The glass was almost empty when the solution hit him. He didn’t need Dragan. He needed a power source. In fact, he could use multiple sources if necessary. Not too many sources, though. That would be tedious. But a few individuals with substantial power—not like Dragan’s, but strong enough to combine with others—would work as well. He rose to refill his glass, then went back to his contemplation of the now darkening sky, this time not bothering to sit. He had several minor magic workers in his employ, but “minor” was the key word. They were good for hunting down magical artifacts, and providing security for some of his properties where valuable artifacts—both magical and not—were stored. He’d contemplated using them at the Finger Lakes house, but hadn’t wanted to draw the wrong kind of attention to Dragan’s hiding place. He hadn’t anticipated the threat posed by a lone human woman, but that was water under the bridge.
The magic workers he employed could possibly serve his current needs, but it would take several of them working together, and he was reluctant to do that. For one, he didn’t trust them enough, but he also didn’t want to lose their services, since the constant strain on their magic to power his device would eventually kill them. That had been yet another reason why Dragan had been so perfect—his body had been designed to endure the ebb and flow of powerful magic.
He glanced through the big plate window to the street below, where traffic was at a near standstill as a few hundred thousand vehicles took to the street for rush hour. This time of year, it would be full dark soon, which would only make the traffic worse. Although the city’s lights would make up for the—
“That’s it,” he muttered. He was surprised, now that he’d come up with a solution, that it had taken him so long to think of it. Losing Dragan had obviously angered him more than he’d understood, clogging his thoughts with useless emotion. But as always, a bit of good scotch had done its job. He knew what he had to do now. There was only one question left to answer: which vampire territory should he begin with?
Chapter Seven
Near Cuyahoga National Park, Ohio
MAEVE SAT CROSS-legged on the bed nearest the window, while Dragan paced from the door to the window and back again, over and over, with occasional pauses to pull the curtain aside and stare down at the parking lot. The pacing didn’t bother her—she’d learned in college to work anywhere, despite the distractions. At first, she’d looked up every time he stopped at the window, worried that he’d seen something suspicious. But she’d soon figured out he wasn’t staring at anything in particular, but rather engaging in some serious brooding.
She, on the other hand, was on a hunt—her favorite thing to do. Give her minimal information and a good wi-fi connection and she could find something on anybody. Granted, this time around, the opening information was a few steps lower than minimal. She had a guy—a sorcerer, supposedly—who’d lived in another world a few thousand years ago, and who was, hopefully, now in this world looking for Dragan and his brothers-in-arms, who’d also lived in that other world and time.
Easy peasy, right? Apart from the magical aspect of it all. But then, she’d already admitted to herself that Dragan’s appearance and story held a note of truth, so . . . why not a thousands-year-old sorcerer. She sighed.
“Did . . . Nicodemus,” she asked, stumbling a little over the unusual name, “have a last name? Um, a surname, a family name.”
Dragan turned from the window and stared blindly, as if not seeing her.
“Hello? Dragan?”
He blinked. “It was a long time ago,” he said, which Maeve took as an apology. Or at least an explanation. “Nico was the son of a . . . king, you’d call it. He didn’t have a last name, so much as a territorial claim. Katsaros.”
Maeve squinted up at him. “Can you spell it?”
He looked frustrated. “I don’t know the names of all your letters, but I can write it for you.”
“That works,” she said far too chipperly, automatically trying to counter his brooding, which she saw as sadness. Not that he didn’t deserve to be sad, but she didn’t want him to be. That approach made sense in her mind, which she admitted was a trifle twisty—one step sideways from that of most people she knew. She offered him a pen and paper, then went back to her keyboard, deliberately not watching him write. He’d said he could read, and his English was perfectly fine, with only the tiniest trace of an indefinable accent. But it wasn’t as if he’d been keeping a diary while trapped in stone for all that time. Writing might be more difficult.
“I believe this is it. Read it, and I’ll know. Out loud,” he added, when she gave him a puzzled look.
“Oh, right. Duh.” She glanced at the note. The letters were boldly written, the lines appearing slightly hesitant, but otherwise correct. “Katsaros,” she read, putting emphasis on the second syllable. “Am I saying that right?”
“Yes. Nicodemus Katsaros.”
Maeve nodded, studying the name thoughtfully. “If he’s been here as long as you—”
“I don’t know how Sotiris’s curse affected Nicodemus. It was different for him, but I don’t know in what way.”
“But you seem confident that he’ll have come looking for you and the others. Which means eventually—however you all do that sort of thing—he’d have ended up here. In this reality.”
He nodded in agreement, although his eyes reflected less certainty.
She wanted to say something amusing, once again wishing she could blow away the cloud of sadness that seemed to surround him too often. Biting back the urge, she feathered her fingers over the computer keys in thought. “Will he have aged?”
“No, no more than Sotiris. Less even, since he was so much younger when his power came to him.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “He’ll have moved then, probably several times, so people wouldn’t get suspicious. And he’ll have changed his name, at least a little. Modernized it, switched things around.” Lips pursed, she started typing variations of the name, going for modern and westernized, focusing on North America. There was no evidence he was here, but it was a good place to start since Sotiris definitely was, and he seemed like the kind of man who’d want to keep his enemies close. Plus, there was lots of land, lots of people . . . a good place to hide in plain sight.
On the other hand, he might well have kept his last name. Sotiris had, after all. And his name wasn’t exactly generic in the U.S. The first name, though—Nicodemus—that would definitely have been changed. It was too distinctly foreign, too unusual. It would draw attention, which a guy who lived forever wouldn’t want. Would he?