Touch the Dark

by Karen Chance

  Chapter 3

  I woke tired, aching and seriously freaked out. My mood wasn’t improved by the fact that Tomas was looming over me so that his blank, upside-down face was the first thing I saw. “Get away from me!” I croaked as I struggled into a sitting position. I had to wait a few minutes for the room to stop moving, and when it did, I was less than thrilled with what I saw. Great. I’d been dumped in Hell’s waiting room. The small chamber was carved out of red sandstone and lit by only a couple of scary-looking wall sconces. They were made out of what appeared to be interlocking knives and held actual, evil-smelling torches. That told me right away that I was somewhere with a lot of powerful wards, which would have interfered with electricity. Not good.

  The place would have been perfect as a torture chamber, except that instead of iron maidens and thumbscrews, it was furnished only with the very uncomfortable black leather sofa where I was lying and a small side table with a few magazines. One was a copy of the Oracle, the equivalent of Newsweek for the magical world, but like most waiting-room reading matter, it was several months out of date. I’d dropped by a certain coffeehouse in Atlanta on a weekly basis to read it, in case anything happened in my other world that might affect my new life. I doubted that the cover story for this edition, on the effect of cheap Asian imports on the magical medicines market, fell into that category, however, and the other was just a scandal sheet. PYTHIA’S HEIR MISSING! the three-inch title on this week’s Crystal Gazing screamed. TIME OUT OF WHACK! I rolled my eyes but stopped because it hurt. Guess the MARTIANS KIDNAP WITCHES story they’d been leading with had sort of run dry.

  “Mia stella, the Senate assigned Tomas as your bodyguard; he cannot leave you,” a familiar voice reproached gently from beside the door. “Do not make things difficult.”

  “I’m not.” After what I’d been through, I thought I was being reason personified. I felt seriously nauseous, so tired that I swayed when I forced myself to stand, and my eyes burned like I’d already had the good, hard cry I wanted. But I wasn’t budging. “I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

  I ignored Tomas and an unfamiliar guy wearing seventeenth-century court clothes and concentrated on the only friend I had in the room. I had no idea what Rafe was doing here. Not that I wasn’t glad to have him—I could use all the friends I could get—but I didn’t know where he fit in. Rafe was short for Raphael, the toast of Rome and the favorite artist of the papacy until he’d made the mistake of turning down a commission from a wealthy Florentine merchant in 1520. Tony had been trying to compete artistically with the Medicis: they had Michelangelo, so he needed Raphael. Rafe told him he already had more commissions than he could handle, and that, anyway, he painted frescoes for the pope. He wasn’t about to travel all the way to Florence merely to paint a dining room. It hadn’t been a good move. Ever since, Rafe had been painting whatever Tony wanted, including my bedroom when I was a child. He’d made my ceiling full of angels that looked so real, for years I thought they watched over me while I slept. He was one of the only people at Tony’s whom I had ever regretted leaving, but I had snuck away without so much as a good-bye. I had no other choice: he belonged to Tony and, if asked a direct question by his master, had to tell him the truth. So if he was here now, it was because Tony wanted him here. It lessened my joy at the reunion somewhat.

  Tomas said nothing, but he also didn’t leave. I glared at him, but it didn’t have any obvious effect. That was a problem since I needed to escape, and the more babysitters the bigger the challenge. There was also the fact that even looking at him made so many emotions surge through me that I was getting a headache. It wasn’t the violence that bothered me so much. I’d seen enough growing up that I could shrug off the events at the club now that I was over the shock that Tomas was the one doing them. That I was no longer kneeling in a pool of blood helped, as did the fact that the vamps he’d killed had been trying to do the same to me. My attitude could be summed up pretty simply: I was alive, they were not, go me. Surviving at Tony’s taught you to be practical about these things.

  I also gave Tomas credit for saving my life, although I’d probably be far away from harm by now if I hadn’t gone to warn him in the first place. I was even willing to overlook him carting me off without a word of explanation, considering that I hadn’t been in any frame of mind for a calm discussion. All in all, I figured we were about even, except for the betrayal part. That was something else. That I wasn’t likely to forgive anytime soon, if at all.

  I had shared glimpses into my time on the streets with Tomas, things I never talked about with anyone, to encourage him to open up. I’d worried that he wasn’t making friends despite all the attention at the club, and wondered if he had some of the same relationship phobias I did. I’d let myself get fond of him, damn it, and all the time, everything he’d told me had been a lie. Not to mention the fact that he’d deliberately stolen my will, causing me to make enough of a fool of myself that I was still fighting a blush. That sort of thing is considered serious stuff in vamp circles; had I been on Tony’s good side, he would have pitched a fit about undue influence being exerted over his servant.

  “Let me talk to her,” Tomas told Rafe. Before I could protest, the others left the room to give us the illusion of privacy. It was all for show; with vamp hearing it didn’t make any difference.

  I didn’t bother lowering my voice. “Let me make this simple,” I said furiously. “You lied to me and you betrayed me. I don’t want to see you, talk to you or even breathe the same air as you. Ever again. Got it?”

  “Cassie, you must understand; I only did what I was forced to—”

  I noticed that he had something in his hand. “And what are you doing with my purse?!” I should have known he’d go through it—Tony couldn’t know what surprises I might have tucked away—but because it was Tomas, it felt like another betrayal. “Did you take anything?”

  “No; it is as you left it. But Cassie—”

  “Give it back!” I grabbed for it and almost fell down. “You had no right—”

  “Tower! Tower! Tower!” My tarot deck fell onto the floor and appeared to be having a conniption. I felt tears in my eyes. It was just a stupid deck of cards, but it was the only thing I had that Eugenie had given me.

  “You broke it!”

  I scrambled to pick up the scattered cards, and Tomas knelt beside me. “It’s the wards here,” he said quietly. “There are too many—they interfere with the charm. It should be all right after we leave, or I can have it recast for you. It’s a simple spell.”

  I slapped his hand away from my poor, confused cards. I knew how they felt. “Don’t touch them!” I put them back clumsily, with shaking hands, while he sat back on his heels and watched me.

  “I’m sorry, Cassie,” he finally said. “I knew you would be upset—”

  “Upset?!” I rounded on him, so angry I could hardly see. “You let me think you were some poor, abused kid who needed a friend, and stupid me, I fell for it! I trusted you, and you gave me up to—” I stopped and took a deep breath before I lost it. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of watching me cry. I wasn’t. I shoved the cards back in my purse and checked on the rest of its contents to give myself time to get back in control. After a minute, I looked up. “Not everything that’s broken can be fixed, Tomas.”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Cassie; I swear it.”

  Looking into his so-sincere eyes, I almost believed him. Almost. “So you’re, what, a poor, abused master vampire? Please.”

  “I did not lie,” he repeated, more emphatically. “I was told to keep you safe. That is what I did. I had to win your trust for that, but I did not lie to do it. I never told you I was abused, although if I had, it would have been true enough. Any of Alejandro’s servants could make that claim.”

  I couldn’t believe he was doing this. I hadn’t expected a heartfelt apology, but the fact that he wouldn’t even admit what he’d done was too much. “You make me sick,” I said, getting back
to my feet. I walked to the door and stuck my head out. Rafe was in the corridor, trying to look like he hadn’t heard every word. “He goes, or you get no cooperation from me.”

  The next second, Tomas’ hands were around my upper arms, the grip just short of painful as he drew me back against him. “What do you know of abuse?” he demanded in a savage undertone. “Do you know how I became a vampire, Cassie? Would you like me better if I told you that they rounded me up with the rest of my village and took us to be hunted by Alejandro and his court? That the only reason I’m not dead is that one of his courtiers thought I was attractive enough to save for himself? That I had to watch people who had come through plague and conquest, who had fought at my side for years against overwhelming odds, be slaughtered by a madman for his sick amusement? Is that what you want to hear? If it isn’t gruesome enough to win your forgiveness, believe me, I have many other stories. We could swap them, only I think you would run out before I do. You were on the streets for a handful of years; I was with Alejandro for three and a half centuries!”

  “Tomas, please release Mademoiselle Palmer.”

  To my surprise, the oddly dressed man had intervened. I’d thought he looked like something out of Restoration England, but now realized his origins were on the other side of the Channel. His accent was faint but noticeably French. I’d almost forgotten he was there. Even weirder was that Tomas immediately did as he asked, stepping away like contact with me burned him, but those black eyes stayed on mine as if waiting for an answer. What was I supposed to say? You’ve had a tough time, so it’s okay that you turned me over to people who may do even worse to me? Your life was messed up, so it’s fine that you ruined mine? If so, he’d be waiting a long time.

  “Perhaps you can trust me to guard her for a while?” It was phrased as a question, but the tall Frenchman ushered me down the corridor without waiting for an answer.

  I soon got to see my old nemesis, but not in the circumstances I’d expected. Tony’s fat face looked the same as always, which wasn’t surprising since he hadn’t changed since 1513 except for the clothes. He was wearing what I liked to think of as his goodfella suit—a pinstriped number that looked like something he’d stolen off a bouncer at a speakeasy, and maybe he had. He liked the suit because someone had told him once that vertical stripes made him look slimmer. They lied. Tony died at more than three hundred pounds, which on a five-foot-five frame meant he was approximately the shape of a soccer ball with legs. And no amount of diet and exercise was gonna change that now.

  Even with the weight and the fashion sense from hell, Tony looked better than his chief enforcer, Alphonse, who stood, as always, behind his master’s left shoulder. Although they were only reflections in a large mirror at the moment, I could tell they were in the old stronghold in Philly. I was surprised that even Tony would have that much nerve, to move right back in, but I should have known; lack of balls wasn’t one of his failings. I knew where they were because Tony was arrayed on his usual chair, a throne that had come from a bishop’s palace back when lots of carving and gilt were the in thing. The back came to a point a good six feet off the ground, but Alphonse didn’t have to stretch to see past it. His height didn’t help his appearance, though. He was built like someone who knew how a thug was supposed to look had put him together, but he had one of the scariest faces I’ve ever seen. I don’t mean that in a sexy, Hollywood villain kind of way—the guy was just plain ugly. I heard once that he’d been one of Baby Face Nelson’s hit men before he was turned, but it looked to me like he was the one who’d been hit—repeatedly, with a baseball bat, in the face. As a kid, I’d been fascinated with the fact that he had almost no profile because his nose stood out no more than his Neanderthal brow line.

  I always crack up when movies depict vamps as gorgeous, sexy and with an endless closet of expensive clothes. The fact is, when you’re dead, you look pretty much the same way you did when you were alive. Hundreds of years can teach a person a few beauty tricks, I guess, but most vamps don’t bother. Some of the younger ones make an effort because it makes hunting easier, but most of the older ones don’t give a damn. When you can make someone believe you look like anything from Marilyn Monroe to Brad Pitt with merely a suggestion, makeup starts to look like a waste of money.

  Despite both Tony’s and his pet goon’s presence via enchanted mirror, I was in a good mood. I looked a hell of a lot more disreputable than either of them, with my pink bra peeking out of my shredded shirt, my scraped face oozing blood, and melted bits of vampire goo dripping down my boots. But I was alive, still human, and Tony was looking unhappy. It didn’t get much better than that. Of course, Tony wasn’t the only problem in sight, but I figured I stood a fighting chance since I’d made it this far. If the Senate wanted me dead, their spy could have taken me out any time in the past six months.

  I glanced across the huge room to where Tomas had entered. He stood near the door, technically obeying my request to keep away, but it wasn’t nearly far enough to suit me. He was talking to one of the chamber guards, a matched set of four six-foot blonds who looked like they’d walked out of a medieval tapestry, complete with battle-axes slung across their wide backs and helmets with little nose guards. I noticed that he’d thrown a black denim jacket over his club wear; it matched the jeans but made him look like a motorcycle badass. His face was in shadow so I couldn’t see his expression, but it probably wouldn’t have told me anything. At least, nothing I wanted to see.

  It was creepy how I had to fight not to go to him, how I desperately wanted to see him light up for me the way he never did for other people, to hear him say that everything was going to be okay. I knew what he was, knew how he’d lied, yet part of me still wanted to trust him. I hoped it was only a lingering effect of the earlier mental invasion, and told myself to get over it. My eyes were going to have to get used to the fact that he might look like my Tomas, but he wasn’t; the man I’d thought I knew had never existed outside my imagination.

  I dragged my attention back to the main event, which shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, considering the display. A thick mahogany slab had been carved into a massive rectangular table that, other than the row of seats along the far side, was the only furniture in the room. It looked like it weighed about a ton and was raised on an equally mammoth black marble platform reached by a set of gleaming steps. It lifted the Senate a good three feet above where lowly petitioners, or prisoners in my case, were allowed to stand. The rest of the room—or cavern, since I found out later it was several levels belowground—was carved out of red sandstone and painted with jumping flames by huge black iron chandeliers. The mirror propped up on the left of the table was a discordant, ugly note, but only because it currently reflected Tony’s face. Other than that, the decorations consisted of the bright banners and coats of arms of the Senate members that hung behind each of their seats. Four of those shields were draped in black, and the heavy, brocaded chairs in front of them were turned to the wall. That didn’t look good.

  “I demand compensation!” I turned my attention back to Tony, who was repeating his demand for at least the fifth time. He belongs to the “reiterate your point until they give in” school of debate, mainly because he hasn’t had a lot of practice. No one in his family ever does anything but bow and scrape and, after hundreds of years of that kind of thing, it dulls a person’s edge. “I took her in, brought her up, treated her as one of our own, and she deceived me! I have every right to demand her heart!”

  I could have pointed out that, since I wasn’t a vamp, staking me was a little overkill, ha-ha, but preferred to concentrate on more important issues. Not that I thought the Senate would care about Tony’s business arrangements, but it was a rare chance to tell off the slimeball and I wasn’t about to miss it. “You had my parents killed so you could monopolize my talent. You told me my visions were helping you avoid the disasters I saw and were being passed on to warn others, while all the time you were profiting off them. You’re mad that I cost
you some money? If I ever get close enough, I’ll cut off your head.” I said it matter-of-factly since killing Tony was an old dream and not one I had much chance of fulfilling.

  Tony didn’t seem too upset about my outburst, which was what I’d expected. People had been threatening him for centuries, but he was still here. He’d told me once that survival was a more eloquent answer to his detractors than any other, and I suppose it still was. “She has no proof that I had anything to do with that unfortunate business. Am I to sit here and be insulted?”

  “I Saw it!”

  I turned to the Senate leader, officially called the Consul, intending to plead my case, but she was petting a cobra large enough to wrap twice around her body, which I found pretty distracting. It looked tame, but I kept an eye on it anyway. The vamps tend to forget that what would be annoying for them, like a bite from a poisonous snake, would be a bit more serious for the mortals who worked with them. Those of us who survived long enough learned to be real observant.

  “The woman is delusional,” Tony was protesting, spreading his chubby white hands innocently. “She has always been dangerously unstable.”

  “Then I am surprised you relied on her predictions.”

  The Consul’s voice slithered around the room, almost a tangible presence against my skin. I shivered just from the overflow of her power, and was thankful it wasn’t directed at me. At least not yet. She didn’t dress in flowing white linen and gold headdresses anymore, but I guess when you’re that strong, you don’t need to show off. I wasn’t disappointed, though, considering that her outfit consisted mostly of multicolored snakes slithering and twining over her so thickly that only occasionally a patch of bare skin showed. Their scales caught the torchlight and shimmered like she was clothed in living jewels: onyx, jade and emerald, with the occasional flash of ruby eyes. It was more than the outfit that commanded attention, though; the authority in her voice and the intelligence in those dark eyes showed that, in some ways, she was still a queen. I hadn’t recognized her and no one had bothered to introduce themselves, but Rafe, at my back for moral support, I guess, had whispered a name in my ear as we approached the table. At my startled look, teeth had flashed in his dark beard as he gave me his usual rakish smile. “It wasn’t an asp that bit her, mia stella.”