Chicks Kick Butt by Nancy Holder, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Vincent, Rachel Caine, Jeanne C. Stein, Susan Krinard, Lilith Saintcrow, Cheyenne McCray, Carole Nelson Douglas, Jenna Black, L. A. Banks, Elizabeth A. Vaughan Read Free Book Online Page A

Manhattan.”
    “I did!” he said indignantly. “But this challenge mess is all anyone can think about. And I don’t think they believed the master would move against me, not with him vying for a senate seat and all. He’s supposed to be on his best behavior.”
    “Yes, he is,” I said hopefully. “Maybe we can use that. He’s risking a lot.”
    “He’s risking nothing! When I disappear, the senate might suspect him, sure. But I also could have lost my nerve and run. I thought about it, you know. I got a lot of contacts among the fey, and they can hide anybody. If they didn’t creep me out so damn much … Anyway, without proof, they can’t move against him. And since Lord Cheung is my master, nobody else can trace me.” He slumped onto the edge of the desk. “I’m toast.”
    I thumped him. “And thanks to you, so am I! I’m the only one who can tell the senate you didn’t go on an extended vacation!”
    “Then I guess you better figure us a way out of this,” he told me resentfully, rubbing the side of his head.
    I’d have thumped him again, but I didn’t have time. I glanced around, but things weren’t looking promising. As I’d already noticed, there was no phone, and mine was still in pieces. There was only one door in or out, and the only window was merely a paler square of brick in the wall behind the desk. Ray’s place wasn’t exactly up to fire code, having been designed for the convenience of the vampire owner and staff, not ease of egress.
    “I don’t suppose they left you a phone?” He just looked at me. Of course not. And his penny-pinching ways had led to him skipping the usual magical escape routes.
    “I bet you wish you’d invested in a few emergency exits now,” I said harshly.
    “You don’t need ’em when you got a portal,” Ray commented, and my eyes jerked to the blank stretch of wall across from the door.
    “That’s right. You have a portal,” I said, brightening.
    “Had. The senate’s goons were here yesterday. I guess they wanted to plug my link to Faerie before they started on the smaller stuff.”
    Typical.
    “Then the only exits are in the main room?”
    Ray nodded bleakly. I stared at the door and faced reality. As usual, my duffel contained a few surprises, but no way was I carving a path through all that. Not on my best day, which this definitely wasn’t.
    I was going to have to come up with something else.
    The door opened and Lord Cheung leaned against the sill, looking considerably more upbeat. “I have been reminded that, in a case of disputed ownership, a duel is the common remedy.”
    I stared over Cheung’s shoulder at Scarface’s smug grin. I didn’t have to ask who had done the reminding. He’d just seen me walk away from a challenge outside. I was in no shape to duel a kitten right now, much less a first-level master, and he damned well knew it.
    “That’s not going to get us anywhere,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “If you leave me alive, I’ll tell the senate you killed Ray, ruining your chances at a seat. And if you kill me, Mircea will return the favor, for pride if nothing else. Then we’re all dead.”
    Cheung’s face gave nothing away, but I didn’t need expressions to know what he was thinking. Mircea could take revenge only if he knew Cheung was responsible for my death, which he might never find out. But then, Cheung couldn’t know who I might have told where I was going. Or, for that matter, what kind of a bond Mircea and I had.
    In the end, he decided not to risk it. “You have a better solution?”
    “Yeah. You want Ray; so do I. So we’ll gamble for him.”
    “You wish to flip a coin?” The sarcasm was palpable.
    “Coin tosses can be rigged. I’d prefer something where we both have an even shot, where no one gets dead, and where the outcome is sure.”
    “What, then?” Cheung asked, looking wary.
    So I told him.
    * * *
    “Okay,” Ray said, coming in from the storeroom flanked by two babysitters.