Kitty Raises Hell

“You’re not telling us everything,” I said, and thought, well, duh, he’s a vampire, they never tell everything.

“I tell you everything, you no longer need my help,” he said. So much for altruism.

“And the price?” asked Rick.

“For banishing the demon, for preserving the sanctity of your territory, I want permanent free passage in Denver,” he said. “Not so large a price, really.”

This made his offer feel like even more of a setup. He’d been pla

Rick looked him over. They might as well have been a couple of guys playing poker, and for a moment I flashed on an imagined scene from Rick’s Old West past: sitting across the table from Doc Holliday, sizing him up, wondering who was the fastest draw. Rick smiling just a little because he didn’t need to be the fastest draw—a bullet wouldn’t knock him down. Now that was the way I liked to gamble.

Rick traced an invisible line on the table. “No power? No territory? Just free passage. Live and let live. So to speak.”

“That’s right,” Roman said. “I’m careful. I don’t hunt to excess. I’m a good neighbor, as they say.”

“You know, I made the same deal with the Master who preceded me.”

“And he trusted you.”

“Not quite. He just didn’t think I was a threat.”

“You think I’m a threat?”

Gah, another game of vampire chicken. I fidgeted.

“You’re older than I am,” Rick said. Casually. Like he didn’t just make the bottom drop out of my stomach. I studied Roman, and of course he didn’t look all that old, maybe a well-worn midthirties. But vampires could apparently smell the age rolling off each other—and they could mask their own power, hide their age, keep others from finding out. Not flaunt it, encourage others to underestimate them. Arturo had believed Rick was only two hundred years old.

So. Rick had just told Roman that he wasn’t fooling him.

“Age is not the only criterion for power,” Roman said.

“No. But it’s a start.”

“I could let you think about it. If you think you have that much time.”

“There’s always time,” said Rick, the way only a vampire could.

“Of course. For some.” Roman gave me a pitying glance. He stood. Meeting over. “I’ll confess, Ricardo. You aren’t what I expected.”

“I’m not sure I want to know, but what did you expect?”

“I’d have expected someone who snatched his territory from its former Master by wit and guile to show a little more fear.”

Okay, this guy knew far too much about us and what had been going on here. I didn’t need to know so much where he got such information; plenty of people knew about what had happened, but I wanted to know why he was so interested.

“You play much poker, Roman?” Rick said. Oh, I was so totally going to ask him about Doc Holliday.

“Some. Here and there.”

“We should play sometime,” Rick said.

Roman leaned forward. His smile was thin and wicked. “I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“Touché,” Rick said, chuckling, and the tension faded. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.

Roman’s smile seemed a little more relaxed, a little more genuine. “You need time to think it over. I understand.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Rick said. “Come back in two nights.”

“I look forward to it. Good night, both of you.”

“Good night,” Rick said. I waved weakly.

Roman walked straight to the front door, not even glancing at the slinkily dressed women who followed him with their gazes. He clearly had someplace more important to be than here.

I didn’t like this. These two had taken the situation in an entirely different direction, one I wasn’t sure I could follow. When he was gone, I asked, “What are we going to do? We need his help.”

“I can’t let him in, Kitty. He isn’t just here for the demon. That’s an excuse.”

“Can we worry about that later?”

“Not if you want there to be a later,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “When vampires get this pretentious, all I really want to do is make fun of them. Can’t you give us little people a break? This thing, this demon or whatever it is, is trying to destroy my world piece by piece, and if this Roman guy knows how to stop it, we have to listen to him.”

“There has to be another way,” Rick said. “If he knows how to stop it, then we can find out how to do it without him. We just have to look for it.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” I said, growling a little.

We glared at each other across the table. I almost never met Rick’s gaze. I trusted him—but he was a vampire, and vampires could do things with their eyes. He could change my mind for me, and I wouldn’t even know it. This time, I met his gaze anyway, just to show him how serious I was.

Glory be, he looked away first. The ghost of Wolf’s tail waved like a ba

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re taking the brunt of this.”

“Damn straight.”

“But Roman—we can’t turn to him, Kitty. We have to find another way.”

Wasn’t a whole lot of we going on at the moment. Rick was so busy looking at the big picture he couldn’t see the details, my details, like how we all could have died last night. Too bad Roman hadn’t left a card so I could contact him behind Rick’s back. I was only mildly shocked that I was considering going behind Rick’s back on this.

“Remember, Kitty, we’re supposed to have a partnership.” I must have looked put-out, because he smirked at me. “I’ve had a lot of practice reading people. I may not know what you’re thinking. But I can guess.”

“I have a question for you: Did you ever meet Doc Holliday?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

I had little practice reading people in person. Listening to people, judging their voices, was another thing entirely, but Rick’s voice was too calm. He was like a brick wall sitting in front of me.

“Why not? You’ve already made up your mind. Roman will come back, and you’ll say no and let me burn.”

He bowed his head. “It’s not like that. But some prices are too high. If he’s working with the priestess, and they get a foothold here—”

“But what if he isn’t working with the priestess? What if he really can do what he says?”

Rick took a breath in preparation for speaking, then said, “We’ll find a way through this, I promise.”

I had to have faith that we would. We’d always managed before, somehow.

Before I left, Rick said, “Kitty. To answer your question—yes. I played a game of poker with Holliday once, in Central City. Interesting guy.”

The bastard sat with his elbows on the table, fingers steepled, as nonchalant as if he’d just commented on the weather. I stared, my jaw hanging open, a million questions stopped up in my throat. He enjoyed that, dropping these bombshells, these epic stories waiting to be told. He always refused to elaborate.

So I didn’t give him the satisfaction of having me beg him to tell me more. I walked out, but not before catching his amused grin.

Finally, far too late that night, I returned home. Ben was on the sofa, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, eating something straight out of a Chinese takeout box and watching a talking-heads news show on TV. That man was far too set in his bachelor ways for me to expect him to change his domestic habits. Actually, I thought it was kind of cute. I liked the idea that being with me hadn’t disrupted his life too radically. I wanted us to be comfortable. To fit together without breaking.

As I closed the door, he sat up and set aside the food. Glared at me, just a little. “I was about to call.”

“Things got busy,” I said, tired. I wanted to curl up in bed with him and forget about the day. For now, I slumped onto the sofa next to him. He put his arm around my shoulders and we sat side by side, talking to the air in front of us.