by Karen Chance
Embrace the Night
( Cassandra Palmer - 3 )
Karen Chance
Cassandra Palmer may be the world's chief clairvoyant, but she's still magically bound to a master vampire. Only an ancient book called the Codex Merlini possesses the incantation to free Cassie-but harnessing its limitless power could endanger the world…
Embrace the Night
Cassandra Palmer, book 3
Karen Chance
To Tracy Amber Lewis
Chapter 1
A weeping angel shattered in a crack of gray dust, sending its wings flying off in two directions. It took a second for me to realize I wasn't dead, and then I dove for the side of a nearby obelisk. I pressed flat against the ground, feeling the mud seeping into my already drenched clothes, while a barrage of shots struck sparks off the granite overhead. I was starting to suspect that this tomb raider thing might not be as much fun as I'd hoped.
Of course, that was pretty much the story of my life lately. A chain of events that might very charitably be classified as disasters had left me with the position of Pythia, the supernatural community's chief seer. The Silver Circle, a group of light magic users, had expected one of their tame acolytes to inherit the office since it had happened that way for a few thousand years now. They'd been less than thrilled when the power went to me instead: Cassie Palmer, untrained clairvoyant, protégée of a vampire crime boss and known cohort of a renegade war mage.
Some people have no sense of irony.
The mages had expressed their displeasure by trying to send me off to explore the great mystery of what lies in store for us after death. Since I wasn't that curious, I'd been attempting to stay under their radar. It didn't look like I was doing so hot.
I decided to try for better cover beside a crypt, and was halfway there when something that felt like a sledgehammer knocked me to the ground. A bolt of lightning exploded against a nearby tree, causing the air to tingle and writhe with electricity and sending blue-white, hissing snakes scurrying over a tangle of exposed roots. It left the tree split in half, blackened along the center like old firewood, the air flooded with ozone and my skull hammering from the near miss. Above me, thunder rolled ominously across the sky, an appropriate bit of sound effects that I would have appreciated a lot more during a movie.
Speaking of irony, it would be really amusing if Mother Nature managed to kill me before the Circle got the chance. I crawled in the general direction of the crypt, temporarily night-blind and helpless, blinking away afterimages. At least I discovered why gun grips are ribbed: so when your palm is sweating with abject terror, you can still manage to clutch the thing.
My new 9mm didn't fit my hand as well as my old one, but it was rapidly becoming a familiar weight. At first I'd decided it was okay to wear as long as I shot only at supernatural bad guys who were already shooting at me. Lately, I'd had to broaden that definition to anytime my life was in danger. I was currently leaning toward a slightly more comprehensive rule somewhere between proactive self-defense and the-bastards-had-it-coming, which, if I survived long enough, I intended to blame on my deranged partner rubbing off on me.
I found the crypt by running into it face-first, scraping a cheek on the pitted limestone exterior. I strained my ears, but there was no sign of my attackers. A hail of shots rattled against a nearby path, ricocheting off the cobblestones to fly away in all directions. Okay, no sign other than the fact that someone kept shooting at me.
I hugged the wall and told myself not to overreact and waste bullets. I'd already lobotomized a cupid after a gust of wind blew a few leaves across it, giving it a fleeting sense of movement—and that had been with the glow of an almost full moon to see by. It was worse now that the wind had blown dark clouds in, and the spatter of rain made it impossible to hear quiet footsteps.
The firing finally stopped, but my whole body continued to shake, to the point that I dropped the reserve clip I'd fumbled out of my pocket. The old one still had several rounds left, but I didn't want to run out at a crucial moment. Another shot hit the cupid I'd decapitated, shaving off one of its little butt cheeks. I flinched and my foot kicked something that splashed into a nearby puddle. I got to my knees, searching around in the grass for it and trying to curse quietly.
"A little to the left." I whirled, gun up, heart pounding. But the dark-haired man leaning against a moss-stained fountain didn't look concerned. Maybe because he no longer had a body to worry about.
I relaxed slightly. Ghosts I could deal with; I'd even been expecting them. Père Lachaise isn't Paris' oldest cemetery, but it's huge. I'd had to reinforce my shields to be able to see anything past the green glow of thousands of ghost trails, crisscrossing the landscape like a crazy spiderweb. It was the main reason I'd left my own ghostly helper behind. Billy Joe could be a pain, but I really didn't want him serving as a midnight snack for a bunch of hungry ghosts.
"Thanks."
"You're American."
"Uh, yeah." A bullet pinged against an iron railing nearby and I flinched. "How'd you know?"
"My dear." He looked pointedly at my mud-spattered jeans, once-white tennis shoes and soaked gray T-shirt. The last had been an impulse buy a few days ago, something to wear to target practice to remind my exacting coach that I was still a beginner at this. Its quip, "I don't have a license to kill. I have a learner's permit," was starting to look really ironic now.
Lara Croft would have worn something a lot less mud-covered, and she would have had her hair in a sexy style that still kept it out of her face. My own curly mop was at the stage where it was too long to stay out of the way and too short to keep in a ponytail. As a result, I had wet blond strands falling into my eyes and clinging to my cheeks, adding to the overall lack of cool.
"When good Americans die, they go to Paris," the ghost said, after taking a drag on a small cigarette. "But you're not dead. I suppose the question must be, are you good?"
My hand finally closed over the clip, and I slammed it into place. I surreptitiously looked him over, wondering what answer was likely to get me some help. I took in the long velvet jacket, the silk cravat and the lazy smile. "Depends who you ask."
"Prevarication, how divine! I always did get along better with sinners."
"Then maybe you can tell me how many people are out there?"
Another ghost drifted up, wearing only a pair of low-rise blue jeans. He looked vaguely familiar, with shoulder-length brown hair, classic features and a slightly petulant pout. "About a dozen. They just shot up my ugly-ass memorial."
The older ghost sniffed. "Your legions of fans will doubtless have you another inside a week—"
"Can I help it if I'm popular?"
“—and will then proceed to vandalize it and everything in the vicinity."
"Hey, be cool."
The older ghost bristled. "Don't talk to me about cool, you preposterous pretender! I was cool! I was the epitome of cool! For all intents and purposes, I invented cool!"
"Can you two keep it down?" I asked a little shrilly. Sweat trickled down one side of my temple and into my eye, burning. I blinked it away and watched a few shadows slink closer. They existed only at the edge of my vision, and seemed to disappear whenever I looked directly at them. Then a spell exploded overhead, lighting up the area like a flare and giving me a clear view. Unfortunately, it did the same for my attackers. The Gothic arch above my head immediately rang with shots, causing bits of stonework to crumble on top of me as I ducked inside.
"This is ridiculous! You people are worse than the madmen Kardec attracts." The ghosts had followed me in. Of course. "Mystic, ha! The man never even rose, yet there's always someone praying or chanting or draping him with flowers—"
"He believe
d in reincarnation, man. Maybe he came back."
I fought my way out of a large cobweb, and managed not to slip on the stone tiles, which were slick with rain and decaying leaves. "Shut up!" I whispered viciously.
The older ghost sniffed. "At least the mystics aren't rude."
I squinted down at the vague squiggles that were supposed to be a map and tried to ignore him. It might have been easier if I wasn't soaking wet and filthy with a pounding headache. I really, really wanted to get out of here. But, thanks to a certain devious master vampire, that wasn't an option.
I was prowling around a cemetery in the middle of the night, dodging guard dogs, lightning bolts and crazed war mages, because of a spell known as a geis. The vamp in question, Mircea, had had it placed on me years ago, without bothering to get my permission or even remembering to mention that he'd done it. Master vamps are like that, but in this case, there might have been more than the usual arrogance behind his forgetfulness.
On the one hand, the spell provided me protection growing up—it marked me as his, meaning that no sane vampire would touch me with a ten-foot pole. On the other, it was designed to ensure loyalty to a single person: exclusive, complete and utter loyalty. Now that we were both adults, the spell wanted to bind Mircea and me together forever, and it didn't appreciate my noncooperation. That was a problem, since people have been known to go mad from this thing, even committing suicide rather than live with the constant, gnawing ache that was just one of the spell's tricks when thwarted. But sitting back and enjoying the ride wasn't an option, either.
If the bond ever fully formed, our lives would be run by the dominant partner—which I had no doubt would be Mircea—leaving me stuck as his eager little slave. And since he was a member in good standing of the Vampire Senate, the governing body of all North American vampires, I would doubtless end up running their errands, too. The thought of what some of those requests might be was enough to put me in a cold sweat. It was what the Circle feared—the Pythia under the control of the vamps. And while I wasn't in favor of their method of preventing it, I could grudgingly concede the point: it would be a disaster.
Becoming Pythia had made me a target for anybody in the supernatural community who was attracted to power—in other words, pretty much everyone—but it had bought me some time as far as the spell was concerned. How much, I didn't know. Meaning that I really needed that counterspell. And rumor was, the only grimoire that contained a copy was buried somewhere around here.
Of course, it would help if I could read the damn map. I squinted at it, but the only illumination was moonlight filtered through the remains of once beautiful stained-glass windows. Half of a seated Madonna looked out onto a charcoal gray sky, with the occasional flash of lightning outlining layered clouds. I had a flashlight, but turning it on would only make me that much better of a—
Something lunged at me out of the night. "Don't shoot!" a man whispered.
He smelled of sweat, metal and dirt, plus a static crackle of nervous energy that was practically his signature. I turned on the flashlight and saw what I'd expected: a shock of pale hair, which as usual was making taunting gestures in the face of gravity, a square jaw, a slightly overlarge nose and furious green eyes. The Circle's most famous renegade and my reluctant partner, John Pritkin.
I breathed a sigh of relief and clicked my gun's safety on. To know Pritkin was to want to kill him, but so far I'd resisted temptation. "You shouldn't sneak up on me like that!" I whispered.
"Why didn't you shoot me?" he demanded.
"You told me not to."
"I—that's—" Pritkin seemed momentarily incoherent, so I shoved the gun's barrel lightly against his stomach. At least I'd thought it was his stomach. I'd only intended to show that I wasn't defenseless, but in a flash, I was slammed against the side of the crypt, my gun arm pinned to the wall, my body stuck between the hard surface and a very angry war mage. I reluctantly admitted that there may have been a fantasy or two that began with this scenario, but I doubted the evening was going to end the same way.
"I knew it was you," I told him before his ability to vocalize returned. "You smell like gunpowder and magic." That was truer than usual because his coat, a thick leather duster that hid his weapon collection, had a large spot where the leather was crisped and curled up. Like maybe a spell hadn't missed him by much.
"Those are mages out there!" he whispered savagely. "So do they! And what the hell are you still doing here?!"
"I have the map," I reminded him.
"Give it to me and go!"
"And leave you here alone? There's a dozen of them!"
"If you don't leave right now…"
I raised my chin, even though I'd turned off the flashlight so he probably couldn't see it. "What? You'll shoot me?"
His hand clenched my shoulder, almost painfully. Don't tempt the crazy war mage, I reminded myself, just as a bullet sliced through the open doorway. It ricocheted several times around the crypt's inner walls before crashing through what remained of the Madonna. "If you're here much longer, I won't have to!" he whispered furiously.
"Let's just get the damn thing and we can both leave," I said reasonably.
"In case it has somehow slipped your notice, this was a trap!"
"Damn it, you can't trust anybody anymore!" The elderly French mage we'd visited in his sweet little country cottage had seemed so reliable, with his Old World charm and his kind eyes—and his lousy map that had sent us on the treasure hunt from hell. It wasn't fair; the bad guys weren't supposed to look like someone's grandfather. "And Manassier seemed so—"
"If the next word out of your mouth is ‘nice, I will make your life hell when we get back. Pure hell."
I didn't bother to dignify that with a response. Pritkin was just…Pritkin. At some point I'd learned to mostly roll with it. I'd often wondered if he gave the Circle half as much trouble before he broke with them over his decision to support me. If so, you'd think they'd have thanked me for taking him off their hands. Maybe they planned to send a nice bouquet to the funeral.
"Look, all we know for sure is that some mages got here ahead of us. Maybe we all decided to burgle the place on the same night." I didn't really believe it—they'd attacked us almost as soon as we'd arrived and we hadn't even found anything. But I hated to give up on our best lead yet. And leaving Pritkin to pursue it alone wasn't an option. He had all the self-preservation instincts of a bug near a shiny windshield.
A strong hand clenched my arm. "Ow!" I pointed out.
"Give me the damn map!"
"Not a chance."
"Hey!" I looked up to see the younger ghost staring at us. "In case you missed it, people are trying to kill you."
"People are always trying to kill me," I said irritably.
"The only way you're dying tonight is if I kill you," Pritkin informed me.
"I've been in relationships like that," the ghost sympathized.
"We're not in a relationship," I muttered.
"Sheer bloody-minded—what?" Pritkin broke off his rant, which I hadn't been listening to anyway, to look around wildly. "What's happening?"
"You mean you let him talk to you like that and you aren't even getting any? Man, what a rip-off."
"Nothing. Just a couple of spirits," I said, shooting ghost #2 a look.
"Hey, standing right here."
"And," his counterpart chimed in, "I resent that ‘just' comment. We're the two most active spirits in this entire—"
"Active?" A hand moved down my arm, the touch both gentle and rough, calloused from holding guns and doing push-ups and snapping people's necks. "Don't even think about it," I told Pritkin, then turned my attention back to the ghost. "How active?"
The older ghost preened slightly. "We see everything that goes on around here. The things I could tell—"
"So, if there were hidden passageways, you'd know?" I asked, as Pritkin found my wrist. A moment later, the map was snatched out of my hand. "Still not leaving," I told him.
I decided not to wrestle Pritkin for the map, which wouldn't be dignified. It also wouldn't work. "What thing?"
"The thing with the thing." He waved a negligent hand. I was starting to suspect that if you died stoned, your ghost stayed that way.
"Could you be a little more specific?" Before he could answer, there was a strange sound from outside, a dim, high-pitched whine. I felt a hand on my back, viciously shoving me to the ground. Then Pritkin was on top of me, crushing me into a fetal position while things exploded and rained fire all around us.
Red and violet spots danced behind my tightly clenched lids for several long moments. There were minute tremors in the ground, like the aftershocks of an earthquake, and my skin prickled with leftover energy. When I cautiously opened my eyes, I saw starlight seeping in from a gaping hole in the roof and clouds of disintegrated stone in the air.
Pritkin was on his feet again, firing at the mages, who fired back, gunshots echoing off the high, close-packed monuments like firecrackers. Most of the time I thought he was a little too quick to opt for the shoot-it-and-hope-it-dies solution. Other times, like when someone was trying to make a colander out of my head, it seemed okay.
"Over there," the younger ghost offered, pointing to the right. "Come on." He slouched off, ignoring a nearby snaky pathway in favor of a shortcut across the tombstone-littered grounds.
"One of the ghosts knows where the passage is!" I told Pritkin. He looked surprised and I scowled. Just because I didn't know seven ways to kill a guy with my elbow didn't make me completely useless.
He looked like he was about to argue about the wisdom of trusting random spirits, or possibly my sanity. But the mages accidentally did me a favor by sending a spell that exploded with a massive crack against a nearby chestnut tree. The burning trunk fell over, taking half the crypt with it. Luckily, it wasn't our half.