Midnight's Daughter

“What does ‘vaca dracului’ mean?” asked a mild voice behind me. I walked back inside to see Louis-Cesare looking at a message that had been written in red across the gold calligraphy of the poetry excerpts. Alan and his partner, whose name I couldn’t even remember, had supplied the ink. What was left of them had been dumped in a corner, along with the body of an old man who had been cleaning earlier. Three deaths in what couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, and they still had time to leave me a message. It looked like Drac had acquired some capable help pretty fast.

“ ‘Devil’s cow.’ It’s his pet name for me.” It was actually one of the nicer ones, as I recalled.

“Whose? Are you saying Lord Dracula did this?”

“Not personally.” I’d have known if one of the cloaked bastards was Uncle. His presence was unmistakable, especially to me. I’d have been able to taste him on the air, musty and electric-ozone sharp—the smell of madness. I pushed away sickening memories and concentrated on translating the brief scrawl. It was leaking down the walls and was fairly indistinct against the black paint, especially where it crossed the poetry, but I got the idea. “Kristie and José are dead,” I said evenly. The note didn’t say how, for which I was grateful.

“Dracula knew they were coming to meet us.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t reply. I fished around in my bag and brought out a bottle of tequila I’d ripped off from the Senate’s plane. It’s always good to have something flammable in my line of work, not to mention that I like tequila. “You might want to wait outside,” I said. Vamps tend to burn so nicely.

“How did they know?” It sounded more like he was talking to himself than to me, so I didn’t answer. Besides, there were far too many possibilities to count. I splashed alcohol around, except for a mouthful I decided I needed worse than the Hog. I stopped because of a grip of steel on my upper arm. I dropped the bottle and it rolled across the floor, spilling the remaining contents, until stopped by the cleaning man’s body.

“What is your problem?”

“We will not continue this way,” Louis-Cesare told me grimly. “I may be forced to work with you, but you will show me the proper respect. And when I ask you a question, you will answer it.”

I glared. The guy had mood swings bigger than his goddamned ego. “Buddy, you are about ten seconds away from getting your ass kicked all the way back to Daddy.”

“Do not call him that!”

I tried to rip free from his grip, but this time, nothing happened. My pack was across the room, near the back door where I’d dropped it after seeing the carnage, but I didn’t really need it. I had no fewer than three stakes on me at the moment, and I needed only a slim opportunity to slip one between his ribs. Unfortunately, that would leave me with no backup at all and a seriously pissed-off Mircea. I didn’t know if reasoning with this lunatic was likely to work, but if not, I could always stake him later.

“Whether you, me or Mircea likes it, he is my father. Believe me, I’m not proud of it.”

Louis-Cesare laughed bitterly. “No, why should you be proud? Do you have any idea how very fortunate you are? To have a co

“Thousands,” I corrected, and saw his eyes flash silver. The next second, I was pi

“Some would give all they possess to have what you throw away,” he hissed. I tried to move, but got nowhere. That was the problem with the really old vamps. You never knew what kind of extra powers they’d picked up through the years.

“And they’d be welcome to it,” I told him frankly. “I don’t know what your stake in this is, but I’m here to save a friend. I don’t owe Mircea, or you, a damn thing. As for your question, I would guess that Kristie told Drac’s guys where she’d agreed to meet us, after some persuasion.” For her sake, I hoped she’d talked quickly.

“How did he know to ask her?” I found that when Louis-Cesare had to split his concentration between me and a problem, I got a tiny bit of wiggle room. I started to move my right hand into my pocket. “We have a traitor,” he declared, as if this was news.

“No shit. Boy, am I glad you’re along to point out these things,” I said before I could stop myself. Luckily, he wasn’t paying me much attention.

“We have to inform the Senate immediately.”

I managed to touch the tiny plastic cylinder of my Bic with one finger. “Yeah, sure, that’s the ticket. We’ll let the traitor know our next move, so he can tell Drac how to arrange the welcome party.”

“And what is the alternative?” Louis-Cesare demanded.

“I’m working on that. All I know right now is that the traitor could be anywhere—in the family, at vamp central, or someone who figured out how to spy on us—we can’t be sure.” I looked down to see the janitor’s lifeless eyes staring up at me, his lips set in a line that almost looked like a sarcastic grin. I hoped it wasn’t a sign.

“I promised Lord Mircea that I would keep him informed—”

“He knows me better than to expect that.”

“Then it is as well that you are not in command of this mission.”

“If we’re back to that again, we may as well throw in the towel right now.” He looked confused at the idiom. “We may as well quit,” I rephrased.

“You may do as you like,” Louis-Cesare said, his sneer informing me that he’d expected no better. “But I do not take my word so lightly.”

“You don’t know me, but you do know Mircea. Presumably you trust his judgment, right?” My fingers finally got a grip on the slippery plastic.

“Of course—”

“He called me into this because he knew you’d need help. Uncle doesn’t fight fair. He uses whatever tactics work. He isn’t going to stand there and agree to duel you, best vamp take all. If we’re going to beat him, we have to think like him. And besides Mircea, I’m the one most likely to be able to do that.”

“You are trying to take control of this assignment,” he said stubbornly.

“No, I’m trying to get you to realize that I’m already there. You wouldn’t last ten minutes with Drac, no matter how good you think you are.”

He looked at me, splayed against the wall, with understandable condescension. “And you would?”

“I have one thing in common with the family.”

“And what is that?”

I smiled and flicked the tiny flame to life. “I’m tricky.”

Louis-Cesare’s response was lost in the roar of flames that caught on the tequila-soaked pile of humanity beneath us and quickly spread across the floor. I suddenly found myself released, and barely managed to avoid falling on top of the burning pile of rags and flesh at my feet. Fire spread through the ruined Hog, licking at my heels as I booked it out the door. I glanced back at the smoke billowing out behind me. “Round one to Uncle,” I murmured.