Siren's Song (Cassandra Palmer Series)

by Karen Chance

  And why did they think he was worth it?

  “Good question,” the dhampir said, appearing beside him, and panting a little. “Why were they following you? Is it the same group that is after you now?”

  John stared at her, wondering why the hell she thought he would know. He’d already said that he didn’t remember this! And why was that the most important question she could think of when somebody had just burnt his damned arm—

  He stopped abruptly and stared. And grabbed his supposedly missing appendage, which was somehow back, whole and unhurt! He started laughing, a bit hysterically, and promptly got slapped again.

  He glared at the dhampir. “Stop hitting me!”

  “Then keep it together!”

  “I have it together! As well as could be expected in the middle of—of whatever the hell this is!”

  “A memory,” she repeated, with the patience of a tutor talking to an especially dense pupil. “As I told you.”

  “Nothing like this has ever happened to me!”

  “That you remember. But you were here—”

  “If I was, I wouldn’t have this!” John said, thrusting out his arm. “They burnt it off!”

  “That wasn’t part of the memory,” she said. “I was mistaken. Someone is in here with us, but it isn’t the Irin.”

  “What?” John asked, thoroughly confused. Something that wasn’t helped when the scene shifted again, abruptly enough to send him staggering into another grimy wall.

  “Sorry,” the dhampir said curtly. “They were getting too close.”

  John looked across the marketplace, which was still colorfully burning, but not enough to obscure the view of a narrow alley opposite. The one where they’d just been, he assumed. Because a knot of mages had snuck up on one side and then pounced, shields in front and spell laced hands behind—

  And found nothing, because the dhampir had somehow moved the two of them over here.

  At least, John assumed that was what had just happened, although he freely admitted that he didn’t know anymore.

  “Try to understand,” she said. “The memory we’re in is like a movie, one that pauses when you’re not watching it. Some of the mages do not pause, therefore they are not part of the movie—”

  “Some of them?”

  She nodded. “Think of it like this. You are watching a movie in a theatre, a movie starring you. You are observing a movie of yourself up on the screen.”

  “All right,” John said.

  “Movie you is attempting to visit this Goremish creature, to ask him something. Some dark mages are following you—also on the movie screen—whether to prevent you from succeeding in your errand or for some other reason.”

  “Still following,” John said, wondering whether she ever planned to get to a point.

  “That is the memory you are observing. The movie is the memory. But in the present, in the theatre of your mind, there are intruders. They aren’t part of the movie and neither are we; not even you, as the Goremish visit is something that happened in your past. You are the audience now, not the actor, but audience you is about to be assaulted by people who have snuck into the movie to harm you.”

  She glanced around. “I should have realized it before, but I do not know this place, and it . . . distracted me.”

  John tried to make sense of that. He tried hard. He wasn’t sure he entirely managed it, but he understood one thing, at least. “There are assassins in my head?” he demanded.

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  “For them, I’m not sure. For me . . . some of the Irin’s power passed over when we touched, due to the effects of that strange plant. Perhaps some of his skill to memory walk did as well.”

  That was the first good news John had heard all day. “Then use it and get us out!”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t know how his power works, and even if I did, it might allow me to break away, but you would still be here. This is your brain. You cannot escape it.” She glanced at the alley, which the mages were slamming with reveal spells, in case he’d tried to hide. “And we have company.”

  Yes, they did. And while John very much wanted to know how somebody had invaded his mind, apparently with murderous intent, he wanted to get away from them a lot more.

  “This way,” he said, pulling her down the alley. “We can take refuge at my father’s court—”

  “That won’t work.”

  “Of course, it will! He’s paranoid; he has guards everywhere. And enough wards to fend off an entire—fuck!”

  He cut off, because he’d almost broken his nose, running into something at the end of the small street. Something he couldn’t see, and couldn’t feel when he put out a hand. But which was keeping him from moving forward, nonetheless.

  “The hell is this?” he asked, whirling on the dhampir. Because he knew wards, in all their types and permutations, and that wasn’t one!

  “No, it isn’t,” she agreed, apparently reading his mind. Maybe because she was currently living in it! “It’s the theatre door. Someone has locked you inside, and built an arena out of your mind, to make killing you easier.”

  John slumped back against the wall, a hand to his bruised face. Every instinct he had said “fight”, but he couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even run effectively, since he couldn’t leave the damned theatre!

  “You’re being hunted,” the dhampir confirmed.

  “By who?”

  “I don’t know. But he or she is a powerful mentalist.” Her face screwed up. “Or not; those mages didn’t have much skill with mental combat. It’s as if . . . as if the mentalist opened the door and sent them through—or their minds, at least. Perhaps he was unwilling to face you himself. Or perhaps—”

  “He’s busy attacking the city,” John finished grimly, things finally starting to make sense.

  She nodded.

  “But you ended up getting dragged into my messed-up brain and screwed up his plans by saving my life,” he added. “Assuming I can die in here?”

  “You can die,” she confirmed. “It isn’t as straightforward as in the outside world, but you sap your strength every time you have to have to heal yourself. Eventually, you’ll die of exhaustion.”

  John glanced at his now restored arm. That had probably taken quite a bit of power, all on its own. Damn it!

  The bastard behind the enthrallment spell hadn’t been able to find him in the outside world, so he’d gone inward. He must have gotten enough of a read on him after Caleb tracked him down to get a mental lock, and had subsequently found a way into John’s mind. And had sent some of his servants to attack John inside his own messed up brain!

  “Then how do we get out?” he said harshly. The damned city was about to go up like Chernobyl. He couldn’t be stuck in here!

  “You don’t.” The dhampir said simply. “You go through.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  J ohn took a deep breath, and tried to relax. It didn’t work. And not just because of the damned mages prowling ever closer.

  “Your mind wants to show you something,” the dhampir said, from his side. “Let it.”

  “Then what?” he asked softly, trying not to break the mood. “They’re assassins. They’ll just try again.”

  “But not now. This memory stream will close itself off, once it plays out. That will throw them out of your mind, and force them to find another way in.”

  “And that helps me how?” John demanded. “You won’t be there then, and I don’t know any more about mental combat than they do!”

  It was galling to admit, but none of his years of study would help him now. He was proficient in three different magical systems, more than anyone he knew, but it never paid to get cocky. He’d thought he could handle anything, then he’d met a crazy blonde time traveler who regularly handed him his ass without even realizing it, and now he was being expected to make it through the maze of his own memory before the rest of him was turned to ash!

 
; But according to Dorina, there was no other choice. She could shut down the conduit and put a barrier around his mind that would keep out further attacks, at least for a while. But she couldn’t do it from inside his brain, or it would trap them here. So, they had to get out, and the only way to do that was to let the memory finish and release them.

  It sounded easy enough. Let his brain wrap up the little movie it was intent on showing him, then the lights would come on and the cinema’s staff would arrive to clean away the popcorn and everyone could go home. And lock the door behind them!

  But that ignored the fact that he couldn’t see his enemies when the memory took him because he was swept up in the action. And that they greatly outnumbered him already, and more could be sent if they failed to do the job. Because he currently had a major highway running through his cranium!

  “It will be all right. Let’s just get out of here first,” Dorina said.

  Yes, as if it was that easy!

  “I will guard you,” she promised. John just looked at her. “My father trained me in mental combat.”

  And, for the first time ever, John was grateful that Mircea Basarab was an evil son of a bitch.

  “Relax,” she told him. “Let the memory take you.”

  John tried not to scowl. Of course. As if he knew how to do—

  The mages must have called for help. John watched another dozen ripple through the illusion at the edge of the square, like monsters rising from the deep. And, damn it, he couldn’t fight them all!

  Archaeus appeared on the steps of his warehouse, probably to examine the hole the skirmish had left in his wall, and John sent him a whisper wrapped in a spell. He wasn’t sure it would work; senior demons communicated in such ways, but John wasn’t a senior demon. He was barely one at all.

  Yet, a second later, Archaeus reached up and plucked it out of the air, and his eyes met John’s.

  Go! John thought, willing him to understand.

  And, amazingly enough, the demon went. Surrounded by a phalanx of bully boys big enough to be considered small mountains, he waded into the fray. But not in John’s direction, as that would have led the mages right to him. He slithered across the square instead, and a dozen men broke off from the main group to follow him.

  How he planned to lose his tail before reaching the Incubus court, John didn’t know, but that was his problem. With the bribe he’d been promised, he’d find a way. Now John just needed to—

  “Have you lost your senses?”

  A hand gripped his shoulder, and John’s nerves, already wound tight as a drum, had a man’s body slammed against the wall in an instant—before recognizing the hard, green eyes staring back at him from under a fall of messy blond hair.

  His father, looking less than his usual debonair self thanks to John’s maneuver.

  Or maybe there was more to it than that.

  He was dressed in a bathrobe of fine burgundy silk, more a dressing gown than a glorified towel, something made to be seen. But the bare feet below spoke of a hurried departure from court, and the rasp of blond beard, just catching the light of a green-tinted lantern, turned the face vaguely alien. A pissed-off alien, John thought, and released him.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, before he could be asked the same.

  It always paid to be on the attack with Rosier.

  “As if you don’t know!” His father was incandescent. “I’m away for less than a day and what do I come home to? My so-dutiful son has paid me a visit and trashed half the house—”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “I know it wasn’t you! What the devil did you put in the wine cellar?”

  John started to answer, acid words on his tongue, when he felt his demon move under his breastbone. Not slowly and sinuously as usual, when it decided to make its presence known, but abruptly, jerkily. Like somebody had plunged a fist into his chest, grabbed his heart, and ripped it back out again.

  He clutched the wall for support, wondering what this new hell was, and looked up—

  To find that Rosier had vanished.

  And he wasn’t the only one.

  The mages had disappeared, several merchant’s booths had moved position or been replaced, and as John watched, the scribbled graffiti on the walls, advertising the red-light district next door, blurred and shifted.

  “No!” the dhampir’s voice said. “No, don’t go somewhere else! I can’t follow if you—"

  The sentence cut off, and suddenly John was watching a much younger version of himself stagger past the alley’s entrance and crash into several booths.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked Dorina. “What’s happening?”

  But there was no reply, because she was no longer there.

  And a moment later, neither was he.

  Ruining that amount of merchandise should have won John a thrashing, at the very least, from the stall’s proprietors, but it didn’t. Instead, the demon shopkeepers scattered, not even bothering to grab some of their wares first. Like the crowd, which turned as one and fled.

  At least, those did who weren’t crushed under a giant heel.

  “You dare to challenge me, boy?”

  The voice rang through the market, echoed off the surrounding buildings, and threatened to burst John’s eardrums. It was louder than loud, to the point that it vibrated through his body and strummed his ligaments like guitar strings. He thought he might just rupture from the inside out.

  Instead, he saw his younger self throw a spell, one that barely paused the giant fist headed his way, but barely was enough. He ducked underneath and scrabbled away on all fours, his nose running, his eyes wide and terrified. And passed straight through his older version, like a phantom.

  That was about the time John realized that he’d somehow slipped into another memory. That would have been bad enough, because the dhampir wasn’t in this one and he didn’t know how to get back on his own. But then there was the fact that the only other time he’d been in a fight in the Flesh Market was—

  Oh.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, shit.

  John ducked as the great fist swung at his rapidly moving younger self, and knocked a chunk out of the building behind him instead. A sizeable chunk, because it was a sizeable fist, one attached to a greenish-gray monstrosity that stood at least three stories tall and only resembled a man in that it was bipedal. A storm of tentacles erupted from its back, each bigger around than a man’s body; a pair of fan shaped fins framed a bald head and venomous, viper-like face; and strange, orange-white nodules decorated the rest of the bloated form.

  The latter were opening and closing rapidly, like tiny mouths gulping for air. Which was fair, since they were what he breathed through. But the number of them, and the fact that they were dripping some mucus like substance, made him appear as if he was covered in weeping sores.

  Dagon, John thought, as those slitted eyes turned on him, sending part of his brain gibbering.

  You should have thought of that before you brought me here, he snarled at it.

  And then a wall fell on top of him.

  Or, more accurately, it fell through him, merely causing his body to shudder a bit instead of being flattened. He didn’t seem to be entirely here yet, which left him staring around, wondering if the rest of him was back with the murderous mages. If he died in one place, did that mean that both versions of him were screwed?

  It was an interesting philosophical question that he didn’t have time for, because the wall must have been load bearing. Half of the building collapsed a moment later, in a great cloud of dust and debris. But John’s younger self was already sprinting away, throwing spells on the move, while his older version winced at some of the magic being used.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  John could see them now, as he hadn’t at the time: faces peering out of windows, from under laden carts, and from out of alleyways. People who should have been running like the rest of the crowd, but who had stayed despite the danger, eyes brigh
t and mouths open, to watch a crazy half demon take on a member of the High Council.

  It was insane.

  “This is insane!” Rosier echoed, appearing out of an alley. He was dressed differently because this was a different time—a much earlier one, just a few decades after John first entered the hells. But the expression on his face was eerily similar. “Stop it at once!” he demanded.

  Just before one of his colleague’s tentacles slammed him through a building.

  John wasn’t worried; his father was nothing if not resilient. He was more worried about himself. Because part of the shattered wall had hit him, and this time, it drew blood.

  He was slipping more into this memory, which meant that he could be hurt here.

  No, he thought, remembering Dorina’s words.

  He could be killed here.

  “Go!” he heard his younger self yell, after shredding the ward over a cage filled with slave girls.

  There was a reason the notorious slave market was so close to the brothel district. Merchandise that didn’t sell fast enough often ended up in the flesh trade, including some that wasn’t supposed to be. Humans were proscribed, as part of the demon council’s agreement with the Silver Circle, but laws were for the little folk.

  Council members could do as they pleased, or so some thought.

  Think again, John snarled, and across the market, his counterpart snarled back. “Go! Make for the portal!”

  The girls didn’t answer, being too shocked to cry and too afraid to scream. They had been almost catatonic when he found them, huddled together, their eyes huge and glazed. But while they probably hadn’t understood much that had happened to them in the past few days, they understood one thing. They ran.

  And the demon ran after them.

  He was afraid now, too, his agreement with the smuggler having been exposed. The Council might have to make an example of him, if he didn’t shut this down. And there was only one way to do that.

  The two Johns stared as one of the great beast’s webbed feet smashed through a succession of cages, flattening the heavy wood and metal exteriors, before flattening the owner. The smuggler must have been one of the corporeal demons, because there were plenty of bones to snap and blood to spurt all over the dirty street. The fleeing girls looked behind them, and finally found their voices. They screamed.