I thought of Houdini as my hand slipped in blood when I stood. “Nope. Just the other Vamp, but he’s out of the picture now. We need to split. Sparrow might be rotating his men, and I’m not hanging around long enough to find out.”
“Should we hide the bodies?”
I looked around at the crimson blood, broken glass, tipped chairs, and demolished artwork. “We don’t have a mop big enough for this mess. I say we leave them. I don’t care if he finds the bodies; I just don’t want him knowing we did it. He screwed over everyone at that party. People are mad, and nobody wants to give everything up to follow some random guy who goes through an entire bottle of conditioner in a day. No offense.”
“Then we make haste.”
I snatched the vodka and caught up with Niko. At least it hadn’t disappeared, so that was a plus.
“Do you think he could have killed you?” Niko asked.
“What do you think? I don’t have any impalement wood, but we couldn’t exactly leave him alive to tell the tale.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Do you think youcandie? Sparrow said you were living in the realm of the dead.”
“Between the living and dead. Something like that.”
“Yes. But maybe now that your powers are restored, you can’t die.”
“I don’t have any intention on being the first to find out.”
Halfway up the street, blue-and-red lights flickered on a cop car. The short yelp from the siren startled me, and I stopped in my tracks.
“Shit.” I glanced down at the blood all over me. “I thought cops didn’t patrol the Breed district?”
“Perhaps he made a wrong turn.”
The door opened, and a cop hiding behind his door drew a gun. “Hold it right there!”
“How’s it going, Officer? Sorry we can’t chat. We’re on our way home from a paintball tournament.”
“Drop your weapon! Down on the ground!”
“Once again, destiny screws me over.”
CHAPTER9
After setting the vodka bottle in front of Lenore’s hotel room door and knocking once, I went hunting for Christian on the fourth floor. Niko and I had returned by midafternoon, the police incident having derailed us for a good while.
Claude opened the door after I knocked three times. “Come in, female. We were just talking about you.”
A rapt audience looked at Niko, who was leaning against the dresser. Since Shepherd had the armchair by the window, I joined Niko’s side while he finished recounting our misadventure. Gem sat cross-legged in the middle of the left bed. Wyatt had stacked all the pillows behind him on the right bed, his ankles crossed, arms folded, looking like a mischievous elf with his wavy brown hair and impish grin.
“So you didn’t get arrested?” Gem asked in disbelief.
I rested my palms on the dresser behind me. “By the time he got up close, the blood had disappeared. I’m not sure why it took as long as it did; maybe Vampire blood is different than smeared makeup. Anyhow, he didn’t have a reason to detain us other than Niko’s sword, but the open carry isn’t a crime here. There wasa lotof questioning. I think he was a rookie who got a little overzealous. Not having ID became the biggest issue, so we told him we were coming home from an all-night party and didn’t bring ID because we’d taken the subway. Niko’s better at explaining things, so he did all the talking while I pretended to be freezing to death. I think the teeth chattering helped. Then he wanted to see Niko’s permit for the sword. We gave him our alias names and my license number so he could look me up in the system or whatever they do. Niko’s blind, I’m walking around in a ball gown, and I guess he felt like an ass. So he finally let us go with a warning about walking in the middle of the street. I’m just glad we shut Lenore’s front door before we left. We didn’t give him her address, by the way. We convinced him that we came with friends, and they were the ones who had the address. We were lost, wandered into the wrong neighborhood, and just wanted to go home and warm up.”
Wyatt canted his head. “See any freshies?”
“Funny you mention that.”
“Good thing they didn’t follow you home.”
Gem bounced to her knees, her dress alight. “Yousawthe Vampires you killed?”
Wyatt grabbed a stack of take-out menus from the small table between the beds and flipped through them. “You want to know the fastest way to Cuckoo Land? Taunt the ghost you killed. You’ll never sleep again.” He bent his knees and flicked a flyer advertising salads to the floor. “Andthat’swhy I just do the computer work. You better watch it, Lizzie Borden. If you taunt the dead, they’ll follow you home. And you’ll be stuck with them for a long, long,long, long time. Did you ever see thatShiningmovie with the two little girls and the dead lady in that room? Not to mention the people in those creepy costumes at the end. Yep. They wanna play with you forever, and ever, and ever.”
Shepherd threw a pen at Wyatt’s head. “Some of us already know what that’s like.”
