He turned away from me. I’d been surveyed, and I wasn’t a threat, apparently. I was sorry I’d missed what he’d said to Cormac before we got here.
“Where were we? Right. Anastasia, you’re back after what, eighty, ninety years? I’d wondered what happened to you. You left so quickly after the coup.”
Anastasia said, “I didn’t see a need to stay. You didn’t need my help—at least not anymore.”
He opened his hands in agreement. “Begs the question, though—why are you back?”
“I’m here on an entirely unrelated matter.”
“Still, the last time you were in San Francisco, you helped stage a coup against the former Master.”
“That’s not what happened and you know it.”
“All I know is you do things to suit yourself and no one else. You could have put yourself in charge here. You could have made yourself Mistress of a dozen cities the world over, collected all that power, but what do you do instead? You meddle and move on. What’s the story now?”
What do you know—we had the same opinion about Anastasia.
“I wanted to see the old stomping grounds,” she said.
“You could have called me for a tour.”
“I didn’t want to trouble you.”
“You were in Chinatown with a mercenary.” He gestured at Cormac. “What were you looking for? Or what did you already find and are trying to hide from me?”
She strolled a quiet step forward on her heeled shoes. Her eyes narrowed, and she caught Boss’s gaze. “Nothing you need to bother with,” she said softly.
He straightened, leaning back to regard her, his brow furrowed. The other vampires were frowning now, looking back and forth between their Master and the stranger.
Maybe Ben and Cormac and I could get the hell out of here while they had their standoff.
“Anastasia,” Boss said, his voice low, threatening.
We were wasting time, so I dropped into the conversation to tip the balance. “Roman is here,” I said.
The mood snapped back. Boss blinked and looked away from Anastasia, at me. “Roman?” he said, much the way Henry had, as if I was muddying the waters on purpose.
“Dux Bellorum,” Anastasia murmured.
Well, that made the air go out of the room. Boss’s mouth opened—he even showed fangs. The male vampire companion gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. Joe stepped closer. All five of them looked shocked. Anastasia frowned at me.
“Really?” Boss said. He shifted his gaze from me to Anastasia. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“This isn’t your battle,” she said.
He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “It isn’t? Because it’s your battle? Because you think you can handle him all by yourself?”
“I know him,” she said with conviction.
For once I wanted to keep quiet, because I wanted them to keep talking. I wanted to learn more. But nobody said anything.
“How?” I said. “How do you know him?”
She didn’t answer. What else wasn’t she telling me?
Boss settled back into his seat and donned an air of calm, but he also looked sad. As if he was facing the inevitable; as if he’d faced it many times before. His expression was at odds with the offhand manner he’d shown so far. I bumped up my estimation of his age another hundred years. This guy had been around.
When he spoke, he spoke to me. “My predecessor belonged to Dux Bellorum—Roman, I guess is as good a name as any. Some of us”—he gestured to his four colleagues—“didn’t like that she bound us to someone who wasn’t one of us. That she swore fealty to a Master outside the Family. We wanted our Family to be a family. Not some … platoon in someone else’s army.”
Dux Bellorum was how Roman named himself, when he wasn’t being sneaky: the leader of war. The general.
“We’re losing, Anastasia. In the last hundred years we’ve gained what, San Francisco? Denver? But how many cities have we lost? After you left I assumed you were out there, doing more of the same. Subverting his lieutenants, putting better Masters in their places. But I never heard a word. Meanwhile, Dux Bellorum has dozens of agents everywhere, all working to bring more cities in line.”
“Agents,” I said. “Like Mercedes Cook?”
“You know Mercedes?” Boss said.
“She came through Denver a few years ago.” And instigated the war that brought Rick to power. She had intended for Rick’s predecessor to destroy him, but Rick was better than she expected. He’d surprised a lot of people that night.
“Rick booted her out?”
“Yeah.”
“I always knew I liked that guy. You’re working for Rick?”
“Rick is my friend. I’ve met Roman. If there’s a war coming, I won’t be on his side,” I said.
“It’s been a long time since the werewolves had a leader step forward,” Boss said.
I rolled my eyes and sighed with frustration. “I’m not leading the werewolves, I’m not working for anybody, I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“Then you’ve bitten off way more than you can chew, dear.”
I growled under my breath. I was ready to get out of here. Ben licked my hand, comforting me. As long as we stuck together, things couldn’t be so bad.
Boss turned to Anastasia. “So you’re here because Roman is here. Is my Family, is our place controlling San Francisco, in danger?”
“No,” Anastasia. “I’d have come straight to you if that were the case, I swear it.”
“Then…” He gestured, indicating that she should continue.
“There’s an artifact in Chinatown. The Dragon’s Pearl. Roman is looking for it. I need to find it first. He can’t be allowed to have it; it’s too powerful. This is bigger than you, or your Family, or San Francisco.”
“You should have come to me anyway, Anastasia. The city’s changed since you were here. I can help you.”
“You can’t
