I slowly turned to face him, and something in my expression caused him to lower a hand to the hilt of his rapier. He didn’t draw it, but he didn’t take his hand back, either.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” I informed him evenly, “and I don’t care. But I take direction from no one. Are we clear?”
“We most decidedly are not,” he responded, equally crisply. It would have been funny at another time, our trying to out-enunciate each other, but at the moment I didn’t feel like laughing. This was going to be hard enough without backup who couldn’t follow orders.
“Then we have a problem,” I told him honestly. I looked back at Mircea, who was wearing an expression that on anyone else I would have described as petulant. “You know what’s at stake here. I know you don’t like me any more than I do you, but we have worked together before. I think it was luck, but maybe we’ll get lucky again. And you already know how I operate.”
Mircea was shaking his head before I even finished. “Normally that is the way I would choose to proceed. But not now.”
“Why not?” I thought my question was reasonable, but he suddenly looked angry.
“After all these years, can you not follow a simple command?”
“Not when it’s likely to get me killed, no.” I looked between the two of them, trying to figure out what unspoken communication was going on. For a brief moment I felt something—not anger exactly but something more elusive—that Mircea and this stranger could communicate so easily without words. Because that’s exactly what they were doing. A normal human wouldn’t have noticed the few, almost-too-quick-for-the-eye glances, but I did. That was one of the harshest parts of the dhampir experience: the fact that your senses never allow you to be oblivious, never let you for a moment fool yourself into thinking you belong.
Once, when I was very young and even dumber than I am now, I actually let a vamp try to turn me. I’d just reached the century mark and seen my mortal acquaintances age and die before my eyes, with the last one buried earlier that week. I was all alone and tired as hell of it. Not that I’d ever fit in with humans very well, but, God, how I had tried. So I figured, why not? I’m almost there anyway, why not cross over and actually be part of something for a change?
I knew it was a risk, of course: even if the vamp didn’t just bleed me dry and leave me to die, most vamps spend eternity tied to a master they can’t disobey. They are little more than slaves until they reach master status—which few ever do—and even then their responsibility to their master remains a debt that can be called in anytime. But at that moment, I didn’t much care. Turns out, though, I had chosen well, and he gave it his all, I guess hoping for whatever fame would come out of being the first on record to turn a dhampir. But the next morning I woke up exactly as I’d been before, a little light-headed from the blood loss, maybe, but not changed one iota. So add another rule to the books: dhampirs can’t be brought over. This meant that, after torturing me for a few days or weeks or whatever time he could spare, Drac wouldn’t even try to add me to his new stable.
“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.”