Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(46)

Unbelievably, the engine caught. I gave a whoop of disbelief and pressed the gas. For a second, nothing happened. Then the mostly flat tires hit the asphalt with a flapping sound, and we slowly lurched forward. We’d gone maybe half a block when the coupe came slinging into the road out of nowhere.

It landed on one end, hitting hard enough to send it somersaulting into the air before it smashed back down, almost on top of us. Humans would have been dead, but the crash did not noticeably inconvenience the vamps. They immediately began piling out of the car, and one of them saw us. Three black blurs started down the road after us—and disappeared.

It took me a second to realize that they had been broadsided by the sedan. It had come hurtling out of the portal at maybe fifty miles an hour, smashed into them and then into the tree, and burst into flames. I just sat there for a second, feeling the heat on my face and watching car parts fly through the air, because I don’t get that kind of luck.

And then lights started coming on in brownstones all along the road, which didn’t look like it got a lot of traffic—especially of our dubious variety. Concerned citizens were probably dialing the cops right now, giving me yet another reason to get gone. I floored it, and we took off, going all of twenty miles an hour.

I chewed a thumbnail and wondered how much time this bought me. I suspected it wouldn’t be a lot. The vamps in the pileup might be out of commission, but it didn’t matter because they’d had plenty of time during the chase to call for backup. And with two flat tires, a whine in the engine and something grinding ominously under the dash, no way could we outrun them. We needed to go to ground, but if we did, the Hounds would be on us in no time.

This is why I hate Uptown, I thought, staring around at the well-tended brownstones of the wealthy. They kept their cars in luxury, air-conditioned garages. Not to mention that they were probably all late models I couldn’t have hot-wired even with the tools I didn’t have. I was a Downtown kind of girl, and this was a strange land.

I clamped my teeth on what I suspected would be an hour-long string of obscenities. Not that I had an hour. Come on, come on, think! You’ve lived here for years. There has to be someone—

I got a glimpse of the nearest street sign and stood on the brakes, craning my neck to be sure. I parked the Impala in the middle of the road, tossed my jacket over Ray’s stump and dragged him over the seat behind me. Come to think of it, I did know one Uptown kind of guy.

I just hoped like hell he was home.

“Home” to senior masters traveling outside of their territories could mean a lot of things. For those on Senate business, it usually meant staying at one of the Senate’s many properties worldwide. But if they were traveling for pleasure—or if they were up to no good that they didn’t want their fellow senators to know about—they usually sponged off a subordinate. But what if they didn’t have a flunky in the area? Then they went to the vamp equivalent of a hotel. They stayed at the Club.

Vampire owned and Senate approved, with branches in most major cities, the Club provided visiting masters with luxury, convenience and, most important, security. If someone wasn’t on the approved list, they didn’t get in. And I was most definitely not on that list.

Fortunately, I was with someone who was.

“Raymond Lu to see Prince Radu Basarab,” I told the little bald daub of a desk clerk.

He didn’t answer, being too busy gaping at Ray’s gory stump. My jacket had fallen off somewhere in the mad dash here, and even I had to admit that the result was kind of gruesome. The blood flow had finally stopped, though, so that was something.

“I—I—”

“Radu Basarab,” I repeated slowly. “He’s here, right?” The vamp swallowed, and his hand disappeared under the counter, his shoulder jerking as he repeatedly stabbed the panic button. I glanced over my shoulder and wished whoever was in charge would hurry the hell up already. And then it was too late.

A truck rumbled down the street, its bed full of men. They were seated on benches along each side, like a bunch of soldiers on their way to a fight, which looked a little out of place in this area. It was pretty accurate, though, I realized a second later, as a streetlamp caught a familiar face.

It was one of Cheung’s boys, the one I’d fought in the storeroom. He must have been a senior-level master, because that shot should have killed him. Instead, livid and puckered scars crisscrossed his face and neck, and disappeared into the collar of the new shirt he’d acquired. He’d probably taken it off a subordinate, because it was too small, showing off a large indentation where his stomach ought to be. He’d heal eventually, of course, but in the meantime, he looked a little peevish.

Scarface spied me through the leaded glass in the front door and his mouth dropped open—for a split second, until he leveled his shotgun at me. I jerked to the side, and it blew a hole through the door and across the room and would have taken out Ray’s head, if he still had one. Instead, it exploded against the expensive wood paneling behind the desk.

“Never mind. I’ll find him myself,” I said, and dragged Ray over the counter.

We dashed down a hall and ran straight into a group of well-armed security. “Oh, my God, look what they did!” I screamed, and pointed at Ray, who obligingly slumped against the wall. The security guard shied back; then his jaw set, and he and the rest of the team streamed past, headed for the lobby.