I was lying on the floor howling, and it wasn’t from pain. I hadn’t laughed that hard in years, to the point that I almost couldn’t breathe and my ribs actually hurt. Of course, that could have been from one of the new bruises I was sporting—between the bar fight and blacking out, I was a little under the weather—but at the moment I didn’t care. I wiped my streaming eyes and tried to sit up.
Mircea, better known as Daddy dearest when he bothered to acknowledge the connection, was sitting on the sofa with folded arms, waiting me out. The French guy had poured himself a drink—stiff even by my standards—and taken it to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the darkened cityscape. He had his back to us. I wasn’t sure whom he was trying to block out, the abomination or the one who made her.
I crawled into an armchair and valiantly fought to restrain myself. It was difficult, with what I’d just been told. I don’t have a chance to do this often, so I savored the moment. “Would it be out of line to say I told you so?” I asked, with almost a straight face.
“I have never known you to be concerned with proprieties,” was the caustic reply.
“Du-te dracului,” I said automatically, before realizing how ironic telling him to go to the devil was under the circumstances.
“I am proposing to send you to him instead,” Mircea replied evenly.
I nodded at the other vamp. “You tell your friend there that this is a suicide mission?” I glanced at the handsome vamp. “Got a death wish, buddy?”
The Frenchman ignored me, but Mircea decided to be contentious. As usual. “He won’t be going alone. That is why I went to the trouble of locating you. His job is to trap Vlad. Yours is—”
“Did you tell him that you could’ve taken Uncle Drac out last time, but were too busy seducing some Senate member to bother?”
“—to keep him alive. He doesn’t know my brother; you do.”
“Which is precisely why I’m not going anywhere near him.” I stood up, stretched and looked around for my coat. Claire had bought it for me after a hunt ruined my last leather number. She’d hoped it would be more resilient, being washable and all, but I wasn’t so sure. My wardrobe is constantly updated since I trash clothes like other people throw out Kleenex—a hazard of the job. The last time I saw the coat, it had been covered in goo along with my T-shirt. I decided that I must’ve left them lying in the bathroom.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To see if my dry cleaner can get out whatever it is Varos demons secrete when they spit at you. Pinkish purple ooze, smells like a family of skunks and eats into fabric like acid.”
I headed for the door, but before I could get there, Daddy was in the way, reclining against the doorjamb. “Sit down.”
I sighed. I hadn’t really expected it to be that easy. “There’s no point.” Mircea just stood there, so I elaborated, more for the benefit of the idiot who’d gotten roped into this mess than for dear old Dad. Maybe the poor bastard could still weasel out of it. For his sake, I hoped so, since he was certainly doomed otherwise.
“London, 1889. Dark and stormy night. Ring any bells? I think the exact quote was, ‘If you do not finish this tonight, if you leave him any avenue by which to return, I wash my hands of the whole affair. Next time, you will hunt him alone.’ ” I glanced at the French guy, who’d turned around to stare at us. “I was a lot more pretentious back then,” I explained, “but you get the drift. Barely survived the last go-round, not doing it again, especially when all you’re planning is to put him in another of those oh-so-secure traps and wait for him to find another way out. And that’s assuming he doesn’t eviscerate you and anybody dumb enough to follow you first. Now get out of the way, Daddy dear; I have a real job to do.”
“This is your job, until I say otherwise.”
I smiled. I was feeling fairly mellow for a change. I wasn’t sure if that was because of all the violence earlier or the laughing fit, but either way, I actually didn’t feel like tearing his head off. “And you used to have such good hearing.”
“You will not defy me on this.”
I waited for a minute,