Kitty Rocks the House (Kitty Norville 11)

I took a long drink. What was it about hot caffeine that made everything better? Even Wolf settled. My skin stopped itching with prickling fur.

“I don’t have all the answers. I can only tell you my side of it.”

“Well then, why don’t you get started?”

I told her about the Long Game, or what I knew of it. That there were networks of vampires, some of who were gathering power, others who opposed them. Roman, his followers, the coins they possessed. They were trying to take our cities from us, and we had to try to hold the line. No matter how much I learned, there was always more I didn’t know. I peeled back layers of the onion, and I always found more underneath. But this was all coming to a head. The two sides would clash. We had to be ready.

“What?” Hardin said, staring at me like I was crazy; or worse, worried that I was right. “Like a literal war? Some kind of battle?”

“I don’t know. Something. Roman’s gathering allies, and they’re everywhere. We’ve been trying to collect allies of our own, but it all seems to go wrong. Columban was supposed to be an ally.” My lips turned in a wince.

“He was wanted for murder.”

“Or was he defending himself against that demon? Did he start the fire, or did that demon, when she tried to attack him?”

Turning thoughtful, she looked away. “I thought I was starting to get a handle on this shit.”

“I don’t think it’s possible.” You thought you knew, and then the universe opened a vortex and dropped a bounty-hunting demon in your lap. What a world. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your Interpol contact has some wind of the Long Game. Maybe even of Roman or some of his allies. Maybe they have some mashed-up coins in evidence.”

She ran a hand through her hair, which was coming loose from its ponytail. “I’ve got enough to worry about just looking after Denver. I don’t know if I can take on any more.”

I said, “If there’s any way you guys can pool information, set up some kind of database, compare cases—”

“You think we’ll find patterns.”

“Yeah, I think you will. I don’t know if it’ll help, but it couldn’t hurt.”

After a moment of thought, she gave a fatalistic nod. “All right. I’m in.”

* * *

I HAD to see Rick. Somehow. The next night, I went to Obsidian and knocked on the basement door. I brought him a present, wrapped in a brown paper bag.

Angelo answered. Instead of his usual smirk and put-down, he stared at me with stark desperation, silently, as if he couldn’t find words. He smelled frightened, sweaty. What had happened to him? The hairs on my neck stood up, but I tried to act neutral. Normal.

“Is he in?” I asked, gesturing hopefully to the back hallway. “In and willing to talk to me, I mean?”

Gripping the door frame, he glanced over his shoulder, turned an anxious gaze back to me. “You have to talk some sense into him, please. He won’t listen to any of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s packing to leave.” That was the expression he was showing me, I realized: that of a person whose spouse was walking out, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

There had to be a mistake. “But—he told me last night he’d decided to stay—”

“That was before. Please, talk to him.” He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me through the doorway.

Baring my teeth, I snarled and shoved him off, backing into the hallway, away from him. What the hell was going on here?

“Please, Kitty, talk to him!”

“I can’t believe he’d just abandon all his ties here,” I said, but the argument didn’t sound persuasive.

“Rick doesn’t have any ties here,” Angelo said.

“But you’re his Family, you all are connected, surely he’ll listen—”

“None of us are Rick’s progeny. Not directly. Most of us were Arturo’s, and we became connected to Rick through him when Rick took his blood. As far as I know, from everything I’ve heard, Rick has never created another vampire.”