“And we can get back afterward? Once this is over?”
“Yes, it works both ways. As long as the shield isn’t up.”
He glanced at a little button on the wall. Guess that was the shield. “Good to know,” I said, and shoved him through the swirling light before slamming my fist down on the button.
All right, then.
Or it was.
Until an arm snaked through the portal and grabbed me, jerking me in.
After a furious trip through a vortex of color and light, I landed in a posh office I was too pissed to take in right now, where a lying bastard of a vampire was trying to—
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
I pushed him away from what I was pretty sure was the portal’s control panel, and he went staggering back into a bookshelf. It fell over, making a hell of a racket, and a bunch of vamps ran through the door, guns drawn. And immediately looked confused.
“Thanks,” I told the nearest, and grabbed his gun.
“Urm,” he said.
“Extra clips?”
“I—not on me—”
“Hit the kill switch, damn you!” Louis-Cesare snarled at them, even as he went for it himself.
Before he could reach it, I dove back through the portal, landing hard on the other side—with someone’s hand around my ankle.
And was promptly jerked back, my body feeling like candy at a continent-spanning taffy pull, until it popped out the other side again.
“Son of a bitch motherfucker!”
“Language,” Louis-Cesare said grimly, from down near my foot.
I kicked him in the mouth.
I felt bad doing it—it was a nice mouth—but I didn’t have time for this.
“I don’t have time for this—let me go!” I yelled, while a line of perturbed-looking vamps just stood around, uselessly. “Grab him!” I told them, because he wasn’t letting go. “And get me some extra clips!”
The guy who’d lent me the gun looked conflicted. “Are . . . are you going to use them to shoot Louis-Cesare?”
“Probably not,” I said, broke his hold, dove for the portal, and got tackled again halfway through.
The forward momentum kept us going anyway, landing us back in Mircea’s bedroom—only to find another bunch of vamps in there, and they didn’t look conflicted at all.
Shit!
Of course Marlowe would know there was a portal. And of course he’d send a group to secure it. The sneaky son of a bitch!
I did some bullet riddling, which pissed them off but bought us time, and then Mircea’s boys ran in the door and a trashing of the room commenced. That’s two in one night, I thought dizzily. I’m on a roll.
And then Louis-Cesare dragged me back through the portal again.
“This . . . is getting . . . godd
amned . . . old!” I told him, as we rolled around on the floor of an office three thousand miles away.