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Everybody had heard. Everybody in the vampire community, anyway. Thanks to the war—and Geminus’s recent demise—the Senate was currently missing seven members out of thirteen. It left them vulnerable as all hell and seriously overworked, but it was an unprecedented opportunity for ambitious first-level masters. Because by tradition the seats went, as Alexander the Great had once said about his empire, “to the strongest.” There was a series of duels, with the winners—aka the survivors—taking all.
To the vamp world, it was the Olympics, the World Cup and the Super Bowl all rolled into one, with contenders like Scarface having the time of their deaths advancing through the ranks. And since he was still here, I assumed he was advancing just fine. It didn’t surprise me; I hadn’t managed to kill him, and I’d given it a damned good try.
“You seen any of the matches?” he asked, holding up on my demise long enough to get his ego stroked.
“My invitation got lost in the mail.”
He chuckled. “Too bad. I’d bet on you next to some of those jokers. Can’t even take a punch, but think they ought to be a senator.”
“It’s a scandal.”
“Damn right.” He shook his head. “You know, I was gutting this loser the other day, and I thought, It’d be more fun fighting that little dhampir. I wonder if she’s recovered yet. And here you are.”
“Lucky me,” I said.
Scarface grinned. “You know, I might even let you live. You’re funny.”
I had a good comeback for that, but didn’t get to use it, being too busy dodging left, right, left a dozen or so times, as rapid-fire fists punched the air all around me, like some kind of automatic hammer. At least, they did until—
“This is a damned shame right here,” someone said, and another shotgun blast tore through the shop.
It wasn’t from Scarface’s gun, which he’d abandoned when he started trying to use me for a punching bag. I looked behind him to find the clerk standing there, 12-gauge in hand, and eyes huge. Maybe because we were looking at each other through the hole she’d just blown in Scarface’s sternum.
He looked down at it and then back over his shoulder at her. “That stings,” he said. She didn’t answer, being too busy staring at him with her mouth hanging open. He turned around and closed it for her with a finger. “You got a name?”
“D-Delisha.”
He checked her out. “Yes, you are. You got a man, Delisha?”
“Had one. Fool cheated on me so I kicked his ass to the curb.”
Scarface got out a card and tucked it in the pocket of a truly magnificent pair of jeans. “Save me the trouble.” Then he took the shotgun away from her, turned the butt sideways like a paddle and smacked her ample rear with it. “Get,” he told her.
She got.
He turned his attention back on me. “Where were we?”
“You can’t do stuff like that in front of norms,” I reminded him.
He shrugged. “She works for Singh. He rents half the damned shop out to trolls.”
And yes, yes, he did. Olga and a partner ran a beauty parlor/weapons emporium out of the back room, because trolls like one-stop shopping. For some crazy reason, that had slipped my fevered brain. But come to think of it, it might turn out to be—
I didn’t get to finish the thought, being too busy avoiding another swipe with the shotgun—Delisha’s, because Scarface had tossed his. In the middle of a cross aisle. Not five yards from me.
He saw the direction of my gaze and grinned. “What are you gonna do? Club me with it?”
“Seems to be a popular choice.”
“Yeah, but that won’t hurt me. Any more than that little peashooter at your waist will. And the shotgun’s out of ammo, sweet cheeks.”
I didn’t answer. I just lunged for it. He didn’t even come after me, so sure I didn’t have ammo for a gun I wasn’t carrying.
But only because it was on a dock somewhere, or more likely at the bottom of the ocean. Which it hadn’t been when I’d packed this jacket a few days ago. My fingers closed on the gun, the shells slammed home and I turned, still on the floor.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
And then I blew his face off.
