Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(94)

“Okay, but we get Ray,” I countered. “I promised to bring him in.”

Cheung rolled his eyes. “I have no further use for him. I wish I had never heard of him or that accursed stone!” He looked at Louis-Cesare. “We have an agreement, then?”

Louis-Cesare nodded. “I will do what I can with Lord Radu. But it would perhaps be best if you were not here when we have that discussion. Your presence might . . . inflame him further.”

Cheung didn’t go so far as to say “thank you,” but he nodded. He pulled a sheath off the fallen fey and handed it to a servant, who carefully enclosed the unusual sword. Then Cheung and half his boys slipped silently out the back door.

The rest lingered behind, looking awkward. “Would you . . . happen to have some tea?” one of them asked me, after a moment.

“Uh, yeah. I think so.” Claire had mentioned seeing some. “I’m not sure I know how to make it, though.”

“If you show me to your kitchen, I can manage.”

I pointed. “It’s through there. What’s left of it.” He nodded and the guys filed out, except for Scarface, who continued to watch us from above.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and sagged against the wall. Damn. That could have gone . . . well, a whole lot worse.

Louis-Cesare looked at me and smiled. “Lord Cheung is an honorable man.”

Lord Cheung had been in deep shit and just dug himself out, I didn’t say. Because pissing off Scarface wasn’t my idea of a good time. Not when I felt like I might fall over any minute.

And not when I still had a mess to deal with. I pushed myself off the wall.

“Where are your friends?” Louis-Cesare asked me, as if he’d been reading my mind.

“I don’t know.” I looked at the missing stairs. A few planks still clung to the walls here and there, and the top three steps remained in place. But that wouldn’t have helped me much, even if I hadn’t had one hand out of commission. “Maybe upstairs.”

“I will check.” He caught hold of the jagged edge of the floor above and pulled himself up. Scarface waited, arms crossed, eyes slitted, until he stood up, and then the two faced off. I held my breath; it looked like there might be trouble, after all.

Then Scarface grinned. “I never had the chance to watch you fight before.” He pursed his lips. “Not bad.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, having been a little too busy not dying to pay attention to anyone’s technique. Louis-Cesare looked bemused as well, whether at the compliment or in surprise at who was giving it. But he nodded briefly.

Scarface started patting himself down, but his trophy got in the way. So he tied it to what remained of the banister by the hair while he searched around in his pockets. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, and by the look on his face, neither could Louis-Cesare.

Eventually, Scarface located a pen and, after a moment, ripped down a hanging shred of wallpaper. He presented them to Louis-Cesare with a strange look on his face, half-hopeful, half-embarrassed. “You know, in case I don’t catch up with you at the Challenge.”

Oh, my God, I thought blankly.

Louis-Cesare gave me a fierce look, and I bit my lip while he hastily scribbled his name. I doubt it was very legible due to the nature of the paper, but Scarface seemed pleased. He folded it carefully and put it in his back pocket.

“You’re challenging?” I asked, as Scarface reclaimed his trophy.

“Damn right, I’m challenging. You’re looking at a future senator.” And the scary thing was, he wouldn’t be the strangest one I knew.

He eyed the remains of the fey. “You wouldn’t happen to know anybody who could get this shrunk by tonight, would you?”

“I think it takes a while. You have to remove the skull and then boil it . . .” I trailed off, because Louis-Cesare was looking at me funny.

“Damn.” Scarface cocked his head. “Then again, I could take it like this. Think I’ll intimidate an opponent?”

“You scare the hell out of me,” I told him truthfully.

That seemed to have been the right answer. Scarface laughed, clapped Louis-Cesare on the shoulder and somersaulted off the balcony, his grisly trophy bouncing against his thigh. I waited until he’d passed through the front door and went to retrieve my own.

Ray had ended up wedged in a corner by the back door. He had a muddy boot print across his face and one of his fangs had broken off. But other than that, he seemed okay.

“We got a bond now?” he demanded.

“Getting there.”

I tucked his head under my arm and went hunting for the rest of him. I was trying to haul his body out of a heap of broken furniture when Louis-Cesare came back. “They are not there,” he told me. “The rooms are disturbed, as if they were awakened abruptly, but there is no one anywhere above us.”

My breath came out in a sigh of relief. There was a huge hole in the floor, another in the wall where the pantry had been, and then there were the missing stairs. No way had anyone slept through that. If he’d found anything, it wouldn’t have been good news.

“I also cannot sense them,” he said, listening.

Neither could I, now that I concentrated. There were no shuffling footsteps, no telltale heartbeats, no frightened breathing. Just the ancient fridge dumping some ice cubes, the soft sounds of tea being brewed and the pounding of the rain.