Midnight's Daughter(41)

I would have groaned, but my mouth seemed unusually full of tongue. I tried to lift my head, but it appeared to be welded to something rough beneath my cheek that reeked of old garbage and urine. I finally forced my puffy eyes open and squinted the world into focus through a curtain of lashes.

Dirty water was trickling down a brick wall. I lay in front of some trash cans, bleeding onto a couple of rotting cabbages. Well, that explained part of the smell. A guy darted into the alley, relieved himself against the wall, saw me and ran off. And that explained the rest.

The club’s overhanging roof dripped a steady stream of rainwater onto my upturned face. It tasted like tar, and burned whenever it came into contact with one of my various cuts. After a few minutes thinking about the last time I’d ended up in this much pain, and how I’d fervently promised myself never to be that stupid again, I decided to sit up. This required batting away a couple of cats, who’d been hissing at me for blocking their way to the scrap heap, and a lot of swearing. The broken ribs flowering blue and purple through my ripped top didn’t like my new position, but I was damned if I’d lie in a trash-filled alley all night, shivering and feeling sorry for myself. By the time I managed a sort of leaning stance against one of the aluminum cans, I had moved past the pain to a nice, slow burn.

If Daddy dearest had listened to me, none of us would be in this position now. And if Radu had bothered to bestir himself just once during Drac’s imprisonment, he could have killed the son of a bitch before he had a chance to get out again. Neither of them deserved me getting a paper cut on his behalf, much less my current state. If there was any way to get to Claire without playing these games, I’d have dragged my battered self off and left them to fend for themselves. I could always go on the hunt again later, after she was safe. And if I was lucky, someone would stake Drac for me in the meantime.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue where to find her, and without the Senate’s formidable resources, I didn’t hold out much hope for a rescue. Especially now that my special-weapons collection was sitting on zero. Drac had taken my backpack as well as the items I’d acquired from Benny’s case, leaving me without a stake to my name.

I picked a banana peel out of my hair, wincing as my strained muscles put on a vehement protest. It felt like half the ligaments in my shoulders either were out of commission or wished they were, probably the result of having one vamp almost pull them out of their sockets holding me in place for another to pummel. I could only hope I wasn’t going to be in a fight anytime soon. But I couldn’t afford to hole up somewhere and bleed for a few hours. I had people to see, and the first name on my list wasn’t hard to find.

The Strip was alive with flame, from the fireworks detonating overhead to the casino-sponsored floats, each of which seemed bent on outdoing in gaudiness and patriotism everyone else. And, on the Fourth of July, that translated into fire—a lot of it. The red, white and blue bunting surrounding Dante’s entrant in the patriotic parade went up in flame as I watched.

Dante’s, Vegas’ premier vamp-owned casino, also happens to be in the family, so to speak. Its current manager was sired by one of Mircea’s less-reputable sons, and therefore might be expected to do me a favor. Assuming I could get to him before the float went to hell and took him with it.

I ran forward and grabbed on to the side of the cheerfully burning float. It was designed to look like a pirate ship—never one to miss a trend, that was Dante’s—complete with skeleton crew. The crowd lining the Strip applauded and shook sparklers at the harried captain, while his supposedly loyal followers jumped ship. They were humans in black suits painted with iridescent silver. The only true member of the supernatural on board was still there, frozen in place at the mainmast, looking around with a panicked expression.

I understood the look when the ornamental skulls securing the bunting started to detonate. No one else seemed to notice—things were exploding all over the place, after all—but the expression on the captain’s face was enough to tell me this wasn’t part of the show. Something slammed into the deck beside my hand and I yanked back. It was a burning arrow, the end covered in pitch. I hadn’t seen anything like it for centuries. What the hell?

“Casanova!” I yelled to be heard over the fireworks, which were erupting from two barrels on either side of the deck, and the crowd, which was shrieking in delight. A human wouldn’t have heard me, but then, the captain wasn’t one.

A swarthy face that looked right at home with the puffy shirt and eye patch peered at me over the edge of the crow’s nest, where he’d fled in terror. He tossed messy black curls back over his shoulder and groaned dramatically. “Oh, God. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”

It’s always good to be remembered. “I have to ask you something!”

“Now?!”

“That’s the idea.” I hopped on board just as the ship started weaving back and forth across the roadway. I crawled across the burning deck as fast as possible with the ship listing this way and that. Luckily, most of the props seemed to have been fastened down.

I grabbed the rigging and started up, only to have an arrow suddenly appear in front of my eyes, still quivering as it stuck out of the mast. I blinked at it, and a second later I was dangling over the burning deck by one arm. Casanova gave a heave, and I landed half in, half out of the crow’s nest as a barrage of arrows slammed into the wood all around me. Another heave and he’d dragged me into the relative safety of the oversized basket at the top of the mast. The crowd cheered wildly on both sides.