The mage didn’t deign to respond to that. He looked at me and took a deep breath. “Before I left, I just wanted to say . . . thank you.” It came out a little strangled.
I thought about it for a moment. “You’re welcome?”
“Do you know what I’m thanking you for?”
Damn. I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask that. It couldn’t be for lunch, since we’d never had any.
And I guessed we wouldn’t now, what with a possessed fridge and all.
“No?” I said, figuring I had a fifty-fifty shot.
He knelt in front of my chair, or maybe his legs collapsed; I don’t know. He wasn’t looking so good. “I know what that is,” he said hoarsely, nodding at my wrist, where my bracelet of interlocking knives lay hard and cold against my skin. “It’s my job at the Corps to disenchant confiscated dark objects and . . . I’ve seen one like it before.”
His eyes searched my face. He seemed to be waiting on some kind of response. So I nodded.
“You could have killed me,” he said. And then he kissed my hand. “Thank you.”
He just stayed like that for a while, head down, on one knee, like a supplicant in front of a priest. Or like a guy making a marriage proposal. I started to get nervous. Because the last thing I needed was another one of those.
I decided to let him down easy.
“You seem like a nice guy,” I told him. “I mean, you know, when you’re not trying to kill me. I just . . .” I sighed and came out with it. “I just really don’t want to date you.”
He suddenly looked up. His eyes were wet, but his smile was blinding. “Then it seems I have something else to thank you for.”
Chapter Twenty-one
According to the alarm clock on my nightstand, I slept for seven hours, despite already having slept for most of the day. It was almost midnight when I rolled out, groggy and thickheaded and gritty-eyed and yucky. And saw a man in the corner of my room.
I didn’t scream, because the man was a) sitting down, b) reading a paper and c) had the golden-eyed glow typical of Mircea’s masters. I just snatched up the sheet, because I’d been too high to worry about pj’s, and scanned the room for more. But I didn’t see any, unless they were hiding in the closet or under the bed.
And wasn’t that just a fun thought?
“What are you doing here?” I demanded after a moment.
He didn’t bother to reply, just flipped over another page.
“You’re not supposed to be in my room!”
Nothing.
Talking to a vamp who’s not in the mood is one of life’s biggest time wasters, so I didn’t try. I also didn’t attempt to budge him, because master vamps go wherever they damn well please. I just wrapped the sheet around me and dragged myself off to the bathroom.
I stood in the cool air for a minute while my eyes adjusted to the brilliant light on all that tile. But even after they did, I still stayed where I was, one hand on the doorknob, like I was waiting for something. It finally occurred to me that I was expecting another freak-out, only my body didn’t seem interested. It felt chilly and kind of achy and kind of high. But not particularly panicked. I gave it a little longer, until I started to feel stupid; then I dropped the sheet and checked out the damage.
It wasn’t all that bad. Other than putting a new bruise on my ass and a lump on my head, I’d come out pretty good this round. Whatever is trying to kill me is obviously going to have to step up its game, I thought viciously, and looked in the mirror.
And swore.
I might not have been too beaten up, but I still looked like hell, especially my hair. Not only was it still faintly green, but it was now missing a large chunk. I pushed it around for a while with clumsy fingers, but nothing seemed to help. I tried parting it different, but the only way that kind of worked looked suspiciously like a middle-aged guy’s comb-over. And it still left me looking like something had taken a bite out of my head.
Damn it all! Not so long ago, my hair had been a shimmering red-gold wave that cascaded down my back like a cloak. It had been my one claim to real beauty, and I’d cried like a baby when I had to cut it while on the run from Tony, because it was too recognizable.
I didn’t cry this time. I was too freaking mad. I just brushed my teeth, washed my face and dragged my big wad of fabric back to the bedroom.
The vamp still didn’t say anything, and neither did I. I also didn’t turn on a light, which was stupid, because he could probably see about the same either way. But it made me feel more naked to have it on, which was why it took five minutes of hunting and grumbling and falling and cursing around in the closet to find what I wanted.
I finally emerged with an old Georgia Bulldogs baseball cap, a pair of silky blue track shorts and a faded pink tank top from my comfort-clothes stash. None of it matched, but right then, I didn’t give a damn. I hauled everything back to the bathroom, and after dressing and combing and slapping on some mascara, I decided I looked mostly normal.
If normal people had green hair and wore hats indoors.
The vamp folded his paper and got to his feet when I started out the door, even though there was another guard just outside. He was leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette, looking bored and butt-sore. He didn’t say anything and neither did I. I just padded across the hall to the living room, because stomping doesn’t work so well in bare feet and on carpet.
The rest of the crew was in the lounge, playing cards. Of course they were. I felt like asking them if that’s how they’d envisioned spending eternity, but I had other things on my mind.
Marco was sitting at the card table, doing one of his fancy shuffles. He looked up and a smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “What?” I demanded.
“You and the bulldog got the same expression.”
“Very funny! What the hell—”
He held up a hand. “First of all, how you doing?”
“I’m fine! Or I would be if—”
“You sure? We got the doc on standby.”
I scowled. That was where that sadist could stay, too. “No, thanks. And can we—”
“You hungry? ’Cause we got Chinese coming.”
“Marco—”
“Not from room service; from that little place around the corner. Kung pao chicken, ginger beef—”
“Marco!”
He sighed and gave it up. “I told the master this was how you were gonna react. But you gotta see that it makes sense, at least until we figure this thing out.”
“It does not make sense! There’s nobody in the apartment but us, and the creature can’t possess a vamp —”
“We don’t know that.”
“—or it would have already done it instead of hanging around the foyer, waiting for Mr. Mage to show up.”
“Mr. Mage,” one of the vamps said. “I like that. I’m gonna start calling all of ’em that.”
“I can think of a few things to call them,” another one muttered.
“And if you think it
“You’re right,” he told me.
“I am?”
“Yeah. We obviously need two.”
“Marco!”
