50

It took longer than it probably should have for Thomas to arrive at Via dei Fienaroli. That was the fault of the first man he’d asked, who helpfully gave detailed, incorrect directions. Via dei Fienaroli, in fact, was right around the corner from the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and it intersected Via della Cisterna another fifty yards along. Via dei Fienaroli was a street so narrow it had no sidewalks. The doors of the shadowed, ancient houses opened directly to the road.

On which, when Thomas got there, no one could be seen.

Of course. She’d sent him on a wild-goose chase. She needed to make sure he couldn’t follow her. It wasn’t enough that she was an unnatural demon and he just a man, that this city was her home and he had trouble finding his way around it, that she had an entire Community surrounding and supporting her while he was alone with a secret he desperately wished he didn’t know, that—

“Father Kelly?”

Not two feet beyond him a battered green door had opened. In the doorway stood a thin young woman with serious eyes and black curly hair. She wore loose white pants and a T-shirt, both of them streaked and splattered with paint, plus a blue stripe on one bare arm and, disarmingly, a smudge on the side of her nose. Smiling, she said, “Father, please come in. Livia’s upstairs. I’m Ellen Bird. I’d shake your hand, but I’ve been told you’d probably rather I didn’t.”

Her English was American, with a New York tinge. For a moment Thomas felt so relieved, so practically at home, that he began to give her a big answering smile. Then he realized what she must mean about not shaking his hand.

He stepped back. “Are you—” Seriously, Thomas? What exactly are you going to ask her and how are you going to explain the question if the answer’s no?

The answer, however, was not no. “Am I Noantri? Yes. Please come in.”

Thomas stared at Ellen Bird. Her curls, her clear skin, her easy air: she might have been one of his undergraduates. This woman was Noantri? A—go ahead and say it, Thomas—a vampire? There was nothing threatening about her. She seemed to be nothing more—or less—than a young American (judging from the paint smudges, an artist) trying her luck in Rome. Not at all like Spencer George, about whom Thomas had gotten an ill feeling from the moment they met. Of course, he reflected, that could have been because the man was arrogant, hostile, and snide. He’d known priests like that whom he hadn’t liked any better. Livia Pietro, on the other hand, could be maddeningly manipulative, confusing, and pushy, but even once he knew what she was, she emanated no air of menace. And this Ellen Bird seemed refreshingly straightforward.

But evil was subtle.

“Father Kelly? We can’t stand here all day.”

No, they couldn’t. Livia Pietro, and the new poem, and Lorenzo’s fate, were waiting upstairs. Thomas squared his shoulders and, for the second time that day, entered a house whose inhabitants weren’t human.