Chapter Thirty-nine

Half an hour later, I was pouring a two-liter of water over Claire’s green-to-the-elbow arms, and Big Blue had a bunch of concrete in his chest. At least, that’s what it looked like. I assumed it was something more medicinal, since Claire had troweled it straight into the big wounds, where it finally stopped the seepage.

It had also left Blue looking like an about-to-be-vacated apartment, with spackle everywhere, but apparently it would be absorbed by the body as it healed and wouldn’t do any harm. And it didn’t look like it had hurt him, since he’d snored through most of it. In other news, my car was back without noticeable damage, and so was a truck, which Fin had had a couple of his boys bring over, since he hadn’t been able to find anyone to install a hitch in the middle of the night.

They were big, strapping guys that he used for security and other things, like loading up a bunch of selkies.

They’d also brought Fin a charm, which had transformed him into a short guy with a wild shock of brown hair and a big nose. It was weird; he still looked identifiably himself, with small eyes and roughly the same shaped face, just humanized. At least enough that we weren’t likely to scare anybody else.

So things were looking up.

“Things are looking up,” I told Claire.

She bit her lip.

“Aren’t they?”

She tilted the bottle’s mouth to stop the flow, and lathered up with some soap she’d brought with her. She made her own, when she had time, and this one smelled of lavender. It was nice.

Her expression wasn’t.

“I did something,” she told me abruptly. “I was waiting up to tell you about it, because I couldn’t get you on the phone, but then—” She glanced around at a burly guy walking past with a human-sized seal over his shoulder, and sighed.

“Then things got crazy.” I grinned at her.

She didn’t grin back.

“You’re going to be angry,” she told me.

“I doubt that.” Claire and I had our differences, from time to time, but we rarely fought.

“I don’t.”

She was rinsing off, and I could almost see her steeling herself. She finished, and the thin shoulders went back, the curler-bound head came up, and the green eyes met mine head-on. Because, whatever else Claire may be, she isn’t a coward.

“I called Louis-Cesare.”

For a moment, I just blinked at her. It was the last thing I’d expected—they didn’t even talk in person if they could avoid it, much less over the phone. I hadn’t even known she had his number.

“I didn’t even know you had his number,” I said, and it was her turn to blink.

“It . . . was in the house phone. He called once when you had your cell off.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

She blinked some more. “Aren’t you angry?”

I handed her some napkins to dry off with, because we didn’t have a towel. “Should I be? What did you talk about?”

She just looked at me some more. This was getting odd. “I told him I liked his suit.”

“It was a nice suit.”

“Dory!” Claire’s eyes were getting brighter, rivaling the gas station lights behind her. She tried drying off using the napkins, but they shredded and stuck to her skin. “Damn it!” She shoved the wet wad in a pocket. “This is when you yell at me for sticking my nose in your business! This is when you tell me I went too far, as usual, and trampled all over your boundaries while trying to help. This is when you tell me I’m a crap friend for hating your boyfriend like a bigoted know-it-all, because sure, I know vampires better than you, when you’ve lived with them for centuries!”

There was a pause. She seemed to be waiting for something. Which I guess she didn’t get, because the thin eyebrows drew together.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to say it?”

“Why? You already did.”

And, okay, in retrospect, that probably wasn’t the right response, because she burst into tears. I awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders, because that seemed to help last time. And had it angrily shrugged off.

“Don’t be kind!” she told me. “I’m a shit friend; I know it! I’ve been telling myself that for the last two hours—”

“I didn’t say you were a shit friend.”

“Well, I did! And I am!”

She angrily wiped off napkin residue like she was shedding a second skin.

“You never yell at me, even when you should. And I know why,” she said, when I started to open my mouth. “You never had a roommate before. You don’t have anyone to compare me to, but trust me, I’m shit.”

“Claire, you’re not shit—”

“Yes, I am!” She looked up, eyes blazing. And then suddenly slumped against the car, the fire gone as fast as it had come. “See? I can’t even let you yell at me properly; I have to boss how you do it. I’m overbearing and interfering and everything always has to be my way. I try not to be—I do—but then something comes along and it—it just isn’t right. And I have to fix it—I have to try, even if I end up screwing everything up and making it worse than before. Because I’m shit.”

She slid down beside a tire and hugged her knees.

I’d been in that position earlier, and it sucked. Nothing ever went well in that position. That was the world’s-out-to-get-me-and-probably-will position, and it made me sad to see Claire in it.

I went over and sat beside her.

“You’re not shit,” I told her.

She looked at me, her eyes filled with tears. “You haven’t heard what I told him yet.”

---

A couple minutes later, I was on the road to Horatiu’s, with the pedal pressed all the way down. Not to see him this time, but to prevent a possible murder. Because when Claire fucked up, she did it right.

Not that she’d meant to. She’d hoped to get Louis-Cesare and me back together by spilling the beans. Namely, that I loved him and was just doing this to protect him, and how he should have been able to see that when it was clear as day to everyone else, and that he should have stayed and fought for me. But instead he’d just turned and walked away—I guess she’d talked to Soini—and if he was that much of an idiot, he didn’t deserve me.

When she finally let him get a word in, he’d reminded her that she didn’t know anything about our relationship, and that it was her father-in-law trying to steal me away in the first place. And apparently succeeding, because I clearly preferred him! And that this was none of her business, so perhaps she should—and he meant this in the most respectful and courteous way possible—die in a fire.

Then, of course, Claire got pissed—because let’s face it, it never takes much to set her off—and said that she must have misjudged him, that he really was a giant idiot and that I’d probably be better off with someone else, anyway.

Like that Marlowe fellow.

I didn’t know why the hell she’d picked him. Kit Marlowe was the consul’s pit bull and chief of security. He was also a giant dick. He and I cordially loathed each other, and while we had developed a somewhat decent working relationship recently out of necessity, our lips still had a tendency to curl when the other walked into a room. He hated—and I mean hated—the idea that a dhampir was on his beloved Senate, polluting it with my very presence. And I . . .

Well, I just hated him.

He made it really easy.

So, no, Marlowe was not an issue.

But, apparently, Louis-Cesare now thought he was, because Claire’s mouth and brain don’t talk to each other when she gets upset, and Marlowe was one of the only nonfamily vamps she knew. And she’d somehow managed to convey the idea that he’d been nosing around, and was now ready to pounce since his competition had just fled the scene.

Like the cowardly bastard that he was.

She’d fit that phrase in a few more times before she realized that my ex was no longer on the phone. But not like he’d hung up. More like he’d simply dropped it while doing something else, something that I really hoped wasn’t driving hell-bent for leather toward a certain annoying bastard of a Senate member.

Who was, uh, probably about to have a bad night.

To give her credit, Claire had tried calling Louis-Cesare back when she calmed down, but his phone was busy. It was for me, too, which was a problem. But not as much as hearing one of his masters, who had answered the landline at his place, inform me that he’d left rather abruptly earlier this evening, and could he take a message?

No, but he could convey one. Only, apparently, he hadn’t, because I hadn’t gotten a call. That was a problem since, according to the Senate’s New York HQ, Marlowe was currently at Mircea’s Central Park apartment for some reason. And Mircea’s place was roughly three hours from Louis-Cesare’s. Which would be great if Claire’s little creative foray hadn’t taken place over two hours ago, and if I wasn’t in Brooklyn.

I tried mushing the pedal through the floor, but it would only go so far.

So I gave up and called Marlowe, or rather Mircea’s place, because I didn’t know his personal number.

Burbles of House Happiness answered, and was overjoyed to talk to me.

“Lady Dorina! How wonderful!”

“Dory. Is Louis-Cesare there?”

“No. I haven’t seen his lordship for, why, it must be almost a week now. Is he supposed to be here?”

“No. No, he is not. Is Marlowe?”

“Oh, yes. Lord Marlowe is entertaining tonight. Shall I tell him you’ll be joining us?”

I didn’t know why Marlowe was entertaining at Mircea’s apartment, or why he was entertaining at all. He was a spy, not a diplomat, and an abrupt bastard at the best of times. But I didn’t ask because I didn’t care.

“Can I talk to him?”

“Of a certainty. Give me a moment.”

He wandered off, and I got another call.

I answered it before looking at the screen, and damn it, I knew better. “Louis-Cesare?”

“James.”

Shit.

Guess he’d had time to clean up the mess.

“Uh, look, James, I can’t really talk right—”

“The hell you can’t. You destroy my crime scene and then you have the gall—”

“I didn’t destroy anything. Your own guys did that.”

“That’s not what they say—”

“Well, of course it’s not what they say. I bet they didn’t mention trying to beat me up as soon as the lights went out, either.”

“Their report says the opposite. That you almost killed them trying to get out the door!”

“I couldn’t even find the door, and you were there!”

“And didn’t see shit thanks to a couple thousand spells going off in my face!”

My phone beeped again.

“Hang on,” I told him.

“Hang on? Hang on? Don’t you dare—”

“Yes?” I asked the second line.

“Dory?”

Shit.

Stan.

“Oh, hey, look, man, I’m kind of busy right now—”

I hit the dashboard.

“What was that?”

“Just, uh, just putting away some bad guys. You know how it is.”

I hit it a few more times, which sounded like . . . I was hitting the dashboard. Stan seemed to think so, too. “So hit ’em in this direction and bring back my truck. You know it’s three days overdue, right?”

“Sure. Absolutely. Was just going to do that. Uh, look, is there some kind of weekly special?”

“Yeah. Bring my truck back before the week’s out and Roberto’s boys don’t break your legs.”

Pissant little son of a—

“You know I’m a senator!” I said, to no one, because he’d already hung up.

I switched back to James.

Or so I thought.

“You are not invited!”

“Marlowe?”

“Do you understand me?” The voice was livid.

What else was new?

“Invited to what?”

“None of your business! Go away!”

“Listen—”

“No, you listen. This is an important night for me—for all of us. I am not going to have you ruin it!”

“I’m not trying to—”

“You never try, but it always happens! You went to the theatre and now there’s no theatre!”

I started to say that wasn’t my fault, but . . . it was a little my fault. “I’m not trying to crash your damned party! I just need to tell you—”

“If I see one glimpse or get so much as a single whiff—”

“Like you know what I smell like!” I was trying to keep my temper—I really was—but Marlowe was like nails on a chalkboard. “And it’s Mircea’s apartment. I’ll come any time I damned well—”

“You’ll be escorted off the property! In pieces!”

I actually laughed at that one. “By you and whose army?”

“I don’t need an army.” He somehow managed to hiss it, despite it not having any s’s. “I’m warning you—stay away!”

He hung up.

Goddamn it.

I started to call him back, but then realized I already had a call waiting.

“Hello?”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me again!”

I sighed.

James.

“I didn’t hang up before; I had another call. And why are we talking about this? I have immunity, and that aside, you were almost finished—”

“You don’t get to decide when we’re finished with a crime scene! You don’t get to decide anything! Particularly when you use your shiny new immunity to aid and abet the escape of a dozen felons!”

“A dozen?” I frowned. “Ten of them were slaves. They didn’t do any—”

“They hid the troll who caused all this! They deliberately used their bodies to hide his signal and that of the woman he’s working with—”

“They didn’t hide anything. Sitting on a floor is hardly—”

“—and as a result, I have a warrant in my hand for their arrest—”

“Don’t be a dick, James! This is on me. They had nothing to do with it!”

“—and another for your friend Fin, who does not, in fact, have immunity.”

“James—”

“I’m not bluffing, Dory. I want the big guy. Now.”

“I don’t have him!”

“Don’t lie. You do it badly.”

“I do it perfectly, but I’m not doing it now.” It was the truth. The freaked-out trucker had returned with a skeptical-looking cop just as I was leaving, and I’d nervously looked back at the waterline—to see exactly nothing.

Big as he was, Blue moved like smoke.

“If you think that’s going to work,” James said ominously.

“I don’t have him!”

“Then your friend is going to enjoy our hospitality until you do.”

“James!”

“I want the selkies, too,” he went on ruthlessly. “No one even had a chance to question them. You bring me the dozen you cost me, and your friend goes free. Otherwise, I’m sure there’s plenty of—”

“You’re not going to lock him up!”

“—counts I can dig up on one of the biggest bookies in this city. He could go away for years. Or even be deported, if we rack up enough charges.”

I didn’t answer that time.

I just sat there for a moment, holding my phone.

Every war mage I knew was a giant asshole. Every single one, except for James. The last time I’d seen him, other than tonight, had been a month or so ago, on one of his days off. He’d been painting his dad’s shop, while his wife cooked burgers in the small courtyard out back, and his youngest daughter wove a wreath out of centaury and feverfew, which he proudly wore while we ate.

I’d dropped in to pick up an order, and they’d invited me to share their meal because that’s the kind of people they were: James; his wife, Jean; and their two little girls, Janis—because James loved classic rock, and had wanted to keep the J thing going—and Lakshmi, because that had been the name of their grandmother, and some things are more important than alliteration.

Rufus’ wife had been gone six years now, and I strongly suspected that was why James and family visited so often. It was less about chores that needed doing and more about giving the old man voices around the place other than his own. And because that’s who James was, at least on his days off.

He couldn’t be that different at work.

So he was bluffing.

I knew he was.

But Fin . . . I didn’t think James understood about Fin. The forest trolls didn’t have a forest anymore. It had been burned out from under them, and the land used for new farms by the goddamned Svarestri, who didn’t have enough evil points racked up yet, so they’d had to steal the little guys’ home, too. And then kill anybody who didn’t get the hint.

Fin didn’t have anywhere to go back to.

But the law didn’t care about that, like it didn’t care about him.

But I did, and I couldn’t risk it.

Goddamn it.

“I don’t have him, but I’ll get him,” I told James roughly. “If I have Fin out to help me.”

“Dory—”

“He has more contacts in that world than I’ll ever have. He’s how I found him this time, remember? And he won’t help you, no matter what you threaten him with. He won’t rat out a fellow troll.”

James was silent for a long moment. “Forty-eight hours. Then I’m bringing him in. And I’m not bluffing.”

Fuck.