Chapter
10
I left Mac and Pritkin
to deal with Marlowe and ran into the back. Tomas was strapped down
on the padded table Mac used for doing tattoos. He didn’t look
comfortable, but at least he hadn’t been thrown around the room. I
hadn’t had a chance to do more than glance at his wounds before,
but now I tightened my lips to avoid saying something extremely
rude about Jack. Then I decided to hell with it and said it
anyway.
Tomas groaned and
tried to sit up, but the straps wouldn’t let him. That was just as
well, since something would have probably fallen out otherwise.
Jack had split him open from nipples to navel, like an autopsy
specimen or an animal he was about to gut. I stared at the wreck of
what had once been a perfect body and grew cold. I really wished
Augusta had finished him.
I swallowed and
looked away, partly because I had to or risk being sick, and partly
because I needed to locate something to use as a bandage. Vampires
had amazing recuperative powers—horrific as his wounds were, Tomas
could probably heal them in time. But it would help a lot if the
edges of the wound were somehow held together, and for that I
needed fabric—a lot of it. I started for the cot, which had a
fitted sheet and blanket that might work, when I tripped over
something. I landed on my knees next to a dark-haired man wearing a
bright red shirt. I stared at him in surprise—how had we picked up
another stowaway without my noticing? Then he turned his head and I
realized that he’d been there all along, just not quite in this
form.
“I gotta tell ya,”
Billy said, sitting up and grabbing his head with both hands, “I
haven’t felt this bad since I got into that drinking contest with
those two Russian bastards.” He groaned and lay back
down.
I cautiously reached
over and poked him with a finger. He was as solid as I was. I
lifted his wrist and felt for a pulse. It beat strong and firm
under my fingers. I dropped his hand and scrambled back a couple of
feet, only to encounter another impossible thing. I felt something
solid against my back and looked down to see an orange-brown hand
lying on the floor. It was connected to a similarly colored arm,
which led to the naked torso of what my brain finally identified as
Pritkin’s golem. Only, despite the color, he wasn’t clay any
longer.
I didn’t need to
check for a pulse—he was obviously breathing, his oddly colored but
otherwise perfect chest rising and falling normally. Or what would
have been normal for a human. Since he was supposed to be a big
pile of clay animated by magic, it wasn’t normal for him. A glance
that I swear was involuntary informed me that he was also
anatomically correct, which he certainly hadn’t been before, and
that whoever had handled the changeover had been generous. The next
second his eyes—real ones this time—flew open to regard me with
utter confusion. They were brown, I noticed irrelevantly, and he
didn’t have any eyebrows or eyelashes. In fact, he didn’t appear to
have any hair at all.
I looked back at
Billy. He was pale and needed the shave he’d been putting off for a
century and a half, but otherwise seemed fine. He quite simply had
his body back, which was ridiculous because it had gone for fish
food ages ago.
“What the hell?” I
felt the floor move and looked around wildly. I did not need
another of Mac’s crazy rides. Only we didn’t, I realized after a
minute, appear to be going anywhere. The room was definitely
shaking, though, and I spared a second to wonder whether Faerie had
earthquakes when Billy sat up, wild-eyed and panic-stricken. He
felt his chest, then let out a scream and began thumping himself in
the head, stomach and legs, as if his body was some unfamiliar and
horrifying bug that had crawled onto him.
He jumped up and
started dancing around the room, shedding clothes and screeching.
His antics and the room’s gyrations upset the golem, which had left
behind confusion for fear. His eyes widened and his lips opened to
emit a high-pitched squeal that was a lot harder on the ears than
Billy’s screams. I stumbled across the room, avoiding both of them,
and grabbed the sheet. After tearing it into strips, I bound up
Tomas’ wounds as best I could while the golem and Billy ran around,
bumping into things and each other, and managing only to work
themselves up more.
I freed Tomas before
one of them could careen into him and dragged him under the table.
I crawled in after him and put my hands over my ears, which felt
like they’d start to bleed any second. Let somebody else deal with
the crisis for a change—I was through.
It became obvious
that abdication wasn’t an option when half the roof was abruptly
ripped off. For a second, only a patch of blue sky and a couple of
yellow butterflies showed through, giving the impression that the
tiny insects were responsible for the damage. Then a head the size
of a small car poked in. It was green and covered in shiny,
iridescent scales, with a snout big enough to eat a person without
needing a second bite. No smoke came out of its nostrils, but I
didn’t need that to know what it was. Its orange eyes had narrow
red pupils that dilated on sight of me like a cat that had just
encountered a new form of mouse.
It poured through the
hole in the roof, its head suspended on an impossibly long neck and
its huge jaws cracking to show off jagged, dark yellow teeth. I
froze with its warm, acrid breath in my face, so close that it made
my eyes start to water. Then the golem really lost it, running
naked and screeching directly across the dragon’s line of sight,
causing the orange eyes to focus on him instead. He plunged through
the curtain and the dragon followed, its neck flowing past me in a
river of scales, its talons trying to rip a large enough hole in
the roof for its huge body.
I scrambled out from
under the table and tackled Billy Joe, who had torn his shirt off
and was clawing at his bare chest, leaving red welts behind.
“Billy!” I grabbed for his wrist, intending to drag him under the
table with me, but he was too fast. He ran to the back of the room,
to the small door beside the cot that I had never seen opened. I
didn’t see it now. I had the feeling that it was solely ornamental,
but Billy didn’t get that. He beat on it and tore at the doorknob,
which he finally managed to rip completely off.
I stared at him in
confusion. I’d never seen him like this and wasn’t sure there was
anything I could say that would calm him down. Then there was the
fact that, in human form, Billy stood almost six feet tall. No way
could I subdue him without a weapon, and the only ones I had—my gun
and bracelet—would likely kill him in his new form.
There was a lot of
keening, swearing and some explosions from the front of the shop,
then there was a rushing wind and a sound like a hundred
helicopters starting up. I looked up to see the dragon lift itself
into the air on black leathery wings, screeching and clawing at its
face. Half its snout was missing, lost in a smoking hole, and there
were gashes in the great wings that beat the air with the force of
a small hurricane. A second later the creature was gone, soaring
high over peaceful green fields toward distant, tree-covered
hills.
Billy slumped against
the door, his hands on the scarred wood, his fingers a bloody mess.
He was sobbing in great, wracking heaves, but at least he was no
longer manic. I was about to try to talk some sense into him, when
Pritkin ran through the curtain, followed by Mac and Marlowe. The
vamp wasn’t, I noticed with rising anger, under any kind of
restraint. And the first thing he did was head for
Tomas.
“Pritkin! Stop him!”
I crossed the room at a run, while the mage merely stood there,
looking in disbelief at Billy’s solid form. I dove under the table
from the far side and grabbed Marlowe’s wrist before he could drag
Tomas into the light. “Get away from him!”
He looked surprised,
as well he might. Why any human would think she could stop a master
vampire from doing anything he wanted by holding his hand was
laughable. I threw myself backwards, raising my wrist with the
bracelet on it and hoping it would be enough to do the trick. I
never found out, since nothing happened. I shook my arm and glared
at the inert silver. What was wrong with it now?
“Our magic won’t work
here,” Marlowe told me gently.
“I’m not going to hurt
Tomas, Cassie. Believe it or not, I want to help.”
Sure, which was why
he’d sat by and watched him be butchered. Marlowe had a reputation
that had started in Elizabethan England, when he’d been one of the
queen’s spies, and it had increased in infamy ever since. If even a
fraction of the stories whispered about him were true, I didn’t
want him anywhere near Tomas. “Get away,” I repeated, wondering
what I would do if he said no. But instead of arguing, he slid
gracefully out from under the table. I checked on Tomas’ wounds,
but they didn’t seem to be any worse. His eyes were open a fraction
and he even managed to raise his head.
“I can’t hear him,”
he said obscurely, an expression of pure bliss passing over his
face. Then his eyes closed and his head fell back, connecting
sharply with the tile floor.
My heart almost
stopped and I frantically felt for a pulse, which of course I
didn’t find. The fact that I’d even tried said something about my
mental state. It looked like he’d fainted or was in a trance, but I
couldn’t be sure. Tony had once been involved in a clandestine and
highly illegal feud with another master. One of our vamps lost an
arm and was halfway gutted in the miniwar. When he was brought back
to us I’d assumed he was dead, but Eugenie said he was in a healing
trance. He’d stayed unmoving and immobile for several weeks, until
one night he suddenly sat up, asking whether we’d won. I hoped
Tomas was only in a trance, but there was little I could do for him
either way. Vamps healed themselves or they didn’t—there weren’t a
lot of medical or magical remedies that worked on their systems.
The problem was to keep him safe long enough for him to have a
chance to recover.
I glanced at Pritkin.
“Why isn’t Marlowe tied up or something? ”
“Because we may need
him,” was the grim reply.
“Do you know who he
is?” I demanded.
“Better than you.” He
tore his eyes away from Billy, who was now rocking back and forth,
staring sightlessly at the wall, and turned the full force of his
stare on me. He wasn’t angry—that, at least, I’d almost come to
expect, and it wouldn’t have worried me. But this was different. He
was pared down somehow, his eyes so intense that they looked like
two lasers. It was the face of a predator when its own life is
threatened—deadly, serious and completely focused.
“Let me explain the
situation,” he said, and even his words were faster and more
clipped than before, as if every second counted. “We have arrived
in Faerie, but not in the unobtrusive way I had planned. Most of
our magic will not work, and we have a finite amount of nonmagical
weapons. One of our company is gravely ill and two others are
mentally suspect. To make matters worse, that dragon was the
guardian of the portal, and having failed to defeat us itself, it
has gone after reinforcements. If the Fey do not already know we’re
here, they soon will. And we cannot go back though the portal for
obvious reasons.”
“Will the Senate come
after us?” I asked, uncertain that I wanted an answer.
Pritkin gave a short
bark of a laugh. It didn’t sound amused. “Oh, no, at least not
until they can appeal for passes. To cross into Faerie without them
is to risk a death sentence. As we have done.”
“He means that we’re
all in this together,” Marlowe added. “I, too, am without a pass,
and the Fey are famous for not listening to excuses. If I’m caught,
I could be killed.” He smiled at me. “So I won’t be caught, and
shall endeavor to see you are not, either.”
Mac snorted. “The
fact is, we’re all safer together. Nobody would last a day in
Faerie alone right now.”
Marlowe shrugged.
“That, too. And, as my first comradely gesture, may I suggest that
we leave this area as soon as may be? We have very little time to
lose.”
Pritkin had pulled
Billy up by the wrists and now he slapped him, hard. “He’s right.
If the Fey find us, they will either kill us on sight or ransom us
back to the Circle or Senate. ” After the second slap, Billy tried
to hit him back, but Pritkin blocked his arm, then twisted it
cruelly behind his back before pushing him at me. “Gain control of
your servant, ” he said briefly. “I will deal with mine. Then we
move.”
I spent the next few
minutes getting my ward checked out by Mac while I tried to
reassure a very freaked-out Billy Joe. “Why are you so upset?” I
asked, when he had calmed down enough to listen. “You have a body,”
I pinched him lightly on the arm and he flinched, the big baby.
“Isn’t that what you always wanted?” He certainly seemed to have a
good time whenever he was borrowing mine.
Billy still looked
stunned, although some color had started to return to his cheeks.
Without warning, he leaned over and kissed me hard on the lips. I
jerked away and slapped him, and shock made it harder than I’d
intended, but he just laughed. His hazel eyes were bright with
unshed tears as he gingerly felt his stinging cheek, but his
expression was euphoric. “It’s true; it’s really true,” he said in
awe; then his eyes grew wide and he abruptly started rooting
through Mac’s backpack. He came out with one of the beers,
clutching it like he’d found a treasure made of pure gold. It was
unopened, and he scrabbled at it, trying to get the bottle cap off
with his bare hands.
“You don’t get it,
Cass,” he said, his eyes almost feverish. “Sure, I babysit your
body from time to time, but nothing’s really real, you know? Like
there’s a film over everything, and I only ever touch that, taste
that.” He gave a yell of frustration and tried to smash the bottle
on the table, but it was padded and the glass bounced
off.
Obviously, he was not
going to be coherent until he’d had a drink. “Give that to me,” I
said impatiently, and he handed it over, but his eyes never left
the dark brown bottle. I opened it on the metal underside of the
cot and he snatched it out of my hand, gulping half the contents at
one time.
“Oh, my God,” he said
reverently, falling to his knees. “Oh Jaysus.”
I was about to tell
him to stop the melodrama when Mac interrupted with a report.
“There’s nothing wrong with your ward, so it must be the
geis. They tend to complicate things,
with the more powerful spells causing the most interference. And
the dúthracht is about the strongest
there is.”
“But my ward worked
before, and the spell was cast when I was eleven,” I
protested.
“That could have been
why you got away with it, because you were too young for the
geis to be active. This particular ward
is designed to fit over your aura like a glove does a hand, but it
needs a stable field to keep a proper grip. An active geis is interpreted as a serious threat, and your
natural defenses go into constant turmoil, trying to reject the
invader. But, by doing so, they make it impossible for your
artificial protection to do its job.”
Light dawned. “That’s
why Pritkin was freaking out at Miranda. He knew if she didn’t
remove the geis, he couldn’t get that
tattoo.”
I was immediately
sorry I’d said anything, since Mac demanded the whole story and
seemed to find the idea of a small, female gargoyle getting the
best of Pritkin hysterically funny. I finally managed to get him
back on track, but he didn’t tell me anything I wanted to hear.
“It’s like trying to put a glove on a small, squirming child,
Cassie—which is why kids usually get mittens. It’s too damn much
trouble to get them dressed otherwise.” Mac sounded like he knew,
and I briefly wondered whether he had a family. Possibly there were
people who would mourn him if Pritkin got him killed.
“So you can’t fix
it?”
“I’m sorry, Cassie.
Get rid of the geis, and I can have it
running in no time. Otherwise—”
“I’m
screwed.”
“It looks that
way.”
As if in comment on
the way my day was going, Billy took that moment to throw up beer
all over the floor in front of my sneakers. I snatched my feet back
just in time. “Billy! What is the matter with you?”
He groaned and sat
up. “Stomach cramps,” he gasped. I sighed and went to get him a
glass of water.
“Sip it,” I warned.
“You have a brand-new stomach. Nobody gives babies beer, so I guess
you don’t get any, either.” I took the bottle away, and he groaned
louder.
“Have a heart,
Cass!”
I held the bottle up
and shook it, letting the amber liquid slosh against the sides.
“Get off your backside and help me with Tomas and maybe I’ll give
it to you.”
“There’s a pub in the
town where we’re headed,” Marlowe said mildly.
“How do you know
where we’re going?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because we aren’t
spoiled for choice.” Billy was regarding the vamp as if he’d just
announced that he’d won the lottery. “Beer, pretty girls—of a
sort—and excellent music, as I recall.”
Billy jumped up as if
propelled out of a canon. “Where’s that poor unfortunate, then? We
should get the lad somewhere safe so he can rest and heal,” he
added piously.
“What town?” I asked
Marlowe.
“The local village
and castle are populated by Dark Fey, a few of whom have done
favors for my spies in the past. That has primarily taken the form
of intelligence gathering—they spy on the Light Fey and my contacts
among the Light spy on them. But occasionally they have helped out
agents in distress—for a fee, of course.”
“You spy on the Fey?”
I asked in surprise.
Marlowe smiled. “I
spy on everyone. It’s my job.”
“Discuss this later,”
Pritkin said, poking his head in through the curtain. The golem
stood next to him calmly enough, but it flinched when the curtain
brushed against its arm. “If the Dark Fey find us before we come to
an understanding—”
“Point taken,”
Marlowe murmured. Together, he and Billy got Tomas out from under
the table and into a makeshift sling made out of the cot blanket. I
didn’t believe Marlowe when he swore the Fey sun didn’t harm
vampires, but Mac backed him up. Since Tomas didn’t burst into
flames when the beams leaking through the ruined roof fell on him,
I had to assume they were right.
Billy took one end of
the sling and Marlowe picked up the other. His cooperation made me
apprehensive enough to walk alongside the bearers to ensure that he
didn’t harm Tomas when no one was looking. I’d have preferred
another helper, but there weren’t a lot of options. I doubted I
could carry even half of Tomas’ weight for any distance, especially
not weighed down by fifty pounds of ammunition. Mac was bringing up
the rear and his hands needed to be free for weapons. And Pritkin,
at the head of our motley group, had his hands full keeping his
servant from freaking out again.
The poor golem was
shaking and looking about wild-eyed, jumping at every breath of
wind, chirping bird or Billy singing “I’m a rover and seldom
sober,” until Pritkin threatened to make him a ghost again if he
didn’t stop. It was like the golem had never seen any of it
before—which I guess he hadn’t, at least not through human eyes—and
wasn’t sure what was benign and what was a threat. I don’t know
what they rely on for senses, but based on his scream when a cloud
of airborne dandelions brushed against his bare chest, I don’t
think it’s the same five we humans use.
We finally made it to
the tree line, but even I could follow the path of trampled grass
in our wake. Anyone with tracking experience wouldn’t even break a
sweat following us. I stared at the dark woods ahead and hoped
someone had a plan.
The next hour was a
nightmare, slogging through a forest that, while amazing, was also
intensely creepy. For one thing, it made the centuries-old trees
that had surrounded Tony’s farmhouse look like saplings. We passed
two giant oaks going in, each of which had a trunk large enough to
have driven a car through had they been hollow. Of course, that
would have required building a ramp first, because the trunks
started well above my head, resting on a massive root system taller
than most houses. They were positioned like sentries at a castle’s
gate, their mossy arms raised as if in salute—or
warning.
The tangled tree
roots all seemed to stop at the same point, forming a rough path
towards who knew what. Something brushed my shoulder as we pushed
our way into the sea of brambles and tangled underbrush. For an
instant I thought I saw a gnarled hand with bulbous knuckles and
unnaturally long fingers reaching for me. I jumped before realizing
it was nothing more threatening than a low-hanging branch, the moss
on it damp and clammy against my skin.
Even worse was the
way the place smelled. The meadow had been warm and fresh and
flowery, but there was no pleasant green scent here. The forest was
dank and mildewed, but below that was something worse—sour and
faintly rotten. I thought about it as we plodded along, and it
finally hit me. It was like being in the presence of a terminally
ill person. No matter how good the hygiene, there is always a faint
odor clinging to them that doesn’t smell like anything else. The
forest reeked of death—not the quick, red-clawed end of a hunted
animal, but the long, lingering sickness of someone death has
stalked for a very long time. I vastly preferred the
meadow.
I pressed closer to
Tomas, who was thankfully still oblivious, and tried not to look as
spooked as I felt. But there was something unnatural about these
woods. It was in the murky light that made it instantly twilight,
and in the age, which pressed down like gravity had somehow
increased as soon as we left the field. I couldn’t even begin to
guess how old some of the trees were, but every time I thought they
couldn’t get any bigger, they managed. And my tired brain kept
seeing faces in patterns in the bark—old, craggy ones with mushroom
hair, lichen beards and shadowy eyes.
Marlowe tried several
times to start a conversation, but I ignored him until he gave up.
I had other things to think about, like how I was going to find
Myra and what I was going to do with her when I did. Now that I was
here, I understood why she’d chosen to hide in Faerie. It was an
entirely new playing field, and one I knew nothing about. Getting
close enough to spring the trap was going to be difficult if my
power was unreliable, and I had no idea how many allies she had.
After seeing what happened to Mac’s wards, I wasn’t as confident
about the Senate’s weapons as I had been. What if they didn’t work
in this crazy new world?
My mood wasn’t
improved by more mundane considerations, like how heavy the damned
coat was getting, how much I could really use a bath, and how badly
I wanted to see Mircea. The craving hadn’t diminished, and although
it was bearable, it wasn’t fun. I felt like a three-pack-a-day
smoker at the end of a twelve-hour flight. Only, for me, there was
no relief in sight.
We finally stopped
for a breather. Wind rustled the tree-tops, but down at ground
level, there wasn’t so much as a breath of air. Billy, who had been
bitching about Tomas’ weight the whole way, swore we’d been walking
for a day, but it had probably been only an hour or so. I stripped
off the lead-lined torture device Pritkin had stuck me with, and it
helped a little, but no breeze hit my soaked clothes.
I was bent over,
panting and exhausted, sweat running off my face to drip onto the
leaf-strewn forest floor, when I saw it: my first proof that this
really was an enchanted forest. A tree root, covered in bright red
lichen like a scaly arm, reached up from the path to position
itself on the ground under my nose. I shied back, giving a
surprised yelp, then watched as it sucked dry every leaf that held
any of my sweat.
"W-What is that?” I
pulled back a leg as the root came closer, rummaging through the
leaves like a pig after acorns. It couldn’t see me, but it knew I
was there.
“A spy.” Marlowe’s
resigned tones came from above my head. “I knew we couldn’t avoid
them, but I was hoping for a bit longer than this.”
“A spy for
whom?”
“The Dark Fey,”
Pritkin answered, coming alongside. “This is their
forest.”
“Very likely,”
Marlowe concurred. “But I should reach our allies
before—”
“You aren’t going,”
Pritkin interrupted. “Give me a token and I’ll do it.”
“Go where?” I asked,
but no one was listening.
“They don’t know
you,” Marlowe protested. “Even with an introduction from me, you
could be in danger.”
Pritkin smiled
sourly. “I’ll take the risk.”
Mac cleared his
throat. “It might be best if I go,” he offered. “You’ve got enough
trouble keeping that one in line”—he nodded at the golem, who was
running his hands over the trunk of a nearby tree, an expression of
wonder on his features—“and it doesn’t know me. If something sets
it off again, I can’t guarantee I can control it.”
“It’s coming with
me.”
“It won’t be much
good in a fight right now,” Mac said doubtfully.
“It isn’t going to be
fighting.” Pritkin glanced at me. “I suppose you want to stay here
and tend him?” He didn’t name Tomas, but we both knew whom he
meant. I looked at Marlowe before replying. He was adjusting the
bandages around his curls as if they pained him, and grinned when
he caught my eye.
“The storm didn’t do
my head any good,” he explained, wincing slightly as his hand
brushed a tender spot. “First Rasputin cracks my skull, and now
this. You would think someone could aim for another part of my
anatomy just once, but oh, no.”
I didn’t smile back.
Marlowe might really be in pain, or he might be trying to convince
me how weak he was. If the latter, he was wasting his time. I’d
seen enough injured vamps to know: if they were conscious and
moving, they were deadly. There wasn’t much I could do for Tomas,
but at least I’d make sure Marlowe didn’t cut off his head. I
looked back at Pritkin and nodded.
“Then I’ll need to
borrow your servant.”
Billy had collapsed
into a sweaty heap as soon as we stopped and was now tugging on one
of his black boots and swearing. I guess he had tender baby feet to
go along with the new stomach. “You sure? He’s not much of a
fighter.”
“He’s only there in
case something goes wrong. To run back and warn you.”
“He should be able to
handle that.” I nudged Billy. “You’re up.” He bitched, of course,
but eventually beer won out over blisters and he agreed to
go.
Marlowe scribbled a
brief note on a piece of paper that Mac had located among our
supplies. It seemed somehow wrong to be using lined notebook paper
and a ballpoint to write an introduction to the Fey, but no one
else seemed to notice. “I’m not sure my contacts are still there,”
Marlowe said, handing over the finished note. “Time doesn’t flow
the same way here. My spies have sometimes entered months apart to
find that they arrived on the same day, or on other occasions that
decades had passed. We’ve never been able to determine a
pattern.”
“I’ll manage,”
Pritkin said, rummaging through my discarded coat for ammunition.
He fished out three large boxes. I didn’t ask what he thought he’d
need that many bullets for. I didn’t want to know.
He had exchanged his
leather trench for a dark cape with a hood from Mac’s pack and,
after a brief struggle, managed to get the golem to accept being
put into his coat. It wasn’t a great disguise, considering that the
golem was still orange, bald, seven feet tall and barefoot, but it
beat the alternative. “Shouldn’t he stay here?” I asked
doubtfully.
Pritkin didn’t answer
me, but Marlowe smiled slightly. “If the mage does not bring a
gift, he will never gain an audience. Fey protocol.”
“A gift?” It took a
few seconds to sink in. “You mean—but that’s slavery!”
“He isn’t actually
alive, Cassie,” Mac protested.
I looked at the
childlike being blinking slowly at Pritkin as he was buttoned into
the long coat. He seemed to find the buttons fascinating, and kept
poking at them with an orange, but otherwise very human-looking,
finger. “He looks alive to me,” I said.
“I’ll retrieve him
later—he’s merely to get me in!” Pritkin said crossly. “Or would
you prefer to offer your servant
instead?”
Billy gave me a
panicked look and I sighed. “Of course not.”
“Then refrain from
giving advice about matters you don’t understand,” I was told
curtly before the trio disappeared into the foliage.
Over the next few
hours, a number of things conspired to rub my remaining nerves raw.
One of the most annoying was the roving roots that followed me
around like nearsighted puppies. I was bone weary but could I sit
down for five minutes? Hell, no. I had to play keep-away with the
local flora while being stared at by the fauna.
A short time after
Pritkin left, it seemed like every bird in the forest—ospreys,
eagles, owls and even a few vultures—had congregated in the trees
around us, along with some small mammals. They made no noise except
for a fluttering of wings as the early arrivals shuffled around to
make room for newcomers. After a few minutes their collective
weight began to bow some of the smaller limbs they were using as
perches, but none collapsed. They looked eerily like spectators
assembling for some type of entertainment. Since we weren’t doing
anything interesting, I assumed the show started later, a thought
that didn’t improve my mood.
Neither did the
tension of being able to do nothing for Tomas, who lay unmoving on
his blanket. Not only could I not help him heal—if, in fact, that’s
what he was doing—I couldn’t get near him for fear of bringing my
bark-covered fans along. They absorbed sweat—who knew what else
they ate?
The most irritating
factor of all, though, had to be Marlowe’s suddenly renewed
interest in conversation. He waited until Pritkin was out of
hearing range, then turned to me smiling cheerfully. “Let’s chat,
Cassie. I am certain I can put your fears to rest.”
I hopped over a root
trying to curl around my ankle. “Why do I doubt that?”
“Because you’ve never
had a chance to hear our side of things,” he said, giving me a
warm, understanding smile that immediately raised my hackles. “We
would have had this conversation before, but when you came back
from your mission with Mircea you failed to give us the
opportunity.”
“I tend not to open
dialogues with people who threaten to kill me.”
Marlowe looked
surprised. “I can’t imagine what you mean. I certainly don’t want
you dead, and neither does anyone else on the Senate. Quite the
opposite, in fact.”
“Did you tell Agnes
the same thing?”
Marlowe’s brows
knitted together into a small frown. “I’m not certain I understand
you.”
I brought out the
small charm Pritkin had given me. He’d never asked for it back, so
I’d stuffed it into a pocket. Now I let it swing in front of
Marlowe’s eyes like a pendulum. “Recognize this?”
He took it and gave
it a once-over. “Of course.”
I stared at him. It
wouldn’t be a shock if Marlowe had been the one to mastermind the
assassination—it fit his reputation—but I hadn’t expected him to
just admit it. Did he think I’d be pleased that he removed Agnes
and cleared my way to succeed?
“It’s a Saint
Sebastian medallion.” He took it from my limp fingers. Mac had
closed in, but he wasn’t saying anything. Maybe he also thought we
were about to hear a confession. If so, he was disappointed. “I
haven’t seen one of these in years. Of course, there’s been no need
for them.”
“What need?” Mac had
a look on his face that reminded me of Pritkin at his most
suspicious.
“The plague, mage,”
Marlowe said impatiently. “Sebastian was the saint believed to be
able to ward off disease. These were still popular on the Continent
in my day, although most were made in the fourteenth century,
during the Black Death.”
I leaned in for a
closer look. “So this is what, a good-luck charm?”
Marlowe smiled.
“Something like that. People wanted to believe they were doing
something to protect themselves and their families.”
“Kind of ironic,” I
said. Mac nodded, but Marlowe looked confused. “This was used to
kill someone recently,” I explained.
Marlowe’s brows rose.
It was the first expression I’d seen him wear that didn’t appear
contrived. “The Pythia was murdered?”
Mac said one of
Pritkin’s bad words. “And how would you know that if you didn’t do
it?” he demanded heatedly.
Marlowe shrugged.
“Who else were we talking about?” He turned the thing over in his
hands, frowning. “Someone’s cut it open.”
“We did that,” Mac
said, snatching it out of his hands. “It had arsenic in it!” He
said the latter as if he expected it to stagger the vamp, but
Marlowe didn’t appear fazed.
“Well, of course it
did.” At my expression, he explained. “Powdered toad, arsenic—a
whole host of substances were often put inside these things before
they were soldered together. They were thought to ward off
sickness, and added to the medallion’s value—and its price, of
course.”
“You mean there was
supposed to be poison in there?” I
looked at Mac. “You’re sure she was murdered?”
“Cassie—” he said
warningly. He obviously didn’t want to discuss this in front of
Marlowe, but I couldn’t see the harm. If Marlowe had arranged the
Pythia’s death, he already knew about it; if not, maybe he could
provide a few clues.
“A medallion like
this was found next to her body,” I told Marlowe. “Is there any way
it could have been used to kill her?”
He looked thoughtful.
“Anything that comes in contact with the skin can be a danger.
Queen Elizabeth was almost assassinated by poison rubbed into the
pommel of her saddle. And I once killed a Catholic by soaking his
prayer beads in an arsenic solution,” he added
nonchalantly.
He was creeping me
out, but at least it looked like I’d come to the right guy. “Would
that sort of method take a long time to kill someone?”
“An hour or
so.”
“No, like six
months.”
Marlowe shook his
head. “Even assuming someone soaked her necklace in a weak
solution, and she was in the habit of fingering the medallion, it
wouldn’t have worked. Arsenic causes redness and swelling of the
skin over time—she would have noticed. That’s why gradual poisoning
is usually done in food. It’s tasteless and odorless, and in small
doses, its symptoms are similar to food poisoning.”
“Her food was
specially prepared and carefully tested,” Mac said. “And Lady
Phemonoe was extremely . . . careful about poisons. You might
almost say she was, well, not paranoid exactly, but—”
“That’s not what I
heard,” Marlowe broke in cheerfully. He seemed to like talking
shop. “They say she’d become extremely superstitious with age, and
had been buying all sorts of questionable remedies. A knife
believed to turn green when passed over unsafe food, an antique
Venetian glass supposed to explode if filled with a poisoned
liquid, a goblet with a bezoar set into the bottom—”
“Maybe she Saw
something.” Agnes had been a seer, too, a powerful one. I shivered.
How horrible would it be to see your own death, yet be able to do
nothing about it?
“Perhaps.” Marlowe
was smiling at me again, and I didn’t like it. “But if so, it
appears to have done her little good. Which rather proves the point
I am trying to make. The mages cannot keep you safe any more than
they did your predecessor. We will be much more efficient, I assure
you.”
Mac shot the vamp an
unfriendly look. “Don’t listen to him, Cassie. If you don’t want to
talk, don’t. He can’t force you with me here.”
“I wouldn’t be too
sure of that, mage. I know your reputation, but much of your magic
is useless at present, and my strength is unchanged. Not that I
would dream of forcing Cassandra to do anything against her will. I
merely think she ought to know who her newfound ally is and what he
wants.”
“You stay out of our
business,” Mac said, his tone ominous.
“Ah, but it isn’t
yours alone, is it?” Marlowe asked. “She has a right to know with
whom she’s become involved.” He turned to me, looking innocent. “Or
do you already know that Pritkin is the Circle’s chief
assassin?”