That had been partly paranoia, and partly the old sour grapes thing. I’d done a good job of convincing myself I didn’t want any part of the world I couldn’t have anyway. But now it left me with a problem, and one I hadn’t had a chance to remedy since having all the Pythian stuff dumped in my lap.
Not that any of that mattered to Jules, who was obviously close to tears.
His attitude wasn’t a shock. Augustine’s little joke would have freaked out anybody, but it was especially cruel in Jules’ case. His hands were as emblematic of the man as Marco’s cigars or Fred’s big gray eyes or Rico’s one-liners. I’d wondered a few times if he was part Italian, as he had the same tendency to gesture when he talked. Or when he was arguing with the other vamps. Or when he was listening to music, following the notes with flutelike trills from those expressive fingers.
Fingers that, for once, were completely stiff and still.
And suddenly, I felt a genuine anger toward the smug shop owner. The other stuff had been sort of funny; this was just plain cruel. And he could damned well get his elegant ass out of bed and come and fix it.
“Get Augustine on the phone,” I told Fred. “Tell him—”
“No!” Jules said, looking panicked. “No, you can’t—”
He broke off abruptly. And whipped his head back and forth frantically. And then made a run for my bathroom, where we heard him clanging around while we stared at each other. And then finally went to take a look.
We found him in the shower.
He seemed to be trying to turn it on, only that didn’t work so well with only elbows. Help me, he mouthed at Rico. Who sighed but obligingly went over and turned the knob. Water burst out of the wall at the same time that another burst—of noise—made me jump. Fred had hit the button for the radio, blasting Beyoncé’s latest from every built-in speaker until it echoed off the tiled walls and rattled the towel bar.
And then Jules put his arms over my head and dragged me into the stall.
That wouldn’t have been so bad, since I knew what he was doing. I’d done it myself a few times, trying to add to the ambient background noise of a loud casino and a louder Strip to confuse vampire hearing. But then the other two crowded in behind us.
And while it was a big shower, it wasn’t that big.
But Jules didn’t care what I thought. Jules was all about making his point. “You can’t—promise me you won’t call Augustine!” he whispered.
“Why not?” I demanded, trying to duck under his arms, since he couldn’t very well let me go the usual way. But that didn’t accomplish anything, since Rico was right on my ass. Resulting in me pushing Jules back into one of the shower levers—and I didn’t have to ask which one.
The lukewarm stream suddenly jumped to the approximate temperature of lava.
A pain-filled gasp was all I got out before a hand clasped over my mouth. Rico’s, I identified, from the nice gold bracelet around the elegant wrist. One I was going to make him eat if he didn’t—
There was some rustling around. And then the temperature abruptly dropped back to bearable, leaving me only half-scalded. But no less furious. And no less mute, because the hand-over-my-mouth thing didn’t change.
“Let her go,” someone said as I started thrashing around.
It took a second for me to recognize the voice, because it held a surprising note of command. And because it was coming from the little guy squatting under the toiletry shelf, since he’d hit his head if he stood up. Fred scowled at Rico, and to my further surprise, Rico let me go and moved off a pace, giving me room to turn around and glare at him.
He didn’t look too repentant, though, maybe because he wasn’t exactly practiced with the expression. I doubted many women stayed mad at him for long, with his dark curls and his stubbly jaw and the six-pack visible under his rapidly dampening shirt. But it wouldn’t have helped him with me—after dealing with Mircea for three months, it took more than a few muscles to fog my brain.
“And we’re not calling Augustine because . . . ?” I demanded again.
“We can’t,” Jules said, going back into panic mode. “If we do the master is sure to find out!”
“So? It’s not like he’s going to assault Augustine—”
“Who cares about Augustine? I’m worried about me!”
I struggled back around to see what looked like genuine panic in those blue eyes. “Mircea doesn’t go around assaulting his vampires, either,” I pointed out. He didn’t have to. Most of them acted like he was the second coming already.
“It’s not so much assault that’s the problem,” Fred said, apparently in Zen mode, despite getting deluged by a waterfall from off the shelf.
“What, then?”
The three exchanged glances. At least, I guessed they did. I couldn’t see Rico anymore, but Fred looked behind me and then at Jules. “I’m gonna tell her,” he warned.
Nobody said anything.
“Tell me what?” I demanded.
“It’s like . . ” Fred thought for a minute. “You know how the Brits used to send convicts to Australia?” he finally said.
I stared at him through the streams of muddy water cascading off my dirty bangs. “What?”
“You know, in the bad old days. When they needed to dump some troublemakers who hadn’t done enough to hang but weren’t good enough to keep around? How they’d load ’em up on ships and send ’em off to Oz?”
“No!”
“Australia is a bad example,” Rico protested. “People died there. And before that there were hardship and pain and suffering—”
Fred raised an eyebrow. “And?”
Rico thought for a second. “Good point.”
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. And then opened them to glare at Fred. “Why are you telling me this?”
Gray eyes met mine with a hint of compassion. “Because you’re Australia?”
I wanted to bang my head on the tiles, but I couldn’t reach them. So I just stood there for a minute, wondering how much trouble I’d be in with Mircea if I killed three of his guys. If I was getting what they were saying, not all that much.
Rico huffed out a laugh. “I wish I could see her face.”
“No,” Fred told him. “You don’t. But we don’t have time for diplomacy.”
“Just as well,” Rico said, somehow managing to light a cigarette. “We all suck at it.”
“So you’re saying you screwed up and Mircea punished you by sending you to me?” I summarized.
“See?” Rico said. “I keep telling everyone she isn’t really a dumb blonde.”
I turned around, elbowing Jules in the gut in the process, and grabbed the cigarette out of Rico’s mouth. And dropped it onto the soggy tiles, where it went out with a little hiss. “That was a compliment,” he protested.
“The point is, we can’t screw up again,” Fred said quickly. “Or . . . well, I don’t know what might happen. But I think it’s safe to say that none of us wants to find out. But you know how Augustine is. The guy’s touchy even on a good day—”
“They call it the artistic temperament,” Rico said, sounding amused.
“Well, I call it being a dick,” Fred said sourly. “But if he has to get out of bed, and come all the way up here, and reverse his hex or whatever, and then he sees the mess you guys left in the workroom—”
“You left a mess?” I asked Rico, squirming back to face him.
“You were in a hurry.”
“I was—I didn’t ask you to do a damned thing!”
“They’re always telling us to be proactive,” Jules said, sounding aggravated. “Back home, that is. A good servant knows what his master wants before his master does—”
“I’m not your master!” I told him, finally managing to duck under those encircling arms.
“Well, you’re the closest thing I’ve got right now!” Jules said, using his wrists to shove a swath of wet blond hair out of his face. “And I went down there to take care of you. Now take care of me!”
I stared at him, feeling angry and waterlogged and pissed. But also strangely understanding. Because in two sentences, he’d just perfectly articulated the vampire code.
Real vampires were not the lone wolves of the movies, living out a solitary but sexy existence in a castle somewhere, pining for the love of a good woman. In fact, pretty much the opposite was true. If anything, they reminded me of ants, living in sprawling, social families, sometimes hundreds or even thousands strong, with each member slotted into a complex hierarchy that would have made most people’s heads explode trying to comprehend it.
And all of those members—save one—were servants of varying ranks. Who were ordered around, controlled, and dictated to by those further up the ladder in ways that would have appalled most humans. But along with the restrictions came a strange sort of freedom most of those same humans would never know.
You might not make the rules, but you didn’t have to deal with the fallout. You might not have the power, but you also didn’t have the responsibility. Unless you were the head of your own household, everything was always somebody else’s problem, somebody else’s burden, whether said somebody had had anything to do with whatever mess you’d created or not. You might be disciplined, if you screwed up enough, but you’d never know the stress of having to deal with things all by yourself.
Because you would never be all by yourself.
And because the buck never stopped with you.
And right now that was sounding really attractive.
“It’s all right,” Fred said, after a minute. “He can wait.”
Jules looked at him incredulously. And then at me. He didn’t look like a guy who could wait.
“No!” he said, voice rising in alarm. “Fix it! Fix it now!”