Rachel Caine: Chicks Kick Butt

“It would help if I knew what your business is,” I pointed out.

Cheung’s eyes narrowed. “You do not?”

“Would I be asking if I did?”

His expression darkened, but he didn’t reply, possibly because the front doors took that moment to slam open, allowing a dozen more vamps to pour into the room. It was starting to look like Cheung didn’t have anybody on staff lower than master level; either that, or he’d left the riffraff at home. These radiated enough power to ruffle my hair, even this far away, which made it a little ridiculous that they were dragging one short, pudgy guy.

He wasn’t halfway across the floor when I recognized him: Raymond, looking a little the worse for wear. He was trying to struggle but not managing it too well considering that neither of his feet was actually touching the floor. A tall vamp with Asian features but a pale blond buzz cut had him by the back of the neck, like an errant puppy.

I crossed my arms and got a grip on the stake up my sleeve.

Cheung noticed but didn’t do anything, other than roll his eyes. He looked past me as Raymond was dragged up to us and forced to kneel. Or maybe his legs just gave out. He looked pretty damn terrified.

“You appear to make enemies wherever you go, Raymond,” Cheung said, looking at him with a slight curl to his lip.

“I g-guess I’m just lucky like that,” Raymond said. It sounded cocky, even with the stutter, and won him a cuff upside the head from the blond. But I didn’t think it had been meant that way. Raymond was at the stage of terror where the mouth is on autopilot because the brain has retreated somewhere inside the skull in order to gibber quietly. If he’d been a human, he’d have soiled himself by now.

“Are you going to tell me what is going on?” I asked Cheung.

“I believe I shall let Raymond do that,” he said, looking with distaste at his cowering subordinate.

Ray looked from me to the boss and back again, but didn’t appear to find anything helpful. “Well?” I prompted.

He swallowed. “Uh. I might have, you know, mentioned that, uh, that the senate had appointed you as my, um.” He stopped, looking at me pitifully. His usually beady blue eyes were suddenly large and soulful, like the aforementioned puppy’s.

Or an albino rat.

“Your what?” I demanded.

“My bodyguard?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and thought about saving everyone a lot of trouble and staking Ray right here. But I doubted he’d told the senate all he knew yet. And without his information, we had pretty much a zero chance of shutting down the smuggling ring he’d been running. Not to mention that the little guy had done me a few pretty big favors recently.

I was going to have to figure a way to get him out of this.

I could always stake him later.

“Then he was lying,” Cheung said, looking satisfied.

I glared at Ray, whose eyes were still doing the huge and pleading thing. He clearly thought this was it. It didn’t help that I was pretty sure he was right.

I sighed and accepted the inevitable. “Not exactly.”

Cheung’s forehead creased slightly. “You are assuming responsibility for him?”

“I am saying I already have it.” I reached down and jerked Ray over to me by his collar. His eyes bugged out a little, but he didn’t protest. If nothing else, that told me how serious this was. He usually whined nonstop. “He’s mine.”

“Yours?” One dark eyebrow rose. “You did not sire him. By vampire law, he is my property to do with as I wish. And I doubt the senate will flout thousands of years of tradition, even to save the life of their favorite … what is the word? Canary?”

“Your vocab’s a little out of date,” I said sourly. “And that’s not how I remember it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The last time you, me, and Ray were all together, you gave him to me.”

The crease grew into a frown. “I did nothing of the kind.”

“In exchange for me helping to cover up the fact that you’d kidnapped a senator’s brother, threatened him with death, and trashed his new and very expensive car. Ring any bells?”

“There was no formal transfer made. You misinterpreted a casual remark.”

I had done no such thing, and he damn well knew it. “I guess we can let the senate decide that.” They’d have to support Ray, like it or not, or lose all that lovely information he still had locked in his fat little head.

Scarface came up the stairs and Cheung glanced at him. “Careful,” he told him, looking at me narrowly. “She is dhampir. I don’t know what she can pick up.”

Not a hell of a lot, I didn’t say. Vampire mind-speak had never been my forte. Especially not if it was in Cantonese.

But Mircea had spent some time in the East, and for all they knew, so had I. I decided to capitalize on the moment. “May I speak to Ray privately?”

Cheung hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded, probably wanting his own private confab. I didn’t give him time to change his mind, but dragged Ray through the door into the office and slammed it shut with my foot. “Are we private?” I demanded.

He sighed morosely. “There’s a privacy spell on the room; they can’t hear us. Not that it matters. They’re going to kill me.”

“You should be more worried about me at the moment,” I hissed. “Why the hell did you tell Cheung I was your bodyguard?”

“Well, you should have been,” he said spitefully, suddenly growing some backbone. “Or somebody shoulda been. What did you think was gonna happen, as soon as I started spilling my guts? The master was gonna give me a medal?”

“He knew I was going to take you in. He had to expect—”

“What he expected was that I’d die before the senate could question me. I was a little under the weather, if you remember?”

The sarcasm was understandable. Ray had been sans a head at the time Cheung and I had cut our deal, and the body parts he’d had left had been pretty beat-up. Vampires are sturdy, but what he’d been through would have killed many at a higher power level than he was ever likely to reach. Cheung’s conclusion had been reasonable.

But Ray was tougher than he looked, and he’d had some supernatural help Cheung hadn’t known about. He’d not only lived, but once all his parts were reattached, he’d sung like … well, like a canary. And what a song it had been.

“Why didn’t you ask the senate protect you?” I demanded. “You’ve given them enough information already to shut down half the illegal smuggling in Manhattan.”

“I did!” he said indignantly. “But this challenge mess is all anyone can think about. And I don’t think they believed the master would move against me, not with him vying for a senate seat and all. He’s supposed to be on his best behavior.”

“Yes, he is,” I said hopefully. “Maybe we can use that. He’s risking a lot.”

“He’s risking nothing! When I disappear, the senate might suspect him, sure. But I also could have lost my nerve and run. I thought about it, you know. I got a lot of contacts among the fey, and they can hide anybody. If they didn’t creep me out so damn much … Anyway, without proof, they can’t move against him. And since Lord Cheung is my master, nobody else can trace me.” He slumped onto the edge of the desk. “I’m toast.”

I thumped him. “And thanks to you, so am I! I’m the only one who can tell the senate you didn’t go on an extended vacation!”

“Then I guess you better figure us a way out of this,” he told me resentfully, rubbing the side of his head.

I’d have thumped him again, but I didn’t have time. I glanced around, but things weren’t looking promising. As I’d already noticed, there was no phone, and mine was still in pieces. There was only one door in or out, and the only window was merely a paler square of brick in the wall behind the desk. Ray’s place wasn’t exactly up to fire code, having been designed for the convenience of the vampire owner and staff, not ease of egress.