Midnight's Daughter(19)
“Radu is perfectly safe, at least for the moment. He isn’t Drac’s chief target anymore. Don’t misunderstand—I’m certain he’ll get around to him in time—but his isn’t the first name on the list.”
Shrewd eyes that were, thankfully, back to blue, met mine. “And who does have that honor?”
I watched my smoke being pulled into odd patterns by the plane’s air-conditioning. “You’re looking at her.”
Chapter Five
The Electric Hedgehog is a punk cybercafe run by a couple of British guys Kristie knows in a backstreet near the Bay. It’s a funky little place where you can log online, get a body piercing and buy some weed under the table, all at the same time. One-stop shopping; I like that.
Believe it or not, I hadn’t come just for the weed. I also needed a safe place to meet the rest of the team and Kristie had suggested the Hedgehog’s back room. It was a testament to the very different attitudes and styles of its two owners. While the front was all black walls and neon graffiti, the back was hippie coffeehouse chic, with vintage shag carpeting and Che Guevara posters.
I passed the time sipping some really nasty chai, which was the most appetizing thing on the menu, and watching the colors cast by the iridescent bead curtain separating the rooms. Louis-Cesare preferred to pace back and forth like a big cat in a cage. We were the only ones in the back at the moment, which wasn’t surprising as the coffeehouse didn’t usually rev up until nightfall. Since it was currently seven a.m. ’Frisco time, there weren’t too many people interested in bad coffee and worse poetry. After tasting the former and reading samples of the latter that the proprietors had scribbled on the walls, I decided to be long gone by nightfall.
“This is the most irresponsible—”
“Would you calm down?” He didn’t seem to be the patient type. “They’ll be here. And quit pacing. You’re making me dizzy.”
“And that could not possibly be the result of the enormous amount of marijuana you have smoked in the past eight hours, or the half bottle of tequila you called breakfast.”
“At least I didn’t snack on the owners.” I’d noticed the length of the handshake he’d given Alan, the taller proprietor with the tongue stud. The older vamps don’t have to use fangs to feed. A touch of skin or, in the case of really powerful ones, just proximity to the victim will do as well. Louis-Cesare had had to endure sun at the airport and in the taxi all the way here, and he’d been hungry. It hadn’t been hard to guess.
“That was well within the guidelines.” He meant that he hadn’t taken enough to be harmful and that the owner was none the wiser. It was the PC way to feed, and he’d managed it without a hitch. That didn’t make me view it as less of a violation.
I lit up the last of Claire’s joints and smiled at him. It was either that or ruin the Hedgehog’s back room trying to take him apart. “Whatever.”
“The point I was endeavoring to make,” he said after a moment, “was that unless your friends—”
“Acquaintances.”
“—are even more irresponsible than I was expecting, they should have called by now. There is a very good chance that they have absconded.”
I shook my head. “No way. Not that they wouldn’t double-cross the Senate or the Circle in a heartbeat, but they made an agreement with me. They know what I’d do if they broke it.” I got up and stretched, feeling my spine snap back into place. “Besides, they don’t know what the assignment is yet. After they do, we may need to watch them.”
Actually, I doubted that. I’d picked José and Kristie as much for their attitudes as their skills; they were the only two I knew crazy enough to think that going after Drac constituted a challenge. It also helped that they had never actually met him. Anyone who had would be a much harder sell.
“Then where are they?” Louis-Cesare was back to pacing again. I glanced at the clock and felt a slight twinge of concern. True, José might be passed out under a table in a dive somewhere, but that wasn’t Kristie’s style. And even if she’d gotten hung up, she’d have phoned. No way would she risk going back into the Circle’s tender care if she could avoid it. Unless something was wrong, she’d be here.
“Maybe they decided to drive and then broke down. José thinks he’s a mechanic and usually rides around in some old clunker he’s trying to fix up.” I didn’t really believe it, but it was vaguely possible.
“And neither have cell phones?” Louis-Cesare demanded.
“They just got out of jail,” I reminded him, but it didn’t ring true to me, either. Kristie had stayed a step ahead of both the Senate and the mages for years, dealing in all kinds of illegal magical items. She wasn’t the type to take chances. No way would she have agreed to cross the desert in one of José’s rattletraps without stopping at a convenience store for a prepaid cell phone first. “And my phone’s on the fritz half the time,” I added, trying to convince myself more than him.
Louis-Cesare looked pointedly at the phone sitting behind the bar. Okay, point taken. But pacing a worn spot in the rug wasn’t going to help.
“You know,” I said, getting to my feet, “I think breakfast sounds like a plan. I saw a bakery down the street when we came in—”