mailbox, just as casual as you please, and placed the box inside their mailbox. He seemed to know the camera was there and was careful to keep his face tilted away.
“Do you see that?” I asked, tilting my head as the man pulled his hand away from the box. “Can you pause it, Nik?”
“Of course.” He poked a finger at the screen.
I squinted at the screen. “What is that?”
“It’s just a regular phone, Ty,” Nik said. “It’s not like the video enhancement software they use on TV shows.”
“No, but I have werewolf vision,” I noted. “Also, you’re a damn vampire. So, your vision is probably better than mine.”
“Good point,” Nik noted, pausing the video on the wrist that was reaching toward the mailbox. A dark symbol seemed branded on his skin.
“It’s a tattoo,” I said, squinting at the screen. “And not your typical misspelled Asian typography you see on today’s youths. It looks…what’s a fancy word for ‘old and scary?’”
“It seems familiar,” Nik mused.
Just then, Cal burst into the shop, followed by Iris and then Alex. Iris sniffled, throwing her arms around Gigi. Cal wrapped them both in his arms, creating a sort of triple hug.
“Told you,” Gigi mouthed at me, just before Alex pulled me close.
“I am not and was not in any danger,” I promised him. “But the hug is nice.”
“Cal called me on his way over. I was sure you’d be here,” he said. “I just needed to see you.”
“Jane. I am displeased,” Iris said, her voice deadly calm as she pulled away from her sister. “Please, tell me there is a plan.”
“We will do everything we can to address the situation,” Jane promised. “Nik managed to get the guy on video, but not his face. But it’s more than we had before.”
Nik handed Cal his phone. Cal replayed the video several times, his frown deepening with every repetition. Alex watched, too, over his shoulder. Again, I was struck by how comfortable the three men seemed together. They seemed to communicate without words, just gestures and facial expressions.
“I recognize this mark,” Cal said. “It’s a brand. It marks a man as the descendent of a noble house of Rome. The idea was that if he fell in battle, even his enemies were supposed to know who he was and send his bones home to his family.”
Nik’s jaw dropped. “The little Roman twerp?”
Alex nodded as if to confirm it. “The little Roman twerp.”
“His name is Augustus. No one knows the last name. That’s how old he is,” Cal said. “We met him in Paris, around the same time we befriended Alex. We could see how unbalanced he was, even then, and tried to stay away from him. He didn’t appreciate the rejection.”
Jane gasped. “Oh, even I’ve heard of him. I wasn’t sure if Ophelia was trying to scare me or make my job easier, but she gave me a list of some of the most destructive psychotic vampires in history. Augustus No-Last-Name was two or three on the list. She said he was a butcher, the illegitimate spawn of some creepy Roman emperor. He mowed through entire towns to slake his thirst. The Council was formed in its infancy to deal with vampires like him.”
Gigi leaned toward me, whispered. “Ophelia was the head of the vampire Council around here before Dick and Jane. She was turned when she was about fourteen, so picture an adorable teenage sociopath with fangs.”
“Sociopath?”
“Oh, yeah, in an indirect yet-entirely-still-her-fault-way, I was turned because she thought I was getting too close to her boyfriend,” Gigi said, pursing her lips. “She’s the literal worst.”
“Augustus was a prick,” Nik added. When Alex showed him a startled look, he said, “You can say it. If you don’t, one of the ladies here will. On the night we met him, we had to stop him from going into an orphanage for a ‘quick snack.’”
“Well, if the Council was founded to take care of vampires like him, why didn’t they?” I asked.
Alex shrugged. “We thought they did. After the orphanage stunt, the three of us worked with what was eventually became the Council to help them track him down. It was how our friendship was formed, mutual disgust with Augustus.”
Jane nudged Dick’s ribs with her elbow. “Some meaningful friendships have been founded on far less.”
“I saved you from a parking lot ass-kicking,” Dick reminded her.
“And you were amazing at it,” she assured him.
“The Council set fire to a tavern where he’d spent weeks holed up, drinking from the kitchen