Shadow's Bane

by Karen Chance

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not wearing anything underneath!”

  I was about to respond to that the way it deserved, when Burbles offered a compromise. “Okay,” I told him, and looked back at Grumpy. “How tall are you?”

  “Five eleven.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Fine. Five ten.”

  “Is pride worth tripping over your feet all night?”

  “All right! I’m five eight—and a half.”

  “He’s five eight,” I told Burbles.

  “And a half!”

  “You’re not fifteen going on sixteen. Halves don’t count.”

  “They’ll be too short!”

  “Then give me the damned size!”

  “Fine!”

  Marlowe stomped back to the bathroom, and I stood there in muddy sweats, getting cold from the air-conditioning. “Hang on,” I told Burbles, and put the phone down on his effusions of joy.

  Mircea’s wardrobe of the gods yielded a long dress shirt, which I thought might do. I stripped off the sweats and was looking around for something to wipe off with, because I’d somehow gotten mud down my back. But even I draw the line at using Armani for a towel.

  “Hey, Marlowe, can you throw me—”

  I stopped, because I’d just come back into the bedroom, and noticed that we had a visitor. Which would have been okay, because I was still in a bra and panties, and I wear less to the beach. And because most vamps don’t care about such things anyway.

  You notice I said “most.”

  “Throw you what?” Grumpy came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and his trousers in his hand. Which he didn’t toss to me because he was currently getting tossed himself, back through the bathroom door hard enough to crack tile.

  For some reason, I felt a stupid grin break out over my face.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” I said, a little bashfully.

  To no one, because the party had already moved to the next room.

  I walked over to the phone. “Just take your best guess,” I told Burbles, and hung up.

  I was still barefoot, and now there was shattered tile all over the rug, not to mention glass from a newly destroyed bathroom mirror. So I didn’t get too close. Just climbed onto the bed to peer through the doorway, at what was amounting to the butt kicking of the century.

  Marlowe was trying to talk his way out of it, I guess in preference to getting into a dustup with another senator, only that wasn’t working so well.

  And we kind of needed him alive for the war.

  So I threw the comforter over the shattered tile, jumped down, and grabbed Louis-Cesare the next time he had his back to the door.

  “Let me go!”

  “Are you going to kill Kit?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, see, that’s a problem.”

  “You crazy son of a bitch!” That was a bloody, naked Marlowe, who was currently sprawled in the tub, but still talking. Which was great and all, but holding an enraged Louis-Cesare was not easy. Any second now—

  Yep, that’s what I’d thought.

  He tore away from the door, with me jumping onto his back to preserve my feet, and proceeded to pummel Marlowe some more. Who got his feet up in time to send Louis-Cesare staggering back into the sink, which was less than fun for me since I hit the broken mirror. The remaining glass cascaded everywhere, along with several good-sized pieces that I normally would have used as knives against my opponent, except my opponent was my boyfriend—

  Ex-boyfriend.

  No matter how hot he looked while beating up Marlowe.

  Cut it out, I told myself, and find some way to stop this!

  But taking somebody down the nonlethal way wasn’t really my thing, and I guess it wasn’t Marlowe’s, either, who opted for the better part of valor. He snatched down the shower curtain and flung it over us, buying himself a second to tear out of the bathroom. He went for the window and he wasn’t slow, but Louis-Cesare caught him and threw him at the bedroom door. And then lunged after him and down a hall.

  Which is how we ended up crashing a very genteel party, filled with refined guests, trays of delicate hors d’oeuvres, discreet servants, and light musical accompaniment. And a bloody, naked master vampire, running for his life. And being chased by another, this one fully clothed, but being ridden by a bra-and-panties-wearing wild woman trying to slow him down.

  It wasn’t working.

  But Marlowe was fast, and didn’t seem to have any compunction about trampling his appalled-looking guests. So the pale half-moons ahead of us made it to the hall before we did, partly because a couple servants took one for the team and jumped Louis-Cesare. Who flung them off with a curse and dove after the boss.

  “Would you l-listen?” I yelled, as Marlowe, the idiot, took a right at the foyer, instead of heading for the front door and the parking lot. He might have outrun us in a car, with the emphasis on “might,” but there was no chance now. So it was up to me.

  “This isn’t w-what it l-looks like!” I yelled, as Louis-Cesare tore up a set of stairs I hadn’t noticed before, and burst through a door. “We were just t-trying to—”

  I cut off, in favor of holding on and not taking any wooden shrapnel to the eye as he plowed through several more doors without bothering to open them first.

  And then we were out, into something vaguely familiar—

  Oh, right.

  Elyas’ ballroom.

  The guy who owned the apartment above Mircea’s had been a senator, too, from the European court. I say “had” because he’d recently shuffled off this mortal coil in favor of—well, from what I’d heard of him, something considerably warmer. I didn’t know, since I’d never met the guy, the coil shuffling having happened before I arrived.

  And it looked like history was repeating itself, only not for Marlowe.

  Because my uncle Radu was seated on a chair, in the middle of the huge, now-mostly-empty ballroom, with a gun to his head and a stake at his heart.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Everything stopped, including Louis-Cesare. Who burst through the door and then just stood there, still as a statue, staring at the tableau. The only good thing was that it was Dumb and Dumber, aka Purple Hair and Blondie, who had apparently decided on another target but had been misinformed. Because Radu wasn’t on the Senate.

  He was, however, protected by a couple of people who were, one of whom had started to breathe heavily.

  “Oh, hello, Dory,” Radu said, because Radu is special.

  I climbed down and glanced at Louis-Cesare’s face. And started talking fast. “How about we take a moment?”

  “How about he dies?” Blondie said carelessly. Because he obviously had a death wish.

  He was also the only one with a lethal weapon. Purple Hair looked like a proper badass, in a shiny black jumpsuit straight out of the Catwoman catalogue, but she’d opted for a gun. While not ideal, it wouldn’t do lasting damage to a second-level master like Radu.

  Blondie, in khakis and a frat boy polo, hadn’t been so nice.

  It was about to get him killed.

  “I have a roomful of important guests downstairs,” Kit said quickly. “We need their cooperation for the war and this is not going to help!”

  Everyone ignored him.

  It’s kind of hard to look commanding while holding your junk.

  “Put the stake down, and move away,” I told Blondie. “That’s Mircea’s brother, Radu. He doesn’t have a seat on the Senate—”

  “I know that!” he sneered. “We’re here for you!”

  “You’ve tried that twice, and it hasn’t worked out so well,” I reminded him.

  “Twice?” Louis-Cesare hissed, and yeah. The gorgeous Frenchman wasn’t looking so refined rig
ht now. The blue eyes were tinged with silver, the color they turned whenever he pulled up power. And the fangs were out, a drop of his own blood glistening on that luscious lower lip. He looked . . . feral.

  “They’re just being stupid,” I told him, staring at the blood. And fighting a strange urge to lick it. “Making a try for my Senate seat—”

  “I’m on the Senate,” Louis-Cesare said, his eyes solid silver now. “Why don’t you try me?”

  And, okay, I might have been wrong about one of them. Because Purple Hair flipped the gun around, walked over, and handed it to me. “Let him go,” she told Dumber.

  Who lived up to his name. “What the hell? What is wrong with you?”

  “He’s going to kill you if you don’t,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “He can’t do that! I haven’t challenged him!”

  “But he can challenge you. Now step away!”

  But Blondie was either really stupid or really entitled or both. Because his chin got a stubborn tilt to it. “We have no quarrel with you,” he told Louis-Cesare. “We just want a fair fight with that bitch of a—”

  Annnnnd, that’s why you’re careful what you wish for, I thought, as Louis-Cesare disappeared. Not like he did with his master power, because he didn’t need the Veil with this joker, but moving so fast that it almost looked like it. The next time I blinked, he was by Blondie, who he grabbed and threw into Marlowe. Because I guess he wasn’t finished with him yet.

  And then a bunch of guys, Marlowe’s men at a guess, ran in and started chasing the fight around the ballroom. I considered interfering, but seriously, it was like twenty to one. I thought they could handle it.

  Probably.

  I bent to help Radu instead, but found that he’d already freed himself.

  “You were loose all the time?” Purple Hair asked.

  “Your friend isn’t very good at bondage,” Radu said, tossing the cuffs on the floor and a shining curtain of dark hair over his shoulder.

  Radu was Mircea’s younger brother, but only by a few years. Something that ceases to matter when you’re both on the wrong side of five hundred. But while Mircea looked thirty, maybe thirty-five on a bad day, Radu could have passed for a teenager—if an elegant one.

  And tonight was no exception. Louis-Cesare’s Sire was sporting a sapphire and gold patterned robe and some plain—if buttery satin can be called that—lounge pants. It was an attractive set, leaving a deep V at the neck that showed off naturally bronzed skin and brought out the startling turquoise of his eyes.

  “It . . . wasn’t bondage,” Purple Hair said slowly. “And why didn’t you do something?”

  “I didn’t want to make you feel bad.” Radu patted her gently on the arm. “You were trying so hard.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?” I asked her, as she stood there, blinking at Radu. Who tended to have that effect on people. For his part, he wasn’t trying to rescue his son, who clearly didn’t need it, but had instead started puttering around in some plastic storage containers stacked behind the chair.

  “Hello?” I tried again, snapping some fingers near her head. “Find me? How?”

  “Phone,” she said, still looking at Radu. Before shaking herself and refocusing on me. “We tapped your phone, and overheard you talking to Vincent—”

  “Vincent?”

  She looked pained. “The happy one.”

  Oh, Burbles.

  “So we knew you’d be here sometime tonight. We persuaded a few party guests to include us in their group and, well . . .” She shrugged.

  I frowned. With the mental gifts I’d seen her use, I could well believe that she could persuade some humans—even magical ones—that she was their best friend, at least long enough to get in the door. But there was something I didn’t get. “How did you bug my phone? You never had it.”

  “There are ways to do it remotely. It’s not my thing, but Trevor said—”

  “Trevor?” Despite everything, I felt myself start to grin.

  She bit her lip.

  “You’re partnered with a guy named—”

  “There aren’t a lot of people willing to take you on!”

  “For reasons,” Radu murmured, still puttering.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He beamed at her. “Such a pretty girl. You wouldn’t like being on the Senate, you know. So many boring meetings.”

  “It’s the pinnacle of our existence! It’s what we live for, fight for! The chance to lead—”

  “Yes, yes, that’s what they tell you,” he said, examining something he’d pulled from one of the cases. “Until you get on it. Then it’s all fiscal reports and bad coffee.”

  She blinked at him some more.

  “Hey!” I called to Louis-Cesare. “Don’t kill Trevor. I need him to fix my phone.”

  “Trevor?” He looked confused for a moment, and then down at his bloody lump of a club. He tossed it away, and it tried to crawl off, before being trampled by the cavalry chasing their boss.

  I turned back around, to see Purple Hair glowering at me.

  “Don’t blame me,” I told her. “How did you think coming to Mircea’s apartment was going to go?”

  “We didn’t have a choice!”

  “You couldn’t just catch me out somewhere?”

  “Like the theatre?” she asked sourly.

  I grinned. “Dry out yet?”

  She scowled. “Sure. This is all funny to you.”

  “It actually wasn’t that funny,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

  “Like running around in old sweats or—” She gestured at my sensible underwear. “Here the rest of us are, trying to be as intimidating as possible, and you go around like that. Like we’re all just ridiculous and you don’t have to care.”

  “I don’t actually dress with you in mind.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so infuriating. Everyone else is so concerned with their image, and you just . . .” Her lips tightened. “You walked out of that house the other day, no weapons, no makeup, barefoot. And I wondered why my skin suddenly tightened. I realized later: the most intimidating look is not to have one at all.”

  “And yet you came back.”

  “What else is there? You don’t know what it’s like, starting with nothing and clawing your way up, year after year, century after century. Until, finally, you get within sight of everything you ever wanted, only to have the rug ripped out from under you.”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “Bullshit! Daughter of a senator, dating another one, you’re practically royalty!”

  “And a dirty dhampir.”

  “Yeah, but even that. No one knows how to fight that. You’re something out of legend, while the rest of us—”

  She suddenly turned around and walked away.

  I turned back to see Radu looking at me disapprovingly.

  “What?”

  “You could have been nicer.”

  “Nicer? She’s been trying to kill me all week!”

  Radu tutted. “She isn’t powerful enough to kill you—”

  “She brought a friend!”

  Radu glanced at Trevor, and rolled his eyes. “She simply thinks she has to try, that’s all. They brainwash them into believing that there’s nothing else to do with eternity than rule over everybody else. Then they finally make it, and wonder why they hate it.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I won’t like being on the Senate?”

  “You’re already on it. How are you finding it?”

  “A pain in the ass.”

  “Ah. The usual, then.”

  “Is that how Geminus found it?”

  Most people would have asked why I wanted to know, but not Radu. “Geminus thought he was Caesar reborn, and we were merely his court.”

  “Well,
he was the oldest on the Senate, except for the consul.”

  “A two-thousand-year-old fool is still a fool.”

  “And his family?”

  “He trained them to believe that they were meant to rule over us lesser creatures. And yet, he never bothered with any sort of contingency plan for when he died. One had the impression that his plan was to live forever. When that failed”—he shrugged—“it left them scattered, leaderless, and at the mercy of us lesser creatures.”

  I remembered Ray saying that at the bottom, you allied with whoever would help you survive, no matter who it was. Who had they allied with? And where the hell did they fit in?

  Usually, I had to try to roust suspects out of the woodwork, but this puzzle was the opposite: too many pieces, and none of them seemed to connect. There were smugglers and slavers and smugglers who were also slavers. There were trolls battling the bad guys and trolls who might be the bad guys. There was a vargr who might or might not be a queen of the Light Fey, or possibly an operative sent by her husband to make it look like she was guilty. Or possibly someone else altogether, because who the hell knew?

  After four days, I didn’t know much more than I had when I started.

  I didn’t even know what the hell they were smuggling!

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Marlowe being thrown into the middle of a very nice baby grand.

  “Oh, really,” Radu said in annoyance. “I was going to keep that.”

  “Seriously, he didn’t do anything,” I called to Louis-Cesare, who was now pounding out a sonata courtesy of Marlowe’s head. “And we’re broken up anyway. This is childish.”

  Louis-Cesare belted Marlowe, and watched him go down. “This isn’t about us!”

  “Then what is it about?”

  Marlowe staggered back to his feet, and Louis-Cesare hit him again. “I don’t like his face.”

  “Oh, that’s mature.”

  Purple Hair wandered back over with a drink in her hand, while a dozen of Marlowe’s guys jumped Louis-Cesare, I guess to give the boss a moment. “You broke up?”

  “Yeah.”

  We watched Louis-Cesare throw off the guards, grab Marlowe, and launch him at a marble column hard enough to crack it. He’d lost his nice blue suit coat, and his shirt was torn, showing off the kind of physique a vampire doesn’t need, but which is still . . . decorative. And his auburn hair had escaped its usual clip, falling around those broad shoulders like he was about to pose for a romance novel cover.