"You did not try hard enough," Jean-Claude said.
"Argue amongst yourselves later," I said. "Right now, we have a problem."
Yasmeen laughed. The sound wriggled down my spine like someone had spilled a can of worms. I shuddered, and decided then and there that I'd shoot Yasmeen first. We'd find out if a master vampire was really faster than a speeding bullet.
She released Larry with a laugh and stood. Marguerite still clung to him. He got to his hands and knees with the woman riding him like a horse, arms and legs still clamped around him. She was laughing, kissing his neck.
I kicked her in the face as hard as I could. She slid off Larry and lay dazed on the floor. Yasmeen started forward and I fired at heir chest. Jean-Claude hit my arm, and the shot went wide.
"I need her alive, Anita."
I jerked away from him. "She's crazy."
"But he needs my assistance to combat the other masters," Yasmeen said.
"She'll betray you if she can," I said.
"But I still need her."
"If you can't control Yasmeen, then how in the hell are you going to fight Alejandro?"
"I don't know," he said. "Is that what you wanted to hear? I do not know."
Larry was still huddled by our feet.
"Can you get up?"
He looked up at me, eyes shiny with unshed tears. He used one of the chairs to brace himself and almost fell. I grabbed his arm, gun still in my right hand. "Come on, Larry, we're getting out of here."
"Sounds great to me." His voice was incredibly breathless, straining not to cry.
We worked our way towards the door, me helping Larry walk, gun still out pointed vaguely at everything in the room.
"Go with them, Richard. See them safely to their car. And do not fail me again like you did today."
Richard ignored the threat and walked around us to hold the door open. We walked through without turning our backs on the vampires or the werewolf. When the door closed, I let out a breath I hadn't even known I was holding.
"I can walk now," Larry said.
I let go of his arm. He put a hand against the wall but otherwise seemed okay. The first slow tear trailed down his cheek. "Get me out of here."
I put my gun up. It wouldn't help now. Richard and I both pretended not to notice Larry's tears. They were very quiet. If you hadn't been looking directly at him, you wouldn't have known he was crying.
I tried to think of something to say, anything. But what could I say? He had seen the monsters, and they had scared the shit out of him. They scared the shit out of me. They scared the shit out of everybody. Now Larry knew that. Maybe it was worth the pain. Maybe not.
Chapter 37
Early-morning light lay heavy and golden on the street outside. The air was cool and misty. You couldn't see the river from here, but you could feel it; that sense of water on the air that made every breath fresher, cleaner.
Larry got out his car keys.
"You okay to drive?" I asked.
He nodded. The tears had dried in thin tracks down his face. He hadn't bothered to wipe them away. He wasn't crying anymore. He was as grim-faced as you could be and still look like an overgrown Howdy Doody. He opened his door and got in, sliding across to unlock the passenger side.
Richard stood there. The cool wind blew his hair across his face. He ran fingers through it to keep it from his face. The gesture was achingly familiar. Phillip had always been doing that. Richard smiled at me, and it wasn't Phillip's smile. It was bright and open, and there was nothing hidden in his brown eyes.
Blood had started to dry at the corner of his mouth, and on his cheek.