by Karen Chance
“And if they don’t?”
The beautiful head tilted. “Haven’t you ever thought about it? How the great ones gain in power every year, with each new family member, every new master. Yet how many as old as the consul do you see? The younger ones die of all sorts of things, but the old ones, the powerful ones, the ones who rival some of our lords in strength—what could kill them?”
“Plenty of things.” Vampires didn’t die of old age, but there were lots of other ways. Most of which involved others of their kind. “Duels, wars, conflicts with other masters . . .”
“Some, yes,” she agreed. “But all? Where are all those millennia-old masters? The ones as old as your consul could fit in a large room. Where are the rest who started out with her? They were numbered in the thousands once, yet now . . . where are they?”
“I told you,” I said, wishing she would leave me alone. “They fight all the time—”
“Yes, but the older, the stronger—they should win, shouldn’t they? But we know that isn’t always true. It wasn’t when your consul came to power, when she killed a being thousands of years older than herself, one of legendary strength.”
“She had help,” I said, remembering what Jules had said. “Anthony fought with her—”
“But he was the same age as she. And you know how it is. A sixth-level master is many times stronger than a seventh, each step you take being an exponential increase in power. So how much stronger was her master? He was said to have been five thousand years old. How could both of them, how could an army, have taken him down?”
I’d had enough. “Does it matter?” I asked, starting to get up.
Rian caught my arm. “It matters,” she said urgently. “If you care for Mircea as I think you still do.”
I stared at her, feeling my face turn ugly. “And did he pay you to say that?”
The dark eyes flashed. “I owe him no fealty; if anything, the debt I have is to you. You helped Carlos when you didn’t have to, when almost no one else would have. Even after I betrayed you, and gave my master information about your plans. I thought it was the right thing to do, the best way to help both my lords, but I was wrong. I am trying to make amends.”
“By doing what?”
“By explaining. By telling you what they won’t, what most of them refuse to even acknowledge to themselves. But I’ve lived long enough to see the truth of it. The ones who survive are those who find some peace with their fixation, either by obtaining it or by letting it go. Those who don’t . . . they lose their duels because they lose their minds, or maybe their focus is a better way of putting it. Nothing seems real anymore—nothing matters, except for their obsession. It becomes their fatal flaw, and sooner or later, it will destroy them.”
“So Mircea has to get his wife back in order to survive?” How convenient.
“He doesn’t have to get her back,” Rian said, shaking her head. “But he does have to resolve this tension, his guilt over what happened, his longing to repair the family he lost. At the very least, he has to come to terms with her death, and he hasn’t done that.”
“And I can’t help him, Rian.”
“You resent him that much, then?” The beautiful eyes were sorrowful.
“No, I mean I can’t help him,” I said, throwing off her hold and struggling to rise. “I can’t help anyone!”
“That’s not true—”
“Really?” I staggered against the wall and then got my back to it, wanting to curse myself for weakness that I couldn’t afford. “What have you seen me do? I’ve been running around everywhere, but what have I done?”
It was her turn to look confused. “You saved your court—”
“I was the reason they were in danger in the first place! My acolytes blew up the court trying to kill me. If I never existed—”
“Apollo would be back and we would all be dead.”
I shook my head. “That was more Pritkin than me. And now he’s gone and I can’t get him back, no matter how hard I try. I’m supposed to be . . .” I fluttered a hand, because I didn’t have the words. “More than this. Artemis’ daughter, demigoddess, Pythia, they sound so impressive, but they’re lies. They’re titles for someone else, someone powerful. I’m just Cassie.” I slowly slid down the wall and finally said the words I’d been thinking for weeks. “And I can’t save anyone.”
Rian was silent for a moment. “You saved Marco.”
“Marco was never in danger.”
“On the contrary. Marco was traded from master to master, because he was showing signs of madness, and he was powerful enough to be dangerous. It was looking grim for him, until he found a master who was strong enough mentally to keep him in line. And until he found you. Being assigned as your bodyguard was the best thing that ever happened to him. I do not know what his obsession was; you will have to ask him. But he seems to have finally made peace with it.”
I thought back to what Marco had told me about his daughter, the one he’d lost when she was young. And then I thought about my giant of a bodyguard, so huge he almost looked like another species, yet so gentle as he held a tiny initiate in his arms, as if she were spun glass. Jules was right; Marco looked like a bruiser, so that was how he’d been treated. But it wasn’t what he was, and it wasn’t what he’d needed.
He’d needed what my crazy court had given him: a chance to protect the youngest and most vulnerable.
The ones who reminded him of the girl he lost.
“My court did that,” I said, after a minute. “Not me.”
“And did your court fight that battle this morning?” she asked, smiling slightly. “Did your court defeat four out of five rogues, in something like a day?”
“But that’s just it,” I said, low and vicious, not understanding why she didn’t get this. “One’s still out there, I don’t know where, and one is all it takes. And I’m no closer to finding her or defeating Ares or rescuing Pritkin than I was when I started! I go back to freaking Arthurian Britain, again and again, and what good does it do? I’m still treading water. Or running on some kind of treadmill, exhausting myself but not getting anywhere!”
“Maybe you just need some help.”
My head jerked up at that, because that hadn’t been Rian. It took me a second to focus in the darkness, because we weren’t near a window, so almost the only light was a bloodred exit sign. It gleamed on an approaching bald spot under a wispy comb-over and off a horrible tie that even darkness couldn’t help.
Fred.
My bodyguard. Looking more like the accountant he used to be and less like a blood-covered fiend, at the moment. “You got a phone call,” he informed me.
My lips twisted. Of course I did. I knew Mircea. No way was it going to be that easy.
“I’m sure.”
But Fred was shaking his head, a weird little grin breaking out over his face. “No, trust me. You want to take this call.”
Chapter Forty-two
My suite was still mostly empty when we entered, and looked like a hurricane had hit it. The once-missing cots were jumbled up against the far wall, open packing boxes were scattered everywhere, and a lone drawing in crayon lay under the coffee table. But otherwise, it had been stripped bare of everything except the generic hotel furniture and deliberately tasteful knickknacks it had come with.
And the old pattern of bullet holes in the wall.
I glanced at them, but not for long, because my “phone call” was taking up the entire expanse of windows leading to the balcony. The glass sweep usually reflected distant neon, headlights, and the vague half darkness of the city at night. But now it was all burning roots and tumbled bricks and what looked like it had been an underground tunnel, until something happened.
Something bad.
But the man ducking under a fiery root looked to be okay, and a genuine smile of relief spread over my face when he sto
od back up.
“Caleb!”
“Still here.” He grinned back, widely. It was a little weird to see that expression on the usually stoic face, almost as much as seeing the dark eyes shining and the usually deliberate movements fast and jerky. He looked like he was high on adrenaline and ready for a fight, although the only other people I saw in the corridor were white-suited figures trying to put out magical fires.
“And everyone else?” I asked.
“We took some hits.” The smiled faded slightly. “But nothing like we might have. Thanks to you.”
“To me? I wasn’t even there.”
“But your warning was. I got here just before everything went to hell.”
“My warning about . . . ?”
“Lizzie?” He looked slightly incredulous, maybe because we’d talked less than a day ago. But to me, it felt like a week.
“And Jonas listened?”
He nodded. “I don’t know if he believed me or not, but he tripled the guards and ordered the main wards put online. You should have been here! The wards went up and bam. We were hit almost the moment after, by everything the Black Circle had! I think they assumed our guard would be down, after they took on the vamps and then Dante’s earlier. That we wouldn’t expect another attack so soon. But they found out otherwise, once the new weapons deployed—”
“What new weapons?”
“Some stuff we’ve been developing, ever since that thing with Apollo—”
He looked over his shoulder, and then had to get out of the way as what appeared to be a whole platoon marched past. I almost did the same, because they looked so real, and like they were coming straight out of the wall at me. But the heavily armed men and a few women disappeared a second later, melting into the air like 3-D images in a movie theater.
And leaving me staring at Caleb again—or, more accurately, at his back.
“Caleb!”
“I’ll tell the old man you’re here,” he said, turning around to walk backward, despite the fact that the tunnel appeared to be anything but level. But he never lost his footing. “He had to go put out some fires!”
“Literally?”
He laughed—actually laughed. “No, not literally—at least I don’t think so. But, for once, stay put!”
He deftly dodged another fire unit, then disappeared around a bend in the tunnel. And the people in the white hazmatlike suits ran straight out of the wall and through my middle, causing me to stumble back a step or two, because the illusion was a little too good. And then to move back even farther, because I didn’t want to experience that again.
Which was when I heard cursing coming from the kitchen.
After the day I’d had, I fully expected to see an army at the gates, or a fire run out of control, or something for the adrenaline flooding my system to expend itself on. I did not expect what I saw, when Fred and I burst through a door off the lounge. I did not expect—
A dancing chicken.
I just stood there.
It was a chicken, and it was dancing, on the kitchen countertop.
There were a bunch of people standing around looking at it, too: a scattering of initiates, including a Cindy Lou Who clone clutching a beat-up doll; some war mages, looking grim; the pink-haired girl from the drag; three tough-looking women, glaring at the mages; and a smattering of vamps. Including Roy, in a brown-and-tan-checked suit that set off his red hair. But suddenly, no one was making a sound.
The chicken wasn’t, either, but I guessed that was excusable, since it was dead. And raw, and wearing those little paper things on the end of its leg bones, like ruffled socks. It looked like it was ready to be put in the pan with the carrots, potatoes, and onions sitting nearby. But, instead, it was up on its legs, doing a jig.
“What is that?” one of the mages finally demanded, pointing at it.
“The cancan?” Fred guessed, causing the man’s weather-beaten skin to flush with anger.
“I’m sorry!” A skinny boy was huddled against the cabinets, looking freaked. Maybe because a war mage had just drawn a weapon on him. Jiao; my brain supplied a name in the split second before the mage was disarmed, the gun ending up in the pink-haired girl’s hand.
“Give it back!” the man warned her.
“Ask nicely.”
“Give it back or spend the rest of the year in lockup!”
“For what?” I interrupted. “You were the one threatening a child.”
The man started, like he hadn’t noticed I was there. But even when he did, it didn’t seem to matter. “The child is a necromancer—and a strong one!” he rasped. “Why is he here?”
“Why are you?”
The flush was back, darker this time. “We’ve been assigned here—”
“By who?”
“Who else? Who guards the Pythia?”
“The senate, at present.”
“The senate?” That was another mage, older and grizzled, with the war mage scowl firmly in place. His eyes took in the motley crew in the kitchen, half of whom I didn’t even know, with disdain. “This whole lot should be locked up.”
“Uh.” That was a third mage, a young blond with a severe military haircut that wasn’t making him look any older. Or any better, considering the jug ears that stood out almost perpendicular to his head. They looked vaguely familiar.
“Uh, what?” his older companion demanded.
“Uh, please don’t make her mad?”
And it clicked. The younger guy was one of the group of mages I’d sent for a bath in Lake Mead recently. And who was not looking like he wanted another trip.
“Do you know how to swim?” Roy asked him kindly. He and the other vamps were just standing around, observing but not interfering. If Pink Hair hadn’t grabbed the gun, one of them would have. But now that Jiao wasn’t being threatened, they had returned to the vague, slightly bored interest of people watching TV.
If the Circle and some witches wanted to kill each other, why should they care?
“Not that well,” the young man admitted. “And all the weapons—”
“Act like small anchors, don’t they?” Roy commiserated.
“They really do.” He looked at me. “Please, lady, we have orders—”
“From Jonas?”
He nodded. “We’re supposed to be here. And you need us—”
“Didn’t need you this morning,” Pink Hair said, her eyes still on the flushing mage.
“And you’re here . . . because?” I asked, not wanting to offend, but also not being all that comfortable with a reporter hanging around the suite.
Not that there appeared to be too many people to report on, since most of my court was still missing.
She shot me a grin. “Presents.”
“What?”
“All of us, from the covens.” She gestured around at the three tough-looking women. “After this morning, they decided you needed some competent help.”
“Competent!” the red-faced mage exploded. “As if the covens would know the meaning—”
“At least we get to a fight on time.”
“Yes, suspiciously so! Almost as if you knew—”
“That’s it,” one of the other women said, pulling a wand just as the mage made a gesture. That was thankfully blocked by his own man.
“Have a care,” the grizzled mage hissed. “Assault the bitch and you know damn well—”
“Call me bitch again, old man, and see what happens,” the witch warned.
“All right, out!” I said. “All of you! Except you, Jiao,” I added, because he was still looking freaked.
“This is not an issue for the Pythian Court. This is a Circle matter,” Red Face protested, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That boy was doing illegal magic—”
“Five.”
“Five? Five what?”
/>
“Four.”
“Oh, shit,” Jug Ears said, and started pushing for the door.
“Three.”
“This is ridiculous!” Red Face spluttered. “You’re harboring illegal children alongside Pythian initiates—”
“What is ridiculous is that we are in a war,” I said, low and furious. “The war, because if we lose it there won’t be another. And this”—I gestured at the goddamn chicken—“is what you focus on?”
The man started to say something, but his older companion cut him off. “Do what she says. Take it outside.”
“Damn. And I wanted to see what happened when you reached one,” Roy said.
I shot him a look and he disappeared, too, taking the wide-eyed initiates with him. Jiao stayed where he was, but the chicken suddenly keeled over, landing back against the pan, propped up on its wings like its little feet hurt. I knew the feeling.
I knelt in front of him. “You okay?”
He nodded.
And then he crumpled, and I caught him on the way to the floor, because he was just a kid, and a war mage had had him at gunpoint. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know. It’s all right.”
He shook his head. “It’s not. I messed up. But I was just—the girls, they wanted to see—”
“The initiates asked you to show them what you could do.”
He swallowed, and nodded. “They . . . some of them are just little, you know? And they aren’t like us. They aren’t used to . . . all this.” He gestured around at an amorphous “this” composed of gods and wars, or more likely from his perspective, of fear and pain and constant anxiety, because that was what he’d known before he met Tami.
It was what almost all Tami’s kids had known, including me, before she came into our lives and changed everything.
She only had one biological child, a son named Jesse, who had been born with an unauthorized ability. In his case, he was a fire starter, which had gotten him a fast trip to one of the Circle’s schools for dangerously talented youth, as soon as his power manifested. This had not gone down well with Tami, who was not the sort you wanted to piss off. Not when she had somewhat unusual magic herself, being a null, a witch who could suck the magic out of anyone or anything she met.