Goro’s eyes opened, the lid of his sarcophagus pushed aside with a single heave. The air that rushed in reeked of dragon, but it also hung heavy with the stench of dead vampure. He expected to find Dominus Titus had opened the lid, here to grovel and ask forgiveness over his recent transformation to Gamma, but it was his whore who stood over the Lord of Blood.

She was a disheveled mess, no longer proud.

“What do you want?” Goro demanded of the woman, closing his eyes and waiting for her to explain the urgency of awakening her god.

“Argant was here, my lord.”

Goro’s eyes snapped open angrily. His adversary had been so close, so near, yet no one had awakened him sooner to finish what they had begun so man eons before.

“What did my cousin say?” he asked calmly. “I’m assuming he left a message, or he would not have left you alive.”

“He said to tell you that the war is resumed, and that he will find you.”

Goro sat upright in the hollowed out space beneath the altar, looking at the carnage all around. The only death he didn’t find was of dragonkind. “And yet,” he said with a hint of humor clinging to his voice, “he was twenty feet away and could not find me.”

He stuck out his arm, not because he needed her help to rise, but to force more subservience from this Roman. He hated Romans even more than he hated the Hellenes and, before both of them, the Babylonians. Every great empire viewed itself better than all other societies put together.

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“Where is Titus?” he demanded.

“Over here, my lord.” Diana led him to the body, filled full of sanguis but the wrong kind.

Goro laughed at the cause by which he died. “Argant is tricky, I’ll grant him that.

Leaning over the body the Lord of Blood fanned his massive wings, pushing Diana aside as he did. Wrapping them around him and Titus for privacy, he used a sharp fingernail to slice a line in his own wrist. He dripped several drops of his sanguis into Titus’ open mouth, then healed the cut with a wave of his hand.

“Open your eyes, foolish one!” he commanded the Roman.

Two eyes blinked and then settled on their lord. “I’m sorry, my lord, I…”

“Save it,” the master snapped. “Tell me where to find him. Has he returned to Mount Sapientia?”

“No, my lord. He now walks the earth as a human. He traded places with his vinculum, and his dragon form is a revenant.”

Goro clicked his tongue, considering. “You’ve lost your legion, Titus. Take your whore and go ahead of me to Pannonia. Wait for me there.”

The wretched lackey nodded vigorously, then scrambled to his feet and took his lover’s hand. Together they fled the opposite way the dragon had gone.

Cowards, the Lord of Blood thought with disdain.

Thankfully, he had hundreds more servants like Titus, thousands even, with whom he had entrusted his legions. Whenever one failed a dozen more would step up. He sniffed the air deeply, taking in the odor of his nemesis and archrival. He could never forget that scent.

“I accept the terms of our new war,” he told the lingering smell of Argant, “and will beat you by your own rules!”

But first he had to find him.