“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.
The club’s overhanging roof dripped a steady stream of rainwater onto my upturned face. It tasted like tar, and burned whenever it came into contact with one of my various cuts. After a few minutes thinking about the last time I’d ended up in this much pain, and how I’d fervently promised myself never to be that stupid again, I decided to sit up. This required batting away a couple of cats, who’d been hissing at me for blocking their way to the scrap heap, and a lot of swearing. The broken ribs flowering blue and purple through my ripped top didn’t like my new position, but I was damned if I’d lie in a trash-filled alley all night, shivering and feeling sorry for myself. By the time I managed a sort of leaning stance against one of the aluminum cans, I had moved past the pain to a nice, slow burn.
If Daddy dearest had listened to me, none of us would be in this position now. And if Radu had bothered to bestir himself just once during Drac’s imprisonment, he could have killed the son of a bitch before he had a chance to get out again. Neither of them deserved me getting a paper cut on his behalf, much less my current state. If there was any way to get to Claire without playing these games, I’d have dragged my battered self off and left them to fend for themselves. I could always go on the hunt again later, after she was safe. And if I was lucky, someone would stake Drac for me in the meantime.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue where to find her, and without the Senate’s formidable resources, I didn’t hold out much hope for a rescue. Especially now that my special-weapons collection was sitting on zero. Drac had taken my backpack as well as the items I’d acquired from Benny’s case, leaving me without a stake to my name.
I picked a banana peel out of my hair, wincing as my strained muscles put on a vehement protest. It felt like half the ligaments in my shoulders either were out of commission or wished they were, probably the result of having one vamp almost pull them out of their sockets holding me in place for another to pummel. I could only hope I wasn’t going to be in a fight anytime soon. But I couldn’t afford to hole up somewhere and bleed for a few hours. I had people to see, and the first name on my list wasn’t hard to find.
The Strip was alive with flame, from the fireworks detonating overhead to the casino-sponsored floats, each of which seemed bent on outdoing in gaudiness and patriotism everyone else. And, on the Fourth of July, that translated into fire—a lot of it. The red, white and blue bunting surrounding Dante’s entrant in the patriotic parade went up in flame as I watched.
Dante’s, Vegas’ premier vamp-owned casino, also happens to be in the family, so to speak. Its current manager was sired by one of Mircea’s less-reputable sons, and therefore might be expected to do me a favor. Assuming I could get to him before the float went to hell and took him with it.