The rules of the vamp world weren’t as arbitrary as some people thought. Masters had life-or-death power over their own families, but screw with somebody else’s and there was hell to pay. And for better or worse, Louis-Cesare was attached to the powerful, dysfunctional, vindictive-as-hell Basarab line.

Even Anthony couldn’t order him to be enslaved or killed if there was reasonable doubt of his guilt; Mircea would see to that. But eloquence would get him only so far. He needed something to work with, and it was my job to get him that something whether he wanted me to or not. I just wasn’t sure how.

I carefully tucked the small book away, dodging more new arrivals. Nobody was smiling, and everyone seemed to feel that I was in the way. I was trying to figure out the shortest route to the front entrance when Marlowe sidled up and shoved a slip of paper into my hand.

“Don’t make me regret this,” he hissed.

I glanced down. Two addresses were scribbled over it in a bold hand. One was nearby, and looked like a house number, and one was an address in Manhattan. There were no names, but I didn’t really need any.

“You have got to be shitting me.”

“Mircea’s Achilles’ heel is his family,” Marlowe told me quietly. “Louis-Cesare must be found by tonight, with or without proof of his innocence, or I fear your father may put his own position in jeopardy attempting to save him. And the consul will not back him. Do you understand?”

“I understand that you want me to drag Louis-Cesare back here to be butchered. He’s not going to take Anthony’s deal, Marlowe.”

“I know that! But if he is here we can stall while we work to find evidence to clear him. The trial could drag on for days. But if he is absent again, they’ll declare him an outlaw and issue a death warrant. Tonight.”

“Why trust me with this?”

“I have to operate within certain guidelines, at least where people at this level are concerned. You do not. And there is no time to finesse anything. We must shake something loose. Now.”

There was nothing I could safely say in the consul’s territory, so I didn’t say anything. I hit the door and got to shaking.

CHAPTER 32

Outside, heat shimmered off the drive and the sea of white plastic tents. I wished I’d brought a pair of sunglasses, but no such luck. So I bought one from a vendor who was happy to get the business now that half his customers had run off.

Or, at least, they were trying to. There was a backlog of cars still attempting to exit the grounds, clogging air and roadside alike. I decided to leave the Camaro where it was and head off to my first appointment on foot.

Slinking along behind me, carefully muffled up against the glaring sun, were two very unhappy vampires. I assumed they were Marlowe’s, since they made no attempt to attack me, but I didn’t know for sure. They wouldn’t introduce themselves or so much as deign to notice my existence. But when I moved, so did they.

Two miles and about a ton of sweat later, I found myself staring up at a rambling mansion that rivaled the consul’s in size, although not in elegance. But then, it was just a rental. I showed Claire’s note at the door, and was left to cool my heels for half an hour in the vast wood-paneled foyer.

Of course, there was no air-conditioning. I was certain the home came equipped, but vamps don’t need it. They usually only turn it on when they have humans around they want to impress, and apparently, I didn’t qualify.

Finally, I was shown into a sitting room. Or, at least, that was what I assume it had been before it had been draped with red silk and lined with braziers. The braziers were lit and it was hot as hell, but that wasn’t why I staggered and almost fell. The power in the room was like a punch to the gut. It felt something like walking through the consul’s front door, only most of it was radiating off the tiny, little woman on the big, ugly throne.

When I was born, the average height for a guy had been five foot four, so I’d been considered pretty tall for a woman. Then times had changed, diets had improved and I’d ended up shopping in the petite section. But one look at Ming-de, and I decided maybe to hold off on the complaints for a while. If she’d been shopping at the local mall, she’d have had to go to the kiddie store.

Not that she appeared to have that problem. Her bright yellow silk robes were embroidered within an inch of their lives with a glittering menagerie of fantastic beasts. She wore a headdress with pearls as big as cherries and a lot of gold tassels that shimmered whenever she moved. And her little feet, maybe all of three inches long, were encased in lotus shoes so crusted with embroidery that the fabric couldn’t even be seen.

The tiny useless feet were tenderly propped on a tufted stool, with a large guard kneeling on either side. Why, I don’t know. It wasn’t like she needed the help.

I finally scraped myself off the floor and staggered to the bottom of the set of stairs leading up to the dais on which the monster throne squatted. It had gilt mythical beasts writhing all over it or, hell, I don’t know. They might have been solid gold. It didn’t look like Ming-de was hard up. It was backed by a couple of tall, similarly decorated screens so that the whole end of the room was an explosion of gold.

I stood there in my sweaty T-shirt, feeling a little inadequate.

And then she poked a head on a stick out at me, and I cheered up. Mine was bigger.

The tiny shrunken head had been Ming-de’s English translator for a few hundred years, since she would be damned if she was going to learn the barbarian tongue herself. Rumor was that she’d cut it off some English sea captain back in the day, although after the shrinkage and subsequent wear, it was a little hard to tell. It looked dusty.

“Please tell her serene highness that I come as a representative of a princess of the fey,” I instructed, glad to have found a way to communicate.

“She knows that,” the tiny head informed me grouchily. It was about the size of a crab apple, and appeared to have a personality to match. “You sent in a note, didn’t you?”

“Tell her I’m here to inquire about a missing item of fey property.”

“She knows that, too. She said to inform you that she purchased it in good faith and with the understanding that it was the property of the fey selling it. She would return it to the princess, but as she never received it, it’s a moot point. Have a nice day.”

“Please tell her serene highness that the princess appreciates her cooperation. She is trying to avoid a possibly ugly encounter when her family arrives tomorrow. Were she to receive the stone back before then, the whole thing could be forgotten. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

“It will be out of the princess’s hands. Her family will take over the hunt for the stone. And they may wonder how someone as astute as the empress could be taken in by such a fraud. They may also wonder why she has yet to retaliate against anyone for the duplicity.”

“She hadn’t paid for it,” Crabby said, frowning. “It disappeared before it could be authenticated, and the transfer of funds was never made. She lost nothing.”

“She lost a valuable object that she had every reason to assume was rightfully hers. She lost face in front of the other bidders, most of whom now know that the stone is missing. She also lost the advantage it would have given her at tonight’s challenge.”

“You are accusing the empress of cheating?” The little thing looked outraged. He had yet to communicate a damn thing to the empress, whose beautiful face was as serene as ever. But her long fingernail guards were going clack, clack, clack on the arms of her throne.

I was starting to think that “translator” might not be quite the right word.