Jolt, jolt, jolt.
I woke up to the sensation of being carried . . . painfully . . . somewhere I couldn’t see. Because I couldn’t see anything. The only light came from little squares of haze that broke the blackness here and there, but they flashed by so quickly that they didn’t help much. In fact, it was mostly the opposite: they acted like strobes in a nightclub, brightening things just enough to fool my eyes and make me dizzy.
And I was already dizzy enough.
Damn it, what was happening?
I struggled the rest of the way back to consciousness, cursing the darkness. But then a bullet whizzed by and sparked off the floor in front of us, and I decided I didn’t mind so much. And then it didn’t matter, because whoever was carrying me made a movement so fast that, even as part of it, I couldn’t follow.
And, suddenly, we were running through light.
Not bright light. Most of it was provided by huge candelabras dripping wax everywhere and looking creepy. But they showed me enough to realize that Louis-Cesare was carrying me, that we’d just darted out of one of the hidden passages around here, and that we were currently tearing through a library.
And that somebody was shooting at us.
Make that a lot of somebodies.
Annnnd I was caught up.
“Put me down,” I told him, struggling.
“In a moment.”
“Why? What are you waiting for?”
“That,” he said, as we burst into a narrow hallway and leapt over a line of masters who’d just knelt in front of us.
I thought I recognized one of them.
“Mircea’s?”
“Mircea’s.”
I craned my neck around, because we were now running down the hall, so fast that it was almost a blur. But I was in time to see another squad of vamps—the ones who I guess had been following us—get held up the hard way. The two groups crashed together as we rushed in the other direction, into another room, through a fireplace, down a passageway, and out—
Into Mircea’s suite of rooms.
I knew them because I’d been here before. What I didn’t know was that they’d gotten an upgrade. Or maybe the portal swirling on the far wall had always been here, because trust Mircea to have a plan B—and C and D and E—for every occasion.
Except this one, because I wasn’t going in there.
“Let me down—”
Louis-Cesare wasn’t letting me down.
I twisted and managed to get loose, hit the edge of a table, and bounce off onto the floor.
Oh yeah.
That was fun.
“Dory!” Louis-Cesare grabbed me again, blue eyes wild. “We need to get you out of here!”
“We need to get me to the consul,” I snarled, ripping off the sheet. Which was covered in blood from a wound in my side, thanks to a certain curly-haired bastard. Who was going to rue the fucking day.
“You can kill Kit later,” Louis-Cesare told me.
“I plan to!”
“And Mircea can deal with Dorina,” he continued, as I felt around for an exit wound.
Found one, lucky me. And not through anything vital. So it was just blood loss I really couldn’t afford right now that was making me feel like shit.
I ripped up the sheet and started a basic field dressing.
“Listen to me!” Louis-Cesare caught my upper arms, and shook me.
“Cut it out!”
“Then explain to me why I shouldn’t pick you up and throw you through that portal, whether you like it or not!”
I looked up. “You do and I swear—”
“Quoi?” He spread his arms, blue eyes flashing. “What are you going to do? What do you think would be worse for me than seeing you riddled with bullets?”
I stared at him, because he looked genuinely angry, which he almost never was with me. And genuinely afraid, which he wasn’t with anybody. And genuinely gorgeous, and fuck it—I’d had a hard day.
I surged up and kissed him, and for a brief second, he was into it. Before breaking away and glaring at me. And cussing inventively in French, which was never a good sign.
“Lord Mircea can deal with this!” he repeated furiously.
“Can he?” I panted, pulling the dressing tight. “You sure?”
“His specialty is the mind!”
“So is Dorina’s. And he couldn’t detect her before, when she was just a kid and used to follow him around Venice for shits and giggles. He didn’t know she was there until she said something.”
Louis-Cesare frowned. “That was a long time ago. He is more powerful now—” He caught my expression. “And do not say that she is, too!”
“Okay, I won’t say it.” I tied off the bandage and looked around for weapons. And didn’t find any. Damn it!
Fine, we’d do it the hard way.
An iron fist gripped my arm. “You are not going out there!”
“The consul is a poisonous bitch, possibly literally,” I told him. “But if she dies, the war effort descends into chaos while those other bastards fight over a successor. And they will. You know they will.”
My brilliant appeal to logic did not appear to have much effect. “What I know is that you’re in no condition to do anything about it! Neither of us is.”
I looked him over. He had a point. “So what’s your plan?”
He gestured at the portal. “That! Get out, get you to a healer, and let your father handle this. I’ve already sent him the information. He knows Dorina is a danger.”
“He’s known that for five hundred years.” I walked over to the portal, swirling in the wall. It was a powerful one; I could feel the pull from here. I looked back at him. “Where does this go, again?”
He joined me, looking relieved. “Lord Mircea’s home in Washington State.”
“And we can get back afterward? Once this is over?”
“Yes, it works both ways. As long as the shield isn’t up.”
He glanced at a little button on the wall. Guess that was the shield. “Good to know,” I said, and shoved him through the swirling light before slamming my fist down on the button.
All right, then.
Or it was.
Until an arm snaked through the portal and grabbed me, jerking me in.
After a furious trip through a vortex of color and light, I landed in a posh office I was too pissed to take in right now, where a lying bastard of a vampire was trying to—
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
I pushed him away from what I was pretty sure was the portal’s control panel, and he went staggering back into a bookshelf. It fell over, making a hell of a racket, and a bunch of vamps ran through the door, guns drawn. And immediately looked confused.
“Thanks,” I told the nearest, and grabbed his gun.
“Urm,” he said.
“Extra clips?”
“I—not on me—”
“Hit the kill switch, damn you!” Louis-Cesare snarled at them, even as he went for it himself.
Before he could reach it, I dove back through the portal, landing hard on the other side—with someone’s hand around my ankle.
And was promptly jerked back, my body feeling like candy at a continent-spanning taffy pull, until it popped out the other side again.
“Son of a bitch motherfucker!”
“Language,” Louis-Cesare said grimly, from down near my foot.
I kicked him in the mouth.
I felt bad doing it—it was a nice mouth—but I didn’t have time for this.
“I don’t have time for this—let me go!” I yelled, while a line of perturbed-looking vamps just stood around, uselessly. “Grab him!” I told them, because he wasn’t letting go. “And get me some extra clips!”
The guy who’d lent me the gun looked conflicted. “Are . . . are you going to use them to shoot Louis-Cesare?”
“Probably not,” I said, broke his hold, dove for the portal, and got tackled again halfway through.
The forward momentum kept us going anyway, landing us back in Mircea’s bedroom—only to find another bunch of vamps in there, and they didn’t look conflicted at all.
Shit!
Of course Marlowe would know there was a portal. And of course he’d send a group to secure it. The sneaky son of a bitch!
I did some bullet riddling, which pissed them off but bought us time, and then Mircea’s boys ran in the door and a trashing of the room commenced. That’s two in one night, I thought dizzily. I’m on a roll.