Chapter
11
Mac choked on the
contents of the flask he’d been sip-ping from, and then all but
confirmed it. “That’s neither here nor there!” he gasped as soon as
he got his breath back. Marlowe didn’t even look at him; his eyes
were fixed squarely on me.
“I take it this is
news?” he asked.
“Tell
me.”
“Cassie, you can’t
believe anything one of them says. It’s all rubbish—” Mac began,
but I cut him off.
“I’m too tired to
debate this, Mac,” I said, and the weariness in my voice was
genuine. All I wanted was to find a soft patch of moss, one that
wasn’t too damp and was free of moving tree parts, and sleep for
about twelve hours. I was mentally and physically near exhaustion,
and my emotional state wasn’t all that great, either. But Marlowe
was right—I needed to hear this. I could decide whether to believe
it later.
Marlowe didn’t need a
second prompt. “We wondered why a demon hunter had been assigned as
the Circle’s liaison to us. There are plenty of vampire experts
available and many of them are far more . . . diplomatic . . . than
John Pritkin. The timing was also suspicious, with the Circle
removing their old liaison and substituting Pritkin only hours
before you were brought in. It was as if they knew you were coming
and wanted him to be there.”
“They hoped he’d
mistake me for a demon and kill me,” I said. This was old news,
something Mircea had figured out early on. It had almost worked.
Pritkin didn’t know much about vamps, but he was an expert on
demons. And some of my powers, especially possession, had made him
very suspicious.
“I heard that theory,
but it seemed strange that the Circle would simply assume you would
do something to alarm Pritkin enough for him to attack you. Had
things gone the way we planned—had you not escaped and Tomas not
betrayed us—it would have been a quiet evening.” I fidgeted at this
evaluation of my first meeting with the Senate, which had been
anything but quiet from the start, but didn’t interrupt. “I thought
there might be more to the story,” he continued, “and began a
discreet inquiry.”
“You don’t know
anything,” Mac said vehemently.
Marlowe raised an
eyebrow, the look on his face one a king might have bestowed on a
peasant who tracked mud across his castle floor. “On the contrary,
I know a good deal. For instance, I know Pritkin has at least a
thousand kills to his credit, and probably more. I know that he’s
the man the Circle turns to when they want to make absolutely
certain someone ends up dead. I know that he is famous for using
unorthodox tactics to bring down his prey”—he gave me an arch
look—“like having one mark help him to locate
another—”
Mac uttered an
expletive. “Don’t listen to him, Cassie.” He paused to stomp on a
root that had been trying to curl around my ankle. It slunk off
into the forest, but I had no doubt it would be back. I felt a
strong yearning for an axe. “You may not know us, but you do know
vamps. They lie more than they breathe. John’s a good
man.”
Marlowe let out a
contemptuous laugh. “Tell his victims that!” He glanced at me, as
if trying to gauge my reaction to his news, but I’d hit that
washed-out sensation that comes from too much exertion in too
little time. I couldn’t manage to make myself care very much if
Pritkin wanted me dead. It wasn’t exactly a novel idea; I’d been
operating on that assumption all along.
I started searching
through Mac’s backpack for some dry socks. I’d had a pair in my
duffle, but Mac must not have bothered to pack them. It’s a clue
that you are hanging with the wrong crowd when you have beer, guns
and about a ton of ammunition, but no clean clothes.
Marlowe looked
slightly put out that his bombshell wasn’t causing the uproar he’d
expected, but he continued nonetheless. “You’ve entrusted yourself
to Pritkin’s care, but you know virtually nothing about him! The
Circle has obviously sent him to kill you.”
“This is a perfect
example of what vamps do, Cassie!” Mac thundered. “They cobble
together some half-truths that leave them looking lily-white and
the rest of us covered in shite!”
“He needs your help
to find the other rogue,” Marlowe told me earnestly, ignoring Mac.
“But as soon as he has her, you’re dead. Unless you let us assist
you. The Senate only wants—”
“—to control your
every move!” Mac broke in. “Cassie, I swear to you, John was
appalled when he found out what the Circle intends. They’ve gone
power-mad! Even if they get their way and both you and Myra die,
they can’t be sure their chosen initiate will become Pythia. There
are hundreds, possibly thousands, of unknown, untrained
clairvoyants in the world. What if it went to one of them? And what
if the Black Circle found her first?”
I smiled slightly.
“Better the devil you know, huh?” Mac looked somewhat appalled at
what he’d let slip, but it was exactly because he hadn’t made a
rousing speech in my favor that I tended to believe
him.
I glanced at Marlowe.
“Mac has a point. Pritkin was declared a rogue himself today for
protecting me, and was almost killed in the bargain. Seems kind of
extreme for someone who is only setting me up.”
“He is known for such
tactics,” Marlowe said, waving it off. He gazed at me intently, his
eyes practically radiating sincerity. “Cassie, we have no desire to
manipulate you. Our aim is to offer you an alternative to
domination by the mages. That has been the fate of Pythias for
generations, but it doesn’t have to be yours. We can—”
I held up a hand,
both because I didn’t want to hear it and to keep Mac, who had
grown dangerously red in the face, from going ballistic. “Save it,
Marlowe. I know the truth. And I don’t intend to be dominated by
anyone.”
“You know what you’ve
been told,” he replied urgently. “And you will need allies, Cassie.
No great leader has ever ruled entirely alone. Elizabeth has gone
down in history as a magnificent queen, which she was, but one of
her chief talents was choosing able people to advise her. She was
great partly because those around her were great. You cannot remain
isolated. You will not be able to work that way. In the long
term—”
“I’m not real
interested in the long term right now, Marlowe. ” I was just trying
to live through the day.
“In time, you will
come to understand that you need allies, and the Senate will be
there. Unlike the mages, we want to work with you, not control your
every decision.”
“Uh-huh. Which is why
Mircea put the dúthracht on me?” There
were a lot of things I wasn’t clear on, but that one was crystal.
The geis wasn’t used to advise; it was
used to control. The look on Marlowe’s face said he knew
that.
“We will find a way
to break it,” he promised. “And in the meantime, the Senate offers
you its protection.” I rolled my eyes and Mac snorted.
“Yeah,” he said
contemptuously, “just substitute ‘prison’ for ‘protection’
and—”
“You might wish to
consider,” Marlowe said smoothly, “that despite Lord Mircea’s lapse
of judgment, the Senate has protected you in the past. Whereas the
facts make only one conclusion possible: the mages want their
candidate on the Pythia’s throne and will stop at nothing to see
her there—including your death.”
“Another lie!” Mac
surged to his feet.
He looked angry
enough to go for Marlowe’s throat, but he didn’t get the chance. I
heard a rustling sound and, quicker than I could blink, the roots
that had been bugging me all day wrapped themselves securely around
Mac. He tried to say something, but I couldn’t make it out. Within
seconds, only his outraged eyes showed over a coil of rope-like
roots, some of them as big as my arm. Struggling seemed useless,
although he appeared to be trying anyway.
Marlowe was in much
the same predicament, but he sat quietly, making no attempt to
resist. I noticed that, despite Marlowe being the stronger of the
two, he was bound less tightly than Mac, with roots coming up only
to his chest. Maybe the less you fought them, the less tightly they
held you. I followed his example, hoping that they’d continue to
ignore me. Then I realized they weren’t the only
problem.
“We are not spies,”
Marlowe said loudly, apparently to thin air.
“You are in our land
without permission,” came the answer; “therefore, you are whatever
we say you are.”
“Who are you?” an
imperious voice demanded. A doll-like creature flew out from behind
Marlowe to hover in front of my face. It was about two feet long,
with a mass of fiery red hair and a huge span of bright green
wings. It took me a moment to place it—her—as the pixie I’d seen a
week before at Dante’s. Then she’d only been about eight inches
high, but it wasn’t like I could be mistaken. She was the first
member of the Fey I’d ever seen, and the image sort of sticks with
you.
“Don’t give her your
name!” Marlowe said urgently. The pixie frowned at him and a large
root with a knot on it shoved its way between his lips. It’s a good
thing vampires don’t need to breathe, because more roots followed,
twining around his face so thickly that only a shock of brown curls
could be seen. He was gagged so effectively that it didn’t look
like I’d be getting any more help.
“I’m the Pythia,” I
said, deciding that a title might be better than my name. As far as
I knew, it couldn’t be used in enchantments. “We met before, at
Dante’s, if you—”
“I’ll be rewarded
highly for this,” she said, ignoring my attempt to trade on our
brief acquaintance. “Seize them.” A large party of shaggy things
burst out of the trees, clubs and hide-wrapped shields at the
ready. I don’t know why they bothered with weapons—the stench
coming off them in waves was enough to incapacitate
anybody.
A couple of very
odd-looking things converged on me. It looked like two gruesome
trees had uprooted themselves and decided to go for a walk. The
closest had a more or less human form, if humans were commonly four
feet tall and at least as wide. But his hair was the color of the
lichen on the roots, a bright flaming red despite the dirt that
caked it, and his eyes were the same dung yellow as his teeth. He
had skin as gnarled and pitted as old bark, and its color exactly
matched the loamy forest floor. He was wearing only a small loin
covering of oak leaves, which was almost hidden by the folds of his
enormous belly.
His partner had him
by about a foot in height but wasn’t nearly as wide. Filthy gray
hair trailed down to his knees, with the look and consistency of
Spanish moss. Stringy muscles stood out on impossibly long arms
covered in greenish gray skin. His body resembled a cragged tree
trunk more than a living being, with knobby extensions all over
like stunted branches. Instead of clothing he had long strings of
dirty gray moss and a few ferns that appeared to sprout directly
from his flesh.
I clapped a hand over
my nose and wished that I, too, didn’t have to breathe. “What
are they?”
“Dark Fey,” Marlowe
managed to say. “Giants and oak men.” The roots had withdrawn as
quickly as they had come, baring him to the shoulders. I realized
why when a ten-foot giant strode forward and knocked him in the
temple with a club the size of a small tree. Marlowe sighed. “It’s
always the head,” he murmured, then his eyes rolled up and he
collapsed.
I backed away,
lifting my hands to show how harmless I was. Unfortunately, it was
the truth. The pack with my gun in it was too far away to reach and
I had no other weapons. The shorter one laughed and said something
in a guttural language I couldn’t understand. Judging by his
expression, that was probably just as well. I backed away as they
stalked forward, trying to keep an eye on them and also on the
root-strewn trail. It didn’t work, and I ended up sprawled in the
scattered leaves. As soon as I was down, roots wrapped around my
wrists, trapping me. The next moment, the taller thing was on me,
his breath like a ripe compost heap in my face.
“Cassie!” I heard
Mac’s voice and looked up in time to see him slide through the
weakened hold of the roots and sprint for me. Everything seemed to
slow down, the way it does when you see what’s about to happen but
can’t stop it. The roots dove for him, and before I could draw
breath enough to scream, one had pierced him like a living spear.
All I could do was lie there and watch as he twisted in pain, a
wooden limb as sharp as a knife erupting from the flesh of his
upper thigh. He wavered and went down hard, dropping to his knees
as I finally managed to scream.
I felt rough fingers
on my legs; then they found the fastening of my shorts and broke
the zipper in their haste to get them off. I barely noticed,
watching in horror as Mac writhed on the ground, trying to pull out
the wooden mass that had pierced his thigh. He managed to get the
slender spike out with steady hands, ignoring the abrupt wash of
blood that stained his clothes, but another immediately wound
itself around his neck, choking him.
“No! Leave him
alone—you’re killing him!”
The roots either
didn’t understand or didn’t care. The creature on top of me yanked
at the gaping material of my shorts, baring my upper thighs, then
in one swift movement jerked them halfway down my legs. I kicked at
him, but it was like hitting wood instead of living flesh and I
don’t think he even noticed. I looked around wildly for help, but
Tomas’ limp form was being shoved less than gently into a large
sack. And although Marlowe had regained consciousness, he was being
held down by three giants while another tried to get a sack over
his head.
Mac had managed to
get the root loose and was struggling one-handed to unwind it from
around his neck. His other hand was held over the ragged wound in
his leg, which had already drenched the ground beneath him as if it
had nicked an artery. But at least the other roots had backed off.
If he wasn’t struggling, he didn’t seem to interest them. I could
only hope he’d stay down, and maybe play dead before he really
was.
I realized in a rush
of adrenaline that I was on my own, and that none of my usual
defenses would work here. My bracelet was no more than a
decoration, and my ward was useless. Sheba had disappeared after
attacking the Consul, and the geis was
silent. Either its power didn’t work in Faerie, or these creatures
were too alien for it to recognize them as threats. My amulet might
have helped, but it was caught under my shirt and I couldn’t reach
it with my arms stretched over my head.
The skinny creature
tore the shorts the rest of the way off and flung them aside while
the fat one started pawing at my top. The tank was a stretchy knit
that resisted tearing, and his clumsy fingers couldn’t seem to get
it off. He paused to lick my face as if tasting me, and a rope of
saliva dripped from his mouth onto my cheek. It slowly trickled
down my neck, cold and viscous, completely unlike bodily fluids are
supposed to be. I tried to scream but got only a mouthful of grimy,
foul-tasting hair instead of air.
I was temporarily
blinded to what was happening, trapped under the suffocating mass
on his head, but I felt the tug of fabric and the sudden shock of
air against me when my panties were ripped away. I tried to shift,
at that moment not caring about the consequences, but although I
felt a deep, sluggish pull of my power, it wasn’t enough. I
couldn’t grasp hold, and it remained a lifeline hovering just out
of reach.
I turned my face as
far toward the path as I could, desperate to find some air, and
then I saw it. One weapon did remain nearby, if not exactly within
my grasp. The rune must have fallen out of my shorts when they were
thrown into the bushes, and it was so small that no one had
noticed. It lay tantalizingly near my head, a pale sliver of bone
half buried in damp leaves. But although it was only inches away, I
had no way to grab it.
While I struggled to
figure out how to cross those few inches, two slender but strong
roots wrapped around my ankles and started twining upwards. When
they reached my knees, they began pulling outward. The living bonds
curled up to my thighs, biting into the skin as they brutally
forced my legs so wide that, for a minute, I thought they meant to
tear me in two. They finally stopped when my hips would give no
further. I tried to fight, but nothing I did made the slightest
difference, and my rising panic made it almost impossible to think.
A stick bearing a few bright green leaves tumbled through the air
from high above and landed on my face, a whisper of a caress, while
the things above me started to wrestle over who would get to rape
me first.
It was a short fight.
The skinny one picked up his companion and threw him against a
tree, the branches of which trapped him in a wooden embrace, like a
cage. Then he turned and fell on me. Two coarse, knotted hands
grabbed my shoulders painfully and I stared up into flat gray eyes
that had nothing human in them. He wriggled down my body, his
tough, uneven skin scraping against mine except where the tank
protected me.
I ignored the pain
his movements were causing and grabbed the stick, my only tool, in
my mouth. My eyes zeroed in on the thong threaded through the top
of the bone disk, despite the fact that it was brown and barely
poked out of the scattered leaves. I knew I might get only one
chance at this, and I had to concentrate. I managed to get the end
of the stick through the small loop and began trying to work it
closer. If I could get it to touch my skin or even just my aura, it
might be enough. Then I heard a squelch, and something slick and
clammy nudged my belly. I froze.
It felt like
something old that had been left underground to rot for a very long
time, spongy and moist and bloated. But it moved sluggishly,
twitching against my lower stomach. I couldn’t see anything except
my attacker’s shoulder and the small patch of path, but my brain
conjured up images of an enormous white grub or a fist-sized slug.
When its chill dampness slithered eagerly between my legs, I swear
my heart stopped.
I was so paralyzed
with horror that I just lay there as the inhuman thing swelled
against me, like a rotten fruit about to burst. Its sodden cold
raised goose bumps across my entire body as it leeched away my
heat, numbing me as if an icicle was being rubbed over sensitive
areas. Through the shudder-inducing revulsion, I understood that
the horrible gelatinous shifting was it changing forms, trying to
find one compatible with my body. But the one it came up with bore
no resemblance to human virility. It suddenly grew firmer, its
slimy consistency congealing into a fat, rigid shape as unyielding
as a wooden stake. If the thing pierced me, I knew I wouldn’t
survive, that it would eat my heat and replace it with its damp
chill. The green man, some part of my brain recalled: the old
Celtic peoples had sacrificed one of their own to the land, so it
would grow rich and fertile off his flesh. Only it looked like this
forest preferred a green woman.
When the parody of an
organ began to thrust, the action so very male, so very
human, my paralysis broke. I screamed
and jerked my head in a violent negative motion. I hadn’t planned
it, had almost forgotten what I’d been doing, but the action caused
something small and hard to land on my cheek. My crossed eyes
identified it as the rune disk and my heart started up again. I
wasn’t sure how to cast it, wasn’t convinced that it would work at
all. But I screamed the name inside my head because my mouth didn’t
seem to work.
I don’t know whether
that was the right procedure, but it did the trick. Sort of. With
no warning, I found myself, not twenty minutes back in time, but
maybe two. The oak men were coming for me, and Mac was leaping to
intercept them, so focused on saving me that he didn’t see the
roots straightening themselves into spears, coming for him. I
didn’t hesitate this time, but yelled a warning and fled down the
path towards his discarded backpack.
I was sobbing now
that I could breathe freely again, and my hands were shaking so
hard that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the pack open. The
shorter creature reached me when I had only one buckle undone. He
grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled, and he must have had
better leverage on his feet because this time, the tank ripped. My
amulet tumbled into view, jostling Billy’s necklace for space
between my breasts, and my attacker let out a screech and jumped
back. He cradled the hand that had brushed against the charm as if
it had been burned, and a black mark appeared on his skin in the
shape of the rowan cross. I plunged my hand into the half-open pack
and finally clutched the gun.
I am not the world’s
greatest shot. In fact, I suck. But even I don’t usually miss when
my targets are three feet away. I didn’t worry about aiming, just
let off a barrage of bullets that splintered the barklike skin of
the oak men as if I was firing at actual wood. The taller let out a
squeal and took off down the trail, while his fat companion huddled
on the ground, hands over his mossy head. The iron bullets
obviously caused them pain, but although they were oozing a syrupy
substance from every wound, they were both alive and moving when my
clip ran out. I stared at them in disbelief; what did it take to
stop one of these things?
The coat Pritkin had
given me was lying nearby, where I had dropped it alongside the
pack when we stopped to rest. But I had no time to search for the
right bullets. The short Fey realized that I had stopped shooting
and grabbed for me. I flattened the rowan charm against his
forehead, pushing it into his skin as hard as I could. The flesh
around it immediately turned black and start smoking, giving off a
smell exactly like a burning campfire.
He tore away from me,
clutching his head and screaming. I don’t know whether he would
have tried again, because the pixie suddenly appeared and, despite
the fact that he was momentarily incapacitated, slapped him with
the flat of her sword. The blow must have been more forceful than
it looked, because he went sailing into the forest until he was
stopped by an overhanging limb. He hit the ground hard, unconscious
or worse. I didn’t wait to find out, my only thought to get to
Mac.
Huge hands descended
on me at the same time that a scream reverberated through the
forest. I looked down the path in time to see a root as large as a
small tree erupt from the scarred ground right under Mac’s feet.
Time seemed to stop—I couldn’t even feel my heart beating
anymore—and then everything suddenly sped up. The root ripped out
of the ground, piercing Mac through the center of his back. “No,” I
breathed, but no one heard, no one cared. Mac’s body strained
upward until his spine left the grass completely, his fingers
digging into the hard-packed dirt, then the root burst out of his
torso in a great gush of blood.
The pixie nodded once
to the guards and they released me. I shot down the path, but Mac
was already limp by the time I reached him, sightless eyes staring
up without recognition. “Mac,” I shook the unresponsive body
gently. “Mac, please . . .”
Unresisting, his head
lolled to the side just as a shower of gold hit the dark ground. My
blood ran cold when I realized what had happened. Mac’s wards had
solidified and fallen away, leaving the skin between the unmoving
leaves as pink and unmarked as a newborn’s. I picked up one of the
small shapes with a shaking hand. It was the tiny lizard, frozen in
midleap. Next to my knee was a snake as long as my arm, uncurled
from its usual place around his neck. And beside his ruined chest
lay an eagle the size of my hand.
I stared at them
numbly, knowing what it meant that his wards had deserted him, but
not willing to let my brain shape the word. A deafening din rose up
from the assembled spectators, but I didn’t even look up at the
screeching and howling. Until the roots came back.
If I had thought
there were a lot before, I was instantly reminded how many are
needed to feed even a small tree. They were suddenly everywhere,
shooting out of the forest, erupting from the ground, diving from
the underbrush. A few paused to leech Mac’s blood from the
spreading puddle that had almost covered the path, but most dove
for him like hungry sharks. The flailing mass flogged my body like
bark-covered whips, while the earth around Mac boiled with
activity. Dozens of roots wrapped around him, binding him, as thick
as a shroud. Then a huge knotted specimen slammed into my stomach,
driving the air out of my lungs. I fell to my knees, and when I
looked again, Mac had disappeared. The only sign that anything had
happened was the golden wards that stuck up here and there out of
the churned-up dirt.
The pixie said
something to the lumbering giant standing behind her. He would have
made a couple dozen of her, but he moved at her command without
question. His bulk coming towards me down the path was the last
thing I saw before the world went black and I realized that I’d
been stuffed into a sack. I remember being slung over someone’s
back; then my brain shut down completely and I fell into
darkness.
I awoke in a cold
sweat, gasping for air, my heart hammering in my side. I stared
into absolute blackness in dry-mouthed terror. I was sure something
was about to grab me and that it would all start again. But minutes
passed and nothing happened, and I couldn’t hear any breaths except
my own labored ones. My chest hurt as though I’d run for miles and
I wanted nothing more than to curl around the pain until it
vanished, but I couldn’t afford the luxury. I had to find out where
I was, had to know what had happened.
By feel I discovered
that I was on a crudely made cot in a stone cell, naked, with only
a short, scratchy wool blanket as a covering. I guess the tank top
hadn’t been worth saving. I was thick-headed, bleary-eyed and
trembling with the memory of what had almost happened. I examined
myself, but other than being bruised, grubby and severely shaken, I
seemed to be okay, although the welts the roots had given me
throbbed in time with the eagle’s claw mark on my hand, making it
feel like my rapid heartbeat was echoing throughout my
body.
More than anything, I
wanted a bath. I groped around until I found a large bucket of
water that had been left by the door along with a sponge, a bar of
homemade soap and a towel. The floor was bare except for a little
straw that had leaked from a tear in the mattress, and there was a
drain in the center of the slightly sloping stones. I threw off the
blanket and scrubbed my skin until it was raw in places and I
couldn’t smell anything but the sharp tang of the
soap.
I tipped the rest of
the water over my head, but despite all my efforts I didn’t feel
clean. I toweled off, trying not to think about Mac, but it was
impossible. The Fey must have gathered up his charms and brought
them along, because they were in a pile on the end of the cot,
recognizable by their shapes, but cold and lifeless under my hands.
I wondered if they were supposed to be some kind of message—a
reminder of how helpless our best magic was here. If so, I didn’t
need it.
I still felt
disoriented and could not quite believe what I’d just seen. But the
image was seared onto my eyes. I could hear Mac’s last scream, see
his fingers clawing at the ground, seeking a weapon he didn’t have
because he’d given his only Fey charm to me.
And I’d lost
it.
I tried to summon my
power again, but although I could feel it like a great wave beating
against a seawall, it couldn’t quite reach me. Maybe there was a
way of compensating for the dampening effect but if so I couldn’t
figure it out. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see a faint
light outlining the cell’s door, so dim that when I blinked it
disappeared. As far as escape went, it didn’t help, and there
wasn’t a lot of inspiration in the bare cell. Other than the cot,
there was no furniture, and except for the heavy, locked door and a
high, barred window, there was no way out. I wrapped the blanket
around me in lieu of clothes and dragged the cot over a few feet,
wincing at the sound it made on the stones. When I clambered on
top, I could just reach the windowsill, but when I felt around with
my fingertips, I found only dust and what felt like a dead spider.
No moon or stars were visible, but by feel I discovered that the
bars were metal and as big around as my wrist.
I sat back down on
the cot and wrapped my arms around me to keep from shivering in the
chill night air. Bathing and checking out escape possibilities had
given my brain something to do, but now it kept trying to go back
to the horror in the forest. The more I tried not to think about
Mac, the more the other images crowded my mind. I could smell the
awful breath in my face, see the hunger in their expressions and
feel that decayed mass squirming between my legs, seeking,
thrusting, invading.
Despite my efforts, I
was shivering anyway, so much that my teeth started to chatter. I
used anger to push away the panic, to let me draw a deep breath, to
let me think. I was alone and defenseless, and I hated it. Fear was
an old companion, familiar in its way, but this wasn’t fear. What I
was feeling went beyond words, a bone-deep chill and a certainty
that, even if I survived, I would never feel secure
again.
I drew the blanket
further around me, but it did little good. The cold that permeated
me didn’t come from the outside. I walked up and down the confines
of the cell anyway, trying to force circulation into my icy center.
It didn’t warm me, but it did clear my head. I could examine my
mistakes later. I could grieve later. Right now, I had to get out
of here. And, somehow, I had to make sure that I was never, ever
this helpless again.
I was about to try to
access my power one more time when I heard a familiar, off-key
voice from somewhere nearby. “I’ll take you home again, Kathleen,
across the ocean wild and wide,” it warbled mournfully. It was
faint and slurred, but unmistakable.
“Billy!” I almost
cried in relief.
The singing stopped
abruptly. “Cassie, me darlin’. I’ve got one for ya. I thought it up
at the pub.”
There once was a ghost name of Billy,
Who got in a jam rather silly,
He found a beautiful lass
And quick made a pass
Forgetting he only had mist for a willy.
“Where are we?” I
yelled. “What’s going on?” The only answer I got was a rousing
chorus of “The Belle of Belfast City.” Trust Billy to make me want
to strangle him when he wasn’t even in the same room. “You’re
drunk!”
“That I am,” he
agreed, “but I’m conscious, which is more than I can say for my
orange friend, here. Can’t hold his liquor, poor sod.”
“Billy!”
“All right, Cass.
Hold your horses and good old Billy will tell the tale. We’ve been
taken by the Dark Fey. They snatched me out of a lovely pub and
threw me in this dank hole, with only himself for company, to wait
on the king’s pleasure.”
I sagged in relief.
At least we weren’t going to be beheaded in the morning or
something equally medieval. That bought the others some time to
find us, assuming they were still free. “Where is everyone?” I
hoped they were doing better than me, or we were in a lot of
trouble.
“Pritkin and Marlowe
are trying to convince the captain of the guard—a nasty pixie—to
let us go, but I don’t know how well they’re doing.” He paused,
then asked in a different tone. “Hey, Cass. What do you think would
happen to me if I got killed here? They don’t have any ghosts, have
you noticed?”
I thought of Mac, his
face sagging in death, his eyes dull. If there had been a sign of a
ghost, a flare or spark anywhere around him, I hadn’t noticed. A
new wash of chills spread over me. My God, what had we
done?
“What if I didn’t
come back?” Billy was saying, “What if that was it—I died and there
was no loophole this time? What if—”
“Billy!” I tried to
keep the hysterical note out of my voice, but I wasn’t entirely
successful. I swallowed and tried again. “You aren’t going to die,
Billy. We’ll get out of this.” I said it as much to reassure myself
as to quiet him, but I don’t think it worked for either of
us.
I heard a jangle of
keys outside my cell, and the huge door swung open on ancient
hinges. I was almost blinded by the lantern light that flooded the
room, but blinking through my fingers, I made out who the guard was
carrying. “Tomas!”
The guard, who was
only about five feet tall, carried the six-foot-something vampire
as if he was weightless. He dropped his burden on the bunk and
turned to me, and for the first time I noticed the boar’s tusks
protruding from his wide mouth. Ogre,
some part of my brain piped up as he thrust a stubby finger in my
chest and grunted. His voice sounded like gravel being rolled over
by a tank, and if it was supposed to contain words, I couldn’t
understand them.
“He want that you
heal him,” came a voice from the doorway. Behind the bulk of the
jailer stood a slim brunette wearing an elaborate green dress
covered in red embroidery. It took me a second to place
her.
“Françoise?” It was
bizarre. Every time I turned around, there she was. The first time
we met had been in seventeenth century France, when Tomas and I had
saved her from the Inquisition. Then she’d turned up again at
Dante’s with the pixie, where she was about to be sold to the Fey.
I’d released her, but it looked like Destiny snapped at her heels
as closely as it did at mine, because here she was anyway. “What
are you doing here?” I asked, bewildered.
“You and le monsieur ’elped me once,” she answered quickly.
“I ’ave come, ’ow do you say? To return the favor.”
“What about the
others?” I asked quickly, “I came with a group—”
“Oui, je sais. The mage, ’ee make a deal with
Radella. She is captain of the night guard, une grande baroudeuse, a warrior of
skill.”
“What kind of
deal?”
“The mage ’ave a rune
of power. Radella has long searched for such. Above all, she want a
child, but is inféconde , barren. The
mage say, ’ee cast it for her, if she aid us.”
“Jera.” Damn it if it
hadn’t come in handy after all.
"C’est ça.” She glanced at the ogre, who was
looking between the two of us suspiciously. I got the impression
that he didn’t speak English, at least not well enough to follow
the conversation. “They do not know why le
vampire will not wake. I tell them you are a great
healer—that you can save ’eem.”
“He’s in a healing
trance. He’ll save himself, hopefully.”
“Eet does not
matter,” she said, smiling and nodding at the ogre. “I want only to
’ave the two of you together, near the portal. I return soon, after
the guards change.”
“The portal?
But—”
“I weel do what I
can,” she said as the ogre lumbered past her, apparently deciding
the conversation had lasted long enough. “But you must promise to
take me with you. Please, I ’ave been here so long . .
.”
“You’ve been here a
week,” I said, confused. I wanted to explain that I didn’t need the
portal. I needed to find Myra, not go right back where I’d started
from, especially not with the geis in
place and the Senate and Circle both hunting me. Worst of all, if
we turned back now, Mac had died for nothing. But the ogre, who had
paused to place the lantern on the floor, was now pulling the door
shut. Françoise stared at me over his shoulder, looking panicked.
“Okay, I promise!” I said. Even a week would feel like an eternity
here, and I’d never leave anyone to face what had almost happened
to me.
I stood in the middle
of the room, hearing the ogre’s foot-steps echo down the corridor
as he walked away. I wanted to check on Tomas but was afraid. What
if he was no better? What if he’d never been in a healing trance at
all, and we’d been lugging around a corpse?
After a minute, I
screwed up my courage and walked across to the cot. Tomas was lying
on his back, highlighted by the lantern light, but I couldn’t see
his chest and abdomen for all the bandages that had been wrapped
around him. Someone had done a better job than my hasty efforts—he
was practically a mummy from just below his nipples to the tops of
his hard-muscled thighs. The bandages were all he was wearing, but
I barely noticed because I caught a glimmer of dark eyes behind the
slitted lids.
“Tomas!” I bent over
him and felt the chill of his skin. That wasn’t good. I don’t know
where the rumor started that vampires are cold. Unless they’re
starving, they run as hot as a human—after all, it’s human blood
that feeds them. I stripped off the blanket and tucked it around
him, trying to cover as much bare skin as possible.
He smiled and tugged
weakly at my hand, pulling me down beside him. There was barely
room for the two of us on the narrow cot, but he insisted. “I
finally have you naked and in bed, and I’m too tired to do anything
about it,” he joked. I could have cried with relief.
I stroked the side of
his face with my wrist, but he pulled away. He knew what I was
offering, and he desperately needed it. I put my wrist back against
his cheek and looked at him seriously. “Feed. You won’t heal
without it.”
“You need your
strength.”
“Then don’t take
much, but heal. I don’t know how much time we have.” The door to
the cell was heavy, but if he’d been at his usual strength, Tomas
could have ripped it from its hinges. Under the circumstances, I’d
settle for him being able to run or at least walk once Françoise
came back. Unlike the ogre, I couldn’t carry him.
Tomas looked
stubborn, but he must have reached the same conclusion I had,
because the next minute I felt a brief pull at my power. It settled
into a steady drain as his overtaxed system started to revive, and
I sighed slightly in pleasure. The feeding process can be sensual,
but this one wasn’t. It was warm and comforting, like wrapping up
in an old, cuddly blanket on a cold night. It felt familiar, too,
and I suddenly remembered another reason I had to be angry with
Tomas.
He’d been feeding
from me surreptitiously while we roomed together, taking blood
through the skin without leaving any telltale marks and with enough
of a suggestion to cloud my mind. He’d said it was because he
needed to keep track of me—part of his job had been to guarantee my
safety and the feedings created a bond—but I still viewed it as a
violation. Technically, I could have brought charges against him
with the Senate, although that seemed kind of redundant at the
moment. They’d happily kill him if they got their hands on him, no
additional allegations needed.
He watched me, the
lamplight gilding his dark lashes, and a warm languor spread
through my veins. I found it increasingly difficult to be angry.
After everything that had happened today, a little thing like a
minor power drain seemed incredibly unimportant, and the sensation
of peace and familiarity was welcome no matter what was causing it.
And it wasn’t like we had another choice: if Fey blood was anything
like their other fluids, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t work as
vampire food. Tomas would already have fed if so, without anyone
knowing.
“You’re all right?” I
asked as he released me, far too soon for a full feeding. “I didn’t
know if you were in a healing trance or—”
“I am far from all
right, but thanks to you I’ll recover.” He sounded stronger
already, which shouldn’t have surprised me. There were only a few
hundred first-level masters in the world, and what they could do
often seemed miraculous. “There is something about this place,” he
said wonderingly. “It is as if every moment that passes is an hour
of our time. I have never before healed so quickly.”
The answer to a
riddle that had been bugging me for two days suddenly clicked into
place. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier. If Myra
had been hiding in Faerie, land of the radically unpredictable
timeline, then instead of having a week to heal from her injuries,
she could have had months, even years. No wonder she’d looked
good!
Tomas kissed the side
of my head, the only thing he could reach, and looked at me
somberly. “You should not have come back for me—it was a terrible
risk. You must promise never to do it again.”
“I won’t have to,” I
said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. It was always so
beautiful, long and black and as soft as a child’s. I picked a few
leaves out of it with a slightly trembling hand. I was so glad to
see him alive that I felt giddy. “We’ll find some way to hide you
from the Senate.”
Tomas was shaking his
head before I even finished speaking. “Beautiful Cassie,” he
murmured. “It has been a very long time since anyone was willing to
risk themselves for me. Very few ever have. I will remember what
you tried to do.”
“I told you, we’ll
find somewhere for you to hide. The Senate won’t find
you!”
He laughed slightly,
then stopped abruptly as if it hurt. “Do you not understand? They
did not find me this time. I went back to them, to him. I thought I
could fight it, but I was wrong.”
I didn’t have to ask
who he meant. Louis-César, on loan to the Consul from the European
Senate, was Tomas’ master. He had defeated Tomas’ original master,
the hated Alejandro, in a duel a century ago and then laid claim.
Tomas was a first-level master, but even they vary in strength, and
Louis-César simply outmatched him. He’d never been able to break
the bond between them.
Tomas shuddered
lightly. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the slight tremor
against me. “Every moment, I heard him, an endless voice, deep in
my head driving me half mad! I could never relax, not for a moment.
I knew as soon as I did, my will would break and I would go
crawling back like a beaten dog. I told myself that soon the war
would distract him and he would let me go. But tonight I awoke in
the Senate’s holding cells, and a guard informed me that I had
walked into the compound and surrendered myself. Yet I remember
nothing of it, Cassie! Nothing!” He shook more violently, a visible
shudder passing over his limbs. “He pulled me to him like a puppet.
He will do it again.”
I was confused. “You
mean he’s calling you now?”
Tomas smiled, and it
was blissful. “No. There is something about Faerie—I have not heard
him since we arrived. Not having to fend him off has helped me
heal, now that I can use all my strength for it. I had not
completely repaired lesser injuries than these in a week with his
call draining me, but in this brief time my wounds are
closed.”
“You can’t hear him
here?”
“For the first time
in a century, I am free of him,” he said, and his voice held awe,
as if he couldn’t quite believe it. “I have no master.” He looked
at me, and there was a fierce joy in his face. “For four and a half
centuries, I was someone’s slave! My master’s voice controlled me
completely, until I thought I would never break free!” He stared
around the dank little cell in wonder. “But here, none of our rules
seem to apply.”
I felt my eyes start
to burn. “Yeah, I noticed.” If our magic worked here, Mac would
have wiped the floor with the Fey.
“What is
it?”
I shook my head. I
didn’t want to think about it, much less talk. But suddenly
everything came pouring out of me anyway. It took me less than half
an hour to bring him up to speed on what had been happening since
we last met. That seemed wrong somehow, that so much pain could be
summed up in so few words. Not that Tomas seemed to
understand.
"MacAdam was a
warrior. He understood the risks. You all did.”
I looked at him
bleakly. “Yes, which is why he wasn’t supposed to come with us.
That was never the plan.”
Tomas shrugged.
“Plans change in battle. Every warrior knows this.”
“You didn’t know him,
or you wouldn’t sound so . . . indifferent! ” I
snapped.
His eyes flashed. “I
am not indifferent, Cassie. The mage helped to bring me here, to
get me away from the Senate. I owe him much that I will never be
able to repay. But at least I can honor the sacrifice he made
without belittling him.”
“I’m not belittling
him!”
“Aren’t you?” Tomas
held my eyes without flinching. “He was an old warrior. He had
experience and courage and he knew his own mind. And he died for
something he believed in—you. You do him no honor by questioning
his judgment now.”
“His judgment got him
killed! He should have stayed down.” And I should have searched for
Myra on my own. I’d said that no one else was going to die because
of me, yet here I was, adding another mark to my body count. “He
shouldn’t have believed in me. No one should.”
“And why not?” Tomas
looked genuinely confused.
I let out a
half-bitter, half-hysterical laugh. “Because getting close to me is
a one-way ticket to trouble. You ought to know.” Tomas had brought
a lot of his problems on himself, but I had to wonder whether he
would have made those same bad decisions if he had never met
me.
Tomas shook his head.
“You take too much on yourself, Cassie. Not everything is your
fault, not every crisis is yours to solve.”
“I know that!” But
however much I might like to think otherwise, I was to blame for
what had happened to Mac. He’d been here because of me, he’d been
vulnerable because of me, and ultimately, he’d died because of
me.
“Do you?” I felt
Tomas’ arm slip around me. “Then you’ve changed.” Warm lips ghosted
against my hair. “Perhaps I see things clearer, because I’ve been a
warrior longer.”
“I’m not a warrior at
all.”
“I thought the same
once. But when the Spaniards came to our village, I fought with the
rest, to save the corn that would feed us through the winter. I
lost many friends then, Cassie. The man who had been like a father
to me was taken, and because he would not betray where we had
hidden the harvest, they fed him to their dogs, piece by piece.
Then they carried off the women and burned the village to the
ground.”
He sounded so
matter-of-fact about it that I stared. He smiled sadly. “I grieved
for him by honoring what he fought for, by keeping our small group
together and free.”
He stopped and I knew
why. It was one of the few things he’d told me about his life.
Alejandro had eventually finished what the conquistadors had begun,
by killing Tomas’ village in some sort of game. I’d never heard the
whole story, only a few small fragments, but I didn’t want to make
him relive it.
I decided to change
the subject. “Louis-César said your mother was a noblewoman. How
did you end up in a village?”
“After the conquest,
no one was noble, no one commoner. You were either European or
nothing. My mother had been a priestess of Inti, the sun god, and
had taken a vow of chastity for life, but a conquistador took her
as booty after the fall of Cuzco. She had expected to be treated
with honor, according to the rules of war, but he knew nothing of
our customs and would not have cared if he did. He was merely a
farmer’s son from Extremadura out to make a fortune, and didn’t
care much how he did it. She hated him.”
“How did she get
away?”
“No one thought she
could scale a wall ten feet high when seven months pregnant, and
they failed to watch her closely. She got away, but she had no
money, and her defilement made her an outcast from her former
calling. Not that it mattered. The temple had been plundered and
the land was ravaged by disease and war. She fled the capital,
where the Spaniards were fighting among themselves, but found
things no better in the countryside.” Tomas smiled bitterly. “They
forgot, you cannot eat gold. Most of the farmers who had not died
had run away. Famine was everywhere. Grain became more valuable
than the riches the conquistadors had wanted so
badly.”
“Yet your mother
found a village that would take her in?”
“She hid in her
family’s chullpa—a crypt where food and offerings were left for
mummified ancestors—and one of the palace servants found her. He
had long loved her, but the priestesses were considered the wives
of Inti. Sleeping with one of them was a terrible crime. The
punishment was to be stripped and chained to a wall, and left to
starve to death.”
“So he had worshipped
from afar?”
Tomas smiled. “Very
afar. But he began looking for her as soon as he heard she had
escaped. He persuaded her to go away with him to his family’s
village. It was almost fifty miles from the capital, and so small
that they hoped the Spanish would overlook it. They lived there
together until I was eight, when she died of smallpox along with
half the village.”
“I’m sorry.” It
seemed there were no safe topics, after all. I fingered the eagle
charm that I’d unconsciously picked up. I couldn’t volunteer to go
back and get Tomas’ mother out of danger, before disease carried
her away. I couldn’t even help my own mother without drastically
changing time. For all my supposed power, I didn’t seem to be able
to do much at all.
Tomas bent over to
kiss me gently. His lips were soft and warm, and before I realized
it, I was kissing him back. I’d wanted to do that for so long, it
seemed as natural as breathing. Just touching him pushed away the
memories of the attack, cleansing some part of me the bathwater
hadn’t been able to reach. Tomas deepened the kiss until I could
feel it all the way to my toes, like tendrils of sunshine were
curling through me. He tasted like wine, dark and sweet and
burning, and I felt like I could never get enough.
But after a moment, I
pulled back. It wasn’t easy—the geis
had recognized Tomas and the Pythia’s power agreed that he would do
fine to complete the ritual. Their need overrode my aversion to
even thinking about intimacy at the moment. I wanted to fill my
mind with thoughts and sensations that didn’t involve horror and
pain. I wanted him to touch me with those long, elegant hands, to
have his mouth hot and demanding on mine. The look in his eyes was
a caress itself, and an invitation. But the consequences for a few
moments of passion would be severe.
Tomas let me go, an
expression that I couldn’t name flashing across his face. “I’m
sorry, Cassie. I know I am not the one you want.”
What could Tomas know
about what I wanted? Most of the time, I didn’t know myself. “What
I want isn’t the point,” I said, trying to ignore the way his hand
was playing along my side from breast to hip, over and over in a
lazy, sensual stroke. It made my heart speed up and breathing
difficult, like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
Oh, yeah, the geis liked him
fine.
“What do you mean?”
Tomas’ hand stilled on my hip. That was not a great help to my
blood pressure. Despite the fact that I had moved back, we were
less than a foot apart. I struggled not to look down and failed
miserably. The blanket had slipped off the front half of Tomas’
body. Long legs shifted in the shadows, and between them was ample
evidence of just how recovered he was.
“I can’t,” I said,
trying to remember exactly why that was. My fingers traced a line
down his high forehead to the tender eyelids that fluttered closed
under my touch, to the proud nose and warm, full lips. It was a
perfect profile, burnished bronze in the lamplight like the head on
an ancient coin, but his appearance wasn’t what had attracted me to
him. I’d loved his kindness, his strength and—I’d thought at the
time—his honesty. Now I merely craved a warm body and soft skin
next to mine, and a face that was familiar and caring.
“You saved my life,
Cassie, even though I once put yours at risk. Let me do something
for you.” Tomas’ voice was at its best, whiskey deep and smoky, as
if golden liquor had been magically turned into sound. It had
always been one of his most attractive features, partly because,
unlike the carefully contrived outfits and blatant attempts at
seduction, it was unconscious. It was more the real Tomas, and so
alluring that I wondered why he’d bothered with the rest. But of
course I knew why—because Louis-César had ordered him to, after
Mircea decided that he would do to fulfill the ritual. I suppose
they’d worried about the possibility of me recognizing one of
Mircea’s people after so many years at Tony’s, where they came and
went on a regular basis. But it hadn’t been fair to Tomas, and for
the first time I wondered whether he’d resented being
used.
“I don’t see what you
can do,” I said, “unless you can talk the king into letting us go,
or make my power work here.”
Tomas smiled. “Or
lift the geis?”