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The features were handsome, but lacked ’Du’s hint of the exotic. And the hair was faintly curly instead of his shining waterfall. And the clothes, now that I saw them up close, were wrong: a dark suit, well made but not up to the family’s exacting standards. I licked my lips, feeling my heart rate back off the danger zone.
Until the head suddenly moved in my hand.
And the eyes—cold and dark and dead—fixed on me.
I froze, because there was no life in them, no spark, much less the glow of a vampire in distress. But there was cold, calculating intelligence, nonetheless. Not in them so muc
h as behind them. Like someone was using the dead man’s face for a mask.
And there was only one creature I knew who could do that.
Necromancer, I thought, staring at him through his proxy’s eyes. Which made sense, given what Radu was facing downstairs. But it still seemed impossible.
Technically, a dead body was a dead body. And necromancers could exert control over any that wasn’t already in control of itself—like a vampire—and sometimes even then. That was why they’d once been killed on sight, and why any with serious power often still were, despite the Senate’s claims to the contrary. Lower-level vamps could be taken over by a powerful necromancer and used as spies against their own kind. It had happened often enough in the bad old days, if rumor was to be believed.
But this wasn’t a lower-level vamp. He wouldn’t have been on the desk—considered the first line of defense—if he was. So what the hell?
I didn’t get an answer—unless you counted the eyes suddenly narrowing, and the mouth screwing up. I jerked to the side, hard enough to wrench something. But it ensured that the spit intended for my face hit my shoulder instead, splattering against the heavy leather with an acidic hiss. And then I was out of range, rolling and flipping and putting three bullets through the evil thing’s eyes.
Which didn’t stop it from laughing.
I snatched off the jacket, breathing hard and cursing. And watched the leather bubble and burn and then disintegrate into a baseball-sized hole. I pulled a knife and ripped off the sleeve, wishing I had the ammo to spare to obliterate that horrible grin.
But I didn’t, because I’d just announced my presence to everyone here. Or if I hadn’t, that thing probably had. Was that why he’d been left there? Some kind of early-warning system, a CCTV for the magically inclined?
I didn’t know, but I didn’t intend to wait around and find out.
I pushed on, navigating around puddles of still-sticky blood in case any of them might burn my feet off. But it was impossible to miss the stuff completely. It had even run into the grout between the tiles in the elevator alcove, placing a red grid on the floor. Hell, even the potted plants were splattered with it.
Which was kind of disturbing, since they also appeared to be moving.
Now what? I thought, gripping my gun tighter. But I didn’t retreat because I couldn’t. The damned plants were framing the hall running between the reception area and the elevators. And of course it was the one I needed. So whoever or whatever was back there was about to get—
“Aughhhh!”
I’d jerked on a quivering frond, only to have it jerk back. And scream. And then go running wildly down the corridor away from me, shedding bits of leaves and moss and making strange huffing shrieks. Right up until it ran out of hallway.
It ricocheted around for a second, as if trying to find a branching corridor that wasn’t there. And then it seemed to go a little mad, turning around and coming back again. Which was less of a concern than the fact that it appeared to be sprouting hand grenades like some weird sort of fruit.
One of which fell off and went bouncing along the baseboard.
I didn’t wait to see if the pin was still in it or not. I stumbled back a few steps and then turned and ran, right back the way I’d come, across the lobby and through a corridor and down a flight of stairs, slamming the garage door behind me. Only to have frantic fists beat a staccato hail on it a second later and someone start screaming bloody murder.
I hesitated a second, but I thought the screams sounded a little familiar. And even if I was wrong, whoever it was didn’t seem interested in attacking me so much as in getting the hell out of Dodge. I jerked open the door and something flew through, just a green blur against the dim garage, right up until it hit the bottom of the incline.
At which point it dropped like a stone, screeching and flailing around like some kind of panicked banshee.
A muffled boom came from the other side of the door and I waited a few heartbeats, holding my breath. But there were no other sounds, like running footsteps coming this way. It looked like whatever was downstairs was either deaf or was waiting for me to come to it. Which would have been fine if that hadn’t been exactly what I was about to do.
But at least it gave me some options.
I peeled myself off the wall and went to see what the blubbering thing was doing.
It was blubbering. And writhing. And sizzling slightly because it had just run into the wards at top speed.
It also wasn’t an it so much as a he, and a familiar he at that.
I bent over and jerked him up, and this time he didn’t try to run or even respond, except to continue a litany of “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, know, know, know, know—” until I slapped him.
