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“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.”
