by Megan Derr
"Oh," Johnnie said, surprised even though he knew he should not be. "My father's notes were not terribly helpful in finding you. I surmised it was because you are so powerful, which I am more convinced of now."
Jed looked at him in surprise. "You can tell my power level?"
"I can smell it," Johnnie replied. "You and Lord Brennus both smell very strongly of magic; if I do not watch it you will cause me to start sneezing."
"Fascinating," Jed said. "I've never known someone who can smell magic; what an intriguing way to—"
"Master," the angel cut in, smiling fondly. "You can study him later."
Jed laughed and shook his head, then smiled sheepishly at Johnnie. "Of course, forgive me. Charlie is right. We have been working on the problem of the spell I put on you almost twenty-seven years ago. Even with my skills, it is no easy matter to strip away a spell that was laid on you before you were even born. Casting it took me hours; breaking it without killing you …" He shrugged and spread his hands. "I just don't know."
"We do not have a choice," Johnnie said, "so the point is moot. So long as you can break it, the rest is up to me. I am not going to die."
The angel—Charlie, had Jed called him?—laughed. "You are quite stubborn."
Johnnie said nothing, merely stared at him coolly. What did they expect, that he would simply let his family, his friends, wither and die because he was too scared to risk death himself? He had lost Bergrin, he was on the verge of losing his family. He quite literally had nothing left to lose; what did he give a damn about risking his own life if there was a chance to save the people who mattered to him?
Sable clapped his shoulder. "As I said, better than any vampire. Let him see the different circles you have been sketching out, though I think it does not matter which one you go with. I believe him when he says he will not let himself die."
"I think you are both reckless idiots," Chris snapped. "No one can endure the breaking of such a spell easily—do not be flippant."
"Yes, beloved," Sable replied, but winked at Johnnie before going to get a drink.
The sound of a soft woof drew Johnnie's attention, and he turned to see a massive black dog padding into the room. It came straight toward him, ears pricked up, pushing and rubbing in obvious curiosity, groaning and chuffing and woofing, as if asking questions Johnnie could neither understand nor answer.
Chris frowned. "That's interesting—he's not normally so friendly with strangers; at least not living ones."
"I could not say," Johnnie said. "I do not hang around the dead, or the undead. There just must be traces of something interesting on my clothes." He pet the dog one last time, then pushed it gently away.
"Speaking of clothes," Sable called from the table where he was pouring himself coffee. "I had some fresh clothes brought for you, figuring you would not want to go gallivanting off in a tuxedo. Phil always mentions running into you when she is out shopping, so I tracked down where you two overlapped. Your tailor put something together and sent it straight over."
Johnnie looked at him, surprised—and more grateful than he could possibly put into words, for something as stupid as fresh clothes, and his clothes. "Thank you."
"I am always happy to help those willing to yell at me," Sable said with an amused smirk.
Chris rolled his eyes, then reached out and stole Sable's coffee. To Johnnie, he said, "Get dressed, then we'll show you the various spell circles."
He indicated a room, and Johnnie headed immediately toward and into it. He shut the door behind him, then simply leaned against it for a moment, breathing deep and slow, getting his bearings, trying to gather himself.
All he really wanted was for everything to be normal again.
The room was a guest room, as near as he could tell, complete with its own bathroom. Stripping off his tuxedo, he threw it into a corner—he had no intention of wearing the damned thing ever again. If he could, he would burn it.
In the bathroom, he made the water as hot as he could possibly stand, then simply stood beneath it for several minutes. Only reluctantly did he finally begin to wash, and he was able to make himself do it quickly only because he was already down several hours. He probably did not have much more than two days left.
Clean, he returned to the bedroom and quickly dressed in the clothes waiting for him—a black suit with gray pinstripes, and a vest of various shades of gray, touched with silver, in an oriental flower pattern, over a white shirt with black opal buttons. The tie was pale, shimmery gray-green, with a black opal pin, and matching cufflinks—his tailor really had remembered everything, right down to a pair of shoes to match.
Feeling much more himself, even if it continued to feel like a piece of him was missing, Johnnie rejoined the others in the main room.
"I still don't see why we can't try something!" Doug said furiously "Zach—" He cut off, then tried again. "Zach and Phil are in that house, Chris."
"I know," Chris said, "but whoever this bitch is, she's trapped them good and tight. But …" He trailed off as he saw Johnnie.
Doug turned around, a scowl still on his face.
Johnnie flinched. "I am sorry. I underestimated her abilities. I had no idea she had a Sleeping Beauty rigged as a failsafe."
"It's hardly the worst we've ever faced," Chris said. "And it's not entirely your fault. Zach and Phil are both experienced detectives. They are as responsible for this mistake as you—they both have dealt with necromancers before, including one ruthless enough to drain fellow vampires. So, they should have known." He shot Doug a look.
Doug grunted, then grimaced. "True enough. I don't know what Zach was thinking." He sighed, and said more quietly, "I hope this works, and that he'll be okay."
"He will be," Johnnie said, recognizing that look, that tone of voice.
It was not fair, he thought miserably. Even in the middle of this mess, too many things continued to remind him of Bergrin. He had greater concerns, he should not keep going back to his one selfish desire. Bergrin was gone; Johnnie did not see how he would ever come back.
"Show me the circles," he said, moving to Jed and Charlie.
Jed handed him three pieces of paper. Johnnie looked at them, duly impressed. They were extremely intricate, denoting a skill the likes of which he had never seen. He read through them thoughtfully, only growing more and more impressed.
"This one I thought would help with the shock and pain—"
"But it sacrifices force," Johnnie said. "It may not be strong enough in practice, though it is in theory, to completely break the spell—and leaving the job half done could be worse, in the long run, than one clean break."
Jed looked at him, clearly surprised. "You can read spell circles?"
"You make it sound difficult," Johnnie replied, and moved on to the second, then the third, and finally the fourth. Then he went through all of them again, before handing them back to Jed. "I would go with the third myself, but reading them does not make me an expert upon them. You seem to be the resident authority, so whatever you feel is best."
"A pity you cannot do magic," Jed said thoughtfully, "I think you would have a fair knack for it. The third was my vote. It will be, as you called it, one clean break. It will also be excruciating."
Johnnie thought of the near-corpses lined up neatly in the ballroom, lives ticking away because he had made too many mistakes. Then he thought of Bergrin, and the anger he had earlier felt was now only a crushing pain. "I do not care."
"No, I can see that you don't," Jed said, looking at him with such sincere sympathy that Johnnie could not stand it.
He turned sharply away, asking, "So when are you doing it?"
"Now," Jed replied. "Give me an hour to draw the spell circle."
Sable leaned against one of the floor to ceiling windows. "My maids are going to kill me when they see I have chalked up my expensive, imported wood floor yet again."
Chris snorted at that. "Johnnie, would you like something to eat?"
"Not really," Joh
nnie said, "but I suppose I should eat something."
"I'll order something up," Sable said, and Johnnie could tell from the way he fell silent that he was communicating with someone elsewhere in the building.
Leaving Jed to the spell work, knowing it was best to get out of the way, he returned to the couch where he had earlier slept and finally asked, "How long was I asleep?"
"About eight hours."
So, all told, he had lost about twelve. Sixty hours left. Johnnie winced. He sincerely doubted that was enough time to do all that he had to do—assuming he was still alive in an hour. Johnnie would really prefer not to think about that, but he could not seem to stop.
He wanted to be back at the Bremen, he thought. Playing pool, or simply reading while the guys chatted around him, looking up every now and then because he was certain Bergrin was watching him—but never able to catch him in the act, never seeing more than the bill of that stupid cap.
What was Bergrin doing now, he wondered. Back at the Bremen, slumped in his corner? Back at his father's house? Slinking around in the dark touching someone—
Johnnie tore away from that thought, fighting an urge to throw something through a window. He drew a deep breath—and jerked as someone touched him, looked up sharply, then froze, and relaxed. "My apologies," he muttered.
"No worries," Chris said, and set a tray holding a plate heaped with fettuccini alfredo and a glass of red wine. "Eat."
Johnnie ate, but only because he wanted all the help he could get when the spell was broken. He had read enough, and listened enough, to know it was going to be hell. The wine was good, and he enjoyed it far more than the food. Setting it all neatly aside when he was done, he stood and returned to the group. "Thank you," he said to Chris and Sable.
Chris shrugged. "Your parents were good folks. I'm sorry everything went so wrong there." He looked Johnnie up and down. "But, I can see that Ontoniel has been good to you, not that I ever doubted he would be."
"I should hope not," Johnnie said, irritated that anyone would even consider the possibility of Ontoniel being anything less. "My father is a good man."
Sable laughed. "Yes, he is—any man so staunchly defended by his son must be, but I have met him on a few occasions. I will say, though, that the Ontoniel I knew a couple hundred years ago would never have considered adopting a human."
Johnnie did not bother to reply to that.
Chris drove an elbow into Sable's gut. "Behave. Johnnie, will you be able to handle the dream plane?"
"Do I have a choice?" Johnnie asked, tired of stupid questions and comments. This was the notorious Sable Brennus and his Consort? He did not see what all the fuss was about.
"I'm serious," Chris snapped. "Plane traveling is no small matter, and you're only half incubus—there is no way of knowing how it will affect you, what might happen to you."
"My question remains!" Johnnie snapped right back. "I must go there to retrieve that damned mirror, or find a way around her curse. I am hoping for the latter, as so far I have been given no clue as to where the former is located. It does not matter if I am ready, if I think I can handle it. Theoretically, I should be fine. I am half-incubus; the dream plane is in my blood. My father said that while I am awake I am completely normal, but that in the dream plane I am probably much more my mother. I know as much as anyone on the mortal plane can know, possibly more. I stand a better chance than everyone in this room. But theory and practice are two very different things, so we will not know until I die trying, or manage to come out of it alive."
Chris threw up his hands. "That is not quite what I meant, but I suppose it will have to suffice."
"That reminds me," Johnnie said. "Where is my cane?"
"There," Sable said, and pointed to where it leaned against the wall near the fireplace. "It's a beautiful specimen. There's something special about it, I can see contaminated energies around it—like violence was involved, or some sort of black magic."
Johnnie picked the cane up, feeling better to have it in his hands again. He pushed the hidden release, and drew the sword—and could see from the faces of Chris, Sable, and Doug that none of them had known what the cane hid. "Both, I should think," he said, and sheathed the sword. "It can cross the planes."
"No wonder you would not let go of it," Chris said. "When it finally slipped from your grasp, we were astonished."
"It was a gift, from my second case," Johnnie said quietly, thinking of Micah, the others. Wishing he were with them. Though this world was his, this steel and glass palace thirty stories above the rest of the world—he liked his humble dive better.
Especially, he thought miserably, when it had included the most infuriating man he had ever met.
"What was the case?" Chris asked.
Johnnie looked at him, genuinely surprised by the question. "Uh—It was not much. A man's wife had been kidnapped, because the imp who wound up being behind it wanted this cane. It turned out the wife had been turned into a rosebush. The man, Micah, gave the cane in gratitude."
"Huh," Chris said. "You'll have to let me read over the case file sometime."
"Case file?" Johnnie asked. "I do not keep anything so formal; I am not a real detective. Where is my coat?" When Sable pointed to a closet, Johnnie strode to it and pulled out the journal that he seemed to always carry with him now. Returning to Chris, he presented it after hesitating only a moment. "I called it 'The Riddling Tale'. It was only a few months ago. You can read it, if you really want. My cases cannot be half so interesting as all of yours must be."
Chris snorted. "I doubt it. They are never half so interesting as one hopes. And I have certainly never pissed off a necromancer so bad she cast a Sleeping Beauty curse on my home."
"No, you just—" Sable grunted as Chris drove an elbow into his gut a second time. "Get yourself into bigger messes," he finished in a somewhat petulant tone.
"Stop whining," Chris retorted. "I will read the case, and take care of this until you can retrieve it. Thank you."
Johnnie nodded, and started to say something, though he was not quite sure what, when he was interrupted by Charlie. "We're ready."
Hiding a grimace, Johnnie gripped his cane more tightly and strode toward Jed, who stood by the elaborate spell circle he had just spent the past hour drawing on the floor He wiped his chalk-dusty hands on his jeans and smiled at Johnnie. "If you'll step inside, I'll chalk the last mark and seal you in."
Nodding, Johnnie looked over the spell circle, thought of all the people who needed him to do this, then stepped inside.
Jed knelt and drew in one last mark. "There," he said, standing and wiping his hands again. He smiled gently. "If anything goes awry, it will be contained. I have woven in what pain-counters I could without sacrificing the power of the spell." He sighed, and pushed his slipping glasses back up his nose. "I hope this works."
Johnnie said nothing, only watched him until Jed finally nodded. "Here we go, then." Kneeling once more, he began to mutter softly beneath his breath—then his hand abruptly flashed out, and slammed down on the circle, activating the spell.
For a moment, Johnnie felt nothing but a sudden lance of shocking cold—like being hit by a cold freeze and suffering a particularly painful jolt of static shock all at once.
Then it felt like warmth spreading through him, a sip of brandy that warmed to the core.
But as he drew another breath, and the counter-spell began to undo a spell set nearly twenty-seven years ago, and the pain started.
Johnnie heard himself screaming, but he could comprehend nothing more than that, could barely understand that he was screaming. All he felt was the searing pain, like someone cutting him apart, burning him, shredding him, from the inside out.
He screamed and screamed and screamed, feeling pain, tasting blood, hitting something—he thought for a moment, somewhere in there, that he might have thrown up.
Then he just gave up.
*~*~*
Johnnie woke up shouting—and realized abruptly h
e was lying in his bed. At the Bremen.
What?
He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, grimacing as the pain of a headache caught up to him. He felt like shit. Stumbling out of bed, Johnnie slowly made his way to the bathroom, flicking on the light and looking in the mirror.
Which showed him nothing but a gray, misty, indistinct wash of colors.
Mirrors do not work on the dream plane he remembered with sharp, nasty jolt. He—it—the counter-spell had worked. He was in the dream plane.
And now that he was aware, Johnnie began to notice all the little details he should have caught before. The apartment was almost perfect, but there were minute details missing, bits and pieces here and there. Like his mind had not been able to fill in all the details.