Death's Mistress

Her head tilted. “But don’t you see? If we had not gone through the park that night, I would never have thought about using the portal.”

“What portal?”

“The one in the East Coast headquarters. I had been trying to think of a way to smuggle a bomb into the Challenge, but I knew it would be impossible. The wards would detect it immediately and detonate it inside a force field. It would all be for nothing.”

“But then you met me,” I said, feeling sick.

“And you showed me that I didn’t have to get a bomb into headquarters. One was already there, in the form of their portal.” She reached into a pocket in her skirt and came out with a small gray ball. I recognized the remains of my explosive putty.

“That’s why you insisted on coming home with me,” I said dully. “You wanted to take it from my bag.”

“I am sorry for that,” she said, apparently sincere. “I would have asked, but I did not think you would trust me with it. I am a vampire, after all.”

“But you could have taken it at Elyas’s,” I said, desperately trying to stall. I couldn’t catch Christine on the open streets, and headquarters was too close. By the time I made a call, she’d already be there. “You were alone with my duffel in the office while I talked to Mircea.”

“No, Raymond was there. He would have seen. But in the confusion after the fey attacked, it was easy.”

Yeah, easy. Like walking into the East Coast headquarters would be easy. Christine wasn’t a dirty dhampir or a wanted criminal. She probably wouldn’t even be challenged. And a mass of explosive like that in a large active portal—

She was right: she was clever.

There was a cascade of images in front of my eyes, and this time, they were my own. Radu in his ridiculous dressing gown; my mother, glimpsed through Mircea’s eyes, the scene suffused with a love I had never believed existed; Louis-Cesare, head thrown back in passion, fingers gripping my arms like he never wanted to let go.

And Christine, off to destroy all of it.

There was only one solution left, and it meant I was about to disappoint Louis- Cesare. But there was no other choice. If I let her leave, it was over.

I pulled a gun out of my coat; Christine didn’t even notice. She was halfway up the ladder, reaching for the manhole cover, happy and confident in her newfound purpose. And still carrying the putty in her right hand.

I didn’t even try to take cover; there was no point. If the blast didn’t kill me, Christine’s death energy would. Or the tu

So I did.

EPILOGUE

“I told you she was evil,” someone said as I blinked open my eyes.

I was in my bedroom. A wash of afternoon sunshine cascaded over the old sheets, turning the off-white cotton faintly yellow. A vampire sat beside my bed, and he was in yellow, too. And before my eyes focused on the face, I knew who it was. There aren’t many people, even in the vampire world, who think that daffodil-colored satin is appropriate day wear.

Radu crossed his legs and flipped over another page in the magazine he was reading—Car and Driver, ominously enough—while I checked myself out. The parts I could see poking out of a faded blue T-shirt all appeared to be functional, although most were trying to decide between a livid red and a blue- black color scheme. But I’d looked worse, and I’d certainly felt worse. And, frankly, I was grateful to be feeling anything at all.

Even if I didn’t understand it.

I pushed the extra pillow behind me and sat up. “Maybe you can clear something up for me that I’ve always wondered about,” I said, meeting those famous turquoise eyes.

“Yes?”

“Why do you insist on dressing like freaking D’Artagnan when you were born two hundred years before that?”

Radu frowned. “Formal wear in my day was robes, Dory.”

“And?”

“Nasty, long, hot, smothering robes. Good in winter, of course, but the rest of the time…”

“Vampires don’t sweat.”

“Yes, but knee pants are so much more flattering. You can see my legs.”

“You want people to see your legs?”

“I have very nice legs!” We both paused to admire them for a moment.

“Are you here to shake me down for the car?” I asked, getting it over with. “Because I don’t have three hundred thousand dollars.”

’Du’s eyes flicked over the well-worn furnishings and faded quilts. “I never would have guessed.”

“I’m not likely to have it in the future, either.”

His frown grew. “I’m not here about the car, Dory! I bought it for Gunther, in any case. I don’t drive.”

“Gunther? Your bodyguard?”

“He’s a very good bodyguard.”

I looked at him severely. “ ’Du, you’re not falling for a human, are you? You know how tacky that is.”

“Certainly not.” He shook out a sleeve. “Anyway, I bought him another one.”

I gri

“Stop that.”

“If you’re not here over the car, why are you here?” I asked curiously. Radu was certainly strong enough to withstand daylight, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable.

He poured me a glass of water from a bedside carafe and settled back with a disgruntled look. “Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure. Perhaps I thought you might want to know how the trial went.”

I sat up a little more. “They still had it?”

“Well, of course they still had it. Elyas is still dead, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know. What happened?”

“Louis-Cesare was acquitted of murdering that sniveling creature.” I felt my spine relax slightly into the pillow. “And convicted of mass endangerment by knowingly concealing a revenant.”

I sat back up again. “What?”

“Well, what did you expect? She almost butchered Anthony.”

“What’s the sentence?” I asked, feeling my stomach drop.

“Death.”

“Death?”

“But since Christine was under Elyas’s care—and supposed supervision—while committing the murders, Mircea managed to successfully argue that the sentence should be carried out on him.”

“On Elyas?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“But he’s already dead.”

“Yes. Quite the time-saver, that.”

“So… they’re just going to let Louis- Cesare walk?” That didn’t sound like the Senate.

“Not entirely. He did sire her, after all, and failed to deal with the problem. He’s lucky they didn’t do worse.”

“Radu! What did they do?”

“Threw him off the Senate—both of them. And he is ba

“So Louis-Cesare had to fall on his sword?”

“In a ma

“So the challenges went off without a hitch?”

“Thus far. Of course, tonight was merely round one, and no one truly expected a problem yet.”

“I assume Ming-de’s candidates are cleaning up?”

“No. In fact, she had a rather poor showing. The only candidates to move on to the finals from the Chinese delegation were Zheng-ze and Lord Cheung, although it’s early days.”

“Zheng-ze?”

“Very odd sort. Believe it or not, he fought the whole night with a severed head tied to his belt!”

So Scarface was on his way to a Senate seat, after all. I gri

There was a knock on the door and a hairy little head poked in. Big gray eyes regarded me silently for a moment before Stinky scrambled up the bedpost and plopped down beside me. He had something wet and dripping in his hand, and before I could stop him, he slapped it to my forehead.