Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 12

The main room of the club was still packed, but I didn’t see Louis-Cesare among the partiers. It had taken me only a few minutes to get out of the back, but that was more than enough for someone who can move like the wind. And who probably had an escape route worked out in advance.

The surprise was that Cheung’s men seemed to have gone as well, probably off on a wild-goose chase. The few vampires left milling about were Raymond’s boys, looking lost and confused, and none even tried to keep me from leaving. Or even seemed to know that they should.

I guess they hadn’t checked the bathroom yet.

Outside, the rain we’d had for a steady week had turned the street into a glossy black mirror. It reflected red splashes from the lanterns edging the club’s roofline, a green electronics store sign next door and a yellow Buddha buzzing across the road. But no arrogant master vampires.

Not being a total fool, I had of course tagged him back at the club. According to the little charm, he was three streets over and moving fast. I moved faster and caught up with the charm on a corner—attached to the collar of a stray dog.

“Very funny, smart-ass,” I muttered, and retraced my steps.

Scent turned out to be no more useful than sight or magic. There were too many competing scents: ginger and garlic from a guy selling chicken wings, incense floating from the open door of a shop, car exhaust and garbage. To make matters worse, the rain was still drizzling down in patches, wiping out pieces of the scentscape like someone had taken an eraser to it.

After fifteen minutes, I admitted defeat. Most dhampirs have heightened senses, and my nose is considerably keener than a human’s. But no way was I following Louis-Cesare through the scent maze of Chinatown. He was well and truly gone, and it was my fault. I’d let him waltz out the goddamned door and hadn’t even tried to stop him.

I leaned against a corrugated door and waited for my heart rate to slow. It didn’t seem to feel like obliging. Damn it! I never fell for that sort of thing, couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been so stupid.

Oh, wait. Yes, I could—the last time I’d dealt with Louis-fucking-Cesare.

I scowled. Louis-Cesare might be a prince in Europe, but this was my territory, my home turf. He was going to learn the hard way that he couldn’t come in here and dick with me and not pay the price. When I finished with him, Raymond was going to look good by comparison.

Or then again, maybe not. Because old Ray was looking kind of rough by the time I located his body, huddled in a fetal position on the roof of the building next to the club. His shirt was missing, his pants were dirty and blood-streaked and he’d lost a shoe. For a minute there, I almost forgot about the missing head.

He didn’t hear me approach, not surprisingly, considering his ears were probably on the other side of the city by now. But as soon as I put a hand on him, he leapt up and swung wildly. I ducked, but of course he couldn’t see it and just kept on going. That was a problem, considering that he was steps away from a three-story drop.

I got a hand on his waistband, jerking him back from the edge before we found out just how much abuse a vampire body could take. He fell hard against me as I wrestled him back onto the roof. He also copped a feel.

“Cut it out, unless you don’t mind losing a few more body parts,” I told him, before I remembered that he couldn’t hear me.

His hands jerked away like they’d been burned, and he stopped, dead still.

I did, too, as a completely new idea occurred. “Sit down,” I told Raymond, who obligingly buckled his knees and parked his tush on the edge of the roof. His legs swung free over the courtyard below like a little boy’s. A little headless boy coated in gore, but still.

There are other explanations, I told myself. He could have stopped feeling me up once he’d figured out who I was; he could have sat down because he was weak from blood loss. I might be totally misreading this.

“Raise your right arm if you can hear me,” I said, and the arm obligingly shot up.

Or maybe not.

I patted down my borrowed jacket, but found only change, some matches and half a pack of cigarettes. But Ray had a cell phone in his pocket, although he didn’t seem inclined to give it up. “What?” I asked, slapping his hands. “It’s not like you can use it.”

He gave me the finger.

I ignored him and dialed a number that doesn’t show up in the phone book. It took me a minute to get through because there was some sort of party going on. And because the staff hates me.

“Senator Mircea Basarab,” I repeated for the fourth time, several minutes later.

“Lord Mircea cannot be disturbed,” yet another supercilious voice informed me. “Might I take a message?”

“Yes. You can tell him that his daughter’s on the phone. And if he doesn’t take my call, I’m going to dump that corpse he wanted in the river.”

There was some murmuring in the background, but no answer. Vamp #4 hadn’t hung up, though. I could hear party noises: music, laughter and the muted chime of fine crystal. And then a voice that managed to be more beautiful than all three.

“Dorina, are you all right?”

It was unfair what vampires could do with intonation, especially that one. Warmth, concern, love—it was all there in one short sentence, and it was all a lie. He was in a good mood because he thought I had Ray. He was going to be a little less amused when he discovered my part didn’t talk.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh in my ears.

“This isn’t one of the numbers we have on file for you.”

“Yeah, well, there’s been a snag.”

“Do you require assistance?”

“I require answers. It seems there’s a few things even I don’t know about vamps.”

“Such as?”

“Say there’s a fifth- level master who’s lost his head—”

“I assume you mean that literally,” was the dry response.

“—and say that said appendage is no longer in the immediate area—”

“It’s missing?”

“I’ll be glad to give you a play-by-play later! Right now, I need to know why a headless body would continue to hear and obey commands.”

“It wouldn’t.” The sounds of the party faded, so I assumed he’d moved somewhere more secure for this conversation. Good. He might actually plan to cough up a few facts for a change.

“Yeah, well, empirical evidence would suggest otherwise.”

There was silence for a moment, while he debated it. I doubted he felt any shame about siring a monster who regularly went around killing his kind, but only because that particular emotion wasn’t in his repertoire. But he nonetheless avoided telling me any facts that might make my job easier. He was probably afraid that I’d use them against him someday.

Smart man.

“A vampire’s body is connected on the physical plane like a human’s,” he finally told me. “But we also have a metaphysical connection to our corporeal form that is not easily severed.”

“So, metaphysically speaking, he still has a head?”

“Yes. Its sensory perceptions are dulled, of course, and will rapidly become more so. But for a time, our limbs can move and carry out commands even when detached from—”

“I know that.” I should; I’d been attacked by enough hacked-off body parts through the years. “I need to know if the brain can send more than just signals to muscle groups. Can it transmit information—like where it is?”

“That is what I am attempting to tell you,” Mircea said, sounding faintly annoyed. No vamp ever dared interrupt him like that. I was such a trial. “The metaphysical link becomes strained without the physical to reinforce it. Eventually, it will fade altogether, usually in about a week at that power level—”

“I know that, too! I just want to know if it can draw me a freaking map!”

“—with the higher brain functions being the first casualty.”

Shit. “So no map.”

“At that level, I am surprised he is mobile. However, he may yet be of use. The connection will be stronger the closer the severed parts are to each other. The body should therefore act somewhat like a Geiger counter, telling you by its strength and coordination how close you are to your goal.”

“So, the more energetic the closer, the more sluggish the farther away?”

“Essentially. How animated is it?”

I glanced down at Ray, who had confiscated the cigarettes. He had somehow managed to light one without barbecuing himself, and now he was smoking it—through the hole in his neck. I understood the need for a nerve settler, but still…

“Pretty animated.”

“Then the missing item remains in Manhattan. Give me your location. I will have a search team join you.”

I didn’t reply, because three vampires had entered the courtyard and were looking around. They weren’t Ray’s—I could feel the energy they generated from here, which meant that they were masters. Even worse, at least two of them were Hounds.

The two in front were scenting the air, mouths open, looking almost comically like their nickname for a moment. But there was nothing funny about it. Hounds—vamps with an almost uncanny sense of smell—were one of the few creatures who might have a chance at tracking Louis-Cesare through the scentscape of a city.

Or of picking up the trail of Ray’s other half.

Almost as though he’d heard me, the lead vamp lifted his head and sniffed, deep. A second later, bright black eyes were staring directly into my own. “Dorina?” Mircea’s voice was a static tickle in my ear.

“No time.”

“What is it?”

“Hounds.” I snapped the phone shut and towed Ray across the roof. The other side overlooked the street, which was empty but wouldn’t stay that way for long. And by the time I maneuvered a stumbling vampire down three flights of steps, they’d be on us.

It looked like we were going to find out about that abuse thing, after all.

I waited until I saw them emerge from the club and vanish into our building. They should have left someone in the street, maybe several someones. But there were only three of them, and they had to know by now what I was.

Occasionally those old legends came in handy.

“Uh, Ray? The next step’s kind of steep,” I said, and pushed him off the roof.

He landed on the top of an ancient tan Impala parked along the curb, shattering a window and punching a hole in the top with one leg. That was lucky because I didn’t have time to break in properly. I landed hard on the sidewalk beside him, suppressed a groan when my ankle twisted, stumbled over to the car and yanked him out.

I looked up to see three furious faces glaring down at us from the roofline. They prepared to jump as Ray rolled off the top and began desperately trying to get the door on his side open. I reached in through the hole and popped the lock on mine, and was about to do the same for him when he busted out the window and slithered through the forest of shards.

Each to his own.

I wasn’t exactly unskilled in the fine art of carjacking, even under pressure. But that was with proper tools. I’d brought them along, just in case, but they were in the duffel along with everything else. I mentally added another tick beside Louis-Cesare’s debt as I feverishly worked to get the car started.

A bullet drilled into the seat just beside my left ear. I pulled my Glock, slammed another clip home and pressed it into Ray’s shaking hands. “Try not to shoot me or the car,” I told him, and crawled under the dashboard.

The vamps must have landed in a V formation around the car, because the bullets came from three directions at once. Ray returned fire wildly, and from the sound of things, he killed a bag of trash, the windshield of a car across the road and the streetlight overhead. I doubt he so much as winged the vamps, but they nonetheless backed off, waiting for him to run out of ammo. Bullets might not kill them, but no one likes getting shot. And I guess they didn’t think we were going anywhere.

It was a point of view I was starting to share, as I struggled to strip wires without the proper tools and without electrocuting myself. Then Ray started kicking me. I glanced up and saw him miming needing another clip. I shook my head. “They’re in the damn duffel!”

He kicked me again, just to be an ass, then began chucking things out of the hole in the roof. The car must have served as one of Chinatown’s infamous tailgate stores during the day, because the back held several cases of knockoff DVDs, fake Gucci handbags and a big box of glass bongs. Ray threw it all, as well as a large portion of the backseat, but it wasn’t enough. A vampire’s fist smashed through the windshield and grabbed him.

The vamp tried to pull Ray through the shattered window, but I grabbed his waistband and pulled back. Ray’s stylish khakis strained and then split down the middle like stripper wear, leaving each of us holding a leg and him in a pair of red satin boxers with Feeling Lucky? emblazoned across the crotch. “Not really,” I said, and punched the vamp in the face.

He staggered back, but the two others had figured out that we were out of ammo—of all kinds—and rushed forward. One of them reached through the hole in the top and grabbed Ray, by the arm this time. That left me struggling one-handed to break the lock on the steering column—with a knife, no less—while holding on to Ray by one hairy leg.

It would have been easier if he hadn’t been struggling like he was afraid he’d end up the same way as his pants. I kept getting kicked in the head, which did nothing for my concentration. And to make bad matters worse, the club doors banged open and more vamps poured out.

But instead of jumping us, they went for Cheung’s men. It looked like the boss had neglected to order Ray’s boys not to help him, and protecting their master is one of a vamp’s foremost priorities. Not that they were any match for the much more senior vamps, but they did manage to overwhelm one by sheer numbers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one holding Ray.

I’d finally gotten the steering wheel unlocked, but I couldn’t start the damn engine and hold on to Ray at the same time. Then someone embedded a tire iron in the vamp’s head, sending him staggering backward. I started the car, and when the master launched himself at the windshield again, I ran him over.

Of course, that just pissed him off. I saw one of the other vamps run for a dark blue Mercedes coupe parked down the street. And Ray’s boys weren’t going to be able to delay them for long without getting shredded. “Buckle up,” I told Ray, and floored it.

I concentrated on putting some distance between us and the club, while he rooted around in the glove box. He threw a flashlight out the window, and did the same with a tire gauge. But a ballpoint pen he kept. I skidded around a corner onto Canal Street, and he started jabbing me in the leg with it. Hard.

“Give me that!” I tried to take it away from him, but he jerked it back and started waving it around. It took me a second to realize that he was making scribbling motions.

I got this weird idea and started looking for some paper, but there was none to be had. I did come up with an old map of the city, however, in a pocket behind the seat. I gave it to him to doodle on while I did my best to confuse our trail, hoping against hope that he’d manage to circle his missing piece’s location.

He stabbed at the paper with all the coordination of a two-year-old. He finally proffered his masterpiece when we stopped at a red light. The lines were wobbly and slanting, like a right- handed person trying to communicate with the left. But they were definitely words.

I snatched it out of his fingers and held it up to the windshield. I HATE YOU.

“You can write?” I stared at him incredulously. So much for expecting Mircea to give away trade secrets. “Then how about telling me where you are?”

Ray took the map back and painstakingly crafted another sentence around its margins. I DON’T KNOW!

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’ve got to be able to see something! A street sign, the name of a shop, anything!”

IT’S DARK.

“What the hell do you mean, it’s dark? You’re a vampire! You see at night!”

NOT IN A DUFFEL BAG!

“A duffel with a hole in it,” I reminded him impatiently. “Look around!”

AND SEE WHAT? I’M IN A TRUNK!

I frowned. “A car trunk? Are you moving?”

NO.

“Give me sounds, then. Smells, anything!”

THERE’S NO NOISE. AND ALL I SMELL ARE YOUR DIRTY SOCKS.

Great. There weren’t too many places that would be totally silent to a vampire’s ears, even a somewhat-mangled vampire. So they were in an enclosed garage, probably underground. And Manhattan only had about a thousand of those.

“Try harder!” I ground out. “We have a week here, remember? Then you and I are both—”

The car behind us laid on the horn, and Raymond and I simultaneously flipped it off. A second later, the interior of the Impala was strobed with garish light. I glanced in my mirror and confirmed that, yes, we’d just given the finger to a policeman. At least we’re wearing our seat belts, I thought, and hit the gas.

The cop had gotten out of his car before I took off, giving me a few seconds while he scrambled back into his vehicle. I used it to grab the phone. “You know that assistance you mentioned? This would be a good time,” I said when, miracle of miracles, Mircea actually answered himself.

“Where are you?”

“Headed south on Mott. Cop on my tail.”

“The human police?”

“Yes!”

“And this constitutes an emergency?”

“It does if he draws attention to us,” I hissed, as a dark Mercedes coupe did a 180 and swerved into the street behind the cop.

I hate being right all the time, I thought, and floored it.

“I’ll arrange something,” Mircea said, his voice going crisp. “Remain on the line.”

The cop turned on the siren as I whipped onto Hester, and also took the turn on a dime, while no doubt radioing for backup. And in case I’d had any doubt about who was in the coupe, it stayed glued to the cop’s tail. Mircea finally came back on the phone to give me a complicated set of directions that had me totally lost in less than five minutes, but didn’t do the same to my pursuers.

“I’m hearing multiple sirens now,” I pointed out.

“Not for long.”

Mircea had barely finished speaking when a huge moving van rumbled out of an alley. I managed to squeak by on the sidewalk, sacrificing the front bumper to a fire hydrant, but the cop wasn’t so lucky. He stood on the brakes, judging by the sound, but still plowed straight into the side of it. The coupe rear-ended him and their combined force pushed the truck onto the sidewalk and took out a candy store.

“If I’d known you were that efficient, I’d have asked for help before,” I told Mircea.

“You don’t usually require it.” It was mild enough, but it sounded like a rebuke.

“I don’t usually get mugged by family, either!”

“Who?” Mircea asked sharply.

“Radu’s bright-eyed boy. You might have mentioned Louis-Cesare was involved.”

“I was not informed.” His voice suggested that someone was going to pay dearly for that little lapse.

“There’s a lot of that going around,” I said tightly.

“Meaning?”

“That I don’t think it’s coincidence that three first-level masters from three different Senates all suddenly formed an intense desire to talk to—”

“Dorina!”

“—a certain person on the same night. There’s more here than you bothered to tell me.” Not like that was new.

“It should have been an easy errand. You didn’t need to know.”

“Oh, no. No, no. That’s not how I work. If I’m going to take someone’s freaking head, I need to know why! You want blind obedience, send one of your boys.” It suddenly occurred to me to wonder why he hadn’t.

“You do freelance assignments for many people,” Mircea said, before I could ask. “You were not as easily connected with me as one of my own stable.”

“I hate when you do that,” I told him.

“Do what?”

“Answer questions before I ask them. It makes it seem like our conversations are planned out four or five steps ahead, and you’re just waiting for me to catch up.”

“If that were the case, they would not end in arguments much of the time.”

“Most of those arguments are because of this kind of thing. Start trusting me with the truth, or use someone else.”

“I will explain the situation later, if you wish it.” Translation: it’s bad enough that I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. “Did Louis-Cesare mention what his interest was in your errand?”

“He wasn’t feeling chatty. But probably the same as yours. Whatever that is.”

He was silent for a moment. “I sincerely hope not,” he said quietly.

It really is amazing what they can do with their voices, I thought, as gooseflesh broke out over my arms. I couldn’t translate that particular tone, because I’d never heard it before. But it had sounded a lot like: I’d hate to have to kill a member of the family.

“Come again?”

“Pull over. My men will locate you and assist with the search.” Translation: I’ll have my loyal minions take over and find Louis-Cesare, because you might not like what I plan to do to him.

I stared at the phone for a moment. I owed Louis-Cesare a world of hurt, and I fully intended to deliver. But that wasn’t the same thing as throwing him to the lions. This was personal, and until somebody bothered to give me a good reason otherwise, it was going to remain that way.

“Sorry. I didn’t get that,” I said.

“Dorina! Pull off and wait for—”

“I’ll call you back,” I told him, then chucked the phone out the window so he couldn’t use it to track me.

It looked like we were on our own.