Midnight's Daughter

Chapter Nineteen

“My lord… I can explain—,” Louis-Cesare began, looking less than certain that he could do anything of the kind.

Radu held up a hand. “I am sure there is a perfectly good reason why my niece is naked and tied to her bed. I am also equally certain that I do not wish to hear it.”

Louis-Cesare’s hands fumbled a little, but they managed to get my wrists loose. I snatched up my jeans. “What’s wrong with the wards?”

“They went down a few—” Radu stopped as the windows abruptly darkened, almost like night had decided on an encore. “Well, that’s not right,” he said crossly.

I got to the windows a half second before Louis-Cesare. The view wasn’t encouraging. The sky boiled with greenish black clouds, laced through with silver streaks. The air pressure built in palpable waves, like a snake drawing its coils in closer and closer. A flash hit a decorative planting of three palms near the driveway, splitting one in half. The reverberation rocked the floor, sending vibrations up through my feet straight into my skull.

“This isn’t the right time of year for storms,” Radu was saying behind me. I didn’t answer, being too busy watching shadows shift in the vineyards beyond the house. Dark shapes unfurled leathery wings like tattered cloth in a breeze. Cold little pinpricks started running up and down my spine.

“ ’Du—when you say the wards fell, which ones exactly did you mean?” The shapes converged on the house, sweeping toward the window with the heavy wingbeat of large black birds. Below, I could hear something scrabbling with swordlike claws for purchase on the stucco.

“Why, all of them.” He moved closer to see what had caught my attention. “They’re on a common power source. I—”

A birdlike head on a serpentine neck smashed into the window, the glass distorting its face into a grinning rictus. Radu stumbled back with a small cry. The head disappeared and a talon-ended claw smashed through the window, reaching past me to grab at him. I beat at the thing with a bedside lamp, but it bounced off the leathery appendage without even leaving a dent, sending a throbbing pain up my arm to my shoulder.

Louis-Cesare grabbed the thing’s leg and jerked it inward. Its wings stuck in the space between the window and the small cast-iron balcony beyond, keeping it from advancing. It also blocked its buddies from getting inside—at least for the moment. I got a good look into its greenish yellow eyes, but only animal intelligence looked back. I wondered where the smart one was.

Louis-Cesare had spun Radu out of reach. “You must raise the wards—quickly!”

“That will trap us in here with them!” The thing in the window began to scream and vibrate. A look out of the small side windows explained its problem—its buddies had started to rip into it with the viciousness of a pack of wild dogs, rending the great wings as easily as black cobwebs.

“Better that than allowing them to escape into the surrounding population! They are only dumb animals—we will corral or destroy them.”

Radu shook his head, and the flash of fear over his face told me that I wasn’t the only one to have noticed something odd about a few of those experiments. I found the peasant tunic half-hidden under the bed and pulled it on. “Is there something you want to tell us, ’Du?”

He swallowed. “I can’t. The Senate—” The thing fell out of the window, screaming, released by its buddies ripping off a wing. It was immediately replaced by several others, their claws scrabbling for purchase on the delicate balcony railing, their teeth snapping as their great wings pummeled the air.

“The Senate isn’t here!” I reminded him. “It’s our butts on the line! Come on, ’Du—give.”

Louis-Cesare beat the things back with an armchair, which he stuffed in the hole left by the shattered window. I looked at it dubiously, doubting that wood and leather would hold them for long. I’d barely had the thought when the makeshift plug exploded through the room, wedging in the open door to the hall, blocking our retreat. One of the smaller creatures managed to scramble inside the room, only to have Louis-Cesare grab it around the throat and squeeze hard enough to cause its eyes to bulge.

“La salle de bains, vite!” He gestured at the bathroom door, and I shoved Radu through with no ceremony. There was a connecting door to the adjacent room, which turned out to be Louis-Cesare’s.

Unfortunately, a similar assault was taking place at his window. A gust of rain-laden wind slapped me in the face from the shattered panes as I pushed Radu toward the hall. I didn’t make it. A long claw snaked in and plucked me off my feet.

I had a confused moment of disorientation as the bird creature launched itself off the balcony. Then one of my feet came into contact with the railing and I managed to get one hooked under an iron scroll. My leg was almost wrenched from its socket when the thing began trying to dislodge me, beating the air with its wings, throwing arcs of rain into my face, screeching in fury. Then its other claw struck me in the chest, hard enough to drive the air from my lungs and to fill my throat and sinuses with acid. Lightning crackled, the sky trembled and I couldn’t breathe.

I let go, but before the creature could make any headway, someone jabbed a long shard of broken glass into the thin, leathery hide stretched over its rib cage. A long, red gash appeared on the black skin for an instant, before the drenching rain washed it clean. I had a moment to see Radu grasping for my hand; then the claw retracted and I was falling.

Halfway to the ground, I suddenly stopped. The pain of talons sinking into my calf let me know that I hadn’t been miraculously saved. A bony claw held me suspended twelve feet over the ground, dangling helplessly. I had exactly a second to think about what I could do about it with no weapons when white-hot agony spiked down my back. Another set of claws had descended on my shoulders, talons sinking deep. I clenched my teeth on a scream as the two creatures began pulling in opposite directions. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that much more of this would solve the argument by ripping me in two.

A long-handled knife came out of nowhere, severing the throat of the creature holding my calf. Unfortunately, it didn’t retract its claw before plummeting to the ground, its weight taking me and the bigger creature along for the ride. We landed with a teeth-rattling crash, with me on top of the dying one. I ripped the knife out of the remains of its throat, but even though I had a weapon, it’s hard to hit something you can’t see. The talons sunk deep into the muscles of my shoulders ensured that I couldn’t turn around to deal with my other attacker.

Luckily, one of the other creatures decided that the position also ensured that my attacker had limited movement, and tore into it. Its claws ripped out of me and I turned, sinking the knife deep between its ribs, angled upward. I felt the resistance as the knife cleaved the heart in two, heard the great muscle stagger and begin to fail; then the creature spasmed and fell, almost crushing me beneath it. I pulled out the knife and jumped back, just in time to meet my new attacker. How the hell many of these things were there?

This one was larger than the others, so big that its huge wings were useless appendages; it had had to wait for prey to fall to the ground. Prey like me. We slowly circled the huge rib cage of the dying creature, its torso heaving with shuddering breaths. The knife was so slick with blood and the now-pounding rain that it kept threatening to slip through my fingers. Even worse, this creature seemed smarter than the others. It didn’t have the human eyes that had so disturbed me on the leader, but it watched me with calculation nonetheless, waiting for me to make a mistake. I had the feeling one would be all it took.

The electricity had come back on when the wards had failed, causing the landscape lighting to click on. The co-ziness of the golden light was in stark contrast with the angry silver streaking through the sky. It cast odd patterns of brightness into the gloom, allowing me to see other assorted horrors slinking past, giving us a wide berth as they moved toward the house. Louis-Cesare’s face stared down at me, a pale oval against the darkness, and called out something. But his voice was swallowed by the downpour, and I didn’t have time to worry about it because the creature attacked.

It was like facing three opponents instead of one. Leathery wings batted me in the face with the force of solid punches, claws ripped at my skin, and that vicious beak tore into the ground right beside me, carving a furrow in the earth where I’d been standing a half second before. I lashed out, but it moved with liquid speed, vampire quick, and my knife only bit into a small section of wing. It flexed its talons and its long, whipping tail, a piercing scream of defiance issuing from its throat.

I quickly realized that it was faster than I was. It seemed impossible—only master vampires could usually make that claim—but there was no doubt about it. I got a hand on it once, but the rain and the slick texture of its flesh made it as slippery as oiled glass and I couldn’t keep hold. Within seconds, it became a moot point as I was forced to give up all thoughts of attack. It took everything I could do to avoid being shredded by those ferocious claws or impaled by that razor-sharp beak.

My predicament wasn’t helped by the fact that the creature’s clawed feet churned up the dirt of Radu’s once-manicured yard, mixing with the rain to create a slippery, treacherous surface. Its greater weight gave it an advantage in keeping balance, one I didn’t have, especially not in bare feet. I swerved out of the way of a darting claw and slid in the mud, ending up right beneath its underbelly. Its tail snaked out, coils whipping around my neck, immovable as granite.

I took the only chance I had and slashed upward, hitting what felt like a bulging wineskin—a leathery exterior over a soft center. A flood of blood and ropy intestines drenched me in a sticky, sickening mass. I tried to fight my way free, but the creature wasn’t dead yet, and it intended to take me with it—the coils of that deadly tail tightened until I couldn’t breathe at all.

I slashed at it with the knife, finally managing to hack the tail in two and to draw a shaky breath when the coils slipped off. But although I was free, there was nowhere to go. The only way to avoid that deadly beak was to stay out of its way, and there was only one chance to do that.

The huge body had sagged over me. I widened the slit and crawled inside the split cavity, burrowing upward. I couldn’t see, and trying to breathe was once more impossible. I fought blindly, the knife going ahead of me, ripping through everything in its path. I felt it in my arms when I hit bone, and pushed upward in a single heave. Ribs popped, flesh parted and the creature fell, its writhing jostling me this way and that, its screeches muffled by its own body.

Its movements finally slowed, but I had lost my grip on the knife in the upheaval. I began tearing at the tissue surrounding me with my hands. I was almost out of time—I had to breathe soon or suffocate—but I would likely be blind for a moment when I pulled out because of all the blood. I had to be sure the thing was in no shape for one final attack at that point, or I’d be as vulnerable as it was now.

I grabbed at anything, ripping and clawing, but my strength wasn’t up to par and without the knife I couldn’t do much damage. The body had stilled around me, and my lungs were burning in my chest, screaming at me to take the risk, to get out while I still had enough strength. I started moving backward, and then realized I had a new problem: the thing had collapsed onto its belly, closing the wound and cutting off the only exit I had. I pushed and fought from inside, but the leathery skin was impervious to all attempt to break through it. It stretched, but held, and my efforts were growing feeble as the burning in my chest spread weakness throughout my body.

One of my searching hands encountered something soft that had a familiar resiliency. Biting it open, I smashed my face against the cavity, and inhaled. I’d been right—the creature’s lung had retained enough air for one breath, and despite being damp and fetid, it was sweet in my lungs.

It bought me some time, but not much, and my limbs still felt like they were moving through molasses. Then my hand closed around something long and sharp and hard, and I gripped it like the lifeline it was, even though the blade cut into my palm. I was trying to turn it, to get a cutting edge against that damnable hide, when a gaping hole was slashed in the darkness. A cascade of water droplets blew in on me, wetting my face, and I gasped in a great lungful of the cold, clean scent of rain.

“Dorina!” I was hauled from the bloody cavern, my body making a squelching sound as it tore free. “Dorina!” Blood was in my ears; I could barely hear, but the sound of Louis-Cesare’s voice got through somehow. I pried open my eyes, blinking God knew what aside, and he caught me in a fierce embrace. His saber arm was crimsoned to the shoulder, and his other hand was gloved with gore. I’d never been so happy to see anyone.

“I’m okay,” I croaked, wondering if it was true as the world spun around me. I felt myself being lifted. One second we were by the carcass, the next beside the house. Louis-Cesare pressed me against the stucco, gripped my face in one large, muddy hand and kissed me. I fought free after a moment, gasping for air, trying to keep the heavy mass of hair dripping down his bare shoulders from suffocating me. “Not the time!” I choked.

“Est-ce que vous êtes folle?” His voice was harsh.

“No more so than you,” I gasped, spitting out something squashy that I didn’t look at too closely. “And considering everything, I really think you can use the familiar.”

“I told you that I was coming—” For some reason, he was shaking.

I had a bad taste in my mouth. I spat and it was red, but I didn’t think the blood was mine. “What? Did you think one little bird was going to do me in?” The liquid fatigue in my muscles forced me to lean against the house to keep from falling over. I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Hell, that was just a warm-up.”

Louis-Cesare muttered something I didn’t catch. Probably just as well. I ran a trembling hand over myself to check that all my parts were still there. I appeared to be okay, other than for assorted claw marks. The only ones that worried me were those on my abused shoulders. They were bad enough to limit my movement.

I tried to step out of the circle of Louis-Cesare’s arms—we were under an overhang from the roof, and considering that I was soaked with bird goo, I preferred to stand in the rain. But he tightened his grip and glared at me. “You are not going anywhere!”

“Oh, okay. You’re going to round up Radu’s little horrors and guard him from whatever has already slunk into the house, and get the wards up all by yourself?” I gestured at the shadowy landscape, where all that exotic foliage was rustling menacingly. Some of that was due to the rain, but not all.

“I will do what I must.” Despite his mud-splattered skin and the fact that the waterlogged towel was drooping dangerously, he managed to make it dignified.

I bit back a smile and a very inappropriate comment. “I can take care of myself.”

His jaw clenched. “As you did a moment ago?”

I opened my hand and showed him the knife I still clutched. “Yeah.”

Louis-Cesare stared at it for a long moment, expressionless. “You’re hurt,” he finally protested.

I brushed a piece of intestine off my shoulder. “It’s hurt worse.”

“You can assist Radu—”

“I know jack about wards,” I said flatly. “I know a lot about killing things. You and ’Du get the wards up around the pen, and make sure they recognize me. I’ll do the rest.”

No answer, just the interlacing of warm, strong fingers with my own. The knife was tugged from my grip. I let it go—I needed something bigger anyway.

“Louis-Cesare…”

“No!”

“Louis-Cesare,” I repeated quietly. “Look at me. I’m covered in blood and entrails. I just gutted a creature that would send most people into gibbering fits. And speaking of fits… well, let’s not. The point is, I can take care of myself.” I took a breath. “I’m not Christine.”

I braced for anger about my prying. What I got instead was a look so far from anything I’d expected that it took a second for me to recognize it: the quiet, professional assessment of a colleague. “I will send you assistance,” he finally said, “and once the perimeter wards are up, I will return to help you.” A sword was pressed into my hand.

I nodded. “Deal.” I glanced down and couldn’t help but smile just a little. “And Louis-Cesare—get some pants on.”

Geoffrey joined me a few moments later, as I was tying up something I’d fished out of the bushes. It was mostly tail and claws and a lot of bumpy protrusions. I’d eyed them with concern, but apparently they were just cosmetic, because nothing spurted or oozed out at me.

“We’re going to need more rope,” I told him, “a lot more. I found some in a gardener’s shed, but there has to be a hundred of these things roaming around, and ’Du doesn’t want us to kill any more than we have to.”

“I will bear that in mind,” he replied, and stabbed me.

I saw the blade coming. Unlike my own, deliberately dulled versions, he was using a nice, shiny one that gleamed like a beacon in the dim garden light. But I wasn’t quite fast enough to completely avoid it. It bit into the fleshy part of my side instead of hitting my heart, not that that improved my mood any. “You’re the traitor!” I said stupidly, stumbling backward.

“You should have died in San Francisco,” he said furiously. I tripped over a garden hose and fell against a birdbath, while barely avoiding being skewered again. As it was, I lost the sword, which went flying out of my hand like a silver arrow. Either Geoffrey was faster than he had any right to be at his age, or I was slowing down. Either way, not good.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I told him, and threw a heavy earthenware pot, complete with hibiscus, at his head. He dodged and snarled. It looked really odd on that usually stoic face.

“Or at dinner—how did you know not to eat?” he demanded. He seemed highly incensed that I’d been so hard to kill.

“You poisoned Stinky!” Okay, now I was pissed. I drove the plinth from the stone birdbath into his gut, hard enough to make him fall to his knees retching. I looked around for the basin, which would hopefully be heavy enough to finish him, but in the few seconds it took me to locate it, Geoffrey was gone. His knee prints in the dirt were still there, rapidly filling with water, but there was no sign of the vamp himself.

“The freak ate from your plate—it was intended for you!” He fell on me out of the branches of a dripping bottlebrush tree, knife flailing, but I skipped back. One swipe of his weapon ripped a gash in the peasant top, but missed my skin. I had a second to be glad it was Radu’s wardrobe being decimated this time, instead of mine, while Geoffrey went sprawling in the mud. Then he was up and coming at me again.

I brought up the basin like a shield, hearing the scrape of the knife on stone, then slammed it into his face and leapt back, skirting a trellis that ran along one side of the house. It created a small, very dark arbor, shadowed by grapevines as big around as my wrist. Something snatched at me from the foliage. I got a quick impression of a scaly body, a naked tail and a sharp snout with needle-thin canines. I retrieved my sword, which was still quivering from landing point first in the ground, and poked at it. It retreated, chittering in displeasure. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Geoffrey would be so easy to deter. After attacking me, he’d have to kill me, or Mircea would rip him to pieces.

I scanned the garden, sword in hand, but didn’t see him. The inside of the arbor was like a dark wound beside the brighter stucco—I couldn’t see inside it, and the rain and the ominous rustling of the vines meant that there was little chance of hearing him. If he was even in there.

I glanced around, but there weren’t many other hiding places in the immediate vicinity. The palm trio was still smoking, despite the downpour, and was no longer in a position to hide much of anything. The graveled path to the front was clear, and the nearest vineyard didn’t start for a couple dozen yards.

I saw something move among the vines, a black ripple that darted between rows, silent and dangerous. Slipping quietly on the wet earth, I moved out of the ring of lights circling the house and into the darker reaches beyond. It wasn’t as dark as I would have liked—the lightning had grown worse, flashing silver strobes across the landscape—but it was better than remaining silhouetted against the floodlit stucco, practically begging to be attacked.

The air quivered like something stretched beyond bearable tension as I slowly crossed the yard, closing in on whatever was hiding in the vines. These weren’t nearly as large as the venerable specimens in the arbor, which looked like the conquistadores themselves might have planted them. But they were mature enough to give decent cover. It wasn’t until I was almost on top of my prey that I realized what it was.

A figure stepped out of the vines, wreathed in shadow, its face only a pale smudge through sheets of rain. My hair was plastered to my skin, my tunic heavy and waterlogged, but around the newcomer a bright pennant of hair lifted on a gust of breeze. Eyes clear as water met mine. I gripped my sword tighter and thought some very rude things. Fey. Perfect, just perfect. Then the attack came, blindingly fast and unbelievably strong, and I didn’t have time to think at all.

My sword was struck aside in the first rush, and went spinning off across the vineyard. It had to have gone fifty yards, and in the dark among the dense planting, I’d never find it. Something slashed through my sleeve and I jumped back, behind a vine that suddenly leapt off its row to slither around my feet, dumping me in the mud. I rolled aside and something silver flashed down, quick as the lightning and just as deadly, missing me by maybe a millimeter.

And then everything stopped. “Heidar!” The voice was shrill. “What do you think you’re doing? Stop it right now!”

I sat up, and although mud and blood and a few bird entrails that I must have missed fell into my eyes, I didn’t need sight to recognize that voice. “Claire!”

“Dory—where are you? Freaking rain! It’s after nine in the morning and I can’t see shit.”

I got to my feet and eyed the very abashed-looking Fey in front of me. Lightning flashed, showing me blond hair and pale blue eyes. Not the one I’d been dreading, then. Claire burst through a gap in the vines and reinforced that impression by smacking him on the shoulder. He had to be six feet five and was surprisingly well muscled for a Fey, but he cringed slightly.

“What did I tell you?” Claire was furious, and in characteristic fashion, she decided to set him straight before bothering with the pleasantries. I leaned back against a fence post and waited it out. Luckily for Radu’s future harvest, the vine kept its leaves to itself.

A few minutes later she wound down enough that I managed to insert a sentence into the tirade. “I’ve been looking for you,” I offered mildly.

Claire’s forehead unknotted slightly. “I knew you would. I was only gone a couple of days, but the damned Fey timeline isn’t in sync with ours and… anyway, I hope you didn’t worry.”

I thought back over the last month, to the sleepless nights and the restless days, to the fights and the calls and the threats and the beatings, and I smiled. “A little.”

“I’m really sorry, Dory, but you won’t believe everything that’s—” She caught me peering at her face and grabbed her nose, looking mortified. “Oh, God! Am I morphing? Tell me I’m not morphing!”

“Uh. No. Are you supposed to be?”

“Only in Faerie, so far.” Claire looked relieved. “Don’t stare at me like that! It freaks me out.”

“Sorry. I just… aren’t you supposed to have pointy ears or something?”

“Vulcans! Vulcans have pointy ears. Do I look like an alien to you?”

“No, but you never looked much like a Fey, either.”

“I would like to apologize for my mistake, lady,” Heidar said, jumping in during the nanosecond pause in the conversation. He’d obviously been around Claire for a while. “I was under the impression that you were a vampire.”

“I get that a lot,” I said kindly. “I’m Dory.”

The Fey brightened. “Is this where I introduce myself?” he whispered in a loud aside to Claire, who looked horrified.

“Oh, God.”

“I have been practicing,” Heidar informed me proudly, then launched into a recital of what had to be fifty names, most with explanations.

“Never ask them their names,” Claire advised as Heidar rattled on. “Just. Don’t.”

“Okay. It seems you’ve been busy.” I poked her in the middle. “Anything in there I should know about?”

She blanched. It made her freckles stand out like spots on white paper. “How did you hear about that?”

“Are you kidding me? So far, I had that runt Kyle—”

“I hate him. I hate all vamps. That complete toad, Michael—”

“—tell me you were pregnant by a vamp—”

“—kidnapped me and—Kyle said what?”

“—and then a member of the Domi shows up and informs me—”

“The Domi sent someone here?”

“—that you’re actually pregnant by the late king of the Fey.”

“Late?!” Heidar squeaked.

I stopped and looked at him. His hair was miraculously still mostly dry, despite the downpour. Claire’s, on the other hand, was as wet as mine, frizzing and straggling around her face like a dead animal pelt. It was hard to believe they were both half-Fey.

“Let me guess, you’re Alarr?”

“It means Elven general,” Heidar enlightened me automatically. “But, please, lady, I beg of you, tell us what you know of my father.”

“I’m sorry, not a lot. Only that he’s missing and presumed dead.”

“That is impossible,” Heidar said with conviction.

I didn’t feel like arguing the point, especially when I suspected he might be right. “Okay.” I looked at Claire sternly. “You want to tell me what’s been going on?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Hit the highlights.”

“Well, Heidar and I met at work—he’d come to bid on something—only my boss—you remember Matt, the gorilla in a suit?” I nodded. Her former boss at Gerald’s did look frighteningly like a shaved ape. “He’d decided to sell me to Sebastian, who’d finally tracked me down, only it didn’t work out quite like they’d planned. Heidar and I escaped into Faerie, but the damned Svarestri attacked us. We got away—you don’t even want to know how—and made it back to New York, but when I stopped by the house, Michael grabbed me for the bounty—” She stopped suddenly, looking stricken.

“Which you failed to mention to me.”

Claire rallied quickly. “I knew how you’d react, Dory! And you don’t know what the family is like. They’re… they can be very bad news.”

“So can I.”

“See!” Claire screeched. “See, I knew that’s what you’d say! You’d have gone stomping off—”

“I don’t stomp.”

“—to see Sebastian, and my slimy excuse for a cousin would have had you killed! He was surrounded by body-guards all the time, the little shit, and most of them were mages. With some of their spells, well, they can take down vamps, you know?”

“And we’re talking about him in the past tense because?”

“Oh, Heidar killed him,” she said, as an afterthought. I decided not to ask or we’d be here all night.

“So Michael kidnapped you and took you where?” I prompted.

“To Sebastian, for the bounty. Only of course Seb was dead and the family was busy fighting over the inheritance and couldn’t be bothered. Michael was actually pissed at me, like I’d asked him to kidnap me or something. But I told him I was carrying a half-Fey child and that its father was the king, and he couldn’t kill me then because the Fey would—”

“Separate his worthless head from his spineless body,” Heidar managed to get in.

“So you aren’t pregnant?” I asked for clarification.

“Um,” Claire said. And stopped.

“Er,” Heidar added, blushing.

I looked between the two of them. Obviously, Caedmon’s story had been off by a generation. Then I recalled something. “A couple of days?!”

“Um, yes, well, it was more like a week, actually—”

I held up a hand. I was soaking and cold and my shoulders hurt. The details I could do without. “Just tell me how you got away from Michael. I know you were at the caves.”

“That place,” Claire said, wrinkling her nose in Virgo disgust for such disorder. “Michael decided to sell me to some dark mages he knew for a null bomb. He figured he could at least get something for his trouble that way, only the mages said they wouldn’t touch me until they checked with the Fey. But Michael had been carting me around for over a day trying to get a paycheck and—”

“Where were you?” I asked Heidar.

He looked sheepish. “I opposed Claire’s wish to return to your home. The Svarestri do not know the human world well, but they have occasionally ventured here. I considered the risk to be—”

“I was only going to leave a quick note,” she said testily.

“So you ditched your only bodyguard with—let’s see—the mages, the vamps and Fey after you?”

“There’s no reason to take that tone, Dory. And anyway, this was before Michael. I didn’t know the vamps were after me, too.”

I let it drop. We were going to have a very long conversation at some point, but not now. “Okay. So you got away from Michael how?”

“I was trying to tell you.” Claire glared me into submission. “So Michael got pissed at the mages, who wouldn’t pay him until they were sure they’d actually be able to harvest me, and he trashed their place. You’ve never seen anything like it. Bodies everywhere, and so much blood and—you know how I feel about blood. I may have passed out.”

I gave her a look. Claire gets nauseous from a paper cut. She sighed. “Okay, I did pass out. And when I woke up, I was being taken to the auction. Michael had found some guys who used to work for the mages who weren’t the kind to ask questions—”

“And Drac found you there.”

“Yes. He just took me; didn’t pay or anything. Then we went to this total rathole of a motel—I mean that literally; it had rats. You could hear them in the walls—” I nodded. Drac must not have wanted to risk my leaking his Bellagio room number to the Senate and moved to the other extreme of the spectrum. “—and one of his men kept eating them, and I said I was going to be sick and went outside and they’d left the keys in the car—”

“They didn’t have wards around the place?” As soon as I said it, I realized how stupid that was.

Claire raised an eyebrow, dislodging some water from her bangs, which ran into her eyes. “Damn contacts! That’s the other reason I had to go home; I haven’t been able to see anything for days. ‘Extended wear,’ my ass,” she mumbled, fishing around in her purse for a pair of glasses.

“And you found me how?”

“I didn’t. That’s why I was so surprised to see you. Of course, I told Heidar all about you”—she thumped him again—“and said you might catch up with us sooner or later, but he never listens, and anyway, if you’d checked the answering machine, you’d have already known I was okay. I left—I don’t know—like, ten messages, starting last night—”

“I’ve been kind of busy.”

“And you never answer your cell phone.”

“My cell had a little accident.”

“Anyway, I found Heidar lurking around the motel—he’d found me but couldn’t get through the wards—and we drove around until we saw this great hotel that does tours of the vineyards. Then I remembered when I was looking at that magazine article about the wine country, you said your uncle had a house around here, and I thought maybe he’d know where to find you. So we asked around and here we are.”

I looked into her triumphant face and found myself utterly speechless. She’d been on a tour of the wine country. While half of Faerie chased her and I went slowly out of my mind, she’d been eating crackers and debating the merits of last season’s merlot.

I finally managed to unclench my jaws enough for speech. “Claire. This is very important. Did you accidentally take down the wards when you arrived?”

“What wards?”

“You might not have noticed, but Radu has a rather elaborate ward system.”

Claire blinked at me. “Why would he need that kind of protection? I mean, he is a vampire, right?” She stopped abruptly and stared at me, a hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Oh, listen, Dory, when I said I hate all vamps, I didn’t mean, you know, the good ones—”

“Svarestri,” Heidar hissed, in a tone so unlike his previous cheerful ones that I looked around for a moment, expecting to see someone else. But I saw only dark leaves against a deep gray sky, and heard only sheeting rain.

Then, like the shadow of a shark just beneath the surface of the sea, fluid and dangerous, a shape appeared out of the vines. A gust of wind tangled my hair, carrying a scent like cold midnight that chilled me to the bone. A second shiver of darkness joined the first, then another, and then two more. It looked like we had company.