insisted on but I wasn’t sure if anyone really believed it. For all intents and purposes, he was the Master of Denver. We all hoped Rick would return from his religious pilgrimage someday. We couldn’t be sure it would ever happen. So I had to deal with Angelo.
As a commercial place of business, vampires should have been able to move freely in and out of New Moon. However, because it belonged to me and the pack, because we considered it something of our home and den, vampires couldn’t enter without permission. I’d had a wonderful couple of moments, standing on on
e side of the door, grinning out at entirely baffled vampires wondering why they couldn’t cross the threshold. But I had to talk to Angelo on a regular basis, so he’d been invited. To his credit, he hadn’t given me a reason to regret that.
He strode across the dining room and deposited himself on the chair opposite me. Cormac straightened, backing his chair up an inch or two from the table. His hands weren’t visible, which meant they were reaching into his pockets for a stake or vial of holy water. In his preprison life, Cormac had been a bounty hunter specializing in supernatural beings. He didn’t much like vampires.
We looked at Angelo, who looked back at us. I didn’t meet his gaze—the hypnotic effects of vampires’ gazes were one of the powers from the stories that turned out to be true. He could lock eyes with us, draw us in, tell us calmly and serenely to walk off the nearest cliff, and we’d do it.
Taking a seat, Angelo pointed at Cormac and looked sidelong at me. “Isn’t he that bounty hunter Arturo hired to kill you years ago?”
I’d forgotten, Angelo and Cormac hadn’t met before. Cormac smirked at the reminder of our shared history.
“Cormac isn’t really a bounty hunter anymore,” I said.
“And I’m sure that makes everything all right.” Angelo continued eyeing Cormac suspiciously.
“Angelo, shut up. This is important. Antony, Master of Barcelona, is gone,” I said.
The man actually paled. Whatever blood he’d imbibed recently washed straight out of his face. “Then it’s started. Dux Bellorum has begun his war.”
“I don’t think so. Antony went after him first,” I said, and repeated the story.
“So it’s not a total disaster,” he said. “Dux Bellorum isn’t coming after us next, is he?”
“Not until he gets this thing he’s looking for,” Ben muttered.
“And what have we got?” he huffed. “The four of us sitting around a table in a bar, looking morose?”
“We have the coins,” Cormac said. He let that hang during a long, dramatic pause. I was about to jump over the table and hang off his jacket collar until he explained, but I didn’t have to go that far. “As I was about to say, I think they’re dog tags, sort of. We knew that—that they’re identifiers Roman uses to tag his allies. But we have to consider—if what the demon said was true, and Roman isn’t really the guy in charge, then he’s a recruiter. He’s tagging his followers so the real guy in charge knows who they are.”
Roman was Dux Bellorum, the leader of war, the general. We’d come to believe there was a Caesar out there. The king. Roman might have been controlling the Long Game—but someone else was controlling Roman.
“Could we … Then maybe we could use them to follow the thread back? To find the guy in charge?”
He gave a shrug. “I don’t know yet.”
We all sighed, even Angelo, who technically didn’t need to breathe. We were still stuck at the same wall we’d been stuck at. Roman was on the move and we couldn’t do anything about it.
“At least the bastard isn’t here,” Angelo said finally. As if saying the man’s name would summon him. “He isn’t, is he? Coming here.”
I didn’t know. That was the problem. Roman, aka Dux Bellorum, aka Gaius Albinus, was a two-thousand-year-old vampire with aspirations of world domination. That might have been an exaggeration, but not much of one. He was the central figure in what vampires called the Long Game: rivals collecting allies and power in attempt to be the Master of them all. In a sentence, the one who dies with the most toys wins. Trouble was, vampires were undead …
The anxiety Angelo had been masking with his suave indifference broke through in the tightening of his jaw, the stiffening of his spine. “What about any more sign of vampire-killing demons arriving in Denver? Any of those, by chance?”
“We put up those protection spells. It should at least warn us if the demon comes back,” Cormac said. He and Amelia had cast the spells—and suggested that they weren’t entirely sure the spells would work. The demon we’d battled last year knew we were looking for her now. Next time—if there was a next time—her approach would be different.
“So what do we do now?” I asked, sounding plaintive.
“We do what Alette says,” Ben answered. “We hold tight. Nothing much we can do but keep on until we get more information. I’ll go to Wyoming, you’ll write your book and do your show—”
“You can’t possibly go to Wyoming, not after all this.”
He pursed his lips, gave me a look. “Until we know for sure that the world is ending, I’m going to work. You should, too. You can’t sit around stewing all day, every day. At least, you shouldn’t.” He furrowed his brow, probably realizing that yes, I was totally capable of stewing all day, every day, if I let myself.
But it seemed weird to just keep on the same after what had happened.
“Right, that’s the plan. We go on with our lives. Such as they are.” Angelo leaned forward. “If you see anything, hear of anything, you will let me know?”
“You ask that every time you see me. Yes. I told you about all this, didn’t I?” I hoped my thin smile was comforting. Angelo seemed unconvinced.
“Well, then. Until next time, Regina Luporum.”
“I wish people would stop calling me that,” I muttered. The title didn’t actually mean anything. I’d earned it for having a big mouth, not for having any real power. Mostly, people teased me with it. The more I complained, the more they teased. I should know better.
“If the European vampires are calling you Regina Luporum, who am I to argue?”
“They’re just teasing.” Sure enough, Cormac had his lips pressed tight together to keep from smiling, but his eyes shone with amusement.
“Whatever you say. Until next time, then. May our immediate futures be woefully quiet and uneventful.” He gave a little bow as he stood, sweeping his arm in a parody of courtliness, and walked away.
So that was the plan. Keep living our lives. Ben goes to work, I go to work …
I called out, “Hey, wait a minute—” Angelo turned, scowling, and I asked, “Do you happen to know any vampire strippers? You know, strippers who are vampires?” I winced hopefully.
He rolled his eyes and marched out. Ah, well.
I didn’t know anything about Angelo: how old he was, how he’d become a vampire, where he came from, anything. It had taken me years to learn what I knew about Rick, and now I was back at square one. I’d have to start with the needling questions all over again—if I thought Angelo would actually answer them. He wasn’t a bad guy, I didn’t think. Rick had trusted him—to a point, at least. But he didn’t choose the situation he found himself in now, and that made him surly. I could understand that. His prayer for future boredom was heartfelt.
Cormac watched him leave, swinging open the door like it personally offended him and stalking out into the night.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I miss Rick,” he said.
On the other hand, I knew I’d miss Rick the minute he left.
Chapter 3
BACK TO work, then. It wasn’t the end of the world—not yet, anyway—so we had to keep on with our lives. This was better, I knew. The alternative was freezing in place and never moving again.
Angelo came through on finding me a vampire stripper to interview on the show. Or stripper vampire. I still wasn’t sure which way to go on that one. Her name was Colette, and when I asked if that was her real name or her stripper name, she just arced a neatly plucked brow at me and smiled.
I had to admit, I hadn’t ever known any for-real strippers, and I didn’t know what to expect. No expectation at all was better than defaulting to TV stereotypes. She arrived at the studio before the start of the show, and when I met her in the lobby, my first impression was to think, yup, she’s a vampire. She had mahogany hair, light brown skin, wore a real rabbit fur stole over a stylish black silk dress and knee-high leather boots, and held herself with a poise that made me swoon a bit. She’d walk int
o a nightclub and turn heads, and I tried to remember if I’d ever seen her at Psalm 23, the club the Denver vampire Family ran and used as hunting grounds. I didn’t think so.
In the studio, I offered her a chair and showed her how the headset worked. She was polite, smiling wryly when I avoided looking directly into her hypnotic gaze.
I watched the clock; we were seconds from go, and through the booth window I saw Matt staring, frozen. I’d warned him that she was coming, and that he shouldn’t look directly into her eyes. But it was pretty hard not to, I supposed, when somebody like that walked into the room. The vampire gave him a smile that made him blush. Wrapped him around her finger with nothing more than a glance, and the thing was, that was her vampire nature, and had nothing to do with her profession.
But I could totally believe that she made really good tips.
I found a stray pen resting on my table and threw it at the booth window. Matt started at the thunk it made, shook his head clear, and got to work, or acted like he was working, flipping switches and cuing up the show’s opening.
He counted down, the on-air sign lit, and CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” started playing through my headset. Show time. “Greetings! You’ve tuned into The Midnight Hour, the show that’s not afraid of the dark or the creatures who live there. I’m your host, Kitty Norville, and I hope you’re ready for another evening of spooky delights and tales of the uncanny. I have a special guest with me tonight. Colette is a vampire with a job you might not expect to find a vampire doing. Then again, I’ve been meeting vampires for years, and they’re always surprising me, which is why I keep talking about them. Colette, welcome to The Midnight Hour, thank you for agreeing to this interview. And can you please tell our audience what you do for a living?”