Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(127)

“It’s back!” he hissed, staring around fearfully.

“What’s back?”

“That thing! Gods! I thought it had left!”

I stared at him, wondering how I was supposed to get a seriously wounded consul out of this underground maze when the man was clearly not in his right mind. And then I heard it, too: a distant, far-off echo, just a sigh on the air. “Anthoneee.”

My breath caught.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that!” Anthony said, looking at me wildly.

“I heard something.” I paused, trying to listen past the thud of my heart slamming into my rib cage—Anthony’s distress was contagious. But the sound didn’t come again.

“Where is it? Which way did it come from?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, gods!”

Master vamps hate to be seen losing their cool, and consuls are supposed to be above such human things. But Anthony was clearly terrified. I decided I didn’t want to know what could frighten a guy who could stab himself a couple dozen times without flinching.

“Let’s go.”

I pulled him down the corridor, a little faster than his feet wanted to work. He kept wobbling over to one side or another, almost forcing me headfirst into a wall more than once. I finally pulled him into a fireman’s carry, since most of the stakes along his torso had already been pushed through to the back, thanks to his dragging crawl along the floor.

We hit the main corridor again a few minutes later, Anthony lolling like an old drunk and me swearing. I propped my hand on the wall for a moment, trying to get my breath back. And when I moved it, I left a sweaty outline behind. I stared at it resentfully, breathing hard, and wondering why I never got the skinny villains. And then I heard that sound again. And unless I was very much mistaken, it was closer.

But I still couldn’t tell the direction. There were too many side tunnels, too many echoes. Even our own voices sounded strangely like they were coming from several places at once.

“Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?” Anthony demanded anxiously.

To decide whether or not to leave your ass here, I didn’t say.

“We have to move it!” he said, poking me.

I pushed off the wall, and slung him back over my shoulders. “I’ll move it. As long as you tell me what you’re doing here.”

“Geminus called me up in a fearful panic, raving about the fey and retribution and Zeus knows what all. Turns out someone was trying to blackmail him for that damned rune and he’d gotten it into his head that I had it. He threatened to go to the Senate unless I handed it over.”

“And did you?”

“I couldn’t give him what I don’t have,” Anthony said testily.

“Then why did he think you did?”

“Who can say? You know these gladiator types. A little thick in the skull.”

“Unlike these Senate types,” I said, stopping. “A little slippery of the tongue.”

Anthony waited me out for maybe half a minute, and then he cracked. “You would leave me here? A wounded man?”

“You’re not a man, and in a heartbeat.”

He expanded my vocabulary of ancient Roman curses for another moment, while I just stood there. “Oh, very well!” he said resentfully. “He saw me going into Elyas’s study last night, moments before he died.”

“So Louis-Cesare was right. You did kill him.”

“I may have my flaws, but I am loyal to those who are loyal to me. And Elyas was an old supporter. I didn’t go there to kill the man!”

“Then why did you go?”

“For Christine. Louis-Cesare has been looking for her for a century; he has some strange obsession with the woman. I thought if she was under my control, I would hold him. I went there to strike a bargain with Elyas. I would protect him from any retribution from Alejandro, but I wanted the girl.”

“But you didn’t get her,” I said as I started staggering back toward the arena. I just hoped like hell that the stairs were still there.

“No, thank the gods!”

“What happened?”

“I arrived to see Elyas and was told he’d retired to his study. I went along and knocked, but there was no answer. I went in and found him, trussed up like a Christmas goose.”

“Why didn’t you do something? You could have saved him—”

“I could have done nothing of the kind. I’d seen this trick a time or two, and one look was enough. The wax was already soft. Removing the blade would have dislodged it and merely killed him sooner.”

“You could have tried to heal him, then.”

He made an exasperated sound. “That sort of thing may run in your line, but mine isn’t so gifted! And even had it been, it is doubtful I could have helped him. You saw his throat—it wasn’t slit; it was bisected. He was seconds away from death, and there was nothing to be done about it.”

“So that’s what you did? Nothing?”

“I attempted to question him, to find out who was responsible, but he was groggy. I couldn’t get anything useful out of the man and was about to summon his second when Louis-Cesare showed up.”

“The study was soundproofed,” I pointed out. “You couldn’t have heard him.”