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“There’s something odd about this place.”
I’d gotten a big grin on my face. Crossed my arms, regarded him smugly, and seriously considered not inviting him in.
“That’s because it’s not yours,” I said. Then I opened the door and invited him in, because when all was said and done, he wasn’t just the Master vampire of Denver. He was my friend.
“Arturo never would have let you get away with this,” he’d said.
Arturo was the previous vampire running Denver, and this was a place within his city where lycanthropes had power.
“Well. Thanks for not being Arturo.”
This night, we sat in the back, at what had become my usual table. Rick leaned back, looking over the thinning late crowd. We were down to barflies and a birthday party in the far corner.
I was distracted, tapping my fingers, waiting for the building to burn down. “You ready for me to tell you what happened last night?”
He made a palm-up gesture, giving me the floor. I told the story again, and it seemed even more vague and less likely than when I told it to Grant. The whole thing was turning into a dream. Rick listened thoughtfully, attentively, brow slightly furrowed. In a lot of ways, of all the vampires I’d ever met, Rick had stayed the most human. He could still engage in the problems and concerns of mere mortals. At least, he could make it look like he did, finger tapping his chin, his dark eyes thoughtful.
I finished, and he sat back in his chair.
“You didn’t get a good look at it? You don’t know what it was?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing anything, only what it felt like. Maybe it wasn’t a thing, but a force. You’ve been around for five centuries. Does stuff like this happen a lot? Have you ever heard of a monster that likes to attack werewolf packs on full-moon nights?”
“And also could be summoned by a vampire,” he said.
“Or has something to do with Tiamat. Maybe this isn’t a vampire thing.”
“I think this goes beyond the Tiamat cult,” Rick said. “The cult leader might be using this as an opportunity to get a foothold in this territory.”
“Rick, just because the cult is run by a vampire doesn’t mean this has anything to do with vampire politics. Does it?”
He glanced away, seeming to ponder, and didn’t answer. And wasn’t that just what I needed right now, to worry about vampire politics, as well?
Sighing, I said, “We wanted something to happen so we’d have information. So we’d have something to work with. But I feel like we’re worse off than before.”
“We both have contacts,” he said firmly, decisively, in a way that was probably meant to sound reassuring. “We’ll do our research.”
“Like standing on rooftops, looking for patterns?”
He seemed to be scanning the crowd. It made me nervous, because I could never forget what he was, and the look in his eyes was appraising. I didn’t want him treating my restaurant like his restaurant. He absently tapped a finger on the table.
I was about to say something catty to him when he said, “I called Dom. To ask his opinion, for old times’ sake.”
Dom, the Master of Las Vegas, was only a figurehead. I wasn’t entirely clear on the situation, but he was there to divert attention from the real powers there. Like the priestess of the Tiamat cult.
“What did he say?”
“He told me I’d be better off if I stayed out of it and suggested I’d be happier if the local alpha werewolf wasn’t so uppity. You seem to have made an impression on him.”
“Dom doesn’t know anything,” I said.
“I know. He refused to talk about the vampire priestess of the cult. Whatever we’re up against has him cowed.”
Hell, it had me almost cowed. This wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. “How does that fit into your pattern?”
“I know Dom. It would take more than a two-bit cult to cow him.”
I hadn’t been that impressed with the guy, but Rick had known him for at least a hundred fifty years. Maybe there was more to him. What I didn’t want to hear was that we were dealing with something more powerful than a two-bit cult, though it certainly didn’t feel two-bit to me.
