A Girls Guide to Vampires(25)

I blinked at her hair. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone with hair that's actually crimson. Nice color. Matches your top. I had no idea you were staying here. I assumed everyone connected with the fair lived in the trailers parked around it."

"We do live there," she said in her husky, thickly accented voice. Her eyes shone brightly, her face painted white, her lips set off by the dramatic black lipstick so dear to the Goth heart.

"Oh? Just checking out the view from up this high?"

She started toward me. The staircase, as I have mentioned, is narrow, winding, and due to its age, has uneven steps. Tanya left me no choice but to turn around and descend in front of her.

"I was looking for the toilet," she said to my back.

"Oh, really?" I paused a moment as I reached the second landing. "There's one on the ground floor, you know, quite handy to the bar."

The way her eyes glittered in the dimly lit staircase reminded me of a snake that's just spotted a particularly juicy mouse. I decided not to stand around waiting to see if she'd pounce, and started down the next flight, holding on to the wall for support. When you are six feet tall you tend to have big feet, and big feet in a building with three-hundred-year-old staircases can mean trouble.

"The toilet was occupied." The words were clipped and pointed. I was willing to bet she was spitting them at me, but with my back to her, I couldn't tell.

"As far as I know," I called out over my shoulder, "there is also a toilet on the second floor."

"It, too, was occupied."

"Ah." Why didn't I believe her? Maybe because she rubbed me the wrong way? Maybe because she was ruining Arielle by making her over into a copy of herself? Or could it be because the only other rooms on the upper floor were Roxy's and mine, and that meant dear little Tanya might have been snooping around?

"You know, I've heard the Czech prisons aren't terribly nice places to be in."

"Why are you telling me this?" She must smoke five packs a day to get that grating tone honed to razor-sharp roughness.

"Oh, no reason. I was just thinking how terrible it would be for anyone caught stealing, especially someone who wasn't a Czech citizen. Tourism is a god in this area. If, for instance, someone broke into a hotel room and messed with a tourist's belongings, I imagine the police would prosecute that person to the fullest."

I stumbled on a particularly warped tread as I started down the last flight, and clutched the wall more diligently.

"You should be careful how you are marching down these stairs," Tanya growled behind me in a sickening parody of sweetness. "If you fell, you could break your neck, and that would be so tragic."

I glanced back at her and bared my teeth in a smile. She bared hers in return. As I rounded the last curve, something slammed into the back of my knee, knocking my leg out from under me. I shrieked and went down, slamming first into the wall of the staircase, then rebounding off it and hurtling straight for the hardwood floor of the narrow hall.

I didn't end up on the floor, although it felt like I hit a brick wall. Just as I went sailing off the stairs, Raphael loomed up out of the darkness and grabbed me, pulling me against his body as he did an impressive half-twist so it was his back rather than mine that crashed into the oak-paneled wall. I leaned drunkenly against him, clinging to his coat and panting with shock, my heart racing madly from the rush of adrenaline. I got my feet under me and stood up slowly, looking up to find his amber eyes dark with concern.

"Boy, do you have fast reflexes. Are you all right?" I asked.

One glossy chocolate eyebrow rose, just as I knew it would. "I was about to ask you the same. You should be more careful on the stairs. These old buildings can be dangerous if you aren't watching where you step."

His arms were still wrapped around me, but I wasn't complaining—he might have felt as hard as steel when I crashed into him, but I was thankful he was there. He was also extremely warm, had that same enticing scent of soap and man that I noticed the night before, and was close enough that I could see the pulse beating in his neck.

I wanted to swoon into him but managed instead to push myself back, out of his embrace. "As a matter of fact, I was watching where I was going—that's the problem. I couldn't see the steps and the she-devil behind me at the same time."

"Chérie! You are not accusing Tanya of foul deeds?" asked a voice from the left. Dominic stood in front of the door to the bar, Tanya cuddled up against him with such a smug look on her face, I wanted to pull her blood-red hair out by the roots, paste it on with glue, and pull it off again.

"You bet I'm accusing her! She pushed me down the stairs because I threatened her with the police when I found her where she had no right to be."