But those emotions hadn’t been part of the memory, had they? That had been a happy time, a stolen morning away from responsibilities. No reason for pain, for loss. Not when he had no way of knowing what was coming. And by the time he did know, he was vampire. But they didn’t, couldn’t feel that kind of—
“Hello? Anybody home?” Ray’s strident tones cut through the endless loop in my head. For once, I was almost grateful.
“I thought you were supposed to be a witness?” I said, pushing off the door. “Why are you still here?”
“They said they didn’t need me, after all. Something about having plenty of other stuff to talk about.”
“I bet.”
“So can we go? This place is giving me the creeps.”
“It is unsettling,” someone said from beside the hall door.
I looked over to see Christine sitting on a mountain of luggage. She’d been so quiet, I hadn’t even noticed her. “They left you, too, huh?” I asked, dropping Ray in the duffel. What the hell? He didn’t take up much room.
“They said my testimony would not be helpful,” she told me. “I did not see anything, and I am close to Louis-Cesare. I believe they think that I would lie for him.”
“So all that packing for nothing.”
“Oh, no. Not for nothing,” she said as I dug around beside Ray’s gory self. As always, the keys had migrated to the farthest reaches of the bag. “I have been informed that the family doesn’t want me here. They have… What is the term? Knocked me out.”
“Kicked you out,” I corrected. “So where to now?”
“I do not know. Where are we going?”
I hadn’t found the keys, but at that, I looked up. “Come again?”
“Louis-Cesare said that I should stay with you.”
“Oh, boy,” Ray muttered.
“He said what?” I asked, very carefully.
“I am sure he will come for me, when this trial is over.
Do you live far?”
“You can’t come with me,” I explained, my fist finally closing on the damn keys.
She frowned slightly, a small dent forming between those beautiful eyes. “But I must. Louis-Cesare said—”
“I don’t care what Louis-Cesare said. And neither should you. You’re three hundred years old, for God’s sake. Go out. Live a little.”
I grabbed the duffel and started for the door, but a delicate hand shot out, snaring my wrist in a motion too fast to see. It was the only indication I’d seen so far of what she really was. Well, that and the tensile strength of that grip.
But her face was lost, panic-stricken, and innocently distressed. “But… but I cannot fail him! Not on his first command in… I cannot!”
“You probably misunderstood,” I said, striving for patience.
“No, no! I know what he said! And dawn approaches, and I have nowhere else to go, and they will throw me out on the street!”
God, she was crying again.
“Louis-Cesare probably wanted me to drop you off at his place.” Not that the bastard had bothered to ask. Or to mention it.
“H-his place?”
“He’s staying at the Club. Come on; I’ll give you a lift.”
“Oh, thank you!” Christine looked so relieved, I felt a little guilty suddenly. What would it be like to live for a century being told every single thing to do and not to do? It had to erode a person’s self-confidence, after a while. And it wasn’t Christine’s fault that her master was a complete—
“What are you doing?” I demanded. Christine had jumped up and started to gather up some of that mountain of luggage. She looked at me blankly. “That’s not all going to fit in the car.”
She gazed at her cheerfully mismatched cases. “But… but what should I do?”
“Pick the stuff you need for today and Elyas’s people can send the rest on.”
“But they won’t. They’ve been horrid! What if they throw it out? What if they never…” Her lower lip began quivering.
“Oh, shit,” Ray said. “Squash it in! Squash it in!”
We squashed it in. After three trips, a lot of cursing, and no help at all from the family, we somehow got me, Ray, Ray’s body, Christine and her worldly possessions all inside the car. Fortunately, the Club wasn’t far, and they had porters.
Or make that had.
Fifteen minutes later I sat staring at the burned- out hulk of what had once been a luxury hotel, wondering why the universe hated me. I couldn’t see much, because there were still some emergency vehicles scattered around, although it appeared that most had trundled off. But the acrid, waterlogged smell in the air would have been enough.
“What is it?” Ray demanded.
“A curse,” I muttered. “It’s the only possible explanation.”
“The master burned it down, didn’t he?” he asked.
“He likes burning stuff.”
Now he told me.
“I’m going to have to take you to a hotel,” I told Christine.
Her eyes got wide. “A human hotel?” she asked, like I’d suggested throwing her in a snake pit.
“There’s some very nice ones in—”
“No!” she whispered, looking horrified.
“Plenty of vampires stay at human hotels,” I said, which was true for those who couldn’t afford the Club’s staggering rates.
“The sun—I can’t—I’ll die! I’ll die!” She grabbed me by the shoulder in a grip that threatened to crush bone. I pried her fingers off, and she just sat there, huddled in the passenger seat, looking devastated. And I began to worry about whether it was such a great idea, after all.
Vamps did use human hotels when up against it. But it was dangerous. Few hotel curtains were constructed to properly block all those dangerous daylight rays. And even sleeping in the bathroom, as uncomfortable as that was, might not be enough. All it would take was one careless maid ignoring a do-not-disturb sign, and Christine would be toast.
I could take her to vamp central and toss her out on the curb, and technically, that was exactly what I ought to do. But Louis-Cesare was there facing trial for murder, and he didn’t need another headache right now. And Radu had said there were no vampire- friendly rooms to be had in town, thanks to the damn races.
“I’ll be very quiet,” she whispered, as if she somehow knew I was weakening. “You’ll never know I’m there.”
“It’s not me we have to worry about,” I said, thinking of a certain half dragon with a serious vampire phobia.
I really hoped she wasn’t hungry.
CHAPTER 24
Forty-five minutes later, I pulled into my street. I was exhausted and cramped, and a bag or something had shifted when I had to stop for a red light suddenly, and it had been poking me in the back ever since. I wanted a drink or three and bed and I wanted them now.
Only that wasn’t looking too likely.
“Crap,” I said with feeling, almost standing on the brakes.
“What? What’s wrong now?” Ray demanded. His body was squashed in back between half a dozen suitcases, two garment bags, a trunk and five hatboxes, with the duffel on his lap.
“We have a welcoming committee.”
We were maybe a third of a block from the house, so I couldn’t see them very well. But someone was there, all right. Make that a lot of someones, I thought, as more shadows broke away from the house and drifted into the street, trying to get a look at us.
Ray’s body held his head up so it could see, and the tiny eyes almost bugged out. “Shit. It’s the master.”
“Cheung?” I’d almost forgotten about him. Too bad the reverse didn’t appear to be true.
“What are you waiting for?” Ray asked, starting to sound a little frantic. “Go, go, go!”
“I can’t go,” I snapped. “Your master has a dozen guys across the driveway.”
“I didn’t mean go in,” Ray said, like I might be slow. “I meant, get us out of here.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“Why the hell not?”
“The wards have held so far, but there’s at least a couple hours to dawn.”
“Which is a good argument for not getting trapped in there!”
“There are already people trapped in there. And Cheung has to know that. His Hounds can smell them from here.”