Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville) (12 page)

He nodded once, with the confidence of a crusader going into battle.

In the end, the success of their plan depended on how much they really knew about Roman. And I suspected that few of us knew as much about him as we thought we did.

I said, “I’ve had some … I wouldn’t call it evidence. A hint, a suggestion. A credible implication that Roman didn’t start the Long Game. He isn’t really the one in charge. There’s someone else, another figure. A Caesar.”

For a moment, they stared at me in apparent disbelief. Even Zora lifted her head from the sullen pout she’d been in. The very idea was ridiculous, of course. Except that it wasn’t.

Enkidu furrowed his brow. “What proof do you have?”

An offhand comment made by a trapped demon of uncertain and unlikely origin? She came to Denver on a mission to kill a vampire priest—I was still getting used to the idea of a vampire priest, of vampires working for the Vatican, but apparently it was all true. She succeeded in her mission and would have gotten Rick and me, too, if Cormac hadn’t stopped her. We all assumed that she was working for Roman. She laughed at this and claimed that Roman wasn’t the one pulling her strings, implying that someone else was, which opened a whole new world of paranoia, didn’t it?

“I don’t have any proof,” I said. “It’s just something to think about.” Any uncertainty I could plant in them might be useful. Or might get me killed. Whatever. In the meantime, I had so many more questions. “Do you have any idea how Kumarbis knows—”

A noise, the familiar sound of a wood door scraping on stone, echoed down the tunnel. The three of us lycanthropes started, raising our heads, pricking our ears.

Zora noticed our alertness and brightened. “He’s awake.”

He. Kumarbis, the vampire. Master of this little shindig. Could I get
him
to sit and talk with me?

The others gathered themselves, straightening, turning away. We were done here, it seemed.

“I’ll go to him,” Sakhmet said. As she passed Enkidu, he held her arm and leaned in. Their kiss was gentle, soft, full of obvious comfort passing between them. My heart ached, seeing it. Where was Ben, how freaked out was he, coming home to find me missing? At least two nights had passed. He’d be home now, never mind how many times he’d tried to call.

The were-lion padded down the tunnel toward the noise, presumably the vampire’s lair, where he slept out his days. To feed him, I realized. He needed blood, and they provided.

Enkidu must have seen the understanding in my expression. “We take turns,” he explained. Which made a twisted kind of sense, but I must have looked sour. Dismayed, even.

“You’ll take your turn soon, when you join us,” Zora said.

I shook my head in denial. Never, not in a billion years.

The magician took hold of the door in order to close it. Desperate, irrational, angry, I leapt forward, grabbed the edge, and held on. I didn’t want them to close it, I didn’t want to be shut in, not anymore. I wanted to keep talking, and I wanted them to listen. I wanted to get out.

If I’d been fighting over the door with just Zora, I’d have won. She was small, weak, and I was a werewolf. I could tear her to pieces. But Enkidu took hold of the door as well and hauled back. I scraped along the floor, trying to anchor the thing with my body. He caught my gaze, glared a challenge, and I snarled back. He wanted to fight, and we could fight this out.

After one last mighty shove, he yanked the door, caught me off balance, and I let go just before it would have slammed on my fingers. Letting out a frustrated growl, I glared at the slab of wood, since I didn’t have anything better to glare at.

On the plus side, I wasn’t any
worse
off than I was a few minutes ago.

I had to come up with a plan. Any plan. I had to develop telepathy so I could call for help. Or—they had to have my cell phone stashed away somewhere, didn’t they? If I could get out from behind the locked door, find my cell phone, get to a place where I could get a signal—probably out of the mine, which I ought to be able to do if I made it that far. Then call the cavalry. Simple.

Simple as stone.

Chapter 11

I
F KUMARBIS
was awake, night had fallen. Was this the second night I’d been here, or third? I didn’t know, but the number mattered to me. Counting time seemed important. I’d seen the vampire once, then he slept, and now he was awake. Call it the second night, then. I’d been here two full days, at least. Or was it three?

Two.

The tunnel system in the mine must have been complex. The group was living here, they had separate chambers, they’d built doors and created rooms. There was a place to lock me up, a place for the vampire to sleep. The others must have had rooms as well. They had to be storing food and water somewhere, and using something other than unobtrusive corners of various caves as toilets. Assuming I found a way to break out and avoid my captors, how long would it take me to search the place? How did I find my way out? With my nose. I just had to find the draft of fresh air and follow it. I hoped.

First thing I had to do was figure out how to get past the door. Well, that was easy. Plan A: Wait until someone opened it, then start running, see how far I could get. Satisfying, but probably not effective. I wouldn’t have time to look for my phone in that scenario.

Plan B: Win their trust so they’d let me out of the room
and
leave me alone to go exploring. On further thought, it might even be easy; I’d just have to start pretending to agree with them. Easy, maybe, but the idea left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t want them to think they’d convinced me. Brainwashed me. But if it meant getting out of here … I could turn my mind in circles for hours thinking of this. Hunger had become a dull ache, and lack of food was affecting my thinking. The next time Sakhmet appeared, I’d ask for food.

Once again, steps approached, and the door scraped open. I backed away, because I wasn’t ready and didn’t think about charging until it was too late. Next time for sure, right?

The vampire came in, alone. He shut the door behind him and stood, blocking the way, studying me. Him and me, all alone. I buried a growl.

He might be able to pass for human in poor light, but people would look twice at him and maybe wonder what disease he was suffering from. He was stooped, wizened, his spine was hunched, and his joints were gnarled. Leathery wrinkles covered his face; in anyone else I would have called it sun damage. His appearance wasn’t old so much as worn out. Even flush from his recent feeding, he appeared ashen. He’d seen some hard times. Periods of starvation maybe. Lack of blood wouldn’t kill a vampire right away, but it would cause something like decay. This vampire was decayed.

I wouldn’t get any closer to him than I had to. He approached, and I backed away, keeping the same distance between us. Straightening, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. He could smell my anxiety, but I didn’t have to act scared.

“You are strong,” he said, sounding pleased. “I knew you would be.”

“Then why do you think you can force me to do what you want?”

“When you understand, you won’t need to be forced.”

The mangled coin around his neck kept drawing my eye. I wanted to know more, I had so many questions. “How old are you?” I asked on a whim.

He narrowed his gaze, curled his lip. An expression of disdain. “We brought you here to make you understand. To show you—”

“Understand what? Maybe I could understand if you’d actually explain to me what you’re doing.” I should have just shut up and listened. But I was angry. I didn’t like being lectured at.

“You
will
understand.”

“Yeah, all you have to do is keep saying that, over and over,” I muttered. We could keep this up all day. “Help me understand. You wear one of Roman’s coins. Why?”

“I took it from him.”

“It means you served him—”

He scowled. “I never served him.” He actually sounded offended.

I took a calming breath and tried again. “How do you know him, then?”

“It’s enough that I know how dangerous he is. We must stop him.”

“I agree,” I said. Kumarbis tilted his head as if startled. He must have thought I just argued on principle. “How are you going to do that?”

“It is not your place to ask, only to join the battle.”

That made me think of Antony, and all the other casualties. Kumarbis wasn’t wrong—this was a war, and maybe he’d been fighting it longer than the rest of us, but that didn’t put him in charge.

“That’s just typical vampire superiority garbage,” I said. “You’re a vampire, I’m a werewolf, so you expect me to line up like a good little foot soldier. It’s crap like that that’s got me fighting Roman in the first place. You want my help, treat me like an ally and not cannon fodder. Too many people have already died fighting Roman.”

He stretched his crooked hands and his lips pulled back to show yellowed fangs. He seemed so broken, but ropy muscles flexed under the leathery skin. He was still a vampire, and I couldn’t underestimate his strength. I wondered how hard I’d have to push him before he got physical.

“No one knows Gaius Albinus better than I do.”

I believed him. He’d been around for most of that history. Roman was a bogeyman among vampires, a Machiavellian figure manipulating them and their Families around the world in order to bind them under his own power. The few facts: he was two thousand years old, had been a Roman soldier in Palestine, had traveled across Europe and Asia over the centuries. His followers wore the bronze coins, which had some magic that connected them. Defacing the coins broke the spell. I had spent the last several years trying to identify Roman’s followers, and to find others who knew about him and opposed him. I had my own band of allies. But none of them knew about Kumarbis. What did Kumarbis know that we didn’t?

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Only that we must stop him. Nothing else is important.”

It was like pulling teeth. Sharp, pointy teeth. I said, “Do you know Marid? Ned Alleyn? Alette, Rick—Ricardo? Do you know they’re trying to stop Roman, too? If no one knows him better than you, they could really use your help. That’s the whole point, we’re supposed to be working together.”

He shook his head. “What they think they know doesn’t matter. I am the only one who can stop Gaius Albinus.”

We had a saying around the radio station: the minute you thought no one else could do your job, it was time to give up that job. “You can’t do it alone,” I said. “You need help.”

“I have everything I need here, now that you are with us.”

“You know so much about Dux Bellorum—even what can stop him—why not just tell me?” I paced, just to be moving. I had to burn the anxious energy somehow, either through moving or through howling. The howling might come in a minute.

“You’ll learn what I know—when you are initiated into our mysteries.”

“I don’t want to be initiated into any mysteries. Sorority rush was bad enough.”

He put his hand on his heart—his dead, still heart—in a strange gesture of calm. Like a saint in a medieval painting. Closing his eyes, he said, “Be comforted, wolf. Regina Luporum. You’ll understand everything, in time.” He turned to tap on the door. One of the others must have been on the other side, to unlock it.

“Wait!” I reached for him as the door cracked open.

He turned back to me, waited as I had asked. But I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t already said.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, after a pause. “Of course you are. I will have Sakhmet bring you food.”

Then he left, and the door shut behind him.

Maybe it was time to figure out a plan C.

*   *   *

I
DIDN’T
know any stories about Regina Luporum. About the wolf who adopted and cared for Romulus and Remus. Only that she was there, like any number of nameless mother wolves in any number of stories. Although the mother wolf who adopts Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s
The Jungle Book
is named Raksha.
She
gets a name. She is the overlooked power, the unnoticed linchpin. The unspoken prologue to every story. I had to give credit to Kumarbis and the others for acknowledging her and giving her some power. But I didn’t have to trust the stories he told about her.

Mythology was filled with queens. A queen of the wolves would only be one in a long line of them. Like Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of sex and war, who was pictured flanked by lions. There’s a story about Inanna traveling to the land of the dead, the underworld, just like most epic heroes seem to do at one time or another. At each of seven gates she is forced to give up an item of clothing, a jewel from her collection. And she arrives at her destination naked, stripped of all wealth and identity at the darkest part of her journey.

She spent three days underground, then she escaped. She was reborn. She reclaimed all that she’d lost. Like all good heroes do.

*   *   *

T
IME PASSED
strangely. My eyes were getting tired, even my Wolf’s supernatural night vision straining in the dim lamplight for so long. I paced, just to have something to do, just to keep my blood flowing through tired muscles, so when the chance to run came, I’d be ready. Even though pacing made Wolf anxious. She was so close to the surface all the time now, ready to spring forth, to burst free.
To defend us, when the time comes.

I was circling the antechamber for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to think. Sakhmet was my best chance for escape. All she had to do was leave the door unlocked the next time she brought me water. I could get her to convince Enkidu to leave the door unlocked. Escape in a way that wouldn’t implicate them. Make it look like I broke out. They already knew it was the right thing to do, I was sure. I didn’t think they were afraid of Kumarbis. So what was stopping them from doing the right thing?

They believed Kumarbis and Zora, believed they could really do what they claimed. And they would keep trying to convince me of the same.

On the other hand, I could beg and threaten. My pack and mate would come looking for me. A dozen raging werewolves, along with the vampires from the Denver Family, would swarm the place, seeking revenge in their effort to rescue me. My allies were ruthless and implacable, and Kumarbis and his cult didn’t have a chance, no matter how powerful they were. Maybe that would convince them to let me go.