Midnight's Daughter (16 page)

When the invisible hand smashed the thing to bits a few seconds later, I was already halfway across the floor running full out for the front door. I’m as fast as all but the oldest vamps when I want to be, and knowing what would happen when the disruptors went off gave me the best incentive I’d had in a long time to break speed records. I was still inside the building when the explosion came, but just barely. The blast picked me up and threw me against the sliding door, which buckled and then tore off its track. The crumpled metal sheet and I went for a wild ride across the parking lot, striking sparks off the pavement, skidded past a group of dark figures and careened into an SUV.

I rolled underneath the chassis of the vehicle but didn’t stay there long. A set of powerful hands grabbed me and hauled me out the other side, about the same time that pieces of the warehouse began to rain down all around us. So much for having to worry about disposing of Benny’s body, I thought, as I brought a knee up to connect with my captor’s groin. He let out a curse, which I barely heard, being temporarily deaf from the blast, but a flaming crate landed almost on top of us at the same moment and I got a glimpse of his face. Uh-oh.

“Dor-i-na.” The syllables were like three strokes of a lash. “I have been looking for you.”

I swallowed and gave a sickly smile. Ashes and fire continued falling all around us, like a vision straight out of hell, but I barely noticed. Who cares about the setting when you’re already looking at the devil? “Uncle.”

“It is a simple enough bargain, Dorina.” Drac sat in his suite at the Bellagio and smiled at me. It might have been more effective if the expression hadn’t completely missed his cold, dead eyes. “I would expect even you to understand.”

All vampires are technically dead, of course, but most manage not to look like it. Drac didn’t bother. There was no reason at all to forget that the slender body draped comfortably over the armchair was, in fact, stone-cold dead. He didn’t breathe, blink or swallow. His skin was a matte white a geisha might have envied, and his eyes were a flat, opaque green like the glass on a beer bottle, with no spark whatever in their depths. The smile, the only expression on his face, was so completely without meaning that it could as easily have graced a department store mannequin, except it would have made the customers very jumpy. I was feeling a little like that, too.

“What part of the conversation did you not comprehend?” Drac was speaking Romanian, I suppose because he felt like it. Or maybe he didn’t want his goons to overhear. Either way, it wasn’t making me happy. My memories of the old country compose a large percentage of my nightmares, even though I haven’t been back in almost three centuries.

“The part about me retaining my ‘miserable life’ in exchange for helping you,” I replied. I spoke in English. If he didn’t like it, good.

“You think I would betray you?”

I shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. Vamps are like dogs—showing fear only makes it that much more likely they’ll rip you to shreds. “It crossed my mind. I did help to trap you, after all. I doubt I’m on your favorite-people list.”

Drac seemed to find this funny. The eyes didn’t warm up—I had never seen them do so—but the laughter sounded real. “Ah, Dorina. You do flatter yourself.” He sat up slightly and changed expression again. I think it might have been an attempt to look earnest. Mostly, it just looked blank. The newer vampires have that problem sometimes, until they figure out how to get their dead features to form appropriate expressions. Drac had never been real interested in learning.

“Let us be clear, yes? You are a dhampir. A misbegotten creature with no concept of honor, so how can you betray? You acted as you did for two reasons: it is your nature to hunt my kind, and my brother enlisted your aid. I cannot fault you for the first any more than I would a snake for biting me or a scorpion for stinging. I might crush them, under the right circumstances, but blame them? No. As for the second, you could have refused my brother’s order, but you would have been foolish to take such a risk on my behalf. I would not have thanked you for it, and he might well have punished you. In your position, I would have acted the same.”

“Well, if you aren’t carrying a grudge, then I’ll be on my way.” I didn’t bother getting up; it would have been pointless, and the goon behind me looked like he’d appreciate a chance to put me back in my seat. Preferably in little pieces.

I had already calculated the odds of busting out of there, and didn’t like them. Benny’s stash had been stripped off me along with my other weapons, and I’d been knocked unconscious for the trip here. That isn’t easy to do with a dhampir, and my head was feeling like a jackhammer had been at it. When I woke up, it was to find that Drac had a dozen followers in the room, a combo of mages and vamps. Together, they rendered any attempt to run for the door suicide.

I didn’t recognize any of the vamps as being from Drac’s old stable, but none of them were days-old babies, either. The one behind me, for instance, was at least a fourth-level master, and therefore had to be on loan from someone. I was betting Rasputin, the self-appointed leader of the other side in the war. He had plenty of vamps to spare but had just been given a black eye by the Senate. He must have been over the moon at the chance to unleash Drac on them. He could lie low and lick his wounds while Uncle kept his enemies busy, not to mention depriving them of a powerful member if he got really lucky. The fact that Rasputin was allied with the Black Circle would also explain the mages.

The, vamps were standing around seemingly at random, but enough were near the windows to ensure that even if I decided to attempt the ten-story plunge, I’d never make it. My chance of getting away using force was about the same as that of the suckers downstairs winning at roulette. But unlike for them, a loss for me could be permanent.

Drac continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Let us say that, at the moment, you are no more to me than any other dhampir. Normally, I kill all of your kind who are foolish enough to cross my path. It is a precaution, like a farmer putting out traps for mice. But under the circumstances, I am willing to make you the offer of a trade. Your life for assistance with my current endeavor.”

“You want me to kill Mircea and Radu for you.”

Drac stared at me for a moment before breaking out into laughter once again. At least I was providing entertainment, even though I still had all my internal organs intact. Would wonders never cease.

“I had forgotten how amusing you can be.” Drac calmed down after a moment, the nonexpression replacing the previous mirth. “I admit to some surprise that no one has yet managed to end your existence, but certainly you overrate your skills if you believe you have a chance of disposing of either of my siblings. Admittedly, Radu is a coward and a weakling, but he is not stupid enough to trust anyone, particularly one such as you. And Mircea… has always been remarkably difficult to kill.”

When he spoke Mircea’s name, Drac’s face finally found an expression—hatred. The depth of his emotion thrummed through the room, like the skull-throbbing sensation of a building storm. And I suddenly realized that maybe I’d been wrong about Drac’s main target. “Yeah,” I agreed slowly. “You’d think he has some sort of guardian angel.”

Drac’s face twisted. “He doesn’t need one. He has always been able to persuade others to fall on their swords for him. Our father sent Radu and I to the Turks, but his precious heir was kept safely by his side. Mircea lived like a prince while Radu whored himself to get out of the dungeons and I was tortured every day for years!” I didn’t need to complain about the lack of emotion now. His eyes were glowing with it. “Even death worked in Mircea’s favor,” he spat. “When the treacherous dogs of the nobility lynched him, he was saved—by the very curse meant to destroy him!”

I stared into incandescent green eyes and finally understood. What I’d put down to madness was sounding a lot more like out-of-control jealousy. Even weirder, I could sort of relate. Mircea always seemed so sure of his place in the world: he was Mircea Basarab, scion of a noble house and prince of the supernatural world. He wore the assurance of his worth like a cloak, while the bastard he’d sired shivered in the cold. “He always lands on his feet,” I said, and not all the bitterness in my voice was fake.

“Not this time.” In a flash, Drac’s face was once again a bland mask. He regarded me narrowly. “As astonishing as it is, we have something in common, Dorina. One man has plagued both our lives for far too long. He made you the abomination that you are, doomed to live forever alone, shunned, an outcast, while he condemned me to an existence of perpetual suffering for a single mistake.”

I badly wanted to ask what he meant, but bit my lip to stay quiet. Questioning Drac was a risky business. You never knew when he would decide he’d had enough and start amusing himself other ways.

“I do not expect you to undertake the risk of challenging him,” I was told. “I merely require you to bring both of my brothers together in one place. Somewhere away from the Senate and the protection of this MAGIC enclave. I will do the rest.” He thought for a moment, steepling his hands like a bad impression of Sherlock Holmes. “A private residence would be best, somewhere secluded. Mircea’s home in Washington State would be perfect, and rather fitting. With the surrounding forest, it resembles the old country.”

The conversation was getting pretty surreal. Mircea and I weren’t what could be called close, and I’d threatened many times, loudly and in public, to kill him. But this was the first time anyone had ever taken me seriously. Did Drac think I hated Mircea as badly as he did? Had he honestly forgotten London, or did he think a century had blunted my memory? I repressed a shudder. That wasn’t the sort of thing that slipped your mind. Not in a century, not ever.

“I don’t think it’s too likely,” I commented blandly.

“There is a problem?” Drac asked, almost politely.

“Yeah. Mircea isn’t in Washington right now. The last time I saw him was in New York a few days ago, but I got the impression he wasn’t planning to be there long. And he’s not in Vegas. He’s on some mission for the Senate—I’m not sure what—but with a war on, I doubt he’s going home anytime soon.”

“Plausible.” Drac thought for a moment. “And Radu?”

I didn’t hesitate. Radu and company had a four-hour head start, not to mention a Senate escort. Telling the truth simply meant one fewer hurdle—how to get news of the move to Drac. “You might have more luck there. Radu is moving to his place and I’ve been invited along as bodyguard until another team can be assembled to replace the one you killed.”

“Why does he leave MAGIC’s embrace now, knowing I chase him?” Drac looked at me shrewdly. “Did you hope, little dhampir, that I would come after him myself?”

“The thought did occur to me, yeah.” There was no point denying it; no other explanation would make sense.

“And Radu’s ‘place’ would be where?”

“He’s never invited me over for dinner, so I haven’t actually seen it. But it’s in California, some old winery he bought for a song back in the sixties.”

“Why does he think he will be safe there?”

I couldn’t deny knowledge of this, either. As Radu’s bodyguard, there was no way I’d have let him choose that location unless I had researched it and determined that it could withstand an attack. “Mircea’s a Senate member. He has a lot of enemies, and Radu has always been seen as his weak link. Some major wards have been put up there, almost as good as MAGIC can boast, just in case anyone tries to get at Mircea through his brother.”

Drac did not do anything as human as relax back against his chair, but he somehow gave the impression of pleasure anyway. “Good. Then he believes himself secure. As his protector, you will have reason to inquire into the precise nature of these wards. You will communicate that information to me and arrange to have both of my brothers there at the same time.”

I fidgeted. “What if that isn’t possible? I told you, I don’t know where Mircea is. Not to mention that he isn’t likely to come running at my call. I could maybe find out about the wards, but—”

“I have other ways past the wards, Dorina,” Drac said, and although he didn’t introduce his mage friends, we both knew whom he was talking about. “Your information will make things easier, but it alone will not buy your life. An easier death, perhaps, but no more. I want Mircea.”

I swallowed. “What reason can I give him, assuming I can find him? He doesn’t completely trust me—”

“Of course not. My brother is not a fool.”

“But you realize that makes things somewhat—”

I never saw the blow coming, didn’t even feel it land. The first clue I had that maybe I was asking too many questions was when my body connected with the wall in a sickening thud. I slid down the tasteful beige wallpaper as a dark figure crossed my blurred vision. “If you wish to live, you will manage. I will be waiting for your call. Do not disappoint me.”

One of the annoyances of being a dhampir is that your body just keeps on going. I guess it’s a precaution, to be able to push on in really tough situations, but there are times when you need a good faint. The trip back from Drac’s was one of them.

I suppose his boys figured he wouldn’t be likely to object if they emphasized his point a bit more, since he had come close to bashing my brains out himself. As a result, by the time they finally left me in an alley behind a strip club, I was really wishing I could go off to la-la land until my body started to repair some of the damage. But no.

I would have groaned, but my mouth seemed unusually full of tongue. I tried to lift my head, but it appeared to be welded to something rough beneath my cheek that reeked of old garbage and urine. I finally forced my puffy eyes open and squinted the world into focus through a curtain of lashes.

Dirty water was trickling down a brick wall. I lay in front of some trash cans, bleeding onto a couple of rotting cabbages. Well, that explained part of the smell. A guy darted into the alley, relieved himself against the wall, saw me and ran off. And that explained the rest.