“Do you have a point?”
“Just that you oughta keep your phone turned on, ’cause trying to get any info out of your roommate is a pain in my ass. And could be one in yours if you miss out on a great deal ’cause I can’t find you.”
I felt my eyes narrow. Raymond’s idea of a great deal and mine differed slightly. “What kind of deal?”
“The best kind. The we’re-rolling-in-dough kind.”
“Uh-huh. Which would be why you’re here with a carful of your stuff, along with . . . your family?” That last was a guess, but the lumps were vamps under the camouflage, and pretty low-level, or they wouldn’t be snoring. Most of them were already out like a light.
And smoking slightly despite the cover-up.
“Shit,” Ray said, also smelling barbecue. “Help me out. Gotta figure out which one’s burning before he sets the whole group on fire.”
I sighed but went to help sort through the pile of what, yes, turned out to be Ray’s family. Like their master, they were not particularly prepossessing. Also like their master, they were wearing a lot of clothes, even things like eight or nine pairs of underwear and triple pairs of socks, although that wouldn’t help much with the sun.
“The damned hotel,” Ray said, when I commented. “They see you take out your luggage, and they wanna get paid—”
“So why didn’t you just pay them?”
“Why didn’t I just pay them?” It was a falsetto, which would normally have been annoying, but he looked seriously pissed. The small ferret face was pinched and scowling. And the shock of dark hair was quivering with indignation. “Same reason we were living in a damned fleabag. Cheung, that son of a bitch!”
“Cheung?”
“Senator Cheung? My old master Cheung? Bastard ex-pirate who’s still a goddamned pirate Cheung?”
“Okay.”
“He wiped me out!”
“And by ‘wiped out,’ you mean . . .”
“Every damned cent! Every bank account I had was also in his name, so he could check up on me, you know?”
I nodded. Until recently, Ray had been a seedy nightclub owner under Cheung’s manicured thumb. But a series of unfortunate events had resulted in Ray losing first his head and then his master, when Cheung gifted him to me as a bad joke. Because Ray was obviously about to die and, as a dhampir, I couldn’t have vampire children anyway.
But Ray had the survival skills of a cockroach in nuclear winter, having had plenty of practice. The bastard son of a Dutch sailor from the bad old days when raping the locals was considered a friendly greeting, and an Indonesian woman who died young, Ray had considered it a good day if he managed to find something to eat—and he often didn’t. And then he became a vampire and stayed short and scrawny forever.
But also plucky, scrappy, and luckier than he thought he was, which was how he’d ended up in possession of Aiden’s magic rune for a short time. It had given him some protection; plus, while beheading is no joke even for a vamp, it isn’t usually enough to seal the deal. So, long story short, Ray got his noggin sewn back on, Aiden got his rune, and I ended up with a “child” I didn’t want and had no way of holding on to without a blood bond I couldn’t do.
Not that holding on to him was really the problem. Getting rid of him was more like it, because Ray didn’t seem to want to go. And now he was moving in?
“You’re not moving in,” I told him, while he slapped at one of his children’s smoking backsides.
The door opened and Olga looked in.
Ray gave a little shriek, but her bulk blocked out most of the light. And, anyway, he was a master, if a very weak one. He could handle a small exposure to daylight, especially indoors.
Unlike his boys.
“You okay?” she asked, as I threw a coat over a guy’s badly blistered thigh.
“Yeah. Could you bring the little pot of green salve from the kitchen?” I asked. “It’s in Claire’s medicine cabinet.”
Olga nodded, and started to leave. “And the vodka,” Ray called after her.
She stopped and looked at me.
“No vodka.”
“I need a drink! You don’t know what kind of day—”
“We don’t have vodka.”
“Whiskey?”
Olga inclined her head graciously and left. Damned troll hospitality. “You’re not drinking all the whiskey, and you’re not moving in,” I told him, grabbing another limp body.
“Why you gotta be like that?” Ray said. “I never even asked.”
“You just showed up with all your stuff!”
“Maybe I’m visiting.”
I sent him a look. “For how long?”
“You know. A couple weeks—”
“Ray!”
“Like I got a choice? You think I’d be moving in with Ms. Vamps-Are-Icky if I had a choice?”
“You’re not moving in.”
“Then where am I supposed to go? My club burnt down, and we were living on the top floor—”
“So tell Cheung to give you your money back. He can’t just take it for no reason—”
“Like hell he can’t. He says it was my fault anyways, ’cause the club wasn’t insured—”
“It wasn’t insured?”
“It was sorta insured—”
“Ray!”
“And now he wants my head and I can’t afford to lose it again! And you can’t navigate being a newly appointed senator without someone to show you the ropes.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What?” he demanded.
“You’re as much a train wreck as I am. And as soon as the war’s over, somebody else will have my seat anyway. You think they’re going to keep a dhampir on the Senate one second longer than they have to?”
“Well, not with that attitude.”
Olga knocked, then came back in with the salve. There were three in the in-need pile so far, and she and Ray started on them, while I determinedly stripped the rest. By the time we were done gooping up the sickly, wrapping them in blankets, and piling them along the walls, I needed a drink.
Thankfully, Olga had brought three glasses. Hospitality says you don’t let your guests drink alone. It also says you get water glasses full of booze, because troll ideas of a shot are a little different.
I eyed Ray. I supposed I should be worried that he’d belted his back in one go. And then slammed the glass down, wiped his lips, and looked at me. “Okay, about that deal.”
* * *
—
A couple hours later, Olga and I rolled to a stop by a sidewalk, where a seriously impressed-looking valet ran over to take our ride. He didn’t so much as glance at me, despite the nifty silver jumpsuit I was wearing, a recent gift from my fashion-conscious uncle Radu. It was one shouldered and figure hugging, with the material stretchy enough not to be binding. It also had a faint snakeskin pattern in the weave that I secretly thought was badass. And slightly flared trouser legs, although not enough to hide my usual butt-kicking boots, so I’d opted for silver sandals instead.
He also wasn’t looking at Olga, who was a vision in gold lamé, along with some troll bling in the form of a necklace that looked like it might leap off her neck and go for your jugular at any second. But it didn’t rate so much as a glance. The guy only had eyes for the car.
I couldn’t blame him. The sun was setting as we pulled up, and the shiny black surface reflected the colors in bright streamers. I was still gonna have to see my buddies—Claire wanted something less likely to get hijacked—but for the moment, Olga and I were stylin’.
Well, if you didn’t count what was following us.
We got out, I handed over the keys, and Claire’s new ride purred off around the corner. And was immediately replaced by an ominous rattle, a screech of brakes, and the scent of burning oil. And more acrid black smoke than an old-fashioned steam train.