Lover's Knot

  It seemed Hieronimo had arrived.

  Chapter Eight

  Present Day, Dory

  A couturier's shop on the Rue de Whatever, Paris

  "Stop slapping at them, Dory!"

  "Then tell them to stop touching me," I snarled. I already had a migraine, thanks to the happy little vision Dorina had gifted me with in the car on the way here. And now a bunch of animated pincushions were trying to stick me full of holes.

  "They're just trying to measure you," Radu said, sounding impatient.

  "I know my measurements!" I snapped, as another pincushion came flying at me, glittering with intent. And ended up nailed to the wall by a pair of scissors for its trouble.

  It just stayed there, vibrating slightly, like a small, wounded animal.

  A small, wounded animal with friends, I thought, as a half dozen others suddenly zoomed at me from all parts of the room.

  "Arrêtez!"

  The command cracked through the air, like a general commanding troops. Troops that suddenly stopped mid-flight, except for the two I was currently choking to death. They made puffy little wheezing noises through my fingers as a creature out of a sci-fi flick approached, gleaming in silver.

  And plucked them out of my grip.

  I didn’t even protest, although the reflection of my features in his shiny, shiny coat looked a little pissed. Or maybe that was the distorting, fun house effect of the thing, which was almost blinding under the harsh lights of the inner sanctum. He examined the pincushions while Radu tried to manhandle the scissors to release the other.

  He failed, possibly because he was also babbling apologies a mile a minute at the same time.

  I looked from him to the silver vision, complete with a butt-length fall of jet black hair, silver banded shades, silver rings on silver-tipped hands, and a silver mess of a cravat, and decided it was a boy. Mainly because of the far too tight silver trousers, which ended in silver boots, of course. Thigh high ones.

  I was suddenly, vastly relieved that we weren't really here for clothes.

  "It's of no consequence," the silver god glimmered at me, with a smile almost as predatory as a vamp's. "I have many senatorial clients. Although few, if I may say so, who are quite so charming."

  He bent over my now empty hand, while Radu pursed his lips. And looked me up and down, as if trying to decide what Claude found charming about my ripped jeans and scuffed leather jacket full of weapons. I smirked at him over the great man's back, and received a warning look for my trouble. Claude was Radu's personal couturier, and I had already been told what would happen if I upset him and got Radu banned.

  "A medal?" I'd asked, and received a truly frightening look in return.

  Radu did not play around when it came to clothes.

  Although at least this cleared up the mystery of exactly where 'Du came up with some of his more memorable ensembles. In fact, I kind of thought I owed the guy an apology. I'd always thought him over the top, but if this was where he shopped, damned if he wasn't positively restrained.

  We were in the back of a posh shop on the Avenue de Whatever, in Paris. I hadn’t paid much attention because I'd been groggy from another wild ride in Dorina's messed up memories. I didn’t know why she kept plaguing me, especially now. Would it be too much to ask to maybe wait for the current crisis to pass before dredging up old ones?

  Especially old, irrelevant ones.

  Because whatever had happened way back when, it had obviously been dealt with. And while, under normal circumstances, I might have been interested in just how Mircea worked out a deal to keep a dhampir on the premises without getting staked, I was a little more worried about somebody else getting staked right now. Which is why I gritted my teeth and put up with the pincushions of doom, and the measuring tape they were towing around between them, that was getting up close and personal. Until they finally had the info they required for a wardrobe I couldn’t afford and didn’t need.

  Yes, technically, I was a senator, brought on board by some of daddy's machinations to give his faction on the senate the extra votes they needed during the war. But that was going to last all of about a nanosecond after said war ended, and what was I going to do with a bunch of couture then? I didn’t need couture; I needed answers.

  Which was why I escaped back out front as soon as possible, since nobody seemed to care about my personal opinions anyway.

  Nobody followed me. And nobody was in the shop, probably because it was by invitation only. Claude—just Claude; like Madonna, he only needed one name—was a fixture in the world of paranormal couture, which was apparently as cutthroat as the human version. This place was a positive fortress of wards, in case the competition snuck in to steal any of his designs, or the spells behind them. And, since the great man, or mage technically, slept over the shop in a luxury apartment protected by those same wards, bursting in to ask questions about his exclusive clientele wasn't as easy as one might think.

  Even when one of those clients was a missing consul with questionable taste.

  I didn’t have anything else to do, so I drifted around, examining the merchandise and studiously not looking out of the windows at the street across the way, where Marlowe and Elise—the French op—had staked out. They couldn’t get in, at least not without an appointment, the nearest of which had been over a month away. But Radu, ex-king, brother of a senator, second-level master vamp and rich as Croesus . . . well, he was another story.

  Especially when he was dragging another senator, one in dire need of fashion help—his words to Claude—along with him.

  So, we were in. I just didn’t see what good that was doing, when 'Du was talking taffeta vs. satin instead of anything useful about Louis-Cesare. I supposed he expected me to come up with some clues, but I honestly didn’t see what. Other than slamming the big guy against a wall and threatening to rip his throat out if he didn’t start talking, which apparently was right out when it came to well-connected mages.

  Thus throwing out 90% of my skill set, I thought, checking out a flirty little dress, which appeared to be cussing at me.

  It took me a minute to realize what was going on, and then I grinned. And the dress, which seemed to be a fabric version of a mood ring, grinned back. At least, the curse words, rain clouds and rude gestures that had covered it a second ago were erased, to be replaced with the French words for amused, happy, and curious. Along with grinning suns, dancing flowers and emojis.

  And what the hell? As if Facebook and Twitter weren't bad enough, now I was supposed to want my innermost emotions flaunted to everybody who saw me? Seriously?

  A bunch of question marks spiraled up out of the white background, along with the French words for confused, unsure, and bewildered. Until I thrust it back on the rack and stepped away, because I had enough trouble with diplomacy as it was. I didn’t need everybody knowing I was about to belt them even before I did!

  The rest of the offerings were equally head-scratching, at least to me, because this wasn't my world. Wasn't even close to my world, I thought, checking out some eye-searingly yellow, very high-heeled, wedge type shoes with built-in bird cages in the soles, complete with little hopping, tweeting birdies that I really hoped weren't real. Or if you didn’t like those, there were blue ones with tiny aquariums in the soles, complete with—you guessed it—very confused-looking fish. Or some pink-and-white ones with animated wooden carousel horses affixed to the bottoms, which apparently trotted you around the cobblestones.

  I stared at them, wondering what happened if you fell down. Did they just keep going? Galloping through the streets while you screamed your head off, bump, bump, bumping along behind?

  Because, if so, there were a couple Christmas presents sorted out early.

  The shoes matched dresses with similar embroidered motifs: yellow birds flitting across white brocade; green, red and white fish swimming around aquamarine silk; and sleek horses with embroidered manes flowing, their jeweled eyes flashing, their silver harnesses gleaming as t
hey rotated around a golden carousel of a skirt. They were impressive, in a strictly artsy kind of way. Like, I could admire the creativity that went into them, and the spells that animated them, the same way I’d admire a painting on the wall of an art gallery. But I wouldn’t want to wear it.

  Seriously, they were tacky as hell.

  The only things I saw that weren't were some surprisingly toned down items in the same silver stuff Claude had been sporting. Including a jumpsuit that wasn't half bad. It was too shiny, almost mirror-like, but the cut was interesting—if I had a reason to need a bright silver, one-shouldered, mid-drift baring, tight-assed jumpsuit.

  Bet I could work it, though, I thought, before I caught myself.

  I started to put it back, when some movement caught my eye. I swung around to see a line of other outfits, different in style but with that same shiny, metallic cloth, in the window. All of which were currently wearing my face.

  I blinked at the nearest one, and it blinked back, my startled eyes winking at me off a mannequin's pert backside. Ooookay, I thought, staring around. And noticing that the silver stuff was a lot more prominent than I’d thought, hanging off racks and draping languid-looking models, meaning that a hundred startled Dorys were all suddenly staring at me.

  Once again, I started to put the jumpsuit back where I’d found it, only to have what looked like the whole room skew wildly as it followed the motion. And then change to images of my belly button, a hundred tiny navels peering over the top of my low-cut jeans. I jumped back, letting go of the weirdo fabric in the process, and everything abruptly blanked again.

  Leaving just a sea of shiny, shiny silver and me, with no weird-ass reflections.

  Not even in the ones in the window, where the images had been clearer than the rest, maybe because I was standing closer . . . .

  My thoughts broke off at the sight of Marlowe, across the street outside, making faces at me. I didn’t know what was wrong with him for a minute, because he looked deranged. Gesturing and thumping his head and dancing around—

  And then I got it. He was trying to talk to me mentally, but it wasn't working. Dorina could do that shit, but I couldn’t. A fact which, for once, I was pretty happy about, because he looked livid. Like he thought I was playing around, clothes shopping, instead of doing the job, and screw him. I wanted Louis-Cesare back more than he did, but the clothes were the job. Because what the hell else was there to look at in a damned couturier's?

  If this place even meant anything, and I didn’t know that it did. Anthony could have come for his regular appointment, then gone somewhere else and been attacked, or whatever the hell had happened to him. Likewise, Louis-Cesare could have come here because it was the last place Anthony was seen, just like we had.

  But, in that case, why did he also disappear?

  It could be mere coincidence. Louis-Cesare had been Anthony's senator for years, and the two of them had once been pretty close. It seemed at least possible that he'd had an idea after he left here, checked it out, and got lucky.

  Or unlucky, considering that he was now missing, too.

  Of course, he might have also picked up on something while here that gave him a clue, but if so, I wasn't seeing it.

  I wasn't seeing much of anything except for a bunch of really tacky clothes.

  And Marlowe, making a fool of himself in the street.

  I grabbed the jumpsuit again with one hand, and with the other, I sent a whole line of one fingered salutes at Marlowe, from the surface of every outfit in the window.

  And, okay, yeah. Now he was pissed. And coming over here, only he forgot about—

  "Dory. What are you doing?" That was Radu.

  "Nothing," I said, folding the finger under about the time Marlowe hit the wards outside. And got his little curly do even curlier as a result.

  I grinned, he smoked, and 'Du took the jumpsuit away from me, holding it up to the light.

  And now we were surrounded by frowny-faced Radus, all peering into the fabric as if looking for a zit.

  As if such a thing would dare to sully the pristine perfection, I thought.

  "What is this?"

  "Ah," Claude said, wafting in, despite wearing heels that would have defied even a supermodel. "Like father, like son."

  "What?" All the little Radus suddenly perked up.

  "Your son, Louis-Cesare?"

  Radu and I nodded.

  "He absolutely fell in love with this design. To the point that he ran off with one of my prototypes, the naughty boy." He leaned in to Radu. "Don’t worry. I added it to your account."

  Radu waved it away. "A prototype? Then these," an elegant gesture took in the wide range of silver designs, "aren’t finished?"

  "Oh, these," Claude sighed and rolled his eyes. "What one does to sustain the process of creation. No. I meant one of the special ones, the kind of thing I do for elite clients."

  "Elite clients?" I asked, stupidly getting my hopes up.

  "Such as yourself, dear Dorina." He smiled that predatory smile at me. "And Anthony, of course."

  Chapter Nine

  1457, Mircea

  A terrible bar in Venice, Italy

  "All right, what now?" Jerome asked, as the curtain swished closed behind them.

  It had done that on its own, as soon as they stumbled into the back room of the little bar. That normally would have been cause for some concern, except that Mircea's concern was already busy. Being focused on the group of heavily armed mages that had just run in the front door and almost succeeded in killing them, only they'd underestimated vampire speed.

  Just as he had underestimated mage . . . oddness . . . because there was no back door.

  "You’re asking me?" Mircea said, looking around for an exit that remained stubbornly absent, his arms full of dying mage, as an energy bolt fluttered the curtain on the other side.

  Fluttered but didn’t destroy, because Hieronimo must have spelled the place, although that made no damned sense at all. If it was spelled so that no one could get in, then how had he gotten stabbed? Because Mircea, Jerome and Hieromino's soon-to-be-corpse were in the same room the man must have just been knifed in, yet no one was here. And since there was no back door, it rather seemed like the man must have stabbed himself.

  Although this was a mage establishment, so who the hell knew?

  Jerome must have had the same thought, because he was staring around as well, as if expecting to be jumped at any moment. While spell after spell hammered at the ephemeral-looking curtain, which shuddered but somehow held—a fact that threatened to break Mircea's brain. He could see the damned mages on the other side, through the thin weave, a bar full of them now.

  Which meant this bolt-hole of theirs was about to turn into a grave.

  "This is your mission!" he hissed at Jerome. "Do something!"

  Jerome went from staring at the curtain to staring at him, and for the first time since he arrived, the self-assured master vampire was gone. Replaced by the wide-eyed innocent Mircea had met in a Venetian prison cell. Mircea had once thought, after his friend's true age and status had been revealed, that the act had been impressive, practically flawless over weeks of close contact.

  Now he wondered how much Jerome had been acting, and how much of that was simply who he was at heart, something that might have been endearing if it wasn't about to get them both killed.

  "You’re the soldier," Jerome said, licking his lips. "I'm the spy. I'm just supposed to gather information. I don’t deal with things like this!"

  Wonderful.

  "Here." Mircea thrust the mage into Jerome's arms and started crawling around the floor.

  Jerome watched him, his face tense and pale, his hands covered in the man's blood. "W-what do I do with him?"

  "Bring him around! I have a question," Mircea said grimly, knocking on wood.

  The crash, crash, crash of spells against the flimsy barrier seemed to be getting louder, which likely wasn't a good sign. But Mircea couldn't reinforce it becau
se he wasn't a mage, damn it! But he was a vampire, so he used what skills he did have.

  Not that any of them helped much, either.

  The floor was solid, with no big, echoing spaces underneath. The same was true for the old stone walls, which didn’t even have the expected insects or rats scurrying about—surprising, considering the state of this place. But then again, maybe not. Because, at the lowest range of his hearing, something that would have been entirely silent to a human, there it was: the telltale buzz of a ward.

  Mircea cursed inventively.

  It wasn't just over the door, it was over everything. Meaning that he couldn’t just punch them a new exit through the thick old stones, even assuming he had time for that. He had seconds to figure a way out of this, to find something that would trigger a way out, assuming the damned place had one! But the myriad items on a long counter and some rickety shelves weren't helping.

  There were jars and bottles of odd smelling powders, vials of multicolored brews, most of which stunk to high heaven, and baskets of dried flowers and herbs. There were iron . . . thingies . . . in a basket and some wooden . . . sticks . . . in a box, and a bunch of amulets hung on a board, and damn it all! There had to be something here! Something the still unconscious mage couldn’t tell them . . . .

  Or maybe he already had.

  Mircea stopped suddenly, realizing that they had already passed through the ward when they ran in here. Just as Hieronimo had when he stumbled through the curtain. And if the mage had done anything to facilitate that, it hadn't been apparent.

  He'd been busy dying at the time.

  So it was on him.

  "What are you doing?" Jerome asked, as Mircea pushed him out of the way and knelt by the mage.

  Jerome had laid him face down on the floor and ripped open his shirt, but had yet to remove the knife. Probably afraid the man would bleed out if he did. Mircea, who had a small healing gift, would have tried to help him, but there was no time. The ward was going to fail any moment, and if they were still here when it did, there wouldn’t be help for any of them.