Ricardo would miss him. As he missed everyone, all the way back to Suerte and his family right at the start. He carried them all with him, and the weight was heavy.
“I think . . . I am very tired and must sleep. We . . . we can take care of him in the evening. Father, can you—”
“Yes, I will make arrangements,” Diego said.
“Thank you all,” he said to each of them. “Thank you all so much for your . . . your faith.” They each nodded back to him in turn. Ricardo took a blanket off the back of a nearby chair, wrapped it over his shoulders. “If you could close the door on the way out and not let anyone back in until dusk, I would be most grateful.”
“Señor—” Lucinda said. They all looked back at him, worried.
He didn’t have the strength to do more than smile and nod. He got down on the floor, crept under the bed, wrapped the blanket all around him, and then dawn dragged him into the sleep of the dead.
“And that’s everything?” the Abbot asked.
“I don’t know, is it? What else do you want to know? I stayed in Santa Fe a month, making sure that the protections held, that Elinor or the werewolves didn’t return. It was never really my city though, Abbot. After, I rode to Bent’s Fort as we had planned. Found my next job as a guide. Made do as best I could, as I had for decades. Whenis my next appearance in your great book?” He turned to the Scribe.
“Virginia City, 1860.”
“Ah yes,” Rick said. “The Comstock Lode. It turns out that some packs of werewolves are capable of holding grudges for many years, and a town in the middle of a silver rush is a good place to hide from them.”
The Abbot rubbed his face as if he was very tired. “Of course it is.”
“I ran a saloon there. The Bucket of Blood Saloon.” He chuckled. Ladora had actually owned the saloon. He only helped. She had been tough and lively and wonderful . . . he remembered her, too.
“Of course you did.”
“Is there anything else, Abbot?”
Now the Abbot laughed. It started as a quiet chuckle in his gut, until his whole body shook, though he made little sound.
“I cannot believe it. Any of it. Ricardo, you are a vampire, a demon, a monster who drinks blood, and you are so good of heart that you met the Devil on the crossroad and didn’t even know it was him.”
To be fair, Rick had been distracted at the time. He hadn’t thought he was worth the Devil’s time.
“And then you turned him down?” The Abbot shook his head. “I didn’t believe it. Until I actually met you, I didn’t believe it. But here you are.”
“I have a number of friends who would also think this was funny.”
“See? You have friends. You have had friends for five hundred years. You’re not supposed to have friends! You’re supposed to have servants and thralls! You’re a vampire, and you have the gall to have friends?”
He would not have survived without his many, many friends. He felt their ghosts line up behind him.
“I have never been very good at being a vampire,” he said.
“On the contrary, I think you may be the best of us. And now . . . and now we need you.”
“He’s still out there, isn’t he?” Rick said. “I know Dux Bellorum is. But de Luz holds his leash. They’re planning.”
“They’ve been planning for two thousand years, and now it’s all come to a head. We need you, Ricardo el Conquistador.”
“You are making me an offer?”
“No, I am asking for your help. Which I think is something you understand. Here at the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows, we are vampires who are determined to serve God, whether He wants our service or not. And you . . . you have just proven that we still have souls to salvage. Will you join us, Ricardo, you who have never joined anyone in all your years?”
He had spent so much time fleeing, hiding. Then he thought that Denver, one small city, easily overlooked against the backdrop of the world, would be enough. Some small power to keep the people he cared about safe.
He had a friend—strange enough for one like him, as the Abbot had already said—who was a werewolf—even stranger, the old man would say if he knew, but surely he knew about Katherine, the werewolf called Kitty, who had already stepped in the light of the world to use what small power she had to protect her own. And anyone else she could manage to save, in the end. What would she say, if she were here? Besides demanding to know how old the Abbot really was. Ricardo el Conquistador thought she would say—take the step.
Rick nodded. “I would like to face de Luz again. To thank the Devil for showing me my soul.”