“Her ladyship has sent me to bring you back within her fold, as is right and just for one of our kind.”
“I will not go,” he said.
“Then I—we—will take you. We will take all of this and destroy it. Destroy all you have so that you’ll have no choice.”
“You are welcome to try. But I will defend this place for its master.” He took three steps back so that he was behind the wall, across the threshold that marked the boundary of the estancia. He also picked up one of the spears, just in case this did not work. For now, he merely stood with the spear’s butt planted on the ground.
“I thought you were wise,” Eduardo said, and his mock-friendliness seemed like a shield. “You could be strong, we’ve all felt it. We would welcome you into our fold. But now I see you wish for your true death. Is that it?”
“I dislike being told what to do.”
The way Eduardo’s expression hardened, the way he set his spear against the crook of his arm and kicked his horse to a run, put Ricardo in mind of a jousting knight. Eduardo looked like someone who had long experience at the sport. For a moment, Ricardo was sad that they could not be friends.
The horse rocked back on hind feet, sprang into a ground-eating gallop, charging straight for the opening in the wall, directly at Ricardo.
At the last moment, just as the horse’s nose touched the threshold, Eduardo reined back hard, shock drawing his features back in terror. Protesting, the horse threw its head straight up, straining against the bit. Its weight fell back, the animal kicked, and Eduardo fell off. Rolled straight off the horse’s back and slammed to the ground as the horse shook itself and raced on. Ricardo stepped out of its way. He would have to fetch the animal and bring it back; he was no horse thief.
Eduardo lurched to his feet, unhurt but furious, gripping his wooden spear in both hands as if preparing to drive it through a boar. But he stopped outside the wall, trapped against the threshold.
Ricardo smiled thinly. “I told you, this place is not mine, and you will need an invitation to enter.”
“Then how are you—”
“I have an invitation,” Ricardo said.
Eduardo threw his spear. It sailed through, and Ricardo deflected it with his own.
The horses were restless, their riders’ anxiety spreading. The vampires’ human mercenary force seemed young but ready, and Ricardo thought back a hundred years ago to all those naive young men Coronado had brought north with him. Did these men know whom they served?
Eduardo shouted, losing his composure, his warrior’s calm. He wasn’t used to losing, Ricardo thought. “I have another army to send against you!”
“I am ready for them,” Ricardo said, hefting his own spear, swinging it in an arc. He tensed, ready to run, faster than a shadow, unseen and deadly to these poor men.
Catalina’s lieutenant raised his hand, the squad of riders parted, and the human soldiers marched, spears and swords at the ready. Across the wide space, in the flickering torchlight, Ricardo tried to catch each of their gazes. To impart to them the assurance that death awaited if they moved any closer.
“Do not look at him!” Eduardo commanded. “He is but one man! He is only one—”
With a slap and a hiss, a crossbow bolt shot through the air and struck Eduardo through the heart. Ricardo remained calm, but it was an effort. This wasn’t part of the plan. He’d told Henri and the others to stay out of it. But there behind the palisade, hidden in the shadows, Suerte crouched holding a crossbow. The vampires had been so focused on Ricardo that they hadn’t noticed the heartbeat, the boy’s scent of living blood. Or they had discounted him as weak prey.
Suerte remained hidden, and Ricardo didn’t look at him, to avoid drawing attention. He gazed out calmly, as if he had willed the crossbow bolt to appear and strike Eduardo dead. And he was now, absolutely, dead. He clutched at the bolt protruding from his chest, sputtered as if he really did have breath and blood to spit from his mouth. Before he could fall, he turned to dust, limbs and extremities going gray, his whole body crumbling into desiccated flesh. The surprised glare in his eyes seemed to be the last part of him to fade.
Ricardo met the gazes of every man who stood before the gate with a weapon in his hand, and he whispered to them, Go, you cannot win here.
The soldiers all dropped their spears and fled. The mounted vampires seemed ready to follow them, but Ricardo called out to one of them, whom he recognized from his brief stay in the capital. The woman, Elinor, now looking very different from her painted, elegant self.
“My Lady Elinor,” he called. “Will you take a message to Doña Catalina for me?”
She hesitated, perhaps wondering if this was some trick. “Yes,” she said finally. “You did not have to kill him.”
“Apparently I did.” He spared a quick smile for Suerte. “Tell Catalina this: this estancia is protected. I would ask that she leave it alone, now and forever. In return, I will leave. She can have Mexico. All
of it, as she was promised, as she expected. I will leave this country, and she’ll never see me again.”
“Where will you go? Back to Spain? To France?”
He imagined a country filled with vampires, with Masters and Mistresses all like Catalina, and himself trying to move among them, keeping to himself, convincing them he was no danger. He shook his head.
“No. I will go north to the borderlands. That is all you need to know, and you will never hear of me again.”