“Thank you, Alette. For everything.”
I hung up before I could hear any more wishes for good luck. We’d either have it or we wouldn’t, at this point.
“You okay?” Ben asked, glancing at me. I was leaning forward, my head in my hands. I wanted to run, to let it all go. But I had work to do.
“She’s one of the most powerful vampires I know. Why am I doing this and not her?”
“Because Roman’s been targeting you?”
Right. I was the one with the radio show.
We continued on to New Moon. I had one last meeting tonight.
* * *
ANGELO WAS already there. I’d called and asked to see him so I could warn him in person—without warning him. I’d told Detective Hardin what was going on, and I’d told Alette, because I trusted them. I didn’t trust Angelo.
I would have told his predecessor, Rick.
Lurking in the back near my usual table, Angelo was clearly uncomfortable, scowling at his regular food supply, all the people off-limits to him here. He could only be here at all because I’d invited him. He leaned against the wall, his hands shoved into the pockets of a suit jacket, which he wore over a turtleneck.
He called himself the “acting” Master of Denver. But really, he was in charge, since none of us had heard from Rick, the previous Master, since last year when he ran off on a religious quest, joining a secret order of vampire priests at the Vatican. We’d all been a little shocked at that one. That description wasn’t fair—it made him sound crazy. I didn’t think he was crazy. But he’d been around for five hundred years and took the long view of things, and he thought he could do more good as a vampire priest than he could staying here and helping me. Than protecting Denver, which after all was only one city. I would have loved to have him here for this. I could have asked him for advice—he was one of the few people who’d ever successfully stood up to Roman. He’d know what to do now, and whether or not this trap we were setting was a good idea.
But I didn’t even have a phone number for Rick. I was on my own, and all Denver had was Angelo, who preferred being a minion and hadn’t looked happy once since stepping up as Master.
Ben stopped at the bar to talk to Shaun and get us drinks while I approached Angelo.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound upbeat.
He glared at me. He looked young, but by my guess he was a couple of hundred years old. He cultivated the stylish ennui a lot of vampires did, but I never forgot they studied everything around them, and they remembered.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Why should anything be wrong?”
“You look like you’re being hunted. Well, you are, given all the trouble you’ve been stirring up, but you don’t usually look it.”
My lip curled. “Have a seat.”
Grimacing to show how beneath him this was, he pulled out a chair and flopped into it, sprawling. I sat a bit more primly, hands folded in front of me.
“Mercedes Cook is back in the country,” I said. “I don’t know for sure that she’s headed for Denver, but she might be.”
His foot started tapping, a show of nerves. “Great. Excellent. Well then. You remember what happened the last time she came through town, don’t you?”
I said, “She orchestrated a civil war to try to destroy Rick but ended up destroying Arturo instead.” Arturo, previous Master of Denver before Rick. Roman had never been able to get his hands on this city. My city.
“She still likely has her eye on the city. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Angelo. What do you want to do?”
He turned away. “I want to stay out of it. I want to stay safe, and I want to stay out. It’s your fault for bringing this down on us.”
Ben arrived then, beers in hand. “I guess you told him,” he said, eyeing Angelo warily.