holding maybe a pint. That didn’t sound like much, unless you knew what was in them.
Fey wine wasn’t really wine. It wasn’t much like anything else found on earth, either. A distillation of plants, mostly fey in origin, plus some herbs, spices, and God knew what else thrown in for taste, it could put a bull elephant on his knees. That much would drop the whole damn herd, only they weren’t going to be drinking it.
We were.
I’d have preferred something else, since my metabolism neutralizes regular old alcohol almost faster than I can drink it. Unfortunately, the same is true for vampires. If I wanted to win, Cheung had to end up under the table. And that meant hauling out the hard stuff.
“Is it not customary to cut this?” Cheung asked as Ray poured clear liquid into a couple of shot glasses. A little sloshed onto the table. I was slightly surprised it didn’t eat on through.
“If you feel the need,” I told him sweetly.
Cheung narrowed his eyes at me and tossed back his first shot. He didn’t do anything so unmanly as choke, but his eyes widened perceptibly. And then it was my turn. I’d proposed a drink-till-you-drop challenge for two reasons. Physically, it was all I was up for at the moment. I was in no condition to take Cheung, and even if I somehow did the impossible, no way was Scarface letting me walk out of here after killing the boss. But it was reason number two that I was betting the farm on. Or at least Ray’s continued existence.
One of the interesting facets of life as a dhampir is frequent rage-induced blackouts. They are a natural result of the vampire killing instinct mixed with an excitable human nervous system, but tell that to the people who’ve encountered one of us on a rampage. Not that there are usually any left.
Because of the scarcity of my kind—and the fact that we aren’t on most people’s Christmas card list—nobody had ever bothered to devise anything to control the blackouts. But after hundreds of years of questionable sanity, I’d recently discovered a remedy on my own. It wasn’t a perfect solution: it kept me more or less sane, but it severely reduced my ability in battle—something that, in my line of work, was considerably less than ideal.
It also had some interesting side effects.
I picked up my glass, hoping one in particular was going to kick in. Because otherwise, I didn’t have a much better chance at this contest than I would at a duel. I might drag it out longer, but my half-human metabolism was almost certain to be more susceptible to the wine’s effects than a full vampire’s.
I slammed back the shot, and felt my eyes start to water. Fey wine varied a lot in type and potency, depending on what exactly went into the mix, and this particular batch ought to have been illegal. Of course, come to think of it, it was.
“You okay there?” Scarface asked, looking amused. I nodded, my throat burning too much to speak, and sat the glass down beside Cheung’s. Ray immediately refilled them, while I concentrated on my version of a Hail Mary pass.
I had not inherited the vampire ability to mind speak. But I had found that if I drank the feys’ favorite beverage in enough quantity, I could pick up bits and pieces of what others were thinking. And I could speak to the mind of one vamp in particular.
This had led to some awkward situations, as the vamp in question, Louis-Cesare, was also my … well, I didn’t know what to call him. We weren’t lovers, exactly, at least not yet. And we were only friends in the way that we yelled at each other a lot. But there was definitely an attraction there. And for a few intimate, wine-fueled moments, I’d felt closer to him than to anyone else I’d ever known.
I didn’t know if he could pick up my thoughts from this far away, as we’d never done any actual experimentation with our connection. But a long shot is better than no shot at all. I downed the second shot and thought,
Fifteen minutes and a full bottle later, it became obvious that Louis-Cesare was not hurrying. I licked numb lips and decided there was a silver lining. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to feel it whenever they got around to shooting me. “You owe me,” Ray hissed into my ear as I sat staring resentfully at my tenth or fifteenth or twentieth shot. I’d lost count. But it basically added up to too many.
“Nowhere near this much,” I muttered, trying not to slur my words.
“Oh, so now we’re putting a price on friendship?”
“We’re not friends,” I told him darkly. I’d just seen Cheung toss back another shot. He’d lost his suit coat and loosened his tie, but other than that, he looked exactly the same as when I’d come in. The damn vampire wasn’t even sweating.
“Don’t talk,” Ray said, putting a glass in my hand. “Drink.”
I wasn’t aware that I’d been talking. That probably wasn’t a good sign. But at least I was still sitting straight. Cheung had started to list a little.
“That’s you,” Ray said, hauling me upright and handing me another glass.
“Hey!” I protested. “He has to drink first.”
“He just did.”
“I didn’t see.”
“It’s difficult to see anything when one’s eyes are crossed,” Cheung said. And then he giggled.
I know I wasn’t imagining it, because his vamps’ heads all swiveled in his direction, expressions of incredulity on their faces. Scarface scowled at them and they quickly looked away. But a few were coughing and one had to abruptly leave the room.
I downed another shot and grinned at Cheung. “I c’n do this all night,” I told him. “And you’re already drunk.”
Cheung gave me a superior look and tried to pick up his glass. He missed.
“He may be drunk,” Scarface said, “but you’re about to fall on your ass. And as soon as you do, that son of a bitch is ours.” He scowled at Ray, as if his boss’s loss of dignity were all his fault. Ray must have interpreted it that way, too, because he quickly sloshed some more liquid into the glasses.
“I am not even close to being on my ass,” I said, offended. “And Ray’s gonna be fine.”
“That’s right,” Ray said staunchly.
Fifteen minutes later, I’d decided Ray really was toast.
“It’s okay,” he said, massaging my shoulders. “You’re doing great. Just really, really good.”
“How many more bottles are there?” I asked blearily. The way I felt, we must have gone through most of the case.
“Nine.”
“Three and a half,” he said, and refilled my glass.
“That wasn’t so bad,” I decided after downing the shot. Maybe I was getting my rhythm.
“Because you threw it over your shoulder,” Scarface told me, looking smug.
“Did not.” I looked behind me, only to see an outraged vamp with fey wine dripping down his face. “Oops.”
“It was for luck,” Ray said defensively, wrapping both my hands around a glass. “Drink!”
I drank.
An indeterminate time later—my eyes couldn’t seem to focus on my watch anymore—someone slapped me across the face. “Big, bad dhampir, remember?” Ray said, his face looming large in front of mine. It appeared agitated.
“Big, bad dhampir wan’ go sleep.”
“They’re laughing at you,” he said, grabbing my chin and turning my head toward Cheung’s men. “Look at them. They’re laughing!”
It took me a moment to focus, but when I did, they didn’t look like they were laughing. Mostly, they looked bored and a little nervous. Apparently, the novelty of seeing the boss shit-faced had worn off, and a few of the smarter ones had started to wonder just how much they were going to pay for having witnessed this.
One look at Cheung, and I didn’t think they needed to worry.
His tie was gone, his shirt was open halfway down his chest, his bangs had all flopped into his eyes, and while he might not have been sweating, he was looking pretty damn green. I wasn’t sure how much he’d remember tomorrow, which was just as well, since he also appeared to have developed a fascination with Scarface’s hair. He kept reaching up to poke at the spikes, and appeared amazed when they weren’t sharp.
