by Karen Chance
Unless you ordered ice cream. I decided on a chocolate shake instead of more beer, and although Pritkin didn’t say anything, his expression was eloquent. “You’re going to run it off me anyway,” I pointed out.
“Anything else?” he asked drily. “Onion rings? Pie?”
“They have pie?”
“No.” It was emphatic.
I was in too good of a mood to argue the point. The seat was sticking to my thighs, a broken spring was stabbing my left butt cheek, and the air-conditioning, while present, was completely inadequate for August in Nevada. But I was out. I’d won this round. And tonight, I’d take what victories I could get.
“Are you going to explain what’s going on?” he asked, after the waitress left. “When I tried—”
“Wait a minute.”
There was an old jukebox in the corner, with dirty glass and yellowed titles, not one of which was less than twenty years old. But it had Joan Jett’s entire repertoire, so I fed it a couple of quarters and punched in a selection. The sound quality wasn’t the best, but that wasn’t my main interest, anyway.
“It’s Mircea,” I said, when I rejoined him. “He’s got this crazy idea that you’re a danger.”
Pritkin’s jaw tightened. “I know.”
“You know? Has he said—”
“He didn’t have to. But you may assure him that I am no threat in that regard.”
“I have,” I said impatiently. “But when these things keep happening—”
“They do not keep happening. It was one time.”
I frowned. “One time?”
For some reason, he flushed. “Of any consequence.”
“Well, excuse me for thinking they were all pretty important!” Any time something was trying to kill me, I took it seriously.
Pritkin ran a hand through his hair, which didn’t need the added torture. “I didn’t mean to downplay the significance of what occurred—”
“I would hope not!”
“—merely to assure you that it won’t happen again.”
“You can’t know that.”
Green eyes met mine, with what looked like anger in them. “Yes, I bloody well can!”
I just sat there, confused, as he abruptly got up and went over to the jukebox. He received a glance from a woman in a nearby booth on the way, and it lingered. He was still in the same jeans as earlier, having just thrown a gray-green T-shirt over the top. Although you couldn’t see much of it because of the long leather trench he wore to cover up the arsenal all war mages carted around.
But he’d somehow jammed everything under there without noticeable bulges, because the dark brown leather fit his broad shoulders sleekly. Likewise, the soft, old jeans hugged a rock-hard physique, and the T-shirt brought out the brilliant color of his eyes. Pritkin would never be conventionally handsome; his nose was too big, he missed six feet by at least three inches and he only remembered to shave about half the time.
But I didn’t have any trouble understanding why she was staring.
“This is what you listen to?” he demanded, his back to me as he perused song titles.
“It’s ‘I Love Rock ’n Roll.’ It’s a classic.”
That got me a dark glance thrown over his shoulder, but he didn’t say anything. He just dug a couple of quarters out of his jeans and made a selection of his own. And oh, my God.
“Johnny Cash?”
“What’s wrong with Johnny Cash?” he asked, sitting back down.
“What’s right about him?”
“Country is based on folk music, which has been around for centuries—”
“So has the plague.”
“—longer than the so-called ‘classics.’ For thousands of years, bards sang about the same basic themes—love and loss, lust and betrayal—and ended up influencing everyone from Bach to Beethoven.”
“So Johnny Cash is Beethoven?”
“Of his day.”
I rolled my eyes. That was just so wrong. But at least “Ring of Fire” covered the conversation pretty well.
I leaned forward and dropped my voice. “I wasn’t trying to be rude a minute ago. I just meant that, to the vamps, a demon seems like the most likely culprit, and Mircea’s decided—”
“Demon?”
“Yes, demon.”
Pritkin frowned. “What do they have to do with this?”
I stared at him. “Well, what are we talking about?”
“I’m not sure.”
I took a breath. “Mircea thinks you’re a warlock,” I said, slowly and clearly. “He’s decided that’s how you’ve lived so long, why you’re as strong as you—”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes. Why?”
He looked away. “No reason.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. And after a pause, I soldiered on. “Anyway, that’s why he told Marco to lock you out for the night. He was afraid you’d call up something else—”
Pritkin snorted.
“—while I couldn’t shift away.”
“Yes, I’m sure that was his main concern.”
“Is there something you want to tell me?” I demanded.
“No.” He didn’t say anything else, if he’d planned on it, because the waitress returned with our drinks. He poured beer, tilting the glass to minimize foam, because this wasn’t the kind of place where the waitstaff did it for you. “If you were merely instructed not to see me until tomorrow, why go to these lengths?” he asked, after she left. “Why not simply agree?”
“Because I couldn’t. V—” I caught myself. The jukebox had gone quiet, and I was kind of afraid of what he might select next. So I settled for modifying my language. “They will push and push, to see where your boundaries are. And if you knuckle under once, they’ll expect you to do it every time.”
“Meaning?”
“That if I hadn’t left, next time it wouldn’t have been, ‘It’s only for tonight, Cassie.’ It would have been ‘It’s only for this week,’ or this month, or this year. . . .”
“And they chose to push when they knew you were vulnerable.” He sounded like he expected nothing less.
“They didn’t choose,” I said, frowning. Because Pritkin always assumed the worst about vampires. “They probably thought I’d sleep all night and it would never come up. But it did, and in their society, you can’t afford to ignore a challenge like that. If you do, you’ll be labeled weak, and that’s a really hard thing to undo.”
Pritkin looked confused. “Are you trying to say that Marco wanted you to defy him?”
“This isn’t about Marco. He was just following orders.”
“Then Mircea wanted you to defy him?”
I laughed. “No.”
Pritkin was starting to look exasperated. “Then what—”
“Mircea wants me to do what I’m told. He’d love it if I did what I’m told. But he wouldn’t respect it. He wouldn’t respect me.”
I took a moment to work on my shake, which was thick and rich and headache-inducing cold. I’d sort of given up explaining any vamp to any mage, much less Mircea to Pritkin. But he’d asked, and I owed him one, so I tried.
“Mircea didn’t give that order expecting me to ever know about it,” I said. “But he did give it, and once he refused to rescind it, it became a direct challenge.”
Pritkin’s eyes narrowed. “And you couldn’t ignore it because it would have made you look bad?”
I had to think for a moment about how to answer that. It was surprisingly difficult sometimes to put into words things I had accepted as the natural order since childhood. But they weren’t natural for Pritkin, or for most mages, other than for those who worked for the vampires themselves. And they didn’t talk much.
“It wouldn’t have made me look bad,” I finally said. “It would have made me look like what he was treating me as: a favored servant. Someone to be petted and pampered and protected—and ordered around. Because that’s what servants do: they take orders. But
that isn’t how one of his equals would have responded.”
“But he wouldn’t have tried that with one of them.”
I snorted. “Of course he would. They do this kind of thing all the time, testing each other, seeing if there are any chinks in the other person’s armor, any weaknesses that maybe they didn’t notice before. And if they find one, they’ll exploit it.”
“It sounds as if you’re talking about an enemy, rather than a . . . friend,” he said curtly.
I shook my head. “It’s part of the culture.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“It doesn’t make it wrong, either. It’s how they determine rank. If you knuckle under to some other master’s demands, especially without a fight, then you’re accepting that he or she outranks you. And afterward, everyone else will accept that, too.”
“But you’re not a—” Pritkin caught himself. “You’re not a master.”
“But I have to be treated as one.”
“Why?” He looked disgusted. Like the idea that any human might actually want to fit into vampire society was unfathomable. For a moment, I thought about telling him just how many humans were turned away each year by courts much less illustrious than Mircea’s. But somehow, I didn’t think it would help.
“Because there’s no alternative,” I said instead, as our artery-clogging pepperoni pizza was delivered. It was New York style, which meant the pieces were so big I had to fold one over to eat it, and a trickle of grease ran down my arm. I sighed happily.
Pritkin started working on his own meal, but to my surprise, he didn’t drop the subject. “Explain it to me.”
“There are only three types of . . . us . . . as far as they’re concerned,” I said, in between bites. “Servants, prey and threats. There’s no category for ally or partner, because that requires viewing us as equals, and they just don’t do that.”
“They are allied with the Circle, at least for the duration of the current conflict,” he argued.
“Yeah, well. Words have different meanings to different groups,” I hedged.
“And what does ‘ally’ mean to the Senate?” Pritkin demanded predictably.
I hesitated, trying to think of a phrase that wasn’t “cannon fodder.” “Let’s just say I don’t think that they’re planning on a real close association.”
“They had better be,” he said grimly. “We need strong allies. We have enough enemies.”
There was no arguing that.
“My point was that, right now, I’m seen as an especially useful servant, like the humans who guard their courts during the day or cast their wards for them. And as long as I follow orders, accept restrictions and do what I’m told, that’s how it’s going to stay.”
“Then defy them!”
I gestured around. “What does this look like?”
He shot me a look. “You’re eating pizza. That is hardly defiance.”
“It is by their standards.”
“I meant, get out.” He gestured sharply. “Tell them to go to hell. You could go—”
“Where?” I demanded. “To the Circle? Where who knows how many of Saunders’s buddies are still hanging around? To my lovely court?”
“You’re going to have to set up your court sooner or later.”
“Later, then. After the alliance.”
I reached for the grated cheese, and he frowned. But I guess my health wasn’t the cause, because what he said was, “What alliance?”
“Of the six senates? What Mircea’s been working on all month?”
“What does that have to do with you?”
I shrugged. “Having a vamp-friendly Pythia is the trump card in his argument. It’s something the vamps have never had. They’ve always felt like they were on the outside of the supernatural community, that the Pythia was part of the Circle’s arsenal, not theirs.”
“And now they think the opposite.”
“They’re coming around.” They knew Mircea. And when they looked at me, twenty-four and fresh off the turnip truck, I doubted they had any trouble believing that he could wind me around his little finger. That wasn’t a problem for me as long as it helped us get the alliance.
And as long as he didn’t start believing it, too.
“But if you were suddenly removed?” Pritkin asked. “If you were killed, for instance?”
I shook my head. “I know what you’re thinking, but that can’t be it.”
“Why not? You said it yourself—you are the only Pythia the vampires have ever felt was theirs. Your replacement would likely come from the Circle’s pool of Initiates—”
“Which wouldn’t make them happy. But they’re not talking because of me. They’re here because of the war and because Apollo showing up scared the shit out of them. I’m just something to sweeten the deal.”
“But if someone didn’t know them well enough to know that—”
“Then they wouldn’t know why they’re meeting in the first place. They’ve been using the coronation and some other stuff as cover while they hash out the details. Like who gets to lead—”
“And Mircea is attempting to use you as an argument for his consul.”
“ ‘Attempting’ would be the right word.”
Pritkin swallowed a bite of fatty goodness. “Why? You just said—”
“That I’m seen as a vamp-friendly Pythia, yeah.” I shrugged. “But it takes a little more than that. Half the senators aren’t convinced that I know what the hell I’m doing. It’s easy for them to imagine me being under Mircea’s thumb; it’s a little harder for them to believe I’m strong enough to be a real asset.”
“And without believing it, they’re bickering and feuding over leadership instead of doing anything about the war.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Typical.”
I didn’t say anything; from what I’d seen, Circle politics were no different, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue about it. “Anyway, the point is that I’m better off where I am right now—”
“That’s debatable.”
“—but to be able to work with the Senate, I have to be accepted by them, and not as a servant. A servant takes orders; she doesn’t give them. But that’s sort of my job now, isn’t it?”
He looked at me with exasperated eyes, brilliantly green in the harsh lights of the diner. “The former holder of your office gave orders, and they were obeyed.”
“Were they?” I munched crust. It was slightly burnt on the bottom and chewy, with little dough bubbles here and there. Perfect. “How often did Agnes persuade the Senate to do something they didn’t want to do?”
“I’m sure there were any number of times.”
“Name one.”
He scowled.
“Yeah. They might have fiddled around a little, debating some issue they didn’t really give a damn about, and then let her think she’d had a victory. Particularly if they wanted something in return. But to actually give up part of their sovereignty to someone they viewed as being in the Circle’s back pocket?”
“The Pythia is supposed to be neutral.”
“Try telling that to a vamp.” I caught his hand as he reached for more red pepper flakes. “Seriously?”
“What?”
I nodded at his current piece of pizza, which was almost completely red—and not because of sauce. “You’re going to give yourself heartburn.”
“I don’t get heartburn.”
“What? Never?”
“No.”
I let him go. That was completely unfair. I ate antacids like they were candy.
“Anyway, we weren’t at war in Agnes’s reign, so it didn’t matter as much,” I said, digging a half-finished pack of Rolaids out of my shorts. “It does now.”
Pritkin cocked an eyebrow. “And you think that going out for the evening is going to make them respect you?”
“More than staying in would have.” I chewed a couple of tablets while he thought that over.
“It still so
unds like something an enemy would do,” he said. “Pushing you, testing you—”
“An enemy would use the information to hurt me,” I pointed out. “Mircea would never do that. At least, he wouldn’t intend it that way. But burying me under a stack of guards, restricting who I can see, where I can go . . . it is hurting me.”
“It’s also safer,” Pritkin said, looking sour. Probably because he was being forced to agree with a vampire.
“You can say that after the last few days?” I sat back against the seat. “Nowhere is safe. Nowhere has ever been safe. I’ll take reasonable precautions, even unreasonable ones sometimes. But I’m not going to live like a prisoner.”
“It’s only been two months—”
“It’s been my whole life!” I said, harsher than I intended, because nobody got that. Not Mircea, not Pritkin, not Jonas, who would have loved to add a couple dozen war mages to the crowd of guards already milling about the suite. Nobody understood that ever since I could remember, I’d been locked away. Like I’d done some crime I didn’t recall, but kept having to pay for.
It was getting really old.
“You’re talking about that other v—Your old guardian,” Pritkin said.
I nodded and popped another antacid. Tony had that effect on me.
“But you ran away from him.” Pritkin sounded oddly hesitant suddenly, as if he were sure I wouldn’t talk about this, that I’d shut down, shut him out. Maybe because that’s what he’d have done, if the situation were reversed. He was the most closemouthed person about his life of anyone I’d ever met—okay, barring a certain vampire—and while I knew more about him than most people, I didn’t know much.
But I didn’t mind telling him. In fact, I wanted to, wanted someone to finally get it. “I ran away twice, actually. But I never really got away. Tony was always there, at least in my mind, right on my trail.”
“Because you set him up for what he did to your parents.”
I nodded. “I tried to ruin him, to get him on tax fraud, because I didn’t know how to kill him. It didn’t work, but I knew he’d never forget it, never stop looking for me.”
“And part of you didn’t want him to.”
I had been scraping a fingernail over the label on Pritkin’s empty beer bottle, but I looked up at that. Because until he said it, I hadn’t fully realized it myself. “Maybe,” I said slowly. “Maybe part of me did want that showdown I never got. But I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d come looking for me. I’m not a trained assassin, and even if I had been . . .”