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I would have followed, but a hand encircled my arm. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you?” I collapsed to the deck, taking Louis-Cesare with me. A piece of burning sailcloth swept through the air, right where he’d been standing. “I thought I told you to stay with Radu.”
“You told me nothing. Nor did you explain where you were going or when you would return! You stole a very expensive Senate vehicle and left, that was all.”
“I talked to your sire,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. It wasn’t like I owed him an explanation. “And you’re avoiding the question.”
“I came after you!” he said, with a pretty good glare considering that he was pressed flat to the deck. “You informed Radu that you were going to Las Vegas to spread rumors of our activities. I thought it unlikely that Mircea would appreciate my allowing an adherent of his house to walk into a war zone to talk with the disreputable types likely to have Lord Dracula’s ear!” He took in my dishevelment with a sneer. “It seems my fears were justified.”
“And yet who is rescuing whom?” I pointed out, trying to restrain the need to pop him in the mouth.
“I do not see a rescue,” he said, pushing off from the floor. “I see you in a trap, in peril of your life.”
“And you’re doing so much better?”
“Dory! Some help here!” Casanova sounded less than his usual suave self. I jumped up before Louis-Cesare could grab me, and threw myself in the direction of his voice. If he got torched, my best chance to replace Benny’s stash went up in flames with him.
I found him wedged into a small door in the deck, with only his head and shoulders visible. “Do you drive?” he demanded, sounding a little shrill.
“Drive what?”
“This.” He jumped out of the hole, showing me a steering mechanism that, presumably, kept the float on course. Everything looked fine except for one slight problem.
“Where’s the driver?”
“Deserted, along with everyone else.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? With the boss out of the way, control of the business is up for grabs.”
“And someone is trying to grab it away from you.” My timing never ceases to amaze me. I slipped into the claustrophobic little space and took a closer look. The float had been built on a tractor bed, which meant that the driving apparatus was a stick. Even worse, we were approaching a bend in the road. Until now, the float had remained more or less on target from inertia, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. A glance out of the small space under the prow showed me what lay ahead if we couldn’t get this thing to turn. “I don’t drive a stick—”
“Neither do I!”
“But I know someone who does.” I pushed Casanova out of the way and grabbed Louis-Cesare by the ankle. “Get down here!”
Thankfully, he didn’t waste time asking why. And once he was down, the why was sort of obvious. A large group of tourists had arranged themselves on bleachers for the parade—probably been waiting there half the day to get flattened by a rogue pirate ship. Louis-Cesare cursed under his breath, but slid into the seat while I scrambled out of the hole around him. I dropped the trapdoor closed after me and grabbed Casanova by his pretty lace cravat. “I need a favor.”
He said something extremely rude. I just smiled. “I’m not asking for me. I’m on a job for Mircea. You know, family patriarch? And, incidentally, your boss?”
Casanova’s attitude changed immediately, an ingratiating and totally fake smile falling over his features like the mask it was. But his answer stayed the same. “I told you the truth. I don’t have anything!”
“You lying son of a—”
I didn’t get a chance to tell Casanova what I thought of him, because the crew took that moment to rejoin us. Apparently, they’d gotten tired of waiting for the ship to take out the boss and decided to do it themselves. And they’d found friends. Casanova grabbed up a sword that had fallen to the deck, and thrust it in my hands. “I hope you remember how to use one of these,” he said, before drawing his own weapon and making a flying leap for the side of the ship.
“I’m not done with you!” I screamed after him, as a figure in a bad Halloween costume took a swipe at me.
Thankfully, the guy in question was human—I’d have been missing a head, otherwise—but my reflexes must have told him that I wasn’t. I turned to see fear on his sweating face. He backed away, holding the blade as awkwardly as if he’d never seen one before in his life. I grinned, and his eyes got huge, like two eggs in the dark. He took a few hasty steps back and fell off the float, arms wheeling uselessly in the air before he hit the asphalt. I peered over the edge in time to see him scrambling away on all fours until he was swallowed up by the crowd.
An itch between my shoulder blades told me that someone else had decided to take up where he left off. I managed to get my sword up in time, but the force of the attack drove me to one knee. Then I kept on falling because Louis-Cesare took the bend in the road on what felt like two wheels, barely missing the front row in th
e bleachers. I managed to grab hold of a skull to keep from being slung across the deck, and got a close-up look at the tourists’ expressions as the crisped bunting dusted their tennis shoes black. Luckily, the sudden movement had also caused my opponent to stumble. He went down on hands and knees as I rolled and got my feet back under me.
Unlike the human, this one knew damn well what a sword was for, probably because he’d wielded one for centuries. Our weapons clashed together, high over our heads, as we both vied to trap the other’s under our own. I was outclassed strengthwise, and my overtaxed shoulder failed me. The vamp grinned as he twisted my sword downward, and I accepted the inevitable with a grimace. Damn, this was going to hurt. A jarring shock traveled up my arm to my abused shoulder as I buried the stake in his ribs. He stared at me in shock, apparently surprised to discover that I had two hands. He died before the grin faded from his face, little bubbles of blood on his lower lip.
Casanova staggered by, the human attached to his back making a damn good try to saw his head off, while a vamp tried to skewer him from in front. “I thought you’d deserted!” I yelled, as another sailor lunged at me.
