She saw and her lip curled. “I don’t make war on . . . whatever he is. He’s fine. He’s tied up with that big blond in the bedroom.”
I assumed she was talking about Gunther the Gorgeous, Radu’s “bodyguard,” a giant with the suntan and six-pack of a professional athlete—maybe a surfer, because the shag was a little long. But he was nobody’s fool. And despite the fact that Radu hadn’t hired him for that reason, he was actually good at his job.
Bet he was pissed right about now.
“I hope you did a better job on Gunther than on Radu,” I told her.
“Didn’t have to. He was already tied up when we got here.”
I looked at ’Du.
He shrugged. “It was his turn.”
I sighed.
“Why didn’t you just call for help?” Radu had Mircea’s gifts to a far greater extent than Horatiu. He could have had half the clan here in a few minutes.
“I tried. She blocked me.”
I looked at Purple Hair with new respect. “Impressive.”
Her lips twisted. “Well. Not so much now.”
And then we had to duck because a shirtless guy flew overhead, spinning like a Frisbee.
I looked after him for a moment, confused, because he was one of Marlowe’s boys, and they’d all been fully clothed when they came in. Then I spied Marlowe himself, throwing a settee at Louis-Cesare, while wearing a new white dress shirt. Louis-Cesare and the sofa went sailing backward, and Marlowe snapped his fingers at another of his guys, who was trying to get out of a pair of trousers.
He was getting dressed on the fly, I realized.
“He’s too tall,” I yelled, and saw Marlowe’s head jerk up.
“The trousers.” I pointed. “They’re gonna be too—”
The sofa came whipping back across the room, taking out Marlowe and his guy.
“Never mind.”
“It will be good to get back to normal,” Radu was saying, when I turned back around. “I’ve spent so much time going to and fro, from the consul’s to Louis-Cesare’s—you have no idea. It’s been so inconvenient.”
“The consul’s?” I felt my nose wrinkle. “Why would you want to go there?”
“It’s where my laboratory is—was, before her men dismantled it.” And, for the first time, I saw what looked like genuine anger. “I went in the other day to find my equipment in boxes, all jumbled up!”
“They just moved you out?”
“They carried in a bed while I stood there! Said it was for some ambassador or other.” He sniffed.
“Is that what all this is?” I asked, nodding at the boxes. “Lab stuff?”
“Oh, no. That arrived yesterday.” Perfectly arched brows drew together. “I wasn’t going to let the Senate’s brutes move a damned thing. Heaven only knows what shape I would have received it in!” He held out a familiar-looking orb. “This is what I’m meant to be experimenting on.”
I took it gingerly, because Radu was the Senate’s mad scientist, and had been known to work with some scary stuff.
But not this time.
I held the little orb in my hand, and decided that the universe was fucking with me.
“What do you think?” he asked, watching me with bright eyes.