“I’ll tell Mircea to be discreet.”
“I’d prefer to let fey deal with fey.”
“Olga’s boys are resistant to most magic, including the fey variety,” I told her, while rifling through the bread box. “And God knows they’re strong enough. But there’re only two of them, and they aren’t exactly deep thinkers. And whatever else I can say aboutsubrand, he’s not stupid.”
“Neither am I. And I know better than to trust a vampire!” I couldn’t blame her for being wary. Claire had been kidnapped by Vlad on his recent rampage. She had every reason to mistrust the breed.
“They’re not all the same,” I admitted uncomfortably. Louis-Cesare, for example, seemed determined to mess with my head, constantly challenging my preconceptions about what a vampire was and how one behaved. It was only one of many ways the guy was a pain in the ass.
“You can say that when your job is killing them?” Claire demanded.
“My job is hunting revenants—” She looked confused. “Vampires who had something go wrong with the Change.”
“Wouldn’t they just”—she waved a spatula—“stay dead, then?”
“Most do. But once in a while one will survive physically, but mentally… Let’s just say he’s not all there. And a revenant will attack anything—human or vampire—that gets in his way. And since he’s insane, there’s no reasoning with him. He has to be put down.”
“And you’ve never killed any vampires other than these revenants?” she asked, skeptically.
“I take commissions occasionally to hunt down vamps who have violated Senate law in some way. But I don’t go around killing random vampires.” I wouldn’t have lasted long if I had, no matter who daddy was.
“I don’t see much difference,” Claire said, scowling.
I thought about Mircea’s expression if he knew he’d just been lumped together with Vleck and a bunch of slavering beasts with little more brains than an animal. “You probably shouldn’t mention that view around any vamps you meet,” I said drily.
“I’m not going to be meeting any.” It sounded final.
“You ought to reconsider,” I told her seriously. “It’s easy to distrust something that views you as food, but right now—”
“I don’t want those things near my son, okay? I’m sick of guards I can’t trust!”
“They’ll be master-level vampires on loan from the Senate. They’re not going to do any snacking.”
“I know they’re not, because they’re not going to be here.” She saw my expression and sighed. “Think about it, Dory. What could they have done last night, other than get carved to pieces?”
“I think you might be surprised.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ve seen what a fey warrior can do.”
“And I’ve seen a master vampire in action.”
She shot me an exasperated look. “Ifsubrand could get through the wards, he’d have done it, rather than resort to creating those things.”
“Which he could do again.”
“He knows that I can defeat them now. It would be a waste of time.”
“And t
he next thing he comes up with?”
“He’s not going to be coming up with anything today,” she said firmly.
You hope, I didn’t say. Because it would have been a waste of time. Claire was as stubborn as they came when she was convinced she was right, which was frequently. It didn’t help that she usually was. I just hoped this wasn’t going to be the exception that proved the rule.
I gave up on the phone and started looking for a mug instead. There weren’t any in the usual spots—scattered around the table, littering the counters or piled in the dishwasher someone had installed back when olive green appliances were all the rage. It didn’t actually work, but sometimes people stuck things in there anyway. But not this time.
“What are you doing?” Claire asked, watching me.