Perversely, the old man chuckled, the sound of cracking papyrus. “I knew you were a strong man. Able to resist our bond? Very strong. I knew it. I chose you well.”
“Leave here. Leave. I never want to see you again.”
“Never? Never? Do you know what that means? You are only just beginning to realize what that means. We will always be here, we will always be bound.”
“Come in, get off the street.” Gaius grabbed the old man’s tunic—he refused to touch that leathered skin—and pulled him into the courtyard, slamming the door behind. The ancient fabric of the tunic tore under the pressure, as if it rotted in place.
Kumarbis slumped against the wall and grinned again at Gaius as if he’d won a prize. “You have servants.”
“They’re mine, not yours.”
“You are mine.”
“I am not.” He sounded like a mewling child.
What he ought to do was drink the old man dry. Suck whatever used-up blood was left in him, destroying him and taking all his power. But he would have to touch the monster for that. And . . . that pull. That bond. It made the very idea of harming the man repulsive. He couldn’t even bear the thought of stabbing him through the heart with a length of wood, putting him out of his misery. It was the terrible magic of his curse that he could not bring himself to kill the one being in the universe that he most wanted to.
“I don’t have time for this,” Gaius said, turning back to his tools, the mission. He should just buy a slave for the old man to drain and be done with him.
Kumarbis pressed himself against the stone. “What are you doing here, Gaius?”
“Showing my strength. Proving a point.”
Wincing, craning his neck forward, the old man studied what Gaius had prepared, the writing he had begun. “This magic . . . have I seen anything like it?”
Gaius spared a moment to glare. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Explain this to me.” He seemed genuinely confused, his brow furrowed, a hand plucking at the hem of his garment. “You’re working a spell . . . a spell made of fire?”
“No! I owe you nothing!” He stomped forward, raised his hand to the old man—and could not strike. Fist trembling, he snarled.
A knock came at the door. Both Gaius and Kumarbis froze, looking at each other as if to ask, Were you expecting someone? This night was cursed with interruptions. Gaius went to the door and cracked it open.
“What?”
“May I enter? Am I interrupting anything important?” He seemed like a young man, but Gaius had learned not to trust appearances of age. Bright eyes set in finely wrought features, the confident stance of a patrician, this man would be at home in the Forum at Rome. The kind of man who always had a curl at the corner of his lip, as if all he gazed on amused him. His tunic and wrap were expensive, trimmed with gold thread.
“Who are you?” Gaius demanded, and seemingly of its own will the door opened and the stranger stepped inside.
At the same time, Kumarbis dropped to his knees, which cracked on the flagstones.
“Hello, there,” the stranger said amiably to him.
“You! It was always you!” the old man cried. “Your voice in the dark, drawing me forward. I tried! Don’t you know I tried to build your army? I tried!”
The stranger’s mouth cracked into a grin, and he turned to Gaius. “Is this man bothering you?”
Some sort of balance tipped in that moment. Gaius felt it in the prickling of skin on the back of his neck. In the way this stranger drew the eye, held the attention, though there seemed to be nothing noteworthy about him.
“Please! Why have you forsaken me?” Kumarbis had prostrated himself and was weeping. It was . . . almost sad.
The stranger said, “I found a stronger man. Or, you did. Thank you for that.” He looked Gaius up and down, as if surveying livestock.
“For thousands of years I’ve—”
“And? Do you expect pity from me?”
“Perhaps . . . perhaps . . . mercy?”
The stranger laughed. “Oh, no, old man. No. Not from me.”
“But—”
“Get out. Go.” The stranger took Kumarbis by the arm, hauled him to his feet. He had no care for brittle bones or bent back. Why should he, when the old man didn’t seem inclined to break? Only to weep.
He pushed the old man out and gently closed the door. Almost, Gaius worried. Where would Kumarbis go? Would he find shelter by daybreak? Would he find sustenance? But no, Kumbarbis had survived this long, he didn’t need help. He didn’t need pity.
The stranger turned back to Gaius. “There. Where were we?”
Gaius stood, amazed. “Who are you?”
“Call me Lucien,” the man said, smiling like he had something to sell.
“What do you want?”
The man paced around the courtyard, studying stone walls, looking over the charcoal and candles Gaius had laid out. “That’s not the question. The question is this: What do you want?”
His words held a largeness, a vastness to them that expanded far beyond mere sound. They spoke to the depth of Gaius’s anger, his urge to grab Kumarbis’s skull and smash it against the wall. To break everything that would break, to shatter it all. But a dozen skulls would not satisfy. And rage was unbecoming to a soldier of Rome.
He said, “I want to see how much of the world I can change with my actions.”
“Change?” Lucien said. “Or destroy? I see what you’re doing here—this isn’t change.”
“Destruction is a kind of a change.”
“So it is.” His pacing brought him in a spiral to the middle of the courtyard. To the candles, the charcoal, the wax tablet with the symbols Gaius had copied for practice. The precious lamp. For a moment, he was afraid Lucien would break it. That he was some crusader who had somehow gotten wind of his plan.
Lucien had just tossed a two-thousand-year-old vampire out on the street. Gaius was fairly certain he wasn’t powerful enough to stop this man—this whatever-he-was—from doing whatever he wanted.
Lucien turned to him and stopped smiling. “I know your plan. I support your plan. Be my general, Gaius Albinus. Gather my army for me. And you will have power.”
“What . . . what army?” Gaius asked.
“Ones like you. There are more than you think, and by rights they should serve me. Also the werewolves, the demons, the succubi—”
“Werewolves?”
Lucien smiled. “You’ll meet them soon enough. Use that army, destroy what you must. And hand it all over to me at the end of days. Agreed?”
A cause to march with. Gaius had missed the structure of direction, of order delivered for a righteous cause. And here this man appeared. This easy, smiling patrician with an answer and quip for everything. Gaius could see a moment, some years or decades—or even centuries—in the future, when Lucien would turn his back on him. Literally throw him on the street as he had done with Kumarbis. This man used and disposed of tools as needed.
But at least Gaius understood his role here.
Lucien offered his hand. “Come, my friend. I can make sure your talents don’t go to waste.”
Stepping forward, Gaius placed his hands between Lucien’s and pledged his loyalty. He was surprised at how warm Lucien’s skin was against his own chilled, bloodless hands. As if the man were made of fire.