“What do you want me to do?” the brunet asked in Italian.
“Shoot him!”
A muscular shoulder rose in a shrug. “Won’t get through the shield.”
“Then help me drain him!”
“Girl might object.”
“Yes, the girl might!” I said in the same language.
The dark-haired vamp looked mildly surprised. “Your Italian is not so bad.”
“I grew up at Tony’s court,” I reminded him.
He grinned, a sudden flash of white in a handsome olive face. “That would explain the accent.”
Pritkin was starting to look apoplectic, which experience had taught me usually precipitated pain for someone. “Would you please answer him?” I asked.
The vamp stole a cigarette from the blond, who was in no position to object, and took his time lighting up. He was tall, with black hair cut short to minimize a tendency to curl, judging by a few at his neck. That wasn’t so odd—a lot of the younger vamps wore their hair short, including plenty of those who belonged to Mircea. But they didn’t also have five o’clock shadow or a tribal tat decorating one bicep, or dress in jeans and tight black muscle shirts.
“We’re new—we flew in last night,” he finally said, taking a drag. He blew out a breath and regarded Pritkin through the smoke. “Mage, why would anyone follow us when they don’t know who we are?”
Pritkin thought about that for a beat and then finally released the blond. The vamp took his time straightening up, brushing out the wrinkles in his silver-gray suit. Then he looked at me. “You need him on a leash,” he said viciously.
“Would somebody please explain what is going on?” I asked.
“What is going on is that your safety depends on no one knowing where you are,” Pritkin told me, still glaring at the vamps. “And considering how we departed, no one should. We exited directly into a ley line, under cover of the hotel’s wards, and didn’t leave it until halfway across the city. No one saw us—a fact that does little good if someone leads your enemies straight to you!”
“Well, we didn’t,” the blond snapped, rubbing his neck under the pretense of adjusting a rumpled burgundy tie.
“That’s why Marco couldn’t come after you himself,” the brunet informed me, leaning back against the SUV.
“What is?” I asked.
The cigarette glowed against the night as he waved a negligent hand. “The paparazzi have marked him. He was waylaid outside the hotel a couple of days ago by a mob shouting questions, wanting photos. . . .”
“Of him?”
“Of you. You’re front-page news. Haven’t you seen the papers?”
“Not recently.” And considering what they’d been printing the last time I did look, that was probably for the best. “But I haven’t seen any reporters—”
“They’re not allowed in the hotel.”
“And you don’t exactly use the front door,” the blond added. “I’m Jules, by the way.” He extended a slim hand, which I took after a brief hesitation. If they intended to stuff me into the SUV, they could do it whether I cooperated or not. “And this is Rico and Fred.”
“Fred?” I looked at Mousy, because no way was the brunet a Fred. He smiled weakly.
“I get that a lot,” he said. “I’m thinking of changing it. What do you think about André?”
I thought I’d never seen anyone who looked less like an André.
“So Marco’s afraid of the paparazzi?” I asked skeptically.
“More the other way around.” Rico grinned.
“He threatened to do something anatomically impossible to one of their men,” Fred told me.
“Not impossible,” Rico blew out a thoughtful breath. “The camera could be made to fit, although the case—”
“What about the tripod?”
“I don’t think he was serious about the tripod.”
“The paparazzi aren’t the issue,” Jules interrupted, shooting them a look. “But if they’ve managed to figure out that Marco’s your bodyguard, more dangerous types could have done the same. He couldn’t risk leading anyone to you, so he sent us.”
“To do what?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew.
“You want it verbatim?”
“Minus the profanity.”
Sculpted lips pursed. “Well, that would shorten it a bit.”
“What. Did. He. Say?”
“To paraphrase? ‘Let her finish her pizza and then drag her back here. By the hair, if necessary.’”
“Doesn’t he get it?” I demanded. “That’s the kind of attitude that forced me to leave in the first place!”
“Oh, he gets it,” Rico said. “He just doesn’t want it.”
“I don’t give a damn what he wants! He has to understand—”
“He understands that you’re twenty-four,” Jules told me, swiping his cigarette case back from his friend.
“What’s wrong with being twenty-four?”
“Nothing. Unless you’re dealing with a guy who’s well over a thousand.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Marco,” he confirmed, tapping a cigarette on top of the case. “Saw the fall of Rome, or so they say.”
“The fall of—” I stopped and stared. “Gladiators, Colosseum, guys in leather miniskirts—that Rome?”
“That would be the one.”
“I wouldn’t mention the miniskirts,” Rico advised. “Marco used to be in the army.”
“Have to wonder how anyone took them seriously,” Jules said.
“I think if you laughed, they cut your balls off.”
Jules paused, halfway through lighting his cigarette, the flame dancing in wide blue eyes. “That would do it.”
“But . . . but why is he working for Mircea?” I asked. Vamps that old were Senate members or headed up powerful courts. They didn’t work for masters a third their age.
Jules shrugged. “You’d have to ask him; I was always afraid to. But you can see why he doesn’t react well when someone he considers a child—”
“A fetus,” Rico put in.
“—ignores an order.”
“An order he had no right to give!” I said heatedly.
“Technically, the master gave it—”
“Who also has no right to order me around!”
“I like this one,” Rico said. “Feisty.”
I shot him a glare, which had no effect, except to widen his smile.
“I guess Marco figures, if he still has to take orders after all this time, why not you?” Fred asked.
“Because I’m Pythia,” I said, striving for patience.
He blinked at me, obviously confused. “And?”
I threw my hands up.
Jules frowned at him, but not on my account. “Stop it.”
“It’s driving me nuts,” the little vamp said, tugging at the polyester monstrosity around his neck.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. And why do I have to wear a tie, anyway? Rico doesn’t,” he looked pointedly at the brunet.
“Rico is a law unto himself,” Jules said drily.
“Well, I’m not used to this.”
“What are you used to?” I asked, wondering where a guy like Fred fit into Mircea’s somewhat more . . . glossy . . . family.
“I just wear clothes, you know?” he said, pushing wispy brown hair out of his eyes. “I mean, nobody cares what an accountant looks like, as long as the books balance. Not that we use books anymore, but you know what I—”
“You’re an accountant?” Pritkin asked sharply.
Fred jumped and then regarded Pritkin warily. “Why shouldn’t I be an accountant?”
“Because you’re supposed to be a bodyguard!”
“Well, I am.” Pale gray eyes shifted. “I mean, I am at the moment. I mean—”
“He means that it’s none of your business,” Jules interjected.
“Well, it is mine,” I pointed out. “What is he doing here?”
I didn’t get an answer because Rico’s head snapped up. He didn’t move otherwise or even tense, as far as I could tell, but there was suddenly something dangerous about him.
Pritkin must have thought so, too, because his expression tightened. “Accountant?”
“Never said I was,” Rico said, his eyes on the empty street.
“Then what are you?”