Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville) (2 page)

“Hey,” I said, grinning.

He glanced at me, but spent more time looking around at the rest of the office. “I take it you’ve been busy.”

The sprawl had gotten particularly bad this afternoon. I was sitting on the floor, books open around me, manuscript pages marked up with color-coded sticky notes tucked into them, pictures tacked to the wall or lying piled on the desk. If he was careful, he might be able to pick a path through the mess to his desk.

“There’s a method to all this. I actually know where everything is.” I was a little scared to start straightening up and moving things around—I might never find anything again. “I’m fact-checking, making sure all the references match up. It means I’m almost done. It’s a good thing.” I tried to sound confident, but ended up sounding defensive.

He pursed his lips, like he was trying to stop himself from saying something. He finally let out a sigh. “Then maybe it’s a good thing I’m going away for a couple of days. You’ll have a chance to work in peace.”

I shoved books and papers away so I could scramble to my feet. “What? No! Terrible things happen when you go away.”

“No,” he said. “Terrible things happen when
you
go away. I’m just a normal guy who has to take a business trip.”

I could have argued with the normal. Once I was standing in front of him, I couldn’t resist—I pressed myself to him, wrapped my arms around him, and leaned in for a kiss, which he was all too happy to give me. I didn’t even let him put his briefcase down first so he could hug me back properly. He just dropped it.

Yeah, I could have stayed like that for a good long while. “Business trip where?”

“Cheyenne. Friend of the family got in some trouble over illegally grazing his cattle on federal land. I’m going to go help clear it up.”

“That sounds … arcane.”

“It’ll be fun. This is the kind of thing that got me into law in the first place. The initial hearing’s in a couple of days, and depending how that goes, I may not have to go back.” Unless something went wrong, in which case he could be making this trip back and forth for months.

“Better you than me. Do you really have to stay there overnight?”

“I’d spend more time driving back and forth than I would on the case. Unless you really have a problem with it.” He said it hopefully, like he wanted me not to be able to live without him for even a day.

We were pack, and this was our territory. He was my mate, and we belonged together. That was what Wolf said, wanting to cling to him at the mere suggestion of a separation. The world always felt off-kilter when we were apart. We’d barely been apart in years. But we were also human, with careers and responsibilities. A normal human couple coped fine with the occasional business trip. We ought to be able to as well.
Or not,
Wolf grumbled.

Theoretically, I could go to Wyoming with him while he worked. But he was right—having the house to myself might help me get work done.

“Only a couple of days?” I said. “Promise?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I suppose I should take advantage of you while I have the chance,” I said, hooking my hands over the waistband of his trousers, pulling even closer to him, pressing as much of myself to his body as I could, feeling gratified when his skin flushed and he responded, his hands crawling to my backside.

“Yes, please,” he said, bringing his lips to mine for some very enthusiastic encouragement as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

My phone rang. Generic cell phone ring tone, so no clue who it might be. Nose to nose, Ben and I regarded each other.

“It could be important,” he said.

“It could be telemarketers,” I replied.

If nothing else, the electronic ringing was annoying enough that I wanted to go shut it off before it drove me batty.

“It’ll probably just take a second,” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said with a suggestive lilt to his brow that made my scalp tingle. Yup, he’s a keeper.

After digging my phone out from under the mess of papers on my desk, I checked the caller ID, which stated that the incoming number was in Washington, D.C. Which meant the call could still be important or telemarketers.

Keeping an eye on Ben’s cute smirk, I clicked the button and answered. “Hello?”

“Kitty, it’s Alette.”

I frowned. This was important. Alette was the Mistress of Washington, D.C., quite possibly the most powerful vampire in the U.S., and she sounded somber, no brightness at all to her voice. She appeared to be a dignified woman in her thirties, but near as I could tell was several centuries old. She spoke with a commanding English accent. Now, she sounded tired.

“Alette, hi, what’s wrong?” Ben’s amusement fell away, his brow furrowing. Before she spoke, a thousand terrible scenarios passed through my mind. This was about Rick, wasn’t it? Something had happened to Rick—

“We’ve lost Barcelona.”

The statement made no sense. I had to parse it, then catch up with the pronouncement. Barcelona was one of the cities we counted as an ally in our underground war against Roman and the Long Game—or maybe not, anymore. “What do you mean, we’ve lost Barcelona? What about Antony—”

“Antony is gone.”

I slumped against the desk. Again, the statement made no sense. My heart heard it, but my brain had to catch up. I’d met Antony, Master of Barcelona. He was brash, chatty, and seemed young for a vampire, however many centuries old he actually was. He was astute without taking himself too seriously. I liked him. Ben had been very impressed with his fancy sports car. He couldn’t be gone—he was a vampire. Immortal. But not indestructible.

“What happened?” I asked, the only thing I could think to say, my voice catching. Ben came to my side and held my hand, listening in while Alette explained.

“I got the call from Ned as soon as the sun set.” Ned, Master vampire of London. Something big had happened, probably this afternoon local time, while I’d been sprawled out on the floor thinking my book deadline was my biggest problem. “Antony got word that Dux Bellorum was in Split.”

Dux Bellorum, another name that Roman called himself. It didn’t matter how much I thought about the vampire who was essentially my arch nemesis—and how weird was it that I had an arch nemesis?—when I finally learned something about him, an electric shiver traveled down my back, and I resisted an urge to look over my shoulder. Roman, in Split, fighting Antony, and what was he doing there—

“Split?” I asked. “Where’s that?”

“Croatia,” Alette said patiently, the same time Ben whispered that maybe I should save my questions. “He had a location, he had a plan to find Roman, and he thought he and his people could end him once and for all.”

And he’d failed. Alette didn’t even have to say it. “Why? Why’d he do that? We were trying to
avoid
a direct confrontation.”

“I think he wanted to be a hero.” The weird thing was, I kind of understood that. If he thought he could stop Roman, of course he would have taken the chance. “But he left Barcelona undefended. The city is in the hands of Roman’s followers now.”

It was a battle lost, not the war, I told myself. But my stomach turned in on itself. This was a person, Antony, and his whole Family. If we’d only been able to stop Roman sooner—there had to have been a way. Ben moved his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

“There’s more, Kitty. Antony learned some information that he was able to pass on to Ned. I’m passing it on to you. Antony discovered that Roman was in Split to retrieve an artifact he’d hidden there many centuries ago. Something called the Manus Herculei.”

“Hand of Hercules,” Ben murmured helpfully. The lawyer was pretty good with Latin, it turned out.

“Indeed,” Alette said, and might have sounded impressed.

“And what’s that? Is it magical? What’s he want it for?”

“I can’t say. But if I wanted a weapon to use in my quest for power, I might very well want to acquire something called the Hand of Hercules.”

Oh, God, it was probably some magical atom bomb or something. Next thing on Roman’s “take over the world” to-do list: acquire weapon referencing invincible Greek demigod. My stomach couldn’t feel any sicker. “That sounds really bad,” I said.

“It does, rather,” she said with icy calm.

“Does he have it? Did Roman find it?”

“We don’t know. But we don’t think he’s left Split, so perhaps not.”

“So what do we do?” I asked. Pleaded.

“We wait, I think,” she said with a sigh.

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. We had to
do
something, didn’t we? “Should we go to Croatia? Send someone? Find out what’s really going on there?
Stop
him?”

“Just as Antony did? Split is an ancient Roman city. Dux Bellorum’s home territory for some two thousand years. He’s most likely very well protected there, and you think we should send someone to confront him directly?” I let out the tiniest of growls. Antony hadn’t been part of our pack, but he was
ours
. This felt like an invasion. Alette made a comforting
tsk
. “We hold our own, Kitty. We watch for an opportunity. We find out what this artifact is, and we learn how to oppose it before Dux Bellorum can use it. We hold the line. Do you agree?”

I tilted the phone away, looked at Ben. I imagined my own expression was as somber as his. He pressed his lips into a thin smile that seemed more fatalistic than comforting, and I snugged closer to his warmth and embrace.

“I—I’m sorry about Antony. I don’t know who else to tell.”

“I’ll pass along your sentiments to Ned. Antony should be commended for contacting Ned and passing along what he could, before the end. He must have felt the information was worth giving up his own safety.”

Yeah, that was a nice way of looking at it, drawing some kind of meaning—
any
meaning—from Antony’s death, to make ourselves feel better. Only time would tell if we could make Antony’s sacrifice worth it.

Chapter 2

I
CALLED ANGELO
, the Master of Denver, and Ben’s cousin Cormac and asked them to meet us at New Moon.

New Moon was the downtown bar and restaurant Ben and I owned. I’d wanted a public place where the wolves of our pack could gather safely; that it had become a financially solvent business on its own was a bonus. One of our wolves—Shaun, our lieutenant—managed it for us, and seemed to have a talent for it. He followed his own taste rather than current trends, which meant the place had a funky vibe—the old brick building had been refurbished with exposed ductwork and an open interior, no TVs, lots of good food at the bar, and tables where groups could gather and talk. Shaun was at the bar now, serving drinks, marshaling the troops. Usually the place was a haven, a comforting den to unwind in after doing my show. Tonight we were turning it into a war room.

Cormac arrived before us and occupied a quiet table in the back. Ben and I found him leaning back in his chair and reading a book on police forensics. This seemed very odd to me, not just because he didn’t look like the kind of guy who normally sat in a bar reading a book. He had a rugged cowboy look to him, worn jeans and biker boots, a gray T-shirt under a leather jacket. Rough sandy hair, a permanent frown under a trimmed mustache. Cormac was usually the one causing police crime scenes, not investigating them. He’d picked up the reading habit in prison, and part of the reason for
that
was Amelia. As I understood the story, Amelia had been executed for a murder she didn’t commit at the very same prison, over a hundred years ago. She didn’t
quite
die, though. Instead, her spirit, soul, ghost, something, haunted the place, until Cormac came along. They were partners now. They shared a body, was the way I thought of it. Which meant that was
her
reading about forensics and chewing on his lip.

The pronouns got complicated. I would never be entirely used to it, but I could usually tell which one of them was speaking. Amelia had been upper-class British, and her diction and accent changed Cormac’s voice as well as his manner, when she was at the fore.

I gave Shaun a halfhearted wave as we passed the bar. “Want me to bring over the usual?” he asked. He was in his early thirties, well built, dark-skinned with short-cropped hair, wearing jeans and a polo shirt with New Moon’s crescent logo on it.

The usual was beer, and I had to think about it a moment. My stomach was still turning; I didn’t feel much like drinking anything. “Yes,” Ben said for me. “Thanks.”

Shaun frowned, but nodded. Our somber manners must have washed through the whole place.

“What is it?” Cormac asked as we sat across from him. Shaun brought our beers, and I took a long drink, just to be doing something.

“Roman’s been busy in Europe,” Ben said, and summarized what Alette had told us. Cormac listened thoughtfully, his expression still.

“She’s right,” he said when Ben had finished. “Not much we can do without knowing where he’ll turn up next.”

“The coins,” I said, because I was grasping at straws and this was about the only concrete lead we had. “Have you found out anything at all about the magic in Roman’s coins?” We’d collected several of the artifacts, ancient bronze coins the size of a nickel that somehow bound Roman and his followers. Striking out the image on them nullified the magic. I kept hoping we could find a way to use the things against him. No luck there. Yet. Such a thing might not be possible, but I had to stay optimistic.

Before he could answer, Shaun waved from the bar to get my attention. He pointed at the door. Angelo had arrived.

Angelo was what I called an old-school vampire. Haughty and aristocratic, watching the world down his nose and lecturing lesser beings like me on my, and his, rightful place in the world. He’d done better with that when he had Master vampires to stand behind—Arturo, then Rick. He was an excellent henchvampire and gatekeeper. He wasn’t particularly happy being in charge himself, as the new acting Master of Denver. The “acting” was an odd designation, one that Angelo insisted on but I wasn’t sure if anyone really believed it. For all intents and purposes, he was the Master of Denver. We all hoped Rick would return from his religious pilgrimage someday. We couldn’t be sure it would ever happen. So I had to deal with Angelo.