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Rick stared, like the same realization had just dawned on him as well. He said, “Why? Why back him?”
“The known quantity is always to be preferred,” she said. “Always maintain status quo, when the status quo in question is sufficiently under control.”
“Under control!” Arturo said. He kept looking around for followers who were all unconscious or dead. “Whose control? No one controls me!”
“The Long Game put you here, Arturo, and the Long Game will keep you here because you are weak.”
Arturo’s expression turned cold. Frozen and disbelieving.
For my part, I wished I could hit pause and rewind to play that bit over. The Long Game?
“What inter
est do they have in Denver?” Arturo said, his voice fallen to almost a whisper. “Denver is nothing to them.”
“Even a pawn may threaten the king.”
She glanced at me, then, and I almost squeaked. I had nothing to do with any of this, I was an innocent bystander, an accidental witness who wanted nothing more than to flee.
Her attention on me lasted less than a second, less than the blink of an eye. How had she put so much meaning in that short a space of time? Then she was regarding Arturo again.
“You’ve reveled in your power here for quite some time by local standards. As long as Denver’s been a city, you’ve been here. You’ve grown comfortable, complacent. You’ve lost sight. You’ve forgotten that this isn’t about you.” She approached them step by step, like a lion. No, a jackal waiting to clean up the pieces.
“You—” he spoke to Rick, “you’re fighting them. You’ve always been fighting them, haven’t you? You’ll keep this city out of their hands.”
“I will.”
Arturo’s smile changed, thinned, turned sly. It became the familiar smug expression he usually wore. “Then I concede. Denver is yours. I’ll leave here forever.”
Rick said, “Mercedes, you’re here as a witness. Is that enough? Do you accept that I am now Master of Denver?”
Mercedes’s voice chimed with hidden laughter. “Where will you go, Arturo?”
“Back to Philadelphia. I have friends there.”
“Friends like me?” she said. “Friends who are also playing the game? Will they want you back?” Arturo’s expression turned stricken.
She was two strides away from Rick. She’d never said her age. I’d guessed that it was young, less than a hundred years. But she was an actress, and she had disguised herself. She carried herself with a confidence that exceeded even Rick’s. Having seen what Rick could do to Arturo, I could almost imagine what she could do to Rick.
I was way out of my league here. I knew that, I accepted that. But I also knew that I absolutely did not want this woman poking her sticky undead fingers into my city.
I sprang forward, spray bottle in one hand, cross in the other, both stuck out in front of me, braced in my grip like they were Ben’s gun. “Stop.”
Mercedes arched a perfect, questioning brow at me. She almost seemed amused.
“It’s holy water,” I said.
“Oh my.” She smiled, but she didn’t move.
What the hell good was a spray bottle of holy water going to do? She could bat it out of my hand in a second.
Hardin stepped up beside me. “Stop! All of you, put your hands up!”
Mercedes smiled at Rick. “You have minions. That’s so sweet.”
Rick said, “Mercedes, yes or no: Do you accept that I am now Master of Denver?”
“What does it matter if she accepts it or not?” I said, losing patience. “She’s not even from here!”
