Billy the Kid & the Vampyres of Vegas (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5.5) by Michael Scott Page B

sweeping, Scathach stepped into the tiny office at the back of the dojo. Like the rest of the space, it was plain to the point of austerity: it contained only a simple wooden desk with a battered kitchen chair behind it facing the door. There were no martial arts certificates on the walls—no one ever questioned her skills—but one wall was adorned with antique weapons from around the world: swords and scythes, axes, spears, nunchaku and sai, khanda and claymores. All of them were nicked and battered from centuries of use in countless fights across a hundred Shadowrealms.
    The cordless telephone and answering machine on the corner of the desk were the only modern devices in the room. The answering machine was blinking, a red 2 flashing on and off.
    A flicker of surprise shifted across Scathach’s normally expressionless face. She rarely received any calls on this phone. The number was not only private, even the telephone company didn’t have it in their records. Any calls were routed through a dozen switching points and bounced across two continents and one satellite, making the number untraceable. Scathach could count on the fingers on one hand the people who knew how to reach her here. It had been a year—no, fourteen months—since the last call, and that had been someone selling life insurance.
    Scathach shook her head slightly. This could only be trouble. And trouble meant she would have to move. She sighed. She really loved San Francisco; she’d hoped she’d be able to stay here for another decade at least before her unchanging appearance would force her to relocate to avoid suspicion. She could return in a century or so when everyone who had known her would be dead—but she didn’t want to leave quite yet.
    She pressed Play. “You have two new messages.”
    “I understand you have been seeking a certain pithos.” The voice was an arrogant rasp, speaking in a language that had not been used on the American continent in millennia. “I am in a position to give it to you.”
    “Of course you are,” Scathach whispered with a smile. Quetzalcoatl had phoned her deliberately, allowing her to see that he knew where she lived. She had recently discovered—quite by accident—that the snake-tailed Elder had the artifact in his collection of antiquities. During the past few weeks, she had visited a dozen of his agents and let them know she wanted it. She knew the message would get to Quetzalcoatl sooner rather than later, and knew that he would contact her. The Elder known as the Feathered Serpent would gladly give up the pithos to keep her from rampaging through his Shadowrealm in search of it. Scathach was likely to leave his world a smoking ruin.
    “Although the pithos is of great personal value to me, I would like to present it to you as a token of my goodwill.”
    Goodwill! Scathach was surprised Quetzalcoatl even knew how to pronounce the word. Her lips curled in a cruel smile. He was giving her the jar because he was afraid of her.
    The answering machine tape hissed for a minute and then there was a coughing sound and Scathach realized that Quetzalcoatl was attempting a laugh. “I have no wish to make an enemy of you. I was a good friend to your parents. Indeed, I believe we may even be related by blood on your mother’s side. We are not that different, you and I.”
    “You have no idea just how different we are,” Scathach murmured into the pause that followed.
    “My representative will call upon you later today. He is an immortal humani and knows of your nature. He can be a little arrogant, but I would be grateful if you did not kill him. He is useful to me.”
    There was a click and then the message stopped.
    “Well, that was easy.” Scathach grinned. She’d been quite prepared to invade the Elder’s Shadowrealm in search of the famous pithos. She pressed the Play button again to listen to the second call.
    “A long time ago, you told me that if I was ever in any trouble I could call upon