Shatter the Earth

by Karen Chance

  After a moment, I got up to go to the bathroom, realized that I was chilly, and put on one of the terrycloth robes from behind the door. It was a little big, but that was a good thing right now. And it was a lot nicer quality than the towels in Pritkin’s rooms.

  I guessed dignitaries were supposed to be wusses.

  Something was chiming faintly in the living room, when I turned my head just right, so I went to investigate. It turned out to be the mirror over the fireplace, which had what looked like thirty little pulsing lights on it. For a moment, I just blinked at it, thinking that it was some weird sort of musical instrument, if a psychedelic one. Then I looked closer—

  And saw a teeny, tiny outraged Jonas, talking and talking, in every one.

  Or maybe yelling and yelling. Yeah, it kind of looked like he was yelling. And I finally realized what I was looking at: the magical equivalent of an answering machine, where I guess Jonas had been calling us—a lot.

  I carefully didn’t touch any of the lights, and started back to bed, only to almost run into a ghost.

  It took me a second to realize it was one I knew.

  “Billy!” I clutched the top of the robe. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “I scared the crap out of you?” He knocked his hat back. “What the hell was that today?”

  “What?”

  He stared at me. “The guy with the face in his stomach?”

  “Oh. Jonathan.”

  “No,” he told me emphatically.

  “No, what?”

  “No, you do not get to be blasé about the crazy mage. You absolutely do not!”

  “I’m not blasé about anything—”

  “Good. Cause you know what he’s got planned for you, right?”

  “Can you not?” I said, a little irritably. “I’d just managed to forget about that.”

  “You don’t need to forget about it. You need to kill him. Like now!”

  I stared at him, a little taken aback, because Billy wasn’t usually so vicious. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “What’s gotten into me? The guy plans to skin you and plaster the remains to his scrawny hide, and you ask what’s gotten into me?”

  I started looking for the mini fridge, assuming this place had one, because I was thirsty. “He’s locked up and drugged out of his mind. He can’t do anything.”

  “And if he gets loose? I can’t believe they’re letting that . . . that thing . . . just sit in a cell, waiting for someone to rescue him—”

  “Billy.” I looked up from checking out a large drawer, which had a room service menu but no fridge. “This is HQ.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing’s getting in here, okay?”

  “No. It is not okay! Somebody got in here a month ago—a lot of somebodies—”

  “That was before the invasion force started to assemble. You can’t swing a dead cat in here anymore without hitting some of the most overpowered magic users on the planet.”

  “—not to mention a fey assassin and the goddamned crazy mage!”

  “Crazy mage shifted in. Nobody’s going to be doing that anymore, either.”

  The room service menu hours cut out fifty minutes ago, I noticed. Typical. I threw it on a table and went back to the search.

  “I can’t believe you’re acting like this!” Billy said. “He’s planning to kill you!

  “People have been trying to kill me ever since I got this job—since before I got this job,” I reminded him, finally spotting a likely suspect in one of the built-in cabinets. “If I freaked out over every one of them—”

  “Cass.” Billy got between me and the fridge, and crossed his arms, looking as serious as I’d ever seen him. “I need you to listen to me.”

  I got a good look at his expression and paused. Billy didn’t get serious very often, but when he did, it was usually a good idea to listen to him. And not only because he occasionally had some good advice, but because he’d make your life hell if you didn’t.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Outside.”

  I liberated a soda from the fridge and we went out to the balcony, which was seriously cold but also seriously pretty. The wrought iron was covered with a dusting of snow, but I wiped a chair clean with the hem of my robe and sat down.

  Billy perched one hip on the railing, and managed to do it fairly convincingly. You had to look closely to notice that he was really just hovering there. I kind of wished he wouldn’t, because the snow fall behind him was visible through his body, making it hard to concentrate. But that expression let me know that I’d better make the effort.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that today,” I told him. “I didn’t think it would affect you like this.”

  “Not affect me?” he stared. And then abruptly pulled cigarette stuff from a pocket in his jeans and started rolling himself one.

  He usually only did that when he was nervous, bored or angry, and it was kind of obvious which was the case here.

  “I just meant,” I paused, because my brain was still half asleep and I was making a hash of this. “I meant that it would have bothered anybody. Jonathan is a nightmare—”

  “Yeah. Who’s gunning for you.”

  “And who’s not going to get me.”

  Billy paused to scrape a match across the sole of his boot and light up. The match was his energy, and so was the boot and the cigarette, all part of the same ghostly package. Yet the movements had always seemed to calm him.

  And he looked like he needed it.

  “I’m going to be blunt,” he told me, when he’d taken a couple of puffs.

  “All right.”

  “There’s death and then there’s death. I’ve seen a lot of shit, but I’ve never seen anything like that skinny bastard of a mage, and I don’t want to. What he did to Jo—”

  Billy paused to smoke some more.

  “It was awful,” I agreed.

  “It was worse than awful. Look, we all got a time to go, right? Even us ghosts. You can’t dodge the Grim Reaper forever, and maybe we shouldn’t want to. Maybe there’s something better out there, who knows? But Jo’s never gonna get a chance to find out. She’s stuck, she’s suffering, and she’s permitting a mad man to cause a lot of other suffering. And if he gets his clutches on you—”

  Billy shivered all over, and then abruptly put out his cigarette on the railing. It concerned me that it actually smoked slightly, as if he was exerting power on it. Or, more likely, that he was leaking power, because he was upset.

  “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Cass! What part of he wants to wear your face did you not get?”

  I started to say something, but he held up a finger.

  “Look. Just promise me that you’ll see to it that he’s taken out, okay? He’s under your jurisdiction—he’s a time traveler, and one you brought in! You make the decision on this, not the Senate, not the Circle, and not goddamned Marsden! All right?”

  I stared up into eyes so bright that I could actually see the hazel in them. I knew what he was asking, and it would definitely not make me popular with the Circle. I was already on Jonas’s shit list for stealing his favorite war mage; if I killed his prized prisoner, too . . .

  Not to mention that I hated killing, particularly the cold-blooded kind. I’d had to kill Lizzie that way, an acolyte who had teamed up with Jo for a while. And it had been . . . horrible. Absolutely horrible.

  But when Billy was right, he was right. I’d give Jonas some space, let him get whatever he could out of the man, if anything. But then, if he refused to act . . .

  “I know it’s tough,” Billy began.

  “All right.”

  He blinked. “You sure?”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  He bent over and wiped a melted bit of snow off my cheek, and I swore I could feel the brush of a fingertip. “You always get the shit jobs, don’t you?”

  “So do you.”

  “Guess it runs in the
family, huh?”

  I looked up at him, surprised.

  He shrugged. “I been dead a century and a half, Cass. You’re my family, if I got one at all. And I don’t like people messing with my family.”

  I didn’t know what to say, except the obvious. “You’re mine, too.”

  And then I got choked up, because my emotions were all over the place, lately. I abruptly decided that I’d had enough snow gazing for tonight and went back inside, closing the French doors firmly behind me. Billy, of course, floated on through without needing an opening.

  “I owe you big for helping with everything lately,” I told him, and meant it.

  He grinned. “I’ll add it to the list.”

  “Where have you been all day, anyway?”

  “Watching the crazy. Making sure they had him locked down. And then swinging by here, once I figured out where they put you, but you were busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  He made a kissy face. “Oh, Pritkin! Oh! Oh!”

  “I do not sound like that.”

  “You sound exactly like that. You know it’s weird that you use his last name when you’re having sex, right? I’m just saying.”

  I looked at him impatiently. Billy could go from tender to an ass quicker than anybody I knew. “Did you need something?”

  “Yes, a draw, if you want me to keep babysitting lover boy.”

  “I don’t. We’re going back to court tomorrow. All of us.”

  “Thank God.” It sounded heartfelt. “This place is creepy as shit; you know that?”

  I glanced at the impatiently chiming mirror. “Don’t worry. I think we’re going to be persona non grata around here for a while.”

  “Works for me,” he said, and dove into his necklace. A moment later, a little voice drifted up from inside. “I hereby declare this adventure to officially be over.”

  Works for me, too, I thought, and went back to bed.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I tried going back to sleep, but my brain wasn’t having it. It wanted to watch snow dance on the ceiling instead, where the flutter outside was casting shadows. Shouldn’t have had that nap, I guessed.

  But this was nice. I snuggled down under the covers, once I managed to liberate some from the bed hog, and just enjoyed a rare moment of calm. If I could trap time in a bottle like Gertie, I’d choose this, watching snow dance on the ceiling and listening to Pritkin breathe.

  It was as close to perfect as my life got.

  After a while, my own breathing evened out, but I still didn’t sleep. I watched the indistinct little blobs above through have closed eyes, in no rush to let go of this feeling. They looked like tiny moons, all speeding by with places to go. They reminded me of being a child in Tony’s farmhouse, and watching the shadows of tree limbs on my ceiling, their skeletal fingers grasping the real deal.

  Of course, I didn’t know that it was my mother’s symbol then. Didn’t even know that she’d had a symbol, or that weak, perpetually frightened Cassie Palmer had a goddess in the family. I’d have probably laughed at the very idea. Yet I’d stared at it anyway. And, sometimes, when I stared too long, I thought I glimpsed a face in the blankness.

  Everyone called it the man in the moon, but I’d always imagined a woman’s face up there, one who smiled back at me because she loved me. She hadn’t wanted to leave me with Tony the Bastard, but she hadn’t had a choice. She would have been with me if she could, and things would have been very different . . .

  Or would they?

  Pritkin and I had compared families once, to see who had it worse. He had pronounced himself the winner, and he had a good case. His father was Prince of the Incubi, the infamous Lord Rosier, who had a less than perfect grasp on his throne and wanted a son to help him hold it. The idea had been to pimp Pritkin out, using his abilities to make new alliances for the house and to keep the often-quarrelsome nobles in line.

  Rosier had never asked what Pritkin wanted, or probably even thought about it. Like Pritkin’s mother had never bothered to wonder about the possible consequences of screwing a demon lord for knowledge and power. I’d always felt bad for the boy who had mostly grown up without either of his parents, just like me.

  Only, it hadn’t been just like me, had it? His parents might have been thoughtless and neglectful, rarely if ever thinking about their son. But at least he knew who they were. The good and the bad, which must be a little reassuring. Something to come to terms with anyway, to rationalize, and, eventually, accept: that they were flawed people, just like everyone else, who had made mistakes.

  But what did you do when you didn’t know them at all?

  I didn’t know why I was thinking about my mother, all of a sudden. Maybe it was the moon outside tonight, which had been so beautiful. She had been, too; I knew that much about her. And little else.

  I honestly didn’t know if Pritkin had won our game or not, because I didn’t know anything. Rhea had assumed that my mother hadn’t wanted me, and maybe she was right. Rosier had admitted that he would have abandoned Pritkin if he hadn’t had the abilities he craved, so was she any different? Had she been disappointed with her mostly human daughter?

  Because I was very human. Sometimes it felt like a bad joke, like the universe had played a trick on her. The great Artemis finally decided to have a child, and she ended up with someone who took back almost entirely after her human father.

  An image of dad as I’d first seen him drifted across my mental vision. Mother always seemed so otherworldly and unreachable. But dad . . .

  Dad was a putz.

  He couldn’t walk across a room without falling on his face, he freaked out at the slightest hint of danger, he was overly emotional, often being pissy for no apparent reason, and he whined a lot.

  Yep, the apple hadn’t fallen far, as they said.

  But he’d had a few good qualities, too. He was brave when he didn’t think too much about it, loyal, creative and weirdly funny. None of which explained what he’d been doing in a Stuart era basement surrounded by gunpowder. That was where Agnes had tracked him down, and dragged him back to the Pythian Court, where he’d met a goddess in disguise. It seemed a little out of his league, frankly.

  Sort of like her.

  I guessed they were both mysteries, and were likely to remain that way. And maybe that was for the best. She’d been a warrior, the greatest of them all, because she’d beaten them all. On her own, and with no help from anyone. Would she think me weak, for not being able to do the same? Would she cringe as I bumbled about, lucking into a few victories, acting in a supporting role in others? Would she have seen a wimp instead of a warrior?

  In all honesty?

  Probably.

  But I personally thought dad was more heroic, crazy as that might seem. He’d been terrified, the few times I’d seen him in combat, and rightfully so. He didn’t have super awesome power to fall back on, or centuries of knowledge, or anything but craft and guile and bravado. And, when necessary, the ability to run screaming down the roadway, faster than anyone.

  Dad didn’t win elegantly, but he won.

  Right up until he didn’t.

  Because who was I kidding? Yes, I admired certain things about my father; I practically was my father, getting by any damned way I could. But sometimes, most of the time, hell yes, I’d take some of mom’s power. Just a fraction of it so that I wasn’t tired all the time, trying to channel magic that wasn’t meant for a human being, and so I could keep the people I cared about safe.

  What must that be like? I wondered. So much power, enough to be able to wade into battle as an army, all on your own? To lay waste and never have to count the cost?

  I’d never known that; never would. I had to ration my spells so carefully, always thinking about which one I was going to use, how many more I might need, how to get by on the least amount of power possible so as to reserve some stamina for later. Once, just once, I’d like to know what it felt like to just let loose . . . to just . . . to . . .<
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  My thoughts petered out; I wasn’t sure why.

  Then I realized why.

  I’d turned over onto my side, facing Pritkin, who was also turned toward me. He didn’t react, which wasn’t too surprising since his face was slack and what could charitably be called some deep breathing was coming from his slightly open mouth. He was clearly asleep.

  Yet the eyes were wide open, and regarding me curiously.

  And I knew those eyes.

  In the low light, I couldn’t tell if they were black or a deep, deep jade, but there was no other color. Not even the rim of firelit green around the edges, which I’d seen before when Pritkin’s incubus was awake. But there were stars—a whole field of them.

  Later, I would wonder if the amount of green indicated how much of Pritkin was still aware and in control, but I didn’t then. Then I froze, like a deer in headlights, with the only coherent thought in my head whether I could make it to the door. And if it even mattered, or if he would just follow me, slack jawed and snoring, on a mad chase around the pub.

  The idea was so insane that I let out a small noise, and no, no, no, that had definitely not been a great idea.

  Not great at all, I thought, as he slowly moved closer.

  The man I knew was still asleep, so his movements lacked their usual efficient grace. But clumsy or no, they sufficed to carry the resting body to my side, and to raise a limp hand so that the back of it could just brush my cheek. As if to ask, “What’s wrong?”

  I tumbled backwards off the bed, screaming bloody murder, and kept on doing it even when Pritkin jumped up, his eyes flooding back to green, and a half a dozen levitating weapons sprang into the air from the coat he’d thrown over a chair.

  The last time I’d seen it, it had been in the living room, where he’d taken it off when we first came up here. But he must have retrieved it after I went to sleep, because paranoia is practically a war mage requirement. And because he’d want to make sure he could protect me, which would have been great.

  Except how could he protect me from himself?

  I realized that I was still screaming when Pritkin grabbed me.