Shadow's Bane

by Karen Chance

  “Because it usually is!”

  “Not tonight! The Black Circle attacked us several times recently—here and at a stronghold in Las Vegas. They suffered enormous casualties, yet didn’t use these powerful new weapons—not even once. Which makes me suspicious—”

  “Are you accusing me, vampire?”

  “I’m asking for an explanation! Your own life was imperiled tonight, and your family’s. I’d think—”

  “Something that would not have been the case if you’d taken precautions!”

  “We did! Those spells tore through them like they were tissue paper! Who the hell is making them? And how and why and where? I want to know and I will!”

  I stopped listening. The master was wasting his time; the man didn’t know anything more than he’d said. I could see the bewilderment in his mind, along with fear and anger. The vampire would get no answers tonight.

  But perhaps I would.

  I followed the annoying niggle back down the corridor, to where a dining room lay behind a door. There was a fireplace in here, too, but not for heat. I pushed my head through the illusion and found what I’d expected: a secret passageway, a spy tunnel, and a way for she-who-saw-everything here to move her servants about quickly.

  No one surprised her in her own home. Not even me. I would be spotted in moments by one of the masters I could feel roaming the pathways that snaked through this great house. I would never make it to her, not through all this.

  Well.

  Not without some help.

  * * *

  * * *

  I woke up in a strange bed, with a familiar vampire. And in alarm, but not because Louis-Cesare was looking like a corpse. But because—

  What the hell?

  Dorina, I thought blankly, and fell out of bed.

  And then proceeded to go snuffling about, like my counterpart was currently doing. Because she wasn’t in my body anymore. She was—

  “Ew!”

  “Dory?” Louis-Cesare peered at me blearily, from over the side of the bed.

  It was the consul’s, or at least one owned by her, because we were in her house in upstate New York. The ants-on-skin feel of the place, the result of my dhampir senses being assaulted by the presence of hundreds if not thousands of vampires, all at once, was unmistakable. It literally made me want to scratch my skin off, and Dorina . . .

  What the hell would she make of a place like this?

  Shit.

  Why did I think I knew?

  “Dory?” Louis-Cesare said again, looking at me strangely.

  I sat up, trying to ignore the taste of whatever my counterpart’s avatar had just found in a dark corner. It wasn’t going so well. And now it was on the trail of something else, scurrying about in the dust, because housecleaning was not a priority in secret passageways.

  “Dory?”

  “I’m fine.” I looked around. “Have you seen some clothes?”

  “What clothes?”

  “Any clothes!”

  Louis-Cesare caught my arm. “What is wrong?”

  For a moment, I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t supposed to be able to do this, to feel Dorina when she was away, to know what she was doing. Except for that moment at the end of the car chase with Caedmon, when I’d had that terrible split-screen view of the world.

  I didn’t have it now, but I had something.

  “Dory, talk to me!”

  “This might sound a little weird,” I warned him.

  “Trust me, it already does.”

  Louis-Cesare was looking at my nose. I grabbed it. It was snuffling again.

  Goddamn it!

  “I think there’s a chance Dorina plans to kill the consul,” I told him quickly.

  “What?”

  “I told you it was going to sound weird!” I broke away.

  Louis-Cesare’s pants were on the back of a chair. I pulled them on. And then pulled them off again, because I’d do a Marlowe in the damned things and break a leg! Damn it, I didn’t have time for this!

  I settled for a sheet, wrapped it sarong-style, and headed for the door.

  “Wait.” Louis-Cesare was suddenly beside me, which wasn’t a problem. And leaning on the door, which was. “Explain this to me.”

  “I already did!”

  “Explain it to me again.”

  “I don’t have time!”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  I looked at him. He should have been in bed. He had healing scars all over his body, and even a few seeping wounds. I could smell the blood, thick and strong, under all the bandages.

  It should have been reabsorbed by now, like the wounds should have closed. Hell, they should have closed instantly! But there’d been a minute or so when he’d been fighting a whole coterie of mages all on his own, ones armed with weapons that killed most vamps on contact. How many times had he gotten hit?

  “How many times were you hit?” I demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters!”

  “Why?” Blue eyes suddenly burned into mine. “I thought you no longer cared for me?”

  I glared back at him. “This? This is the moment you take for that conversation?”

  “Why not? According to Claire, there are things I do not understand.”

  “The only thing you need to understand right now is, there’s the bed.” I pointed. “Get in it!”

  “No.”

  I glared at him some more.

  It didn’t seem to help.

  “I’m coming with you,” said the most stubborn creature on earth.

  Make that the second-most stubborn. “No way in hell.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’m not sure you can take her!”

  I opened the door; he shut it again. And splayed a hand over it to keep it that way. “That’s what this is about? You think she is stronger?”

  “She’s a first-level master!”

  He arched an eyebrow at me.

  “And she has freaky abilities—”

  “The same could be said of any of us.”

  “Not like this!” I tried to open the door again, but it may as well have been cemented in place.

  “Like what?”

  “Let go of the damned door!”

  “Answer the question. Like what?”

  I turned on him. “Like inhabiting a rat scurrying through secret passageways, looking to kill the consul!”

  Louis-Cesare blinked at me a few times. “I’m . . . going to call somebody.”

  “Call Marlowe. He’s just down the hall. Or he was. He can get her away before Dorina finds her—”

  “Get who away?”

  I stared at him. “Are you listening to me at all? The consul!”

  Louis-Cesare licked his lips. Then he pulled me into an embrace I didn’t want, but when a first-level vamp decides he wants to hug you, you just go with it. We stayed there for a moment.

  I don’t know what he was doing, but I was debating eating some rat bait. The rat was in favor, but Dorina was trying to talk him out of it. They were still arguing when Louis-Cesare pulled me over to the bed and sat us down.

  “One more time, with a bit more explanation?”

  I sighed. “Dorina has some kind of weird master power. You know, the one Caedmon mistook for a fey ability?”

  He frowned at Caedmon’s name, but didn’t comment on it. “But it is not.”

  “No! It’s . . . Look, I just found out about it, so I don’t have a huge amount of info here. But she can separate from my consciousness and . . . tag along . . . with other people. And things.”

  “Things?” He frowned. “You mean like a—”

  “Rat, yes. She didn’t think she could make it to the consul in
my body, so she borrowed another one.”

  “But you’re a senator. You can go wherever you wish. She didn’t need—”

  “But I don’t think she knows that. We’re having communication problems, and I don’t think she understands everything.” I sure as hell didn’t, I thought, feeling queasy.

  Probably because my avatar had just eaten a bellyful of poison!

  “Crap.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. We just have to tell Marlowe—”

  I started to get up, but Louis-Cesare pulled me back down. “Tell him what?”

  “That the consul’s in danger!”

  “Yes, I do not think we will be doing that,” Louis-Cesare said, grabbing his trousers off the chair.

  I watched as the world’s best butt, bruised and bloody though it was, disappeared into the rumpled leftovers of a once-nice suit. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you. Going with you to find Dorina.”

  “Why? We’ll just tell Marlowe—”

  Louis-Cesare turned on me. “What? That your alter ego is about to kill his Lady?”

  I frowned. “Well, we won’t put it like that—”

  “It doesn’t matter how you put it. He will very likely attempt to kill you to ensure her survival.”

  “I’m not trying to kill her!”

  “But you and Dorina share a body, do you not? He may well decide that killing one would dispose of both.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but yeah. That sounded exactly like something Marlowe would do. And, bonus, I wouldn’t be besmirching his beloved Senate anymore, either.

  “All right,” I told him. “We won’t say anything to Marlowe.”

  “You don’t have to,” somebody said. And shot me.

  Chapter Forty-five

  I abandoned the dying avatar and flitted out into the air, before snaring a human servant who was moving quickly down the hall. He took a wrong turn, but I managed to jump to a low-level vampire who was going the right way. And who was too young to notice one more voice in his head.

  Among the usual background noise of his family’s gossip, of higher-level vampires giving him errands to run, and of others jeering about his clothes—someone had told him that everyone was going to be wearing livery at the consul’s home, and he’d believed it—I managed to plant a suggestion.

  Suddenly, we were moving much faster than before, through a maze of passageways, and then out a hidden door into a hallway. Or, no, I thought, because it deserved a better word than that. It was long and wide, with a great many people in it. It reminded me of some of the old European courts, where a monarch sat at one end of a gallery and cliques of courtiers laughed, talked, and schemed all along it.

  It was easy to tell the cliques here by their clothing. I rode the small vampire down an expanse filled with priceless statuary, beautiful inlaid floors, and marble walls with the height and breadth of old Rome, and barely noticed. I was too busy gazing at costumes from all over the world and a hundred different eras.

  Older vampires, especially in formal or stressful situations, liked to dress as they had in their youth. It was comfortable, familiar, and an easy way to remind everyone of exactly how old and powerful they were. So we passed by groups looking as if they had just stepped out of ancient China, or the Roman Empire, or Montezuma’s court, or some Japanese shogunate, along with dozens of others.

  And those who weren’t in period dress wore the latest magical fashions, everyone trying to outdo everyone else, to the point that my ride’s elaborate blue and gold livery seemed tame by comparison.

  I marveled at a jeweled octopus, its golden arms holding a woman’s upswept chignon in place, when it wasn’t moving them around to adjust its grip. Nearby, embroidered bees decorated the thick black velvet of a Tudor-era doublet, their fat bodies making constantly changing designs as they buzzed about the sumptuous fabric. And just past them, a flock of magical butterflies fluttered in the air and then straight through me, their insubstantial forms hovering around the pastoral train of a woman’s gown, which showed a garden in full bloom.

  One of the small creatures had become confused, and was trying to feed off the jade and coral adornment in another woman’s coiffure. She was in a kimono printed with gamboling dragons, which spewed tiny plumes of flame at us as we passed, causing my ride to veer to the side. And to shoot her a dirty look before he got his face under control.

  There were other such clashes going on everywhere, partly because of the crush, which forced the crowd too close together. And partly because, while vampires might not make magic in the traditional sense, they certainly seemed to enjoy it. And to enjoy employing it against others.

  As demonstrated when my ride abruptly halted, and then just froze, staring upward in horror.

  Several nearby humans glanced around, looking confused, for they saw nothing. But they could feel the sudden escalation of tension in the huge space, the quieting of murmured conversations, and the power washing over their bodies, like a hot wind. They quickly moved out of the way, and my ride followed, going from paralysis to a run worthy of an Olympic sprinter, to the amusement of the guests around us.

  I don’t think the young vampire cared. He hugged the nearest wall, swallowing convulsively. And staring upward, like everyone else in the gallery, at the spectacle playing out in the air above us.

  It was something I’d rarely seen, and never this close. What looked like two huge storm clouds, laced with lightning and shuddering with power, circled each other, writhing and boiling and looking for an advantage.

  And then transforming into something else.

  What looked like a giant, ghostly tiger emerged from the golden haze, its eyes bright as flame. While a huge flock of crows, black as the night, darted out of the dark gray cloud and tore around the room. It looked like magic, but it wasn’t—at least not the human kind. But rather two first-level masters, their power taking on forms that had meaning for them, preparing to savage each other.

  It wasn’t a duel—not quite. But it was often the precursor to one, the show of power they sometimes put on before the killing started. Because if it went on long enough, it could drain a master into vulnerability.

  It didn’t drain anyone this time.

  Because a new cloud formed up out of nothing, all at once. It was green and black and terrifying, and carried so much power that it caused my ride to sink down onto his haunches, whimpering softly. And that was before it took the form of an enormous snake, hissing and rearing back, like a cobra ready to strike. The other two clouds abruptly parted, the tiger snarling and turning away with what I swear looked like its tail between its legs. But the other remained in place a little too long—

  And was whipped viciously by the snake’s great tail, sending the “birds” crashing against the opposite wall, where they puffed away into bursts of black smoke.

  Conversation, which had gone silent for the duration, resumed. The light music playing in the background likewise picked up where it had left off. A casual observer, walking in a minute late, might have been forgiven for thinking that nothing had happened.

  But something had. And was likely to again. Because friction was everywhere, now that I looked for it.

  The gallery was packed with masters who, until very recently, had thought they knew where they stood in the overall hierarchy. Who had believed they had a grip on the motives, desires, and histories of everyone around them. Who had spent centuries working their way into their present positions at their own courts, and building up a rock-solid foundation.

  Only to find the bedrock under their feet suddenly turned to quicksand, when they were confronted by hundreds of new power players as the court of courts coalesced.

  Normally, physical contests would have sorted things out, with masters competing against one another for positions of power. But my twin’s mind inform
ed me that duels were forbidden for the course of the war, lest they cost the court too many of its most useful members. So tensions were high and getting higher, with no outlet in sight.

  And that was especially true around the mini courts of the other consuls.

  They were seated here and there along the gallery, in areas that looked like they might once have held large statues. But the raised platforms had been cleared off, draped in swags of rich fabric, and decked in various types of seating arrangements. Turning them into smaller versions of the queen’s dais up ahead.

  There the other consuls, the queen’s counterparts at senates around the world, sat surrounded by their combative creatures. They could have easily reined them in, but weren’t doing so. This queen might have proven the strongest momentarily, and won their grudging allegiance. But winning wasn’t keeping, and there were jealous eyes everywhere—on her position as much as the rest.

  The whole court was a powder keg, the air thick with expectation, which might explain why nobody had yet realized what moved among them.

  And because they were careless.

  They didn’t expect to find me, in this place of many masters. They thought themselves safe, at least against my kind of peril. And they were right—for now.

  I looked toward the main dais, where the queen sat, smiling at something one of her courtier’s had said.

  I was after bigger prey.

  * * *

  * * *

  Jolt, jolt, jolt.

  Duck, bend, augghh!

  Jolt, jolt, jolt.

  I woke up to the sensation of being carried . . . painfully . . . somewhere I couldn’t see. Because I couldn’t see anything. The only light came from little squares of haze that broke the blackness here and there, but they flashed by so quickly that they didn’t help much. In fact, it was mostly the opposite: they acted like strobes in a nightclub, brightening things just enough to fool my eyes and make me dizzy.

  And I was already dizzy enough.

  Damn it, what was happening?

  I struggled the rest of the way back to consciousness, cursing the darkness. But then a bullet whizzed by and sparked off the floor in front of us, and I decided I didn’t mind so much. And then it didn’t matter, because whoever was carrying me made a movement so fast that, even as part of it, I couldn’t follow.