“I have no bloody idea! I was merely pointing out that Æsubrand could have had a reason for being there that had nothing to do with us. And indeed, that was likely the case, since he was attacking Slava, n
ot helping him!”
And okay, he did have a point there.
“But it doesn’t matter because he isn’t the one we want!”
I blinked. “Then who is?”
“Oh, no, not again.” Radu sighed, and got up to get himself another drink.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you forgotten?” Marlowe asked. “The Irin.”
“Now who is letting prejudices cloud judgment?” Mircea murmured.
“But what possible interest would a demon have in human smuggling?” I demanded.
“For the last time, this isn’t about smuggling!” Marlowe snapped. “And if that creature’s performance at Slava’s was anything to go on, he is perfectly capable of causing the kind of mental disruption—”
“To what end?” Mircea broke in. “The demon lords—”
“Have every reason to keep us disunited. The stronger we are, the more restrictions we place on them. They didn’t like our alliance with the mages, and I doubt they enjoy seeing a strong, united vampire coalition any better!”
“And to that noble end, they send one operative?” Mircea asked drily, looking like a man who had discussed this about all he wanted to.
“They sent an Irin, and you know what they—”
“Um,” I said, and stopped.
Everyone turned to look at me. I sighed. I’d been hoping to keep that particular piece of less-than-stellar work out of this, but I should have known. It just wasn’t how my luck was going.
“He helped me at Slava’s,” I admitted.
“What are you talking about?” Marlowe demanded.
“The charm broke,” I said bluntly. Because how I phrased it wasn’t going to make a difference.
“We knew it was likely to do that.”
“Yes…but not twenty stories up.”
“Twenty—” Mircea broke off, but his expression said volumes. I was never getting rehired.
So I might as well come clean. “I’d be dead now, but he caught me,” I told them. “And if he was working against us, why bother to do that?”
“To ensure that you returned to Central with Slava’s corpse,” Marlowe said, glaring at me. I don’t know why. For messing up, for poking holes in his pet theory, or just because he felt like it.
I glared back for the last reason. “Yeah, except Slava wasn’t needed. His boys were doing a pretty good job of trashing the place all on their own.”
“And yet, you were let in—”
“—to lead them to ’Du. The question should be why did they want him?”
We all turned to look at Radu. “Well, I don’t know,” he said crossly.
“We’ve been through this,” Marlowe said savagely. “We’ve been through all of this, over and over, and none of it gets us anywhere! Radu knows entirely too much about too many things to even begin to guess—assuming it was his knowledge they were after in the first place.”