THE DRIVER WAS human. Living, breathing, though tainted with the scent of vampire. A human servant, then. Average size, he had pale skin and wore a designer leather jacket. Both Henry and Joe sat in front, even though it had less room, leaving the back to us. I had to admit I felt safer this way. I had room to breathe—and a possible escape route. Ben found an awkward position, sitting braced across me, still protecting me, and half twisted forward so he could keep the vampires in view. His lip stayed curled, showing sharp teeth. I rested an arm across his back and breathed in the warmth of his fur.
Henry was tall, meaty—almost stout. He had the build of a retired athlete. Joe had Mediterranean features. His dark hair had curl to it, and I would have called his skin tanned if he hadn’t been a vampire.
“You two are a long way from home,” Henry said.
“Not so long,” I answered.
“What brings you to the city by the bay?”
“The sights.”
“Which is why you’re gallivanting around Chinatown at midnight.”
“Ghost tour. We got separated from the group.”
Joe craned around. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
Such a loaded question. I wasn’t sure if my identity would make things better for Ben and me, or worse. Complete toss-up. “That depends. You listen to much radio?”
The looked of recognition dawned. “You’re Kitty Norville.”
Henry looked at him. “What? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It’s not the voice so much as the sarcasm.”
I rested my head on Ben’s back. We were so doomed.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Henry said.
“Because saying something is just as likely to get me shot in some circles as not,” I said.
They both chuckled. The driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror, and even he was smiling.
“Boss is going to love this,” Henry said.
I hugged Ben.
We drove for maybe fifteen minutes. I couldn’t see out the tinted side windows, so I tried to watch out the front windshield. We’d entered a neighborhood of Victorian-looking townhouses with bay windows, on pleasant, tree-lined streets.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The Haight,” Henry said. “We own a few buildings here.”
“Like, Haight-Ashbury?”
Henry nodded. At another time—during daylight and with no injuries, for example—I’d have been excited. Site of the Summer of Love, home to icons of psychedelic rock, I’d have loved to just wander, to see if anything was left of that old hippie atmosphere or if it had all been swallowed by twenty-first-century commercial tourism. But right now all I wanted to do was go home.
Finally we turned down a sloped driveway into an underground garage and stopped.
“Everybody out,” Henry said.
I leaned around Ben to open to the door, and he jumped out ahead of me. Again, we stood side by side, to face whatever came next. The garage looked as if it was used for a motor pool of some kind. A couple of other sleek sedans were parked here, along with a zippy red sports car and a big SUV. The place was lit with flickering fluorescents, which made my eyes hurt. The driver waved at the vampires and went into an office. Joe opened one side of a set of double doors and gestured inside. Henry led the way.
Past the doors, a hallway led to what must have been the building’s basement, which meant we were entering a vampire’s lair. Underground meant no windows, and no sunlight. And no exits. Joe closed the door behind us and followed.
The place reeked of vampires—cold and stale blood, not a hint of fresh life. Keeping one hand on Ben, clinging to his fur, I walked. Ben stayed pressed against my hip. His steps were slow to match mine, and his claws clicked on the linoleum. I kept telling myself that if they’d meant us harm, they wouldn’t be saying please, and they wouldn’t be letting us walk under our own power. They just wanted to talk. Vampires did this kind of thing all the time—they had to be the ones in control, they had to talk on their own turf. I was still nervous, and the muscles on Ben’s shoulders and back were stiff. They might have given us champagne and fresh steaks and we’d still be nervous.
The hallway opened into a room, the tile gave way to thick, rich carpet, and the fluorescent lighting was replaced by the soft glow of low-wattage, shaded lamps in the corners. The sofas were leather, and there were plush armchairs, polished wood coffee tables, and hidden speakers playing soft music, light and jazzy. All the colors were dark, giving the room a sultry, denlike atmosphere. Someone should have been handing out cocktails. I took a breath, surveyed the room’s smells, and counted four vampires in addition to Henry and Joe. They wouldn’t be drinking any cocktails. One of the four was Anastasia, standing apart, arms crossed, looking annoyed. There was also a mortal human, living and breathing, carrying the distinctive scent of a worn leather coat. I knew that smell. Beside me, Ben whined a long, soft note; he recognized it, too.
“Kitty!” Cormac called. He was off to the right, next to Anastasia, in front of a trio of vampires lounging on sofas. In a couple of strides he was in front of me, holding my arm.
I gripped his arm in turn. “Are you okay?”
“Are you?” he said.
Ben’s sleek wolf maneuvered between us, leaning against my legs and nudging Cormac’s hip with his muzzle. At the contact, Cormac stepped back, and we broke apart. He watched the wolf warily.
“He gets a little territorial,” I said, resting a hand on Ben’s head.
Ben looked back at Cormac, nose tipped up, staring, but not doing anything further to threaten. The hunter pursed his lips, his expression closing down. I didn’t think he’d fully reconciled himself to the idea that Ben was a werewolf, even though he was there when it happened. It was hard to see the animal sitting in front of you and remember the man he usually was. Even when you looked him in the eyes.
“Come here, let me have a look at you,” said the man on the sofa. The three local vampires arranged on the chairs and sofas studied me with interest. Two were men, one a woman, and like Joe and Henry seemed to be hipsters, unassuming upscale urban types—but from the Jazz Age rather than the current era. They’d set up shop in the 1920s and stayed there. One of the men wore a double-breasted suit with a silk tie. His brown hair was slicked back, his smile was wry. The one on the sofa wore a suit without the jacket—red suspenders stood out against the white starched shirt. His gaze was inquisitive, and I had to work not to meet it. The woman wore a clinging gown, black, beaded, with spaghetti straps, and had her honey-colored hair in a perfect bob. Together, they looked fabulous, like something out of a movie. Exotic, even. Strange and intimidating all at once. I squeezed Ben’s coat for comfort.
Cormac returned to where he’d been standing. I limped over to join him, Ben stepping carefully at my side. He was watching the limp, along with Anastasia. I itched under their gazes, hating to show so much weakness. I was getting better, I really was. Ben stood tall and proud beside me, matching each of their gazes in turn as if to say, I’m looking out for her, don’t get any ideas. I leaned on him a little more, grateful for the support.
“What happened?” the hunter asked.
“I fell,” I said, my voice low, hidden. “I think I broke something.”
“But it’s healing.”
“Yeah, slowly.”
“Are you okay?”
It was the second time he’d asked in as many minutes. I still didn’t answer. “What happened to you guys? How’d you get out of the tunnels?”
“We followed Ben. His wolf side didn’t seem to have any trouble.”
“Why’d he shift?”
“You were gone.”
The door had shut, I’d shouted at him from the other side, he’d pounded on it, trying to get to me—and then I’d fallen. Vanished. Maybe they’d even gotten the door open but couldn’t find any sign of me on the other side. Or they’d kept shouting through the door and got no answer. And Ben had lost it. I stroked the thick fur along his back, and he turned his head back to give my hand a quick lick.
I couldn’t figure out the situation. Anastasia seemed unhappy but not nervous. Cormac was cautious, like he always was. His right hand rested in his pocket—clutching a cross, I’d bet. The stake would be hidden up a sleeve. Had the vampires even searched him for weapons? Joe and Henry stayed behind me, near the door, and seemed amused. I glanced over my shoulder trying to keep them in view. Then there were the three new vampires in front of me. One of them was no doubt the Master of San Francisco. Anastasia’s old ally, or her old nemesis? This felt like a tribunal of some kind, like we were being brought here to face some kind of reckoning. I couldn’t identify which one of them was in charge. All three seemed confident, and none showed deference to any other. I was used to seeing hierarchies among vampires, as much as I did among werewolves. Joe and Henry had talked about a boss—who was it?
“You’re Kitty Norville?” the one on the sofa, the suspenders-no-jacket guy, said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, making him seem even more like a Prohibition-era gangster.
“Hi,” I said, waving my hand. “And you are?”
He waved the question away. “This is your mate?” He pointed at Ben, who growled.
I pressed his shoulder, quieting him. “Yeah.”
“Well. Thanks for joining us.”
“Did we have a choice?”
He smiled broadly, and the muscles across my shoulders twitched. “I have to ask, what are you doing in my territory?”
“Ask her.”
He glanced at Anastasia, his expression souring before he looked back at me. Maybe checking for confirmation, or fishing for a reaction. “Then you do serve a vampire? The gossip about you says you don’t serve anyone.”
I straightened, tipping my chin up in a show of pride, hoping to demonstrate that the gossip was right. And there was gossip about me? What gossip? What were people saying about me behind my back anyway?
“Actually, I’m really pissed off at her right now,” I said.
Everyone except me looked at her for a reaction; she didn’t oblige them, only spoke calmly in a cold, creamy voice, “She doesn’t serve me. She’s here as a favor. As an ally.”
“What the hell did you do for her to deserve a favor like this?” he said to her.
Anastasia and I glanced at each other, trying to egg each other on. For a moment I even thought, what had she done for me? But that wasn’t the issue. Favors weren’t currency you could line up and trade, one for one. At least, not to me. I was here because we both wanted to take down Roman.
I had to tell her about the figure in the alley, the imperious spy.
We were at some kind of stalemate. We’d answered questions, but the vampire—I had to assume the one in suspenders was the boss—wasn’t happy with the answers. They didn’t seem likely to let us go, but they were also treating Anastasia with kid gloves. Was this the Master who had taken power in the 1920s? It seemed likely. At any rate, this was Anastasia’s bailiwick, and I didn’t know the rules here. I ought to let her do all the talking. What were the odds?
When he didn’t get an answer, he shrugged. “Well then. Welcome to San Francisco. It would have been nice if you’d called first. You’re from Denver, right? Who’s running things there now? Rick, isn’t it? You could have asked him, gotten an introduction, made it all official—”
“He said you wouldn’t mind it if I just passed through.”
“Did he? He’s either getting senile in his old age or he has a lot of confidence in you. Which is it?”
I tilted my head. “How old is old? All of you,” I said, glancing at each of them, even Joe and Henry behind me. “Rick says you’ve been running San Francisco since the twenties, so that’s at least a hundred.”
The members of the vampire entourage wore crooked, amused smiles. The woman had blood-red lips.
“It’s rude, asking vampires about their age,” said Boss.
I shrugged. “Yeah. I keep doing it anyway.” I was getting my groove back. I came as close as I could to staring at him without looking him in his hypnotic eyes. He had a slight hook in his nose. “I have some questions. You’ve been running San Francisco for almost a century, so you were here during the sixties. Summer of Love and all that, right? You ever meet Janis Joplin? Jerry Garcia? Country Joe? Any of those psychedelic guys?”
“What if I said yes? What do you expect me to say about any of them that hasn’t already been said?”
“Maybe I just wanted to see if you had any concert bootlegs.”
Ben bumped my hip with his nose and whined a little. Yeah, maybe I was talking too much. But what if he’d said yes? And what if he’d actually given them to me? It never hurt to ask.
Boss raised an eyebrow. “You are definitely Kitty Norville.”
“So that’s a no?”
“You’ll have to ask Henry, that was more his scene.” Behind me, Henry gave a little wave.
The thing was, as long as we were all talking, nobody was fighting. If I got Boss to like me, or at least to not think I was a threat, he’d be more likely to let us all go. He might even help us. If he’d known we were all in town, maybe he knew that Roman was in town. Maybe when Henry said he’d been looking for rogue wolves, he’d been looking for Roman’s gang. Maybe they could tell us something.
He turned away from me. I’d been surveyed, and I wasn’t a threat, apparently. I was sorry I’d missed what he’d said to Cormac before we got here.
“Where were we? Right. Anastasia, you’re back after what, eighty, ninety years? I’d wondered what happened to you. You left so quickly after the coup.”
Anastasia said, “I didn’t see a need to stay. You didn’t need my help—at least not anymore.”
He opened his hands in agreement. “Begs the question, though—why are you back?”
“I’m here on an entirely unrelated matter.”
“Still, the last time you were in San Francisco, you helped stage a coup against the former Master.”
“That’s not what happened and you know it.”
“All I know is you do things to suit yourself and no one else. You could have put yourself in charge here. You could have made yourself Mistress of a dozen cities the world over, collected all that power, but what do you do instead? You meddle and move on. What’s the story now?”
What do you know—we had the same opinion about Anastasia.
“I wanted to see the old stomping grounds,” she said.
“You could have called me for a tour.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you.”
“You were in Chinatown with a mercenary.” He gestured at Cormac. “What were you looking for? Or what did you already find and are trying to hide from me?”
She strolled a quiet step forward on her heeled shoes. Her eyes narrowed, and she caught Boss’s gaze. “Nothing you need to bother with,” she said softly.
He straightened, leaning back to regard her, his brow furrowed. The other vampires were frowning now, looking back and forth between their Master and the stranger.
Maybe Ben and Cormac and I could get the hell out of here while they had their standoff.
“Anastasia,” Boss said, his voice low, threatening.
We were wasting time, so I dropped into the conversation to tip the balance. “Roman is here,” I said.
The mood snapped back. Boss blinked and looked away from Anastasia, at me. “Roman?” he said, much the way Henry had, as if I was muddying the waters on purpose.
“Dux Bellorum,” Anastasia murmured.
Well, that made the air go out of the room. Boss’s mouth opened—he even showed fangs. The male vampire companion gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. Joe stepped closer. All five of them looked shocked. Anastasia frowned at me.
“Really?” Boss said. He shifted his gaze from me to Anastasia. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“This isn’t your battle,” she said.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “It isn’t? Because it’s your battle? Because you think you can handle him all by yourself?”
“I know him,” she said with conviction.
For once I wanted to keep quiet, because I wanted them to keep talking. I wanted to learn more. But nobody said anything.
“How?” I said. “How do you know him?”
She didn’t answer. What else wasn’t she telling me?
Boss settled back into his seat and donned an air of calm, but he also looked sad. As if he was facing the inevitable; as if he’d faced it many times before. His expression was at odds with the offhand manner he’d shown so far. I bumped up my estimation of his age another hundred years. This guy had been around.
When he spoke, he spoke to me. “My predecessor belonged to Dux Bellorum—Roman, I guess is as good a name as any. Some of us”—he gestured to his four colleagues—“didn’t like that she bound us to someone who wasn’t one of us. That she swore fealty to a Master outside the Family. We wanted our Family to be a family. Not some … platoon in someone else’s army.”
Dux Bellorum was how Roman named himself, when he wasn’t being sneaky: the leader of war. The general.
“We’re losing, Anastasia. In the last hundred years we’ve gained what, San Francisco? Denver? But how many cities have we lost? After you left I assumed you were out there, doing more of the same. Subverting his lieutenants, putting better Masters in their places. But I never heard a word. Meanwhile, Dux Bellorum has dozens of agents everywhere, all working to bring more cities in line.”
“Agents,” I said. “Like Mercedes Cook?”
“You know Mercedes?” Boss said.
“She came through Denver a few years ago.” And instigated the war that brought Rick to power. She had intended for Rick’s predecessor to destroy him, but Rick was better than she expected. He’d surprised a lot of people that night.
“Rick booted her out?”
“Yeah.”
“I always knew I liked that guy. You’re working for Rick?”
“Rick is my friend. I’ve met Roman. If there’s a war coming, I won’t be on his side,” I said.
“It’s been a long time since the werewolves had a leader step forward,” Boss said.
I rolled my eyes and sighed with frustration. “I’m not leading the werewolves, I’m not working for anybody, I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“Then you’ve bitten off way more than you can chew, dear.”
I growled under my breath. I was ready to get out of here. Ben licked my hand, comforting me. As long as we stuck together, things couldn’t be so bad.
Boss turned to Anastasia. “So you’re here because Roman is here. Is my Family, is our place controlling San Francisco, in danger?”
“No,” Anastasia. “I’d have come straight to you if that were the case, I swear it.”
“Then…” He gestured, indicating that she should continue.
“There’s an artifact in Chinatown. The Dragon’s Pearl. Roman is looking for it. I need to find it first. He can’t be allowed to have it; it’s too powerful. This is bigger than you, or your Family, or San Francisco.”
“You should have come to me anyway, Anastasia. The city’s changed since you were here. I can help you.”
“You can’t defeat Roman,” she said.
He chuckled. “No, of course not. But I can protect San Francisco. It’s what I’ve promised, it’s what I’m able to do. Roman won’t find a foothold here. Maybe I can help you find this pearl of yours, since when the boys found you none of you looked like you were doing too well.”
Anastasia was stubborn. Her dignity was like armor. I had to wonder if she just didn’t like other vampires all that much. At least, the ones she didn’t create herself.
“Ask him about Grace,” I said to her. “It can’t hurt.”
Sighing, she nodded. “There’s a young woman, a magician named Grace Chen. She was helping us before we ran into some of Roman’s soldiers. We don’t know where she is now, and I need her to find the Dragon’s Pearl.”
“You want me to find her?” Boss said.
“If you can.”
“I’d be happy to help you, Anastasia,” he said, opening his arms. “Give us a couple of hours.”
“It’s only a few more hours until dawn,” Anastasia said.
“It’s the best I can do. Feel free to wait here. Make yourselves at home.” He stood, and his companions stood with him, flanking him. Boss waved at Henry. “You stay, keep an eye on things.” Henry nodded, straightened, and stood solid as a tree, his hands crossed before him in a clear bodyguard posture. The posse departed, leaving the room quiet.
Were we trapped? Prisoners? Could we leave? Was there a shower somewhere? A bathroom maybe? Anastasia wasn’t offering commentary. She seemed to be focused inward, stewing. Cormac was in “wait-and-watch” mode. Since they weren’t saying anything, I wanted to talk to Ben, who couldn’t talk. I rubbed his fur, and he leaned into my good leg.
Henry it was, then. “Are you here to guard us or to play host?”
“A little of both. Boss doesn’t trust you not to poke around where you shouldn’t.”
“He could have just asked.”
Henry only smiled.
“So. Do you have any Janis Joplin bootlegs?”
He chuckled quietly. “The rarest bootleg’ll never be as good as the real thing, live and in person. She was one of a kind.”
“Well, yeah. But … do you?”
Still chuckling, he waved me off, refusing to answer, which was as good as yes in my mind. Arrogant vampires …
That left us sitting around the living-room-slash-audience hall, waiting. Anastasia settled into an armchair. Crossing her arms, she stared at Henry, who crossed his arms and avoided looking at her. I chose a padded chair and stretched my leg out. In all the excitement, I hadn’t noticed that the pain had almost faded. Now, my whole leg and side just ached horribly.
Cormac paced over and loomed. “You okay?”
“You keep asking that.”
“I don’t like this,” he said. “We need to get out of town while we can.”
“I know, but I want to make sure Grace’s okay. And I’ll stick around if it means getting to take out Roman.”
“With everything you’ve told me about the bastard I’m inclined to agree.”
“If you see an opening, take it.”
“Absolutely.”
Ben left my side and padded to the corner, where he turned in a couple of circles, lay down, and curled into a tight ball, paws tucked in, tail resting over his nose. He finally felt safe enough to sleep. Or at least, to try to sleep. He still didn’t look particularly comfortable.
I leveraged myself out of the chair and went to join him, settling on the floor and resting my hand on his back. He snuggled closer to me.
Cormac said, “I’ll keep an eye out.”
Then Ben seemed to relax.
I dozed, leaning against the wall, my arms draped over Ben, fingers laced in his fur. When he moved against me, I awoke and drew away as the fur under my touch thinned and shrank. I watched Ben come back to me.
Cormac said he’d keep watch, but he turned away when Ben started to shift back, when the fur faded and vanished, his skin stretched and bones melted into new shapes. It happened slowly, bit by bit. The Change back to human was like a sunrise—the sky paled, paled some more. Then—suddenly, you’d swear—it was daytime. Ben, naked and chilled, lay curled up, head and shoulders tucked into my lap, arms and legs pulled protectively close.
I stayed still, quiet, letting him sleep. Absently, I touched his ruffled hair, smoothing it behind his ear.
When he was human again, Henry came over with a blanket. He kept his distance, holding it out as an offering, taking care not to startle Ben by getting too close, for which I was grateful. I took the blanket from him and spread it over Ben.
The others left us alone, and we waited.
After a time, Ben tensed—I felt his muscles tighten against my leg. His nose flared, and he flinched awake, sitting up. I waited for him to gain his bearings, to get the scent of the place, to settle. It only took a second.
He looked at me. “I thought I’d lost you.”
I fell against him and we kissed. His arms closed tight around me and I pressed myself to him while our lips worked, hungry for each other’s taste. I wanted to rub myself all over his skin, taking in his warmth, his scent.
“Werewolves are all about instinct, emotion. They’re so full of passion. Makes them fascinating, don’t you think?” Boss had returned, regarding us from the doorway. He seemed to be speaking to Anastasia, conspiratorial, as if this was a long-running vampire joke.
Most vampires annoyed me because I didn’t know their ages. But to not even tell me his name? It was typical. Rick hadn’t been born with that name, Roman was an acquired name, and I really doubted that Anastasia was her original name, either. They’d reinvented themselves, like shedding old skins, when they became vampires. They could choose their identities, because who from their old lives was around to remember? To call out the inventions?
I tried to imagine Anastasia as a young woman, a child, eager instead of calculating and obsessed. And I couldn’t.
Joe was with Boss, and between them stood Grace Chen. Mission successful.
I rested my forehead against Ben’s shoulder and sighed. For just a moment, I’d been able to forget about everything, everyone, but him. We’d had our own little sphere of perfection, however fleeting. Ben kissed the top of my head and kept his arms around me, holding me close. Yeah, we could stay like that for a while longer.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, trying to keep the conversation between us.
His breath ruffled my hair, which felt marvelous, comforting. I reveled in the smell of him. “I’m feeling kind of stupid. I lost it. Completely.”
Obviously. “Why? You got through two fights without losing it. What happened?”
“When you didn’t answer, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do—so I lost it.”
“And came looking for me?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s sweet, you know.”
“I’m glad you think so.” We kissed again, a reassuring touch of lips. “What about you? You’re hurt, your leg—” He put his hand on my right hip, which twinged at the touch. But I held his hand there, not wanting him to move.
“I fell,” I said. “Broke something, I think.”
“But you’re okay? It healed?”
“It’s taking awhile, but yeah, I think so.”
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
“Yeah. But we can’t, not yet.”
“I know.”
I nestled closer in his embrace, finally feeling strong enough to deal with the situation outside.
Boss was still grinning at us like he thought we were cute. Cormac was back to standing guard. He didn’t particularly look like he was standing guard, but he’d put himself between the two of us—huddled on the floor, vulnerable—and the rest of the gathering. The arrangement suggested us against them.
Anastasia was talking to Grace.
“I didn’t count on any of this!” the young magician said.
“Your family understood what was asked of them—”
“That was hundreds of years ago! What do you expect me to do? I wasn’t going to stick around and try to fight monsters. I can’t do that.”
“Do you honor your ancestors or not? We’ve lost time, it may be too late.”
“I have to butt in,” I murmured to Ben, extricating myself from his embrace, as much as it pained me to do so.
“Of course you do,” he said, his smile turning crooked. He wrapped the blanket firmly around him after my departure. Which was a shame. If we’d been alone I’d have stripped down to join him. Later …
“Anastasia, chill out,” I said. “She did the right thing when she ran.” Both Anastasia and Boss arced brows at me, as if surprised by my interruption. I hoped they were impressed by my assertiveness. “Roman’s here. But he doesn’t have the pearl or those werewolves wouldn’t have been asking us for it. So we still have a chance of finding it. Don’t we?”
Anastasia set her mouth in a frown—grim and hopeless. She didn’t think there was a chance.
“Grace,” Cormac said. Everyone looked at him, startled. He was quiet enough most of the time that he almost blended into the background. That was exactly how he planned it. “I might be able to work out a way to search for it, but I don’t know what it is, what it looks like. If you can give me something to look for, we might be able to find it.”
The young woman raised her arms in a gesture that was half pleading, half frustration. “Have any of you considered that if this terrible Roman guy doesn’t have it, and we don’t have it, then someone else got to it first—someone who put the huli jing in a cage? Someone more powerful than any of us? You really want to go after that?”
Anastasia frowned. “If you had not failed in your duty to your ancestors—”
Grace put her hands over her ears. “Oh, stop with that, please! You sound like my grandmother!”
Taken aback, Anastasia pursed her lips.
“Grace,” Cormac said again. “You think we can do this?”
Deflating, she fidgeted, taking off her glasses, wiping them on the hem of her shirt, putting them on and glaring through them, giving the vampires surly glances. “Yeah, I think so.”
“We’ll need some space and quiet,” Cormac said to Boss.
“Can we watch?” he asked.
“Sure. Long as you’re quiet.”
“This way, then.” He started toward the other side of the room, where a door stood.
Ben got to his feet, keeping the blanket wrapped modestly around his waist. The look was kind of cute, showing off his lean body. I had an urge to pull his hand away so that the blanket dropped …
“I could use some clothes,” he said.
Cormac reached to the floor behind one of the chairs and produced several items of clothing, stacked and folded—and Ben’s battered semiautomatic. And that answered the question of whether he’d been searched. Boss and company obviously didn’t think we were much of a threat. It was almost insulting.
“I picked up what you dropped. Some of it’s kind of mangled.” He handed the stack to Ben.
“You shouldn’t even be holding this thing.” Ben gestured at the gun.
Cormac shrugged him off. “Won’t happen again. I thought you might need it.”
“For all the good it’s done so far. Anyway. Thanks.” He set the gun on a table and surveyed the clothing.
“It’d be nice if you could avoid that sort of thing from now on.”
“I’ll put that on the list: ‘Don’t lose your shit.’ Then you won’t have to use those silver knives of yours on me.”
“I wouldn’t—”
Ben pointed. “You would if you had to.”
Cormac looked away. So did Ben. I wondered if I should shove in between them to keep from saying anything else—something either one of them would regret.
“Sorry,” Ben said finally. “I’ll try to keep from freaking out too badly from now on.”
Cormac shrugged him off and headed to the doors. “Let’s see that room.”
Boss led the way, and the others followed, leaving us alone for a moment, and I was grateful. Ben handed me the pile of clothes, taking the shirt off the top and holding it up. Sure enough, the I ESCAPED ALCATRAZ shirt was ripped at the seams, Incredible Hulk–like, as a result of Ben tearing it off rather than bothering with conventional removal. Not to mention all the blood soaked into it from the earlier fight. It showed up even against the black. We’d all had a hell of a night, hadn’t we?
“Huh,” he said, then wadded it up and threw it into a corner.
“At least when that happens to you you can go shirtless,” I said. “I have to walk around with my arms crossed.”
The trousers, boxers, and shoes were intact enough. He put them on and gave a satisfied sigh. Straightening, he squared his shoulders, indicating that he felt increasingly more human. I wrapped my arms around his middle and rubbed my faced against his chest, letting the hair there tickle my skin and taking in his scent.
He hugged back, then picked at the T-shirt on my shoulders.
“That’s not your shirt,” he said.
“Yeah. The last one was kind of covered with blood. It seems to be the theme of the night. That guy loaned me one.”
“That guy—the on the street where I found you? I remember him. What was up with him?”
“I don’t really know,” I said. “He seemed nice enough.”
“That’s kind of what’s weird about him,” Ben said. “Did he even want his shirt back?”
I looked down at myself and furrowed my brow. “Why do I suddenly want to look for a homing device stitched into this?”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing you walk around with just your arms crossed,” he said.
“Later,” I said.
“I knew we wouldn’t be going back to the hotel room just yet. Can’t we go back just for an hour?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious about how all this is going to turn out?”
“Not at the expense of losing you,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my face. “I don’t ever want to get that close again.”
I wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t, that I’d always be all right. But I couldn’t make that promise.
Hand in hand, we followed the others through the door and into the next room.
It wasn’t much of a room: bare tile on the floor, off-white walls, no windows, a couple of floor lamps in the corners giving off muted light. About fifteen by fifteen, the place reminded me of a cell.
“What do you use this for?” I asked Boss.
“Time-outs,” he said.
“Time-outs? Like, if one of your vampires gets violent?”
“You ever seen what that looks like?”
Until recently, I’d have said no, but the starving vampire we found near Dodge City gave me a pretty good idea of why vampires might need a room like this. A question remained: Just what did you do with a vampire that far gone? How did you get them back to normal, or what passed for normal among vampires? Answer: they needed blood. And what did that look like? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The place smelled innocuous enough—it had the cold, clean scent of the rest of the lair. I surreptitiously hunted for stray bloodstains on the floor and didn’t find anything.
We kept to the edges of the room. Cautious, Grace stood in the middle, waiting for Cormac, who paced around the room, touching walls, studying the ceiling. His lips were pursed, thoughtful.
He took off his jacket and put it on the floor in the corner. His gray T-shirt showed off his rugged frame—he’d grown up on a ranch and it showed. He let his arms hang loose, tipped his head back, took a deep breath. When he released it, he made the soft hiss of a slowly deflating balloon. He rolled his shoulders, his head, stretching his neck. Then, blinking, he gazed around the room as if waking from a nap. His scent became bookish, older.
“What’s happening?” Boss asked.
“He’s Amelia now,” I said.
The vampire glanced at me, his expression questioning, but I couldn’t explain.
Brisk now, businesslike instead of watchful, Cormac returned to his jacket and pulled a few items—small, hidden in his hands—out of the pockets. Going to Grace, he handed her a piece of red chalk. “Draw a picture of the Dragon’s Pearl, right here.” He gestured at the center of the floor.
“I can’t draw that well. I’m not an artist.”
“It doesn’t have to be an exact likeness. Just a suggestion. A symbol.”
Tentatively, she took the chalk from him, crouched, and began drawing. I stood on my toes and craned forward trying to see what she drew, but the image remained hidden. While she was drawing, Cormac unfolded a street map of San Francisco and spread it on the floor.
Next, he spread a layer of a fine, dark-colored powder over the map. It smelled a little like charcoal.
“What is it?” I whispered to Ben.
“Gunpowder,” he said.
This ought to be good. The last item in Cormac’s hands was a lighter.
I didn’t know enough about magic to be able to guess what spell, incantation, ritual, divination, cantrip, or whatever Cormac was going to work. I was learning more all the time. Amelia’s magic seemed to be rooted in items and in ritual. Objects she could manipulate, procedures she could perform, tapping into external symbols rather than drawing on any innate power. Apparently, in some cases magic could be learned and didn’t depend on natural psychic ability. This should have been comforting—it meant anyone could control it, and it wasn’t so mysterious after all, right? But for the true wizards and magicians I’d met—Odysseus Grant, Harold Franklin, and Amelia Parker—magic wasn’t a hobby they’d picked up in a few classes or weekly knitting circles. They’d dedicated their whole lives to the study. It consumed them. In some ways, they became something other than human—as monstrous as I was. They no longer fit with the human community.
That wasn’t such a huge change for Cormac, as it turned out. Maybe that was how Amelia had found him—or how they’d found each other. I wondered if I’d ever learn the whole story.
“Are you finished?” he asked Grace after a moment.
She sketched the last couple of lines, then got back to her feet, brushing her hands on her jeans. “Yeah. Don’t know how much good it will do you.” She gave him back the piece of chalk, which he used to draw a circle around both the map and Grace’s drawing. I scooted forward, trying one more time to get a look at what the Dragon’s Pearl looked like—she’d drawn something square with squiggles in the middle.
Cormac shot me a look. “Stand back.”
I raised my hands in a gesture of innocence and backed away.
Cormac stood just outside the circle. The room was so quiet, I could hear us breathe—at least, those of us who did breathe. The moment demanded stillness. I was about to say something, unable to bear the tension of anticipation any longer, when the sometime-wizard flicked the lighter on and knelt, touching the flame to the map.
A spark flared on the paper, and a tongue of fire leaped a few inches high. Just as quickly, it vanished, leaving behind a wisp of smoke and the smell of sulfur. Cormac remained kneeling, his hand over the map, the smoke curling around him.
“Whoa,” Ben murmured. We all leaned forward for a better look at what had happened.
Cormac shook a layer of fine soot off the map and held it up to the light. The flame had burned a perfect pinpoint mark into the map. X marks the spot.
“Really? It’s there?” Grace said, moving to Cormac’s side to look over his arm at the image.
“I guess so,” Cormac said. I studied him, searching for a sign that it was really him, that he was back in control instead of Amelia. His posture seemed more like himself. He smelled like books and leather, a confusing mix that didn’t tell me anything.
“That seems too easy,” she said.
“Sometimes you just have to lay out what you really want,” he said.
“So what,” Grace said. “We go pick it up?”
“I doubt it,” he said. He began scuffing out the chalk marks with his shoe, erasing the circle and then the drawing, until the whole area was a vague red smudge.
She looked confused, and I explained. “We still don’t know who took the thing from the safe in the first place. I assume we’re going to have to take it back from them.”
Anastasia hadn’t spoken through the whole spell casting. The other vampires seemed interested and amused, as if we were entertaining them.
“We’ll have to move slow,” Cormac said. “Scout ahead and check it out before we go in. Make sure this is even right.”
That was Cormac. The hunter was back in charge. Grudgingly, I had to admit that they made a pretty good team, however weird I thought the arrangement.
“Part of the tunnel system goes there,” Grace said. “We should be able to get to it, no problem.”
“This time we stick together,” Cormac said. “Nobody gets lost.”
“That’s going to depend on what we find,” Grace said.
I turned to the vampires. “Anastasia?”
“I think it’s a trap,” she said.
“Just like last time,” I said cheerfully. “Shall we get moving and get this over with?”
Anastasia turned toward the door. “Yes.”
“Just like that?” Boss said after her. “You’re not going to ask me for help? For an army?”
“As if you would give it.”
Boss turned to his right. “Henry? You want to go with them?”
“Sure,” the vampire said, shrugging.
“Ah, so now you’re sending a spy,” Anastasia said, glaring at Boss, sneering at Henry, who actually wilted a bit.
“Yeah. But you don’t have anything to hide and he might really be able to help,” Boss said.
They couldn’t do a damned thing without arguing. I said, “Do vampires ever just help anybody out of the goodness of their hearts?”
“Didn’t you know, we don’t have hearts,” Boss said, and he and his minions laughed.
Cormac looked at me. “I hate vampires.”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Boss shrugged. “If you don’t want Henry along, just say so and you can go on your merry way.”
“He can come,” I said before Anastasia could pitch a fit about it. “Thanks for the offer. I’m sure we can use all the help we can get.”
Boss inclined his head, the hint of a bow, and Henry winked at me.
Anastasia pursed her lips. “Fine. But you’ll listen to me.” She pointed at Henry.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Boss sighed and shook his head. “I bet we can even find a shirt for Mr. Kitty here. You see how helpful we are?”
“Mr. Kitty?” Ben said, eyebrows raised.
“I may have to borrow that one,” Cormac said, smirking.
“Don’t even think about it,” his cousin said.
I butted in. “A shirt would be great.” We could argue about name calling later, though I had to admit I was hating Ben’s reaction. Seriously?
Henry went to fetch a shirt.
“Well,” Anastasia said to Boss. “At least you’ll learn how it all turns out.”
“It’s my city, after all,” he said.
“You never did thank me for that.”
“Is that all you really want?” he said. “Well then, Anastasia dear, thank you for helping me win San Francisco.”
She rolled her eyes and scowled. “Too late.”
“Oh, Anastasia, it’s never too late. We have all the time in the world.”
Of course they did.