e could manage, if they would come themselves in the dark of night, mounting a vampire battle of shadows and blood, or if she had a company of human soldiers, mercenaries perhaps, who would come in daylight to attack his people while Ricardo slept and could do nothing about it.
He did not know how much time he had to prepare, how much time Catalina would need to find this place. He, Henri, and Suerte had rushed home as quickly as a wagon and horse could manage, which wasn’t quickly at all.
He wished he could believe that Catalina would leave him alone, but it was clear, even in the short time he’d spoken with her, that she saw him as a rival. That all vampires would see him as a rival. That battle he’d fought a hundred years ago against Fray Juan and his men—he would have to fight it all over again.
Over, and over, and over again, every time he encountered one of them. He just wanted to be left alone.
He set his people to building a palisade and wondered if he ought to call in a priest to consecrate one of the buildings here. Make it a church where vampires could not enter.
But that would not stop human soldiers.
They worked by torchlight to sharpen logs while others of his people dug trenches in which to mount them, an angry fence to keep out invaders. Also, they had plenty of bows and arrows—the women made more, as many as they could, and he instructed the archers to aim for the heart. Wooden stakes were death to vampires; he hoped wooden arrows were the same.
Catalina would say he was mad to instruct and arm his people who might now rise up against him. But Ricardo trusted them. It was why he would not hand them over to her rule.
Ricardo paused to look over the defenses taking shape. “We are being invaded,” he observed, because yes, he was transforming his beautiful estancia into a fortress.
“Again,” Henri said with a huff.
Ricardo had to think about that a moment. He smiled, but he wasn’t pleased.
He had been in battle. Ostensibly, his education had prepared him to fight, to lead armies, to conquer. He imagined every scenario that might come to pass if Catalina sent Eduardo and an army of vampires and their enspelled human servants against the estancia. He couldn’t imagine it, because he didn’t know the size of this army. He didn’t know if they would bring weapons. He didn’t know anything about who they were.
He had fought vampires before—four of them, plus the Master, Fray Juan. He had done it by ambushing, by building traps. By believing he had nothing to lose, that he was already dead. That he had destroyed them, that he had won, still came as a shock to him sometimes.
This coming battle was different, because now he had territory to defend. People to defend, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who had been terrorized by Fray Juan. Those he had worked with to build this small, comfortable shelter. Henri, the others—they didn’t understand what was coming for them.
How did Ricardo prepare them? How did you build a defense against a force you knew so little about? How did you use what skills and weapons you had to defeat such a force? Well, he would have to do what he’d done before: tricks. Ambush.
What would Catalina not expect? What would truly stop her for all time?
Certainly not a battle.
“Don Ricardo, what is wrong?” Henri was concerned.
Ricardo had been staring absently, his mind elsewhere, for a long time. He had thought of something. Not a consecrated church, but . . . something.
“Keep building the wall,” he told Henri. “I must see to something.”
It was the next night when Catalina’s army came to the estancia’s palisade. A dozen men on horseback, all vampires, and another dozen on foot carrying wooden spears. Vampire-killing spears. On second glance, he noticed two of the riders were women, but in leather riding clothes, carrying rapiers like the men. They were old. Who could say where they had learned to fight? Ricardo didn’t doubt they could.
Half of the army held torches as well as weapons, and a sphere of orange light engulfed them. The scent of smoke was dense. They would burn down his home.
Catalina was not among them, and this told him something about the Masters and Mistresses among the vampires. They remained safe behind their walls, behind their followers. They relied on their followers, without whom they had little power. A useful bit of knowledge there.
Ricardo stood alone at the open gate and faced them. He had sent everyone else inside the house for safety.
“Don Ricardo!” One of the riders urged his mount, a handsome black beast, a few steps forward. It was Eduardo, whose voice was amiable enough, but whose frown was stern. “The most gracious Reina Catalina is saddened that you rejected her hospitality. She hopes you will reconsider and return with us to the city.”
“It is a strange hospitality that you must force it upon me.”
“Is this your home? Your estancia?” He gestured expansively, to take in the fence and all that lay behind it. “No wonder you feel that you don’t need our lady’s patronage.”
“It is not my estancia,” Ricardo said, his smile easy but his stance ready. He’d hidden a bundle of spears within arm’s reach, leaning up behind the first section of fence. He waited to see how this played out.
Eduardo pursed his lips. “Oh?”
“Indeed,” Ricardo said, watching his toe scuff innocently at a tuft of grass.