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Fortunately, Mircea’s condo isn’t in a sleek new building with slick glass fronts, but in a turn-of-the-century limestone beauty that he owns half of. A half filled with windows. Windows with curly-haired assholes in them.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marlowe demanded, sticking his neck out, as I edged along an ornate ledge.
I punched him in his stupid face. “What does it look like?”
“Get out!”
I let him eat fist again, and he turned the ward on over the window, which blew me off the side of the building and into some bushes. It also blew my Croc onto a nearby BMW, which was apparently a touchy little bitch. Because the car alarm started screaming its head off.
I looked at it for a moment, while I got my breath back. Mircea hadn’t skimped on the wards. Even on the lowest setting, they packed a wallop.
And then I gazed up at Marlowe, who was still glaring down at me from the window, and I slowly took off my other shoe.
“Don’t you dare!”
I skipped the Croc down the row of cars, like a stone on a pond, setting off multiple alarms and disturbing the genteel neighbors. Until I was snatched off the BMW and smacked against the side of the building, still grinning. I’d badly needed to let off some steam, and that had been fun.
Not as much as making Marlowe eat concrete, though.
I twisted in his grip, danced away, spun, and belted him. I put everything I had into it, all the pent-up emotion of a very bad day, and was gratified to see him actually go down. And then spring back up, almost before he hit the sidewalk, because the guy was flexible. As he proved when dodging half a dozen more blows in quick succession, before grabbing my fist.
It was the same maneuver Dorina had used on the fey, and it hurt like a bitch. Until I used my other hand for a gut shot that had him letting go with an annoyed “tchaa!” And then I ended up slammed against the building again.
Face-first, this time.
I turned to the side to get my lips free. “I can do this all night.”
“Or you could just leave!”
“Or you could just let me in.”
“I’m not letting you in!”
“Then we have a problem,” I said, broke his hold, spun around, and kneed him in the groin.
I took off again, hoping the happy, burbling vamp from the phone would answer the door, but I got stopped with a flying tackle. Which was less of a problem for me than for Marlowe, because I was in ancient sweats. Ancient, muddy sweats, because it had been raining at some point earlier in the day, and the section of tastefully planted greenery I ploughed up was basically a mud pit.
“You’re gonna ruin that nice suit,” I said, through a dirt facial.
And, for some reason, that did what nothing else had, and stopped him. I flipped over to see Marlowe suddenly back on his feet, looking with concern at the patches of mud adhering to his formerly sleek, James Bond getup. Which was followed by him whipping out a pocket square and worriedly daubing at the mess.
“Will water take it out, do you think?” he asked me, bizarrely.
I slowly got back up, but he just kept trying to wipe himself clean. It wasn’t working; if anything, it was just smearing the mess around. Something that seemed to be causing him real distress, which made him rub it harder, which only made a bad matter worse.
“Give me that,” I finally said, and he actually did, passing over the by-now-sadly-soiled pocket square, and looking . . . weird. Marlowe basically had two emotions where I was concerned: pissed off and seriously pissed off. Which was why it was so strange to see him standing there in his muddy tux, biting his lip, and staring at me hopefully.
Because I was a woman, and we magically made these kind of things okay, right?
I sighed.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“You’re not getting that out. But Mircea has plenty more suits in his bedroom. One will probably fit you.”
“There’s a party in the main room! An important one! I can’t just—”
