Midnight's Daughter

I kept one hand on the chef, who was going to experience a world of hurt if he’d lied to me, and yanked at the door. The heavy seal parted only reluctantly, so I tugged harder and it flew open. Claire looked out at me through fogged-up glasses. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by some of Radu’s menagerie. I started forward with a shout, then stopped. Many of the half-breeds were dead, but one or two crawled through the wreckage of the locker, some missing limbs, others dragging blood behind them.

“Claire!”

She looked up, and her glasses slipped down her nose. Her eyes were huge, and she’d obviously been crying. “These poor things were just thrown in here together and when I got here, they were eating each oth—”

“Claire! Bring down all wards within this building! Do it now!”

“What?” She looked confused. “But the chef said the vampires were trying to rebuild—”

“All of them! Now! Claire, please—”

“But these things, Dory—they’re all magic! I’m shielding as hard as I can and I’m still making them sick.” She looked around miserably, tears trembling on her lashes. “I didn’t know. I killed most of them when I—”

I caught my breath and screamed. “Claire!” I shook her by the shoulders. Jonathan or Louis-Cesare: one of them was going to die tonight. Louis-Cesare couldn’t be that one. Because I hadn’t liked Jonathan’s “one last time” comment. I had a very bad feeling that, whatever he intended for Louis-Cesare, it wasn’t something Louis-Cesare was going to walk away from. Not this time. “Listen to me! A person will die—very soon—if you don’t bring down the wards. All of them. Now.”

She looked lost, and more than a little shocked, but she nodded. Several of the creatures nearby tottered over and lay still. “Okay.”

“Get on with it!”

She straightened her glasses. The creature closest to her crumpled to the ground. It looked like the rat thing that had taken a swipe at me in the arbor. “I just did,” she said sadly. “Dory, what were these—”

I didn’t hear the rest—I was halfway back across the kitchen and flying for the entrance. I avoided the mine-field of a pantry and took the hall instead. It was longer, but would probably be faster. And it would have been except for the claw that snatched me off my feet and lifted me through a hole in the wall.

There was a brief moment of being airborne, giving me time enough to wish that I’d asked Claire to kill all the damn things, and then I was dropped onto the red-tiled roof. I hit with a thud, but didn’t roll off despite a steep slant, which was good because a mage somewhere below began firing spells either at me or at Big Bird. I assumed it was me, since the creature was suddenly nowhere in sight. A spell burst against the window over the entranceway and sent a cascade of glass into whatever was happening there.

The tiles were still wet and slippery from the rain, but I managed to scramble for cover behind a chimney. I had to get into the entry. The ward the mage had put on Louis-Cesare was hopefully down, but I had no idea if that would be enough or not. He’d lost a lot of blood and God knew what had been done to him after I left. And Radu had too much to handle already to be much help.

The chimney looked like it co

As soon as the one lidless eye on that side of its head got a good look at me, it let out an ear-piercing shriek and took off half the chimney with a swipe from its claw. I scrambled down the tiles backward, that wicked beak slashing down all around me, cracking any tiles it hit clean in two.

The creature’s tail snapped and skidded across the tiles, sending a cascade sliding toward the roof edge with me along for the ride. Grabbing for something, anything, to break my fall, my hand encountered the rain gutter. Already overstrained from the flood, it ripped away from the roof, leaving me dangling over the courtyard right above the mage.

It was good to see that my luck was holding true.

A stream of dirty water flowed out of the pipe directly onto the mage, temporarily blinding him. I let go of the pipe and hit the ground, close enough to the man to get my arms around his waist. A dark shadow fell over the courtyard as the leader spread huge, leathery wings; then it was on top of us, its weight and momentum sending us crashing to the ground. I waited until I heard the mage’s scream when the talons latched on to him, then scrambled out from underneath and bolted for the entryway.

Chapter Twenty-two

The heavy wooden front door was hanging off its hinges, letting in a flood of light, but there was no one to see. Bodies had fallen everywhere, but a quick survey told me that none were Louis-Cesare or Radu. The sounds of a sword fight echoed distantly.

My foot slipped in something, in someone, but I kept my balance and followed the sounds of metal on metal. The long, polished oak table in the dining room bore muddy boot prints, but it, too, was empty. Behind me, I heard the scuffle of claws on tile and glanced back in time to see the leader’s head stick in through the door. I didn’t think its body would make it through the narrow arch, but I didn’t intend to wait around and find out.

Beyond the dining room lay a library, with tall windows on one wall and a floor-to-ceiling collection of books on the others. Weirdly, it looked almost untouched, the only damage a vase of flowers that had been knocked off a small table. I skirted the mess and went through to the next room, which I did recognize: the small antechamber leading down to the wine cellars.

Shit.

I peered down the stairwell. It gaped up at me like a maw. I really hate dark staircases, and this one had no light at all. I remembered that we’d dined by lantern light; maybe Radu had never had electricity run down there. Great, just freaking wonderful.

A crash behind me made me turn in time to see a huge, birdlike body topple over the library table and crush the fallen vase to splinters. Okay, there were things I hated more than the dark—like the things that prowl in it. I practically leapt down the stairs, slamming the door shut behind me.

The stone was cool beneath my bruised feet, and almost total darkness closed around me, sinking into my bones. I couldn’t see anything while my eyes adjusted, but the stairs were evenly spaced and they went only one place—to the small wine-tasting room where we’d dined. Here, a few oil lamps burned, illuminating the room’s only occupants: the hundreds of bottles that lay on their sides, many broken, leaking Radu’s label all over the stones until I couldn’t tell by sight what was wine and what was blood. I jumped up on the tabletop to get to the other side of the room without lacerating my feet. Behind me, the door at the top of the stairs burst open with the crack of splintering wood. I rapidly pushed on toward the sound of the fight, loud enough now that I knew I had to be close.

There was only one door in the room besides the one I’d just come through. I took it and found a stone corridor lined with barrels. It led, presumably, to the winery next door. The only light came from a far door at the end, which was standing wide open, and the faint glow behind me. Halfway down the rows, Caedmon, still wearing Mircea’s face, battled Drac.

I started forward, so relieved I was almost sick, and fell over something. Or, more accurately, someone. Vivid turquoise eyes met mine, and I breathed in the faint scent of salt and ozone. “Radu.”