Death's Mistress (3 page)

“I walk.”

He frowned. “I am serious. I would like to know.”

“I’m sure you would,” I said sarcastically, as Mircea tore off the check. Marlowe ran the Senate’s intelligence organization, and he’d probably vastly prefer to keep matters like Vleck in the hands of his own deadly little hit squad. But he couldn’t afford to risk them in wartime on nonessential missions.

The conflict between the Silver Circle of light mages and their dark counterpart had been going on for a while now, and just to confuse the hell out of everyone, the vamps had decided to ally with the light. But it stretched their manpower, and they seemed to have more trouble taking care of the Vlecks of this world than I did.

I intended to keep it that way. This was the best money I’d made in years.

“Every vampire in that nightclub knew the moment their master died, yet you simply walked out,” he said resentfully, refusing to let it go.

I put on my innocent face, which seems to annoy him about as much as those damn smiles do me. “Yeah. I guess I got lucky.”

“You do it every time!”

“Really lucky,” I amended, trying to take the check.

But Mircea held on to the other end.

“Have you by any chance seen Louis-Cesare recently?”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Why can you never answer a simple question?”

“Maybe because you never ask any. And what would the darling of the European Senate want with me?”

Louis-Cesare and I had met only recently, despite being members of the same dysfunctional clan. It wasn’t too surprising since we came from opposite ends of the vampire world. I was the dhampir daughter of the family patriarch, the little-known stain on an otherwise immaculate record. Dhampirs are feared and loathed by vampires for obvious reasons, and most families who accidentally end up with one quickly bury the error. Why Mircea hadn’t done so was still something of a mystery. Maybe because I occasionally proved useful.

Louis-Cesare, on the other hand, was vamp royalty. The only made Child of Mircea’s younger and far stranger brother, Radu, he had been breaking records almost since birth. He’d become a master, a rank many vamps never reached, before he’d been dead half a century. Another century had elevated him to first- level status, on par with the top players in the vamp world. And within a decade after that, he’d become the darling of the European Senate, feted for his looks, his wealth and his ability on the dueling field, which had gotten them out of many sticky situations.

A month ago, the prince and the pariah had crossed paths because we had one thing in common: we were both very good at killing things. And Mircea’s bug-eyed, crazy brother Vlad had needed killing if anyone ever had. But our collaboration had had a rough start. Louis-Cesare didn’t like taking orders from a dhampir, and I didn’t like having a partner, period. But we eventually sorted things out and got the job done. He’d even learned some manners, before the end. And I had started to think that it was kind of . . . nice, having someone to watch my back for a change.

Sometimes I could be really stupid.

“Radu mentioned that the two of you had grown . . . close,” Mircea said carefully.

“Radu was mistaken.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Marlowe observed. “Have you seen or had any contact with Louis-Cesare in the last few weeks?”

“Why? What’s he done?”

“Nothing . . . yet.”

“Okay, what are you afraid he’ll do?”

Marlowe glanced at Mircea, and they held one of those silent conversations vampires sometimes have, the kind I’m not supposed to know about. “I would merely like to ask him about a family matter,” Mircea said, after a moment.

“As you’re constantly reminding me, I’m family. Tell me and maybe I can help. Or does the family thing only work when you want something?”

Mircea took a deep breath, which he didn’t need, to show me how much of a pain I was being. “It’s about
his
family, Dorina, and is not my story to tell. Now, have you seen him?”

“I haven’t heard from him in a month,” I said flatly, suddenly tiring of the game. I didn’t need another reminder that, as far as my status as family was concerned, it was and always would be second-class.

“Should that change, I would appreciate receiving word,” he told me.

“And I’d appreciate receiving my check, or are you planning to hold it all night?”

Mircea raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t let go. “I may have another commission for you tomorrow.” He pushed a folder across the desk, careful to avoid the blood splatter.

“May have?”

“It has yet to be decided. Will you be available?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“And, Dorina, should I choose to go through with it, I will need this one alive.”

“Will the handy-dandy portable size do?” If I didn’t stake the heart, a master vamp could live in pieces anywhere from a week to a month, depending on his power level. And it was a lot easier to sneak out a head in a bag than a whole body. Plus, there was something about decapitation that made even the most obstinate vamp feel chatty.

“That will be sufficient,” Mircea said, gazing cynically at Vleck. The ex-vamp’s mouth had slipped open and his tongue was hanging out. At least he wasn’t drooling,

I thought, and snatched the check.

God, how I loved easy money.

The gray weather we’d been having for the last few days was making an encore, but I made it home before it started to rain. I parked my latest rusted hulk—a Camaro that had once been blue and was now a sort of mottled gray—on the overgrown driveway to one side of the house. My key hit the lock as the first few droplets spattered down.

The leaden skies made the battered old Victorian look even more dilapidated than usual. It had been built by a retiring sea captain back in the 1880s, when Flat-bush was Brooklyn’s happening new suburb. It still sat on a decent-sized lot with old-growth trees, but its glory days were over. The paint was peeling, the porch was sagging and the gingerbread trim was missing a number of pieces. It made the house look a bit like an old person with broken teeth. But it was home, and it was glad to see me.

After a moment, a frisson of welcome spread up my arm, and the door opened. I hopped over a hole in the floor, set a couple of takeout bags on the counter and lit an old-fashioned hurricane lamp. On full power, the wards caused the electricity to go bonkers. And while it still worked okay for larger appliances, constantly blinking lights made me dizzy.

I snared a beer out of the fridge and stood at the counter drinking it, flipping through the day’s mail. Someone had thoughtfully left it on the table, maybe because it was mostly composed of bills. My onetime roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, she’d left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it.

Most important, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom, which had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few days of rain, and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldn’t be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head.

I filed the bills in the usual spot—the breadbox—and started to unpack the takeout when a clap of thunder struck directly overhead. It sounded like a grenade going off, and was near enough to shake the house. I froze, my heart in my throat.

Oh, please, oh, please,
I begged, listening with all my might.

For a long moment I didn’t hear anything, except the rumbling aftermath of the weather and my thudding pulse. And then a thin, tremulous wail filtered down from upstairs. My blood ran cold.

Within seconds, the cry had intensified to orchestra-like crescendos. A glass in the kitchen sink trembled and then shattered, along with what remained of my eardrums. I put my head down on the counter and thought about sobbing.

In my somewhat extended lifetime, I’d been through war, famine and disease. I was a strong woman. I was a warrior. But I’d never had to face anything like this.

I really, really wanted to kill something, but there wasn’t anything handy.

There was nothing to do but pick up the shards of the tumbler and dump them in the trash. The horrible wailing that was threatening every window in the house stopped for a second, then two, and I took a cautious breath—before it began again with renewed vigor. I put the beer back and went to the liquor cabinet for whiskey.

I was cursing my roommates, who had cleaned out all the liquor in my absence, when I heard the soft scrape of a footstep in the hall. It should have been impossible, even with my hearing, to detect anything over that din, but some desperate instinct brought it to my attention anyway. Maybe because it was so unusual.

There were a lot of creatures around the house these days, lumbering and stomping across the old wooden boards at all times of the day and night. But there was no one who just
stepped
. No one who was here by invitation, anyway.

I could feel the muscles bunching under my skin, ready to explode outward into motion. My breath started coming faster, and a bead of sweat slid into my eye. It could just be the house settling, I told myself sternly as I reached for the cleaver. Don’t get excited.

Then the tiny sound came again, along with a squeaky protest from one of the boards in the hall. My mood lifted. Maybe I’d get to kill something, after all.

I crossed to the hall door and grasped the green glass knob, but didn’t turn it. Normally, the kitchen door was left open because the hinges screamed with protest whenever they were used. But someone had closed it, and now I couldn’t open it again without letting whatever was out there know I was coming. I was going to have to wait for it to come closer.

I expected to be able to tell a lot about the intruder even without sight. The weight could be guessed from the heaviness of the tread, the height by the soft susurration of breath, possibly even the sex if he or she was wearing cologne. But when I extended my senses, all I received was the shock of contact as my humanness brushed up against something Other.

My hand jerked back from the knob, but I still felt it: a fluttering sensation cascading along my skin, a sort of electric prickle. It wasn’t painful, sharp or hot. It was like being caressed by fingers of water, a gentle, melting touch that soothed and reassured and calmed.

And made my skin crawl.

I didn’t want to be reassured when there was a danger in the house. I couldn’t afford to lose my edge. But I could feel it slipping away anyway, my heartbeat slowing, my breath coming easier, the sweat that had popped out on my arms a moment before cooling in the night air.

Even more worrying, the house itself wasn’t reacting. The wards usually relished doing nasty things to trespassers. But the kitchen remained dim and silent, the only movement the flickering flame inside the lantern.

Its light danced off a row of chef’s knives on the wall, some battered copper cookware hanging from a pot rack, and a broom with a solid wood handle in the corner. Any or all of them would have been useful against a large range of creatures, but probably not one who could so completely fool the house wards. And that went for anything I had on me, too.

I was contemplating sneaking out the back way and doing a Spider-Man impression up to my room, where I had a cache of much nastier weapons. But then the shrieking upstairs stopped. It didn’t taper off; it just cut out between one breath and the next, like a hand had been clenched around a small neck. And suddenly I forgot about subtlety, tactics and strategy. I threw open the door and dove into the dark hallway, knife raised, a battle cry building in my throat.

And got slammed against a wall hard enough to rattle my ribs.

Rolling back to my feet, I threw a small table at my enemy, trying to buy myself a second to figure out what the hell I was fighting. But no such luck. I got a glimpse of huge, luminous eyes, with horizontal pupils like a goat’s, and then a ball of fire came out of nowhere, reducing the table to cinders and sending rippling shadows up the walls. I leapt forward, looking for a vulnerable spot, but a massive clawed foot covered in gleaming scales slammed down on me with the force of a jackhammer.

My back hit the floor with my neck wedged between two curved talons the length of daggers. My own knife had lodged in the ball of the paw pinning me to the boards, between a couple of overlapping scales, but I doubted it was more than a thorn prick to the enormous creature. I thrashed and fought to free my weapon, but only succeeded in driving it a little farther into the thick hide.

And somewhere above my head, someone cursed, “Cut it out already!”

I paused at the very human- sounding voice, but I still couldn’t see. And then a thin ribbon of flame shot out of the darkness and lit a row of candles on the wall, all at once. It was a good trick, but I was in no position to admire it. I was too busy staring at the sight of a large dragon wedged into my narrow hallway.

It didn’t look very comfortable. Its small black wings were squashed against the ceiling, its huge legs were up around its neck and its elongated snout was sticking haphazardly out between them. The only part it appeared to be able to move was its foot, which was leaking a stream of black blood.

“That hurts like a bitch!” It bent its massive head a little closer to take a look at the damage.

I just stared.

An acre of pewter scales was broken by a ridge of gleaming amethyst down its back. Two horns the color of molten glass sat on its head, framing a tuft of absurd lavender hair. It matched the creature’s eyes, which were creepy as hell, but had irises the color of pansy petals.

A nictitating membrane slid first across one great eye and then the other as the dragon regarded its wounded foot. After a moment, it transferred that alien gaze to me, and the whorl of scales across its cheeks took on a vaguely purple tint. “You stabbed me!”

“You broke in,” I said slowly, in complete disbelief. Because I’d seen a lot of strange things in Brooklyn, but a dragon wasn’t one of them.