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“Yes!”
“Well, see, that’s a problem.”
“You crazy son of a bitch!” That was a bloody, naked Marlowe, who was currently sprawled in the tub, but still talking. Which was great and all, but holding an enraged Louis-Cesare was not easy. Any second now—
Yep, that’s what I’d thought.
He tore away from the door, with me jumping onto his back to preserve my feet, and proceeded to pummel Marlowe some more. Who got his feet up in time to send Louis-Cesare staggering back into the sink, which was less than fun for me since I hit the broken mirror. The remaining glass cascaded everywhere, along with several good-sized pieces that I normally would have used as knives against my opponent, except my opponent was my boyfriend—
Ex-boyfriend.
No matter how hot he looked while beating up Marlowe.
Cut it out, I told myself, and find some way to stop this!
But taking somebody down the nonlethal way wasn’t really my thing, and I guess it wasn’t Marlowe’s, either, who opted for the better part of valor. He snatched down the shower curtain and flung it over us, buying himself a second to tear out of the bathroom. He went for the window and he wasn’t slow, but Louis-Cesare caught him and threw him at the bedroom door. And then lunged after him and down a hall.
Which is how we ended up crashing a very genteel party, filled with refined guests, trays of delicate hors d’oeuvres, discreet servants, and light musical accompaniment. And a bloody, naked master vampire, running for his life. And being chased by another, this one fully clothed, but being ridden by a bra-and-panties-wearing wild woman trying to slow him down.
It wasn’t working.
But Marlowe was fast, and didn’t seem to have any compunction about trampling his appalled-looking guests. So the pale half-moons ahead of us made it to the hall before we did, partly because a couple servants took one for the team and jumped Louis-Cesare. Who flung them off with a curse and dove after the boss.
“Would you l-listen?” I yelled, as Marlowe, the idiot, took a right at the foyer, instead of heading for the front door and the parking lot. He might have outrun us in a car, with the emphasis on “might,” but there was no chance now. So it was up to me.
“This isn’t w-what it l-looks like!” I yelled, as Louis-Cesare tore up a set of stairs I hadn’t noticed before, and burst through a door. “We were just t-trying to—”
I cut off, in favor of holding on and not taking any wooden shrapnel to the eye as he plowed through several more doors without bothering to open them first.
And then we were out, into something vaguely familiar—
Oh, right.
Elyas’ ballroom.
The guy who owned the apartment above Mircea’s had been a senator, too, from the European court. I say “had” because he’d recently shuffled off this mortal coil in favor of—well, from what I’d heard of him, something considerably warmer. I didn’t know, since I’d never met the guy, the coil shuffling having happened before I arrived.
And it looked like history was repeating itself, only not for Marlowe.
Because my uncle Radu was seated on a chair, in the middle of the huge, now-mostly-empty ballroom, with a gun to his head and a stake at his heart.
Chapter Forty-one
Everything stopped, including Louis-Cesare. Who burst through the door and then just stood there, still as a statue, staring at the tableau. The only good thing was that it was Dumb and Dumber, aka Purple Hair and Blondie, who had apparently decided on another target but had been misinformed. Because Radu wasn’t on the Senate.
He was, however, protected by a couple of people who were, one of whom had started to breathe heavily.
“Oh, hello, Dory,” Radu said, because Radu is special.
I climbed down and glanced at Louis-Cesare’s face. And started talking fast. “How about we take a moment?”
“How about he dies?” Blondie said carelessly. Because he obviously had a death wish.
He was also the only one with a lethal weapon. Purple Hair looked like a proper badass, in a shiny black jumpsuit straight out of the Catwoman catalogue, but she’d opted for a gun. While not ideal, it wouldn’t do lasting damage to a second-level master like Radu.
Blondie, in khakis and a frat boy polo, hadn’t been so nice.
It was about to get him killed.
