The tinted goggles she wore, because even the nighttime glow was too bright for her. Disbelieving, I said, “That’s Paradise Lost. Milton.”
“It’s just an idea,” he said.
“She was from hell? Actual, real, capital H hell?”
He said, “You like to talk about how a lot of the stories are real, or at least have a seed of truth that inspired them. Maybe it was something like her and wherever she came from that started the stories. Not sure it really matters. Whoever summoned the demon to go after the vampire priest—some brand of ceremonial magician most likely—is probably the one holding Roman’s leash. That’s your Caesar.”
The rabbit hole got a little deeper. “And who is that?”
“I did some hunting around at the church. Didn’t find anything.”
“You hire an assassin so no one can trace you,” Ben said.
“Yeah,” Cormac said. “I’d have assumed it was Roman who’d summoned her, if she hadn’t said anything.”
“There’s really nothing we can do but keep on keeping on, is there?”
“You can be damn careful is what you can do,” Cormac said. “Amelia’ll put up protections around the house, your cars, the restaurant, the radio station.”
“I’ll let Angelo know—his places will need protecting, too.”
“Angelo,” Cormac said. “Then Rick really did leave?”
I looked down, studying abandoned pizza crusts left in the cardboard box. From the outside, nothing in Denver would look like it had changed. But the vampires I talked to, Angelo and his minions, were subdued. Wounded, almost. From their perspectives, they’d been abandoned. It didn’t matter if Rick had a mission. Me, I just missed my friend. I assumed he’d arrived in Italy all right, but I hadn’t heard from him yet. I wasn’t sure I would.
Taking the silence as his answer, Cormac shrugged, ultimately unconcerned. “See if this guy wants my help first. What are the odds?”
Angelo probably wouldn’t want Cormac’s help any more than Cormac wanted to give it. “So much for the great alliance,” I muttered and took a long drink of beer.
Cormac said, “I’m not sorry for what I did.”
“I’m not expecting you to be,” I said.
“Does anyone want another beer?” Ben said, getting up and heading to the fridge. A diplomatic interruption.
Cormac leaned back and picked at the seam on his wrist brace, turning inward as he often did—having a discussion with his resident spirit, most likely. Maybe she could talk some sense into him. I had a thought: if I asked her what he was really thinking, would she tell me? At least he didn’t walk out. He would have, not so long ago. Back when he thought he didn’t have anything to lose.
That may have been the most terrifying part of this war I insisted that we all fight: we had so much to lose. Would it be worth it? Would I ever know?
Ben returned from the fridge, and after popping bottlecaps and distributing the goods, held up his bottle. “Here’s to achieving victory by the seat of our pants.”
“And kicking ass,” Cormac said, clinking bottles.
I considered them. For now, the moment was quiet. I had to let the future take care of itself. Smiling, I raised my own bottle.
“Here’s to family.”