Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Rocks the House

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s packing to leave.” That was the expression he was showing me, I realized: that of a person whose spouse was walking out, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

There had to be a mistake. “But—he told me last night he’d decided to stay—”

“That was before. Please, talk to him.” He grabbed my sleeve and pulled me through the doorway.

Baring my teeth, I snarled and shoved him off, backing into the hallway, away from him. What the hell was going on here?

“Please, Kitty, talk to him!”

“I can’t believe he’d just abandon all his ties here,” I said, but the argument didn’t sound persuasive.

“Rick doesn’t have any ties here,” Angelo said.

“But you’re his Family, you all are connected, surely he’ll listen—”

“None of us are Rick’s progeny. Not directly. Most of us were Arturo’s, and we became connected to Rick through him when Rick took his blood. As far as I know, from everything I’ve heard, Rick has never created another vampire.”

That sounded impossible. “At all? Ever? In five hundred years of existence?”

“Not one,” Angelo said.

The Master vampires gained power by creating minions and maintaining control over their progeny. Rick—he’d traveled through his five hundred years alone. All his power was his own.

“You have to talk to him,” Angelo said. “You’re the only one he listens to.”

“You’re giving me way too much credit.”

“Please, try,” he said, and pointed down the hallway to the closed door of Rick’s office and living room.

My nerves were on fire as I walked the last few paces to that door. Angelo stayed where he was, slumped against the wall, hugging himself, anguished.

I knocked on the door and called, “Rick? Can I talk to you for a minute?” Tried to sound casual and nonthreatening. The paper bag crinkled in my grip.

Time ticked on. After what happened last night, I wouldn’t blame Rick if he decided never to speak to me again. But finally the door opened, and there he was. I looked up, earnest and hopeful, probably close to the sad little puppy I felt like.

He appeared much as he had at the church, though the jeans and T-shirt were fresh. His dark hair was ruffled, as if he’d been pulling at it. The suave aristocrat in the silk shirt he usually showed to the world was gone.

After regarding me blank-faced for a moment, he turned away, leaving the door open. I took that as an invitation. He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at me, just went straight back to his desk at one end of the room. Its drawers were open, and he was putting items into a black canvas duffel bag. Packing, as Angelo had said.

“I brought you a present,” I said, holding up the bag.

“I’m sorry, I’ll probably have to leave it behind. I’m traveling light.”

My throat tightened, and I had to work to talk like nothing was wrong. “Where are you going?”

“Italy,” he said. “Vatican City.” He moved a pair of small, ancient-looking leather-bound books into the bag, then wrapped a chipped clay cup in a scarf and packed it away.

“I thought you said you were going to stay,” I said, pleading.

“I have to tell them what happened to Father Columban.”

“Can’t you call? Write a letter?”

Pausing, he leaned on the desk a moment. A living human would have taken a deep breath, but he gathered his thoughts silently. “I thought it best that I tell them in person.”

“You think you have to replace him in the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows.”

He bowed his head. His hands, resting on the desk, clenched into fists. “I—I would like to meet the other members of the order. It’s important to me.”

“But you’ll be back?”

The pursed lips, the glance away, were something of an answer.

“Would you like to sit?” He gestured to the sofa on the other side of the room, and he joined me there. I perched on the edge of the cushion, wondering what I could possibly say to change his mind. Surely I could say something.

I just couldn’t think of what.

He radiated the chill of his bloodless, undead vampire nature. It should have felt unnatural, making me nervous, but he was just Rick. He’d always been like that. No heartbeat, no breath. But still human, somehow. He studied his hands, resting on his lap.

He said, “Father Columban told me a very strange thing—the order knew about Fray Juan, the vampire who made me. He used to be one of them, but turned apostate and fled. They assumed he had been destroyed during the Inquisition. Many vampires were. But they never imagined he’d fled to the colonies to start his own empire. Columban actually thanked me for destroying him and preventing that. Because Columban didn’t just know Fray Juan—he was the one who made him a vampire. So Columban was my grand-progenitor. I could have learned so much from him.”

“You and Columban were shut up in there for days. Is that what you did all that time? Talk about history, where you came from?”

“Isn’t it enough?” he said. “We talked, told stories, prayed. Confessed. A lot of sins to confess, after five hundred years. Many acts of contrition to say. It was … good. To feel some sort of absolution.”

“A Catholic vampire. Well then.”

“So you understand why I must go, to tell them what happened. To learn whatever I can, to help them.”

“I don’t understand.” Except that I did. He’d had a glimpse of something he thought he’d lost. He wanted more. I shook my head. “I’m sorry about what happened. If I hadn’t set Cormac on the trail—”

“Blame doesn’t solve anything. Only forgiveness. You did what you thought was right. So did Cormac and Detective Hardin for that matter.”

“That woman—the demon—she would have killed us, if Cormac hadn’t stopped her. I’m pretty sure a few of her knives were silver.”

“Yes. Father Columban knew that the three of us were in danger,” he said. “She was after us, the vampires and lycanthropes.”

“Why?”

“Because of what we are. Is there another reason?”

I pondered that. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. “Is she gone for good, or will she be back?”

“I don’t know. We have enemies, we already knew that. The details hardly matter.”

Unless the details told us how to kick their asses. I imagined Rick was taking the long view here, as usual.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I asked.

“I do,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “I think you’d been a werewolf for all of six months. Everything terrified you.”

“Can you blame me?” I had almost forgotten those days myself. Repressed them. I had no idea what it must have looked like from the outside. But Rick would remember.

“Not at all,” he said. “Around all those hardened wolves you were so…”

“So what?”

“Unworn. Fresh. It’s an odd piece of fate that threw you among Carl’s folk. Trial by fire.”

“Wasn’t so bad,” I said, but the words felt false. I only said that because I knew now, after meeting dozens of other werewolves and seeing other packs, how much worse it could have been. Or I honestly didn’t remember how bad it had been. Just as well, probably. Darren was more right about me and how I started out than he knew. “But that wasn’t what I expected you to say. More like inexperienced. Naïve.”

“It’s a matter of perspective, I think. Others saw you as weak. I thought you had a lot of promise. You were a survivor.”

I looked at my hands twisted together, because my eyes had started stinging. I didn’t want to cry, not here. “The first time we met, you were the only one in that crowd, all the werewolves and vampires jockeying for status and position, who treated me like a person. You didn’t care if I was weak or strong, you didn’t expect me to behave a certain way. You asked how I was doing. And then you listened. I don’t even remember what I said, I think I rambled for a long time about nothing in particular.”