Midnight`s Daughter Page 0,42
are guarded quite well!” Radu said, offended. “You were able to pass through the screens only because they are keyed to me—or, more specifically, to anyone with my blood. Since the only other persons who fit that description are trusted family members, it seemed foolproof.” He looked grumpy. “We forgot about you.”
“You always do. So what did you find?” His expression slipped from righteous indignation into sneaky eva-siveness in a flash. I mentally shook my head. “Let me guess. That’s the part you’re not supposed to talk about.”
“I’m not supposed to talk about any of this! And you had better not, either, Dory. The Senate won’t like your knowing.”
I shrugged. “They basically don’t like my breathing, so what else is new?”
Radu crossed the room so fast I almost didn’t see him. A second later I was dangling a couple feet off the ground, while those delicate-looking hands shook me like a dog. Just when you forget they’re vampires…
“Promise me! You can’t say anything! The Senate is deadly serious about this. If they even suspected that you knew—”
“What? They’d kill me? And that would be different from the current situation how?” I wrestled out of Radu’s grip and straightened the creases his fists had made in my new jacket. “Speaking of which, we need to talk.” I pushed him into the chair I’d vacated, and leaned over as menacingly as I could manage with a straight face. “How about you and I discuss our mutual problem?”
“Wh-what problem?”
“Don’t play dumb. I’m sure Mircea mentioned it, maybe in passing? Drac’s loose.” Radu nodded, gulping. He looked vaguely ill, and I took that for an encouraging sign. It showed he had a brain, and that he knew his brother. “What are you planning to do about it?”
“I’ve already done it,” he told me, gesturing around. “Why do you think I’m here? I don’t like this place. Nothing is ever left where I put it, and one Senate member or another is always prowling about, asking for progress reports. I could work much more efficiently at home. But Mircea said Vlad wouldn’t try for me here.”
“No, I suppose not.” Considering that he’d have to wade through the Senate and their retainers, the Silver Circle and its bevy of psychotic war mages and who knew how many weres, Fey and whatever else was hanging around at the moment, it seemed a safe bet. “So the plan is what? To stay trapped here forever? Doesn’t sound like fun, ’Du.”
“You know I hate that absurd diminutive,” he told me irritably. “Why can’t you leave people’s names alone? Does it physically pain you to utter an extra syllable?”
I grinned. “Looks like I struck a nerve.”
“Nonsense!” Radu sat up a little straighter and pushed me a foot or so back. Talk of his predicament seemed to have evaporated my scare potential—there aren’t many things that look frightening next to Drac. “Mircea said you’d take care of him shortly, and then I can go home.” He looked testy. “Why aren’t you on the hunt, instead of snooping about here? I thought you liked killing things.”
“Aha!” I clapped him on the back. “I knew I wasn’t the only smart one in the family. You want him dead, too!” I went to pour the guy a drink. He’d earned it.
“Of course I do!” Radu snapped impatiently. “Do you have any idea what he’d like to do to me? He’s always despised me.”
“So we’re in the same boat.” He took the glass of whiskey I handed him while I settled onto the hassock at his feet—or tried to before finding myself dumped unceremoniously on my butt. I got up and tried again, only to have the same thing happen. This time, I looked closer at the footstool, a fat paisley-covered pouf with thick tassels at each corner, and noticed something fairly weird, even by my definition of the term. It was hovering a few inches off the ground, its little bun feet not quite touching the rug.
“It was upholstered from an old flying carpet,” Radu explained, seeing the direction of my stare, “and tends to be temperamental. I wouldn’t—” I grabbed the thing, only to find it suddenly wriggling like an overly energetic puppy. It spurted out of my hands, but I jumped on top and held on. “It doesn’t like anyone using it but Mircea,” Radu said. “I think there’s another chair in—”
“I like this one,” I told him, as the bucking-bronco ride I was being treated to careened me into the bedpost,