Fury's Kiss (17 page)

A little thing like a bomb going off practically on top of him hadn’t slowed him down for long. It had left him with a face full of scars, however, and an attitude. The scars had faded, and I thought the attitude had, too, when we ended up on the same side—sort of—a little later. So I wasn’t exactly facing an enemy.

Of course, he wasn’t a friend, either. At least, not in the conventional sense. Like in the not ripping the ICEE machine off the wall and chucking it at my head sense.

I ducked, which avoided decapitation but did nothing to prevent cold neon blue sludge from drenching me when the tank burst against the wall. He grinned. “Not your color.”

“What is your problem?” I asked, scooping the freezing mess out of my cleavage.

“We got unfinished business,” he reminded me.

“My name’s not Bill.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I loved that movie. Shoulda brought a katana, but it seemed like an unfair advantage.”

And then he pulled out a shotgun and blew the shit out of the fixture behind me.

It would have blown a hole through me, too, but I’d already been on my way to the ground. I rolled, slipped in the guts of a shampoo bottle, got to my feet and slid behind a row of fixtures. Which went up in a line of explosions right on my heels, because vampire reflexes on reload made almost any gun an automatic.

Until the crazy bastard firing it runs out of shells, anyway.

I crouched behind a bunch of mirrors on a pegboard, which were making a lot of
oh, shit
faces at me. I debated shooting back, but it wouldn’t have done any good. I had an M1911 .45 under my arm and a 9mm Glock 17 in a concealed holster at my waist, plus a cute little .22 I kept as a backup in my boot. None of which would do more to this joker than piss him off.

But it looked like I’d better come up with something, judging by the gun butt that obliterated the mirrors a second later.

I launched myself backward, flipped and sent three knives into his heart, one right after the other. Which didn’t buy me any time, unless you count the second he took to do an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and flex a pec at me. And pop the damned things out.

“Don’t you hate it when they do that?” he asked sympathetically.

“They…don’t usually do that,” I admitted.

“Yeah.” He looked smug. “But I been getting a lot of practice lately. You know the games are on.”

“So I heard.”

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.

At least, I assumed so, although I didn’t wait around to find out. If a bomb hadn’t stopped him, that wouldn’t either, not for long. I ran for the door, not screaming for Ray because I figured he was long gone by now.

Or rather, I did until he ran into me coming back inside.

“What the—”

“Aughhh!” he said, which didn’t explain anything, and then I looked over his shoulder and saw a bunch more tiger-tatted guys, which did.

It looked like they’d been loitering out front, smoking cigarettes and waiting for their buddy to finish trashing me. Now they were standing around with those cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, since clearly my survival hadn’t been in the game plan. And still might not be, because there were five of them and while I doubted they were on Scarface’s level, they were masters. And, right now, that would be good enough.

“Um,” I said creatively.

They didn’t say anything.

I licked my lips, trying to think. And finding it really hard for some reason. Maybe the same reason I was all but swaying on my feet.

“What is wrong with you?” Ray hissed, because we weren’t presenting much of an intimidating front right now.

“Missed dinner,” I muttered, hoping I hadn’t skipped out on my last meal. And the one before that. And the one before—

“What?”

“I didn’t eat.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I’m not like you. I can’t recharge by feeding off of someone. I need food.”

“I know that! When was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday?”

“Yester—
why the hell didn’t you eat?
”

“We had to go buy condoms, remember?”

“And you couldn’t grab something on the way out?” he said hysterically. “I’m gonna die because you couldn’t grab a sandwich?”

“No, you’re going to die because you wanted a snack. You could have stayed home.”

“Well, excuse the hell out of me! The Senate didn’t feed me, okay? I hadn’t eaten either, in like two weeks! And what was I gonna eat at the house? All you have is
fey and part fey and they all taste like shit. And their blood doesn’t even do any—”

“May I say something?” one of the vamps asked politely.

The voice was cultured, with a faint British accent. It sounded a little odd coming from a guy with white-blond hair done up in eighties punk spikes, a leather jacket with more zippers even than mine and eyes so pale they looked blind. If he was going for disturbing, he was right on the money. But I guessed he was pretty important, because Ray’s grip on my wrist had suddenly turned painful.

“Sure,” I told him.

“This contest, it is between you and the Exalted Zheng-zi. We are not here to interfere.”

“Really.” Good to know. Well, possibly good. “So…why are you here?”

“For the traitor.” Those colorless eyes swiveled to Ray, who probably didn’t see them because he was busy trying to hide behind my back. “Give him to us and you may go.”

“He’s lying,” Ray said rapidly. “Zheng’s going for a Senate seat. He’s not gonna let this go. He can’t. You made him look bad and he can’t afford—”

“Silence!” the other vamp hissed, and there must have been some power behind it, because Ray made a little hiccuping sound and shut up.

“I wish I knew how to do that,” I told the vamp honestly.

He smiled, and it was surprisingly attractive. Or not so surprisingly. Most vamps could turn on the charm when they wanted something.

Only I couldn’t figure out what he wanted with Ray.

“So what do you want with Ray?” I asked, because what the hell. “He’s already coughed up everything he knows about your operation. The Senate wouldn’t have released him otherwise.”

“Perhaps we wish to repay him for that,” the vamp said, baring some teeth. Which had all been filed to wicked-looking points.

Okay, then. That was one way to hide fangs, I guessed.

“Not to call you a liar,” I said, “but bullshit. I don’t doubt your boss wants revenge, but this bad? Five senior masters and a tank, after…after Ray?” I amended, because if the guy was about to get shredded, no need to insult him first.

“Perhaps we knew he was with you.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but bullshit again. I didn’t know he was going to be with me. You couldn’t have guessed it before you came out looking for him. So how about the truth?” Preferably quickly, considering that Zheng was making some not-so-dead noises behind the fixture.

They must have distracted the vamp, too, because Ray suddenly regained the power of speech. And boy, did he use it. “They want me to hack a portal for them, only I can’t. I told them I can’t ’cause the Senate said one more thing, you know, just one more thing and they were gonna stake me for sure. And I told Lord Cheung and he said—”

“He said that you are a sniveling, worthless, waste of flesh and he regrets the day he took you on!” the vamp snapped, talking about his and Zheng’s boss.

“Tough shit,” Ray told him. Which would have been more impressive if he hadn’t dodged back behind me. “’Cause I’m here now.”

“Not for long.”

“Yeah, well. Dory might have something to say about that!”

“Do you?” the vamp asked, arching a thin white eyebrow at me.

“Of course she does!” Ray said, poking me in the back.

I didn’t say anything. Because something interesting had just been mentioned—for the second time. And, finally, my energy-starved brain had managed to latch onto it.

Olga had been tapping into the ley line sink that powered the house’s spells to make it easier for her people to get around. Most species can pass for human with a
cheap glamourie, but that gets harder when you’re a walking mountain. There are still spells that work, of course, but they’re expensive, and they add up after a while. Whereas a portal powered by a ley line sink that nobody knew about was free.

And, of course, one of the first places Olga had linked to was her place of business.

Her place of business in the back room of this store.

“All you have to do is stand aside,” the vamp murmured, putting power behind it. He probably thought he was influencing me, which he wasn’t nearly strong enough to do. I don’t know if my resistance comes from my nature or from dealing with Mircea’s shit for so long, but I’m not that easy to manipulate.

But I guess Ray must have thought otherwise, because he stomped on my instep. “What the hell?” I yelped.

“Don’t listen to him! He’s trying to—”

“I know what he’s trying to do!” I said, resisting the urge to cut a bitch. Damn, that had hurt.

“Give him to us!” the albino told me, and a wave of suggestion hit me like a club. Or, more accurately, like a hundred barbs trying to sink into my brain. I shook them off, snarling.

“Bite me!”

“I think I shall let Master Zheng do that,” he said sweetly, as his buddy lurched out from behind a mangled fixture.

How he was on his feet, I don’t know. His hair was on fire, his face was a blackened mess, and one eye was hanging down his mostly missing left cheek. But at least the name fit again, I thought hysterically, as Ray’s fingers dug into my wrist.

“Oh, shit,” he said, very, very quietly.

“Run,” I told him.

“What?”

“Run!”

“Where? They’re guarding the rear, too. I already checked!”

“Portal,” I said, shoving him as Scarface grabbed my jacket.

From about twelve feet away.

The
fuck
?

“Portal?” Ray said, like he’d never heard of such a thing.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy absorbing the sight of the hugely elongated arm that, Gumby-like, had just snaked across the room. It had all the usual arm parts, including muscle, judging by the grip it had on the front of my jacket. But it was…well, it was just stupid. Like being jerked across the shop by something that couldn’t be real but obviously was. Like the cast-iron fist that waited for me if I didn’t manage to—