Death's Mistress

“What happened?”

“My men and I surrounded the building, and the luduan went in. He was supposed to bring me the rune, but he never came back. I finally sent one of my boys in to check on things, and he found the luduan gone and Raymond screaming about a dead fey. I decided it might be prudent to leave at that point.”

“You’re telling me a luduan killed a fey warrior?”

“They’re both fey, and the guard might not have been expecting it.”

“If I were him, and I had something worth a king’s ransom, I’d have been expecting it.”

“Yet someone managed to do it.” He had a point there. “I don’t know if he killed the guard. I don’t know that he has the rune. I only know I don’t. You can tell your lady that.”

“I will. And she may even believe you; Claire’s the trusting type,” I said, standing up and tucking my card under a corner of his blotter. “Unfortunately, her family isn’t, and they’ll be here tomorrow. Knowing Caedmon, he may decide to find the rune in the most efficient way possible.”

“And what would that be?”

I shrugged. “Attack everyone who was at the auction and see who doesn’t die.”

CHAPTER 33

Five minutes later, I hit the sidewalk in front of Geminus’s building. Not literally, this time; he hadn’t thrown me out, but he also hadn’t admitted a damn thing. Leaving me hours away from the trial and fresh out of ideas.

Two silent shadows peeled off the bricks and followed me as I headed down the street. They didn’t say anything, including asking about what had happened upstairs. Of course, my cursing had probably already told them it wasn’t good.

I leaned against the side of a building a few blocks over and lit the crumpled old joint I found in my jacket. Sucking in a long breath, I held it for a second before letting it out. Drugs don’t do a lot for me thanks to my revved-up metabolism, but they’re better than nothing. And this was excellent weed.

After a moment the wave hit, lifting my bones away from one another and loosening the joints in sequence—neck, shoulders, wrists, fingers—leaving me feeling like I was floating on the tide. The tension washed out of me from spine to fingertips before coursing away, leaving me calmer, if not any happier.

Not that I needed to be calmer. That little scene with Geminus had disturbed me, but probably not for the reason he’d intended. It wasn’t the first time I’d been assaulted; it was, however, one of only two times in my life I could remember really wanting to fall into a dhampir rage and being unable to do so.

The other had been yesterday, whensubrand attacked.

I should have been able to break Geminus’s hold, at least long enough to give me a chance to get my weapons. And when I stabbedsubrand, it should have been somewhere vital. Instead, they’d both made me look like a fool, and I strongly suspected I knew why.

The fey wine had seemed like a godsend, but I should have known better. Everything that came out of Faerie looked better, prettier, more enticing than it really was. It glittered like gold, but scratch the surface and what was revealed was a lot darker. So I was left with a choice: take the wine and put up with memories I didn’t want and a substantial power loss, or don’t take it and suffer homicidal blackouts.

Wonderful.

The clock ticking steadily inside my head wasn’t helping my mood, either. Geminus had my number, but he hadn’t used it. Either he really didn’t have the stone or he was cocky enough to believe he could take on the fey. That left no one on the party list who wasn’t dead or buttoned down tight. At least as far as I was concerned. Caedmon might have more luck, but he wasn’t here. And by the time he arrived, Louis-Cesare would have been sentenced and possibly executed.

Marlowe had been right: something needed to shake loose, and it needed to happen now.

I hailed a cab. There was one person who hadn’t been on the list who might know something. I’d already had my daily quota of ancient vampires with attitude problems who weren’t going to tell me shit. But talking to Anthony beat doing nothing.

Although not by much.

A yellow taxi slid to a stop in front of me, and the silent duo got inside. I started to do the same when my phone rang. “Yeah?”

“Who the hell taught you how to answer the phone?” a brisk voice asked.

I wasn’t sure I recognized it; the weather was overcast and the signal was lousy. “Fin?”

“The one and only. You still interested in that deadbeat?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because he just showed up at his apartment. My boys are downstairs. If you want to talk to him before they take him apart, now would be the time.

“Now’s good,” I said fervently. “Thanks, Fin.”

“Where to?” the cabbie asked.

“Chinatown.”

A body hit the dirt at my feet, hard enough to send a gout of blood splashing up onto my face. I wiped it away and stared upward. I hate it when that happens.

“You will die a worse death if you do not leave my domain,” a voice thundered down from the third story of the old tenement. “I am a servant of the Sacred Fire, the wielder of the flame of Arnor—”

“So I should call you Gandalf?” I asked, getting the toe of my boot into a crack in the wall.

There was silence for a long moment, except for the sound of brick flaking off under my boots as I scrabbled for purchase. I got a hand on the lowest rusty rung of the fire escape just as my toehold gave way. A wiggle and a heave got me up to the first landing, where a feral-looking cat hissed at me before jumping up to the next level.

I’d have preferred to use the door, but we were trying to cover all exits. Fin’s boys were in the lobby, and Frick and Frack were watching the sides. This was the only way out left, and I wasn’t about to let him use it.

“Aw, fudge,” floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. “You’re a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?”

I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. “After five hundred years, you’ve read just about everything. Besides, he had hella world-building skills.”

“You’re five hundred?” A head with small, curved horns came into view. “No way.”

“Yep.” I followed the cat up the trembling staircase. Flakes of rust clung to my skin and ate into my palms as I hefted myself over a couple missing stairs and up another floor.

“Well, you don’t look a day over four,” I was told, as a ceramic lamp exploded on the railings right beside me.

One of the shards must have hit the cat, which sent up a mewl of distress. Suddenly, my objective’s entire head stuck out of the window, regardless of the danger. “Oh, no! Pooky!”

“Pooky?” I demanded, as a squat creature crawled out onto the window ledge and held out a pawlike appendage beseechingly.

“Come to Daddy,” it crooned, but the cat was having none of it. It hissed at both of us and tried to run between my legs, but I scooped it up, careful to keep those sharp, little claws out of my flesh.

“You have a cat?” I asked, one brow raised, as the fur ball in my arms spit and hissed.

“Why shouldn’t I?” The creature’s face wasn’t real expressive, but its voice was defensive.

“You’re a dog.”

“I’m a luduan!” it said huffily.

I looked it over. It would be maybe three feet tall in its stocking feet, if it had feet, which it didn’t, or was designed to walk standing up, which it wasn’t. The body covered in golden brown fur looked a lot like a dog’s, except for the too-large lionlike head with a curly brown mane. To further confuse the issue, it had a unicorn- type horn in the center of its forehead.

“Dog-ish,” I corrected.

“Give me my cat!” it demanded.

“Or what? You’ll smite me like a Balrog?”

The golden eyes narrowed. “I quote Tolkien because he puts it better. But I can still open a can of whup ass all over you.”