“’Cause that was the deal. I tell ’em everything, spill my guts, not hold anything back. And then they don’t kill me. And they had to deal; they never would have found all of ’em on their own. I mean, seriously, we’re talking years—”
“And they just let you walk.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course. Why not? They assumed Cheung was gonna kill me as soon as they tossed me out onto the sidewalk anyway. Save ’em the trouble.”
“But they didn’t toss you out,” I said, remembering a certain limo ride from this morning. True, nobody had seemed too interested in helping Ray not to go up in flames. But considering everything, I’d have expected them to be pouring on gasoline and lighting a match.
But he wasn’t listening.
“It really bites my ass, you know?” he told me. “I’m why Cheung ended up a big-time player in the smuggling trade in the first place, when we used to be small potatoes. It was me. It was all me. But did I get any credit, any respect, for any of it? Hell no. I’m still Ray the screwup, Ray the joke, Ray the butthead. Only the joke’s on him now, ’cause I got a new master, and he can bite me.”
“A new master?” I frowned. “I thought you’ve been in the Senate’s custod
y this whole time.”
“Yeah, well.” He fidgeted and stubbed out his cigarette, even though it was only halfway down. “You know how it was. I wanted to just go home. Go back to the way things were. But that’s a little hard with the master trying to kill me so I couldn’t give away the locations of all the hacks I’d done. And possibly incriminate him in the bargain. So where was I gonna go? I had to go to the Senate.”
“Yeah, you said you were going to sing like a canary,” I recalled.
Cheung had only allowed Raymond to fall into the Senate’s hands in the first place because he’d assumed that his erstwhile employee, who had been sans head at the time, wasn’t going to last long enough to tell anyone anything. But once he realized that Ray, who’d turned out to be unusually hardy thanks to Claire’s missing talisman, was still alive, the hunt had been on. He’d caught up with him a week or so ago, and Ray had used me to get him out of trouble.
The last thing I’d seen, other than the bird he’d shot me as a thank-you, was him pelting for the Senate’s dubious protection as fast as his legs could carry him. It had been a smart move. Not that the Senate was any kinder than his old boss, but they’d had a reason to keep Ray alive and Cheung hadn’t. At least not then. And, as the old saying goes, life means hope—and schemes and intrigue and wiggle room. Which I guessed Ray had used, since he was still here.
“Oh, yeah,” he confirmed. “I kept my part of the bargain. The way I figured it, if I didn’t talk, the boss’d kill me to make sure I never did, and if I did talk, he’d kill me for betraying him. Either way, it ended with me dead. And since the Senate had me…well, they won that round.”
“And then one of them decided to pick you up?” I asked in disbelief. I was having a hard time seeing a senator—any senator—taking on a train wreck like Ray.
“Hell no,” he said bitterly. “They laughed in my face when I brought it up! Anyway, they said they had to send me back to my master. Cheung never emancipated me, so I was still his property, and if they weren’t going to execute me, they had to return me. That’s the law.”
And yes, it was. It was the sort of thing that often failed to get mentioned to all those hopeful humans lining up to join the eternity club: that the majority of its members never made it to the upper levels. That most of them stayed essentially slaves for life, and nobody cared much what a master did with his slaves—or, by vampire law, could do anything about it if they did.
“But they didn’t return you,” I said, wondering why I suddenly had a weird feeling.
“Damned right, they didn’t. But only because I figured a way out. Just like with the portal mess.” He sat back, scowling, setting the swing to rocking madly. “You know, when you’re a low-level master, you keep hoping that, one of these days, you’re gonna go up a rank. It’s like a short guy who keeps looking at basketball players and thinking, one of these days, that’ll be me. I might be five-two right now, but in a year, or two, or three, I’m Michael Jordan. Only in a year, or two or three, you’re still five-two. And one day, it dawns on you, that it’s all you’re ever gonna be.”
“Ray—”
“So, you learn to deal with it. You say, okay, maybe I won’t ever be a basketball star. But maybe I can be Bill Gates and make more money than all of them. Or maybe—”
“Ray—”
“—I’ll be somebody else, somebody important. ’Cause size isn’t everything and power isn’t everything, no matter how much the big guys think it is. And so I learned to use my head.”
I tried to break in again, but Ray was on a roll, the words flooding out of him now.
“That’s something the big guys don’t have to do—like Zheng-zi. He’s got more power in his little finger than I got in my whole body, but it hurts as much as it helps. Look at tonight. He don’t bother to think, how am I gonna take down this chick who already kicked my butt a couple times. He don’t worry about it because he’s Zheng-freaking-zi and he don’t have to. He assumes he’ll just overpower you. But you’re like me; you use your head. And so who ended up in pieces and who didn’t? We got a lot in common, you and me.” He finally stopped, dead still, and stared at the ground. “Maybe that’s what made me think of it.”
“Think of what?”
“That the Senate couldn’t turn me over to Cheung, ’cause he wasn’t really my master anymore. ’Cause a master can sell a servant to somebody who needs their talents, or trade ’em for somebody they like more, or, hell, lose ’em in a freaking card game.” He looked up, and blue eyes met mine. “Or…he can give them away.”
“Give them away?” I repeated, feeling a little dizzy. But I was wrong; I wasn’t thinking clearly either, because he couldn’t be saying what I thought he was.
Ray didn’t answer. He just got up and picked up my now empty beer bottle. “You’re out. Shall I get another one of those for you…master?”
Chapter Sixteen
Twenty minutes or so later, I was sitting with my head in my hands, a second empty beer bottle by my side and a throbbing headache at my temples. I felt rather than heard someone come up behind me and I didn’t have to wonder who. My vagina had just gotten a heartbeat.