Shatter the Earth

by Karen Chance

  ~~~

  The Court’s chrono cells were in a dark, featureless world filled with only two things: a line of glowing boxes arcing off into the distance with no discernable beginning or end, and pieces of diaphanous material wafting down from overhead, like tissues only thinner, a strange rain that never managed to make it to the ground.

  Instead, other indistinct shapes moved in the twilit dimness, brighter than the tissues, although not by much. They appeared out of the darkness, darting here and there like dragonflies after gnats. And wherever one went, a tissue disappeared.

  Because they weren’t tissues; they were ghosts. All of them. The dimmer versions were the remains of faded spirits who had run out of energy and could no longer cling to the earthly plane. They fell here, into the non-space between dimensions, where no time stream ruled. The other ghosts had discovered this and came here as predators, to feast on whatever energy the faded had to offer.

  It was exactly as creepy as it sounds, but it afforded the Pythian Court the advantage of a place where time spells didn’t work. That was useful for holding people, usually dark mages, who occasionally tried some volatile enchantments to joyride through the ages. If they didn’t manage to blow themselves up in the process, they were put here, until the Pythia of the day decided what to do with them.

  I tugged on the tether of my power, which was my only lifeline back into the normal world, for reassurance. It tugged back, as if my power wasn’t any happier about my being here than I was. Yeah.

  I had some bad memories about this place.

  Get in, get out, get gone, I thought, and hurried over to the cell holding the latest jailbird.

  They were transparent from the outside, letting me get a look at him before I entered. And it was . . . weird. He wasn’t pacing back and forth, as I’d have expected. He wasn’t looking over the cage, trying to figure a way out. He wasn’t doing anything.

  Unless you counted sitting in a corner on one of the benches, the cell’s only furniture, with one leg drawn up and a whiskey glass dangling from his hand.

  I didn’t know who had provided him with the booze, but it didn’t surprise me. Mircea made a damned good-looking prisoner, even half naked because he’d lost the robe somewhere. Maybe especially half naked, I thought, noting the way that glorious hair tumbled over the strong shoulders. The Pythian Court was composed mainly of inexperienced young women. I was just surprised that he didn’t have a bed, a bunch of cushions, and a three-course meal in there as well.

  Not that he looked like he wanted any of that, or anything at all. He was as closed down as I’d ever seen him, the dark eyes hooded, the shoulders slumped and the usual fire banked. Or maybe out, I thought worriedly, because he didn’t even look up when I flashed in.

  Until he smelled me, I guessed, and I suddenly found myself enveloped in a hug hard enough to force all the air out of my lungs.

  “You’re alive!” Mircea pulled back about the time asphyxiation started, and stared at me, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Alive,” I agreed, when I could talk. “You expected otherwise?”

  “I didn’t know!” The dark eyes flashed. And there it was, fire aplenty. “They wouldn’t tell me anything and I can’t communicate in here. Can’t read anyone’s mind, can’t send any messages, can’t even feel anyone’s presence! Just silence.” He looked around, and the eyes, the constantly mercurial eyes, took on another expression. Almost haunted. “It’s like a tomb.”

  “That’s basically what it is,” I said, as his hands kept smoothing over my head, as if he needed the reassurance that I wasn’t a phantom. He found the egg, which was now the size of a hummingbird’s, but still seriously sore, and his face changed once again.

  “You’re not all right, are you?”

  “Well enough.” I sat on the bench. “I have a hard head.”

  “You almost didn’t have one at all, thanks to me!” Mircea didn’t sit down. Now that he finally had company, it didn’t look like he could. There was tension in every line of his body, like a damn about to burst, which might not be far from the truth.

  This place was unsettling enough for anyone, but for a vampire . . . it must be close to torture. A master, especially, hadn’t been alone in his head for centuries. His people, the Children he’d sired, were always there, chatting, gossiping, reporting, questioning. It was a constant cacophony that successful vamps had to learn to tone down or at least ignore, or risk going mad.

  And for Mircea, whose other master power was mental communication . . . yeah. He’d had a fun afternoon, hadn’t he? Because he was right; there was nothing in here but silence, echoing and vast.

  I wondered what he’d heard in the quiet?

  A lot, apparently.

  “This is my fault, I know that,” he told me agitatedly. “I should be focused on the war. I have a thousand things, every day, clamoring for my attention. I was working on them, after we returned, but then that new ability reared its head. I saw Elena and that creature, saw her give Dory over to him, and I—”

  He broke off, a fearsome scowl on his features, his eyes full of memories. And then he shook his head, almost violently, to clear them. And it worked. I could almost see him come back.

  But how long would it last?

  “I don’t know what came over me,” he finished simply.

  I sat there for a second, because I didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to go there. But there was no longer any other option. “Yes, you do.”

  Mircea had finally started pacing, but at that he turned around. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” I held his gaze steadily, as Gertie had done to me. He didn’t look like he found it nearly as uncomfortable as I had.

  “No, I really don’t.”

  “Obsession, Mircea. The vampire curse. It’s happening.”

  He frowned. “That’s superstition—an old wives’ tale—”

  “Really. So, you deliberately risked my life, then?”

  He blinked at me, as if caught off guard, which would have been enough to let me know that something was wrong.

  Mircea was never off guard.

  “I would never do that,” he protested. “You know me better than—”

  “And you know me. You knew I’d have to follow you. You weren’t even surprised to see me.”

  He nodded. “I thought you would, yes. But I didn’t think it would matter. I wasn’t there to interfere; I just wanted to understand. But then the fey showed up and—”

  “And you didn’t see that? When you were paging through Elena’s life? You didn’t expect it?”

  “No, I—” he stopped, and frowned some more. “I didn’t see that far.”

  “You mean you didn’t wait to see that far,” I corrected. “You ran off, as soon as you saw that creature with Dorina, without checking to see what happened next. You could have viewed it all from your bedroom. There was no reason to go to there, to risk so much—”

  “I had to go. You don’t understand—”

  “I do understand. Your obsession drove you—”

  “I am not obsessed!”

  That last was a yell, loud enough to echo off the sides of the cell, loud enough to leave me blinking. But it seemed to shock him even more. He finally sat down, looking bewildered, and completely unlike himself.

  I took advantage of it, because it wouldn’t last.

  “Mircea, tell me honestly, can you imagine another scenario where you’d bolt back four hundred years on the spur of the moment, without any preparation? Without even getting dressed or putting on a pair of shoes? You’ve spent months planning the invasion, combing over every little detail, but for something even more important to you, you just . . . left?”

  He didn’t say anything, but he did look at his feet. They were no longer torn up after that headlong pelt through a forest; vampire healing abilities had taken care of that. But they were bare and dirty, because I guessed no one had offered him a bath, and they shouldn’t hav
e been. He should have had shoes on.

  I could almost see him wondering why he didn’t.

  “Think about it,” I said urgently. “Really think. And not just about why you went there, but about what might have happened. If you hadn’t been able to heal me, if I’d split my head open instead of just cracking it, you’d be dead, too. As long as that spell is on me, our fates are linked—”

  “I wouldn’t have let you die! I would never—”

  “You might not have had a choice! Mircea, you’re not the super powerful master vamp anymore. Not with that spell riding us. You are in a metaphysical union with someone in a weak human body who is vulnerable. Which means that you are, too. You need to take that spell off before you get us both killed and ruin our chances in this war at the same time.”

  There was silence for a moment as he just sat there, staring at his feet. I didn’t think that anything else I’d said had gotten through the way that pointing out that one little detail had. The great Mircea Basarab, first level master, general of the combined army of the Vampire World Senate, and second in command to the North American consul, had bare toes and dirty feet.

  And he couldn’t explain why.

  “I didn’t heal you,” he finally rasped. “She did.”

  “She?” It took me a moment, because for a second, I thought he meant Gertie. But as far as I knew, she didn’t number healing among her talents. And there was only one other she around. “You mean Elena?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how. But I didn’t have enough power left.”

  “You said something about me taking your power,” I said, remembering.

  “You did. Almost drained me. I was about to follow you and Elena onto the roof, but the small creature had broken away from the fey and was carrying Dorina into the forest. I went after them and had almost caught up when I stumbled into a tree. My power had taken a hit, and subsequently took more. And, as I said, I couldn’t replace it in that era.”

  I suddenly recalled those small hits of extra power I’d received during the fight, which had probably saved my life. I hadn’t known where they were coming from, I’d just been glad to have them. I guessed I knew now.

  “But how—”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I assume the link between us. It must allow you to draw from me the same way one of my vampires does, in time of duress.”

  I blinked at him, and then the hand I’d put on his arm at some point clenched. Because I was remembering something else now, too. But he kept talking.

  “I’m glad it happened,” he told me fervently. “If I’d left you alone and you’d been overwhelmed . . .” his jaw clenched. “And Dorina was fine; why couldn’t I see that? She obviously reached the Romani as intended. But if I had caught up with her, had interfered with that—”

  “Mircea—”

  “—there’s no telling what might have happened. I could have destroyed her chance at a safe haven, possibly even gotten her killed, all in the name of helping her!”

  “Mircea—”

  “But I couldn’t think clearly. All I saw was some creature bearing her away and I—”

  “Mircea!”

  He finally stopped, a little startled, and looked at me. “I think I might have an idea,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You let him go?” Rhea stared at me.

  We were out back of the Pythian Court, eating a late lunch under the spreading branches of a massive oak tree. The court was in central London, but you’d never know it from here. The oak shaded almost the entirely of the cobblestone courtyard, with its wrought iron furniture and tinkling fountain, and the high stone walls were draped with vines, some of which had started—a little optimistically, in my opinion—to flower.

  They were the only reminder of spring, with the watery, late afternoon sunlight filtering down through the leaves still feeling more like winter. But the lamb stew and crusty bread that Rhea had liberated from the kitchen were warm and filling, and the peace was appreciated. I watched a couple of little birds fight over some scraps I’d tossed them, and wished I hadn’t brought the whole thing up.

  “Mircea had to get back to the war,” I said briefly. “We’re invading in less than a week—”

  “And you think he’s up to it?” Rhea asked.

  Judging by her expression, she definitely didn’t.

  “Now I do,” I said, and drank beer.

  Rhea had been buttering a slice of bread, but at that, she paused. I almost saw the cogs turn, and sighed inwardly. This wasn’t going to go well, was it?

  “What . . . did you do?” she asked slowly.

  “What Gertie told me to. She said a Pythia takes initiative—”

  “What kind of initiative?”

  “In this case? To buy some time.”

  The little birds had both grabbed the same piece of crust and each were determined to have it. I tossed them down another, but they were so fixated on that one, that they couldn’t see the new opportunity that had landed right beside them. Like some other groups I know, I thought.

  “The vampire senates are like a bunch of vipers,” I told Rhea, “each looking for any chance to lord it over the others. Right now, they’re especially on edge, because they’ve just been welded into one uber senate for the war. That’s thousands of years of animosity, mistrust and, in some cases, hatred, suddenly forced to work together. And the only glue keeping it all together is Mircea.

  “So, right now, I’m keeping him together.”

  I kicked some fallen leaves at the little birds, who broke apart and stared around in surprise. And then each of them discovered that, suddenly, there was enough to go around. There was probably another metaphor in there somewhere, but I was too full of stew to care.

  “What do you mean, keeping him together?” Rhea asked, still holding her half buttered piece of bread.

  “Mircea isn’t running around the timeline just because he wants to,” I explained. “He’s being driven by a compulsion, a kind of vampire obsession. It happens to the older ones sometimes, when they fixate on a particular thing—”

  “He’s mentally unstable?”

  “—until they achieve that thing, whatever it is. For Mircea, it’s about rescuing his wife, or at least determining that she was okay, and lived a good life. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Rhea dropped the bread entirely, which probably wasn’t a good sign. “Lady, he’s stealing your power to look for her! And if he is also dangerously unstable—”

  “He isn’t. Not anymore. That’s kind of the point.”

  “Not anymore?” Rhea frowned. “But he just shifted back to Romania—”

  “Yes, but something happened since then.”

  I ate stew, even though I was already full, hoping she’d drop it.

  She didn’t drop it.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a beautiful day,” I said, gesturing at the light cascading through the spreading limbs, the now happy little birds, and the resilient flowers, which despite the cold, were turning their heads upward to the sun. “Don’t you think?”

  “Lady.”

  “Much too pretty to discuss business—”

  “Lady.” That time, it was accompanied by a gentle hand on my arm.

  Gentle but implacable.

  “We already had a link,” I told her, “Mircea and I, thanks to Lover’s Knot. We just . . . expanded it a little.”

  “Expanded it how?”

  I sighed. “Mircea’s fine mentally,” I said. “It’s his emotions that are out of whack, clouding his good judgement. And we had an emotional tie; I felt it yesterday, when that Were attacked me. That was Mircea’s bloodlust, his love of combat, his—”

  I broke off, because Rhea was staring at me. And the look on her face wasn’t one I’d ever seen before. “You didn’t.”

  “I—it’s just a little link,” I said. “Just enough to stabilize him.”

  But Rhea didn’t seem to understand that. “Y
ou linked yourself mentally—”

  “Emotionally. For a week or so—”

  “—to an insane master vampire—”

  “I told you, mentally he’s fine—”

  “He is not fine!” Rhea suddenly jumped up, her face furious, and started for the house. I caught her halfway, having gotten up so abruptly that the bread had scattered all over the place, much to the tiny birds’ delight.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To give that vampire a piece of my mind!”

  “You can’t—”

  “And why not?”

  “He’s gone, remember? I sent him back—”

  “And it’s not like you can follow him, is it?” Agnes asked Rhea, coming outside and holding open the back door, but not for us.

  A gaggle of little girls, none of them over seven or eight, ran out of the door and into the garden. The looked like a flock of little birds themselves, or like the illustrations off a set of Victorian Christmas cards. They had on white dresses without all the lace, which I guessed was considered too grown up, but with big satin ribbons around their waists in blue or pink or yellow, which were tied in huge bows in the back. Their hair was up in ringlets, with more bows that matched the sashes on their dresses.

  They were adorable.

  And obviously glad to be outside, because they started running everywhere. Agnes ran after them, along with a couple of nursemaids, which was just as well, judging by the look on Rhea’s face. I pulled her off to the side, to try to explain a little better than I’d managed to do so far.

  “Look,” I began brilliantly.

  “My job is to keep you safe,” she hissed. “This is not safe!”

  “It’s safer than losing the coalition and then the war,” I pointed out. “And like I said, it’s just for a week, until we invade—”

  “An invasion is not a war,” Rhea pointed out right back. Normally, she was the peacekeeper around court, the voice of reason when the rest of us were flying off the handle, the calm in the midst of the storm. Only she wasn’t looking so calm right now. “The war could drag on for months, maybe years—”