Touch The Dark cp-1

by Karen Chance

  "Um, what's your name?"

  "Pierre, mademoiselle."

  "Okay, Pierre. I'm not a witch; I'm a clairvoyant. You probably know more magic than I do. I can't undo a spell for you, any spell. All I know is that woman is going to die very soon if we don't get her out of here." He didn't look satisfied, but the young man beside him had had enough. He darted forward and started pulling on my hand and babbling so fast that, even if I'd known French, I probably wouldn't have understood him.

  Pierre regarded me unfavorably, but he did agree to translate after some prompting by the younger ghost. "There is an underground passage, mademoiselle, from the foot of one of the towers to the river Aude. It has long been an escape route in times of trouble. Etienne can show you."

  I looked dubiously at Tomas. "Can you carry her?" He nodded and moved to pick her up. His eyes widened slightly and he stumbled before getting to his feet. "What is it?"

  "She weighs more than I expected." He frowned. "We must hurry, Cassie, or my strength may fail entirely."

  I agreed and tugged at the door handle. It finally opened after a few false starts—I kept putting my hand through it. I could solidify enough to manipulate things, but Tomas was right—it was getting harder. I was panting by the time we made it to the corridor, but there was nobody to hear. Guess all the torturers were on a coffee break. Unlike at Dante's, though, I knew for a fact that people were around, and that they were coming soon.

  The young ghost faded in and out as we started down a different flight of stairs from the one I'd used last time. This one wasn't any brighter, but the yellow feather in his hat had that good old ghostly luminescence and we followed it as if it was a candle. I didn't stub a toe this time, although I was soon wishing I hadn't skipped my jogging session so often. Simply walking down the stairs was starting to feel like running a marathon. I began to have sympathy for Billy Joe's bitch sessions every time I asked him to bring me something.

  By the time we got to the bottom of the staircase, I was whipped. I started to lean against the wall but stopped when I almost fell through it. "How much farther?" The young man didn't reply, only motioned me forward desperately. I looked around, but the chorus hadn't come along. I wasn't upset. They seemed more interested in hurting somebody than in saving a life, something that didn't endear them to me.

  We stumbled into a passage so dark that the only light came from the bobbing feather on our guide's hat. It became steadily more damp as we continued, to the point that we were soon sloshing through puddles we couldn't see, which I hoped meant we were getting close to the river. The damned tunnel seemed endless, and decades' worth of cobwebs caught in the woman's hair, but I didn't have the energy to brush them off. Finally we emerged on the other side, but only a tiny crescent moon and the spreading Milky Way arching over us gave the scene any light. Night without modern electricity is damn dark, but it seemed almost bright to me after the tunnel.

  Tomas' strength gave out a short time later and I had to help him. We put the woman between us and all but dragged her along narrow cobblestone paths. I didn't want to risk hurting her, but sticking around wasn't a good idea, either. I knew what that psycho jailor had planned. Even if she died in the escape, it beat the hell out of burning to death.

  The city that surrounded the castle was seriously creepy at night, with the rows of houses leaning so far over the road in places that neighbors on opposite sides of the street could have shaken hands. We jumped whenever an owl hooted or a dog barked, but we kept going. I tried not to look back at the hulking outline of the castle, with its conical roofs making ominous black shadows against the dark sky. I hoped whatever destination Feather had in mind was close. It took a lifetime, it took forever, to the point that all I could do was concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling over. Finally, when I was about to have to call a halt or collapse anyway, I saw a tiny light in the distance, so dim that I thought I'd imagined it at first. It slowly grew brighter and coalesced into a candle sitting in the window of a small house. Feather didn't materialize, maybe because he was as worn out as I was, but I summoned enough energy to knock on the door instead of putting my fist through it. Finally, it opened and light spilled out, looking unbearably bright after the darkness. I scrunched up my eyes and, when I opened them, I was looking into Louis-César's worried face.

  Chapter 8

  I was lying on the ground. It took me a second to realize that I was both back in my correct time and back in my own body. I would have cried with relief if I'd had the strength.

  Billy Joe coalesced over me and he looked pissed. "Why didn't you tell me you could do that? I got trapped in there! I could have died!"

  I didn't try to sit up, since the asphalt seemed to be doing a pretty violent version of the hula beneath me. "Don't be a drama queen. You're already dead."

  "That was completely uncalled for."

  "Cry me a river." Billy Joe was about to say something else but had to move because Louis-César bent over me and he wasn't about to get caught in any more bodies.

  "Mademoiselle Palmer, are you all right? Can you hear me?"

  "Don't touch me." I decided I wanted to sit up after all, mainly because my skirt had ridden up to the point that my pink lace undies were showing, but no way did I want him near me. Every time we touched, I ended up thrown through time. My senses had been trying to warn me earlier, but it had been impossible to tell the difference between the fear caused by his nearness and the general terror of being captured by the Senate. In any case, I'd had all the out-of-body experiences I needed for a very long time. "Where's Tomas?" I was still unhappy with him, but the thought that I might have accidentally killed him wasn't pleasant.

  "He is here." Louis-César moved away about a foot, and I could see Tomas standing behind him. He was looking at the Frenchman with a weird expression, sort of stunned, almost like he didn't recognize him.

  "Are you ok?" I asked him in concern. I hoped somebody was home, since I had no idea how to go about finding some wandering spirit. After a long moment, Tomas nodded, but he didn't speak. I decided that wasn't good. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Billy Joe pushed in between us, careful not to touch anybody, and glared at me. "He's fine. He came around a few minutes ago when you decided to rejoin us." He scowled. "What's the idea of going on vacation when there's a crisis on?"

  I ignored him. "Give me a hand up." Tomas thought I was talking to him and bent over, forcing Billy Joe to dodge out of the way. I sat and looked about. There were eleven dead wererats, including Jimmy. His glassy rat eyes stared at me accusingly through the dissipating smoke, and I swore. "Damn it! I wanted to talk to him!" I rounded on Pritkin, who was standing with his arms raised theatrically, almost like he was pushing on something, only there was nothing there but air. "You killed him before I could ask about my father!"

  Pritkin wasn't paying me any attention. His eyes were focused outside our circle and he didn't look good. His face was red, his eyes were glazed and the cords on the sides of his neck were bulging. When he spoke, it was in a strangled whisper. "I can't hold much longer." That didn't make sense until I noticed a faint blue tinge to the air around us and realized that we were standing inside the mage's shields. He'd created a defensive bubble around us by expanding his own protection, but it looked thin and weak, not like his old shields at all. Perhaps he'd stretched it too far; personal shields were designed for one person only. He was right; it wasn't going to last.

  "We have to get Cassie out of here," Tomas said, and I noticed that his face also looked strained. Not as if he were bench-pressing a few hundred pounds like Pritkin, but as if he was terrified. He wasn't watching the mage, though, or anything beyond him. He was looking at me.

  Louis-César was the only one who seemed normal, with no visible signs of strain on that pleasant face. "Mademoiselle, if you have recovered sufficiently, may I suggest that you return to MAGIC? Tomas will take you."

  Pritkin mumbled som
ething and a glowing symbol wrote itself in the air for an instant, so close I could have reached out and touched it, before dissolving into the shields. I knew what he was doing since one of the mages at Tony's had set up a perimeter ward on his vault using words of power. I had been intrigued that he could build a protective spell on something as intangible as a spoken word, but he'd explained that he was using it as a focus for his own energy.

  Magic comes from many sources. The Fey and, to a much lesser degree, lycanthropes are said to get theirs from nature, drawing on the massive energy of the planet as it moves at terrifying speeds through space. Gravity, sunlight, the pull of the moon, can all be converted to energy if you know how. I've even heard speculation that the Earth generates a magical field the same way it does a gravitational one, and that someday, someone will figure out how to tap it. That is the holy grail of modern magical theory, though, and no one has managed to do it so far—although countless hours have been lost trying. Until the mystery is solved, human magic users can borrow only a tiny amount from nature; most of their power has to come from themselves. Except for dark-magic users, who can borrow tremendous magical energy by stealing the lives of others or from the netherworld, but they pay a huge price for it.

  Some mages are inherently stronger than others, but most use some kind of cheat to enhance their abilities. Most have talismans to gather natural energy like batteries over long periods, to be disbursed at the mage's command, like Billy's necklace. Some form links with other magic users that allow them to borrow power in time of need, like the Silver Circle. Others enlist as allies magical creatures who can absorb natural energy better than they. I didn't know what Pritkin might be using besides his own power, but it didn't appear to be working too well. His shields glowed a bit brighter after the symbol touched them but almost immediately dulled again. Something was sapping their strength, and at a very fast rate.

  I looked around but couldn't find the source of the threat. The parking lot looked quiet if not exactly peaceful—the burning hulk of a couple of nearby cars showed dimly through the dispersing blue smoke. I narrowed my eyes at Louis-César but doubted he'd tell me much. Luckily, I didn't need him. "Billy? What's going on?"

  "To whom are you speaking?" Louis-César began to look less than calm for the first time. "She may have a concussion," he told Tomas. "Be careful with her."

  I ignored him because Billy was floating near Pritkin and he'd started gesturing wildly at him, then all around, then out at the night. "Billy! What in the world are you doing? It's not like anyone else can hear you—spit it out!"

  "Your familiar cannot help you, sybil." The voice came out of the dark, and I noticed that the five vamps lounging around the outer edges of the lot had been joined by a friend. He was hard to see in the predawn light, but the feeling emanating off him wasn't nice. It made me glad I couldn't see his face. "I have warded against him. No one can help you, but then, you do not need it. You are in no danger, sybil. Come with me and I guarantee that no one will harm you. We value your gifts and want to help you develop them, not to keep you hiding and afraid all your life. Come to me, and I will let your friends, if they are friends, go in peace."

  "My name's Cassie. You've got the wrong girl." I wasn't interested in a conversation, but Billy Joe was trying to tell me something and I had to give him time to play charades.

  "I used your proper title, Miss Palmer, although your name is interesting, too. Did anyone ever tell you its significance?" He laughed. "Don't tell me they have allowed you to grow up completely in ignorance? How lacking in foresight. We will not make the same mistake."

  "Cassandra was a seer in Greek mythology. The lover of Apollo." Eugenie had made sure we did myths of the Greeks and Romans as part of my schoolwork—apparently it was an important part of a young lady's education back in her day—and I hadn't complained because I thought it was kind of fun. I'd forgotten most of it but remembered my namesake. I'd thought Cassandra a good name for a clairvoyant, until now.

  "Not quite, my dear." The voice was full and rich and might have been attractive if it hadn't been accompanied by that vague, underlying something that reminded me of rotten fruit: overripe and mealy. "Apollo, the god of all seers, loved the beautiful human Cassandra, but she did not return his affections. She pretended to love, long enough to gain the gift of foreknowledge; then she ran away. He finally found her, of course—like you, she could not hide forever—and exacted his revenge. She could keep the gift, he said, but she would see only tragic events, and no one would believe her when she prophesied until it was too late."

  I shivered; I couldn't help it. His words cut a little too close to the bone. He somehow seemed to know he'd made a hit, and laughed again. "Don't worry, lovely Cassandra. I will teach you that there can be beauty in the dark."

  "What is going on?" I hissed at Billy, more to block out that seductive, awful voice than because I expected an answer.

  The dark mage responded, even though he shouldn't have been able to hear a whisper that far away. "The white knight's wards are failing, sybil. We will talk face-to-face soon."

  I decided that was not a talk I'd enjoy. I glanced at Billy Joe. "Do you remember those three days after I left Philly the last time?" He stared at me blankly for a second, then violently shook his head and started making wild gestures. Yep, he remembered all right.

  I knew only one power word. It wasn't a weapon but was designed to add stamina in times of emergency by drawing on the body's reserves—all its reserves. It was dangerous to use, since if the power it gave ran out before the threat was over, you'd be as weak as a kitten when the bad guys caught you, but it packed a hell of a punch while it lasted. I'd used it to stay awake for more than three days straight after fleeing from Tony the second time. I'd researched it and practiced with one of the rogue mages at court, since I'd known from experience that it would take seventy-two hours for the trace charms on Tony's wards to wear off. I'd gotten lucky the first time I left—I fell asleep on a bus, and my pursuers hadn't been able to tell which of the half dozen vehicles that had just left the crowded station was mine. By the time they picked up the trail, I'd woken up, panicked and switched buses. I managed to stay ahead of them for the required three days, but I'd had several close calls and hadn't wanted to try that trick twice. Tony's guys had gotten a lot of practice tracking me during my first disappearance, and this time I wouldn't have the value of surprise.

  My plan had worked, but the price was high: when the jolt finally wore off, I slept for a week and lost ten pounds. I'd have probably lost a lot more—like my life—except that Billy Joe and I had figured out that the energy exchange between us worked both ways. He could give me juice as well as take it, and right now he was tanked.

  Billy drifted lower, increasing the arm waving and scowling. He was obviously trying to tell me that he didn't want to talk out loud, and there was only one alternative. I sighed.

  "Come on in." A warm wash settled over me, and Billy flowed inside, giving me a replay of him digging his mother's grave in Ireland as he settled down.

  "Have you lost your mind?!"

  "Just tell me if it will work—can we reinforce the shields?"

  "What do you mean, 'we'?"

  I sighed. "Don't bitch; you know you can spare it! Can we do it?"

  "Shit if I know!" Billy was at his acidic best. "I don't go playing around with words of power! If this thing backfires, it could be bad—real bad."

  "It worked last time."

  "You almost died last time!"

  "Why, Billy, I didn't know you cared. Now, answer the question."

  "I don't know," he repeated stubbornly. "In theory, I should be able to redirect the power outward instead of inward, but—"

  "Great." I focused on the shimmering shields, ignoring the fact that Louis-César and Tomas were having some sort of argument. It had been a long time since I tried this, and if I screwed it up, I might not get another chance. Pritkin was almost purple, and only the whites of his eyes were s
howing.

  "Wait! I need to think a minute! Hold your horses—" Billy kept talking, but I tuned him out. We didn't have time for a prolonged discussion. I couldn't extend my ward like Pritkin had done; if his shields disappeared altogether before I could strengthen them, we were toast. I concentrated and spoke the only power word I knew.

  Energy flowed through me to the point that I thought I was going to levitate right off the asphalt. A second later Billy carved a glowing gold rune in the air that hovered in front of my face for a minute, shiny and bright and perfect. But I didn't have much time to admire it, since I was knocked flat on my ass a second later when the energy left me in the same bone-jarring rush in which it had come. I suddenly, vividly recalled why I didn't do this kind of thing often.

  I rolled onto my side and groaned, trying to keep from throwing up. I had the definite feeling I wasn't going to make it. Then Billy started to feed me some of his stolen power. I hadn't expected to feel anything—when he'd helped me out before, I hadn't known about it until after the fact—but this I felt. Sparkling, warm, wonderful energy coursed through me, and I sat up abruptly. Damn! I could get addicted to this. Billy's laughter echoed in my head and I grinned. No wonder he'd been zooming around like a comet earlier.

  "What did you do?" Pritkin was also sitting up, looking bewildered. He focused on me. "You reinforced my shields?" He stared in incredulity while I admired my and Billy's handiwork. Pretty blue walls, so opaque they could probably have been seen by norms and so thick I could have driven a car around inside their ring, glimmered under the halogen lights. Pritkin' must ward with water, because there were ripples like gentle waves spreading through them.