Page 31 of Black Rose

I knew what I had to do to make all of this go away. Instantly I was filled with hope and a future and peace, for the first time in years.

The first step of course was to quit my job, give the Red Room to Bitrus to run, say my goodbyes. Then leave to start again.

Blank slate.

I keep repeating it through my head as I walk home, convincing myself I’m doing the right thing, when I come to a stop outside my villa.

Solon is standing there at the front gate, looking elegant in a well-tailored coat with the collar pulled up. I haven’t seen Solon since our ambush at Poveglia. Things hadn’t ended well between us.

“Solon. What brings you here?” I ask, giving him a cautious smile though it’s hard to hide my surprise.

His smile in return is cold. “I’m sorry to just pop by. Normally I would ask before I showed up at your door like this.”

I nod uneasily, looking around. “And Lenore?”

“She’s back home,” he says.

“Everything okay?”

“For the most part,” he says, and I can’t get a read on him. I would try but he keeps his mind locked up like a safe.

I walk past him and through the gate to the front door, glancing over my shoulder at him. “Well, it would be very impolite of me if I didn’t invite you in for a drink. Unfortunately, anything nourishing is at the club, but I do have a lot of wine.”

“Wine is just fine. You have a better collection than I do,” he comments, coming up the path, past the olive and fig trees that are laden with raindrops.

I have wards up around the villa so it takes me a moment to disarm them, muttering a few phrases under my breath.

“Wards,” Solon says appreciatively from behind me. “I figured that’s what was happening.”

I narrow my eyes at him as I open the front door and step inside. “Why, were you trying to get in?”

“Get in? No. Just trying to see if you were home,” he says, but I don’t believe him. He probably was trying to get in and I know why. The book. It has been calling to him ever since he first laid eyes on it.

Speaking of the book, it’s on the coffee table in the living room, since I just read it last night, but I have no fear of Solon trying to grab it and make a run for it. I know the demon isn’t far off.

“So I suppose this isn’t a friendly visit,” I tell him as we walk to the kitchen. I feel the energy of the book humming from the living room and the fireplace lights itself in response.

“What makes you say that?” he says mildly, following me.

I give him a tepid look. “Just a hunch. You weren’t exactly pleased with me when we last spoke.”

He grumbles though his eyes light up a little when I show him the bottle of 1965 Bordeaux that I’m about to open for us. “No, I suppose I wasn’t. And that’s partly the reason I’m here. To see if you’d had a change of heart.”

“Ah,” I say, uncorking the bottle with aplomb. I sniff the bottle lightly and can almost see the terroir and fields being worked decades ago, feel the waning sun on the day the grapes were picked. “I see. And I thought you just wanted my wine and company.”

“Well that too,” he says as I pour him a glass of the burgundy elixir before I pour my own. “We have a lot to catch up on, old friend.”

I raise my glass. “Salude, anyway.”

We cheers and I take a sip, savoring the explosion of grapes, then swallow and take a seat at the kitchen island across from him. “Let’s get it out of the way then. What do you want? The book?”

He shakes his head. “Not particularly. I need you to use the book.”

“For what?” I ask but I already know the answer from his weary expression. It’s the same as before.

“To find Leif and Bellamy,” he says.

I sigh. “Believe it or not, I’m not opposed to helping you. I want to help get Leif back as much as anyone. I may not really know Amethyst, and Wolf and I have had our differences, of course, but any vampire stolen by witches deserves revenge. But I have been over that book in detail for the last few years now and there is nothing in there that would help with tracking or locating him or any of the witches.”

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