“I wish I knew how to do that,” I told the vamp honestly.
He smiled, and it was surprisingly attractive. Or not so surprisingly. Most vamps could turn on the charm when they wanted something.
Only I couldn’t figure out what he wanted with Ray.
“So what do you want with Ray?” I asked, because what the hell. “He’s already coughed up everything he knows about your operation. The Senate wouldn’t have released him otherwise.”
“Perhaps we wish to repay him for that,” the vamp said, baring some teeth. Which had all been filed to wicked-looking points.
Okay, then. That was one way to hide fangs, I guessed.
“Not to call you a liar,” I said, “but bullshit. I don’t doubt your boss wants revenge, but this bad? Five senior masters and a tank, after…after Ray?” I amended, because if the guy was about to get shredded, no need to insult him first.
“Perhaps we knew he was with you.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but bullshit again. I didn’t know he was going to be with me. You couldn’t have guessed it before you came out looking for him. So how about the truth?” Preferably quickly, considering that Zheng was making some not-so-dead noises behind the fixture.
They must have distracted the vamp, too, because Ray suddenly regained the power of speech. And boy, did he use it. “They want me to hack a portal for them, only I can’t. I told them I can’t ’cause the Senate said one more thing, you know, just one more thing and they were gonna stake me for sure. And I told Lord Cheung and he said—”
“He said that you are a sniveling, worthless, waste of flesh and he regrets the day he took you on!” the vamp snapped, talking about his and Zheng’s boss.
“Tough shit,” Ray told him. Which would have been more impressive if he hadn’t dodged back behind me. “’Cause I’m here now.”
“Not for long.”
“Yeah, well. Dory might have something to say about that!”
“Do you?” the vamp asked, arching a thin white eyebrow at me.
“Of course she does!” Ray said, poking me in the back.
I didn’t say anything. Because something interesting had just been mentioned—for the second time. And, finally, my energy-starved brain had managed to latch onto it.
Olga had been tapping into the ley line sink that powered the house’s spells to make it easier for her people to get around. Most species can pass for human with a cheap glamourie, but that gets harder when you’re a walking mountain. There are still spells that work, of course, but they’re expensive, and they add up after a while. Whereas a portal powered by a ley line sink that nobody knew about was free.
And, of course, one of the first places Olga had linked to was her place of business.
Her place of business in the back room of this store.
“All you have to do is stand aside,” the vamp murmured, putting power behind it. He probably thought he was influencing me, which he wasn’t nearly strong enough to do. I don’t know if my resistance comes from my nature or from dealing with Mircea’s shit for so long, but I’m not that easy to manipulate.
But I guess Ray must have thought otherwise, because he stomped on my instep. “What the hell?” I yelped.
“Don’t listen to him! He’s trying to—”
“I know what he’s trying to do!” I said, resisting the urge to cut a bitch. Damn, that had hurt.
“Give him to us!” the albino told me, and a wave of suggestion hit me like a club. Or, more accurately, like a hundred barbs trying to sink into my brain. I shook them off, snarling.
“Bite me!”
“I think I shall let Master Zheng do that,” he said sweetly, as his buddy lurched out from behind a mangled fixture.
How he was on his feet, I don’t know. His hair was on fire, his face was a blackened mess, and one eye was hanging down his mostly missing left cheek. But at least the name fit again, I thought hysterically, as Ray’s fingers dug into my wrist.
“Oh, shit,” he said, very, very quietly.
“Run,” I told him.