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“Yeah, I’ll just wait here like a glorified taxi driver,” I called after her. Her shoulders twitched slightly, but I didn’t know if that was from shame or from not knowing what a taxi was.
“Okay, that was really—” Billy began.
I held up my free hand. Françoise paused by the back door and looked in my direction. Probably wondering why my hand was hovering in the air. I waved at her and after a minute she and Radella let themselves in through the employee entrance. As soon as the door closed, I shifted two feet ahead. Behind me, the now empty cuff banged against the fencing.
“I forget you can do that now,” Billy said.
“So do I, half the time.” I rubbed my wrist and looked around. There was no one in sight. It occurred to me that maybe I should have looked before doing my Houdini impression.
“Why didn’t you just show them that they were wasting their time?” Billy demanded.
“I figured we might as well get the mutiny phase of our relationship out of the way early.” Besides, I didn’t think Radella had been kidding about the closet. “Let’s go find Jimmy before he sells them the Brooklyn Bridge or some—”
“Speak of the devil,” Billy said, as someone who looked an awful lot like Jimmy ran out the back door.
I started forward after a surprised pause, hardly believing my luck. If I could get to him before he reached his car, we could talk without encountering anyone else or possibly being overheard. But then the door slammed open and a blonde ran out, looking around wildly.
“Wait, there’s some bimbo with him,” Billy cautioned. The blonde caught sight of Jimmy and took off after him, hiking up her low-cut black top as she went. Billy whistled appreciatively. “She’s gonna fall right out of that thing if she ain’t—”
He stopped abruptly, squinting across the lot, and I did the same, a vague feeling of unease creeping up my spine. The energy-conscious halogen lights didn’t help a lot with visibility, but I saw enough to make my stomach fall. “I think we have a problem,” I said numbly.
“Hey,” Billy said, eyes wide. “I think that bimbo is you! I can tell by the shape of your—”
“Do you realize what this means?” I managed to shriek in a whisper. I hadn’t figured out until that moment that I’d brought us back to the night I first saw Dante’s—not a time I was real interested in reliving.
“Yeah.” He glared at me. “Of all the times to come back to, why in the hell—”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I hissed. “Casanova told me the last shipment of slaves left for Faerie on this night. If we can’t get Jimmy to talk, I thought we might overhear the incantation being used!”
“If we were in the right place at the right time, yeah. But this ain’t it.”
“You think?” My first visit to Dante’s hadn’t gone well. In fact, it had gone about as spectacularly wrong as humanly possible. There had been too many near misses, too many times that I and a lot of other people could have died had things gone slightly differently. I needed to find the team and get out, fast, before any of us changed anything.
Jimmy and the other me disappeared into the lines of cars, and the back door slammed open yet again. Pritkin and a couple of vamps appeared, and I froze. My eyes might be having trouble making out the action, but theirs certainly wouldn’t be. And if they glanced over here and saw me, it could distract them from the task at hand. Which, among other things, included saving the other me’s life.
I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. The black tank top and jeans I’d decided would be appropriate for the night’s activities would help make me harder to spot. But they could smell me from this distance, even in a parking lot filled with gas fumes and garbage. One of the vamps paused, lifting his head slightly as if scenting the air, and I swallowed thickly. It was Tomas, my onetime roommate, who had had six months to get my scent down cold. If he sensed me…
But he didn’t. The three men ran into the rows of cars and a few moments later all hell broke loose, with gunshots, screams, and someone setting a car on fire. I took off for the back door at a dead run. And skidded to a halt a couple of seconds later when the very last person I wanted to see appeared in my path.
I managed to catch myself before careening into him, but it was a close thing. I hastily scrambled back a couple of steps just to be on the safe side. “You’re not supposed to be here!” I said accusingly.
One perfect eyebrow formed itself into an equally perfect arch. “Then we have something in common, dulcea.”
Chapter 11
I stared at Mircea in shock. “You’re supposed to be downtown!” The version of me who’d just chased Jimmy across the parking lot had escaped from MAGIC earlier that night. And although its wards had allowed me to be tracked into the city, no one had been sure exactly where I’d gone. While Tomas, Pritkin and a vampire named Louis-Cesare came here, Rafe and Mircea had gone to Tony’s main offices. Or so I’d thought.
“I was. I left Raphael there, in case you made an appearance,” Mircea said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “May I ask how you knew that?”
“Probably wouldn’t be best,” I said, wishing hysteria wa
s a luxury I could afford.
Mircea just stood there, looking ridiculously model-pretty with his tousled hair and faintly amused mouth, his rich black suit perfectly showcasing his—objectively speaking—extremely attractive body. I didn’t know if he did it deliberately, but his clothes always seemed to run just a little snug around the biceps and thighs, drawing my attention where it absolutely had no place being. Not to mention that Mircea in black looked like sin. The only saving grace was that at least it wasn’t leather—and why was I even going there?
He held out a hand. It was a silent invitation, but it made my stomach flip. My stomach was an idiot.
I jumped back, almost stumbling over my own feet. “Don’t touch me!” The last time I’d encountered Mircea in the past, the geis had leapt from me to him, starting this whole mess by doubling the spell. Would I triple it if he got close enough now? Because I didn’t think either of us could survive that.
