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Chapter Twenty-Three

CARMINE

THE MEAT PACKING DISTRICT

NEW YORK CITY

Even the smallest things have changed. The Manhattan streetlamps still shine right into the second-floor windows of the secret club Casa Somma , but they’re not tungsten yellow, like they used to be. Now, shining into a private room with no other lighting, they’re a hard, solar blue.

“My seraph has examined her.” Nazario Corragio—Vesuvia’s ancient consigliere —is as comfortable in the dark as I am. He rubs the lemon rind around the edge of his cup.

“And?” I reach for my lemon rind, but hit the side of the saucer instead. The tiny spoon slides onto the tablecloth.

Hiding behind his cup, Il Blocco makes sure I see him pretending not to notice.

“Serafina Orolio believes in you,” he says. “But never thought to believe in herself.”

With a shaking hand, I pick up my espresso, creating such a tempest I put it down before I make a mess.

“Are you all right, Corvo ?”

“I’m fine. Tell me about the Orolio girl.”

Yesterday, when the filthy Scangas came with their flamethrowers, my hands threw more cold fire than I thought possible.

I channeled the power of Luna’s blood against them, ripping them open, throwing them from afar, catching their bullets midair.

I was myself again—using immense power indiscriminately.

But when it was over, my body shook. Every joint wanted to be in ten places at once. Luna couldn’t see me like this, so I left immediately. On the plane, the tremors settled into my left hand and stayed there.

“She’s a Moonchild,” the lawyer says. “She’s the lost Lugano, like you thought. A fighter, right, Sam?”

The blond woman in the shadows answers, “Quite.”

“The deal was to trade her, not tame her.”

The deal began on a screen. Just a row of words from the Luganos.

—What are you trading, bloodsucker?

I felt an elation that this could happen without a fight, and I dictated the next move. Laro typed in.

Tell them I have something that was stolen from them in Butimanu, eighteen years ago, give or take.

Laro was the only witness to this deal made over typed words in little boxes—just text on a screen. I didn’t hear their voices. I don’t know if it matters. Laro said it was better because it was written down. We could search it, he said, and though I didn’t understand him, I trusted him.

—No zombies. One bloodsucker,

wearing the raven, or his head’s

going back in a suitcase.

We don’t talk to messenger boys.

The deal with the Luganos would not exist without Laro, but I have to finish it alone. I had no choice but to send him away.

He is a homesickness in my heart.

“How long has this been going on?” Nazario juts his chin at my left hand as it holds its partner down by the wrist.

“It’s not a problem.”

“You overextended yourself.” He takes the last sip of espresso before putting his cup down carefully as if showing off his steady grasp. “You’ll need more Strega blood. Try not to burn through it like that again.”

“I’ll try not to get attacked by two generations of reckless idiots again.”

“You understand that this…” He spirals his fingers in the direction of my shaking hand. “This symptom is caused by the disease Carmine Giovanni Carafa would have died of?”

I was not aware. I thought I was just weak from the stake. It’s irrelevant anyway. I’m going to be cured of this affliction once this hoary fuck finishes closing this deal.

“It won’t matter once I get the knife,” I say.

“You don’t need to just get the knife. You need to use the knife.”

The old man has one client, and it’s not me. The client has motivations and desires I am not equipped to understand. I have to be careful. He knows what the goddess knows and does not ever lie, but sometimes, he obfuscates. He speaks in riddles and half-truths that seem direct.

“Ferrante is inside my colony.” I wave it off. “As long as the Luganos take their kin in exchange for the knife, he says he knows what to do with it.”

“You’re counting on Ferrante the First, the mad king of Naples, to do what ?”

I am protective of my friend. As the second sack of Rome entered its fourth moon, I was a terrified new vampire wearing the raven ring.

My son had almost put an arrow through my heart.

I was cut off from him and Jacqueline. A monster.

A devil. I heard the rumblings of the invading army.

The spoils of Rome were drying up. My family lay between them and Naples—a city ripe for plunder.

I dragged myself back to the dungeon in Rome where an ageless prisoner was kept for a nameless crime.

With new eyes, I saw who he was and why he was there.

Imprisoned, the occupiers didn’t fear he would try to return as king, and he didn’t use his glamour to escape so that he could study in quiet.

He used the prisoners they threw in with him, feeding on them in the end.

That’s what he told me when I went to him. He helped me. He did not seek the ring to remake his old, mortal reign into an immortal rule. He told me everything my maker didn’t and never asked for power in return.

“Ferrante is not your concern.” I give up on the espresso. “I flew all the way out here with Serafina… and trust me, getting her here in one piece, without thrall…” I don’t finish. He knows she’s never met a reasonable request she didn’t defy. “We have a deal. You just need to close it.”

“Do I?” He raises an eyebrow. “What else does the consigliere to the goddess need to do?”

“As the goddess wishes, of course.”

“I can verify your deal.” Nazario pauses to shift his old bones in his seat. “Serafina Orolio is Sorenda Lugano, the daughter of Federico and Aldusa Lugano. She is the lost Lugano child.”

“So if you verified it, why are there excuses all over your face?”

“Because you offered them something they couldn’t refuse.” He pushes his cup away. “She is too big a prize for what they have to trade, which”—he shrugs, holding up his palms—“is not much.”

I lean forward to make sure he hears me through those thick ears. “They brought me here for access to the knife.”

“Access they lost months ago.”

A woman of indeterminate age, with a face that, by design, no one will ever remember, whisks away his cup.

“We. Had. A. Deal.” With every word, I place my pointer finger to the tablecloth, and with every word, it shakes from wrist to tip. I close my fist.

“They won’t get in your way, which is something.”

“Fuck.”

Out the warehouse-sized window, birds perch on the roofline across the street.

Ario and Viaro are home, watching over Luna.

Ferrante is in stasis while his arm heals.

The army of made men has folded into the city of Naples until called, except Nunzio, whose dedication to Luna made him too valuable to send back into his life.

“They’re not like you. They don’t lie as easily, unless it’s about family. Then whatever you want to hear trickles from their lips.” He nods at the unmemorable woman as she drops a plate of cookies on the table. He offers me the plate. “Biscotti?”

This is a test. Will my hand shake as I take the plate? Will the cookie make it to my mouth? Can I brush away the crumbs? How bad is it?

I refuse the offer.

“If they want Serafina back,” I say, “they’ll do whatever I tell them to do.”

“You can ask for what’s physically possible, and no more.” He takes a cookie and waves it at my shaking hand before biting. “How long did old King Ferrante say you had left?”

When I was Captain Carmine Carafa, I thought about how long I had all the time. I wondered if I’d die on the battlefield or in the bed. I wondered if I’d make it long enough to watch Laro grow into a man.

“I’ll live out a normal human lifespan.” My arm goes rogue. I have to hold it so tightly it’s uncomfortable, but I don’t want him to notice. I can’t bear the suggestion that I’ll never see Luna age into her beauty. “If I don’t get the knife. Which I will.”

“That knife…” He pauses to clear his throat. “It isn’t a doctor. It’s restorative. That doesn’t always mean what you think.”

“I’ll make a note.” I manage to sound respectful enough to temper any offense. “Once I get it out from under the Dome.”

The Dome was carved from bedrock under Fourteenth Street by one of Manhattan’s oldest families.

They ran from me almost three hundred years ago, thinking I couldn’t cross water.

Their surprise still delights me when I think of it.

They held down New York in my name, but I was gone for fifty years, and when I woke, they’d let my territory be overrun by humans and wolves.

I found their king, Massimo Colonia, exiled in my backyard, and discovered their property was recently abandoned.

When I am restored, I will exert my prerogative, and New York will be mine again.

“Is there something else the goddess wants me to know?” I ask. “Or do I have to prod you all night?”

“The knife is down there. We don’t lack knowledge. You lack access.” The lawyer huffs out a laugh. “What the Luganos neglected to tell you was that there’s an obstacle that they cannot remove.”

“Because they have no power.” I wave my hand at the wolves. They have admirable brute strength. Their loyalty to each other can move mountains. But they have little subtlety in their muscles, and this problem isn’t a mountain. “What is it? What do I have to do to get in there?”

His mouth twitches into a smirk that disappears too fast for human eyes. “The building above the Dome was sold. The Luganos were the contractors working on the renovations. It’s a nightclub now. Called the Fifth Chamber Club.”

“I’m not afraid of a DJ.”

“Of course not. Even when Charles III is paying him?—”

I don’t hear the next few words. My ears have filled with an angry ocean. A whoosh of righteous, impotent rage.

“The club’s owner is Charles Montenegro—the Bourbon ?”