“Neither do I!”

“But I know someone who does.” I pushed Casanova out of the way and grabbed Louis-Cesare by the ankle. “Get down here!”

Thankfully, he didn’t waste time asking why. And once he was down, the why was sort of obvious. A large group of tourists had arranged themselves on bleachers for the parade—probably been waiting there half the day to get flattened by a rogue pirate ship. Louis-Cesare cursed under his breath, but slid into the seat while I scrambled out of the hole around him. I dropped the trapdoor closed after me and grabbed Casanova by his pretty lace cravat. “I need a favor.”

He said something extremely rude. I just smiled. “I’m not asking for me. I’m on a job for Mircea. You know, family patriarch? And, incidentally, your boss?”

Casanova’s attitude changed immediately, an ingratiating and totally fake smile falling over his features like the mask it was. But his answer stayed the same. “I told you the truth. I don’t have anything!”

“You lying son of a—”

I didn’t get a chance to tell Casanova what I thought of him, because the crew took that moment to rejoin us. Apparently, they’d gotten tired of waiting for the ship to take out the boss and decided to do it themselves. And they’d found friends. Casanova grabbed up a sword that had fallen to the deck, and thrust it in my hands. “I hope you remember how to use one of these,” he said, before drawing his own weapon and making a flying leap for the side of the ship.

“I’m not done with you!” I screamed after him, as a figure in a bad Halloween costume took a swipe at me.

Thankfully, the guy in question was human—I’d have been missing a head, otherwise—but my reflexes must have told him that I wasn’t. I turned to see fear on his sweating face. He backed away, holding the blade as awkwardly as if he’d never seen one before in his life. I grinned, and his eyes got huge, like two eggs in the dark. He took a few hasty steps back and fell off the float, arms wheeling uselessly in the air before he hit the asphalt. I peered over the edge in time to see him scrambling away on all fours until he was swallowed up by the crowd.

An itch between my shoulder blades told me that someone else had decided to take up where he left off. I managed to get my sword up in time, but the force of the attack drove me to one knee. Then I kept on falling because Louis-Cesare took the bend in the road on what felt like two wheels, barely missing the front row in the bleachers. I managed to grab hold of a skull to keep from being slung across the deck, and got a close-up look at the tourists’ expressions as the crisped bunting dusted their tennis shoes black. Luckily, the sudden movement had also caused my opponent to stumble. He went down on hands and knees as I rolled and got my feet back under me.

Unlike the human, this one knew damn well what a sword was for, probably because he’d wielded one for centuries. Our weapons clashed together, high over our heads, as we both vied to trap the other’s under our own. I was outclassed strengthwise, and my overtaxed shoulder failed me. The vamp grinned as he twisted my sword downward, and I accepted the inevitable with a grimace. Damn, this was going to hurt. A jarring shock traveled up my arm to my abused shoulder as I buried the stake in his ribs. He stared at me in shock, apparently surprised to discover that I had two hands. He died before the grin faded from his face, little bubbles of blood on his lower lip.

Casanova staggered by, the human attached to his back making a damn good try to saw his head off, while a vamp tried to skewer him from in front. “I thought you’d deserted!” I yelled, as another sailor lunged at me.

“Not for lack of trying,” Casanova gasped, prizing the human off his neck and tossing him half a dozen feet at my opponent. The two men lurched around the deck for a few seconds before falling backward off the float. “And I thought you said that maniac could drive!”

I shrugged. “Compared to me . . .” A human jumped me, and had time to see my grin before doubling over in agony as I forcefully kneed him in the groin. I kicked his sword away before he could remember he had one, and followed up with a blow to his temple, rendering him unconscious. I’d had to kick him, because my shoulder was threatening to go on strike if I lifted that cutlass one more time. I stood watching Casanova battle half a dozen crew members, my chest heaving from exertion, and accepted the fact that I couldn’t help him.

I pulled up the trapdoor and dropped down beside Louis-Cesare. “Change places,” I said, trying to push his butt out of the driver’s seat.

“Quoi?” He looked up from frantically shifting gears. “What is it? What is happening?”

“Casanova needs help, and I’m in no shape to provide it. Move!”

To my surprise, Louis-Cesare moved. He launched himself up on deck while I tried to figure out the mess of gears. He’d gotten us turned, but I was left with keeping us from plowing into the flag-waving, bunting-covered mass ahead. I stomped on the brakes and discovered that they were a lot more sensitive than I’d thought. A crew member who must have been standing too close to the prow went sailing past my small peephole into the road. I’d practically stood the float on its head, but at least we’d stopped.

I poked my head out cautiously, in time to see most of the crew go over the side for the second time that night. Several of the rest were down, and judging by their condition, they weren’t going to be getting up again. A trio of vamps were more resilient, and had ganged up on Louis-Cesare. They were busy regretting that decision. The damn man was annoying, but there was a slight chance that he deserved his reputation.

He pinned one vamp to the mainmast by running him through with a sword, until it came out the other side of the wooden post. He took the vamp’s own weapon from his thrashing hand to throw at the second. It didn’t take him out, but even a vamp will be slowed down by a cutlass sticking out of his midsection. The third he knocked into the rigging with a savage elbow to the neck. The vamp in question had been behind him at the time, but his aim was perfect. I made a mental note not to try sneaking up on the guy.

Casanova had apparently decided that his backup had things well in hand, and had located a spot where the bunting had all burnt off, allowing him a flame-free zone to drop to the road. I leapt after him and grabbed his hair, only to have the long black wig come off in my hands. I threw it to the asphalt and got a grip on his shirt instead. “Where are you going?”

He shot me an evil glance and retrieved his wig. “Elsewhere.”

“Not until I get what I came for! You owe me.”

“Then I’ll have to keep on owing you. The Circle raided Dante’s this morning and confiscated the lot. You want weapons? I suggest you see them.”

“The dark wouldn’t dare—”

“It wasn’t the dark.” He began making rude gestures at the float behind us, the crew of which had started yelling for us to get a move on. “Although it’s getting a little hard to tell the difference these days.”

An angry George Washington hopped down from the next float in line and came stomping over to see what the holdup was. Casanova moved toward him, obviously spoiling for a fight with someone he could actually beat up, but I grabbed his arm. “But that goes against the treaty! The Senate will—”

“Swallow the insult. We’re at war, and the Silver Circle is the Senate’s ally, in case you’ve forgotten. They reminded me of that fact at length when I very politely requested reparations. ‘We’ll address that after the war,’ ” he mimicked bitterly.

“They couldn’t have taken everything!”

“If you’d like to search the place yourself, be my guest. If you find anything, I’ll be happy to split it with you.”

“What’s the world coming to?” I raged. “When even the bad guys run out of weapons?”

“I’m not the bad guy—at least, not in comparison.”

George had reached us, and he wasn’t looking happy. “Get this thing moving! You’re holding up the entire—” He caught sight of me and shied back for some reason.

“I’m having a few personnel issues,” Casanova said, with an attempt at dignity. Apparently, he’d decided that the man could be useful, because he trotted out charming smile #48: for suckers who are about to give me something for nothing. “You wouldn’t happen to have anyone who can drive one of these things?”

George nodded, his eyes never leaving my face as he backed quickly away. “So what am I supposed to do?” I demanded.

A vamp landed hard on the street beside us, and Casanova kicked him viciously in the ribs. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I suggest you do it soon. Everyone who can get out of here is heading for the hills. Except for me,” he added, picking the vamp up and slamming him against the ship’s hull. “I’m not going anywhere. Everyone may as well understand that right now!”

I sighed and gave up. A quick glance showed that Louis-Cesare had cleared the deck and was tying the only human dumb enough to stick around to a barrel with the remains of the rigging. Time to make my exit.

“You don’t know why I was here—I never had a chance to tell you,” I instructed Casanova, as a peri-wigged young man hurried up, only to stop dead at the sight of us.

“Theatrical makeup,” Casanova told him, apropos of nothing. “There’s a trapdoor in the deck.” The guy nodded and scrambled on board, looking a little freaked-out.

I eyed Casanova up and down. He didn’t look that bad to me. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“Jean Lafitte.”

“And that would be patriotic how?”

“He fought in the Revolutionary War, and in the War of 1812. On the American side.”

“I thought he was a pirate.”

“He was.” Casanova smoothed his brilliant maroon coat. “I told you. Sometimes the bad guys can be good guys. It all depends on the circumstances.”

“Thanks for that nugget of wisdom. I’ll cherish it.”