by Hall, Alexis
Julian turned her big blue eyes up to mine again. “Well, since it means so much to you, I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not promising.”
It probably says something about the state of your love life that your girlfriend promising to try and murder slightly fewer people seems like a really sweet and romantic gesture. “Thanks. I do actually appreciate it.”
“You can make it up to me later.” Julian slid her leg between mine, leaving me in no doubt how exactly she was expecting me to do that.
“Um, the guy I sent off with the Knights. He’s not going to be randomly executed, is he? I went to a lot of trouble to find him.”
“I shouldn’t worry. Acton never lets anyone interfere with his little projects.”
“His sister sort of hired me to find him. I told her he was lying low because Reasons, but I don’t know what happens now he’s, y’know, dead but still walking around.”
“Oh, it’s fine, darling.” She grinned. “We’ll just kill everybody he’s ever met or cared about.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Kate, we’ve been dealing with this sort of situation for centuries. It’s up to him whether he wants to reintegrate with his family, and if he does, Sebastian’s people will handle it.”
“I’d assumed there’d be some kind of don’t-tell-anybody-ever rule.”
“We tried that, it just caused a lot of unnecessary headaches. If the survival of our species could be jeopardised by one individual telling his sister that we exist, we would have been wiped out long ago.” Julian rolled over me and kissed me deeply. “As much as I’d love to stay with you all day, I should go. The Velvet’s been closed too long already.”
I suppose technically I had a job as well. I didn’t have any work, but I still had a job.
“There’s one more thing,” I said, watching Julian slither interestingly into her tight leather trousers. “Can you take something to the Council for me?”
Julian stopped and gave me a look. “You mean, as well as asking for clemency for a bunch of uncontrollable blood-crazed fledglings?”
“This isn’t a request, it’s information. I think Henry Percy woke the Morrígan.”
“Mad alchemist Henry Percy? Why would he do that?”
“I think . . . um . . . he wanted to distract everybody so he could become a god.”
“Well, the man certainly knows how to divert attention. We’ll look into it.”
“And the god thing?”
“I’m not sure the Council has a policy on ascending to godhood. But if he did really wake the Morrígan, we’re going to be very cross indeed.”
Julian finished dressing and left a few minutes later. I had a shower, a coffee, and a banana, not necessarily in that order. Elise was just on her way out to oversee the repairs on my Corsa, so that left me with nothing to do except treat myself to a day off and a Downton Abbey marathon. Or I would have done, if I could work the TiVo.
I was still fiddling with one of the three new remote controls that had shown up in the front room since Elise arrived when the window burst open and Patrick barged in.
“Katharine,” he rasped.
He looked like shit. His skin was pale, his cheeks were gaunt, his eyes were red. Also, his hair was a mess, but that was kind of his look.
“What the fuck?”
He leaned over me and grabbed my arms. “It’s Sofia.”
“Let me guess, you’ve dumped her again.”
“If only I had.” He let go of me for a moment to put a hand tragically to his forehead. “She has been taken.”
“Can’t you just go and get her back?”
Patrick has this creepy ability to tell where his girlfriends are every second of the day out to a radius of several hundred miles.
“Something is keeping us apart.”
“And you think I can help, how?”
He pulled away and stalked up and down my very small apartment. “If you have any feelings left for me at all, you will help me.”
“Patrick, I don’t have any feelings left for you at all. Unless you count irritation and wishing you’d leave me alone.”
He whirled back around and got right up in my grill. “I know I have hurt you, Katharine, but Sofia is blameless in all of this. She is innocent and pure like a white dove I—”
“Oh, will you shut up?” As much as I would have loved to tell Patrick to fuck off, it sounded like Sofia was really in trouble, and Patrick’s fetishes aside, I wasn’t going to let an innocent girl get hurt. She’d already told me she was having visions of people trying to kill her, although since she’d thought it was me, they probably weren’t a hundred percent accurate. Unless it was one of those movie things where I go to try to save her and end up killing her with the power of irony. “Look, tell me what happened, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“We were at a ball at her school.”
Wait. He actually took her? He must have grown as a person. I made go on noises.
“I was called away by the Prince of Wands because of the events in Highgate Cemetery. I was gone less than half an hour, but when I returned, she’d been taken, and I could no longer sense her.”
“And you didn’t see anybody?”
Patrick shook his head tormentedly.
Okay, that meant Sofia’s visions were the only clues I had. It was a good job they’d been pretty familiar. “You know she had dreams, right?”
“Of course, she told me everything.”
“About the people trying to kill her?”
His face froze, and he was silent. I took that as a no. I wouldn’t have told him when I was her age either. “She said she dreamed of a man with a golden mask and a house with dragons outside it.”
Patrick posed dramatically. “Then I know where she is.”
“Yeah, yeah, so do I. I was there too, remember? Now get your car and meet me in five minutes.”
“No, Katharine. You have done enough. I must do this alone.”
“Patrick, don’t be such a bell end. You asked for my help and you’re getting it whether you want it or not.”
“I’m not coming back to you, Katharine.” He turned away from me and stretched out one arm in a gesture of anguished rejection. “I love Sofia now.”
“I know you might not believe this, but I actually care more about the life of a seventeen-year-old girl than where you stick your dick.”
Patrick disappeared through my window and a few minutes later his silver Volvo S60R pulled up outside my flat. Annoyingly, I was probably going to wind up fighting a castle full of vampires, and I’d given my gold dagger to the girl they’d already kidnapped, and I’d had my magic sword stolen by one of the vampires I was about to be fighting. Which meant we were basically going in armed only with my hand-me-down faery powers and Patrick’s misplaced sense of righteousness. I mean, I suppose the sensible thing to do would have been to take a step back, ring Elise, possibly Julian, and try to get backup, but we were pushed for time, Patrick would probably have driven off without me, and I’ve never been a big fan of sensible anyway.
Twenty minutes into the road trip, it occurred to me that not only was I going to have to take on a castle full of vampires with my bare hands, but I was going to have to spend five hours in a car with Patrick first. I turned on the CD player and heard the tinkling strains of Clair de fucking Lune.
“Jesus, Patrick, how long can you keep listening to the same piece of music?”
“It is a very beautiful movement.”
“Your whole life is a very beautiful movement.”
“Thank you, Katharine.”
I don’t know why I even try. I got rid of Debussy and dug through Patrick’s music collection. I found a home-burned mix CD labelled For Patrick. It had a heart over the i. I stuck it in, and “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” whinged through the speakers. I suppose it was sort of his theme song. Why does it always rain on me? Is it because I saw ghosts, got committed to a lunatic asylum, and was transformed into a vampire by a crazy sta
lker chick when I was seventeen?
I went to pull my hat down over my eyes, and then remembered I’d lost the fucking thing. So I lay back and pretended I was asleep. The next track on the album was the radio edit of “Creep,” which was also strangely appropriate. Alienated, obsessive, and a little bit PG-13.
I thought back to what Eve had told me about the ritual, and kicked myself for not working it out earlier. Though to be fair, I’d had a lot on my mind and going from Patrick’s new girlfriend is having funny dreams, to she’s the last heir of a line of prophetesses dating back to the oracles and Delphi, and the crazy vampire alchemist who abducted me when I was seventeen will need her for the first part of the ritual that he needed me for the second part of was quite a big leap. Hopefully, if I could nip this in the bud now, I’d be able to avoid an inconvenient sacrifice attempt six months down the line, assuming I was still his go-to faery princess.
The last of the light was bleeding out of the sky by the time we arrived many Clair de Lunes later at Trismegistus Hall.
We ditched the car as close as we dared and headed in on foot. The place was pretty much like I remembered, big old house with lots of windows, sort of turrety bits at the corners, and four stone dragon heads on the lawn.
I thought about asking Patrick if he had a plan, but he’d never been one for thinking ahead. Then again, neither had I.
“So, kick down the door, fight the baddies, get the girl?”
He nodded gravely.
We hurried towards the house, but when we were about halfway there, the ground starting shaking like that bit in Jurassic Park. Call me a pessimist, but I didn’t think it was a good sign. At least last time, Percy’d had the good manners to keep the magical death traps inside the house.
I steadied myself, and scanned the area for what I’m sure Eve would call incoming hostiles.
There weren’t any. Just me, Patrick, the house, some neat little woods, and four stone—
Oh, you have to be shitting me.
The perfectly maintained lawn ripped open and an enormous, four-headed stone dragon rose up from the mess, shaking grass and soil from its roughly carved back.
Patrick hadn’t stopped and was already nearly past it. The creature’s tail swung round and smacked him square in the chest, sending him flying. Ordinarily I’d have quite enjoyed it, but tonight he was my backup.
Okay, Kate, you’ve got no weapons, it’s made of stone, its standing between you and where you want to go, and it’s just taken out the hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire.
If I was lucky, it’d be slow.
I tried to edge round the thing. It drew one of its heads back, and I saw a dim red glow build in its mouth.
Okay, so slow but fire breathing.
I rolled aside as it lobbed a bolt of searing molten rock at me.
Okay, so not fire breathing, lava breathing. I wasn’t sure that was any better.
Patrick was back on his feet, and with his usual total lack of common sense, charged the dragon head on. He very nearly got a ball of magma in the face, but ducked aside at the last second.
Well. Fine. Play to his strengths.
“You keep it occupied,” I shouted. “I’ll think of something.”
I tried to think of something.
What I really needed right now was magical backup or some kind of pneumatic hammer. And the only magical weapons nearby were in the mouths of the monster that was trying to kill me.
Fuck it, it was worth a shot.
Patrick was trying to get close, but what with the fireballs and everything, he wasn’t having much luck. Truthfully, I didn’t know what he thought he could do, even if he didn’t get incinerated. It wasn’t like he could bite it. Maybe he was going to annoy it to death.
I waited ’til all four heads were busy trying to barbecue Patrick, then I circled round and scrabbled onto its back. It was damn near vertical and swaying violently, but at least there were plenty of handholds. The instant I, um, mounted, another one of its heads whipped round and tried to bite me. I ducked as a set of massive stone jaws clamped shut in the air above me. Truthfully, I wasn’t mad keen on getting any closer to them, but I sprang up and got my arms around its neck.
It shook its head like a dog coming out of a pond. I dug my fingers and knees into the stone. If it managed to throw me off, I was basically fucked. I could already feel a vibration in the rock as it readied its next blob of molten death phlegm. While I did my best impression of a spider monkey, the head I was on twisted back towards Patrick, and I felt its neck grow warm and then hot beneath me.
Calling up as much of my mother’s strength as I dared, I wrenched its jaw back around and pressed myself in tight as a spew of liquid rock burst out of its mouth and spattered against one of the other heads and part of the body. The rush of heat was intense, and I was pretty sure I could smell my hair burning. Again.
The dragon gave a rough grating roar, and I threw myself to the ground and crawled the fuck away.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure it wasn’t going to shoot anything at me. Thankfully, it had gone the way of every many-headed monster I’ve ever seen, in real life or on TV, and started fighting itself.
“Katharine,” cried Patrick. He caught me by the wrist and dragged me after him like he was saving my life. “Run.”
Ah, Patrick. How I’d missed him.
By the time we’d got to the lawn and in sight of the house, the dragon was a pile of faintly glowing rubble.
Patrick tugged at my arm. “Come, we must rescue Sofia.”
I twisted into his grip and broke his hold. Over the years, I’ve got pretty good at that.
I had a quick look at the building, trying to work out the best point of entry. Years of experience told me the wide-open front door might be a good place to start. Of course, my years of experience were also shouting it’s a trap in that raspy voice Eve used to do.
I briefly thought about sending Patrick in first, but not only would it have been kind of a dick move, chances were they would be expecting him not me.
I approached as stealthily as you can when you’re walking on gravel in full view of about thirty windows and have just fought an exploding fire monster.
Nothing killed me.
The entrance hall was decked out in the same style as Syon, all marble, bling, and naked dudes, and as soon as I stepped inside, I remembered the place. I’d been kind of busy getting kidnapped the last time, but I guess it had made more of an impression on me than I realised.
I tried really hard not to be seventeen again.
I followed mirrored corridors that were all too familiar, down a flight of twisting stone steps to Henry Percy’s lavish underground sacrificing chamber.
It was almost the same as I remembered: more bling, lots of dribbly candles, and weird shit on the floor. Except this time I wasn’t chained to the ceiling. Sofia knelt in the middle of a circle with seven red-robed vampires standing around, masked and chanting. On a raised platform at the far end, a man in white robes and a golden sun mask stood behind a table of magical doodads. He had an honest-to-god wand in his right hand, like he was Albus fucking Dumbledore.
Patrick shoved me out of the way and dashed forwards, shouting Sofia’s name.
The man in white lifted a hand, and Patrick flew across the room and cracked into a marble pillar. In seconds, he was on his feet again, snarling.
I could have told them it takes more than throwing him bodily across the room to get Patrick to back off.
As the chanting reached a crescendo, Sofia jerked to her feet. Patrick rushed forwards, but before he could reach her, she said something in a language I didn’t understand, but I assumed was some kind of ancient Greek, and a brilliant light flared from the golden mask.
If it was possible for metal to look smug, I’d have said it looked smug.
Okay, Operation Nip This in the Bud, probably a failure. I’m not an expert on mystical god rituals but bright flashes of light are usually not a good sign.
Slowly, the man in white reached down and picked up a bloodstained dagger. He turned towards Patrick and raised the blade. Oh crap, they had a sample of his blood, didn’t they? That probably explained why he hadn’t been able to track her. I had no idea how powerful that sort of freaky blood magic was but Patrick was not in a good way.
He sank to his knees, his face twisted in horror and anguish. “Sofia,” he gasped.
“I am sorry, Patrick.” The masked man’s voice echoed everywhere at once, full of power and glory. “The girl has served her purpose, but there will be other mortals.”
I’d been waiting for the best time to act, but having no idea what the hell was going on had made it a bit difficult. But now it looked like I was going to have to rescue both of them.
By fighting eight vampires. One of them possibly a god.
I came running down the steps hoping that raw enthusiasm and good intentions would make up for the lack of numbers, weapons, or a plan.
Before I could really do anything, Patrick suddenly broke free of the spell that had been binding him and lurched to his feet, screaming “Nooooo!” like he was in an actual fucking movie.
So, ancient blood magic? Not as powerful as Patrick’s inappropriate obsessions with underage girls.
Then chaos happened.
The entire circle jumped on Patrick in a blur of red robes and got the full force of his psychotic sense of romance.
When I looked away from the bloody melee, I saw the man in white was gone, and a door, half-concealed by shadows, had opened behind his platform.
There was no fucking way I was letting him escape. At the time, I’d taken being tied up and nearly murdered as just part of being a teenager, but in retrospect, I was pretty pissed off about it.
Figuring that, for all his flaws, aggressively protecting seventeen-year-olds was what Patrick did best, I left him to take care of Sofia and pegged it after the man in white.
I ran down what was blatantly a secret passage, up a flight of stairs, and through a door which, of course, had a false bookcase on the other side. I’d come out in the library. Say this for Percy, the guy respected the classics.
“Ah, Miss Kane. I’m so glad you could join me.”