by Karen Chance
“I’m risking a lot here,” I told them in what had to be the understatement of at least my last century. “I don’t think it’s asking too much to know why I can’t have decent backup.”
I never saw it coming. Despite the fact that I’ve survived longer than anyone would have bet by being unbelievably paranoid and very good at defense, I didn’t see a thing. I also didn’t hear, smell or otherwise have a clue what was happening. One second I was facing off with Mircea, and the next I was facedown on the ground, being pinned very effectively by the hard body pressing into mine.
My reaction was immediate and unthinking. When you’ve been in literally more fights than you can count, often against opponents much bigger than you who have no compunction at all about fighting dirty, you learn a few things. I used them all and then some, yet the face-to-the-carpet thing didn’t change. I was stunned almost into disbelief. This simply wasn’t happening. I would have believed that Mircea was helping out, except that he had moved off to lean against the bar. I could see the toes of his perfectly shined shoes and the knife-edge pleat of his trouser cuffs, meaning that I was, incredible as it seemed, being held by only one vamp.
Son of a bitch.
“We can continue this as long as necessary,” an infuriatingly calm voice said near my left ear, “but we are wasting time. Agree to my mastery and we can begin to plan how to overcome our prey.”
“Bullshit!” I tried unseating him again, but no luck. The asshole was strong, but no way would any single vamp have pinned me if I’d been expecting it. I tried to ignore the little voice reminding me that one of the first lessons I had ever learned was to always expect it.
“You cannot seriously believe you could lead a mission of this magnitude,” he continued. “You know your place, dhampir. Stay in it and you may be of some use to the family. Fail to do so and I will be pleased to remove this stain on my lord’s honor. Permanently.”
“You will do no such thing.” Mircea’s less-than-pleased voice startled both of us. “I want your word, Louis-Cesare, that you will neither harm nor allow harm to come to my daughter if you can prevent it.”
“My lord, you know what she is!” The voice above me sounded startled, as if he hadn’t thought twice about threatening Daddy’s little girl in his presence. Apparently, he didn’t understand Mircea’s family obsession. Which was odd, considering that, as Radu’s get, he was part of our dysfunctional clan.
“Your word.”
It sounded like Frenchie was choking, but he got it out. “You have it.”
I bit back a smile and took advantage of his distraction. I relaxed all my muscles as if I had fainted, which, considering that most of the air was being pushed out of my lungs, wasn’t far from the truth. The best I’d hoped for was that he would let up on the pressure enough for me to get a little room to maneuver, so it was a real shock when he suddenly pulled away altogether. “I do not question your judgment, my lord,” I heard from far above my head, telling me that the idiot had actually stood up, “but obviously this… woman… is not up to the task. May I suggest—”
I never found out what he had in mind, because I seized the opportunity he had so foolishly provided. Two seconds later, pretty boy was finding out what the rug smelled like as I ground his head into the pile. “I DO question your judgment,” I told Mircea, “at expecting me to work with anybody this stupid.” I paused to let Frenchie experience more of the pleasures of rug burn.
“I thought you two would get on,” Mircea murmured.
“Hey, still talking here. If you want me to do this, I do it my way. If you aren’t available ’cause your manicurist can’t switch appointments or whatever, fine. I’ll put a team together. I have a couple names in mind already—all you need to do is get them out of jail for me—and I’m sure Marlowe can come up with a few more. I heard there was some sort of dueling whiz over from Europe to help the Consul with a challenge. Someone like that might be able to keep Drac busy long enough for me to deal with him.”
“I quite agree,” Mircea said, pouring himself a drink.
“Then get busy and see about finding him,” I said testily. I wanted things arranged before I let the sneaky creature beneath me off the floor.
“I don’t need to find him,” I was told calmly. “I already know where he is.”
Good, at least one problem was out of the way. “Somewhere nearby, I hope.”
Mircea downed a generous measure of scotch in a single gulp. I grinned—most unmannerly. But the pleasure quickly faded at his next words. “Oh, yes. You’re sitting on him.”
Chapter Three
“Watch your step.” I pushed open the kitchen door and skirted around the hole in front of the threshold. A Loray demon’s head had leaked enough acid to eat through the worn wooden boards of the floor, leaving a burnt-edged gap that visitors had to hop over in order to enter. Claire had demanded to know why “that grisly thing” had been left there, and hadn’t seemed to understand my explanation about rare-poison extraction.
I made it as far as the fridge before a hand clamped over my mouth. I struggled, but the body behind me might as well have been carved from sun-warmed stone; I couldn’t budge him. Frenchie had his head tilted as if listening for something, but although I strained, the only threatening sound was the ancient fridge’s death rattle. As it had sounded like that since I moved in, I wasn’t too concerned. Louis-Cesare abruptly released me and drew his rapier. Before I could warn him about the house, he’d slipped through the door leading to the hall.
I stared after him for a few seconds, then mentally shrugged. I turned my attention to tossing out some perishables and pouring a week’s worth of cat chow into the two misshapen lumps in front of the fridge. Claire had suddenly announced some months back that she was going to be a potter. She’d bought a wheel and paints, and used the kiln at a craft store to fire them. The results were… unusual. But what they lacked in quality, she made up for in sheer quantity. We had the poor, deformed creations sitting around everywhere. The cats seemed to like them, though.
I hesitated, scowling at the last few days’ dishes in the sink, but in the end I went ahead and washed up. Housekeeping definitely wasn’t my thing, but Claire hated a mess. I’d probably done more cleaning since she disappeared than in the whole time we’d roomed together. For some reason, a dirty house made it seem that much more empty, as if I didn’t believe she’d be back to scold me about it.
I finished drying the last saucer and went in search of my unwanted partner. I found him safe and sound in the living room having a staring contest with Miss Priss. She was managing to look down her elegant feline nose at him despite being curled up on the couch. After a tense moment, she added to the insult by beginning to lick a dainty white paw as if bored. Jackanapes was less brave, the only indication of his presence being two narrowed green eyes that peered out from under the chintz curtains. He emerged when he saw me, but continued to stare suspiciously at the newcomer.
“They are yours?” Louis-Cesare asked after a pause. He seemed surprised that I’d do such a normal thing as keep a pet.
“No. Claire’s. She inherited this place from an eccentric uncle and didn’t think it fair to throw his pets out when they’d lived there longer than she had.” I took in his posture, which was still tense, almost battle ready. “Relax. The war isn’t going to follow us here. This place used to belong to a mage—it’s well protected.”
It was a serious understatement. Claire’s uncle Pip had warded the place like it was Fort Knox, despite the fact that most of his stuff wouldn’t have interested even a non-magical thief. He’d had the power to spare because the house had been built right on top of two ley lines, the vast rivers of power where worlds overlap. They crossed and pooled their energy right under the foundation, forming a deep well of power that Claire’s uncle had used for everything from providing the engine for his wards to fueling the portals he’d littered about the place. And because they had an alternative power source, his enchantments ha
dn’t decayed after he died, as most spells would have done. I resisted an impulse to invite the vamp to finish his solo tour.
“I’m going to go pack,” I told him. “You might want to wait here. The house doesn’t like strangers.”
“Very well. Be quick.” The vampire clipped every word, barely pushing out the correct amount of syllables as if it pained him to converse with me. It was something of a surprise—not that he’d feel the same instinctive animosity I seem to cause all vamps, but that he would show it. Most masters are excellent liars, right down to their facial expressions. Of course, maybe he didn’t think I was worth putting on a facade.
I blew him a kiss and sauntered upstairs at a deliberately slow pace. I found my backpack under the bed, with a few surprises still inside from my last expedition. I long ago decided that if the choice was either get in trouble for owning illegal weapons or die because I didn’t have one when needed, I’d gladly take the former. As a result, I never go on a serious hunt unaccompanied by my big khaki-colored knapsack. It looks like it’s been through a few wars, which it has, but it securely holds some stuff that isn’t exactly considered light magic. When people are trying to kill me, I don’t worry too much about what I throw at them.
I changed into a white T-shirt, a black leather jacket—since the demon goo had reduced my denim coat to so much lace—jeans and black boots. Then I packed a few essentials and emptied the contents of a hidden cupboard into the remaining space in the pack. If I was going after Drac, I was taking my whole damn arsenal with me.
I hefted a short sword, but regretfully decided I’d have to do without it. Nothing else was fitting in that pack. I propped the sword against the wall, where its surface reflected the vivid colors of the mural I’d recently completed. It had surprised the hell out of Claire, not so much for its postmodernist edge, but because the house had permitted it.
Claire was in a constant struggle for dominance with her legacy, which her uncle had given the personality of a crotchety old woman. Yellowing antimacassars remained on the furniture despite the fact that she hated them, because they reappeared whenever she moved them and shortly thereafter something of hers would go missing. Yet I’d slapped paint all over the place and suffered no ill effects. Maybe the house hadn’t liked the faded cabbage rose wallpaper, either.
I had just finished packing when I heard a yelp followed by a series of thumps. From the landing, I saw Miss Priss sitting in front of the cellar door, looking smug. I went to the kitchen and got the key and a lantern, since Claire’s uncle had never run electricity down there. Then I went to rescue the Senate’s great warrior.
He was at the bottom of the cellar steps, lying in a heap. The last person to piss off the house had been one of my clients, who had tried to go upstairs without an escort. He’d not only been transported to the basement but ended up stuffed into a small trunk in the corner. The trunk had since been moved—I was using it for a nightstand—so the vamp had fared better. The only obvious harm was to his hair, which had come loose from its clip and fallen all over his face.
“The house is a little… temperamental,” I explained as he got his long legs back under him.
“What is this place?” He looked around, eyes bright with interest.
I glanced at the dark cave, trying to see the attraction, but it looked as bad as always. The only saving grace was that the dim light hid the peeling, bilious green paint that had been applied around the time Eisenhower was president, and shadowed the rusting metal hulk in the corner. It didn’t help to conceal the heaps of crates, however, since they were scattered all over the place. Claire had been planning to clean them out, assuming that the house was amenable, for fear that they constituted a fire hazard. “The basement. The stairs automatically send trespassers here.”
“It is far more than that,” he said, picking his way through the crates to where an old set of shelves held bottles of various colors. Claire’s uncle had fancied himself an alchemist, but had never found the secret to turning lead into gold. Or much of anything else, according to her. “Your friend made this?” Louis-Cesare had picked up one of the delicate blue glass vials that had always reminded me of oversized perfume bottles.
“She’s a null. She can’t do magic.”
Louis-Cesare inhaled. “Magic was not required here. This is art.”
“I don’t know that I’d get too close to that, if I were you,” I advised. Moisture had beaded the outside of the glass, and his fingers left prints in the damp dust. I didn’t know what it was sweating, but it was better to be safe than in a hundred pieces. I’d probably have a hard time explaining to Mircea why his red-haired boy hadn’t even made it through the first day. “Pip’s experiments could be a little… volatile.” As demonstrated by the multicolored stains on the basement walls, courtesy of years of explosions.
“I sincerely hope so,” he said obscurely. To my consternation, he opened the vial and ran a fingertip over the wet end of the plug. Before I could stop him, he brought it to his lips.
“Pip was an alchemist,” I informed him, resisting the urge to step back. “Anything could be in there.”
He raised a dark brow. “Alchemist? Is that what they call them now? The last time I visited this country, there was a more colorful term in use. Moonshiner.” He went back to browsing the shelves, exactly like a connoisseur in a wine shop. I narrowed my eyes at the pile of metal in the corner—the still, I presumed—and suddenly a lot of things made sense.
“You’re telling me these crates contain booze?”
“Booze.” He rolled the word over his tongue as if he liked the sound. “Yes, I remember that one. And ‘giggle water,’ and ‘hair of the dog’ and, my personal favorite, ‘hooch.’ ” I stared, both at the oddity of hearing those words in his accent and for the realization that some of the slang wasn’t exactly current. I scowled. Thank you, Mircea. If Louis-Cesare’s knowledge of the rest of the country was as archaic, he was going to be just a huge help.
Before I could comment, there was an unearthly wail from upstairs. After a start, I identified it as both of Pip’s cats suddenly deciding to mew in unison. I told Louis-Cesare to help himself—Claire had crates of the stuff—and ran upstairs to find the two miscreants sitting in the bay window, screeching steadily.
“Cut it out!” They ignored me as usual. “No tuna for either of you for a week,” I warned. “You’ll eat dry food and like it.” The threat had no discernible effect, and I decided that a little rough love was in order.
I’d reached out to snatch Jackanapes by the scruff of the neck when a face suddenly appeared in the window. Ancient pewter eyes, clear and cold as spears of ice, met mine. I stared at the handsome face, but made no move to let my visitor in. Unlike the Dark, who tend to populate the same corners of the world where I frequently hang out, the Light Fey are rarely seen. And it usually isn’t a good thing when they do show up.
When another alabaster face joined the first, my unrest turned into something darker. I felt rather than heard Louis-Cesare come up behind me. “We have company,” I said unnecessarily.
A third Fey joined the others in my front yard. He caught the eye the way a newly drawn sword does—beautiful and deadly. His hair was the same cold, bright mantle as the others, and he was dressed similarly in nondescript gray. So how did I know he was the leader? It might have had something to do with the power that hit me, even through the wards, like a slap in the face.
“Send out the half-breed, vampire.” The leader’s voice was musical, with an odd lilting accent.
Louis-Cesare caught me by the wrist, keeping me from retrieving a little present for our guests from my pack. “What do you want with her?” he demanded. I struggled against his grip and found myself unable to break it. That was getting old, fast.
The Fey ignored the question. “We have no quarrel with you. Do not give us one. Send out the half-breed or we will come in and take her.”
“Let go of me,” I told Louis-Cesare quietly. I had no idea wh
y the Fey were so interested in me, but if they wanted a fight, I’d be more than happy to give them one.
Instead of answering, Louis-Cesare increased the pressure on my wrist until I dropped the weapon. He bent his head until his lips found my ear, and even then, his words were so soft that I felt more than heard them. “The Fey are neutral in the war. I believe Lord Mircea would prefer to keep them so.”
“That’s his problem,” I said in a normal voice. I didn’t give a damn if the Fey heard me or not. I smiled at the leader. “I’ve always wondered what color you bleed. What say we find out?”
I didn’t get a verbal answer, but the fist he raised to smash my window was clear enough. So was the response to the assault by the house, which didn’t like trespassers any more than I did. The offending Fey ended up in the branches of a mulberry bush, halfway across the yard, an expression of slight surprise on his face. His companions did nothing, but their very stillness seemed a threat, especially when their eyes swiveled in unison back to us, silent and unreadable. The cats screeched on.
Louis-Cesare abruptly turned and headed for the hall, dragging me with him. I didn’t resist because I thought he was about to help me teach the Fey a lesson about name-calling. He stopped just inside the kitchen, and we both stared at the pale face that had appeared in the glass pane of the back door. “Is there another way out?”
