“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?”