“Wherever the rich people are living now. Prestige, wealth, power—the old vampires like to let everyone know they have it.”
“Right. I’ll get a couple things together and go.” I think about kissing her goodbye, but I’m not sure she would welcome it. I give her a tight nod instead and turn back to the house. After a few steps I hear her move, and it’s fast. I don’t get to turn around before her arms are around me, hugging me from behind. I stay still and she rests her head between me shoulder blades.
“Thank you, Owen,” she says.
“No need for thanks,” I reply. “I want the new Grove protected every bit as much as you want to protect the pack. And the solution is the same: Keep Siodhachan the feck away from here.”
She doesn’t respond to this except to squeeze a little harder.
“This could be fast, but it could also be days or weeks before I catch up with him. And I’m pretty sure I’ll have to help him with the vampires if he has an endgame. So explain to the kids and the parents, will ye, why I’m gone and that I’ll be back when it’s finished. I don’t want this to happen again.”
“No. We definitely do not want that.” She lets go, only to spin me around to face her and bring her hand up to the side of me face. Those eyes hold mine through the veil. “Be ruthless and thorough and don’t worry about us. We’ll be here.”
“Good.” I nod, she lets me go, and I return to the house. Greta stays in the trees. I grab me knuckles and Fragarach from the dining room table, and I also pick up those stakes that Luchta made for us—one for me and one for Granuaile, in case I find her with Siodhachan.
I don’t know how the pack stands in regards to her, and I don’t want to bring it up until it’s necessary. Better to let her decide if she wants to have a separate status from Siodhachan or throw in her lot with him.
I know what I want: Greta and Owen’s Grove, allowed to live in peace. There’s harmony there to be found, and I’ll fight for it, and damn the paradox of fighting for peace.
CHAPTER 24
It feels a bit like parachuting behind enemy lines, shifting into Rome. Here, Theophilus and his old nest of vampires manipulated Julius Caesar and the others that followed him into attacking the continental Druids, and their campaigns, combined with the spread of Christianity, effectively wiped us out. He thought he’d won. I suppose he did: When you wait two thousand years before launching a counterattack, you cannot truly say you’re fighting the same war.
My visits to Rome throughout the centuries had always been brief affairs for art appreciation, just day trips, when the vampires would be asleep. But I made sure that I always kept the tether updated. It’s located on the northern edge of Rome, in Villa Borghese, a large estate that was home to an old family with close ties to several popes. Today it’s partially public land, with a zoo and expansive parks. It will be a reliable gateway to Rome for a long time to come, and it’s conveniently located close to the Piazza di Spagna, where Leif suggested to me that I might find Theophilus.
“He had a flat right on the piazza, and so did several others of the leadership. Bought them for a song centuries ago, bequeathed them to their new identities once a generation, as you have no doubt done with your own assets, and now they are worth millions of euros each because the location has become so desirable.”
“It wasn’t always so?” I asked.
“No. When Keats and Shelley lived there, it was mocked as the ‘English Ghetto’—so cheap that poor foreign poets could afford a room. I know for a fact that your Fae assassins dispatched a couple of the vampire leadership there. Theophilus will want to reclaim those flats for symbolic reasons.”
“You mean he’ll buy them?”
“Eventually. He and his entourage will charm their way in for the short term while they work on making everything legal. If they want a flat and find it occupied, they can kill the owner and make it available.”
“He has the money to pay for these?”
“Oh, most certainly. Remember, in addition to his own considerable wealth, thanks to Werner Drasche he has all your money to play with now. He’ll spend it quickly just to spite you.”