Kitty Norville

Kitty and the Midnight Hour

Kitty Goes to Washington

Kitty Takes a Holiday

Kitty and the Silver Bullet

Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand

Kitty Raises Hell

Kitty’s House of Horrors

Kitty Goes to War

Kitty’s Big Trouble

Kitty Steals the Show

Kitty Rocks the House

Kitty in the Underworld

Low Midnight

Kitty Saves the World

Paranormal Bromance

Kitty’s Greatest Hits

The Golden Age

After the Golden Age

Dreams of the Golden Age

Standalones

Voices of Dragons

Discord’s Apple

Steel

Short Story Collections

Straying from the Path

Carrie’s Website:

www.carrievaughn.com

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CHRISTMAS NIGHT, Don Ricardo de Avila leaned against the outside wall of the newly expanded San Agustín church at Zacatecas and listened to the choir. He pressed his ear to the stone as if that would allow him to better hear the voices mixed in ethereal harmonies raised to the heavens. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and sent his own prayers up with the song. He did not know if God would listen to him, but he prayed anyway.

The new church was magnificent, with towering walls and a great dome, but the choir was harder to hear through the stone than the clay bricks of the old. He felt farther from God than ever.

If he could go inside the consecrated church to hear Mass he would. But he could not, so he stood here and hoped it was enough. Every Christmas when the weather was fair and there were no other obstacles he came to hear the choir and pray to the stars. Perhaps it was a risk. Perhaps one of these years he would be caught outside at dawn, or someone in the town would discover that he was a monster and destroy him. Some years he considered not coming, even when the sky was clear and the road was easy. But then he’d decide that no, it was Christmas, he should go and hear Mass even if only as a whisper through stone walls. Every time, when he heard the voices converging in such heartfelt praise that his eyes watered with joy and pain, he was glad he came. If he could put those voices in a bottle and carry them with him forever, the world would not seem so ill a place.

He left before the Mass ended, before congregants streamed out of the church. He wouldn’t have to speak to anyone, to explain why he didn’t go inside like a good Christian man. He adjusted his cloak more firmly over his shoulders out of habit, not because he was cold. He was never cold anymore.

He was halfway to the respectable inn—with shutters and substantial curtains over the windows—where he had taken a room for the day when a prickling feeling on the back of his neck stopped him. This wasn’t cold, it wasn’t fear. It pressed against him from the outside rather than welling up from within. This wasn’t even the feeling one got while walking alone at night, wondering if a thief trailed you.

To add to the strangeness—he had felt this before, an alien presence like a hand on his shoulder. But that had been almost a hundred years ago. Had Frey Juan and his demons returned? Impossible, Ricardo had destroyed them, turned them to dust when he drove stakes through all their hearts. They could not return. He was all that was left of their evil, and every day he tried to atone, determined to prove that his good true nature still remained. That he still had his soul.

His mind rather than his eyes turned toward the impossible presence he felt, and he moved to face the danger.

A very fine gentleman stepped out of the shadows. He wore brocade slops and doublet in deep blue and gold, an intricate lace collar and a plumed hat. He smiled through a neatly trimmed beard and moustache and rested his hand on the hilt of a rapier hanging on his belt. With his leg forward and ankle turned, his shoulders straight, he might have been a painting come to life. Ricardo had a sword under his cloak but he didn’t reach for it. It wouldn’t do much good. Now, what did this monster want?

“Buenas noches,” the fine gentleman said.

“Buenas noches,” Ricardo agreed, making a slight bow.

The man’s amusement was a mask. The tension of his body, his hand on the sword, said that he was at least uncertain if not worried. “I confess, my friend, I did not expect to find one such as you out on this fine night.”

“Nor I you,” Ricardo said. He was not as well dressed as the man—his doublet was only wool, though fine wool, and his boots were worn. But he was home, and that gave him some advantage. He could be at ease and thereby show some little superiority. “Please pardon me, but I am very surprised to see you. I have many questions.”

The gentleman had no heartbeat. The air around him seemed chilled, and he moved with devilish calm. One of the demons for certain.

The demon’s uncertainty grew. “As do I. Señor, you seem gentlemanly so do not take this the wrong way, but you—you should not be here.”

“This has been my home for a very long time.”

The man’s consternation grew. “I believe that isn’t possible.”

Ricardo chuckled; he couldn’t help it. “As you see, it is. I have said something to upset you—perhaps we should go to some quiet place where we can talk? We can share our stories.”

“I ask again, who are you?” The stranger would draw the sword in a moment.

“I am Don Ricardo de Avila, sir.”

“And what Master do you serve?”

“I—I do not understand.”

“It is a simple question. You do not appear powerful enough to be a Master yourself, you have no offspring you have made attending you. Are you saying that you are here alone?”

Wary, Ricardo recognized the pieces of a puzzle but could not fit them together. “Yes, that is just what I’m saying.”

The gentleman marched forward, and Ricardo used all his will to stand his ground, not to reach for his sword. That chill he felt in the back of his mind was focused now—it was a sixth sense telling what this man was. He knew not to look into the man’s eyes—his gaze held power. He knew, somehow, that the gentleman was not nearly as old as Frey Juan had been. Face to face they stood, studying one another, heedless that others now passed on the street, folk leaving the cathedral and calling greetings to one another.

He merely studied Ricardo and did not strike. His hands relaxed. “Yes, perhaps we should go somewhere to talk. You know a place?”

“You still have not told me who you are.”

“I am Eduardo Montes y Contada of the House Catalina.”

“And what is House Catalina?”

“Do you know nothing?”

“It would seem not.” He did not appreciate being made to feel like a child by this man. But perhaps he was a child among demons.

“Then let us go inside to try to solve this mystery, hm?”

DON EDUARDO kept looking warily at Ricardo as if he expected some kind of trick.

Ricardo’s inn was small—one had to be a friend, or a friend of a friend of the proprietor to stay here. Ricardo had known the man’s grandfather. There was a small common room and hearth for guests.

At the door, Eduardo hesitated, his thin smile more masklike than ever. “This is a tavern, you said? A public place?”

Ricardo had already opened the door and stood on the threshold. The other man held back, eyeing the space before him warily. He was so bold in every other way, why didn’t he stride forward?

“It’s small, not so crowded and noisy as others. I like it. Mostly, it is the innkeeper’s friends who gather.”

“So it is his home?” He sounded unhappy.

“It feels so sometimes, I suppose.”

Just then the proprietor’s daughter, Marie, saw him and waved. “Ricardo! Come in, come in, and bring your friend! You are both welcome!”

Eduardo relaxed and stepped forward as if a wall had vanished before him. His discomfort was gone, and Ricardo studied him.

“Pardon my forwardness,” Ricardo asked carefully. “But what was wrong just then? You seemed unsure of the place.”

Eduardo spoke softly as they made their way to a table in the corner. “Have you never tried to enter a home where you were not welcome?”

“No, I never have,” said Ricardo.

The other demon seemed amused. “Some places, we need an invitation to enter. Do you not know this?”

“No,” Ricardo said wonderingly.

“But how have you lived all this time? You know nothing!”

Apparently, Ricardo didn’t even know how little he knew. “And that is why we are talking, yes?”

The common room was brightly lit and merry this night. Not everyone had gone to Mass, but they still celebrated with food and drink, singing and spilling wine, throwing more fuel on the fire. Ricardo felt very much the outsider here. He could look on, he could smile and pretend to take part. He had been like this once, newly arrived to a Mexico that was wild and full of adventure.

Marie brought over cups of the mulled wine that everyone was drinking. She’d surely think it odd, when it was clear the two men hadn’t touched the drinks. But for now, they were part of the disguise. They were just two men come out of the cold.

Eduardo gazed around him with an unmistakable hunger. Likely, he did not feel like an outsider. He looked like a hunter.

“I see why you like this place,” Eduardo said. Ricardo didn’t think so, but didn’t argue.

“You are new to this country, yes?” Ricardo asked. “You sailed from Spain?”

“Yes. A few years ago now. We settled in Mexico City and now I’m having a bit of a look around the rest of our new country.” He looked Ricardo up and down. “I didn’t expect to find one such as you.”

“So you said.”

“When did you arrive here?”

“A hundred years ago.”

“But. . . no one was here a hundred years ago.”

In fact, there’d been a whole native civilization here, and a thousand villages besides. But that wasn’t what Eduardo was talking about. “I was one of Coronado’s men.”

Eduardo was perhaps the only man in the room who would believe this tale. He gave a short, brief laugh. “Really? Hm. Mistress Catalina must meet you. You. . .are extraordinary, sir. If I may say so.”

“Gracias—I think.”

Eduardo leaned back in his chair, gazing haughtily around the room, no more willing to look Ricardo in the eyes than Ricardo was to look in his. Oh yes, they would not be dueling with rapiers tonight. Not when steel wouldn’t kill either one of them.

“What is the girl’s name? Call her over.” He tipped his chin toward Marie, who was wiping down a table at the far corner.

Rick raised his hand and caught Marie’s gaze. She was a mestiza—her father had married a native woman. Marie turned heads wherever she went, with her bright eyes and silky black hair. She came right over.

“Yes, sirs? What do you like?”

“Come here and sit by me for a moment,” Eduardo said, catching the young woman’s gaze. Her smile fell as the man took hold of her wrist and pulled her onto the bench beside him. Stroking the back of her hand, he murmured softly, and she sank willingly, powerlessly.

Eduardo raised the woman’s hand to his lips, almost as if he meant to kiss her in some gentle romantic gesture. Instead, he turned the hand over, parted his lips, and closed his mouth over the inside of her wrist.

Ricardo’s gut gave a jackrabbit leap, and he reached across the table for the demon’s sleeve. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Eduardo eyed him, swallowing a mouthful of blood before licking his teeth. “This is an inn. I will have drink.”

“Let her go.” Ricardo said.

“What do you care about her?” He licked a stray drop of blood from the wound. Marie’s head slumped forward as if she slept. She was alive, her blood still pulsed; he hadn’t drunk very much of her.

“She isn’t yours.”

“Is she yours?”

“She’s nobody’s but her own. You can’t treat her like some rabbit you’ve caught in a snare—”

“But Don Ricardo, that’s exactly what she is to us. What all these people are.”

“All of them? I notice that you set your gaze upon the young woman, and not upon the any of the strong men here.”

“Then what do you harvest? Where do you find your drink?”

“I ask,” he said. He didn’t know how to explain it. When he learned he didn’t need to kill to survive—well, he didn’t. He asked. It had worked so far.

“You ask,” Eduardo repeated. “Hmm.”

Marie started to wake up from the trance Eduardo had put her in. He patted her hand; she might have fainted.

“You must be very tired, señorita. You fell asleep for a moment. You should go have a drink and rest,” he said.

“Yes. Oh, I’m very sorry.” She smiled apologetically at Ricardo, as if she were the one who ought to feel ashamed.

“Quite all right.”

She fled.

Eduardo, face flush with new blood, regarded Ricardo. “You have been in this country all alone for a hundred years? You ought to be ruling it by now.”

“That is not my desire.” He didn’t want to rule; he wanted to live without doing too much damage. He wanted God to forgive what he had become.

By the sneer in his lips and his half-lidded gaze, Eduardo did not seem to think much of Ricardo.

“You must come to see the Mistress in Mexico City.”

“Why?” Ricardo said.

“Because it will be better if you come to her, rather than making her send someone for you.”

Again, Ricardo resisted the urge to draw his sword. After all, he had questions, too. “All right. I will come to the city to visit your Mistress. How will I find her?”

“The same way we found each other tonight. You have so very much to learn, Don Ricardo.”

Yes, that was what he was afraid of.

HENRI GOT up to meet him when Ricardo rode into the estancia some hours before dawn. Holding aloft a lantern, he waited at the front of the courtyard and shouted a greeting. Ricardo waved in reply. Henri was a short, dark skinned man with unruly black hair and crows feet at his eyes that gave him a perpetual smiling look. Ricardo had known him since he’d been born, had known his parents since they were born. The continuity of it was strange and wonderful. This was the closest Ricardo would ever have to a family of his own, and he valued it.

“Feliz Navidad, sir,” Henri said, taking the animal’s reins as Ricardo dismounted. “How was your trip?”

“Eventful,” Ricardo said. A rock still sat at the pit of his stomach. The world had not shifted yet—but it was about to.

“Oh?”

Ricardo didn’t elaborate. They worked together to untack and feed his horse, rub him down and put him away. Even the animals here had to adjust to a nocturnal schedule, poor things.

When he first arrived here, this place had been a failed mission overseen by the demonic Frey Juan and his bloodthirsty caballeros. They had tried to recruit Ricardo. Failed. He’d stayed and tried to turn the old church and outbuildings into something resembling a working estancia. In exchange for destroying the demons who’d hunted them, a local village helped him. They worked the land, herded sheep—and gave him a public face to protect his nighttime secret. He built onto the church and transformed it into a rather elegant home. Nothing so grand as a palace, but it had a courtyard and garden, a patio, a well, and several fine rooms. He’d filed all appropriate documents with the government—on paper, he was the owner and landlord here. Already he’d twice posed as his own son to ensure he maintained ownership of his lands. It didn’t take much—an embarrassed bow of his head, a careful explanation that yes, he was an unfortunate by-blow, but for lack of other heirs his father had acknowledged him as his own, and here was the paper and will to prove it.

Eternal life required so much planning, those of his countrymen who had searched for the Fountain of Youth had no idea.

Ricardo washed up while Henri stoked the fire in the sitting room’s hearth. Dawn was coming soon—the sky outside was turning gray, and he felt the weight of approaching sunlight in his bones.

“What happened?” Henri asked.

“I met another one. A man like me.”

Henri stilled for a moment, then hung the poker on its hook and came to sit at the table across from Ricardo. “I thought you were the only one, apart from the ones who made you like this.”

“So did I. I. . .it seems this is all much more complicated.”

“What does it mean?” Henri asked.

“I do not know. But I must go to the City to find out.”

“It is too dangerous—”

“If I don’t, they will come here.”

“There. . .there is more than one other?”

“So I gather.” He tapped a hand on his leg and stared at the low flames writhing in the hearth. The warmth on his face felt good, but he had to sleep soon—in the cellar, underground, without windows and danger of sunlight.

“Have you eaten tonight, sir?”

“No, I haven’t.” He hadn’t thought of it, not even when Eduardo assaulted Marie. What he was attributing to anxiety might simply be hunger.

Without further prompting, Henri fetched a cup from the sideboard and drew a knife from the sheath at his belt. He made a quick, shallow cut across his forearm, and blood welled. His movements were practiced, and in a minute or two he’d dripped a good amount of the stuff into the cup. Both his arms had lines and scars from many similar cuts. Many of the people who lived here did. Ricardo was milking these people like cows.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup from Henri. He always said thank you, every time.

He thought he could remember the way wine or brandy felt, drinking a whole cupful after coming in out of the cold. The way it hit the belly like fire and flowed through his limbs. The blood felt like that, tasting of comfort, lighting his nerves from within. He closed his eyes, sighed out a breath of pleasure, and yes, he felt better. Perhaps the problem of Eduardo was not so difficult. Perhaps this would all come to nothing.

“Thank you,” he said again. He could never thank Henri and the others enough.

“It is all for the good,” Henri said, and he sounded honest and true. This wasn’t a nicety; he meant it. “We keep you safe because you keep us safe. We are family. A strange family, but still a family.”

Ricardo stood and clasped the man’s shoulder before retreating to his underground chamber.

THE JOURNEY to Mexico City was some four hundred miles. It would take two weeks at good speed. He and Henri acquired a wagon and horses to pull it, provisions, and imaginary trade business to explain himself. The wagon had no windows. During daylight hours, Ricardo slept in a crate to protect him from sunlight. In this manner, with Henri driving the wagon, they were able to travel by day, which made the journey faster. At night, Ricardo awoke and managed their affairs. They were usually able to find inns and carry on as any other traveler would. A couple of nights, they needed to sleep on the road, but both men had managed without roofs before.

One of Henri’s sons, sixteen-year-old Suerte, came along, both to learn the business of making such a journey and also to bleed for Ricardo. Henri couldn’t sustain him alone for the whole journey, so the two took turns.

His father slept early, but Suerte stayed up some nights to keep Ricardo company while he stood watch. And to ask for stories. Suerte’s appetite for stories was vast.

“Tell me again about Coronado,” Suerte asked, sitting by the fire with his back to a piñon, carving on a walking stick.

“I’ve told you everything I remember about Coronado.”

“You say that every time, and every time you remember something new. So I keep asking. What was he like after the expedition? You don’t talk very much about that.”

“Because it’s very sad. He was a broken man. He was supposed to find not only his own fortune, but everyone else’s. He was supposed to bring glory to Spain. He did none of these. I remember him slumped as he rode, his dented helm tied to his saddle. He couldn’t even look up, as if he depended on his horse to know the way home.”

“Did you love him?”

“I hardly even spoke to the man. There were hundreds of us in his company, after all. I’m not sure he even knew my name. But I followed him because I believed in him. I believed in the stories, and I believed that Spain would spread all over this continent to make a great empire. I. . .don’t believe any of that now.”

“How big is this continent?”

“It’s taking us weeks to simply travel between Zacatecas and the Capital. Imagine this journey multiplied a hundred times over, then double it. That is how much land there is north of us. In Coronado’s company we never came close to the end of it.”

Suerte sighed in amazement, the wonder of it filling his vision. Ricardo grinned wryly. “You would break your father’s heart if you decided to trek north to find your fortune and leave the running of the estancia to him and Tomas.”

“They would be happy to have me out of their hair.”

“Maybe for a week, but no more.”

The boy gouged a particularly rough cut from his carving. He was restless; the estancia was confining and he wanted an adventure. To be his own man, not his father’s son and Tomas’s brother. Ricardo had to remember how he was as a boy—he’d been only a couple of years older than Suerte when he left Spain to make his fortune in the colony. He had no way of explaining that once a boy left on such an adventure, he would age quickly, live more life than the actual years, and he could never go back. Boys never understood, did they?

“Are you laughing at me?” Suerte asked.

“No,” Ricardo said. “I’m smiling at the patterns. Life is patterns. It’s comforting, somehow.”

The boy furrowed his brow, confused, and went back to his carving without a word.

RICARDO LEFT Henri and Suerte at the edge of the city, unwilling to bring them to the attention of Eduardo and his friends. His first nightfall in the city, he dressed in his finest suit, pulled a gold-trimmed velvet cloak over his shoulder, put on his sword, and set out.

He had been back to the City once or twice in the last century, and each time it seemed utterly transformed. He felt he would have to remove entire layers of it to see anything that he recognized. It wasn’t just that Spanish civilization had become fully entrenched here. No, more that the entire world was changing, and quickly. Buildings growing taller than ever, churches becoming more ornate than he could have imagined. The streets themselves were better: more skillfully paved, more comfortable. He was traveling through time, into the future, one day at a time, forever.

On a hunch he went to the wealthiest neighborhood, where the governor and commissioners had their palaces and the wealthiest merchants and landlords aspired to live. Here, the streets were wide, and the houses and courtyards sat behind walls with filigreed iron gates. Some folk had found their fortunes in the New World, obviously.

He wandered the streets of this neighborhood, imagining himself a shadow. A few guards and carriages passed by; they did not notice him. But in less than an hour he felt that ice in the middle of his spine, the chill of another unholy presence approaching. He stopped and turned, taking stock, making sure he could watch all avenues of approach.

And there was Don Eduardo, standing in the middle of the street as if he had appeared from nothing. Ricardo approached, imagining himself some acquaintance who had simply met him on the road, under a normal sun.

Eduardo’s smile seemed pleased. “You came! I very much hoped you would.”

“How could I refuse your invitation?” Let the man interpret whatever bite he would from Ricardo’s tone.

The prickling sense at the back of his neck continued, and more shadows took on life, figures emerging, visible now only because they wished to be. A gentleman in brown with riding boots; another in a short cape. A woman in her thirties wearing a gown of dark velvet. Her pale hair was braided into a crown around her head. Ricardo glanced at each of them in turn, acknowledging that he was surrounded. The situation recalled a memory of a long-ago confrontation, when Frey Juan’s four knights of darkness surrounded him, attacked him, made him one of them.

But that was a long time ago, and Ricardo was not so easily injured these days. He waited to see what they would do.

“Eduardo! You didn’t tell us how beautiful he is!”

Ricardo had just enough blood in his veins to blush at this.

“Didn’t I? Ah well, I apologize for the omission,” the man answered.

“The Mistress must see him,” the man in the short cape said. His beard was neat, and he had a hard look about his eyes. Ricardo had no way of telling how old any of them were. They all looked of an age, but they might have lived a thousand years.

The woman with golden hair stepped toward him, her wide skirt shushing as she moved, elegant as any court lady. She put a seductive sway in her step, gazing demurely down her fine nose. “Now he is wondering who we all are, where we all came from.”

“I suspect you are come from Spain.”

She studied him, revealing the sharp points of her teeth in an amused smile.

“Please do come with us, señor. I should so very like to know you better.” The woman moved to hook her arm through his.

“Forgive me, my lady, for I have not yet formally introduced myself. I am Don Ricardo de Avila, and I am pleased to meet you.” He stepped back and made a very proper bow, as if they danced in some fine hall in Spain.

The woman’s eyes shone. She appeared delighted. “Ooh, you are very fine indeed. I am the Lady Elinor.” She curtseyed just as precisely, then took up Ricardo’s arm and tucked her own in the crook of his elbow. In his old life such familiarity would have astonished him, and he would have stammered as he tried to hide any sign of attraction to her. Now, though, they were merely two hunters in the same territory. Perhaps allies, perhaps rivals, who could say which? He was wary.

He placed his hand over hers, securing her to his side. Her skin was as cold as his own. Together with Eduardo, they made a small procession to an alleyway that led to a villa, one of the more modest in the neighborhood. The liveried footman who opened the gate for them was human. He seemed quite ordinary, middle aged, his gaze downcast, deferential. His skin was tan, his hair dark; he might have been mestizo. Ricardo wondered, did he know that he served demons? Did he know who dwelled here?

They continued across a courtyard and to a set of double doors made of some rich carved wood. Another human footman opened these doors.

Inside the villa, the chill and power of the demons loomed large. Some terrible mystery waited for him here, another revelation that the world was not as it seemed, and everything was about to change. Could he survive this new change as he survived his first transformation?

He hesitated, pulling against Elinor’s arm. “Are you afraid?” she said, hiding a laugh.

Considering a moment, he found that he wasn’t. “This feels rather like making one’s first confession as a boy. One hardly knows what to expect.”

They all stared at him, and he wondered what about the statement shocked them. Then he realized: he had probably been inside a church more recently than any of them. This thought made him smile, which no doubt only confused them more.

Guided by Elinor, he strode on and imagined himself walking into his own parlor.

He had not been in a room like this since he left Madrid. A true palace, with marble floors and painted ceilings, gilt accents on furniture, tapestries on the walls. The smell of beeswax candles saturated the walls. Shadows lingered on every surface.

More devils came out to meet him. Twelve of them, men and women in their primes. He could not tell how old they really were, how long they had walked this earth, beautiful and elegant, dressed in the height of fashion. If Ricardo were more vain he would have been chagrined at his own clothing, which he realized now were a decade or more out of style. He had not been paying attention as he should. No matter. If he cared for fashion he would live here in the capital, not on his remote estancia. Or he would go back to Spain.

Eduardo and his entourage joined the others, so the whole court of them spread out around him. Elinor let him go and went to her place among them, leaving him alone in the center of the floor, as if he were the focus of some tribunal.

Proud, pleased, wicked, all of it, Eduardo stepped forward. Ricardo recognized the look—his old acquaintance Diego, the man who had brought him to Frey Juan, had looked like that.

“Welcome, Don Ricardo! It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our patroness. Our Mistress. The reason for our being here.”

All the devils in the guise of lords and ladies turned to the back of the room, where a great velvet armchair stood on a shallow dais. A woman in black silk and cloth-of-gold reclined there as if bored, gazing with heavy-lidded eyes. She looked young but seemed ancient, centuries pressing out of her like waves of cold from a block of ice. Her skin was olive, her features not particularly fine, but they had strength in the set of her jaw and brow. Her dark hair lay loose around her shoulders, a few clips set with gemstones pinned on locks here and there. She gave the impression of being a woman of great power who had the luxury of not caring too terribly much what happened around her because her fortress would always remain secure.

The men and women of this court waited to see what he would do when confronted with this startling vision of a woman on an almost-throne. Their gazes were heavy on him.

Eduardo addressed the woman. “Mistress Catalina, I bring to you Don Ricardo de Avila y Zacatecas, of whom I spoke—our mysterious hidalgo de la noche. Don Ricardo, you are in the presence of La Reina Catalina.”

She was not the queen. As subjects of the Spanish crown—technically speaking, he supposed—they had only one queen. Yet all of them bowed to her as if she were a queen. No—they would not abase themselves so deeply for His Majesty King Philip. This was more than a noble lady with her attendants. There was power here, ropes of it between Catalina and the others. They were linked; he could feel it.

She had turned them all as Frey Juan had turned him. Turned them, made them hers, and they seemed grateful for it. Unlike him.

Ricardo offered only the respectful bow he would to any noble woman in her home. “Doña.”

Remaining silent, she held the tableau for some time. Finally, in a calm voice that matched her demeanor, she said, “Don Ricardo. The gentleman who should not exist. Eduardo has told you this, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, he has, señora. And yet I am here. I confess—I do not understand.”

Catalina leaned forward, and her acolytes watched as if witnessing a duel. “Do you know what you are, sir?”

He swallowed, and his breath caught—he did not have to breathe since that night he died and was reborn as the monster. If he wanted to speak, he had to concentrate to draw breath, and for just a moment he forgot. He had never spoken the words aloud. He had never explained it. Not to a stranger.

“I am a demon,” he said.

The woman laughed. “Who told you that?”

Ricardo was used to standing straight, schooling his features so no emotion showed—he had to, in order not to rip apart everyone around him in bloodlust. This was only one of the things he had learned. So he remained calm.

“A man named Frey Juan. The one who made me.”

Now the woman frowned, and the expression revealed what she might be like when she was angry, when she sought vengeance. “I do not know this man. Where is he now?”

“I—destroyed him, señora. I drove a spear through his heart.”

“You destroyed your Master.”

“He made me, but he was not my Master.”

No one was breathing. No one here needed to, but they did not even have breath to gasp. Catalina murmured, “Extraordinary.”

“Señora, I beg your pardon but I must ask—what am I? What are we?”

“My dear Don Ricardo, you are a vampire.”

Knowing the word did not change anything. But there was a word for it. Vampire. A foreign word—not Latin, not even Greek. Something even older then, and stranger. Well then. He nodded thoughtfully and kept on as before.

“You destroyed your Master—the one who made you,” Catalina repeated. “Did you take his place? Did you take his blood?”

Ricardo didn’t understand the question. “He turned to ash before my eyes when I impaled him.”

“So his blood—his power—was wasted?”

He was thinking quickly now, taking what little he knew and interpreting this new information. Was she saying that a vampire could take blood from another vampire and thereby take some of his power? Vampires reproduced by draining a victim then feeding the victim from his own veins to replace the blood. But did this mean vampires could feed on each other? Take power from one another in this manner? Frey Juan had been very old—very powerful. Then again, perhaps not so powerful.

“Even if I had known I could have done such a thing, I still wouldn’t have taken his power. He—was not a good man.”

Some of the entourage murmured to one another as if he had said something shocking. Catalina continued studying him. Ricardo knew better than to meet her gaze.

“Even though I never met the man, I am inclined to agree with you. He came to this country without permission. The Master of all Spain sent me to establish the first vampire Family in the colony. You can understand then why we are all so interested to find you already here.”

Ricardo wasn’t thinking so much about that as he was: there was a Master vampire of all Spain? Had there always been one? Did every nation have vampires? How many were there, and how had they kept themselves secret? Well, this last question he could answer—he’d done it himself.

He chuckled. It all seemed so strange. “My lady, I feel something like a child who has been lost in the forest and raised by wild animals. I know nothing of any of this. I cannot explain it to you. Frey Juan came here, obviously. He made four other. . .vampires. . .before he made me. He wanted to rule this land. To bleed it dry, you might say. He was mad.”

“So you killed him,” Catalina said. “And the other four as well?”

Again, he bowed, affirming this. And now he had just admitted to killing five vampires before a room full of vampires. Perhaps he ought to think of a plan of escape.

“As I said, they were all quite mad. I did not agree to their plan and I had to defend myself. I have been alone ever since. For a hundred years now—”

The Mistress raised her hand to stop him. “Never say your age. Among our kind age is strength and power. To tell your age is to tell others exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are. We do not say our ages.”

He knew so little, and he did not trust that anything Frey Juan had taught him was true. Catalina must have thought the same thing, because she continued the lesson. “We live in Families for survival, to protect each other, to ensure our safety against those who would destroy us. You must know that the world is full of those who would destroy us. How is it that you have survived all this time alone?”

“I do not know,” he said. “As best I could, I imagine.” He had made friends from the first, and they had protected each other.

“Eduardo, call for some refreshment,” she said to the gentleman. He bowed and left through a door in the back of the room.

Liveried servants—so many servants in this place—returned moments later with platters holding colored glass goblets, enough for everyone. Ricardo smelled the blood in them.

When the tray was offered to him, he took a cup and nodded thanks. He did not ask where it had come from, whom they had taken this from and how, and if those people—this much blood would have to come from more than one—were still alive or if they had been killed. It wasn’t just that he might not like the answer; he had the feeling it would be impolite to ask at all. At least they had not laid a child in front of him and expected him to kill it, as Frey Juan had done all those years ago.

The other devils—vampires—in the room waited for their Mistress. When she had her glass, she raised it high in a toast. “To Don Ricardo, welcome. We are so very glad to meet you and bring you into our fold.” She drank, and all her fellows raised their glasses and drank too.

Ricardo hesitated for a moment, considering her words. He wasn’t sure he liked them. But he drank. The blood was still warm, and it filled him like fire.

Whoever’s blood this was tasted as if he had been afraid.

He watched the others over the rim of the cup to see how they drank, how they managed—was this a perfunctory matter of survival? No—they indulged. Their throats worked, swallowing the sustenance. They made small moans and sighed with pleasure. Elinor’s expression of bliss—eyes half-lidded, lips parted, chin tipped up—was nearly erotic.

From her throne, Catalina watched him. He was sure he was being judged. How was the feral child behaving? Was he truly one of them? Ricardo sipped the blood as he would a decent brandy after dinner. Ran his tongue along his teeth to get every drop of it. Enjoyed, in spite of himself, the warm rush of power the drink provided. Made no other overt display.

“You have probably never had any instruction in the laws of hospitality among our kind,” Catalina said, seeming to revel in her role as instructor. She seemed practiced at it. “When you bring a vampire into your space, you are obligated to provide sustenance. Failing to do so invites a wild chaos. To be a Master means you provide for all your people.” She gestured to the glittering beauty of her entourage. “This is the true display of power. Do you understand?”

The vampire Family was a like royal court. She provided for them; they served her. He understood very well, and he wanted to go home now.

She set her cup on a table, rose from her throne, and approached. Her court moved aside, fawning. Ricardo stood his ground as she touched his sleeve, studied his face, and finally took his hand as a mother might a child. Her gaze traced his features; he would not let her look into his eyes. Which was awkward, when she stood this close.

She said, “Ricardo. I am very sorry your time thus far has been spent alone and unsupported. I cannot imagine. You have my deepest sympathies.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“But no longer. This is my territory now, and you are no longer alone. We will take care of you.” Her smile was gracious, serene. She expected him to be glad of this pronouncement.

But what if he didn’t want them to take care of him? He only wanted to go back to Zacatecas and live—exist, rather—as he always had. But he did not feel he was being given a choice.

He replied as carefully and firmly as he could. “I am very grateful to you for your hospitality. But I have a home, you see. I would like to return there, to continue living as I have. Perhaps I could visit you from time to time.”

Eduardo’s hand tightened on the pommel of his rapier. That small gesture told Ricardo much.

Catalina was polite, calm, careful. She was too controlled, too powerful, to reveal any slip of emotion. “I am not sure you understand the situation. I cannot let you do that. Your home is my home now. It is how things are done.”

“Is it?” Ricardo said coolly.

She gave a flirting smile. “I can’t have you plotting behind my back now, can I?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. While it was a statement of fact, no one here would believe him. Because they would all plot behind Catalina’s back, if they had his resources.

She nodded, seeming to concede the point. “As you yourself have stated, there is so much you don’t yet understand. I would count it a personal favor if you would stay with us for at least a few days, to help you know us better. Then perhaps I will understand you better.”

Such a reasonable invitation, but her tone still suggested: prisoner. Ricardo bowed, acceding to the request.

“Dawn comes soon. Eduardo, show our guest to a room. Show him how we care for our favored people.”

“My lady,” Eduardo answered. In fact, he came to Ricardo’s shoulder in the manner of a guard to a prisoner.

“Gracias,” Ricardo said. “And Happy Christmas to you, Doña Catalina.”

He was rather pleased at the chilled, shocked looks that brought on.

Catalina stared. “You are very strange, señor.”

He merely bowed. The scent of blood lingered amidst the smoke of candles.

THE ROOM was comfortable. No—it was opulent. Finer than any room in his family’s manor back in Spain. Silk and velvet, a wide bed and gilt fixtures. Ricardo had grown used to the merely practical.

The windows were all boarded shut. How sad, that he only felt safe in rooms where the windows were boarded shut. And yet, always, he knew when the sun rose, when daylight was near. The weight of it turned his bones to ice. So he took off his boots, removed his cloak and doublet, and stretched out on the too-soft bed to sleep out the day.

HE AWOKE instantly.

For a time he lay in bed, sure that someone had knocked on the door, or perhaps merely waited outside, listening. Of course Catalina would set spies on him.

He could not stay here. Not even for the few days the Mistress had suggested. He refused to be one of Frey Juan’s minions, he would not be one of hers. Wasn’t Mexico large enough for both of them to have space to keep to themselves?

Space was not the issue, he supposed.

Quickly, he dressed, then stood at the door, waiting for that feeling of ice along his spine. Here in Catalina’s den, vampires were everywhere, and that sense was dull and constant—but it wasn’t urgent, and it wasn’t right outside. He tried the handle, was not surprised to find the door locked.

He squeezed, wrenched, and broke the handle off. The sound of ripping wood was satisfying, but loud—he’d have to move quickly. Fortunately, the next room was dark. He imagined himself a shadow and, keeping his sword still by his leg, he moved as quickly and quietly as he could. Running any of these demons through with his sword would not kill them. He wondered if he should even carry it, but it was an old habit and the weapon’s weight steadied him.

He had other weapons, other tools. Ideally, he would not kill any of them. He suspected that if he destroyed one he would have to destroy them all. He had been through that once before. While Catalina appeared refined and lovely seated on her throne, a power held her aloft and filled the room. Frey Juan could not have stood against her.

Frey Juan had not told him very much, in the end. But he had learned much on his own. To escape, Ricardo must be like a shadow and slip out of here. Vanish before the light of day rose.

He passed through successive rooms—and got lost. The house was very large indeed, and one room ran into another. At every doorway he paused—vampires did not have heartbeats, so he watched for other cues, for the chill on his spine, the tingle at the back of his neck that told him they were near. The trouble was, this building was filled with them. Every doorway held danger. Each room might be the one where Eduardo was waiting for him.

Instead, he paused and listened for a current of air. He did not search for danger, but for a way out. In this way he discovered the scent of smoke from evening cook fires, and of the often-rank air of a city with too many horses, dogs, rats, and people crammed into too small a space.

He could follow that thread out of here, like Theseus in the labyrinth.

“Señor, you must stop.”

The vampire who found him wasn’t Eduardo or Catalina. This was a man whose thinness made him look particularly young. His doublet hung on him a size too large, as if he was trying to make himself bigger. He wore a rapier, but like Ricardo’s it seemed mostly a prop on which put his hand. Pietro. The boy’s name was Pietro, and he must have only been seventeen or eighteen when he was turned. How maddening, to go through eternity with looks that invited everyone to treat you as a child. He might be a thousand years old, for all Ricardo knew. But no—this one didn’t feel old. He had not yet learned to use his youth as a weapon, inviting folk to underestimate him. He wasn’t yet so powerful.

“Señor,” Ricardo said with a respectful bow. “I was not sure anyone was awake yet.”

“The others are about. I’m sure the Mistress would like to speak with you.”

The boy was not experienced enough to be wary of Ricardo. He thought he was safe in the fortress of his mistress. Pietro met Ricardo’s gaze straight on.

Ricardo spoke gently, stepping toward the boy, holding his gaze, trapping him. “Pietro. I am just a poor country gentleman. This place, your Mistress—I fear it is all too rich for me. Far too complicated to understand. I am overcome, and so I flee back to my simple life. You can explain this to your Mistress, that I am poor and simple, and it would be best for you all to leave me alone and in obscurity. You will never hear from me again.”

The boy stared, lips parted, gaze vacant. He nodded, just a little. “We will never hear from you again,” he murmured.

“That’s right. Really, it’s for the best that you let me go.”

“Yes. It’s for the best.”

“Indeed. Muchas gracias to you, señor.” He bowed again, and the boy nodded, the tension of confusion around his lips.

Ricardo left the boy staring at a wall as if it held the answer to some great problem. Moving quickly, he followed the currents in the air to a servants’ door in back of the house—it wasn’t barred, it wasn’t guarded. Two human women were there, collecting the day’s washing, that was all. They were even easier to deceive than Pietro had been. “I heard a noise in the hallway, you should go see what it is.” They blinked, startled, and fled to do exactly what he suggested.

Just like that, he was outside under a wide open sky, hazy with the glow from evening torches and fires. He would not be happy until he was north again and could see the great wash of stars in the black sky of true night. He fled, using his skill and power to move swiftly, like mist. He hadn’t fed tonight; he grew more tired than he liked. He had little choice, though.

In short order he found the inn where Henri and Suerte were waiting for him. By scent, by the feel of their particular souls in the air, he found their room.

They jumped, startled, when he swung open the door—they hadn’t heard him, and he had forgotten to knock.

“Ricardo!” Henri exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

“I’ll tell you on the road. We must be away. We have preparations to make.”

Both man and son looked frightened, so they had some idea of what they might be facing. “But what—”

“I will explain. Let’s go.”

HIS ESTANCIA was not very defensible. A memory intruded from when Coronado’s company lay siege to a Zuni city, in the far north. City—little more than a group of clay houses clustered together. But it was on a mesa, surrounded by open plain, and for all their primitive weapons those people had defended themselves well. Ricardo remembered.

He wished for high ground now rather than this pleasant valley. He did not know what sort of assault Catalina and her people 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 Frey 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, Frey 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-grandchild of those who had been terrorized by Frey 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 them 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.

“Her ladyship has sent me to bring you back within her fold, as is right and just for one of our kind.”

“I will not go,” he said.

“Then I—we—will take you. We will take all of this and destroy it. Destroy all you have so that you’ll have no choice.”

“You are welcome to try. But I will defend this place for its master.” He took three steps back so that he was behind the wall, across the threshold that marked the boundary of the estancia. He also picked up one of the spears, just in case this did not work. For now, he merely stood with the spear’s butt planted on the ground.

“I thought you were wise,” Eduardo said, and his mock-friendliness seemed like a shield. “You could be strong, we’ve all felt it. We would welcome you into our fold. But now I see you wish for your true death. Is that it?”

“I dislike being told what to do.”

The way Eduardo’s expression hardened, the way he set his spear against the crook of his arm and kicked his horse to a run, put Ricardo in mind of a jousting knight. Eduardo looked like someone who had long experience at the sport. For a moment, Ricardo was sad that they could not be friends.

The horse rocked back on hind feet, sprang into a ground-eating gallop, charging straight for the opening in the wall, directly at Ricardo.

At the last moment, just as the horse’s nose touched the threshold, Eduardo reined back hard, shock drawing his features back in terror. Protesting, the horse threw its head straight up, straining against the bit. Its weight fell back, the animal kicked, and Eduardo fell off. Rolled straight off the horse’s back and slammed to the ground as the horse shook itself and raced on. Ricardo stepped out of its way. He would have to fetch the animal and bring it back; he was no horse thief.

Eduardo lurched to his feet, unhurt but furious, gripping his wooden spear in both hands as if preparing to drive it through a boar. But he stopped outside the wall, trapped against the threshold.

Ricardo smiled thinly. “I told you, this place is not mine, and you will need an invitation to enter.”

“Then how are you—”

“I have an invitation,” Ricardo said.

Eduardo threw his spear. It sailed through, and Ricardo deflected it with his own.

The horses were restless, their riders’ anxiety spreading. The vampires’ human mercenary force seemed young but ready, and Ricardo thought back a hundred years ago to all those naive young men Coronado brought north with him. Did these men know who they served?

Eduardo shouted, losing his composure, his warrior’s calm. He wasn’t used to losing, Ricardo thought. “I have another army to send against you!”

“I am ready for them,” Ricardo said, hefting his own spear, swinging it in an arc. He tensed, ready to run, faster than a shadow, unseen and deadly to these poor men.

Catalina’s lieutenant raised his hand, the squad of riders parted, and the human soldiers marched, spears and swords at the ready. Across the wide space, in the flickering torchlight, Ricardo tried to catch each of their gazes. To impart to them the assurance that death awaited if they moved any closer.

“Do not look at him!” Eduardo commanded. “He is but one man! He is only one—”

With a slap and a hiss, a crossbow bolt shot through the air and struck Eduardo through the heart. Ricardo remained calm, but it was an effort. This wasn’t part of the plan. He’d told Henri and the others to stay out of it. But there behind the palisade, hidden in the shadows, Suerte crouched holding a crossbow. The vampires had been so focused on Ricardo they hadn’t noticed the heartbeat, the boy’s scent of living blood. Or they had discounted him as weak prey.

Suerte remained hidden, and Ricardo didn’t look at him, to avoid drawing attention. He gazed out calmly, as if he had willed the crossbow bolt to appear and strike Eduardo dead. And he was now, absolutely, dead. He clutched at the bolt protruding from his chest, sputtered as if he really did have breath and blood to spit from his mouth. Before he could fall, he turned to dust, limbs and extremities going gray, his whole body crumbling into desiccated flesh. The surprised glare in his eyes seemed to be the last part of him to fade.

Ricardo met the gazes of every man who stood before the gate with a weapon in his hand, and he whispered to them, Go, you cannot win here.

The soldiers all dropped their spears and fled. The mounted vampires seemed ready to follow them, but Ricardo called out to one of them, whom he recognized from his brief stay in the capital. The woman, Elinor, now looking very different from her painted, elegant self.

“My lady Elinor,” he called. “Will you take a message to Doña Catalina for me?”

She hesitated, perhaps wondering if this was some trick. “Yes,” she said finally. “You did not have to kill him.”

“Apparently I did.” He spared a quick smile for Suerte. “Tell Catalina this: this estancia is protected. I would ask that she leave it alone, now and forever. In return, I will leave. She can have Mexico. All of it, as she was promised, as she expected. I will leave this country and she’ll never see me again.”

“Where will you go? Back to Spain? To France?”

He imagined a country filled with vampires, with Masters and Mistresses all like Catalina, and himself trying to move among them, keeping to himself, convincing them he was no danger. He shook his head.

“No. I will go north to the borderlands. That is all you need to know, and you will never hear of me again.”

Strangely, the woman smiled. “Never is a very long time, Don Ricardo. I think we may hear of each other again someday. You will tell me stories of what you have seen.”

He offered her a respectful bow, and for just a moment regretted that he could not spend more time here.

“We will deliver your message.”

“Gracias.”

She wheeled her horse around, and the others followed. The riders trotted away after the soldiers who’d fled before.

Now, he could deal with Suerte. “I would have managed them,” he said.

The boy—not so much a boy anymore, he was sixteen and sure of himself—picked himself off the ground. He slung the crossbow easily over his shoulder.

“Of course. But a little help never hurt, eh?”

Together, they returned to the manor.

THE HOUSE’S main sitting room was directly through the front doors, across the courtyard. Comfortable chairs gathered around a fireplace, tables held vases of flowers, and borders had been painted on the stucco walls over the years by anyone with talent and a desire. Blue and yellow flowers looped around each other in a vine-like pattern near the ceiling, and a geometric pattern in red lines framed the hearth. The room was warm, lived in, and Ricardo spent most of his time here when he wasn’t working or sleeping. Originally, this had been the main part of the church Frey Juan was supposedly presiding over. Ricardo had taken it over, knocked down walls, expanded it, made it a home. In the next room, a trap door led to his cellar bedroom—windowless, forever dark. That was the only room of Frey Juan’s he had kept.

He wondered what Henri would do with that room when he was gone. Turn it into a root cellar perhaps. Or seal it up.

The whole family had gathered. Henri, his wife Madalena, their oldest son Tomas and his wife Juana, Suerte, and several of their other children. A large, contented family who’d built this place into a village. Ricardo was proud of what they’d done here.

He sat in a large cushioned chair, his hand resting on a bundle of papers on the table. “All that remains is to file the papers with the provincial governor’s office in Zacatecas. You are now my heir, and this is all yours.”

Henri looked stricken. The others were uncertain, looking to him for how to respond.

“This is only a paper,” he said. “A fiction—”

“No, it is not. It is all yours. It’s the only way to keep the vampires out, and to keep you all safe, as I promised your grandparents I would. So you will be Don Henri, and I will leave.”

As soon as he said the words aloud, his heart lifted. At least, what was left of his heart lifted. Facing this change, this upheaval—he could no longer see into the future, and it felt good. He felt like he had when he boarded the ship in Spain a century before.

He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to convince them this was truly what he wanted to do. Madalena rushed forward, kneeling at his feet, clasping his hands. “Ricardo, no, this is your home! Haven’t we always taken care of you? Doesn’t our blood run through your veins?”

He squeezed her hands in return. “I will miss you all, truly. But I feel the need to seek out an adventure. Go north and light a candle for my old commander.”

“I will go with you,” Suerte said, stepping forward.

Both Madalena and Henri started, “No—”

“You’ll need someone to look after you.” Suerte spoke only to Ricardo; he knew who he had to convince here.

And, Ricardo realized, he would need someone. Certainly he could attempt to travel and survive on his own. But how much easier would his existence be with someone to seal the doors during the day. Someone to provide a cupful of blood every few days. And Suerte would not need coercing. He felt a gratitude for the young man he’d never be able to express.

He expected the parents to argue further, but Madalena went to embrace her son, proud and sad all at once.

Ricardo looked around at his home and his family that he had fought hard for, that he had enjoyed for decades longer than any man could expect to enjoy home and family. Yes, he would always remember this place fondly. But it was time to go.

IN THE early years of the border town of Santa Fe, people of all sorts came and went, all the time. Missionaries and traders from the south, the soldiers defending them, native peoples from every direction. Settlers, families, and all the people who followed to carve homes out of the desert land. The place was becoming a crossroads.

In a certain tavern where travelers often stopped before setting out to press even farther west and north, a man could be found with a cup sitting before him that he never drank from. He was obviously of good breeding, with an elegant bearing and an old-fashioned way of speaking. He had a servant, a rough-looking Mexicano of around thirty whom the man treated more as a friend, which was odd, but one could make allowances for the eccentric. The pair acted as translators and guides—they were friendly with many of the Pueblo people, and had even successfully negotiated with some Apache. Strangely, though, if you wanted to hire this man for your caravan or as a scout, you had to understand that he only worked at night.

Late at night this man would tell old stories of conquistadors so vividly he might have been there himself—which was impossible, of course. He was a young man in his prime. When pressed, he said his great-grandfather had been part of Coronado’s company, a true conquistador. Much debate went on about whether to believe this.

In the end, he was so comfortable in the border towns, and he gazed over the plains with such appreciation—love, even—everyone felt he must have at least part of the soul of one of those old soldiers.

To read more about Ricardo de Avila, look for “Conquistador de la Noche,” available as part of Kitty’s Greatest Hits.

Read other works by Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn is the New York Times Bestselling author of a series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural beings. The concluding novel, Kitty Saves the World, was released in August 2015. She’s also written the Golden Age superhero novels, the contemporary fantasy Discord’s Apple, and the young adult novels Steel and Voices of Dragons. She’s a contributor to George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series, and has written upward of 80 short stories for various anthologies and magazines. She attended the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop in 1998, and was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2011. Carrie had the nomadic childhood of a typical Air Force brat, but managed to put down roots in Colorado. She collects hobbies and entertains a fluffy attack dog named Lily.

El Hidalgo de la Noche

Copyright © 2015 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC.

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Credits:

Cover Design: Joe Campanella

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Books by Carrie Vaughn

El Hidalgo de la Noche

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