Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(74)

“And which had nothing to do with why you wanted him. If we’re going to keep working together, you have to—”

“You do not work with Lord Mircea,” Marlowe informed me. “You work for him. It is not your place to question his commands.”

“Is that how you think, too?” I asked Mircea.

Before he could answer, the door opened, and several vamps walked in like they owned the place. Which one of them did, I realized, as Muttonchops’s head jerked up. “Master!”

He obviously wasn’t talking to Elyas, so that cry could mean only one thing. Elyas’s servants hadn’t been the only ones to feel his passing. His master had done so, too.

“Anthony,” Mircea said, straightening, as Muttonchops almost fell over himself trying to get around the table. “I thought we were meeting in an hour.”

“Yes, I received your message,” the dark-haired vamp said carelessly. He wasn’t tall, maybe five nine, and his features were handsome but not outstanding. His nose looked like it had been broken at some point, and his skin was a little weather-beaten. It meant he wasn’t exerting power to alter his appearance, which was strange, considering how much he had to spare. It felt like it seared my skin, even from this far away.

“Anthony?” I asked Louis-Cesare, who was looking a little ill suddenly.

“My consul.”

Oh. That Anthony.

The vamp circled the desk, taking his time, getting a look at the body. “Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, looking up with a smile. “Continue with what you were doing.”

“We’ve already examined the body,” Mircea told him. “You are, of course, welcome to do so yourself—”

“How kind of you,” Anthony murmured.

“But we will be reporting the findings shortly.”

“Really? To whom?”

“To the Senate.”

“And which Senate would that be, Mircea?” Anthony asked, whiskey eyes gleaming as they looked up from examining the gory throat.

I felt Marlowe tense beside me, but Mircea showed no outward change. “This happened on North American soil.”

“But Elyas belonged to the European Senate.” He smiled. “As does Louis-Cesare.”

“That is under discussion,” Mircea said sharply, which was news to me.

“Yes. But you have not stolen him away from me yet.” The smile didn’t slip, but the tension in the room suddenly ratcheted up about a hundred notches. “Therefore he will be judged by his peers—not his family.”

“And defended by whom?” Mircea demanded.

“Whomever he likes.” Anthony waved over his companion—a young vamp with long, dark hair spilling over the shoulders of a tailored gray suit. “As Elyas’s master, Jér?me will, of course, be prosecuting.”

Not so young, then, I thought, staring at the vamp. I wouldn’t have guessed. Big eyes that matched his suit almost exactly in color, pretty, almost feminine features, delicate white hands—and a power signature no greater than that of the vamp I’d nailed to the bathroom wall at Ray’s. It was hardly even discernible next to the inferno of Anthony’s, like a single candle next to a bonfire.

But if he was prosecuting, he had to be a Senate member. So the signature was a lie. He had to be one of those rare vamps who could hide his true strength. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have mistaken him for a baby, something that would have gotten me killed very fast—if I was lucky.

“And you?” Mircea demanded.

“Oh, didn’t I say?” Anthony’s smile broadened slightly, showing some fang. “I’m the judge.”

Nobody moved; nobody blinked. But the air was starting to feel a little thick in my lungs. I suddenly really, really wanted to be somewhere else.

Luckily, Anthony agreed.

“And now, if you wouldn’t mind, we would appreciate the same recourse to the body you have enjoyed.”

No one had anything to say to that, so we retired to the adjacent sitting room. Or at least I tried to, before I was waylaid by an angry vampire and jerked into the hall. Christine had followed us out, and started to say something, then saw Louis-Cesare’s face and shied back.

“I—I thought I would go pack,” she said quickly, in French.

Louis-Cesare glanced at her, and his expression softened. “Yes, yes, please.” It was gentle enough, but she all but fled down the corridor. Too bad I couldn’t go, too, but I appeared to be trapped between his body and the wall.

“What bug crawled up your ass?” I demanded.

“If you mean, why I am upset? I should think that would be obvious!”

It took me a second, but I got it. “Oh, come on. You’re not still pissed about—you did the same damn thing to me!”

He had the utter gall to look offended. “I did nothing of the sort—”

I stared at him. “And just how do you figure that? You stripped me butt naked, diddled me over a desk and stole my duffel bag. And my clothes!”

Somebody made a choking sound. I glanced up to find the door to the study open, and the old vamp looking scandalized. “Diddled?” Anthony asked, apparently delighted. Mircea closed his eyes.

Louis-Cesare made some indeterminate French sound and dragged me farther down the hall. A bedroom was empty, so he shoved me inside, which was a complete waste of effort. If it wasn’t soundproofed—and I doubted Elyas had wasted an expensive spell on a guest room—the others could hear us perfectly well.