The Immortal Conquistador Read online

  Praise for The Immortal Conquistador

  “A must have for Kitty Norville fans, but also an excellent standalone for readers new to Vaughn’s worlds.”

  —Kelley Armstrong, bestselling author of the Bitten series

  “Vaughn presents a gratifying origin story for Ricardo ‘Rick’ de Avila, vampire Master of Denver and partner to the popular werewolf heroine of her Kitty Norville series.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “No surprise to anyone, but Carrie Vaughn can write the sixteenth century up through the Old West as well as it’s been done. And it just feels so good to sneak back into the Kittyverse through the vampire door.”

  —Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels and The Only Good Indians

  “Carrie Vaughn’s The Immortal Conquistador is an excellent addition to her Kitty Norville books, and gives us a closer look at one of her most fascinating characters.”

  —Stephen Blackmoore, author of the Eric Carter Necromancer series

  “The Immortal Conquistador was a captivating read that finally shed some light on one of the most interesting and secretive characters from the Kitty universe. This book is sure to please all the Kitty Norville fans out there!”

  —Fantasy Hotlist

  “What I love about Vaughn’s writing is that she takes you on a fun adventure and secretly sneaks in layers of complexity to her characters where you find yourself thinking about them for days on end. I can’t wait to see where this series is heading!”

  —Infinite Text

  Praise for Carrie Vaughn

  On the Kitty Norville series

  “Enough excitement, astonishment, pathos, and victory to satisfy any reader.”

  —Charlaine Harris, author of Dead After Dark

  “[Vaughn] manages to combine outright thrills with an offbeat sense of humor and then mesh it with Kitty’s dogged determination. The result—entertainment exemplified!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Fresh, hip, fantastic—a real treat!”

  —L. A. Banks, author of the Vampire Huntress Legend series

  “The only urban fantasy world where I want to read every book of the series.”

  —Denver Post

  “Readers of Kim Harrison’s ‘Hollows’ series and Jim Butcher’s 'Dresden Files’ will appreciate Kitty’s sarcastic wit, ingenuity, and independence.”

  —Library Journal

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  Kitty Norville series

  Kitty and the Midnight Hour (2005)

  Kitty Goes to Washington (2006)

  Kitty Takes a Holiday (2007)

  Kitty and the Silver Bullet (2008)

  Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (2009)

  Kitty Raises Hell (2009)

  Kitty’s House of Horrors (2010)

  Kitty Goes to War (2010)

  Kitty’s Big Trouble (2011)

  Kitty Steals the Show (2012)

  Kitty in the Underworld (2013)

  Kitty Rocks the House (2013)

  Low Midnight (2014)

  Kitty Saves the World (2015)

  Golden Age

  After the Golden Age (2011)

  Dreams of the Golden Age (2014)

  The Bannerless Saga

  Bannerless (2017)

  The Wild Dead (2018)

  Other novels

  Discord’s Apple (2010)

  Steel (2011)

  Voices of Dragons (2010)

  Martians Abroad (2017)

  Collections

  Kitty’s Greatest Hits (2011)

  Amaryllis and Other Stories (2016)

  Kitty’s Mix-Tape (forthcoming, 2020)

  The Immortal Conquistador

  Copyright © 2020 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC

  This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

  Introduction copyright © 2020 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC

  Interior and cover design by Elizabeth Story

  Cover art “Giving Velázquez a Hand” copyright © 2008 by Rebecca Harp

  Tachyon Publications LLC

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  415.285.5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  [email protected]

  Series Editor: Jacob Weisman

  Project Editor: Jill Roberts

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61696-321-7

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-322-4

  First Edition: 2020

  “Conquistador de la Noche” copyright 2009 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC. First appeared in Subterranean Online, Spring 2009.

  “El Hidalgo de la Noche” copyright 2015 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC. First time in print.

  “El Conquistador del Tiempo” copyright 2019 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC. Original appearance.

  “Dead Men in Central City.” Copyright 2017 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC. First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September/October 2017.

  RICK SLUNG HIS BAG over his shoulder, descended the steel staircase from the plane to the tarmac, and set foot in Europe for the first time in five hundred years.

  He paused a moment, taking a deep breath and wondering why this should feel so strange. It was only the ground, it was only the air. But this air did not have the crisp touch of mountain and plain that made Denver special. This air smelled of oil and urban sprawl, hummed with the underlying whine of aircraft engine. Orange sodium lights gave everything a burnt glow, and the night sky was all haze.

  This was not home. Hadn’t been for a long time. He’d left Avila when he was seventeen, such a small fraction of his life now. He barely remembered it. Now when he thought of home he thought of the desert, the American prairie, yucca and sagebrush standing fast in the wind, bright stars splashed across a wide night sky.

  This ancient city Rome wasn’t home. Everything about coming here felt unnatural. Maybe Kitty was right and he shouldn’t have left Denver. Kitty the werewolf, the alpha of the Denver pack, blond and quintessentially modern, so earnest and unlikely, not at all suited to the world of monsters and yet there she was. Time was, Rick hadn’t cared much for werewolves. Turned out he just hadn’t met the right ones. Maybe he should have listened to her.

  But he’d insisted. “I have to tell them what happened to Father Columban.”

  “Can’t you call? Write a letter?” she’d said, some of her inner wolf coming through, as if she had a tail to wag even in her human form.

  “I thought it best that I tell them in person.”

  “You think you have to replace him in the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows.”

  Kitty hosted a talk radio show where she dispensed advice to the lovelorn and others with supernatural problems. She was good at it. Good at cutting through messes to the heart of the matter. Yes, when the vampire priest Columban had been destroyed, Ricardo had felt like something had been taken from the world and that he must replace it.

  “You’ll be back?” she had asked as he left.

  He didn’t know. He had lost so many friends. Her, he’d walked away from. He didn’t know where he was going, who he was meeting with. He’d sent a message ahead to say he was coming. He was riding into the unknown and didn’t know what would happen. But then, hadn’t he spent most of his existence doing that?

  He’d tried to explain all this to Kitty and was sure he’d failed.

  He’d chartered a private jet to get here. Discovered that without really noticing he had become wealthy enough to be able to charter a private jet. Almost like he was a proper vampire, when
for most of his existence he’d traveled by horseback and slept in whatever windowless closet he could beg an inn to rent him. But private jet was the only way to ensure arriving at night, with enough privacy to remain locked in the dark during daylight hours. However uneasy he felt about this journey, he needed to make it.

  A black town car waited for him down the tarmac, which was typical and entirely expected. These were proper vampires, comfortable with wealth and power. The small, prim woman standing by the passenger door was simply but elegantly dressed in a dark skirt, cashmere shirt, and jacket. Almost monastic, but not quite. She gazed at him steadily, pressing neutrally painted lips together. She was a vampire, an old one, of Mediterranean heritage. This still told him very little about her.

  He was not so elegant. He wore a T-shirt and jeans under his long overcoat and had not cared what he was wearing until now. It didn’t matter, he decided. He was what he was.

  “You’re Ricardo?” she asked as he approached. She spoke with a British accent, one learned from the BBC news, so that didn’t tell him anything about her history either.

  “Rick is fine,” he said. “You got my message?”

  “We did. The Abbot is anxious to meet you.” She opened the passenger door for him.

  “The Abbot. The head of the Order of Saint Lazarus of the Shadows?” he asked. This was the thread that had brought him here. “Who is he?”

  “You’ll meet him.”

  “You’re with the Order?”

  “May I ask how you heard of us?”

  “A vampire priest found me. Father Columban,” he said. “I didn’t believe him at first, when he told of an order of vampire monks. Then, I did. Did you know him?”

  “Yes,” she said after a moment. “Not well. He traveled much, and I stay here and help run the abbey.”

  “He was killed. I wanted to tell you—the Order—in person.” Rick still wasn’t sure what he was doing. Meeting the man had upended much of what he believed about the world, and about what he was. “He wanted to recruit me. But I’m still not sure I understand.”

  “You have a lot of questions. You’ll have to ask the Abbot.”

  “And you are?”

  She gazed at him coolly. “I am Portia.”

  A simple and elegant name to go with her look and manner. Also a Roman name. Could she be fifteen hundred years old or more? Could be.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said. His own accent was as cultivated as hers, but pure, flat American. It made other vampires underestimate him—they assumed he was younger than he was.

  “The night is wearing on,” she said and gestured him into the car.

  If Rick had still had a mortal heart, it would have been pounding. He should not be here, he should not have come. He ought to be home, he ought to be protecting his people in Denver—but he needed answers. A larger battle waited to be fought. Five hundred years he’d managed to keep out of the mess and tangle of vampire politics. Now here he was, walking into the middle of it. But he had information, which he hoped to trade for answers to questions of his own.

  The vehicle’s driver was not a vampire but had the smell of vampires all over him. A longtime servant, then. A loyal source of sustenance. These people would have an army of such servants, some of them tucked away in government, law enforcement. In the Church, even? Portia sat in the passenger seat, glanced back at him now and then, but otherwise left him alone to stare out the window.

  They entered the city, and the road took them to a vista, a hundred lights set on ruins, cathedrals, ancient walls, the Colosseum, crammed together with a mix of other structures from across two thousand years. He’d never seen anything like it. If he’d still needed to breathe, his breath would have caught. He inhaled so he could speak.

  “Wait. Can we pull over here? Can I look, just for a minute?”

  Portia nodded to the driver, who pulled over at a likely spot, where a few trees framed the view. Rick immediately climbed out and just stood, looking. This was the weight of years made physical.

  After a moment, Portia joined him. She looked at him, not the view. “Most of us who’ve been around as long as you have are more jaded than this.”

  He’d never been jaded, not once. He never tired of a good view. “This is my first time in Rome.”

  “As old as you are, and you’ve never been to Rome?” Portia said, laughing, a lilting sound, quickly cut off, as if she had not expected to make it. “What about Paris?”

  “No.”

  “London? Cairo? Beijing? Anywhere? How is that possible?”

  He shrugged. “Just never made the time.” Which seemed a ridiculous thing for one who was theoretically immortal to say. His fists closed. Yes, perhaps he should have made time. He should have come to see Rome, Paris. Should have traveled the world, even if he could only see such monuments lit up at night.

  “Portia. Do you believe that vampires have souls?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Saint Lazarus of the Shadows claims to be a holy order of vampires, which suggests that you all believe in God and the Church and the rest, which suggests that you believe we still have souls worth saving and protecting . . . and yet, I have met so many of our kind who are sure that we are damned. Who embrace being damned. So I wondered . . . is this order a religious order in truth, or a mask for something else? Are we all soulless monsters trying to repent, or children of God doing His will? Or something else entirely?”

  “What does it matter?”

  He had stayed alone, mostly, in out-of-the-way places, and he knew very little of the world of the truly old vampires. He’d liked it that way. When he did meet them, they always regarded him like Portia did now, like he was a child who had said something hilarious. But not knowing about their games and politics meant he did not have to play them. What was he getting himself into?

  “You see,” he continued, “I look out at a scene like this and feel so inspired, I have felt such hope and seen such beauty and experienced such kindness, despite all the grief and evil in the world. Would such feelings be possible if I did not have a soul? And yet I cannot go into a church. I’m a demon. A monster who drinks blood. I just wondered if you knew the answer to the paradox.”

  Portia stared at him a moment and said, “The Abbot very much wants to hear your story.”

  “I will be happy to tell him.”

  CONQUISTADOR

  DE LA NOCHE

  HIS LIFE was becoming a trail of blood.

  Ricardo de Avila fired his crossbow at the crowd of natives. The bolt struck the chest of a Zuni warrior, a man no older than his own nineteen years. The native fell back, the dark of his blood splashing, along with dozens of others. The army’s few arquebuses fired, the sulfur stink clouding the air. The horses danced, tearing up the grass and raising walls of dust. Between keeping control of his horse and trying to breathe, Ricardo could not winch back his crossbow for another shot.

  Not that he needed to fire again. The general was already calling for a cease-fire, and the few remaining Zuni, running hard and shouting in their own language, were fleeing back to their city.

  City. Rather, a few baked buildings clustered on the hillside. The expedition had become a farce. Cíbola did not exist—at least, not as it did in the stories the first hapless explorers had brought back. So many leagues of travel, wasted. Dead men and horses, wasted. The land itself was not even worth much. It had little water and was cut through with unforgiving mountains and canyons. The Spanish should turn around and leave it to the natives.

  But the friars who traveled with Coronado were adamant. Even if they found no sign of treasure, it was their duty as Christians to save the souls of these poor heathens.

  They had believed that Coronado would be a new Cortés, opening new lands and treasures for the glory of Spain. The New World was more vast than any in Europe had comprehended. Naturally they had assumed the entire continent held the same great riches Spain had found in Mexico. As quickly as Spain was ea
ting through that treasure, it would need to find more.

  Coronado tried to keep up a good face for his men. His armor remained brightly polished, gleaming in the harsh sun, and he sat a tall figure on his horse. But with the lack of good food, his face had become sunken, and when he looked across the despoblado, the bleak lands they would have to cross to reach the rumored Cities of Gold, the shine in his eyes revealed despair.

  This expedition should have made the fortune of Ricardo, a third son of a minor nobleman. Now, though, he was thirsty, near to starving, and had just killed a boy who had come at him with nothing but a stone club. His dark beard had grown unkempt, his hair long and ratted. Sand had marred the finish of his helmet and cuirass. No amount of wealth seemed worth the price of this journey. Rather, the price he was paying had become so steep it would have taken streets paved with gold in truth to restore the balance.

  What was left, then? When you had already paid too much in return for nothing? Ricardo had sold himself for a mouthful of dust.

  Ten years passed.

  It was dark when Ricardo rode into the main plaza at Zacatecas. Lamps hung outside the church and governor’s buildings, and the last of the market vendors had departed. A small caravan of a dozen horses and mules from the mine was picketed, awaiting stabling. The place was hot and dusty, though a cool wind from the mountains brought some refreshment. Ricardo stopped to water his horse and stretch his legs before making his way to the fort.

  At the corner of the garrison road, a man stepped from the shadows to block his path. His horse snorted and planted its feet. Ricardo’s night vision was good, but he had trouble making out the figure.

  “Don Ricardo? I was told you were due to return today,” the man said.

  Ricardo recognized the voice, though it had been a long time since he’d heard it. “Diego?”