She shrugged. "'Cause the lines don't run everywhere. Plus it's expensive. Cutting into a line is dangerous work, and it don't come cheap. Someone must've paid a fortune for all the wards around this place. But if you really, really want to make sure that nothing and nobody gets in, that's how you do it."

"Then I can't age through the wards, either?" I asked, because that had been option number two.

"Sorry."

And that probably meant Marlowe's were done the same way. Not to mention whatever snares and traps he'd laid out for unsuspecting burglars, all of which were probably lethal. No wonder the damned acolytes hadn't found any Tears yet!

Of course, neither had I.

"Damn it! There must be a way!"

"If you have the pass code to the wards," Tami agreed. "Otherwise, you need a way to bring them down, and then a safecracker to get you in. Or you're going to be here a very long time."

Chapter Thirty-six.

I found Rico in the kitchen when we got back, doing the breakfast dishes. He had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, showing off muscular forearms. His dark brown hair was disheveled, the neck of his shirt was open, showing a V of taut bronze skin, and a smear of soap suds decorated his cheek. He looked like every woman's dream, and I caught Rhea staring.

Rico did, too, and dropped her a wink.

Rhea did not appear to know what to do with that. Maybe because the only men at the Pythian Court had been about eighty. And because the initiates did not appear to have learned normal social skills. Like they'd been trained to be stoic and serene, but not how to interact with regular guys.

Or not-so-regular ones.

Rhea finally solved the problem by awkwardly winking back, which caused Rico to burst out laughing.

"I need a favor," I told him, and nodded at her. The silence spell clicked shut around us.

"My dream come true," Rico told me, still grinning at an increasingly flustered Rhea.

"I need a safe cracked. Do you know someone who can do it?"

Those liquid eyes slid to me. "What kind of safe?"

And some days, I loved vamps. No question about what was inside; no debates about possible legality. Just what kind is it?

I pulled my cell phone out of my jeans and showed him a photo. "That kind."

A request to commit a felony didn't even rate a blink. "Does it have to be operational after?" he asked, taking the phone from me.

"I don't care if you rip it out of the damned wall."

An eyebrow went up. "What about wards?"

I glanced at Rhea. "The wards . . . aren't going to be a problem," she said, a little breathlessly.

"Not a problem? Then this is a human's safe?"

She looked at me.

I sighed and came out with it. "No, but the house it's in is about to blow up, so the wards will be offline."

A second eyebrow joined the first. "Sounds intriguing."

"It will be okay," Rhea said, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as him. "No one should be in the room at the time-"

"If the house is about to blow up, that would seem prudent," he said gently.

"-but to be on the safe side-"

"Was that a pun?" he teased.

Rhea looked confused some more.

"Rico," I said impatiently. "Do you know anyone who can do it?"

"Yes, me."

I hesitated. "You did get the part about safecracking in Armageddon, right?"

He just looked at me.

Okay. His call. "There is one other thing."

His look turned politely curious.

I bit my lip, trying to figure out how to phrase this without saying you're a weird vampire.

But he was. He did dishes, which master vampires definitely Did. Not. Do. He liked guns, which a lot of vamps disdained as being unnecessary and too human. And he had given me the impression in the short time I'd known him that he didn't care much for rules, even vampire sorts of rules.

Which was good, because I was about to ask him to break one-a big one.

"I'd just as soon Mircea didn't know about this," I finally said.

Rico frowned.

"You know, not right away," I added quickly, because of course he'd tell the boss sooner or later. I just preferred it to be later.

A lot later.

Like after I had Pritkin back and had time to be yelled at.

Not that Mircea would yell; it wasn't his style. But he would certainly make his displeasure known. Which was okay; I could deal with that. What I couldn't deal with was his trying to stop me, because he was damned sneaky and he might well succeed and I didn't have time for this!

Rico frowned some more. "We're not his men," he told me. "We're your men. He sent us to help you."

"And to report on me."

"He hasn't asked me to do that."

"He doesn't need to. There's plenty of others-"

"-and I wouldn't even if he did."

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

He leaned one elbow on the counter, going into a graceful slouch. "I am a senior master, Cassie. I do as I like."

"That's not how the vamp world works."

"Isn't it? I am emancipated. The blood bond no longer holds me."

"Then why are you here?"

"I like it here."

"No one likes it here." The guys called this place Australia. As in, they'd been exiled from the main court in Washington State and sent to a land down under, full of heat and craziness and frequent danger. It wasn't anyone's favorite posting.

But Rico didn't seem to see it like that. "I do. I found court life to be very pleasant and very pretty. And very dull. Everything is too perfect there, too controlled." He smiled. "I like things messy."

"Then you came to the right place."

He nodded. "The day I arrived, I was attacked by mages, almost blown up, and came very close to being eaten alive by a dragon."

"And you liked that?"

"I wasn't bored."

Okaaay.

"And Mircea?"

"I find I like the idea of knowing something the master does not."

"Me, too." I looked around to see Fred's head poking in through the shutters that separated the kitchen from the lounge, eating an apple. He must have been kneeling on one of the bar stools so he could spy on us. I scowled at him.

"Where did you come from?"

"My mother always said I came from heaven-"

"Fred!"

"-although others have occasionally expressed a different point of view."

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?" He munched at me. "Oh, the silence thing?" He shrugged. "It's a muffling spell, not a shield. And I get curious when the splashy splashy suddenly stops."

"Get less curious!"

"I won't have to be, 'cause I'll be along."

"You're not going."

"Of course I am."

"And why should I let you?"

"'Cause you're smart? You're gonna need someone to watch your back, and Rico can't do that and crack the safe at the same time."

"Who says I can't?" Rico looked offended.

"I do. Anyway, you'll need an alibi. I'll tell everyone we're going shopping."

I frowned at him. "I never go shopping."

"Well, you ought to. Your closet is full of ball gowns and ratty old T-shirts. You need normal clothes."

"I need my head examined."

"Don't we all? So, when are we leaving?"

I staggered a little and went down to one knee. But said knee hit polished marble instead of kitchen tile, so I was pretty sure we'd made it. I breathed a sigh of relief.

And then I threw up.

"Cassie!" Fred grabbed me, which didn't help, because I was already down. But then Rhea held my hair back, which did. And Rico took up a position in front of us, gun out, looking grim, giving me time to get it together.

Damn, I knew I shouldn't have tried shifting four. Four sucked. But all four were needed: Rico to crack the safe, Fred to watch his back while he did it, me in my usual role as taxi-through-time, and Rhea . . .

Rhea to give me a boost so I could get us all back, because I was bottomed out.

I wiped the arm of my shirt across my lips and looked up.

We were in a dark corner of the ballroom of the palatial house in London that until recently had housed the Pythian Court. It still housed them, actually, because I'd brought us back to just before everything went kablooie. Not because I was a glutton for punishment, but because the asshole acolytes who were about to blow this place sky high had thoughtfully turned off the wards first.

But since the reason the wards were down was the three or four dozen dark mages on the premises, I didn't think crawling around in the open was a great idea.

"Come on," I told them, and staggered to my feet.