by Karen Chance
“What?”
“The mage who enchanted your gown,” it explained, in a tone that made it clear that the biggest trial in the afterlife was dealing with people like me.
“He isn’t…available right now.” Which was true enough, since he hadn’t been born yet.
“Trying to keep the secret all to yourself, eh? Mistress won’t like that,” it said gleefully.
Mircea and Ming-de had been chatting while I talked with the help. I hadn’t even tried to follow their conversation, which was in Mandarin, but I did recognize the phrase “Codex Merlini.” And even if not, Mircea’s suddenly tightened grip would have gotten my attention.
“We’re here for the Codex?” he whispered.
I looked at him, wondering what all the fuss was about. “Yes. I told you—”
“You said a spell book!” Mircea started bowing and murmuring a rapid stream of Chinese and pulling me away from Ming-de.
“That’s what it is!”
“Dulceata?, describing the Codex Merlini as a spell book is roughly the same as calling the Titanic a boat!”
I didn’t get what was going on, but I couldn’t help but notice that we were heading straight for the door. “Wait! Where are we going?”
“Away from here.”
I pulled backwards—why, I don’t know since it did exactly no good at all. “But the bidding is about to start!”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered, just as all the lights went out.
The room hadn’t had much light before, only a few random candles, but now it was pitch-dark. I felt an arm slip around my waist and yelped, before recognizing the thrill of the geis. People were murmuring and milling around on all sides as Mircea made a beeline through the crowd, practically carrying me.
I didn’t understand what was wrong with him; no one seemed happy about the sudden blackout, but nothing threatening appeared to be taking place, either. By the time we reached the stairwell, my eyes had adjusted enough to see by the light my gown threw off. The room was all starlight and shadow and appeared just as before. Until a bunch of dark shapes crashed in through the windows.
Mircea pulled me into his arms and all but flew to the foyer, where we met another half dozen dark shapes coming up. My eyes couldn’t focus on them, but I didn’t think that had anything to do with the lack of light. And then we were back upstairs, in about the same time it would have taken me to shift. Mircea paused at the library landing to avoid the mage who stumbled backwards out the door, Ming-de’s flying fans buzzing around his head like angry wasps. One of them hit a candle sconce in passing and sliced it clean in two.
I glanced in the library door and saw nothing but a firestorm of spells, crashes and yells, all of it too bright to let my eyes pick out any details. Then Mircea grabbed a mage who was blocking the stairwell going up, and threw him downstairs. He hit the group of dark shapes who were all trying to fit up the narrow stairway at the same time, and most of them tumbled backwards. The fans followed like they were on a mission.
By the time I blinked, we were on the next level, where a mage was facing off with the contessa. Her pretty mantilla had expanded into a glittering net that wrapped around him like a spider’s web. Right before we took the last flight of stairs, she jerked him to her, fangs already bared and glistening.
Someone grabbed my foot as we reached the attic level, but Mircea made a backwards kick and I heard the sound of whoever it was tumbling down the stairs. He wrenched open the door to what looked like a servant’s bedroom, got a window open and had us out onto the slick, icy sill before I could protest. Then he paused, staring down at the main entrance below, where several dozen dark figures were heading in the front door. They must have run out of windows to break, I thought blankly.
“Can you do what you did at the casino?” Mircea asked, his voice a lot calmer than it had any right to be under the circumstances.
“What? No, not yet.” The dizziness and nausea of that many shifts in close succession had mostly passed, but I still felt wiped out. I doubted I could have shifted myself, much less two of us.
Mircea didn’t ask any questions, just moved me into a fireman’s carry over his right shoulder. Which left me able to see the cloaked figure who burst into the room behind us. It was the hooded party guest. Still didn’t want to see what was under there, I decided.
“I am going to have to jump, dulceata?,” Mircea said, giving the newcomer an uninterested glance.
“Jump? What?” I was sure I’d heard wrong.
The cloak sent a spell hurtling down the stairwell, then barred the door by shoving a heavy wardrobe against it. “If you’re going to jump, do it, or get out of the way!” it snarled.
And that’s when I began to wonder when I’d gotten tipped down the rabbit hole. Stress, I thought vaguely. That has to be it. “I am waiting for the rest of the mages to enter in order to plant the bomb,” Mircea replied tersely.
“What bomb?” The cloaked figure and I said it at the same time.
“The one the war mages of the Paris coven are setting to destroy this house and, they hope, the Codex along with it.”
No wonder he’d freaked out down there, or what passed for it for him. He must have heard about this evening somewhere. And if it was interesting enough for people to tell stories about, I really didn’t want to hang around. But I couldn’t leave. Not when we were so damn close!
“Why destroy it?” I asked. “Don’t they want it for themselves?”
“Yes, which is why they’re currently searching. But if they don’t find it, they will destroy this house and everything in it, rather than let it fall into the hands of the dark.”
“The Codex isn’t here,” the cloak said, muscling its way out the window. Now there were three of us perched on the icy roof. “The coven is going to kill dozens of people needlessly!”
“I doubt that,” Mircea said, nodding to where a fight had started in front of the house between the mages and the party guests, most of whom seemed to have gotten out of the death trap of a library just fine.
I flinched back as Parindra zipped past, so fast that the breeze ruffled my hair; it looked like he’d found another use for his carpet. He tossed something onto the crowd of mages below that exploded in a yellow haze that ate through their shields like acid and set a lot of them ablaze. It also caused the back of the barge to catch fire, which spooked the elephant.
The beast let out an unhappy bellow and went on a rampage, picking up a mage with its trunk and tossing him against a nearby house, which he hit with a sickening crunch. The attack scattered the rest of the mages, who went running in all directions to avoid being crushed by the elephant or by the heavy howdah, which had slipped halfway off its back and was getting slung around like a jewel-encrusted battering ram.
“That should do it,” Mircea said.
“Wait. What are you talking about? Do what?” I asked, and felt his muscles tense beneath me. The commotion had left the area directly below us momentarily free of mages, I realized, and Mircea intended to take advantage of it. “Oh, no. No, no. See, I’m starting to develop a problem with heights and—”
“Hold on,” he said, and we were airborne.
I didn’t even have time to scream. I felt a rush of cold wind, a brief weightless feeling, and then we smashed into the deck of the ship. Mircea took the brunt of the fall, but it tore me out of his arms and sent me careening into the cloak, which had apparently jumped right along with us. It didn’t feel like a vamp under there—no faint tingle was running up my spine—but how the hell had a human managed that jump and lived?
I didn’t have time to find out, because a spell hit the barge, making it shudder and buck beneath us, sending both of us reeling into the railing, right beside where a mage was trying to climb on board. A guy dressed like Ming-de’s attendants ran over and started stabbing at him with a spear, but the mage had managed to retain his shields, and all it did was piss him off. He came over the side, and he and the guard w
ent down in a tangle of limbs, before rolling straight into me and the cloak. I got a foot to the stomach, which knocked the wind out of me, but the cloak fared worse, its head slamming hard into the heavy wooden railing of the barge.
Mircea had gotten back to his feet and staggered over to the rail. He barely pulled back before a spell sizzled past, exploding against the stone facade of the house behind us. It was hardly the only one. Spells were being flung around everywhere, making the dark sky look almost as light as day, if daylight came in every color of the rainbow.
“I will never get you through this alive, not without a shield,” he said grimly. “And I am too drained at present to provide one. I will have to improvise.” He had a brief conversation with the remaining Chinese vamp. “Zihao will protect you. Do not leave the ship,” he added, right before jumping over the side.
“Mircea!” I peered over the edge of the barge, but the whole street was a working anthill of activity, and I couldn’t see him. I did see someone else, though.
The contessa had apparently finished her meal and come for dessert, and I didn’t have to ask who she’d slated to fill that role. Damn it! I knew something like this was going to happen.
She vaulted up on deck and said something in Spanish, which I didn’t understand, and smiled viciously, which I did. I tried to get to my feet, but the train Augustine had added to the dress got in the way, wrapping around my ankles like a rope. She started laughing while I tugged at the silky material, which just plain refused to rip or to let go. Then she leaned over and freed my feet with a flick of her wrist.
“If you want heem, fight for heem, but on your feet, witch,” she told me, as Zihao managed to find something else to do at the far end of the ship. Apparently defending my life did not include getting disemboweled by a jealous Senate member. I honestly couldn’t blame him there.
I scrambled up and smiled tentatively. “That was very, uh, decent, of you,” I said hopefully. Maybe we could work this out.
That glittering silver net rose up behind her head like a frame for her beautiful face. “Not really.” She smiled. “I prefer to dine standing.”
Or maybe not.
The lacy trap launched itself at me, like it had the mage who I was certain hadn’t made it out of the house. But it stopped halfway between us, caught in a field of stars that had suddenly swirled up all around me, like a galaxy in miniature. For a few seconds, the mantilla hung in the air, immovable object meeting irresistible force. Then everything exploded outward like a star going nova.
I flung an arm over my eyes to shut out the glare, and when I looked again, the contessa was just standing there, as if nothing had happened. I didn’t think that was the case, though. Because I could see pieces of the battle behind her, through the hundreds of little holes the starlight had carved right through her body. And then she fell, toppling off the side of the barge into the road below.
I stood there, staring down at her crumpled body, shocked and more than a little freaked. I was alive, but possibly not for long. Because a master vampire wouldn’t be killed by something like that. Hurt, maddened, enraged, yes; killed, no. She could get up any second and, as soon as she did, I was toast. I really needed to get off this barge.
Zihao came by while I was trying to see an opening somewhere, anywhere, in the melee. He’d lost the spear, but had improvised a new weapon out of a large oar, which he started to ram through the cape’s head. “Wait!” I sank to my knees, which were pretty wobbly anyway, and spread out my hands. The stars had gone back to their usual places and they didn’t appear to be rotating anymore. But the guard paused anyway.
He said something that, once again, I didn’t understand. I was starting to envy Ming-de her translation device, however temperamental. He finally seemed to realize that we had a failure to communicate. He jerked a thumb between the cloak and me, as if to ask if we were together, and I nodded vigorously. It wasn’t true, but whoever was under there wasn’t with the other side, either, and I’d seen enough blood for one evening.
That seemed to satisfy the guard, who ambled off to attack someone else. I turned my attention to the cloak, and wondered if I’d wasted my time defending a corpse. Because the man underneath lay motionless, one pale arm outflung, the hood still obscuring his face. He didn’t even look like he was breathing, although there was so much loose material that it was hard to tell. But the arm was warm and it looked human enough, so I tugged back the hood to check for injuries.
And stopped dead.
I could hear the madness going on all around me, the elephant rampaging, glass breaking, people swearing. But none of it seemed as real as the face in the middle of all that black, cast in a myriad of colors by flying spells. A very familiar face.
No. I must have been hit in the head and had just failed to notice, because I had to be hallucinating. I blinked hard a couple of times, but it didn’t help: the face stubbornly stayed the same. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and sat like that for a minute, not hyperventilating because that would be weak and I couldn’t afford that, but maybe breathing a little hard. By the time I let my hands fall to my lap again, I’d managed to get a grip. A bit of a grip. Sort of.
I stared down at the face and, okay, maybe started hyperventilating just a little as my brain tried to twist around the crazy, stupid, completely impossible thing my eyes insisted on showing me. But they were wrong—they had to be—because that couldn’t be Pritkin. I’d left him at Dante’s, under the happy belief that I was turning in early. And unless he’d found a time machine somewhere, he was still there. But it wasn’t Rosier, either. Because although I knew for a fact that the demon lord could bleed, I doubted he’d have been knocked unconscious by a minor head wound.
He did look a little different, I thought numbly, with longish red-gold hair falling in his eyes, brushing his shoulders. He looked younger, his face a bit thinner, making his nose look even larger than usual and throwing his cheekbones into stark relief. His lips, always thin anyway, were a fine slash across his jaw.
But I guess he’d have needed some kind of disguise. Couldn’t just look the same, lifetime after lifetime; someone was bound to notice. Maybe that’s why he knew so little about vampires. Wouldn’t be smart to hang around with creatures as old as you, who might remember a face from a few hundred years ago, no matter what disguise it wore. And Pritkin had never been stupid.
No. Not Pritkin, I corrected myself. I heard the voice of a cranky djinn in my head, telling me that the author of the Codex had been half incubus. And Casanova had said that in all history there had been only one of those.
I stared at the face under the ridiculous pageboy—God, he’d never had a decent haircut, had he?—and didn’t believe it. But the fact remained, I only knew of one half-incubus, British mage with a serious hard-on for the Codex who was around in 1793. And Pritkin wasn’t his name.
Damn it! I’d even said it once myself—he just didn’t look like a John. But, suddenly, he did look an awful lot like a Merlin.
Chapter 21
The eyelids fluttered and the next moment I was speared by a familiar green gaze. I did my best to look concerned and nonthreatening—which wasn’t hard when I was almost sitting on my gun and I was a slower draw than Pritkin anyway. I hadn’t had time to check for weapons, but with him that was kind of superfluous. He was always armed to the teeth.
The green eyes flickered over me in the same objective threat assessment that I remembered from every time we’d encountered an enemy. It had been a while since I was on the receiving end, but I remembered it vividly. Despite the cold, I was sweating in less than ten seconds.
Pritkin uncoiled himself, eyes tracking my every breath as he slowly sat up, dizzy but hiding it well enough that if I hadn’t known him, I would’ve missed it. “And to think, I believed the vampire to be the greater threat,” he said, glancing quickly over the rail and back again.
“I’m not a threat,” I told him, still feeling numb. Other than the hair, he l
ooked…the same. Just the same. I kept expecting him to demand coffee and tell me off for something.
“You wear well the mask of the distressed innocent,” he said, watching me with ice-water eyes as he got to his feet. “But unlike the vampire, I will not underestimate you.”
“I mean, I’m no threat to you,” I clarified. “We’re on the same side.”
“A paltry subterfuge,” he sneered. “I know what you seek, whom you serve. It is because of fools like you that we are all tottering on the brink of destruction!”
He took a step back until his thigh hit the railing, then swung a leg over. I had no idea where he thought he was going in all that, but knowing him, he’d risk it. And I couldn’t allow that. If anyone here was likely to know where the Codex was, it was the man who wrote it.
“Please!” I said desperately. “I don’t serve anyone! We can work together, help each other—”
“If you are not in service to that revengeful soul, then you have been deluded by those who have entered into his destructive projects. If the latter, know this: I know not what lies you have been told, but we have no safety but in resistance, no hope of securing our rights and lives but in opposing the power which has unquestionably the design to invade and subvert us!”
I was still trying to decode that when I saw a nightmare rise from the ground behind him. The contessa’s body looked oddly like Swiss cheese, with bloody holes in the remains of her black gown, but strands of red flesh and purple veins had already started to weave between the gaps, filling them in. And I knew the score as well as anyone: if a vampire can move, she is deadly, and this one was back on her feet. One of the holes had taken out an eye, leaving a burnt crater in what had been a beautiful face, but the other focused on me malevolently.
I was so dead.
My dress remained motionless—still pretty, but useless as far as defense went. I started fumbling in my bag, scattering jewels across the burning deck while trying to find the gun that probably wouldn’t help me anyway. Then I heard a strange whooshing sound and looked up to see a column of flame where the contessa had been and an empty potion vial in Pritkin’s hand.