Chapter Forty

A short time later, I was facing the door to a sleek Manhattan apartment, feeling more than a little out of place. I had no makeup, my coiffure was a style I like to call drove-with-the-top-down, and I still had on the rumpled old sweats. Now paired with muddy gardening sandals because I’d swapped with Claire so she wouldn’t slip on the rocks.

None of which should have mattered, since Horatiu is blind as a bat.

But it wasn’t Horatiu who answered the door.

And promptly slammed it in my face.

Or, to be more precise, tried to. But while Kit Marlowe is fast, so am I. And I got a muddy Croc in the door before he could shut it entirely.

Angry brown eyes glared at me through the minuscule opening. “Go. Away.”

“Fuck. You.” I gave a little push.

And was gratified to note that Marlowe had to exert effort to keep me out. I also noticed that he was in a tux, which was unusual because he had almost as much fashion sense as me. But somebody, probably his long-suffering family, had wrangled him into a sleek black number anyway, trimmed the Elizabethan-era goatee he’d had since it was originally fashionable, and tried to do something with the dark brown ratty-looking curls.

The latter had been slicked down with some sort of pomade, but they didn’t behave any better than their master, and had sprung back up again. The result was wet ratty-looking curls, which wasn’t an improvement, but I couldn’t talk at the moment. Or do much of anything else, because he was really determined that I not get through that door.

Which was ridiculous, since I had more reason to be here than he did!

“This is my father’s apartment,” I reminded him. It was Mircea’s condo in the city, originally purchased, I suspected, for times when he couldn’t deal with the consul anymore. Being a diplomat includes knowing when to get away so you don’t strangle somebody to death, like Marlowe looked like he wanted to do to me.

“He isn’t here!”

“I’m not looking for him. I’m looking for Louis-Cesare—”

“He isn’t here, either.”

“You haven’t heard from him?”

I didn’t get an answer that time, probably because Marlowe was busy.

“Stop slamming the damned door on my damned foot!”

“Then leave.” He glared at me furiously. “We’re having a soiree, and you aren’t attending like that!”

“A soiree?”

“A gathering! A party! A do!”

“I know what the word means! And I’m not attending. I just need—”

Marlowe kicked my Croc like it was a football and he was trying for a field goal from the fifty-yard line. It sent my leg shooting out backward, and would have resulted in me face-planting painfully if I hadn’t twisted at the last second. I landed on my shoulder instead, and it wasn’t happy about it.

Son of a bitch!

I got up and glared at the now-closed door. I could have kicked it down, but my toe hurt. So I jabbed the bell a few more times, and then leaned on it when the door stayed stubbornly shut.

Until it was flung open in my face. “Damn it, go away!”

“Damn it, answer the question!”

I guess Marlowe decided it was the quickest way to get rid of me, because for once, he actually did. “Louis-Cesare isn’t here, I haven’t heard from him and I’m not going to! He’s in a meeting—”

“What?” That stopped me. “What kind of meeting?”

“A Senate meeting. What else?” The eyes now looked impatient as well as angry. “An emergency one was called for tonight. Now will you—”

“Why wasn’t I informed? I’m on the Senate.”

As usual, that reminder had Marlowe looking apoplectic.

“But not that committee! The whole Senate doesn’t meet for every issue, or we’d never do anything else. But that’s where he is, so go plague the consul and leave me alone!”

The door slammed again, probably because I wasn’t opposing it anymore.

I was just standing there in my smelly sweats, wondering why I’d just driven over here like a bat out of hell. Had I really thought Louis-Cesare was going to beat up another senator over me? Risk his new position by taking on the consul’s favorite shortly after being appointed? Throw away an opportunity that most would kill for, and over what? A damned dhampir?

Yeah.

Judging by the pang in my gut, I guess I had.

And that was stupid. We were broken up, and Claire was right. He hadn’t even bothered to argue about it, had he? Just turned around and walked away. He hadn’t made any declarations while on the phone with her, either. He just told her to mind her own business and essentially hung up.

And he’d never even called me back.

I rang the doorbell again.

But not because of Louis-Cesare. I needed to get my head back on straight, and that meant some kind of communication with my other half. And that meant talking to Horatiu. With Big Blue to find, God knew when I’d get another chance.

And fuck Marlowe if he didn’t like it!

And I guess he didn’t. Because he didn’t answer. And the doorknob shocked the shit out of me when I dared to grab it.

I jerked my hand back, and looked at the faint red mark the newly engaged ward had left.

Okay, now I was pissed.

Fortunately, Mircea’s condo isn’t in a sleek new building with slick glass fronts, but in a turn-of-the-century limestone beauty that he owns half of. A half filled with windows. Windows with curly-haired assholes in them.

“What the hell are you doing?” Marlowe demanded, sticking his neck out, as I edged along an ornate ledge.

I punched him in his stupid face. “What does it look like?”

“Get out!”

I let him eat fist again, and he turned the ward on over the window, which blew me off the side of the building and into some bushes. It also blew my Croc onto a nearby BMW, which was apparently a touchy little bitch. Because the car alarm started screaming its head off.

I looked at it for a moment, while I got my breath back. Mircea hadn’t skimped on the wards. Even on the lowest setting, they packed a wallop.

And then I gazed up at Marlowe, who was still glaring down at me from the window, and I slowly took off my other shoe.

“Don’t you dare!”

I skipped the Croc down the row of cars, like a stone on a pond, setting off multiple alarms and disturbing the genteel neighbors. Until I was snatched off the BMW and smacked against the side of the building, still grinning. I’d badly needed to let off some steam, and that had been fun.

Not as much as making Marlowe eat concrete, though.

I twisted in his grip, danced away, spun, and belted him. I put everything I had into it, all the pent-up emotion of a very bad day, and was gratified to see him actually go down. And then spring back up, almost before he hit the sidewalk, because the guy was flexible. As he proved when dodging half a dozen more blows in quick succession, before grabbing my fist.

It was the same maneuver Dorina had used on the fey, and it hurt like a bitch. Until I used my other hand for a gut shot that had him letting go with an annoyed “tchaa!” And then I ended up slammed against the building again.

Face-first, this time.

I turned to the side to get my lips free. “I can do this all night.”

“Or you could just leave!”

“Or you could just let me in.”

“I’m not letting you in!”

“Then we have a problem,” I said, broke his hold, spun around, and kneed him in the groin.

I took off again, hoping the happy, burbling vamp from the phone would answer the door, but I got stopped with a flying tackle. Which was less of a problem for me than for Marlowe, because I was in ancient sweats. Ancient, muddy sweats, because it had been raining at some point earlier in the day, and the section of tastefully planted greenery I ploughed up was basically a mud pit.

“You’re gonna ruin that nice suit,” I said, through a dirt facial.

And, for some reason, that did what nothing else had, and stopped him. I flipped over to see Marlowe suddenly back on his feet, looking with concern at the patches of mud adhering to his formerly sleek, James Bond getup. Which was followed by him whipping out a pocket square and worriedly daubing at the mess.

“Will water take it out, do you think?” he asked me, bizarrely.

I slowly got back up, but he just kept trying to wipe himself clean. It wasn’t working; if anything, it was just smearing the mess around. Something that seemed to be causing him real distress, which made him rub it harder, which only made a bad matter worse.

“Give me that,” I finally said, and he actually did, passing over the by-now-sadly-soiled pocket square, and looking . . . weird. Marlowe basically had two emotions where I was concerned: pissed off and seriously pissed off. Which was why it was so strange to see him standing there in his muddy tux, biting his lip, and staring at me hopefully.

Because I was a woman, and we magically made these kind of things okay, right?

I sighed.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“You’re not getting that out. But Mircea has plenty more suits in his bedroom. One will probably fit you.”

“There’s a party in the main room! An important one! I can’t just—”

I sighed again, impatiently this time. “You can climb, right?”

We climbed.

Thankfully, he hadn’t bothered to ward every window in the place, and one of the ones in Mircea’s bedroom slid open easily. I ducked inside, Marlowe on my heels, and padded barefoot over to the big wardrobe I’d been told to stay out of. I decided that, since I wasn’t here for me, it didn’t count, and threw open the double doors.

“Oh,” Marlowe said, ’cause I guess he’d never gotten the tour.

I’d been known to borrow Mircea’s shirts as emergency dresses on occasion, so I knew what was in there. Basically, the pick of the great fashion houses of Europe, with a choice few American designers thrown in for good measure. And enough of it to stock a small men’s store.

Self-denial has never really been Daddy’s thing.

“Okay, strip,” I told Marlowe, flicking through the couture. “And tell me what your problem is.”

“You!”

I glanced over my shoulder, to see him looking around, as if wondering where to put his muddy coat. “Just leave it in the bathroom.” I nodded at the adjoining room. “And that’s not an answer.”

Marlowe went grumbling off, and I went back to trying to decide what might work as a substitute. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. Because, sure, there was plenty to draw from, but Marlowe had the same issue I did, only not to the same degree. I could wear Mircea’s shirts as dresses because he was six feet tall in his socks.

Marlowe wasn’t.

“How bad are your trousers?” I asked, as Marlowe came out of the bathroom wearing nothing else. Because I guess his shirt had gotten muddy, too. I sized him up.

The coats and shirts would probably fit okay—he was built well enough under the scowl—but the pants weren’t just gonna draw up on their own. He was definitely too short. “You’re too short,” I told him, while he continued trying to clean them, this time with a washcloth.

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do about that?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not gonna work.” It really wasn’t. The mud had splattered everywhere when we hit down, and some of the flakes had already dried into little cement nodules. A good dry cleaner might be able to salvage the outfit, but not in time for Marlowe to return to his guests.

I went to the phone.

Burbles picked up, and he was happy to help. No, he was thrilled. He’d never had a request in his entire, long life that pleased him so much, oh my God.

“Great.” I put a hand over the phone, and looked at Marlowe. “What size are you?”

“What?”

“Stop trying to clean those things. They aren’t cleanable. Just tell me your size.”

“I don’t know my size.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know your size? You don’t buy pants?”

“Of course not. I have staff for that.”

“You have staff for buying pants?”

“Trousers.” He looked pained. “Pants are underwear.”

“Thought that was knickers.”

“Those are for women! And yes, my staff buys my clothes!”

I sighed again. I do that a lot around Marlowe. “Then take the damn pants—okay, trousers—off and tell me the size.”

“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.