“So now you’re trying to support fifteen vamps on your own?” No wonder they needed to feed. Ray likely couldn’t give them any help at all.
“What else am I gonna do?” he demanded. “I’m responsible for them, like you’re responsible for me—”
“I am not your master!”
“See, this is why we have problems. You’ve never fully committed to this relationship.”
“Ray! I’m a dhampir.”
“You’re a senator. The boys are thrilled to be part of your family. Thrilled!”
I opened the door again.
They did not look thrilled.
“Bathe!” I told them, and they jumped, and then stampeded for the bathroom.
I closed the door again.
“They can’t stay here,” I said. “We’re going to have to work something out.”
“I had something worked out. Then somebody just hadda be a hero. Well, I hope you’re happy. Curly’s in the wind, his theatre’s trashed and, even if he does show up again—”
“Wait. What?”
“—he won’t want anything to do with the two of us—”
“Curly isn’t dead?”
“—Nobody is gonna want anything to do with the two of us if what happened to Curly gets around. We’re gonna be known as the people you need protecting from.”
“What happened to Curly?”
“You were there!”
I clapped a hand over his mouth and towed him to the stairs, and then up to my office. It was in what had been the attic, and was pretty well insulated, especially when I closed the trapdoor. And then turned around to see Ray peeling something nasty off his shoulder.
“What is going on? Why do you look like that?”
“Oh, Ray. I’m so glad you’re all right.” It was a falsetto and nothing like my voice. “I was so concerned—”
“I was concerned!”
He looked at me.
“I would have been concerned—”
“Sure, when you remembered I existed.”
“I remembered! It’s been a hard few days, all right?”
“Tell me about it. My old master rips me off, my new master denies me, and that’s after I almost end up buried alive!”
“What?”
He nodded vigorously. “The damned portal sucked in half the street.”
“Half the street?”