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Chapter Thirty-Six

CARMINE

When the New York subway was built, tunnels were dug for the men to eat, or shit, or rest. Twisting trenches became walkways or staging areas. They were never filled in, used again, or even mapped.

Many of the kindred prefer to take their daytime rest underground. It’s quieter. Darker. The sleep, they say, is deeper. They are safer. I decided long ago that I’d rather be torn to shreds while the sun burned my brain through my eyes than sleep under the earth’s surface.

Of course, Charles knows this. He knows that my maker was sleeping under Rome for centuries before terrorizing us in the sewers under the city. Maybe he heard from someone else that the King of Corvid resists going underground. Maybe he intuited it when we met five hundred years ago.

I can only surmise that’s why he insisted on meeting here, in the subway tunnels. New York is open territory now, and he called the meeting through one of his bats. So, I’m three levels under the lowest track, and I hate it. My heart pounds and the shaking in my hands isn’t limited to the left.

A faint tone reaches my ears, then wings beating. He’s here.

“ Rex Corvus .” He greets me in Latin. The ghost of his white coat turns solid as he gets closer.

“ Rex Vespertilio, ” I answer.

His white face is clear now. Most of the Strega blood’s strength has worn down, but I can still beat him. I have always been stronger, and I always will be. All that can be true and I can still be as frightened as a hungry fledgling.

“Partly.” He smirks with the confidence of a man who’s crazy enough to think he is my superior. He was made ten years before me. An irrelevant decade. Only the Ancient Ones, like Ferrante, are older than us.

“ Che ?”

He doesn’t explain further. “I thought I scented you in the city, but I wasn’t quite sure until I found Nazario Corragio skulking around with that half-sexed creature. You should have come to me first.”

“This isn’t your territory.”

“It’s not yours either. The Colonia collapsed. You left it undefended.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to offer you tribute to pass through it.”

“Passing through? That what you’re calling it these days?” In the pitch black, I can see his white coat clearly. His hands are hidden in his pockets and his expression gives away nothing. “I found Laro,” he adds. I try not to react, and fail. “He’s not quite himself. What did you do to him?”

“He is cast out.”

“Yes, yes. I have to honor that, except … he’s blood kin. You remember? My niece is his mother, so…” He shrugs. “Five hundred years, give or take… I get to bend that rule for family.”

Casting out kindred is a heartbreaking act, reserved for the worst offenses. I had no choice but to remove my son from Luna. It will hurt me for a hundred years.

The conflict between what had to be will never fit cleanly with what is true in my heart.

“I am glad he found you,” I say.

“He told me everything. Absolutely incredible feat. Your heart really must be made of stone.”

“It’s the same as yours.”

“If it was, you’d be dead. You wouldn’t have come all the way here to see Dr. Watanabe.”

He thinks I’m in New York to see a doctor?

Laro didn’t tell him everything.

Charles doesn’t know I have to crawl under him to get the knife.

“I heard he is the best.”

“Does he think he can pry that thing out of your chest? I am so curious.”

“You wanted to meet to ask about a medical diagnosis?”

“Think of it, Carmine, King of Corvid, were you staked for good reason? Those women who conspired against you, did they just want to escape?”

“I wasn’t holding anyone against their will.”

“Strega hunt vampires. They kill us. That’s their job. Yet, you held them all in thrall. An incredible feat, for sure, but not natural. Not just .”

“They were willing.”

“Why would you waste your time lying to yourself?”

Thrall gave those women safety from a danger that would have ripped them from their children. But to explain it to him would be to offer a piece of myself he didn’t earn and one he will use against me.

“I won’t waste that time defending myself to you.”

He takes his hand from his pocket to scratch his temple, and I’m frozen by what I see. It has to be a trick of the darkness.

“Are you all right?” He looks at his hand as if he can’t imagine what about it has widened my eyes. “Oh, these?” He turns the back toward me.

It’s not a trick of the dark.

He’s wearing a black ring on his third and fourth fingers.

Two rings. It’s impossible.

“Who?” I ask. One word. He knows exactly what I mean.

“Johan. I got all of his bitcoin too. Not quite sure what to do with it. His colony though? They were really useful once this fit.” He snaps his fingers to illustrate how simple it is to acquire loyalty when you’re a monster.

How did the ring itself allow it? Is he worthy? What king is worthy of two kingdoms?

“That’s not possible.”

“But it is. King will fight king if one of them has the will to win.”

That second ring shouldn’t be on his finger. It should have rejected him, and if he forced it, he should have been sucked into the ground to face the goddess.

“The earth should have swallowed you whole.”

“Not if the blood is worthy.”

“You cannot take another vampire’s blood.”

“For a hedonist, you were always so provincial.” He smirks, touching the corner of his mouth, and I know he must have drunk Johan’s blood.

Vampires don’t drink the blood of other vampires.

It’s not just distasteful, it’s disgusting.

“Two queens can coexist in the same heart, apparently. They keep separate chambers. Like a little castle in here.” He puts his fist to his chest. “We’re born with only four chambers.

By the time the worthy blood of the fifth is under my teeth, I’ll have it sorted out. ”

He owns the Fifth Chamber Club.

Five rings.

He wants all five of our rings.

I clench my fist. “You can’t have it.”

“Of the remaining three, yours is the one I’m not worried about. You have the stink of mortality on you. Tick tock, as they say.”

“My blood will die with me.” I feel as if I’m barking at a wall, demanding it kneel so I can climb it, because Charles shrugs as if nothing about me worries him.

“I would prefer yours. You were made by the best, but in the end, the ring decides who replaces you. Maybe Laro?”

He is threatening to bite my son. Take his blood. Vampire to vampire. This is a violation no father would allow.

“You will not.”

“He’ll be fine! I promise. Stop looking like that.

We are in a golden age, Raven. We never ruled well as five.

We are too selfish. We are too sensual and small-minded.

Our maudlin nature is exhausting. You broke that with decadence.

You herded all the Strega into one place and lived in a kind of peace.

When it burned to the ground… you ended an era.

You took out the warriors who kept us in hiding.

Maybe you were trying to protect them, like you said.

But… well, you didn’t. You did something greater. You freed your own kind.”

He lays his double-ringed hand on my shoulder and pushes down, as if he’s trying to see if I’m so weak I’ll kneel. I don’t know what to think or how to respond to his insane plan. I don’t know whether to fight him or run, but I do not kneel.

“Okay, you’re not convinced today.” He lets his hand drop away. “Tomorrow will take care of itself. But… here’s my deal…” He pauses to look me up and down, as if readying himself to gauge my reaction. “I’ll wait. I’ll just take your ring when you die, no problem. Just loan me your Strega.”

“No.”

I can volley back a threat. I was sired by one of the Five. I am the second to wear this ring. I am closer to the source of our power than he is, so my fledglings will be too. I built a small army of made men in Naples. That counts. That wins battles and eventually, wars.

There will be bloodshed. Which is one thing when confined to the walls of Rome, even for eight long months. In New York, in this century, there are no walls to contain a war for even one day.

King does not fight king. Is defending myself forbidden?

“What are you trying to do, Bourbon?”

“Life is too long to live in shadows. What lion lives under the rule of the gazelle? Does the wolf obey the laws of sheep?”

“If the sheep can burn them alive?”

He scoffs. “In fifty years, they’ll wonder how it all happened that they lost their fire.”

“You couldn’t take Rome in eight months. In a hundred years, you want to take the world?”

“Here is my offer. Join me or don’t.”

“There are no partner kings.”

“Who said anything about a partnership? With you? Why would I partner with a broken king when I’m already twice worthy?

” He flashes his two rings. “This is my plan. This will be my victory. You’ll share it as my subject.

We will find strong men and breed Strega to drink from. It’s right up your alley.”

No.

My body reacts of its own accord, and I lunge for him.

At his core, Charles is a coward. He turns into a bat before I reach him, leaving me off-balance. I turn toward the ceiling, where he’s found a perch.

“You won’t touch her.”

The bat leaps off its perch, flies in a circle, and folds into the liminal.

He’s gone.

He wants five rings and the power of Strega blood. Knowing what he wants is a weapon I can use. I can be strategic. I can amass my own weapons and move against him without the direct fight that’s forbidden.

But he wants Luna. My love by force.

Soon, I will die. Luna will be alone. He’ll find her and suck her dry over and over.

I need to meet with the Luganos, and I need to make sure I live long enough to protect my wife.