It took her a few seconds to reply. “Beckett said he could pick me up.”
I bit back my instinctive growl, having forgotten all about that fiasco. But he wasn’t my property. And he was just picking her up from the airport. Nothing scandalous.
“I didn’t want to ask him for money on top of a ride,” she admitted guiltily.
“Okay,” I said, hiding a deep breath. Her words gave me a very unpleasant image of Claire riding Beckett, and my vision was darkening, even though she hadn’t implied any such thing. “I need to jump off. Roland’s glaring at me,” I lied.
“Be safe!” she said before I hung up, panting as I stared down at my phone. Jealousy threatened to turn me into a monster, and I didn’t know why. Beckett wasn’t mine. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about him. Well, part of me was telling me exactly how I felt about him, whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not. I mentally shoved that part of me into a six-foot-deep grave, poured gasoline on the corpse, and tossed a match at it as I stomped down the hall.
Fabrizio and Crispin were waiting for me as I turned the corner into a new hall. Crispin approached me as one would a wild deer in a parking lot.
“We just finished speaking with Roland,” he said, looking as if he had barely survived.
“I hope he didn’t go easy on you,” I muttered, surprised I didn’t see a black eye at least. I did notice a red mark on his cheek, but it was minimal. He’d been hit with something recently.
Crispin abruptly grasped my hands, eyes pleading. I was so surprised, I let him. “I said I was sorry, Callie. Someone close to us betrayed us, and we still don’t know who. The two of you show up a day early and begin digging into things that are painful to us. Would you have done any differently?” he asked, sounding both angry and ashamed, as if he was repeating his conversation with Roland.
I considered him thoughtfully, and realized that he had a point. I would have burned something to the ground to find a traitor. Hell, that’s what I was trying to do now, and I was getting dangerously close to disregarding innocent bystanders. I sighed, shaking my head. “Let’s go see the old grouch. I have questions.”
He let out a sigh of relief and guided me towards Fabrizio, who looked like he was ready to defend himself. No longer directly threatening, but wary as all hell. And… guilt also flickered in his eyes. “Hey, Meatball,” I said, by way of greeting, eyeing his cut lip. Again, nothing serious, but it was present. Roland hadn’t gone easy on them.
He blinked. “Meatball?” he asked, his cut lip curling slightly at the beginning of a smile.
I nodded, face serious. “You’re big, Italian, and you keep me safe from healthy food.”
Fabrizio roared with laughter, and it sounded like he had needed it. A pressure valve releasing built up steam. “I’ll take it,” he said, still laughing as he opened the door.
I went in first, followed by the two Shepherds. The room looked disturbed, but not demolished. A broken chair sat in the corner, pointedly ignored by each man in the room. Two paintings hung askew, and water dripped from a side table. I leaned to the side to find a broken vase and a dozen flowers littering the floor in a big puddle. They’d exchanged love taps, at least.
Roland sat in a chair, his feet propped up and hands tucked behind his head. Windsor sat across from him, shoulders relaxed. His face was still introspective, but it looked calmer, as if he too felt much better after their… talk. He shot me a slow nod, as if gauging my temper, and I noticed a cut on his forehead. Nothing major, but enough to signify Roland’s displeasure. I was impressed that the blood hadn’t sent him over the edge. I dipped my head at Roland, who looked like a lion after a hearty meal. I pointedly assessed the room before turning back to him. “You didn’t have to kill anyone,” I said. He might have forgiven the Shepherds, but they weren’t entirely clear in my book. A few wild punches weren’t going to earn back my complete trust.
A person had one shot to earn my trust. If they blew it, they had a long uphill battle before them. Fabrizio had escaped the brunt of my wrath by being jolly and mouthy. He’d also been the first to challenge me in a fight. Despite the very real rage I had recently seen in his eyes, I had reasons to both trust and distrust him. For example, Roland’s amulet had zapped the shit out of him on contact.
Crispin was staggering under the weight of his new responsibility as First Shepherd, and I could tell he was hating every minute of it. Especially after such a monumental failure in falsely accusing us. The frustration in his eyes, and his apology, had been genuine, though.
Genuine enough for me to buy it at least, but I knew I wasn’t infallible. He was still on my watch list, but he had been removed from my kill-on-sight list. As had Fabrizio. And Roland’s amulet had not zapped the shit out of him. They had also both been the first ones to catch us in Constantine’s office, in almost record time of Bishop Vincente losing his shit on us. Was that just the Shepherds doing their duty, or had they appeared a little too quickly?
Windsor was a wildcard. He had been the first to find us in Rome. Sure, that had been at Crispin’s direction, but his apparent lack of empathy still made me wary. He was typically silent and resolved. He seemed to have no apparent opinion on my existence. Which was different from his character during our first encounter, where he had seemed almost like Roland’s younger brother – reserved, but more easygoing. Why the change? Was it because he was back in his professional capacity? Or was he waiting for the right time to reveal his master plan?
All in all, each of the three Shepherds had done things to make me doubt them. They had also given me numerous reasons to trust them. Which meant I was in exactly the same place as the first moment I had set foot in Italy. What a colossal waste of time.
Roland studied me. “We just needed to get a few hugs in and do each other’s nails. We’re mostly better now,” he said, deadpan. I nodded, but silently noted the word mostly he had used.
I sat down at the table. The others followed suit. They each looked resigned, as if gearing up for round two. They had succeeded with Roland, but I had been the one in the hearing, subjected to their direct accusations. And a woman never forgets. She may forgive, but she never forgets.
Where men, on the other hand, forget, but never forgive.
“What was stolen?” I asked, deciding not to bandy words. Straight to business.
The Shepherds clammed up. I turned from Windsor to Fabrizio, but they offered me nothing. I finally turned to Crispin, arching one eyebrow.
He sighed. “We aren’t permitted to talk about it. Literally. They want exactly zero chance of word getting out. The word ex-communicated was tossed around…” he added.
Wow. That was severe. “Did the mysterious whatsit have any value? Magical or monetary?”
Crispin thought about it, watching as I duplicated Roland, kicking my feet up on the table. Fabrizio did a double-take at my boots, a frown crossing his features. Huh. What did that mean? I had discreetly pointed my boots at each of the men in the room, even Roland, to see if any of them were meat-suits for a demon. But nothing had happened. Did he recognize the brand or did he sense something about them?
Windsor leaned forward, waiting for a nod from Crispin. “Not particularly, but we wonder if it wasn’t merely a distraction. That the thief stole something else that we haven’t yet discovered. That this might just be a red herring.” His eyes were calculating, as if rolling over the inventory in his mind, eager for the challenge of discovering the truth.
“What else is locked away that’s dangerous?” I asked, yawning as I spoke.
My yawn had no effect as they clammed up again. Damn. I’d hoped the subtle trick would work. Oftentimes you could trick people into answering a question with a carefully crafted look of boredom, exhaustion, or other subtle sign of weakness.
In fact, one way to find a sociopath or psychopath was to see how they reacted when you yawned. If they didn’t yawn back, it might be indicative of a sociopath. If they grew suddenly alert, they might be a psychopa
th. This wasn’t a certainty, but studies had been performed, and it was at least a mildly accurate indicator of disposition towards a certain personality type.
So… none of the Shepherds yawned. They also didn’t look suddenly alert.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I sensed Roland grow instantly still. Which was probably his vampire nature kicking in. A sudden sense of weakened prey. I didn’t acknowledge it at all as I switched my feet, crossing them the other way and drawing attention back to me. Not Roland. Just in case the Shepherds were also privy to random pieces of knowledge about human behavior.
Inside my head, I stored the piece of information away. The Shepherds were sociopaths, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being a sociopath just meant you could block off your emotions more easily than others. That you weren’t controlled by feelings, sympathy, or empathy. Surgeons, doctors, lawyers, and engineers were all typically sociopaths or had sociopathic tendencies.
Psychopaths typically had zero concern for the general population. If they wanted something, and it didn’t directly hurt someone they cared about, they didn’t really understand why anyone else cried about the loss of innocent life that had stood between them and their goal. They just took the shiny they had wanted. What’s the big deal? So, a dozen innocent people died. Why is everyone freaking out? Didn’t you see this new pretty shiny I got?
The Shepherds weren’t able to share details about the theft. Was it connected to Constantine’s murder? Maybe he had gotten wind of the impending theft, and had to be silenced. But if the stolen item didn’t have much value… it probably was just a red herring. A misdirect. Or it had more value than anyone thought, which spoke of a very intelligent or cunning thief.
One, because they had stolen from the Vatican during broad daylight.
Two, they had risked all the dangers to steal something non-important. Or worse, they had decided to take extra time to stage the scene, and steal two somethings. One an obvious theft, another that the Vatican still hadn’t figured out. Nighttime theft would have been infinitely easier. But it had disappeared right from under their collective noses.
The Conclave must have had a lot of dangerous items in their vault or they wouldn’t have been so concerned. Sure, concerned that someone had succeeded, but they wouldn’t have threatened ex-communication over sharing details about a worthless book no one remembered being down there. They wouldn’t have minded sharing the scene of the crime.
And the Conclave would only be concerned if it had been something magically dangerous.
The Shepherds weren’t being entirely straight with me. Or maybe the Conclave wasn’t being entirely straight with them. Circles within circles…
Chapter 42
Roland tapped the table with a finger, catching everyone’s attention. “Is it possible that Master Temple stole the item?” he asked. I hated that he voiced this, but it was a good question, and might go a long way into earning back some trust if we were willing to scrutinize our own friends – like these three had been forced to do to us.
Fabrizio shook his head, interlocking his fingers behind his neck as he leaned back in his chair. “He was literally under observation every second he was here. We even had his room under surveillance, not that he used it,” he grunted, obviously annoyed that Nate had left so quickly after his arrival. I bet that a lot of people would want to question him about his magic and his name blasting the news seemingly every other week. “He didn’t sneak out. We have video of both him and his vampire.”
Crispin piped up tiredly. “And he and the Daywalker were in the room with us when the theft occurred.” I really wished I would have pestered Nate more about his decision to visit. Surely making a donation to the Conclave and introducing Alucard to the church wasn’t important enough to warrant a visit. Nate had no reason to care what the church thought, unless it was about Armageddon, like he had said.
“What did he do while he was here? Other than make his donation and introduce Alucard?”
Windsor scratched his stubble and then folded his arms with a shrug. He had been driving us to the Vatican.
Crispin and Fabrizio cranked their minds, as if searching for anything suspicious. “He said he was flying by on his way home and wanted to introduce himself. We verified his flight plan here. He spent some time hopping from spot to spot in Europe, spending a week in Paris, a month in Egypt, and a few weeks in London before arriving here,” Crispin said with a shrug. “It all checked out, even the hotels he had stayed at,” he admitted with a guilty shrug, as if not proud of the espionage. “He said he hadn’t ever met us in person, and since he wasn’t on great terms with the Academy, he figured it was past time to meet us – especially since he was impressed by the Kansas City outfit,” he finished with a grin, miming shooting a finger gun at me, directly. I rolled my eyes at the subtle male humor.
Fabrizio piped up after a good chuckle. “As a token of good faith, he offered to introduce us to someone unique and to make a donation to our cause.”
“He tried to buy his way in?” I said what they were all thinking, knowing it was never that simple with Nate Temple.
Fabrizio’s eyes went distant, as if surprised at the memory. “He said we could still meet Alucard and accept the donation, and then toss him out on his ear if we wanted. He said buying people with money has the unfortunate effect of increasing the price down the road while proportionately decreasing loyalty.” He scratched his jaw absently. “Something like that.”
Crispin nodded. “Close enough.” He turned to me. “Basically, as surprised as we were at the prospect, we were even more surprised by his cavalier attitude. He said he was meeting us halfway, and that the rest was up to us.”
I glanced at Roland, who finally shrugged. He knew Nate was sneaky, but the rest sounded like him as well. He was unpredictable in that way, and it did make sense for him to introduce himself to the Vatican in exactly the way they recalled. Not begging. Not buying. Mutual respect. Because we would be on the same side of a war later.
I felt conflicted, because Nate was a Horseman of the Apocalypse, and he hadn’t told them.
But he hadn’t been left unsupervised. At all, apparently.
Of course, I wasn’t pleased to hear about their lack of hospitality, even if Nate wasn’t aware of it. The Conclave had bugged his rooms and spied on his travels. After what I had been through, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
But it bothered me on a deeper level. Here I was, standing in Vatican City, according to many, one of the holiest places in the world, and it was as corrupt as anyplace I had ever visited. Governments included. My confidence in their creed was shattered beyond repair, and their job offer now more than mildly disgusted me.
But I was also oddly… relieved? To fear that a group of people were perfectly pious put a lot of pressure on a person to match up. Especially when that person kind of worked for them. Me. It birthed the constant fear that I would never be able to measure up to their holy standards. But hearing and living this… made me realize they were just as human as the rest of us.
Not better. Not worse. The same.
But the part that really concerned me was that they had treated us like criminals after the theft. They had treated Nate like a criminal before anything had happened. That meant they had been spying on our lunch as well, even though they hadn’t been present. How exactly had they been keeping tabs on Nate? Had they happened to hear Roland step aside with Alucard to talk about vampire puberty?
I shivered in fear at the thought. But among the many accusations we had faced, and how hotly I had argued back with the various members of the organization, no one had brought up that Roland was a vampire. And with as angry as I had made them, surely that would have been their ultimate rebuttal. Or I would have just found Roland staked to his bed, dead as a doornail.
But here he was, alive and well, and no one seemed concerned. Even if it was something they all knew, and were keeping that knowledge a secret, subtle shifts in body position an
d attention to Roland would have been unavoidable. I would have seen it. They actually treated me with more suspicion than Roland.
So, his secret had to be safe. They never would have entered his private meeting otherwise.
And if they had spied on Nate, I could guarantee they had spied on us as well. And Roland and I had shared very candid conversations when we thought we were in private. They were either blissfully unaware, or incredible poker players, even though Windsor seemed like the only one entirely in charge of his emotional tells.
“Maybe it was the Antipope,” I offered, trying to change topics. “He knows a lot more than is good for his health. He’s getting information from someone.”
Windsor shook his head. “He has been under surveillance, too. But he left earlier today.”
Which pretty much confirmed that Roland and I were being watched as well. Or at least had been. “Are we still under surveillance?” I asked.
Crispin shook his head. “No. You probably don’t believe that, and I don’t blame you, but I axed the proposition of spying on you as soon as it was brought up. Other than our mandatory guard duty after the theft, we haven’t spied on you. I knew doing so would be a very slippery slope. When all it takes is fear and suspicion – with no evidence – to spy on our very own people, Rome is about to fall. The Conclave’s consolation prize was to openly guard you, not in secret, but right where you could see us doing it. But only after the theft.” Roland studied Crispin over his folded hands, as if searching for a tell. He finally nodded at his old friend. Roland hadn’t noticed anything to make him doubt Crispin. Or he would tell me in private and was trying to keep the Shepherds at ease now. “We were just doing as commanded,” Crispin said after returning Roland’s nod. “I was able to veto spying on you two, since you have ties to us, but not the others. I had to do as I was commanded. Probably used up the last of my good will doing it, too,” he complained, but he shot me a wink after a second, silently telling me it was worth it.
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