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“I…uh…I…” Well trained or not, the guard had obviously been thrown for a loop. I guess the consul’s place was usually a bit more straitlaced—an adjective that had never once been applied to Anthony.
Who suddenly smiled at the flustered vamp. “If you stay here any longer, I am going to assume you want to join in.”
The guard fled.
Anthony looked at me. “Having fun?”
“Not even,” I said, scrambling back to my feet.
Only to have Ray grab me. “You’ve got it wrong.”
“How?” I demanded—hopefully. Because nothing would make me happier right now.
“They weren’t that close,” he said quickly, because neither of us was under the impression that Anthony had bought us much time. “We got the portal open before you came around the last bend, but you couldn’t hear us ’cause it was so loud in there. So Radu had to go get you. They couldn’t have heard—”
“Vampire zombies,” I reminded him grimly. “Their strength and speed doesn’t vanish, even after they start to decay—”
“Don’t remind me.”
“So why should their hearing? And the necromancer heard everything his puppets did. Remember the half-missing guy upstairs?”
“I said don’t remind me,” Ray hissed, and then: “Marlowe’s probably changed it by now, anyway.”
“Changed what?”
“The password! You know how paranoid the guy is—”
“I also know he hasn’t slept in five days and has about a thousand other things to watch. He can’t—”
“Can I say something?” Anthony asked mildly.
“What?” Ray and I both demanded in unison.
“He’s standing behind you.”
Chapter Forty-three
I always wondered what Marlowe would look like if he ever really lost it. I found out. He gave a very nonhuman snarl and jumped me, sending a brazier tumbling and the hot oil inside it sloshing and Anthony and his pastime running butt naked out into the hall when the oil caught their chaise on fire.
Marlowe didn’t even appear to notice. His eyes were fixed on me, and they were blacker than I’d ever seen them. It was like staring into two black holes, only not as friendly.
“Wait,” I said.
And then I was airborne.
Which might not have been so bad, but Marlowe was, too. I got a split-second impression of him launching himself over the balcony I’d just sailed across, and then my back hit the floor of the arena. Hard.
And oh, yeah. That’s what I needed tonight, I thought, rolling over. And thereby missing the vampire who landed on light cat feet right beside me. And getting squashed by the one wh
o smacked into me like a sack of potatoes a second later.
“Okay, okay,” Ray said, from atop my butt. “Let’s not be—”
And then he was sliding backward, too, like a toboggan, only without the sled, across the shiny floor. And I was jumping back to avoid the fist of an enraged master vampire. Who seemed to have forgotten that he needed my brain intact in order to probe it.
“Is this the first match?” I heard someone say, as I ducked and dodged and tried to explain what was going on, only I didn’t have the breath.
“Tell him!” I gasped at Ray, who ran back up as I bobbed beneath an iron fist.
