Touch The Dark cp-1

by Karen Chance

  "We do good work," I congratulated my helper. "And I don't even feel like puking anymore."

  "What did you do?!" Pritkin grabbed me by the arms and my ward sizzled slightly. He let go, glowering and rubbing his hands. "You cannot have that much power—no human can!"

  "Maybe I borrowed it."

  His eyes narrowed. "From whom, or what?"

  I didn't feel like trying to explain. "Would someone please tell me what's going on?" Before anyone could answer, the shields began to spit and hiss. What looked like a black cloud had begun nibbling at them, swallowing that beautiful power in tiny bites, like a swarm of locusts descending on a prairie. Okay, maybe we weren't out of the woods yet.

  I decided to get some answers from the one person here who would tell me the truth. I went inside and found Billy. "Spill it."

  "I can't believe you did that! Do you have any idea what would have happened if I hadn't been able to channel that much power all at once? It could have ricocheted off the inside of the shield and fried all of us!"

  I interrupted. "Yell at me later. Just tell me what's going on, fast."

  "Mages from the two circles are fighting, and we're stuck in the middle. How's that for brief?"

  "Okay, now the version that makes sense."

  I heard something odd and realized it sounded like grinding teeth. I hadn't known he could do that. "I drifted through the dark mage after you came back to your body, but he caught on and warded against me. I don't think I can do it again. But before he kicked me out, I learned that the Black Circle is allied with Rasputin, along with a lot of other groups who're not happy with the status quo. They seem to think he's got a real chance to take it all, and they don't wanna miss out on the spoils. And, even more fun, it seems like Tony's also buddy-buddy with them. He's been selling magic users to the light elves, and he knows that if anyone finds out at MAGIC, he'll be lucky if all they do is stake him."

  "What? You aren't making sense." I'd only just found out Faerie wasn't a myth. I certainly didn't understand enough about it to follow Billy's ramblings.

  "It's a long story. All you need to know is that Tony wants protection. The dark elves have traced the problem to him, and they aren't happy. They can't afford for the light Fey to outbreed them, but with fertile magic users to help with the population shortage, that's what's going to happen fairly soon. And then the light will rule all of Faerie."

  "But that's good, right?" I didn't know how many of my nursery school stories were based on fact, but if the dark Fey really were composed of trolls, banshees, goblins and the like, wouldn't it be better for the light to win?

  Billy sighed. "You and I gotta have a long talk sometime. No, it would not be good. I don't trust any of the Fey, but at least the dark have rules. The light have been getting more and more anarchic lately—in the past few centuries, I mean—and there's no telling what they'll do if there is nothing to balance them. That's why that demented pixie was here. She couldn't give a damn about enslaved humans normally, but if the trade is going to benefit the light, she wants to stop it. Anyway, the point for us is that Rasputin has promised to protect Tony in return for him killing you. It wasn't a hard sell."

  "I bet." So I had yet another enemy. I was going to have to start keeping a list. "Why does Rasputin want to kill me?"

  "He sees you as a threat, but I don't know why. The mage may know, but I didn't get it. But I did find out that Rasputin called Tony's boys about half an hour ago and said you were on your way here. That's probably why Jimmy was still alive. They were too busy deploying every spare thug around the casino to catch you to bother killing him. Only nobody expected you to just waltz in the front entrance. They were watching the side and back entries, so you threw them a little." Well, at least that explained why I'd been able to stroll around deserted hallways.

  Something occurred to me. "I didn't even know I was coming until right before I left. How did Rasputin figure it out?"

  "Good question."

  I decided to leave it for the moment. "But why would Tony defy Mircea and the Circle by something as risky as slaving?" Dealing in magic users was not unknown, but most people had decided that the huge profits to be made by selling powerful telepaths or wardsmiths wasn't worth the penalties imposed if the Circle caught up with you. I'd heard Tony himself say it was a game for fools. So what had happened to change his mind? "Mircea will kill him."

  "Not if Rasputin kills Mircea and the rest of the Senate first. In that case, Tony gets a Senate seat, out from under the control of his master, and no more dues to pay. Power and wealth, the usual suspects."

  "Tony isn't strong enough to stand on his own, even without Mircea. He's third level at best; you know that."

  "Maybe he thinks Ras'll help him. Or maybe he's been holding out. He's old enough to have advanced to second level if he's ever gonna do it. Maybe he didn't tell anybody, 'cause that would have made Mircea watch him a whole lot closer. He could've been waiting for a chance to break with him but didn't dare move without a big-time ally."

  "Which he now has."

  "Looks that way. So, partner, whaddya wanna do?"

  "What exactly are we up against?"

  Billy Joe sighed theatrically. It was the sound he makes when he knows I'm not going to like what he has to say. "Two dark mages, five vamps here and fifteen others spread around the area, and at least six are master level. Oh, and eight norms armed to the teeth."

  "What?!"

  "Well, whaddya expect? Vegas is one of Tony's strongholds. And more will be coming—I saw another half dozen norms and eight or nine vamps in the basement. As soon as they figure out that you've been sighted, they'll be along. This place is about to get very busy."

  I sat there, stunned. "We're screwed."

  "That's the consensus. The plan right now is to have Tomas grab you and fly outta here, while Louis-César and the mage stay behind and try to slow everybody down long enough for you to get away."

  "That's suicide!"

  "Yeah, and the worst part is, it probably won't even work. We're surrounded, darlin'. Ain't no way Tomas is gonna make it past all of them."

  "Shit." I thought for a second. "What about reinforcements?"

  I was interrupted by Louis-César yelling in my ear. "Mademoiselle, can you hear me?"

  I jerked away before he could touch me. "What do you want? I'm kind of busy."

  He looked at me oddly, but he moderated his voice. "You have to go now, mademoiselle. I am sorry, but we cannot give you more time to recover."

  "I'm not going anywhere. Tomas will never get past a gauntlet like that and you know it. Two black knights, six masters and at least fourteen other vamps? Come on."

  I found out what Louis-César looked like when someone had rattled his cool. "How can you possibly know what we are facing?"

  "Her ghost servant told her," Pritkin said, and I noticed that he was back on his knees, concentrating on the rapidly evaporating shields.

  "You can see Billy?" I was surprised. Very few people could.

  "No," Pritkin said through clenched teeth. His jaw was tight enough that the small muscle on the side stood out. "But I was told what you can do. At least, some of it." Sweat ran in rivers down his face, soaking his shirt, and he looked at me desperately. "If you have any more tricks, I suggest you use them. I can only slow the process; I can't stop it."

  I sighed. Why did I think I was going to regret this? "Give me a minute."

  I went back inside to find out if Billy Joe had any bright ideas. He did, but I didn't like it. "I can't possess the mage 'cause he's warded against me. But you're far stronger in spirit form than I am, 'cause you're alive. If we could duplicate what happened—"

  "No! No way am I possessing anybody else! What if I can't get back? What if I get stuck? Come up with something else." I hadn't enjoyed being Louis-César and I definitely didn't want to find out what the inside of a dark-magic user felt like.

  "I don't think you'll get stuck. He's a mage. Once you get in, you ain't
gonna have much time before he forces you out. But you won't need that long. If you can distract him for a couple minutes, I'm betting our three heroes can deal with the vamps."

  "Three against twenty? Don't you think that's being a little optimistic?"

  "You just don't wanna do this."

  "Damn straight."

  "You got a better idea?"

  I swallowed thickly. There had to be an alternative. The Senate had sent three powerful operatives merely to drag me back from Dante's, so they wanted me pretty badly. When we didn't come back and nobody reported in, they were sure to send reinforcements, but there was no way to tell how long that would take. "How far away is sunrise? Maybe we can hold Tony's guys off until they have to duck for cover. Louis-César should be able to handle a little sun, and I know Tomas can."

  Billy Joe laughed, but it didn't sound happy. "Sure, and you think our mage is gonna last that long?"

  I glanced at Pritkin and couldn't argue the point. His eyes were bulging and several blood vessels must have popped, because it looked like he was crying red tears. But I was in no position to help him. I'd seen a lot of magic worked through the years, but I'd just performed the only bit I knew, and Billy Joe couldn't replace that kind of energy loss twice. But if I didn't do something soon, my trip to get revenge on Jimmy might end up costing three lives.

  "Okay." I gulped some air. "Do it."

  I couldn't see Billy Joe when he was inside me, but I could feel his emotions better than I could read his face, and he was skeptical. "You sure? 'Cause I don't wanna have to hear about this for eternity if you end up a spirit permanently. I know you. You'd haunt me."

  "I thought you said that won't happen!"

  "I said it probably won't. I'm new at this."

  "Like you asked me, have you got another plan? Because if not—" That was as far as I got before Billy Joe crashed into me like a linebacker tackling a quarterback. He kept pushing until I would have called the whole thing off, done anything, said anything, to stop that awful pressure, except I couldn't move. It was like getting trapped between a steamroller and the side of a mountain; there was nowhere to go. A second after I decided I was going to die if the pressure didn't stop, I was suddenly flying free. It was a major relief, but the nice, floaty feeling lasted only about a second before I slammed into something that felt like a brick wall. It hurt so badly that I would have thought every bone in my body was broken, except that it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have a body.

  I heard a laugh echo around me. "Oh, no, little ghost. I already told you. You won't trick me again so easily. Go home to your mistress before I send you somewhere you won't like."

  I realized what the wall was; it represented the mage's wards, and they were a lot more formidable than I'd expected. But I couldn't follow his advice. I didn't know how to get back without Billy Joe's help, so I had to go forward. Getting through those wards was matter of life and death, literally.

  You can shield with anything as long as it has meaning for you: rock, metal, water, even air. It's simply a way of visualizing and manipulating your power. Eugenie had shielded with mist, which I'd thought was weird, but it seemed to work for her. The mage's wards were strong, but of a fairly normal type: like me, he imagined a wall, only his was wood and mine has always been fire. When I concentrated, I was able to see a fortress of huge trees, like California redwoods, stretching up so high that their tops were lost to sight. In reality, of course, they didn't have «tops»; I knew that wherever I went along his ward line, I would see this same, impenetrable wall.

  I looked back to where I had «landed» and saw that an imprint of my body had been burned into the logs, splintering the wood all around it from the impact. That must have been how he had felt me, and it gave me an idea. I hadn't ever heard of anyone doing this before, but then, that went for most of the stuff that had happened to me today. I concentrated, not on his wards, but on mine.

  I don't usually feel my wards. The technique is so ingrained that it's like walking upright: it's hard when you're nine months old, but by the time you're an adult, you don't have to think to cross a room. But now I took a few seconds to concentrate, and the familiar curtain of flame rose up around me, a comforting warmth instead of a searing heat. I focused and, slowly, a tiny tendril of fire, shaped like a child's hand, reached out from my ward to touch the nearest log. It caught like dry tinder touched by summer lightning, and soon a whole section of the wall was ablaze. I vaguely heard the mage cursing me, making threats and swearing to bind me to the lowest hall of Hell for eternity. I ignored him. It was taking everything I had to keep the fire blazing and refuse to allow new wood to knit up around the old. I didn't have the strength for smart comebacks.

  Finally, after what felt like a week, a tiny hole appeared in the wood. I didn't wait for it to get bigger, but squeezed through. It was a tight fit, and it felt like my sides were being scraped into bloody lines by splinters, even though I knew that was impossible. All of a sudden, the smoke and fire of the burning forest melted away and I could see. The dark parking lot spread around me and a breeze blew across my face. Pritkin, Tomas and Louis-César were across the lot, and my body was looking at me with wide eyes.

  I yelled at Billy Joe. "It's okay! I'm in control!"

  "Then drop the damned attack! Pritkin's about to have a stroke!"

  I looked around in confusion, then peered inside. "I'm not doing anything!" It was true, as far as I could tell. I'd assumed that taking over would break the mage's concentration and solve the problem. But I could see that Pritkin's shields had shrunk to the point where they barely covered the three men and would likely fail any second. "What now?"

  I saw my body bend over and whisper to Pritkin. He looked across at me and I waved. His eyes got big. He said something, but I couldn't make it out. "What?"

  "The bracelet!" My voice bellowed across the parking lot as Billy Joe yelled at the top of my lungs. "He said to destroy it!"

  A dark shape started running at me from across the lot. It had the same deeply unhealthy feeling I'd received from the mage, so I didn't need introductions. Somehow, the other dark knight had figured out what was going on, and he didn't like it.

  I looked down and found a bracelet on the mage's left wrist. It was silver and formed of what looked like tiny, interlocking daggers. I couldn't find a clasp; it seemed to have been soldered onto his arm. I looked across at Pritkin and saw desperation on his face. Damn it, this thing had to go now. When tugging didn't work, I bit it, tearing at it with his teeth, concentrating on the bit where two of the daggers came together. Finally, after his fingers were a bloody mess, it came loose.

  I didn't have to ask whether I'd gotten it right, because Pritkin slumped to the ground, panting in relief, and the vamps around him sprang into action. Louis-César sent a knife flying into the vamp at my side, which would have taken off the head except that it collided with the oversized steel choker he was wearing. It didn't buy him much time, though. Tomas held out a hand and I finally got to see what had happened back in the storeroom. The vamp dropped to his knees and gave a choked gurgle, and his heart literally leapt out of his chest. It went sailing across to Tomas, who caught it like it was a slightly oversized baseball.

  The other dark knight was less than two car lengths away from me. He stopped and raised a hand, and suddenly I couldn't move. But before I could panic, the three witches I'd helped free from the casino stepped out from behind a parked van and formed a circle around him. I was about to yell at them to run for it, when the mage suddenly collapsed, screaming, and the pressure on me let up.

  It was a relief, but I didn't feel better for long. What felt like an icy stream of water began lapping at my feet. I couldn't see anything, but my wards started to sizzle out around the bottoms. If I concentrated, I could see a stream rising up from the ground to flow around me. Clever mage; he could shield with more than one element. And my fire didn't seem to be doing so hot against his water. As the flames went out, tiny tendrils of wood,
some bearing twigs with leaves, began to wind up my metaphysical legs. Great. The dark mage was going to be seriously pissed off when he got back in charge, which at the rate he was going would take all of about two minutes.

  "What's wrong with you?" A vampire ran up to me. I recognized him vaguely from Tony's court, a big, shaggy blond whom I'd always thought needed a tan—his surfer looks didn't go well with dead white skin. "You said you could neutralize him! He'll wipe the floor with us!" I followed his gesture to where the fight had resumed big-time. I wondered which «he» the guy meant, because all three looked pretty deadly to me.

  Pritkin might be a hostile son of a bitch, but he was a damn good guy to have in a fight. He was on the ground, but his amazing hovering knives were back. In fact, it looked like his whole arsenal was on the move. As I watched, he blew apart a vamp with a shotgun blast while five knives went hurtling into another, one almost severing his head. The vamp must have been a master, because he didn't go down, but the animated knives followed him about, sticking in and pulling out like a swarm of especially lethal bees. He swatted at them as blood started to pour out of a couple dozen deep cuts, but they kept coming back. He roared in rage but preferred getting sliced to ribbons to running. But a couple of other vamps, who were being pursued by grenades, chose not to follow his example. I decided if that's what Pritkin fought like when half dead, I really didn't want to see him at full strength.

  Tomas was doing okay, too, tying up two vamps in a knife fight that was so fast and furious I couldn't see any of it, except for an occasional blade flashing in the parking lot lights. Several others lay around him with the now familiar gaping holes in their chests. Louis-César, meanwhile, had decided to take the attack on the offensive all by himself. While Pritkin and Tomas kept the attackers busy, he charged the cluster of vamps around me. The beach bum must not have heard of the Frenchman's reputation, because he leapt for him and lasted all of about a second. That wicked-looking rapier was back in action, and skewering him didn't cause Louis-César even to break his stride. He threw a knife at the second dark mage, but it bounced off him like he was wearing body armor. But whatever the three witches were doing was having more of an effect. The mage was on the ground, scrambling for purchase as ineffectively as a beetle turned upside down, as they began closing in, chanting something in unison.