Chapter
13
I came around because
a pounding was reverberating in my head. I realized three things
simultaneously: I was back at Dante’s, the pounding was coming from
large speakers masquerading as giant tiki heads and Elvis was
looking really rough—even for a dead guy. I blinked and Kit Marlowe
shoved a drink into my hand. “Try to look normal,” he murmured as
Elvis started on the chorus to “Jailhouse Rock.”
I looked around
dazedly but found it hard to concentrate on anything but the huge
man in white sequins who was swaying in what I guess was meant to
be an alluring fashion. The bullet that had recently scalped him
had been large caliber, and I didn’t think the emergency toupee was
holding up too well. The ladies throwing everything from room keys
to underwear onstage didn’t seem to notice, though. I guess love
really is blind.
I wanted to ask what
was going on, but my brain and mouth didn’t seem to be connected. I
sat, swaying a little in my chair. Half the audience was doing the
same, but their movements were an unconscious imitation of the
performance and not because of an unclear concept of which way was
up. What was wrong with me? I’d barely had the thought when I
remembered: the portal. Unlike the unnoticeable transition at
MAGIC, this one had packed a wallop. Trust Tony to cheap out.
Judging by the way my head felt, he’d gone for the bargain-basement
version since he hadn’t planned to ever have to use it himself. I
hoped it had given him a really big migraine.
Marlowe picked a blue
lace thong off his ear, one of the offerings to the god of rock ’n’
roll that hadn’t quite made the stage, and tossed it over his
shoulder. “We’re in trouble,” he said unnecessarily.
I raised an eyebrow.
What else was new? Marlowe used his swizzle stick to poke the
fist-sized shrunken head that was posing as a centerpiece. The fact
that the ugly thing sat on a pretty nest of dark green palm fronds
and orange birds of paradise helped not at all. A shriveled,
raisinlike eye reluctantly opened and rotated in his direction.
“Can’t it wait? This is my favorite song.”
“I need a refill,”
Marlowe told it tersely. “One of the same.” The head closed its
eyes, but its mouth kept moving.
“What—” I paused to
swallow because my tongue felt about twice the usual size, then
tried again. “What is it doing?”
“Communicating with
the bar,” Marlowe answered, glancing around
surreptitiously.
“I’m going to pass
out now,” I informed him.
Marlowe shot me a
reproving glance. “You will do no such thing. The Circle has us
surrounded. Two of their operatives saw us flash in and now
everyone they left at the casino is here. They’re too wary of the
internal defenses and your abilities to try anything without
backup, so we have a few moments, but that’s all. You have to be
ready to move.”
“Move where? You said
we’re surrounded.”
“Casanova is going to
arrange a diversion, but for the moment all we can do is sit tight.
And have a drink,” he added, as I tried valiantly to keep my eyes
from crossing. “Alcohol usually helps in these cases.”
I nodded, but his
words made less of an impression on my fried brain than the little
head in the center of the table. It had finished talking to the bar
and was now humming along with the music, which was quite a trick
for a piece of plastic. I guess normal tourists thought there was
some sort of microphone hidden inside the things that relayed their
orders, but I knew better. I’d seen one of these
before.
We were in Dante’s
zombie bar—the one known as Headliners because of the gruesome
decorations and top-notch, if sadly deceased, entertainers. From
past experience, I knew that the heads posing as centerpieces were
fake, but not the way the tourists thought. They were enchanted
copies designed to look like the only real one in the place, whose
desiccated remains were suspended between two carved wooden masks
behind the bar. It was rumored to have belonged to a gambler who
had unwisely welshed on a bet. I heard him warn one guy that, at
this casino, gambling money you didn’t have wouldn’t get you a
little ahead. It would get you “a little head.”
The woman who had
thrown the thong, a buxom blonde who had about five pounds to go
before another adjective would be required, snatched her property
off the floor and gave Marlowe an evil look. She stood by the stage
and flapped the tiny piece of lace like it was a handkerchief, but
Elvis’ eyes were far too glazed to notice. His face was the color
of mildewed grout and his jet-black toupee had slid to the right,
exposing a line of greenish white flesh over his left ear.
Fortunately, he’d segued into “Love Me Tender,” which didn’t
require so many gyrations. Maybe the toupee would last the night
after all.
The head stopped
humming when the song ended and rolled its eyes around to me. “Did
you hear about the comedian who entertained at a werewolves’
party?” it asked chattily. Marlowe and I ignored it. “He had them
howling in the aisles!”
A zombie waiter
dressed in a Hawaiian shirt that clashed with his gray skin and
Bermuda shorts that showed off his shriveled legs was threading his
way through the tables in our direction. I watched him come closer
and realized that without knowing it I’d finished off the martini
Marlowe had given me. The alcohol did seem to have helped my head,
but not my mood, which was getting darker by the minute. I had a
good reason: Tomas had been right; the geis was still there.
That constant
miserable pressure was back. I could feel it, a shimmering cord
stretching from me across the desert to MAGIC. I tried
strengthening my shields, but the glimmering strands shot right
through them. But at least there was no crushing pain this time.
Maybe becoming Pythia had gained me something, after all, or maybe
the geis just needed time to compensate
for my new power level. In any case, I was grateful for the
reprieve.
“Where are the
others?” I asked. Billy could be a real help letting us know when
the Circle’s reinforcements were coming.
“I have not seen the
pixie or the girl. But the mage came through the portal with you,”
Marlowe said, keeping an eye on the six figures that had fanned out
on either side of the entrance. They were all weaving long leather
topcoats that had to be stifling even in air-conditioning. Coats
that looked like copies of Pritkin’s. Several more, I noticed now,
were in a similar position near the small side exit. “I rendered
him unconscious and locked him in the back room.”
“That won’t hold him
for long.”
“Cassie, if we’re
here much longer, Pritkin will be the least of our worries.” The
waiter sat a pitcher of martinis and a dish of olives on the table.
Marlowe appropriated the pitcher, leaving me only a coconut carved
to resemble one of the shrunken heads. The pina colada inside had
possibly had a bottle of rum waved over it at some point, but none
had made it inside. I sighed and drank it anyway.
“Okay, how about a
riddle,” the head burbled. “What’s the best way to a vampire’s
heart?” It paused for a couple of beats. “Through his rib
cage!”
The big blonde, who’d
been getting increasingly strident in her attempts to gain the
King’s attention, finally decided the heck with it and crawled up
onstage. Despite wearing stiletto heels, she managed to get within
a few feet of him before the bar’s discreetly dressed security
people grabbed her. Casanova, who was standing next to the stage,
smoothed over the potential debacle by sending in a handsome
Latino. The no-doubt incubus-possessed man led the woman off to the
bar with a smile that promised to make her forget all about dead
rock stars.
“If that was
Casanova’s idea of a diversion, he falls really short of his
reputation.”
“It wasn’t.” Marlowe
sounded sure.
“How do you
know?”
“Because, unless I
miss my guess, the cavalry has arrived.”
I followed his gaze
to where a trio of terribly old Greeks had just toddled into view,
bearing gifts. They didn’t come through the main entrance, where
the mages had visibly stiffened at the sight of them, but from the
side door near the bar. The guards for that door had disappeared.
One of the bartenders, a gorgeous guy wearing only a pith helmet
and a tiny pair of khaki shorts, caught sight of the threesome and
poured half a bottle of Chivas on the bar before he
noticed.
“A tough audience,
huh?” the head asked. “Okay, but did you hear the one about the guy
who couldn’t keep up payments to his exorcist? He was repossessed.
Ha! Now, go ahead, tell me that’s not funny!”
“It’s not funny,”
Marlowe said, unfolding his napkin.
“Hey, wait! I got a
thousand of them! How about the—” Thankfully, the heavy cotton
folds of the napkin cut the thing off before I kicked it across the
room.
Deino approached our
table with a toothless grin. “Birt’ Day!” she said, beaming at me.
I started in surprise: they were the first English words I’d heard
her use, and it was obvious that she was proud of herself. I might
have been more admiring if she hadn’t followed her greeting by
plopping a bucket of bloody entrails on the table right under my
nose.
I looked at Marlowe
fearfully. “Please tell me that isn’t—”
“It’s not human,” he
said, wrinkling up his nose. “Cow, I think.”
Pemphredo plopped a
newspaper full of casino chips onto the table beside her sister’s
gift. None were the red and blue ones I use: most were black, with
a few five-hundred-dollar purple ones scattered about here and
there. I counted more than four thousand dollars at just a glance.
I closed my eyes in despair—all I needed were the human police
after me, too. Not to be outdone, Enyo placed a large three-tiered
cake beside the other two gifts. It was covered in something slimy
and green, which I guessed was supposed to be icing. I decided not
to ask why it smelled like pesto.
Deino dumped the
remaining piña colada out of my coconut shell and filled it with a
generous measure of blood and guts. She shoved it under my nose and
beamed at me. “Birt’ Day!”
I managed not to gag.
“Why are they doing this?” I asked Marlowe, who was looking almost
as disgusted as I felt. Vamps don’t drink animal blood. It does
nothing for them and many find it actually repugnant.
“As a guess? They are
making an offering. In the ancient world, blood sacrifices were
common. If I were you, I’d be grateful they aren’t slicing up a
virgin on the table. Perhaps they couldn’t find one in
Vegas.”
“Ha, ha. What am I
supposed to do with—” That was as far as I got. If I hadn’t been so
grossed out, I’d have noticed earlier that zombie Elvis had stopped
singing halfway through a lackluster rendition of “All Shook Up”
and was now trying to climb down from the stage.
Marlowe was on his
feet. “We have to get rid of the bucket!”
I looked around at
the close-packed tables full of clueless tourists.
“How?”
Elvis scattered the
handful of security types who had rushed forward and lurched toward
our table. His eyes were no longer dull, but were filled with a
burning hunger as they zeroed in on the bloody bucket. Then one of
the guards with more muscle than sense grabbed him by the shoulder
and tried to whirl him around. All he succeeded in doing was
knocking the toupee the rest of the way off, revealing the top of
an exposed brain. I guessed the voodoo types Casanova kept on staff
had been a little overworked after the recent raid and had skimped
on the repair work. That probably hadn’t been a good business
decision.
The sight of a
gray-faced, slack-jawed zombie glowering from under a pulsing,
bloody brain pretty much tore it for the people at nearby tables.
Several of them let out screams, and they collectively knocked over
chairs and one another in the stampede to get away. Other
customers, who were too far back to get the full effect, began
clapping, assuming that this was part of the night’s entertainment.
I wondered whether they’d still think so after Elvis downed the
appetizer and started looking for a main course.
“Cassie!” Dimly, like
an echo of an echo, I heard Billy’s voice. I looked around but
couldn’t see him anywhere in the pandemonium.
Marlowe tugged me
backwards, but my equilibrium hadn’t returned and I lost my
footing. I clutched at the table, trying to steady myself, while
Elvis got a grip on the bucket’s handle. Deino screeched and
grabbed her offering, starting a furious tug of war. It slopped
blood all over the tabletop, which was only a circle of glass
perched on top of a grinning tiki head. Clots of coagulating blood
spattered Françoise’s beautiful dress and I instinctively grabbed a
napkin to wipe them off but was stopped by an angry
vampire.
“Forget that!”
Marlowe gave me a little shake. “We have to get out of
here!”
I gestured at the
flood of mages who’d started pouring in the door. Ours wasn’t the
only cavalry to have come charging over the hill. “How?” I
screamed.
“Can’t you
shift?”
The realization hit
me that there was no longer any reason not to use my power. Whether
I liked it or not, I was Pythia. I nodded, but before I could get
an image of the street outside the casino, I heard Billy’s voice
again, and he sounded desperate. “Billy! Get in here!”
“What is it?” Marlowe
demanded.
“Be quiet!” It was
hard enough to hear as it was, without him bellowing in my ear.
Billy had said something else, but I’d missed it. “Billy! I can’t
hear you!”
“Don’t shift! I’m
stuck.”
“He says he’s stuck,”
I told Marlowe, just as the blonde got loose from her keeper and
jogged over to be nearer her idol. A guard intercepted her, and in
her struggle to get away she knocked into me. I lost my footing and
went down just as a fireball from one of the mages sizzled
overhead, barely missing me and setting Marlowe’s doublet ablaze on
its way to destroy the tiki bar. He had the garment off faster than
I could blink, then looked around frantically for somewhere to
dispose of it safely. Magical fire burns like phosphorus, so the
options were kind of limited. He solved the problem by whipping it
back the way it had come, where it sizzled out against the mage’s
shields.
Marlowe didn’t appear
injured, but his fangs were out and his eyes were furious. “It’s
going to get very hot around here very soon, Cassie. I can’t think
of a better time to make our exit. The ghost can catch up with us
later.”
Billy must have
overheard, because he began babbling like crazy. I couldn’t make
out most of what he was saying, but I got the gist. “Billy says not
to shift.”
Marlowe looked
incredulous, but my expression must have warned him not to argue.
“Stay here. I’ll arrange something, ” he said abruptly before
vanishing in a blur of color.
I was left huddled
under the table to escape the stampeding crowd. Through the
transparent tabletop I could see that the female fan had finally
fought her way to her idol, a look of devotion on her features. I
could only assume that she was drunk or legally blind, because the
object of her affection was looking pretty damn scary. The glowing
eyes, pulsing brain and salivating mouth didn’t seem to register
with her, however, and she lunged for him just as Deino gave a
mighty heave and ripped the bucket away. The force of the movement
caused the contents to splash all over the woman, drenching her
from head to foot and leaving what looked like a piece of liver
wedged in her cleavage.
She screamed, which
was the worse possible reaction, because it got the zombie’s
attention. It ignored Deino, who was yelling in an unknown language
and repeatedly clouting it over the head with the empty bucket.
Instead, it dove for the gory girl.
Casanova was trying
to evacuate the lounge and direct the fight away from the remaining
norms. “Get the damn bocors in here!” I heard him bellow, just as
three security men threw themselves on Elvis. He went down on the
blood-slick floor barely a yard away from me, with the woman
underneath him. Wherever the voodoo workers who usually controlled
the acts were, it didn’t look like they’d be quick enough to
prevent her from becoming a midnight snack for the
King.
“Help her!” I
screamed at the Graeae. Enyo didn’t need to be told twice. In a
blink she switched from old-lady mode to her alter ego, covered in
her own blanket of blood. It’s supposed to contain remnants of
every enemy she’d ever slaughtered, and either the variety or sheer
amount got the zombie’s attention. He dragged himself to his feet,
despite having three security guards hanging off him. He didn’t let
go of the woman, but tucked her under his arm and stumbled after
his new prey.
At a frantic look
from me, Pemphredo snatched the girl and shoved her at Deino before
jumping on the zombie’s back. He gave a very nonmusical hiss when
she started digging in his open cranium, tossing out handfuls of
bloody brains. Enyo stayed just out of reach, leading the stumbling
creature on a zigzag course through the tables, while her sister
continued the impromptu lobotomy.
Marlowe appeared at
my elbow, hair wild and pantaloons scorched, but otherwise
unharmed. I grabbed his shirt with both hands. “Tell me you have a
plan!”
“There’s a trapdoor
under the stage, we just have to make sure none of the mages see us
go through it.”
I didn’t think that
would be an issue. The zombies were a little short on fighting
technique, but they made up for it in resilience. As Marlowe spoke,
a mage thrust his arm completely through our waiter’s abdomen, but
despite the fact that his fist came out the other side, it didn’t
even slow the zombie down. Elvis, on the other hand, had either
tired out or lost enough cognitive ability to forget what he’d been
doing, because he had simply stopped three or four tables away.
Enyo and Pemphredo abandoned him for the mages, leaving the newly
arrived security people to deal with the King.
Casanova ran over at
the head of the squad. “What are you two waiting for?” he screeched
in a very unsexy voice. “Go!”
“I’ll check out the
exit and make sure there are no surprises, ” Marlowe said, slipping
into the crowd. I started to follow when I was stopped in my tracks
by a very unwelcome sight. A livid-looking Pritkin was standing by
the smoldering remains of the bar, scanning the room. Marlowe’s
vermilion pantaloons must have caught his eye, because he zeroed in
on him and, a second later, on me.
Uh-oh.
Casanova followed the
direction of my gaze and said something a little stronger. He gave
me a panicked look. “Mircea ordered me to help you, but there are
limits! Locking the mage in an office while he recovered was one
thing, but I cannot inflict actual harm. Not even if I’m staked for
it!”
I stared at him.
“What are you talking about?” I didn’t get an answer because
several mages had crashed through the undead lineup and were headed
our way. He motioned for his security people, half of whom were
vampires, to intercept them and started to follow, but I grabbed
his arm. “When did you talk to Mircea?”
“He called a few
hours ago, after you pulled your little stunt at MAGIC. He asked if
I’d spoken to you and what we’d discussed. I told him.” He saw my
expression and his own grew even more irritable. “Did you really
expect me to lie? I may serve two masters, Cassie, but I try to do
it well.”
With that cryptic
remark, he was off, leaving me to handle Pritkin on my own. I
judged the distance to the stage and knew I wouldn’t make it. The
tables that weren’t on fire had overturned, and a few had begun to
liquefy under the barrage of spells, sending rivers of melted glass
everywhere. There was nothing else for it; Billy’s warning
notwithstanding, I was going to have to shift. I called for my
power, but it was sluggish. I wasn’t sure whether that had to do
with the portal scrambling my brains or the sight of Pritkin’s face
as he fought his way through the chaos. Either way, I was screwed
if I couldn’t concentrate better than this.
I felt a tap on my
shoulder and whirled around to find Deino looking pleased. Her
sisters were busy fighting war mages with unabashed glee, but she
had stuck to my side like a burr. She still had a grip on the
sobbing, half-crazed fan girl, whom she thrust at me. “Birt’ Day!”
she said happily, apparently pleased to have found a substitute for
her ruined gift. I shook my head violently. A human sacrifice
wasn’t on my wish list.
“You know why mummies
don’t take vacations?” a muffled voice asked from under Marlowe’s
napkin. “They’re afraid they’ll relax and unwind.”
The girl, who had
collapsed in a shaking heap, had the presence of mind to start
crawling off. Deino watched her gift scurry away with an
exasperated expression, and that momentary loss of concentration
was all Pritkin needed to jump her and send her crashing headlong
into the clump of speakers. For an instant he had a straight shot
at me but was too busy sending a fireball into the towering heads
to take it. They exploded in a hail of flaming wood and flying
mechanical parts that scattered across the stage, marring the
polished surface with ugly scorch marks. The flames turned the area
around the speakers into a leaping bonfire that quickly spread to
the nearby piano.
Before I could
scream, Deino’s grizzled head popped up over the burning mass. She
didn’t appear to be so much as singed, but she looked plenty
pissed. A second later, I got to see what the loopiest Graeae’s
special talent was. Deino didn’t change shape or make Pritkin shoot
himself as I’d half expected. She just turned those sightless eyes
on him and he stopped dead, as if he’d run into an invisible wall.
He dropped the gun he’d pulled, presumably for me, and stood gazing
blankly around the room. He didn’t appear to be harmed; it was as
if he simply didn’t know where, or even who, he was. The burning
piano top collapsed in a musical crash behind him, but he didn’t so
much as flinch.
Deino kicked the
blazing statues out of her way and crossed to me. A mage threw a
fireball at her from the closest segment of the fight, and she
turned it back on him with a rude gesture. She tapped Pritkin on
the shoulder and, when he turned around, she decked him. From this
close, I could see that those hollow folds of skin were not as
empty as I’d thought. They held a dark, roiling mist that in no way
looked like eyes, but somehow gave the impression of
sight.
“That must work
really well in battle,” I said, awed. It would be hard to throw a
spell when you couldn’t remember it, or even why you were fighting.
Deino preened. “Will it wear off?”
She shrugged
noncommittally, gave me a kiss on the cheek and mumbled “Birt’ Day”
in my ear before wandering off to join her sisters. The mages had
shredded the zombies, whose twitching body parts littered the
ground around the door, and were holding their own against the
vamps. But I had a feeling that was about to change.
I intended to follow
Marlowe’s example, but Pritkin suddenly came back to life. I looked
from his icy green eyes to the gun he’d retrieved. “There’s one
advantage to my blood,” he hissed. “Mind games don’t
work.”
I decided not to
bother trying to open a dialogue. I lashed out with my foot and
caught him square on the knee. It probably wouldn’t have done
anything but piss him off under normal circumstances, but the
surprise of it combined with the river of blood and slick entrails
on the floor to send him sprawling. He slid into the piled-up
tables, tumbling them like a bowling ball crashing into a bunch of
pins. Heavy glass tabletops tumbled down everywhere, some rolling
off to the side but a few landing on him.
The flaming orange
spells were flying thick and fast now, with the last one slamming
into the top of the stage, setting the overhanging canopy of silk
leaves ablaze. It was the last straw for the stage’s bamboo frame,
which collapsed like a giant game of pickup sticks. I avoided being
squashed only because I dove for cover under one of the last
remaining upright tables. I was afraid the glass top wouldn’t hold,
but none of the bigger columns hit it, and the others merely
rattled off.
When I looked back
up, Pritkin had disappeared. I thought I saw Françoise’s bright
green dress for an instant, near the main entrance, but then it was
lost to the black smoke boiling through the ruined nightclub. I did
catch sight of another familiar face, though. “Billy!”
The almost
transparent shape of a cowboy had appeared by the main doors. He
saw me at almost the same moment, and a look of profound relief
flooded his features. He zoomed straight at me. I was about to ask
him where he’d been, but he slipped inside my skin without so much
as a hello. All I got instead was some hysterical gibbering. Then I
got a glimpse of the main fight and forgot about him.
Casanova threw the
mage he’d been throttling into two others, then caught sight of me
and shouted. I couldn’t hear him over the din, but I didn’t really
need to—it was obvious what the problem was. The Graeae had left
the building.
I did a quick mental
survey and realized that, until a few minutes ago, Deino was the
only one who had not saved my life. Enyo had held off the mages at
Casanova’s, Pemphredo had helped me in the kitchen afterwards and
Deino had just made it a hat trick. They had paid their debt and
now I was on my own. Casanova was yelling something again, while
trying to hold off three mages at once. I still couldn’t hear him,
but I read the word on his lips easily enough. “Go!”
I nodded. The Graeae
were my responsibility, but they would have to wait their turn. I
wasn’t sure whether it was okay to shift yet or not, and I couldn’t
get a thing out of Billy. I started to crawl off but was stopped by
an iron grip on my foot. Pritkin was pulling his way out of the
tables with one hand and holding on to me with the other. Damn
it!
“Cassie!” I whipped
around at the familiar voice and saw Marlowe’s curly mop sticking
out from under the remains of the stage. I couldn’t imagine what he
was still doing here. There was fire everywhere, and vamps have
approximately the same flash point as lighter fluid. He gestured
for me to get out of the way and I flattened myself without asking
why. I glanced back in time to see Pritkin lifted off the ground by
an unseen hand and thrown across the mass of overturned tables,
close to the main fight. Marlowe beckoned for me to join him, but
there was no way. Bits of burning green silk were raining down all
around the stage, creating a minefield of magical fire. It was as
dangerous to me as regular fire was to a vamp; I couldn’t risk
it.
I looked around
quickly, but there were no other options. The fight going on behind
me put the main entrance out of the question, the back room was a
dead end and the side exit was a sheet of flame from where a
fireball had hit the hanging bamboo curtain, setting it and half
the wall ablaze. With no other choice, I did the only thing I could
and reached again for my power.
This time it came
readily, surging beneath my fingertips like someone had opened a
floodgate. Almost dizzy with relief, I tried to think of the best
place to go. Then Pritkin launched himself over the pile of tables,
hands outstretched, and I freaked and shifted with no destination
in mind. All I was thinking about was finding Myra. Wherever that
led had to be better than hanging around while Dante’s lived up to
its name.
There was no
bone-jarring landing this time—only a gradual darkening of the
fiery scene until it disappeared altogether, to be slowly replaced
by a very dark street. After a minute, my eyes adjusted enough to
make out a large building with a sign proclaiming it to be the
Lyceum Theatre. I didn’t know what time it was—the street was
deserted, but it could have been anywhere from midnight to close to
dawn.
“I thought you’d be
along,” Myra said from behind me. I whirled, my hand jerking up
automatically at the sound of that smug, childish voice. Two
daggers sailed straight at her, but she just stood there in the
middle of the street, unconcerned. A split second later I realized
why as my own weapons came sailing back at me. They didn’t wound
me, but they hit with enough force to knock me off my feet and send
me skidding back along the filthy street. Myra held up her hand. A
gleaming bracelet that looked a lot like my own dangled from her
thin wrist. Except, where mine had daggers, it had tiny
interlocking shields. “A gift from some new friends. To level the
playing field.”
I clambered to my
feet. “When have you ever believed in a level playing
field?”
She grinned. “Good
point.” Then her face changed as she got a good look at me. “So,
you managed to complete the ritual. Congratulations. Unfortunately,
your reign is destined to be the shortest in history.”
I got a good look at
her, too. For the first time, she was solid. It made sense,
considering that she’d been attacked last time in spirit form. It
didn’t make her eyes look any less creepy, I decided.
“Answer me one
thing,” I said wearily. “Why always London? Why 1889? It’s starting
to get tedious.”
“Convocation is being
held in London this year,” Myra answered, sweetly obliging. “That’s
the biannual meeting of the European Senate.”
“I know
that!”
“Oh, of course. I
keep forgetting, you grew up at a vampire’s court, didn’t you?
Well, then, maybe you already know this, too. The Senate usually
meets in Paris, but they’ve traveled to London this year to settle
an old score. They got the idea that the crimes being reported in
the newspapers as the work of Jack the Ripper were really being
done by Dracula. He escaped their version of an asylum shortly
before they began, so it seemed reasonable.”
“What does that have
to do with me, or Mircea?”
Myra looked entirely
too pleased with herself. “Everything. Mircea and that vampire the
North American Senate sent to help him—”
“Augusta.”
“Yes. They proved
that the crimes were the work of a human by capturing the man
calling himself Jack.”
“And Jack was
punished.” I’d seen part of that myself, firsthand.
“Yes, but it seems
that Jack went on his killing spree in an effort to impress
Dracula, hoping to win a spot in his new stable. So the Senate
blames Dracula for what happened.”
“And they want him
dead.”
“Finally, you’re
starting to get it!” Myra clapped her hands approvingly. “Mircea
managed to convince the European Consul to grant him a few days to
find and trap his brother before drastic measures were taken, but
not everyone agreed with that decision. It seems Dracula made a few
enemies through the years.”
I had a very bad
feeling that I’d heard this story before. And it didn’t end well
for Dracula. Some senators with long memories had lynched him one
foggy night in London. This night.
“They plan to kill
him.”
Myra laughed. “They
do kill him—it’s part of that timeline
you’re so concerned with protecting, Cassie. Only this time, with a
little help from me, Mircea found him before they did. And
something tells me they aren’t going to hesitate to take your
vampire out as well, if he gets between them and their
revenge.”
And he would. Mircea
had spent years arranging for me to become Pythia in order to save
one brother. I couldn’t see him standing aside while another was
murdered.
“It’s simple enough,
Cassie,” Myra said brightly. “You want the position? Not a problem.
Just be better than me.”
She flashed out, and
at the same moment, I was tackled from behind. I hit the road
again, this time face-first. That wasn’t the reason I yelled,
though. The geis was definitely still
there, and it hadn’t changed its mind about John Pritkin. Based on
the spike of pain that jumped from my body to his, I was betting
the geis had confused anger for
passion. The mage was too macho to scream like a little girl, but
he let me go fast enough.
I turned to find him
lying on the sidewalk, looking dazed. He made no attempt to
immediately come after me, but I didn’t take much heart from the
fact. He was probably just waiting to recover. He must have been
near enough when I shifted to piggyback along for the ride.
Great.
“I won’t let you do
it,” he gasped. “No matter what the price!”
I was suddenly
grateful for the geis, because he
looked truly homicidal. But just because he couldn’t touch me,
didn’t mean I was safe. He could still shoot me and not feel a
thing. I decided to get out of there before that occurred to him,
too.
I smashed one of the
theatre’s windows and wiggled inside, gaining a new respect for
burglars on the way. I cut my hand, tore my dress and almost threw
my shoulder out of joint, but I managed it before Pritkin could
come after me. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage it
quietly.
“What do we have
here?” Augusta’s voice sounded in my ear a second before I was
jerked off my feet and slammed against the wall. A tiny,
blue-veined hand held me there effortlessly. She settled her blue
woolen skirts into perfect folds with a few flicks of her wrist.
They had an elaborate design in black braid around the bottom,
which matched the frog closures and jet brooch on the front of the
gown.
“Nice dress,” I
croaked.
“Thanks. Yours, too.”
She looked me over. “It is Fey, but you”—she squeezed a little and
my vision started to darken—“you are not.”
I didn’t spend a lot
of time debating options. Augusta could snap my neck with less
effort than I would use to break a twig. I couldn’t fight her, but
I could use her. Pritkin would be far less of a problem with
Augusta’s strength on my side.
I didn’t like
possessions; they weirded me out and left me feeling faintly dirty.
That wasn’t surprising since they were, no matter how I might
justify them, a violation. I had planned to avoid them in the
future if at all possible, but not at the cost of my life. The only
question was, could I do it?
I’d possessed a dark
mage once, although I’d been shoved out of his body within a couple
of minutes. And that was with Billy Joe to help me. I’d never
brought Billy along on a shift before, but had foolishly hoped he
might be a useful ally. He wasn’t sounding real useful at the
moment, however. He was still a gibbering wreck, and I couldn’t
even get his attention, much less ask for help.
But if Myra could do
it, damn it, so could I.
Luckily, Augusta’s
knowledge of warding was amateurish: if she could ward with more
than one element, I never saw any sign of it. Her shields looked
impressive—towering slabs of steel riveted together like the side
of a battleship—but a closer examination showed spots so weak with
rust that they were almost transparent. That’s what you get for not
maintaining your shields with a little daily meditation. If
Augusta’s protection had been as strong as it looked, she might
have been able to expel me before I could take over. As it was, my
fire burned a hole through her metal with surprising
ease.
Everything was
suddenly brighter, sharper, and closer than before, and I found
myself staring into my own frightened eyes. I put a hand over my
mouth before Billy Joe could make a racket, but that seemed the
wrong thing to do because he went berserk. I finally bit the bullet
and slapped myself across the face. I tried to do it gently, but I
think I miscalculated because Billy’s eyes rolled up and for a
second I thought he was going to pass out. “It’s me,” I
hissed.
He slowly nodded.
After a moment, he got his borrowed lips to work. “I need a drink,”
he told me in a shaky undertone. “I need a whole freaking
brewery.”
“Are you okay?” He
didn’t look it. My face was pasty white and my mouth was trembling.
“If you’re going to be sick, tell me now.”
Billy laughed, and
there was a disturbing hysterical note in it. “Sick? Yeah, I guess
you could say I was sick. Ghost, human, ghost, human; hey, it’s all
good.”
I stared at him in
concern. “I don’t understand—”
“What’s there to
understand? I just died, that’s
all!”
“Billy,” I said
slowly, “you died a long time ago.”
“I died a long time
ago,” Billy repeated, mockingly. “I died today, Cass, in case you missed it! An encore
performance, courtesy of Faerie! Oh, God.”
His face crumpled and
he sank to the floor, shaking. I hugged him, finally realizing why
Billy was freaking out. When he went through the portal, his new
body had been ripped away. I’d known that would probably happen but
hadn’t thought about the ramifications. He possessed people all the
time, including me, and it had never seemed to bother him when he
had to leave. But I guess it was different with his own body. He
hadn’t been possessed; he’d been alive. And when he went through
the portal, he had, in fact, died all over again. I hugged him
harder, forgetting whose strength I had now, but let go when he
gave a bleat of protest.
“I almost didn’t come
back this time, Cass,” he said weakly. “It’s not automatic, you
know.”
“What
isn’t?”
“Becoming a ghost.
Nobody keeps stats, or if they do, they’re not telling me, but it’s
pretty damn rare! And I almost . . . I got lost . . . I wasn’t
here, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t see anything. All I could feel
was a pull, trying to wash me away, and the only thing holding me
was the sound of your voice. And then you started talking about
leaving, and then I found out—” He broke off with a strangled
gasp.
“Billy . . . I’m
sorry.” It seemed really inadequate, but what do you say to someone
who has just died for the second time? Even Eugenie’s upbringing
fell short.
He grabbed hold of
me, and I hadn’t known my arms were that strong. “Never. Leave.
Again.”
I nodded, but
inwardly I was having a crisis only slightly less intense than
Billy Joe’s. I couldn’t let go of Augusta unless I wanted a very
pissed-off master vampire gunning for me, but I couldn’t babysit a
traumatized Billy all night while Myra ran loose. Something had to
give.
I started to get up,
hauling Billy with me, when someone grabbed me by the hair and put
a knife to my throat. It really annoyed me. Augusta’s ears could
pick up the sound of rats scurrying in the theatre walls, the fact
that its roof had a leak and the argument a cabbie was having
several streets over with a drunken customer. So why hadn’t I heard
anyone sneaking up on me?
“Try anything, and I
kill you,” Pritkin said. I rolled my eyes. Of course.
“What do they teach
you in mage school?” I demanded. “To kill a master vamp, you’d need
to stake her—with wood, not metal—hack her head completely off,
reduce the body to ashes and sprinkle them over a stream of moving
water. Cutting her throat would only piss her off.”
Pritkin ignored me.
“You will have to find somewhere else to feed tonight. The girl
goes with me.”
“What
girl?”
Billy was sitting
with his back to the ticket booth, knees drawn up, red dress so big
that it almost swallowed him. He looked up at me and his mouth gave
a slight quirk. “He means me, Cass.”
Then I understood. “I
don’t know if the geis works when I’m
in this form or not,” I told Pritkin. “But I’d rather you let go
before we find out the hard way.”
He released me so
fast I stumbled. “I won’t let you do it,” he said, leveling a
shotgun at me.
“That won’t kill me,
either,” I informed him before snatching the gun away and breaking
it in two. “But it would leave a nasty hole.” Pritkin frowned at
his ruined weapon, and I could almost see him reassessing matters.
I decided to help him out. “Look, I’m Pythia now, whether either of
us likes it or not. And FYI, whatever my faults, at least I’m sane.
Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for your precious
Myra.”
Pritkin seemed
confused, and I had to hand it to him—it looked real. “What are you
talking about?”
I couldn’t believe he
was trying that. “You want her as Pythia. I’ve known about your
agenda all along, so you can drop the incredulous
look.”
“I would prefer to
see neither of you in the position. Lady Phemonoe must have been
senile to have anything to do with either of you!”
“So Marlowe was
right! You are working with the Circle!
” All that stuff at Dante’s had been a blind after all. I shook my
head at him, half in disbelief, half in admiration. “You know, it
takes a real lunatic to risk bleeding to death just so I’d believe
you.”
Pritkin ran his hands
through his hair with the air of a man trying not to wrap them
around my neck. “I am not working with the Circle,” he said slowly,
as if talking to a four-year-old. “And I have only one agenda, as
you call it.”
I eyed him
suspiciously. “And that would be?”
“That whoever holds
the position be someone with intelligence, ability and experience!”
he replied savagely. “Myra is obviously mad and, based upon what I
saw in Faerie, I have my doubts about you!”
“And exactly what is
it you think you saw?”
He frowned. “You made
a deal with the Fey king to retrieve the Codex.”
“So what? You said it
yourself: most of the counterspells have already been
discovered.”
“But not all of
them.”
“What, there’s some
mystery spell you don’t want found?” All I got was stony silence. I
sighed. “Let me guess. You aren’t going to tell me.”
“You don’t need to
know. You will not give that book to the king. We will find another
way to get to your vampire.”
“Yeah, because we did
so great last time.” Our brief visit had made one thing very clear:
I’d never survive the beautiful hell known as Faerie long enough to
find Tony without Fey help. And there was only one way to get it. I
decided to try to reason with the lunatic, as the only alternative
was force—something that scared me with Augusta’s strength. “Don’t
you think that trying to kill me to keep me away from a book was a
bit extreme?”
Pritkin looked
disgusted. “If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead,” he said
flatly. “I simply want to talk sense into you. That book is
dangerous. It must not be found!”
“It will be found—I don’t have another choice.”
Pritkin’s eyes, usually a pale, icy green, went almost emerald in
fury. “But if you help me,” I hastened to add, “I’ll let you have
first crack at it. You can take out whatever you feel is so
dangerous, give me the counterspell for the geis and then we turn the rest over to the
king.”
He looked at me as if
I were speaking Martian. “Do you not realize what you did? You gave
the Fey your word—they will hold you to it.”
“I said I’d give them
the book. I didn’t make any promises about the
contents.”
“And you think that
specious argument will hold up?”
“Yeah.” I really
wondered what world Pritkin had been living in, because it sure
wasn’t the supernatural one. “Anything not specifically spelled out
in a contract is open to interpretation. If the king didn’t want me
gutting the book, he should have said so.”
Pritkin looked at me
for a long minute. “One of the functions of the war mages is to
protect the Pythia at all costs,” he finally said. “Mac believed in
you, or he wouldn’t have died for you. But you were brought up by a
vampire, by a creature with no moral compass at all, and have
received no training. Why should I fight for you? What kind of
Pythia will you be?”
It was the big
question, the same one I’d been asking myself. I’d taken the power
hoping to break the geis, or at least
give me an edge over Myra. So far, it had done neither. The truth
was, I didn’t know what kind of Pythia I’d be. But I did know one
thing without any doubt at all. “A better one than
Myra.”
“So I am being given
the choice of the lesser of two evils? You do not make much of a
case for yourself.”
“Maybe I’m not trying
too hard,” I said truthfully. I needed Pritkin. I knew next to
nothing about magic on the grand scale, and had no idea where to
even start looking for the book. But I didn’t think I could stand
another Mac on my conscience. “If you’re smart, you’ll lay low
until this is over. Let me fight my own battles. You might get
lucky and Myra and I will kill each other off.”
“And why should I not
kill both of you myself, and hope the next in line will be
better?”
Billy’s eyes got big,
and I realized that while I was relatively safe in Augusta’s body,
he was still vulnerable in mine. I stepped in front of him. “There
is no next in line,” I told Pritkin flatly. “If there were another
contender who could do a decent job, I’d have given her the damn
power already! But the initiates are all under the control of your
Circle, who I don’t trust any more than the Black. I’m not going to
hand world-shattering power to someone who can be manipulated,
controlled or corrupted!”
Pritkin regarded me
narrowly. “You expect me to believe you would give up the power,
just like that, if there was a fit receptacle to receive it? You
dragged us into Faerie to complete the ritual. Of course you want
it.”
“I didn’t drag you
anywhere! You volunteered to
go.”
“To find the
rogue!”
I took a deep breath.
Augusta didn’t need it, but I did. “I went into Faerie to get Myra
before she could get me. Picking up Tomas was a fluke, and
completing the ritual was a bid to stay alive.”
“You told Mac you
went after your father.”
“I did. Tony has him,
or what’s left of him, and I want him back. But the main goal was
always Myra. I had reason to believe that she was with Tony.” It
had seemed like killing two birds with one stone, but I should have
known better. When was my life ever that simple? “But now she’s
here, trying to kill Mircea. If she succeeds, he won’t be around to
protect me while I grow up, and I doubt I’ll make it long enough to
be a pain in your side, or anyone else’s. If you want to get rid of
me, here’s your big chance.”
“Why are you telling
me this? I could help Myra destroy you, and your
vampire.”
“I know.” And,
frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me. I was gambling a lot on Mac’s
faith in his buddy, a faith that could very well have been
misplaced. But then, is it a gamble if you don’t have a choice? I
had Myra and half the European Senate against me. And the only one
on my side was a very stressed-out ghost in an all-too-vulnerable
body. What was one more enemy?
Pritkin was giving me
another of his patented glares. “What do you think you can do
alone, against Myra and the Senate?”
So he had overheard
my little chat with Myra. I shrugged. “Possibly nothing. In which
case, your problem is solved.” I looked down at Billy. “Will you be
all right on your own for a while?”
He shrugged. “Sure.
Hell, if I die a few more times, I might even get used to
it.”
“I am going with
you,” Pritkin announced.
“So you’re what?
Opting for the lesser of two evils, after all?”
“For the
moment.”
It wasn’t exactly a
ringing endorsement, but it was good enough. “You’re
hired.”