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p; “Wait. You’re working for the Senate?” He looked almost relieved. Since the Vampire Senate usually made vamps quake in their designer shoes, that was a little strange.
“I’m freelancing,” I informed him.
“But you’re a dhampir!”
“Like you said, it’s a living.”
“God! I thought… Never mind.”
I unzipped the roomy main compartment of the duffel. “We’re going to go see the senator in charge of fey affairs. He has some questions about that illegal portal you’ve been running to Faerie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. People walk in and out of here all the time, and some of them leave carrying nasty fey weapons. You cough up the location to the portal, we blow it up and everybody lives happily ever after.”
“I still won’t have a head!”
“There are people who can fix that—assuming you have all the requisite parts. I’ll leave the body here; I’m sure your boys will take good care of it. And as long as you come through, you and it will be happily reunited in a couple of—”
A handsome young Asian guy burst through the door energetically enough to send the lock flying. He was in the black jeans, boots and muscle shirt of a bouncer, the latter untucked to hide the gun at his back. He started to say something, then stopped, gaping. His eyes flicked from the body on the floor to the head in the sink, then back to the body. His mouth dropped open.
“Don’t just stand there!” Raymond spluttered. “Kill her!”
The vamp jumped at the sound of a voice coming from the gory head, but his eyes obediently made the rounds again, looking for a target. And passed over me without so much as a pause. He saw me, but assumed I was human, which put me in the same threat category as the paper towel dispenser.
I gave a little wave. “Dhampir,” I added helpfully.
He blinked and finally focused on my face. He took in the delicate bone structure I inherited from my human mother, the dimples I received from the iffier side of the gene pool and my unimpressive height. “You are not!” He sounded almost offended.
“No, really.”
“You don’t look like a dhampir!”
“You’ve met one?”
“No, but… a dhampir would be taller. And you’d have a tail.” His eyes flicked downward for a second, and he looked almost disappointed at my human- looking butt.
“That’s a myth,” I told him gently.
He still looked skeptical, so I flashed my tiny fangs. They’re vestigial in my kind, since we don’t drink blood, but they got the message across. His eyes widened, and he retreated a step before he caught himself. “Dhampir!”
“Out of curiosity, what did you think had decapitated the boss?” I asked, as he went for his gun. I’d expected that, and mine was out before he’d completed the gesture. The reflexes aren’t a myth, or I’d have been dead a long time ago.
He looked at my Glock. It’s a.45. He’d pulled out a tiny little.22.
“Size really does matter,” I observed, and he scowled.
“Oh for—Go get help!” Raymond ordered.
The vamp’s eyes shifted back to his master, and some of his initial panic returned. “But sir. Lord Cheung is here!”
“What?” Raymond suddenly looked more freaked out than when I’d decapitated him. “But he’s not due until midnight!”
“I believe his plane arrived early.” The vamp’s eyes kept flicking back and forth between the two parts of the boss, as if unsure which one he should be addressing. He finally settled on the head. “He commands your presence, sir.”
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” Now Raymond was the one looking around wildly.
“What’s your master doing here?” I demanded.
