Immortal in Death (41 page)

Slowly, she lifted her lashes, looking through them into his face. “Casto,” she said softly.

“Yeah. Just relax now. Won’t take long.” He reached for his pocket.

“Fuck you.” She brought her knee up hard. Her depth perception was still slightly skewed. Rather than connecting with his groin she knocked solidly into his chin. He went backward off the bed, and the pressure injector in his hand skittered over the floor.

They both dived for it.

“Where the hell is she? She wouldn’t have walked out on her own party.” Mavis tapped her spiked heels impatiently as she continued to scan the club. “And she’s the only one of us still sober.”

“Ladies’ room?” Nadine suggested, half-heartedly tugging her blouse over her lacy bra.

“Peabody’s checked twice. Dr. Mira, she wouldn’t have made a run for it, would she? I know she’s nervous, but — “

“She’s not the running kind.” Though her head was still revolving, Mira struggled to keep her speech coherent. “We’ll look around again. She’s here somewhere. It’s just so crowded.”

“Still looking for the bride?” Grinning widely, Crack lumbered up. “Looks like she just wanted a last ride. The dude over there saw her slip into one of the privacy rooms with a cowboy type.”

“Dallas?” Mavis snorted at the thought of it. “No way.”

“So, she’s celebrating.” Crack lifted his shoulders.

“Got plenty more rooms, ladies, if you got an itch.”

“Which room?” Peabody demanded, sober now that she’d thrown up everything in her stomach including, she was sure, a good portion of the lining.

“Number five. Hey, you want a gang bang, I can round up some nice young boys for you. All sizes, all shapes, all colors.” He shook his head as they marched off, and decided that he’d better go along to keep the peace.

Eve’s fingers slipped off the injector, and the elbow to her cheekbone sent pain grinding down her face and into her teeth. Still, she had first blood, and the shock of finding her ready to fight had shaken him.

“You should have given me a bigger dose.” She followed up the statement with a short-armed punch to his windpipe. “I wasn’t drinking tonight, asshole.” She managed to roll him over. “I’m getting married tomorrow.” She punctuated this by bloodying his nose. “That was for Peabody, you bastard.”

He caught her in the ribs and winded her. She felt the injector pass over her arm and heaved up by the hips to kick. She would never know if it was blind luck, her lack of depth perception, or his own miscalculation, but he dodged to avoid the gut thrust, and her feet, coming up like pistons, caught him square in the face.

His eyes rolled back in his head; his head hit the floor with an ominous and satisfying thud.

Still, he’d managed to get more of the drug into her. She crawled, drifting in the sensation of swimming through thick, golden syrup. She made it to the door, but the lock and its key code appeared to be twelve feet above her grasping hand.

Then the door burst open and all hell broke loose.

She felt herself lifted, patted down. Someone was ordering in no-nonsense tones that she be given air. Giggles bubbled up in her. She was flying now, was all she could think.

“Bastard killed them,” she kept saying. “Bastard killed them all. I missed it. Where’s Roarke?”

Her eyelids were pulled back and she would have sworn her eyeballs rolled like fiery little marbles. She heard the words “health center” and began to fight like a tiger.

Roarke descended the stairs, a grim set to his mouth. He knew Feeney was still upstairs, huffing and blowing, but he was convinced. A business deal of the size of Immortality’s potential required an expert and an inside connection. Casto filled both those bills.

Eve might not want to hear it, either, so he wouldn’t mention it. Yet. Feeney would have three weeks to poke around while they were on their honeymoon. If there was indeed going to be a honeymoon.

He heard the door open and angled his chin. They were going to have this out once and for all, he determined. Here and now. He took two more steps, then was down the rest of them in a dead run.

“What the hell happened to her? She’s bleeding.” There was blood in his own eye as he snatched a limp Eve from the arms of a seven-foot black in a silver loincloth.

As everybody began talking at once, Mira clapped her hands like a schoolteacher in a room of rowdy students. “She needs a quiet room. The MTs treated her for the drug, but she’ll have some residual effects. And she wouldn’t let them deal with the cuts and bruises.”

Roarke’s face went stony. “What drug?” His gaze latched on Mavis. “Where the hell did you take her?”

“Not her fault.” Still glassy-eyed, Eve wrapped her arms around Roarke’s neck. “Casto. It was Casto, Roarke. Know that?”

“As a matter of fact — “

“Stupid — stupid to miss it. Sloppy. Can I go to bed now?”

“Take her upstairs, Roarke,” Mira said calmly. “I can tend to her. Believe me, she’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be fine,” Eve agreed as she floated up the stairs. “I’ll tell you everything. I can always tell you, can’t I? ‘Cause you love me, you sap.”

There was only one piece of information Roarke wanted at the moment. He laid Eve on the bed, took a good look at her bruised cheek and swollen mouth. “Is he dead?”

“Nope. I just beat the hell out of him.” She smiled, caught the look in his eye, and shook her head slowly. “Nuh-uh, no way. Don’t even think about it. We’re getting married in a couple hours.”

He smoothed the hair back from her face. “Are we?”

“I figured it out.” It was hard to concentrate, but it was important. She lifted her hands, cupped his face to keep it in focus. “It’s not a formality. And it’s not a contract.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a promise. It’s not so hard to promise to do something you really want, anyway. And if I’m lousy at being a wife, you’ll just have to live with it. I don’t break my promises. And there’s this one other thing.”

He could see her slipping, and shifted slightly so that Mira could tend the cut on her cheek. “What other thing, Eve?”

“I love you. Sometimes it makes my stomach hurt, but I kind of like it. Tired now, come to bed. Love you.”

He eased back to let Mira get on with her tending. “It’s all right for her to sleep?”

“Best thing for her. She’ll be fine when she wakes up. Maybe a little hung-over, which seems unfair since she didn’t drink anything. She said she wanted a clear head for tomorrow.”

“Did she?” She didn’t look calm when she slept, he noted. She never did. “Will she remember any of that? What she was telling me?”

“She may not,” Mira said cheerfully. “But you will, and that should do the job.”

He nodded and stepped back. She was safe again. One more time safe. He glanced over at Peabody. “Officer, can I count on you to fill me in on the details?”

Eve did have a hangover, and wasn’t pleased about it. Her stomach was tied in greasy knots, and her jaw was sore. Between Mira and Trina’s wizardry with cosmetics, the bruises didn’t show. As brides went, she supposed, studying herself, she was passable.

“You look mag, Dallas.” Mavis sighed and took a slow turn around Leonardo’s finest hour. The dress sleeked down, as it was meant to, the bronze tone adding warmth to Eve’s skin, the lines highlighting her long, lean form. Its very simplicity made the statement that it was the woman within who counted.

“The garden’s packed with people,” Mavis went on cheerily as Eve’s stomach roiled. “Did you look out the window?”

“I’ve seen people before.”

“There was media doing flybys earlier. I don’t know whose button Roarke pushed, but they’ve stopped.”

“Goodie.”

“You’re all right, aren’t you? Dr. Mira said you shouldn’t have any dangerous aftereffects, but — “

“I’m fine.” It was only partly a lie. “Having it closed, knowing all the facts, the truth makes it easier.” She thought of Jerry and suffered. She looked at Mavis, the glowing face, the silver-tipped hair, and smiled. “You and Leonardo still planning to cohabitate?”

“At my place, temporarily. We’re looking for bigger digs, one where he’ll have room to work. And I’m going to start making the club rounds again.” She took a box from the bureau, handed it over. “Roarke sent this up for you.”

“Yeah?” Opening it, Eve felt twin tugs of pleasure and alarm. The necklace was perfect, of course. Two drapes of twisted copper studded with colored stones.

“I happened to mention it.”

“I bet you did.” With a sigh, Eve draped it on, then fastened the long matching drops to her ears. And looked, she thought, like a stranger. A pagan warrior.

“There’s one more thing.”

“Oh, Mavis, I can’t stand one more thing. He’s got to understand that I — ” She broke off as Mavis turned from the long white box on the table, took out a sweeping spray of white flowers — petunias. Simple, backyard-variety petunias.

“He always knows,” she murmured. All the muscles in her stomach loosened, all the nerves died away. “He just knows.”

“I guess when somebody understands you that way, that, you know, intimately, it makes you pretty lucky.”

“Yeah.” Eve took the flowers, cradled them. The reflection in the mirror didn’t look like a stranger. It looked, she thought, like Eve Dallas on her wedding day. “Roarke’s going to swallow his tongue when he gets a load of me.”

She laughed, grabbed Mavis’s arm, and rushed out to make her promises.

The End