mine.”
“Yours?” One dark eyebrow rose. “You did not sire him. By vampire law, he is my property to do with as I wish. And I doubt the senate will flout thousands of years of tradition, even to save the life of their favorite … what is the word? Canary?”
“Your vocab’s a little out of date,” I said sourly. “And that’s not how I remember it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The last time you, me, and Ray were all together, you gave him to me.”
The crease grew into a frown. “I did nothing of the kind.”
“In exchange for me helping to cover up the fact that you’d kidnapped a senator’s brother, threatened him with death, and trashed his new and very expensive car. Ring any bells?”
“There was no formal transfer made. You misinterpreted a casual remark.”
I had done no such thing, and he damn well knew it. “I guess we can let the senate decide that.” They’d have to support Ray, like it or not, or lose all that lovely information he still had locked in his fat little head.
Scarface came up the stairs and Cheung glanced at him. “Careful,” he told him, looking at me narrowly. “She is dhampir. I don’t know what she can pick up.”
Not a hell of a lot, I didn’t say. Vampire mind-speak had never been my forte. Especially not if it was in Cantonese.
But Mircea had spent some time in the East, and for all they knew, so had I. I decided to capitalize on the moment. “May I speak to Ray privately?”
Cheung hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded, probably wanting his own private confab. I didn’t give him time to change his mind, but dragged Ray through the door into the office and slammed it shut with my foot. “Are we private?” I demanded.
He sighed morosely. “There’s a privacy spell on the room; they can’t hear us. Not that it matters. They’re going to kill me.”
“You should be more worried about me at the moment,” I hissed. “Why the hell did you tell Cheung I was your bodyguard?”
“Well, you should have been,” he said spitefully, suddenly growing some backbone. “Or somebody shoulda been. What did you think was gonna happen, as soon as I started spilling my guts? The master was gonna give me a medal?”
“He knew I was going to take you in. He had to expect—”
“What he expected was that I’d die before the senate could question me. I was a little under the weather, if you remember?”
The sarcasm was understandable. Ray had been sans a head at the time Cheung and I had cut our deal, and the body parts he’d had left had been pretty beat-up. Vampires are sturdy, but what he’d been through would have killed many at a higher power level than he was ever likely to reach. Cheung’s conclusion had been reasonable.
But Ray was tougher than he looked, and he’d had some supernatural help Cheung hadn’t known about. He’d not only lived, but once all his parts were reattached, he’d sung like … well, like a canary. And what a song it had been.
“Why didn’t you ask the senate protect you?” I demanded. “You’ve given them enough information already to shut down half the illegal smuggling in Manhattan.”
“I did!” he said indignantly. “But this challenge mess is all anyone can think about. And I don’t think they believed the master would move against me, not with him vying for a senate seat and all. He’s supposed to be on his best behavior.”
“Yes, he is,” I said hopefully. “Maybe we can use that. He’s risking a lot.”
“He’s risking nothing! When I disappear, the senate might suspect him, sure. But I also could have lost my nerve and run. I thought about it, you know. I got a lot of contacts among the fey, and they can hide anybody. If they didn’t creep me out so damn much … Anyway, without proof, they can’t move against him. And since Lord Cheung is my master, nobody else can trace me.” He slumped onto the edge of the desk. “I’m toast.”
I thumped him. “And thanks to you, so am I! I’m the only one who can tell the senate you didn’t go on an extended vacation!”
“Then I guess you better figure us a way out of this,” he told me resentfully, rubbing the side of his head.
I’d have thumped him again, but I didn’t have time. I glanced around, but things weren’t looking promising. As I’d already noticed, there was no phone, and mine was still in pieces. There was only one door in or out, and the only window was merely a paler square of brick in the wall behind the desk. Ray’s place wasn’t exactly up to fire code, having been designed for the convenience of the vampire owner and staff, not ease of egress.
“I don’t suppose they left you a phone?” He just looked at me. Of course not. And his penny-pinching ways had led to him skipping the usual magical escape routes.
“I bet you wish you’d invested in a few emergency exits now,” I said harshly.
“You don’t need ’em when you got a portal,” Ray commented, and my eyes jerked to the blank stretch of wall across from the door.
“That’s right. You have a portal,” I said, brightening.
“Had. The senate’s goons were here yesterday. I guess they wanted to plug my link to Faerie before they started on the smaller stuff.”
Typical.
“Then the only exits are in the main room?”
Ray nodded bleakly. I stared at the door and faced reality. As usual, my duffel contained a few surprises, but no way was I carving a path through all that. Not on my best day, which this definitely wasn’t.
I was going to have to come up with something else.
The door opened and Lord Cheung leaned against the sill, looking considerably more upbeat. “I have been reminded that, in a case of disputed ownership, a duel is the common remedy.”
I stared over Cheung’s shoulder at Scarface’s smug grin. I didn’t have to ask who had done the reminding. He’d just seen me walk away from a challenge outside. I was in no shape to duel a kitten right now, much less a first-level master, and he damned well knew it.
“That’s not going to get us anywhere,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “If you leave me alive, I’ll tell the senate you killed Ray, ruining your chances at a seat. And if you kill me, Mircea will return the favor, for pride if nothing else. Then we’re all dead.”
Cheung’s face gave nothing away, but I didn’t need expressions to know what he was thinking. Mircea could take revenge only if he knew Cheung was responsible for my death, which he might never find out. But then, Cheung couldn’t know who I might have told where I was going. Or, for that matter, what kind of a bond Mircea and I had.
In the end, he decided not to risk it. “You have a better solution?”
“Yeah. You want Ray; so do I. So we’ll gamble for him.”
“You wish to flip a coin?” The sarcasm was palpable.
“Coin tosses can be rigged. I’d prefer something where we both have an even shot, where no one gets dead, and where the outcome is sure.”
“What, then?” Cheung asked, looking wary.
So I told him.
“Okay,” Ray said, coming in from the storeroom flanked by two babysitters. “This is the lot; this is all I got.”
He carried a cardboard box over to one of the club’s small tables, which had been placed in the middle of the dance floor. Cheung had chosen the location, I guess to give his boys a chance to crowd around and see him kick my ass. Ray pushed through the throng, but then just stood there, the glass bottles inside the box chiming against each other because his hands were shaking.
“Put it down,” Cheung told him impatiently.
“Th-there’s not room on the table.”
Cheung looked skyward. “Then put it on the ground.” Ray obliged, and peeled back the cardboard top.
“That should be enough,” I said drily, eyeing the stash that was revealed. There were twelve bottles, each
