Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(57)

“But many of them aren’t lovers!”

“She wished it. My actions had deprived her of the love of her family, the solace of her religion and the comfort of a world she understood. I had destroyed her old life. It was my responsibility to provide her with a new one.”

“And now?”

He didn’t say anything, which was as good as an answer.

“She’s what?” I demanded. “A few hundred years old? I think she’s her own responsibility.”

“You know it does not work that way.”

“What I know is that vampires can be emancipated.”

“When they reach a certain power level, yes. But Christine has never advanced beyond what she was when she first awoke. I do not know what she might have been, but her loathing for our kind has made it impossible for her to mature. She has remained a child.”

“Children grow up.”

His eyes closed. “Human children do. But sometimes, with us . . . they simply remain.”

“Then maybe they need to be pushed a little more! Vampires aren’t human, but they’re part of the natural world. And that world thrives on change.”

“But that is how we differ, is it not?” he asked, opening his eyes. They glittered with some emotion I couldn’t even begin to define, contrasting sharply with the dead look of his face. “Vampires do not grow old. We do not die. We are as unchanging as the mountains.”

“The mountains change, Louis-Cesare,” I said harshly, getting up. “It just takes them longer. And vampires die all the time. Trust me on that.”

I went back to the bathroom.

Ray had hooked his long nose over the side of the duffel so he could stare at me as I stomped back in. I threw a towel over him and proceeded to dry my hair. “Get this thing off!” he bitched.

“It’s not like you’re going to suffocate!” I snapped.

“Yeah, but we gotta talk.”

I ignored him in favor of running my fingers over the soft material of the dress. It had gotten crushed in my hands, so I spread it out on the counter, careful to keep it out of any wet spots. The silk was so fine and lightweight, I bet it felt like wearing nothing. And why the hell shouldn’t I find out? I thought angrily. The bastard owed me an outfit.

“Are you listening to me?” Ray demanded.

“Talk about what?”

“About Elyas.”

“You’re going to be talking to him in a minute,” I said, examining a pair of ebony lace-topped thigh-highs. There was a matching thong, too, but no bra because there’d never been one invented to work with that dress.

“That’s just it,” Ray whispered, his eyes on the closed bathroom door. “No, I’m not. As soon as you turn me over, he’s going to kill me.”

“Why would he want to do that? He needs you to tell him where the rune is.”

“He already knows where it is. He stole it after he killed Jókell.”

“Who?”

“The fey!”

“What fey?”

“The fey who brought the rune. And don’t say, ‘What rune?’ ”

Now I was the one glancing at the door. It was closed, and I’d slammed the one to the living room coming back in, but two doors and the width of a substantial suite didn’t mean much with vampire hearing. Ray started to say something else, but I shushed him, wrapped another towel around myself and hauled him out the window.

An elaborate wrought-iron fire escape overlooked a small alley between buildings. The wind had picked up enough to ruffle the tops of a couple ornamental trees below, and some traffic still flowed along Fifth Avenue. It should be enough to mask a low-voiced conversation.

I hoped.

I shut the window behind me and unzipped the top of the duffel. Anxious blue eyes swiveled up to me. “You want to start making some sense here, Ray?”

“It’s like this. Jókell was Blarestri—that’s one of the three main houses of the Light Fey.”

“I know what it is.”

“Yeah, well, not a lot of people do. Anyway, he was in what I guess you’d call their military, and he regularly pulled a shift guarding one of the main portals into our world.”

“Let me guess. He sometimes let a little something slip through.”

“A lot of somethings. We had a good thing going. He found people on his end who had stuff they’d rather not pay the duty on, and I took care of selling it on this side. Anyway, about a week ago, he calls and tells me he’s got a lead on something special. He told me to arrange a private sale, even told me who to contact—and that was some list! It made me nervous, because I don’t usually handle the big stuff, and these were not people I wanted to piss off. But the boss said to go ahead with it.”

“And something went wrong.”

“Everything! For starters, he wouldn’t bring me the rune until we’d already made the sale. I told him it didn’t work like that, but he said it did this time or no deal. I don’t like selling something I don’t got on hand, but the boss said to do it. And it went okay. He got the reserve he’d wanted and then some, and after the auction, I sent him a message and he said he’d be here in a couple hours.”

“But he didn’t show?”

“No, he came through the portal on schedule, but that’s the last thing that went right!”