Karen Chance: Death's Mistress

He frowned. “I am serious. I would like to know.”

“I’m sure you would,” I said sarcastically, as Mircea tore off the check. Marlowe ran the Senate’s intelligence organization, and he’d probably vastly prefer to keep matters like Vleck in the hands of his own deadly little hit squad. But he couldn’t afford to risk them in wartime on nonessential missions.

The conflict between the Silver Circle of light mages and their dark counterpart had been going on for a while now, and just to confuse the hell out of everyone, the vamps had decided to ally with the light. But it stretched their manpower, and they seemed to have more trouble taking care of the Vlecks of this world than I did.

I intended to keep it that way. This was the best money I’d made in years.

“Every vampire in that nightclub knew the moment their master died, yet you simply walked out,” he said resentfully, refusing to let it go.

I put on my innocent face, which seems to annoy him about as much as those damn smiles do me. “Yeah. I guess I got lucky.”

“You do it every time!”

“Really lucky,” I amended, trying to take the check.

But Mircea held on to the other end.

“Have you by any chance seen Louis-Cesare recently?”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Why can you never answer a simple question?”

“Maybe because you never ask any. And what would the darling of the European Senate want with me?”

Louis-Cesare and I had met only recently, despite being members of the same dysfunctional clan. It wasn’t too surprising since we came from opposite ends of the vampire world. I was the dhampir daughter of the family patriarch, the little-known stain on an otherwise immaculate record. Dhampirs are feared and loathed by vampires for obvious reasons, and most families who accidentally end up with one quickly bury the error. Why Mircea hadn’t done so was still something of a mystery. Maybe because I occasionally proved useful.

Louis-Cesare, on the other hand, was vamp royalty. The only made Child of Mircea’s younger and far stranger brother, Radu, he had been breaking records almost since birth. He’d become a master, a rank many vamps never reached, before he’d been dead half a century. Another century had elevated him to first- level status, on par with the top players in the vamp world. And within a decade after that, he’d become the darling of the European Senate, feted for his looks, his wealth and his ability on the dueling field, which had gotten them out of many sticky situations.

A month ago, the prince and the pariah had crossed paths because we had one thing in common: we were both very good at killing things. And Mircea’s bug-eyed, crazy brother Vlad had needed killing if anyone ever had. But our collaboration had had a rough start. Louis-Cesare didn’t like taking orders from a dhampir, and I didn’t like having a partner, period. But we eventually sorted things out and got the job done. He’d even learned some manners, before the end. And I had started to think that it was kind of… nice, having someone to watch my back for a change.

Sometimes I could be really stupid.

“Radu mentioned that the two of you had grown… close,” Mircea said carefully.

“Radu was mistaken.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Marlowe observed. “Have you seen or had any contact with Louis-Cesare in the last few weeks?”

“Why? What’s he done?”

“Nothing… yet.”

“Okay, what are you afraid he’ll do?”

Marlowe glanced at Mircea, and they held one of those silent conversations vampires sometimes have, the kind I’m not supposed to know about. “I would merely like to ask him about a family matter,” Mircea said, after a moment.

“As you’re constantly reminding me, I’m family. Tell me and maybe I can help. Or does the family thing only work when you want something?”

Mircea took a deep breath, which he didn’t need, to show me how much of a pain I was being. “It’s about his family, Dorina, and is not my story to tell. Now, have you seen him?”

“I haven’t heard from him in a month,” I said flatly, suddenly tiring of the game. I didn’t need another reminder that, as far as my status as family was concerned, it was and always would be second-class.

“Should that change, I would appreciate receiving word,” he told me.

“And I’d appreciate receiving my check, or are you planning to hold it all night?”

Mircea raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t let go. “I may have another commission for you tomorrow.” He pushed a folder across the desk, careful to avoid the blood splatter.

“May have?”

“It has yet to be decided. Will you be available?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“And, Dorina, should I choose to go through with it, I will need this one alive.”

“Will the handy-dandy portable size do?” If I didn’t stake the heart, a master vamp could live in pieces anywhere from a week to a month, depending on his power level. And it was a lot easier to sneak out a head in a bag than a whole body. Plus, there was something about decapitation that made even the most obstinate vamp feel chatty.

“That will be sufficient,” Mircea said, gazing cynically at Vleck. The ex-vamp’s mouth had slipped open and his tongue was hanging out. At least he wasn’t drooling,

I thought, and snatched the check.

God, how I loved easy money.

The gray weather we’d been having for the last few days was making an encore, but I made it home before it started to rain. I parked my latest rusted hulk—a Camaro that had once been blue and was now a sort of mottled gray—on the overgrown driveway to one side of the house. My key hit the lock as the first few droplets spattered down.

The leaden skies made the battered old Victorian look even more dilapidated than usual. It had been built by a retiring sea captain back in the 1880s, when Flat-bush was Brooklyn’s happening new suburb. It still sat on a decent-sized lot with old-growth trees, but its glory days were over. The paint was peeling, the porch was sagging and the gingerbread trim was missing a number of pieces. It made the house look a bit like an old person with broken teeth. But it was home, and it was glad to see me.

After a moment, a frisson of welcome spread up my arm, and the door opened. I hopped over a hole in the floor, set a couple of takeout bags on the counter and lit an old-fashioned hurricane lamp. On full power, the wards caused the electricity to go bonkers. And while it still worked okay for larger appliances, constantly blinking lights made me dizzy.

I snared a beer out of the fridge and stood at the counter drinking it, flipping through the day’s mail. Someone had thoughtfully left it on the table, maybe because it was mostly composed of bills. My onetime roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, she’d left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it.

Most important, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom, which had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few days of rain, and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldn’t be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head.

I filed the bills in the usual spot—the breadbox—and started to unpack the takeout when a clap of thunder struck directly overhead. It sounded like a grenade going off, and was near enough to shake the house. I froze, my heart in my throat.

Oh, please, oh, please, I begged, listening with all my might.

For a long moment I didn’t hear anything, except the rumbling aftermath of the weather and my thudding pulse. And then a thin, tremulous wail filtered down from upstairs. My blood ran cold.