by Karen Chance
But at least they muffled my steps, not that I was worrying about it by the time I got halfway across the room. Because along with fine leather and old books and the faint smokiness of the candle was an even fainter scent. Dark and musky and piney and—
“Mircea.”
He was lying on his side, pale and cold and white, and for a second, my heart stopped. Until I told myself not to be stupid. He was a vampire. And when they rest, they don’t always bother to keep up appearances. Especially if they need their strength for other things.
But I didn’t breathe again until I bent over him, and brushed fine strands of loose, dark hair off his face. And saw beautiful pale features, which unlike mine had been cleaned up. And vampires don’t waste time on corpses that aren’t going to rise again. So if he was here—
I felt something in my own chest unclench.
I should have known. Mircea was a master mentalist. He could repair anything to do with the mind.
Couldn’t he?
I glanced around. It would help if he had eaten, but if so, dinner had already departed. I frowned at that. What if he woke up hungry? What if his mental abilities were impaired after everything that had happened? Why the hell was nobody here? The guy was a goddamned senator. Didn’t he rate a nurse?
I glanced at the door, and thought about raising some hell, even if it got me kicked back to my room. Or into a cell, more likely, because no way was Marlowe just letting me walk out of here. The number of guards had said that much.
But, of course, Mircea did rate a nurse, he rated a whole roomful of them. So if he was alone, it was by choice. But I still didn’t like it. What if that thing was still around here somewhere? What if it attacked him again?
Only it wouldn’t, would it? If Radu was right and it hadn’t been Dorina, then it was almost certainly someone with a vested interest in my not recalling what happened on that pier. And that meant if it came back for anyone, it would be me.
I felt my lips draw back from my teeth slightly. Good. It would save me the trouble of having to track it the hell down.
Because I would.
The son of a bitch had hurt Mircea.
And nobody got to do that but me.
I stared at him a moment longer, but he wasn’t looking real conversational. I shoved my hand through my hair, then cupped it on the back of my neck. The muscles were so tense there, it felt like I could flick a thumb against my nape and hear it twang. Like I hadn’t been able to relax, even in sleep.
What a shock.
But it was calm here, peaceful. Maybe that was why I didn’t feel like leaving, even though there was no reason to stay. Mircea was already in a healing trance, judging by the fact that he hadn’t woken up as soon as I came in the room. He didn’t need medical help, beyond what he could give himself, and as for mental…
Well, whatever abilities I had were locked up with my other half, and she wasn’t talking.
But I still didn’t feel like going anywhere.
Mircea’s hand slipped off the sheet, to the mattress at his side. I started to pick it up, to put it back in place. And then I stopped, my fingers hovering a few inches above his.
Even in a healing trance, something like a touch might wake a master. In fact, on some level, he was probably already awake, at least enough to have identified me as not posing a threat. But a touch might set off alarms, might make him wonder if he’d identified correctly.
And I didn’t want that. Mircea often managed to run circles around me in conversation even when I wasn’t about to fall over. We needed to talk, about a lot of things, about a lifetime of things. But this wasn’t the time.
And then there was the fact that this was…nice. Odd, because I could never remember being with him without having my hackles up, without being tense and guarded and watchful. I had, of course; that scene in Venice proved that. But it had seemed almost…surreal. That girl with her bare toes and her candy-thieving ways and her obvious adoration of her equally adoring father…it just…I couldn’t…
I pulled my hand back.
I didn’t want to disturb him when he looked relaxed. It wasn’t an expression I’d seen very often. Or ever, actually.
But then, maybe he’d never had much to be relaxed about.
I wondered what it had been like for him, in those early years. For someone trained his whole life to be the leader, the provider, the protector, to suddenly be unable to do any of those things. To be a prince without a country, or a treasury, or an army—or even a body he could understand. Because his exile had come at the same time that he’d been dealing with this whole new existence that had been foisted onto him.
He’d gone from having everything to having nothing, almost overnight. And yet, somehow he’d managed. And in Venice, of all places, which had been a snake pit of vampire intrigue, back in the day. And not only managed, but taken care of others at the same time.
I won’t always be weak.…
And he never had been. He never—
I swallowed and blinked back tears. God, I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me. That attack must have messed me up more than I’d thought. Then I decided to hell with it and leaned over, placing a soft kiss on his forehead.
And heard a softer sound behind me.
I turned abruptly, because I hadn’t heard the door open. But it must have, because dinner was waiting on the threshold. Tonight’s tasty morsel was young and pale, with messy blond curls and unsettling bright blue eyes. They looked a little unfocused, like she was looking both through me and at me at the same time. She was a little creepy.
She was also useless right now.
“He doesn’t need you,” I told her, clutching at my sheet, which was slipping.
“W-what?” For some reason, she looked fairly gobsmacked.
“He’s sleeping,” I repeated patiently. “And I can give him what he needs.”
She just stood there, her mouth hanging open. I thought there was a chance that she might be a little slow. “You can go,” I repeated. “Vamoose, amscray, make like a tree. Do you get it?”
“Yeah.” The voice had gone flat, cold. “I get it.”
And then the next thing I knew, I was sitting all alone in the middle of a field filled with mud and some very startled cows. Who weren’t half as startled as I was. I got up, slid on a cow pie and went back down, landing in a puddle and splattering mud everywhere.
And somewhere far off, like an echo of an echo, I could swear I heard someone laughing.
The fuck?
Chapter Forty
A couple hours later, I was driving a stolen SUV past the parking lot of Singh’s gutted grocery. I still smelled like cow, due to schlepping across a field full of them courtesy of some witch with a sense of humor. Or maybe I was just crazy; at this point, I wasn’t ready to rule anything out.
But I thought I’d stolen an SUV and I thought I was driving it past Singh’s, so I was gonna go with that for now. I also thought that a light rain was falling, sending the crime scene tape flapping against the front door and staining the soot-streaked walls a darker hue. But not so much that I couldn’t see the two shadows lurking near a Dumpster.
I kept right on driving, only sliding to a stop at a red light down the street.
Two vamps, even two of Marlowe’s, would normally have been no problem. Hell, two vamps would normally have been an insult. But tonight…tonight, I thought they might be overkill.
Not that killing me was Marlowe’s plan—probably. But that wasn’t much comfort considering what he likely did have in store. I had the key to this mess locked up in my head and he knew it. And the assault on Mircea had given him all the excuse he needed to hold me until…
What? He brought out the thumbscrews and rack, or whatever the Senate was using these days? Or until some other mentalist was brought in to poke around inside my head?
And yeah. Didn’t that just sound like fun?
So I needed to hole up until Mircea woke up. And there was only one p
lace I knew of to do that where Marlowe couldn’t get at me. Unfortunately, he knew it, too, and he had no intention of letting me back in.
I let my fingers drum on the steering wheel.
Two vamps were bad, but there were almost certainly even more around the house. Making Olga’s portal my best bet, assuming it was still there. But just because there were guards on the place didn’t mean that Marlowe hadn’t shut it down. Or that the fire hadn’t destroyed it. Or that the shield we’d just installed at the house wasn’t up on the other side, leaving me a very flat dhampir if I—
Damn.
The light had turned green and I hadn’t noticed. And now one of the shadows had peeled away from the building and was coming this way, resolving into a dark-suited guy with slicked-back blond hair. He wasn’t running—not yet—but he would be in a minute as soon as he ID’d fugitive number one. And with vampire sight, that would only take—
Until about right now.
He turned into a blur, with his buddy right behind him, and I threw the car into reverse, burning rubber flying backward and forcing them to scatter. I’d have liked to turn around, but there wasn’t time since I’d only hit one and that had been a glancing blow that had merely provided incentive. I also couldn’t take time to get out of the car and make for the door, because if they caught me in my current shape, that would be it.
So I just floored it and kept on going—right into Singh’s grocery. And luckily, the fire Scarface and the boys had set had been a good one. The wall disintegrated into a fall of dirty glass and scarred bricks, and a bunch of half-burnt beams fell out of the ceiling, sending a black cloud into the air and obscuring what little view there had been.
I had to aim for the right spot by memory, with zero seconds to get it wrong and—damn. I’d forgotten about the hall. Which was in no better shape than the front of the store, and wasn’t quite wide enough for the SUV. Resulting in my plowing through the walls on both sides like a speedboat on the high seas, sending a wave of fake wood paneling bursting against the back windshield and slowing me down.
But not as much as the hand I couldn’t see that had just grabbed the front bumper.
Suddenly, everything stopped.
Until I threw the SUV into four-wheel drive and skidded back hard enough to wrench off the bumper, to burst into the salon still wearing the remains of the wall, and to sling around and hit my head on the door as I slammed on the brakes, planning to head straight for—
Nothing. Because the hand that had been on the bumper was now on my shoulder. And it wasn’t kidding around.
But neither was I, so I floored it again. And that, plus a vicious elbow to the head of the vamp hanging out the driver’s-side window, broke his hold long enough for the SUV to dive through the portal. And out the other side. And I was moving before it stopped, jumping out the door, lurching for the wall and slamming my hand down on—
Ha, ha—yes! The shield slammed shut, slicing through the SUV like a knife through butter. Its crumpled back end remained in the ruined grocery-slash-beauty-shop, while the rest—
Well, damn, I thought, my euphoria fading as the bisected front section peeled away from the wall and crashed to the floor.
The sound was deafening—metal scraping, glass shattering and the radio still blaring Rammstein’s greatest hits. For a moment, until the engine gave one last gasp and died from the lack of a fuel tank that was now several blocks away. The headlights winked out a second later, plunging the basement into darkness. And the music faded off with one last, strangled cry.
And, finally, all was quiet.
But not for long, I thought grimly.
It was after eleven, which meant I’d been away more than twenty-four hours without a phone call. I’d expected to catch it from Claire tomorrow, but at least by then I would have been clean, dressed and somewhat prepared. Instead of covered in grass and sweat and reeking of cow shit, in a sheet, and without a clue.
I sighed.
And had it echoed by a small, higher note from somewhere nearby.
My heart leapt to my throat, since it had been pretty close anyway, until I identified the sound: one of Stinky’s strange trills. I sighed again, this time in relief, and sagged back against the railing. But only for a second. Claire was probably belting her robe on right now, and while I couldn’t save myself, I could rescue a certain midnight miscreant.
I started up the stairs.
Duergars were mostly nocturnal, although that wasn’t why Stinky was often found prowling around the house in the middle of the night. That had more to do with his conviction that pretty much everything belonged in his fuzzy little belly, including my beer. Which was less of a concern than some of the potions I kept around that he could easily mistake for a new type of beverage. His Duergar blood made him resistant to poisons, but resistant didn’t mean immune, and he was going to learn to stay in bed, damn it.
One of these years.
“Give it up, boyo,” I told him, throwing open the door. “You know what Claire will say if—”
I froze, my hand still on the knob.
“I do not think your friend will say anything,” a polite voice commented.
It was familiar, although I hardly needed it. The light wasn’t on in the living room, but starlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, casting an ironic halo around a certain silver-blond head. Narrowed gray eyes met mine, hard as steel, and a faint smile turned up a corner of a sculpted mouth.
Æsubrand.
The stairway was open behind me, since I hadn’t even reached the top step. I could slam the door closed, leap down the stairs, hit the shield and dive through the portal. And even in my condition, there was a decent chance I might make it.
I didn’t move.
And he’d known I wouldn’t, because he hadn’t moved, either. Except to tighten one strong hand a little more around his captive’s diapered bottom. Aiden, fast asleep and slack-limbed, the silky blond hair tousled and hanging in his face.
And Stinky wasn’t far off. He was kicking fretfully in the arms of a woman across the room, but not making any headway. He looked vague, the big eyes half-lidded, one blue sock clinging precariously to a few stick-like toes. Unlike the woman, whose star-like gaze was sharp as a knife.
She was tall, more so even than Claire, with a wave of golden hair that cascaded down her dark blue gown, almost reaching her embroidered satin shoes. She was fresh-faced, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed and stunning. She looked about sixteen.
She wasn’t.
Unless I was way, way luckier than normal, I thought I knew why mama hadn’t been covering for Æsubrand.
Because she’d been with him.
“We have been expecting you,” Æsubrand told me, his mouth quirking as I just continued to stand there.
“This is the creature you told me about?” his mother asked, looking me over. She didn’t appear impressed. I wished I could say the same.
“She can be surprising,” he murmured, his hand running over the soft baby hair of his hostage.
“How did you get in here?” I rasped, stalling for time. Where the hell were the twins? Or the garden full of dreadful warriors we were supposed to have? Or Claire.
I felt my stomach go into free fall.
Where was Claire?
“C’est pas difficile,” a familiar voice said, causing me to jump. But we hadn’t had a new arrival. A glance across the room showed Stinky being held in the same spot, in the same position. But now he was cradled in the arms of an overweight Frenchman in chef’s whites.
“My mother is skilled in glamourie,” Æsubrand said casually. “And in far-seeing. She has been watching the house through the eyes of one of her bird-creatures, and saw the vampire’s servants arrive yesterday. It was simple enough to mimic one of them, and persuade the half-breed to let her in through the wards.”
“A weary mother will rarely turn down an offer of help,” the woman’s voice said, sounding strange coming from the man’s throat.
“So you helped her…how?” I asked, afraid I already knew. I didn’t think Efridís had chosen to impersonate the chef by accident.
“I offered to cook le diner,” she said, the clear young voice turning amused.
My blood ran cold.
“But this one, he is part Duergar,” she continued, glancing at the sleepy Stinky. “Their kind are resistant to drugs.”
“Drugs?” I said sharply, not allowing myself to hope. There were plenty of lethal drugs, after all.…
“They live,” Efridís said shortly, melting back into herself. “My son believes we need your assistance.”
“My…” I looked back at Æsubrand, who had settled himself comfortably in the big red wingback chair. Like he was here for a friendly chat.
Yeah. That was likely.
But Stinky was still alive, and Aiden. And Claire—
“I want to see Claire,” I told him.
He frowned. “We do not have much time. I expected you to return hours ago. There is—”
“I want to see her!” I repeated. And even to me, my voice sounded a little…high.
Screw it. It had been a long day.
The two fey exchanged glances, then Efridís nodded. “Come.”
I followed her into the hall, and then through an utterly silent house. The place was usually a subtle symphony: light fey laughter from the backyard, the clang of pots and pans from the kitchen, SpongeBob shrieking from the living room, bits of conversation from everywhere, and the country music one of the twins inexplicably liked drifting up from the basement. Tonight, all I heard was the tinkle of a wind chime getting tossed around by a faint breeze as Efridís pushed open the back door.
Outside was more of the same—the porch dark and empty, the garden still except for a fire guttering in the fey camp. There were a few people around it, getting splashed by the low red light, but no one was talking. Or moving.
One of the guards had a stick in his hand, like he’d been using it to poke at the embers. His eyes were open, with reflected flames dancing in the irises. More flames were slowly eating up the stick, the bottom half of which was already black. The next second, it collapsed into nothingness, sifting away on the wind. He didn’t flinch.