Kitty Raises Hell
Page 65

“Wolf,” he said, and my skin prickled with the ghost of fur. “He’s right. Roman isn’t my name. But neither is Gaius Albinus. Everyone who called me that has been dead for two millennia. After all this, though, you’ve earned something. A true name: Dux Bellorum. And know this: You will see me again. Remember me, next time.”
He turned away, and my breath caught. Ben clutched my hand.
Roman—Gaius, or Dux Bellorum, or Dom’s Master, or whoever he really was—walked away, down the street. Staying out of the narrow rings of streetlamps, he vanished from sight quickly. Or maybe he just vanished. Nobody followed him. Like me, Rick watched him silently, and continued watching the space where he disappeared.
“Rick?”
“Dux Bellorum. Leader of wars. The general.”
My mouth went too dry to even swallow. The general, commanding his army. When he’d asked me for my loyalty, had he hoped to add me to those ranks?
“Holy shit . I hate those guys,” Hardin said, letting her arm with the gun drop finally. “How did you people get past my patrol? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“Are we in trouble?” Tina asked, her voice small.
“No,” Rick said. “As pawns go, you’re too small to bother with. Most of you.” And he looked at me.
I jumped off the porch to face him. All I could do was stare. His followers, a small horde of vampires, surrounded us, all of them glaring like they wanted to take a piece out of me. Ben stood at the end of the porch, reaching after me but hesitating. We all froze in tableau. And I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
“I told you I’d learn who he was. It just took a little time,” Rick said, far too calmly. He raised a brow when I didn’t answer. “Speechless?”
“The Long Game,” I said.
He nodded. “The Long Game. The game of empire. Some people never lose the taste for it.”
“What does he want with me?”
“You’ve ruined a couple of his plans, which in his eyes means you’ve thrown in as a player. He’ll be keeping an eye on you. Not like that isn’t hard to do, celebrity that you are.”
I rubbed my face. “Is it too late to quit?”
“What, after all this work you’ve done to make yourself notorious?”
I lost it. Not totally. However much Wolf wanted to Change and run howling to the hills, I kept that part of me together. But I lost the ability to think straight.
“How can you just stand there? How can you be so calm? Two thousand years! Ancient Rome? What is somebody from ancient Rome doing in Denver? Doesn’t he have better things to do? Doesn’t it freak you out that he wanted to waltz in here and take over? And you just stood there and faced him down. Dude, you totally scared him off!”
In the course of my rant, my panic had turned to awe. I suddenly understood why some werewolf packs would put themselves in the control of a strong Master vampire, if it protected them from the attention of vampires like Roman. I could feel myself blinking up at him with huge, gleaming eyes. I imagined it looked pretty ridiculous.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, ducking his gaze, almost bashfully. “There’s a lot to be said for safety in numbers.” His Family, his own pack, were still gathered. Lips pressed thin, he glanced around at them, nodded once. The vampires left, fading into the dark like Roman had.
“I guess this is when I admit that you were right and I was wrong,” I said.
He smiled. “If you’d like. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
Rick tipped back his head, for all the world like a wolf scenting the air. “I’d better get going. It’ll be morning soon. I want to make sure Roman’s really leaving town.”
“Even if he doesn’t have a place to bed down for the day?”
“He’s lasted this long, he’ll find a way. I used to dig myself a hole and wrap up in a blanket when I was caught in the open. Not very dignified, but it works.”
I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the image. Urbane Rick, wrapped in a blanket in a hole in the ground? That was another story I’d have to dig out of him.
I looked back to where Roman had walked away, as if expecting him to return with an army of centurions.
“I’m not important enough for a vampire like that to pay attention to,” I murmured. My skin was chilled, and I hugged myself to try to get warm.
“Kitty,” Rick said, a smile hiding in his voice. “There’s a pattern here, and in the middle of it all is you. You draw people to you. Things happen around you.”
“I’m danger prone, you mean.”
“You’re just one of those people.”
“What people? What are you talking about?”
He just shook his head, his smile lingering. “Take care, Kitty.”
He offered his hand. After a moment of hesitation, I decided to accept, and we shook. Partners. He walked off in the opposite direction Roman had gone.
Reality slowly crept back, we started to get on with our lives. Gary went to the van to consult with his camera crew. Hardin, with her cops and fire fighters, continued cleaning up the aftermath. Jules walked around the outside of the house, studying details, looking for who knew what in his quest for science. Tina sat on the steps, cradling the bottled djinn, refusing to let it out of her sight.
Ben put his arm around my shoulders. “I need to sleep,” he said. And yes, he sounded sleep deprived and grouchy. His eyes were shadowed, his skin pale. “Are we done here?”
“I don’t know.” We all had a posttraumatic dazed look. But none of us, even Ben, despite what he’d said, looked like we were ready for sleep. “I’m kind of antsy.” But not to run. It wasn’t anywhere near the full moon, and I didn’t want to Change, however much Wolf nagged me. But I wanted to do something .
Ben raised a brow and looked at me. “Really?”
“Yeah. We just saved the city, you know.”
He rolled his eyes. Not impressed, apparently.
I called to the others, “Anyone want to go grab a cup of coffee?”
“Are there any all-night diners around here?” Jules said.
“Hell, yeah. Detective? You up for it?” I said.
“Only if you tell me what the hell’s been going on.”