Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(68)

“How long does it take to find a freaking bullet?” The crabby voice jolted me out of an exhausted haze.

Ray was exhibit number two in the creepy undead department. He, Christine and I were in the sitting room next to the study, waiting until the big shots decided we were needed. I’d taken the opportunity to dig the bullet out of Ray’s skull before the wound healed over. But so far, I wasn’t having much luck.

“I’m working on it,” I told him. I had him in my lap, catty-cornered on a towel. But if he strained, he could manage to glare up at me. He’d been straining a lot.

“Well, work faster. I’m getting a migraine here.”

“It’s not my fault. The knife blade’s too wide. I can’t get it far enough in.”

“Then use something else!”

“I don’t have anything else,” I said, yanking it out of his skull. Christine suddenly jumped up and fled the room. “What’s wrong with her?”

Ray gave an eye roll. “Who cares? I got an emergency here. You don’t find that damn thing, and I’m gonna have to go to a bokor. And I hate those things.”

He was referring to the legal sort of necromancer. They worked for the vamps instead of against them, smoothing out damage to vampire flesh the way a cook would knead bread dough. “What’s wrong with going to a bokor?”

“They’re nothing but hacks. And don’t believe those ads they run, either.”

“What ads?”

“You know, in the backs of all the papers.”

“Guess I must have missed them.”

“The ones that promise to make things bigger.”

“What things?”

“You know. Things. The one I tried charged me a fortune, and all he did was make it lumpy.”

“Oh.” I’d seen Mr. Lumpy; Ray should have sued.

Christine came back a minute later with a sewing basket over her arm and proffered a knitting needle. “Will this help?”

“Couldn’t hurt.” Our fingers brushed as she passed it over, and she jerked back like she’d been burned. “I’m not going to bite you,” I told her impatiently.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyelashes fluttered, and one hand went to her hair, nervously. She seemed horrified to learn that it was still down, and quickly pinned it back into a chignon. The hairstyle left the bones of her face bare, but they could take it. “I . . . I have never before met a dhampir.”

“Lucky you,” Ray muttered.

“How do you know what I am?” I demanded.

“Louis-Cesare informed me.”

“Really. What else did he say?”

“Ow! Watch it!” Ray groused. I looked down to see that I’d jabbed him in the eye.

“He did not say anything else,” Christine said, sitting back down. She’d changed out of the bloody night-dress as soon as we returned, with a squeamishness that seemed a little odd in a vampire. The new ensemble was a deep rose gown with scads of antique handmade lace around the low neckline. It complemented the glossy dark hair, delicate features and big brown eyes.

I went back to work, but I could feel those eyes on me, like a weight.

I sighed. I’d known this was coming. She could probably smell Louis-Cesare all over me and vice versa. And while it wasn’t a servant’s place, even a favored one, to criticize her master, I was fair game.

I looked up, waiting for it, but she didn’t say anything. She just sat there, her gaze steady on mine. And weirdly enough, there was no challenge in it. If anything, it held a kind of childish wonder.

“Take a picture; it’ll last longer,” Ray told her.

She blinked. “I’m sorry,” she told me again. “I did not mean to stare. But I must admit that I find you fascinating.”

What I found fascinating was that the needle just kept going in. Half of it had disappeared inside Ray’s skull, and it hadn’t hit anything yet. Well, nothing hard anyway. I tried wiggling it around, but it made his eyes cross so I stopped.

“Any particular reason why?” I asked Christine.

“You kill vampires.”

“Only the bad kind,” I told her, to prevent another freak-out.

“They’re all bad.”

I would have thought she was kidding, but that beautiful face was perfectly serious. “You’re a vampire.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re evil?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s a novel approach.” She tilted her head to one side in a question. “Most vamps I’ve met are like anybody else,” I explained. “They find ways to justify what they want to do so it leaves them the hero of the story.”

A small frown appeared between those lovely eyes. “But that would be useless. Denying what we are does not change it. Evil is evil, regardless of the face it wears.”

This conversation was getting a little surreal. And that was from someone used to talking to Radu. “So you’re a self-professed evil vampire?” A nod. “And I kill evil vamps.” Another nod. “Should I just kill you then?”

“Oh, not yet,” she told me earnestly. “I have done little to redeem myself.”

“Elevator don’t go all the way to the top, does it?” Ray muttered. And then his eyes lowered to half-mast, and he started to grin, lazily. “Oh, yeah, baby. Right there. That’s the spot. Hit that a—”