by Karen Chance
“Who is it?”
The fey shrugged. “Says he’s your son.”
I raised an eyebrow. Then I walked over and raised the door latch and stuck my head out. And found a lump on the steps.
It was an odd-looking thing, wrapped in enough layers to leave it a generic mountain of clothes. In addition to what had to be six or more coats, there were scarves, a hat, dark glasses, what looked like several pairs of gloves, and an umbrella. All this despite the fact that it had to be in the mid-eighties and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I leaned against the doorframe. “My darling boy.”
“Shut up and let me in.”
Apparently, it was an angry lump. “You know, I don’t recall having a son.”
“I didn’t say ‘son’; I said ‘child’—”
“Which I also don’t have, unless you count Stinky.”
“—I can’t help it if those weirdos you live with don’t lis—what? The fuck you don’t!”
I clicked my tongue. “Now I know I didn’t raise you. Such a potty mouth.”
“Yeah. ’Cause if I’d been brought up in your crazy-ass family, I’d be so refined. Now let me in!”
“And them?”
I nodded behind him, to where a crew of assorted additional lumps were huddled together under some umbrellas, similarly attired.
And looking miserable, what I could see of them.
“I hadda bring ’em. It’s a long story, and thanks to the damned sun, I can’t even think straight. Now get out of the way!”
I considered it. He was talking through a scarf, which muffled his voice enough that I’d have had no idea who was speaking if the fey hadn’t said something. And even still, I wasn’t taking chances.
“Ahhh! The fuck?” the lump screamed, when I tried to pull down the scarves to take a look. Gloved hands batted at me, and angry eyes glared, barely visible behind black shades. “Are you crazy?”
“I need to verify. So you’re going to have to come up with something—”
A string of profanity, impressive in its scope and extent, greeted that comment. “How you expect me to verify when I’m on fire?”
“I don’t see any smoke.”
“Well, you’re gonna in half a minute, so I hope you got more of that salve. You can rub it on my whole body this time, ’stead of just my ass—”
I sighed and swung open the door. “Come in, Ray.”
Ray came in.
And was followed by a stampede of lumps—and their umbrellas—following him to the dining room and all but knocking me down. I was starting to get déjà vu. They slammed the door in my face, and then screamed at me when I opened it to slip inside.
“All right, anybody on fire?” Ray’s voice rose above the din, while I fumbled around for the light switch. Because the dining room had been built before people worried about things like natural light.
The overhead fixture flickered on to show me a bunch of guys huddled in a corner, one sprawled under the table, sobbing pitifully, and a couple more on their knees, trying to stuff some sweaters under the door. I guess to cut off the weak haze of light filtering through the cracks. And then collapsing back a second later, panting for breath they didn’t need, while Ray divested himself of several tons of outerwear.
“How’s the neighborhood?” a pissy voice demanded, from inside the cloth mountain. “I got a bunch of stuff in the car—”
“Ray—”
“—I think I locked it, but I was in a hurry, and you know this city; can’t trust nobody no more—”
“Ray!”
“—and if somebody rips me off, I swear to God—”
“Ray!”
He peered at me out of the neckhole of a sweater. “What?”
“What are you doing here?”
Pale blue eyes narrowed. “Well, you’d know if you kept your damned phone on. I only left, like, a hundred messages. I been trying to reach you all day! But you never take a call, and Claire’s weird about me, you know?”
“She’s weird about all vamps.”
“Don’t lie. It’s the head, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the head.”
“Don’t give me that. She keeps doing that thing—”
“What thing?”
“That tilt-to-the-side thing, like she’s trying to see where they sewed it back on.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Check it out sometime. I ain’t imagining shit. She’s giving me cancer.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Just that you oughta keep your phone turned on, ’cause trying to get any info out of your roommate is a pain in my ass. And could be one in yours if you miss out on a great deal ’cause I can’t find you.”
I felt my eyes narrow. Raymond’s idea of a great deal and mine differed slightly. “What kind of deal?”
“The best kind. The we’re-rolling-in-dough kind.”
“Uh-huh. Which would be why you’re here with a carful of your stuff, along with . . . your family?” That last was a guess, but the lumps were vamps under the camouflage, and pretty low-level, or they wouldn’t be snoring. Most of them were already out like a light.
And smoking slightly despite the cover-up.
“Shit,” Ray said, also smelling barbecue. “Help me out. Gotta figure out which one’s burning before he sets the whole group on fire.”
I sighed but went to help sort through the pile of what, yes, turned out to be Ray’s family. Like their master, they were not particularly prepossessing. Also like their master, they were wearing a lot of clothes, even things like eight or nine pairs of underwear and triple pairs of socks, although that wouldn’t help much with the sun.
“The damned hotel,” Ray said, when I commented. “They see you take out your luggage, and they wanna get paid—”
“So why didn’t you just pay them?”
“Why didn’t I just pay them?” It was a falsetto, which would normally have been annoying, but he looked seriously pissed. The small ferret face was pinched and scowling. And the shock of dark hair was quivering with indignation. “Same reason we were living in a damned fleabag. Cheung, that son of a bitch!”
“Cheung?”
“Senator Cheung? My old master Cheung? Bastard ex-pirate who’s still a goddamned pirate Cheung?”
“Okay.”
“He wiped me out!”
“And by ‘wiped out,’ you mean . . .”
“Every damned cent! Every bank account I had was also in his name, so he could check up on me, you know?”
I nodded. Until recently, Ray had been a seedy nightclub owner under Cheung’s manicured thumb. But a series of unfortunate events had resulted in Ray losing first his head and then his master, when Cheung gifted him to me as a bad joke. Because Ray was obviously about to die and, as a dhampir, I couldn’t have vampire children anyway.
But Ray had the survival skills of a cockroach in nuclear winter, having had plenty of practice. The bastard son of a Dutch sailor from the bad old days when raping the locals was considered a friendly greeting, and an Indonesian woman who died young, Ray had considered it a good day if he managed to find something to eat—and he often didn’t. And then he became a vampire and stayed short and scrawny forever.
But also plucky, scrappy, and luckier than he thought he was, which was how he’d ended up in possession of Aiden’s magic rune for a short time. It had given him some protection; plus, while beheading is no joke even for a vamp, it isn’t usually enough to seal the deal. So, long story short, Ray got his noggin sewn back on, Aiden got his rune, and I ended up with a “child” I didn’t want and had no way of holding on to without a blood bond I couldn’t do.
Not that holding on to him was really the problem. Getting rid of him was more like it, because Ray didn’t seem to want to go. An
d now he was moving in?
“You’re not moving in,” I told him, while he slapped at one of his children’s smoking backsides.
The door opened and Olga looked in.
Ray gave a little shriek, but her bulk blocked out most of the light. And, anyway, he was a master, if a very weak one. He could handle a small exposure to daylight, especially indoors.
Unlike his boys.
“You okay?” she asked, as I threw a coat over a guy’s badly blistered thigh.
“Yeah. Could you bring the little pot of green salve from the kitchen?” I asked. “It’s in Claire’s medicine cabinet.”
Olga nodded, and started to leave. “And the vodka,” Ray called after her.
She stopped and looked at me.
“No vodka.”
“I need a drink! You don’t know what kind of day—”
“We don’t have vodka.”
“Whiskey?”
Olga inclined her head graciously and left. Damned troll hospitality. “You’re not drinking all the whiskey, and you’re not moving in,” I told him, grabbing another limp body.
“Why you gotta be like that?” Ray said. “I never even asked.”
“You just showed up with all your stuff!”
“Maybe I’m visiting.”
I sent him a look. “For how long?”
“You know. A couple weeks—”
“Ray!”
“Like I got a choice? You think I’d be moving in with Ms. Vamps-Are-Icky if I had a choice?”
“You’re not moving in.”
“Then where am I supposed to go? My club burnt down, and we were living on the top floor—”
“So tell Cheung to give you your money back. He can’t just take it for no reason—”
“Like hell he can’t. He says it was my fault anyways, ’cause the club wasn’t insured—”
“It wasn’t insured?”
“It was sorta insured—”
“Ray!”
“And now he wants my head and I can’t afford to lose it again! And you can’t navigate being a newly appointed senator without someone to show you the ropes.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What?” he demanded.
“You’re as much a train wreck as I am. And as soon as the war’s over, somebody else will have my seat anyway. You think they’re going to keep a dhampir on the Senate one second longer than they have to?”
“Well, not with that attitude.”
Olga knocked, then came back in with the salve. There were three in the in-need pile so far, and she and Ray started on them, while I determinedly stripped the rest. By the time we were done gooping up the sickly, wrapping them in blankets, and piling them along the walls, I needed a drink.
Thankfully, Olga had brought three glasses. Hospitality says you don’t let your guests drink alone. It also says you get water glasses full of booze, because troll ideas of a shot are a little different.
I eyed Ray. I supposed I should be worried that he’d belted his back in one go. And then slammed the glass down, wiped his lips, and looked at me. “Okay, about that deal.”
* * *
—
A couple hours later, Olga and I rolled to a stop by a sidewalk, where a seriously impressed-looking valet ran over to take our ride. He didn’t so much as glance at me, despite the nifty silver jumpsuit I was wearing, a recent gift from my fashion-conscious uncle Radu. It was one shouldered and figure hugging, with the material stretchy enough not to be binding. It also had a faint snakeskin pattern in the weave that I secretly thought was badass. And slightly flared trouser legs, although not enough to hide my usual butt-kicking boots, so I’d opted for silver sandals instead.
He also wasn’t looking at Olga, who was a vision in gold lamé, along with some troll bling in the form of a necklace that looked like it might leap off her neck and go for your jugular at any second. But it didn’t rate so much as a glance. The guy only had eyes for the car.
I couldn’t blame him. The sun was setting as we pulled up, and the shiny black surface reflected the colors in bright streamers. I was still gonna have to see my buddies—Claire wanted something less likely to get hijacked—but for the moment, Olga and I were stylin’.
Well, if you didn’t count what was following us.
We got out, I handed over the keys, and Claire’s new ride purred off around the corner. And was immediately replaced by an ominous rattle, a screech of brakes, and the scent of burning oil. And more acrid black smoke than an old-fashioned steam train.
The battered contraption that rattled to a stop by the curb was part yellow school bus, part ancient semi, and part Mad Max movie prop. And all hard-core. Like its occupants, who required a rugged ride, but had been damned cagey about what had happened to the last one.
I watched Olga’s posse pile out and frowned. Misplacing Stan’s property was no joke. He was connected, specifically to a fat-ass were named Roberto who owned half of Brooklyn and had zero chill. I mentally upped finding Stan’s truck a few notches on the priority list, and turned my attention to tonight’s errand.
The theatre we’d parked in front of had seen better days. A third of the lights were out on the old-fashioned marquee, there was peeling paint everywhere that wasn’t dirty brick, and the COMING ATTRACTIONS posters were so faded behind their yellowed plastic covers that they could have been anything. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d expect to have valet parking.
Yet, while I stood there, a Mercedes, a BMW, and a Jaguar hummed up to the curb behind Frankentruck, disgorging a stream of beautiful people headed for the theatre’s front doors. Where two neon mermaids were flicking their tails above the name Delmare. I’d never heard of the place, but apparently it was owned by an old acquaintance of Ray’s from his smuggling days.
Ray’s guy had flourished under Geminus, who’d liked the rare and exotic slaves he specialized in. Geminus had had his pick of them for the illegal arena games he was running, and in return, he’d provided the kind of ironclad protection that allowed the smuggler to stay ahead of the law. But Geminus’ death had left the guy up a creek, and he was currently looking for a new paddle.
Me.
He’d lost one senatorial protector, and now he wanted another, and Ray had been shopping me around like a side of beef.
I’d have had something to say about that, but Olga’s ears had perked up at the first mention of smugglers, and she’d started looking the place up on her phone. I hadn’t gotten interested until she pulled up a photo of the flirty twosome up there, in all their neon glory. Who, to a dazed, frightened, and confused little kid, might have looked like a couple of—
“Fish,” Olga said, staring at them.
“Yeah.”
At least, that was her theory. One she’d acquired after spending all day on the phone with everyone on her late husband’s contact list, in the not-entirely-legal underworld where he’d once worked, and coming up with zilch. Nobody knew what “fish, tracks, door” meant, and nobody cared.
Except for Olga, who’d decided that, on what he believed to be his deathbed, the troll kid had wanted to tell someone what he’d seen. Like maybe where he’d been brought in from Faerie? Or where his fellow slaves were being bought and sold?
Of course, he could have just been raving, and we were wasting our time. But waiting for him to wake up and confirm the theory was not going to work for Olga. I’d come out of my room after changing clothes to see her through the open door to the boys’ room, staring down at the little troll, flanked by the fey Caedmon had left there to guard him.
She hadn’t said anything, but she hadn’t had to. Her lips had been tight, and her eyes wet. She was wondering if her nephew had ended up the same way.
And one way or another, she was determined to find out.
So here we were. Being given a wide berth by t
he beautiful people, I noticed. Which was strange because Olga and the boys were under glamouries.
Sort of.
I turned to see a knot of tough-looking dudes standing on the sidewalk, wearing white shirts, dark trousers, and bandoliers of Bibles, because they were having a hard time figuring out how to conceal all the extra weapons.
It looked like the boys had learned a thing or two from last time, and stocked up. I eyed a straining backpack with grenade-shaped bulges, a couple guitars—one with a scope on it—and a bike that one of the guys had tucked under his arm and which could be anything, anything at all. Except a bicycle, presumably.
“Okay. We’re absolutely, positively clear on the no-snacking-on-the-witnesses thing, right?” I said.
Olga looked offended.
“Okay. No snacking until after I’ve questioned them.”
She nodded. Apparently, this was an acceptable compromise. I waited while she explained things to the posse so they’d actually listen. As a member of the Senate’s task force on smuggling, I was technically in charge of this little squad, but I was pretty sure I was the only one who thought so.
Except for the second valet, who was standing off to the side, and did not appear enraptured with our remaining ride.
“You, uh, you’re gonna have to move that,” he told me, staring at the deep ridges in the road that had been left by the truck, part of which appeared to have been dragging the ground. Probably the part that was now on fire. Or maybe that was just the oil leaking out of the smoking engine and filling the ridges.
“Seriously,” he said, getting in front of the group as they started to move away from the curb. “I’m gonna need you to—”
He cut off when a dozen “Bibles” were suddenly thrust in his face.
He blinked. “What are you guys? Gideons?”
And then a third valet came running over, dressed like the other two except for a maroon sports coat that he was stuffing full of crisp new hundred-dollar bills. “Get in the truck,” he told the other guy.
“That truck?” Valet Number Two looked at him like he might be crazy. “Are you high?”
“No, but you’re going to be off the schedule for a week if you don’t get your ass in gear.”