Claimed by Shadow

by Karen Chance

  “Like yours, my magic will not be reliable in Faerie,” Pritkin said. He sounded like he’d rather tell me to go to hell, but since we’d just agreed to be allies, he had to play nice. I decided to press the advantage while it lasted, which I suspected wouldn’t be long.

  “What, you’re going to flash your manly tattoo at the Fey?”

  Mac laughed, but even though Pritkin’s head was turned away from me, I could tell he was scowling. His shoulders tensed, and that tightened things further down in an interesting way. I got up to get another Coke.

  “It’s a special tattoo,” Mac told me cheerfully, picking up something that looked like an electric toothbrush without the bristles. “If I do this right, it should imprint his aura— his magical skin—as well as the physical. When he throws his shields up, it’ll manifest as a real weapon. And, as we learned the technique from the Fey, it should work in Faerie even better than here.” He put the head of the toothbrush thing to the top of the sword and started to ink it in. Pritkin didn’t flinch, but the muscles in his arms stood out a bit more. I sipped Coke and gave up trying not to watch him.

  “I’m not getting it,” I said after a minute. “You have weapons”—a serious understatement—“why not rely on them?”

  Mac answered, although his attention remained on his victim’s back, where he paused to wipe away some blood.

  “Regular weapons won’t do much against the Fey. You need magical stuff to hold up against the sort of thing they can dish out, but like John said, our magic doesn’t work in Faerie.” He went back to inking, and this time Pritkin did flinch slightly. “At least, most of it won’t, and the sort of stuff that will, we don’t have access to.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “Oh, different things,” Mac said, his little tool humming as it tore through Pritkin’s skin. He paused to consult the large grimoire he’d propped on the stool next to him, then muttered something over the partly finished tattoo. The image gleamed for a moment, then died back down. Mac grunted and went back to work. “What would really help would be some null bombs. Only they’re hard to come by, and it’s a death sentence to use them without authorization. And even were we willing to risk it, for some reason the Black Market doesn’t trust us—too many years putting them out of business, I guess.”

  “What are null bombs?”

  “Wicked things, but good to have anywhere there’s magic you don’t know how to counter. No one knows who invented them, but they’ve been around for centuries. Dark mages take a null—a mage born with the ability to disrupt magic— and drain his life force into the sphere. It kills the mage but traps his lifetime’s ability in one extremely potent package. If it’s exploded, including in Faerie, all magic ceases or goes haywire for a while. How long depends on the strength of the null, and how many years of life he had left when he was drained.”

  “Interesting.” I felt vaguely sick. “What do they look like?” I carefully did not glance at my duffle, which was sitting innocently on the floor near the fridge.

  I thought I’d kept my voice casual, but Pritkin must have heard something in my tone, because his head whipped around to face me. “Why?” His eyes were narrowed, whether in pain or suspicion, to the point that only a thin green line showed through his pale lashes.

  I shrugged. “I was just wondering. Tony used to have weapons lying around all the time. Maybe I’ve seen one.”

  Mac shook his head, his face intent on Pritkin’s back. “Not likely, love. They cost a fortune, because nulls strong enough to make one are rare and well protected. Most of the ones floating about these days are left over from past centuries. The vamps used to hunt nulls before the truce, which is why there’s hardly any left now. Most were wiped out, whole family lines destroyed to build up the vamp arsenals.”

  “You’ve never seen one of the bombs, then?”

  “Oh, I’ve encountered a few through the years. The Circle buys any they come across, to keep them out of the vamps’ hands. Donovan’s auction house acquired one in London, back in sixty-three. The Circle wasn’t happy when they refused our initial offer and put it up for public bidding, but old man Donovan told them it was perfectly legal. The thing was old—I examined it and it had to date from at least the twelfth century—and of course there were no laws against making them back then.” He paused to wipe down the tattoo again and grimaced at the amount of blood on his rag. “You want to take a break?” he asked Pritkin.

  “No. Finish it.” Pritkin’s jaw was clenched, but his eyes were on me. I didn’t like the suspicion in them.

  “What happened at the auction?” I asked, hoping Mac would get around to giving me a description sooner or later.

  “Oh, we bought it,” he said, going back to work. “No choice, really. Cost a fortune, though, I can tell you. I kept calling in for authorization to go higher until the council told me to quit bothering them and just get the damn thing, no matter the cost. I don’t think they planned on spending a quarter million on a little silver ball, though, considering the complaints I heard when I got back. But there was nothing they could do to me—I was following orders.”

  The phrase “little silver ball” rattled around in my head while I tried to keep my expression vague. I must not have done too well. “You’ve seen one,” Pritkin accused.

  I wanted to say, “Yeah, there’s two in that duffle over there,” but I didn’t know how much I could trust my new “allies. ” Pritkin needed my help, so I doubted he’d grab the bag and run, but what about Mac? A quarter million pounds in the 1960s would be worth what today? I didn’t know, but the answer might be enough to make good old Mac’s loyalty waver. His business didn’t exactly look prosperous, and even mages could be tempted by an early retirement.

  “Maybe. It’s been a while.”

  I glanced at Mac, and Pritkin looked disgusted. “He is risking his life in this endeavor. You can trust him as you do me,” he said impatiently.

  I raised an eyebrow, and Pritkin exploded. His face had been reddening as the tattoo was inked in, inch by agonizing inch, and I think he wanted someone to yell at. “If you do not trust me, this will never work! There are going to be times, very soon, when our lives will depend on whether we can work together! If you cannot put faith in me, say so now. I would rather do this alone than get killed because you assume I am false!”

  I drank Coke and remained calm. “If I didn’t think I could trust you, to a point, I’d have left by now. Your hour was up a few minutes ago.” I looked between him and Mac.

  “Hypothetically, say I know where some weapons might be found. I’ll describe them, and you tell me what they do. If we decide they could be useful, maybe I’ll tell you where to locate them.”

  Pritkin looked outraged, but Mac shrugged. “Sounds fair.” He paused to change ink colors, having finished all the gold areas on the sword. “Have at it.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t have to think about it, since the only thing I’d taken from the Senate besides the traps and the null bombs was a small velvet bag. Inside were a handful of yellowed bone disks imprinted with crude runes. They had holes carved in the top and leather thongs threaded through them like they were usually worn rather than cast. I described them to Mac, who stopped working to stare at me, openmouthed.

  “That’s impossible,” he said. Pritkin didn’t say anything, but it felt like his eyes might bore a hole through me at any minute. “I’m not calling you a liar, Cassie, but if a two-bit gangster like that Antonio has the Runes of Langgarn, I’ll—”

  “He doesn’t.” Pritkin cut him off. “Where did you see them?”

  “This is hypothetical.”

  “Miss Palmer!”

  “You can call me Cassie.” Considering that he was probably planning to kill me eventually, formality seemed a little odd.

  “Answer the question,” Pritkin forced out through clenched teeth. Since Mac hadn’t resumed digging in his back, I supposed I was the cause.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” Mac pu
t in, “but it isn’t much. Legend has it that they were enchanted by Egil Skallagrimsson in the late tenth century.” At my blank look, he elaborated. “He was a Viking poet and general hell-raiser—took his first life at age six when he killed another boy over the outcome of a ball game—but he was one of the best rune-masters to ever live. Of course, some stories say that he stole the runes from Gunnhild, the witch queen of Erik Bloodaxe, king of Norway and northern England. And since Gunnhild was said to have Fey blood, it’s possible the runes were enchanted long before in Faerie by someone else entirely—”

  “Mac,” Pritkin broke in when it sounded like his friend was about to go off on a tangent.

  “Oh, right. Well, there are a lot of stories about Egil, most of which were recorded in his own poetry. He depicted himself as a larger-than-life figure who did impossible things—took on huge numbers of opponents and slew them single-handedly, set barns ablaze with a look, brought kings under his sway with only the power of his words and survived numerous attempts on his life. He made an enemy of Gunnhild, either by stealing her runes or by killing her son—stories differ—yet he lived to age eighty in a time when most men died in their forties. Interesting bloke, I always thought.”

  “So what do the runes do?” I tried not to sound impatient, but I needed useful facts, not a history lesson.

  “It’s rumored that there was a full set at one point, but it was broken up centuries ago. It doesn’t matter, since they’re used separately. Each has a different power associated with it, and their only limitation is that they have to recharge for a month after use. Those that remain are highly valued weapons. It’s said that they can’t be warded against and that even null bombs don’t have much effect on them.”

  I shot Mac a skeptical look. I’d never heard of any magic that couldn’t be countered. Casanova had tried to sell me that idea about my geis, but even Pritkin had admitted that there was almost certainly a way out of it. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

  Mac shook his head. “It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? But the Circle owns two of the set, and I was there twenty years ago when they used one to test a new ward they’d developed. This thing was a bear—nothing got through it, and I mean nothing. Twenty of our best mages hammered at it for the better part of a morning, hit it with everything they had, but it didn’t so much as waver. Then old Marsden—he used to lead the council—brought out the runes. He decided to cast Thurisaz. I’ll never forget that, not long as I live.”

  “What happened?” I prompted.

  “If you didn’t know Marsden, it may be hard for you to get a visual on this, but picture the oldest, scrawniest, least threatening man you’ve ever seen. His magic was still strong at that point—he didn’t step down until a few years ago— but he was old. His hands shook and he almost always had food spilled down the front of him because he couldn’t see worth a damn. He kept running into things but he wouldn’t wear his glasses or use charms to enhance his vision. He kept saying he didn’t need them; then he’d try to shake hands with coat racks. He looked like he ought to be in a retirement home, unless you crossed him. Then you found out why he led the council for seven decades.”

  “Mac!”

  “Right, right. Well, Marsden cast Thurisaz on himself, and the next thing any of us knew, he was gone and there was this huge—and I mean huge—ogre standing in his place. It was so tall it had to hunch over to fit in the room, and the council chamber has ceilings almost twenty feet tall! It snatched up the council table, which was made of old oak and weighed God knows what, and hurled it the length of the chamber. When it bounced off the ward without doing any damage, the thing let out a bellow that deafened me for a good ten minutes, then charged. The ward had been set up to protect a small vase, and so far, not so much as a petal of any of the flowers had been disturbed. Less than a minute after Thurisaz was cast, the ward was down and the vase was dust.”

  “How . . . amazing.” I had raided the Senate hoping for weapons; it looked like I’d finally lucked out and found some. Knowing Tony’s penchant for nasty surprises, I was going to need them.

  “Yes, well, that part was all right, but then we had a rampaging ogre on our hands, didn’t we? And we couldn’t kill it without also killing the head of the council. Not that any of us was keen to take on that thing. We ran over each other getting out the door, then hied away like frightened rabbits. We reassembled outside and argued for almost an hour over what to do once it destroyed the wards guarding the chamber and got loose. Then old Marsden came wandering out and finally bothered to mention that the spell only lasts an hour.”

  “What do the other runes do?” I asked. “Is there a book or something?”

  He glanced at Pritkin. “Would Nick have anything? I don’t know the individual powers, just the basic legend.”

  Pritkin ignored him. “How many do you have?” he asked me. The question was quiet, but a pulse was throbbing at his temple.

  I hesitated, but if I wanted to find out what these things did, I’d have to give up some information. “Three.”

  “Good God.” Mac dropped his etching tool. A small tornado carved on his right bicep started whirling even more enthusiastically.

  “Describe them.” Pritkin was looking pretty intense, but he wasn’t gob smacked like his friend.

  “I already did.”

  “The symbols!” he said impatiently. “Which runes are they?”

  Mac broke in. “If you draw them I can—”

  I cut him off with a frown. They might think I was a dumb blonde, but come on. I was a clairvoyant—did they really think I didn’t know my runes? “Hagalaz, Jera and Dagaz.”

  “I’m on it.” Mac jumped up and went into the next room and I heard him pick up the phone. It crossed my mind that he could be calling for backup, but I doubted it. They didn’t know where the weapons were yet, and nobody would think that I’d drag stuff like that around in my bag. Come to think of it, I wasn’t so thrilled with the idea now, either.

  “Where did you get them?” Pritkin demanded.

  I couldn’t think of a reason not to tell him. “Same place I got the Graeae. The Senate.”

  “They didn’t simply hand them over.”

  “Not exactly.” I decided to change the subject. “Um, you wouldn’t happen to know how I get the ladies back in their box, would you?” I had been wondering how to figure out the spell needed to trap Myra in their place. It would be very convenient if Pritkin would simply give it to me.

  “Tell me about the runes.” Damn, but he was single-minded.

  “Tell me about the Graeae and I’ll think about it.”

  “They are required to work for you for a year and a day after their release, or until they have saved your life. Then they will be free to terrorize mankind again.”

  I glared at him. “That’s not what I asked. And I didn’t let them out on purpose, you know!”

  “You shouldn’t have been able to do it at all! That is a very complex spell. How did you learn it?”

  I decided not to mention that all I’d done was pick up the orb. Pritkin thought me enough of a danger already; no need to add to the impression. And maybe it didn’t mean anything. The box could have been defective—there was no telling how long they’d been in there. Of course, if it wasn’t working right, I couldn’t use it on Myra. I wondered whether there was a way to test it.

  “Well?” He was obviously not the patient type.

  “Do you know the spell to put them back or not?”

  “Yes.” That was it, that’s all I got.

  “So maybe we can work out a trade. You give it to me, and perhaps I’ll tell you where the weapons are.”

  “You’ll tell me anyway,” he countered. “You won’t get near your vampire without me, so you’ll never get a chance to use them. And even my assistance may not be enough. We need every advantage.”

  Mac returned before I could think up a good comeback. “Nick is very curious why I want to know, but I think I put him off.” He consu
lted a scribbled note in his hand. “He says that two were purchased at auction from Donovan’s back in 1872. The Circle was outbid by an anonymous bidder who paid a king’s ransom for them. No one’s heard from them since.” He looked at me. “I’d really like to know where you found them.”

  “She didn’t find them; she stole them. From the Senate,” Pritkin said.

  Mac whistled. “I want to hear that story.”

  “Maybe later,” I said, hoping he’d get on with it.

  “All right, but I’m going to hold you to that.” He consulted his notes again. “This is composed mainly of hearsay, but Nick knows his rune lore, so it’s likely as good as we’ll get. Hagalaz cast upright causes a massive hailstorm that attacks everything in the vicinity except the caster and whomever he chooses to protect—I assume that means whoever is within his shields, although Nick wasn’t sure. Cast inverted, it calms even the fiercest of storms.”

  I brightened. That could prove useful. Mac read a few lines silently and cleared his throat. He glanced at me. “Er, Jera is . . . well, it’s said to be, that is to say—”

  “It’s a fertility stone,” I said, hoping to move him along. “Stands for a time of plenty and a good harvest.”

  “Yes, quite. It is believed to cause . . . er, to aid in, rather, some believe that—”

  Pritkin snatched the paper from him and read over the paragraph that seemed to be giving Mac so much trouble. “It was advertised as an aid to virility, something like a magical version of Viagra,” he summarized, shooting Mac a withering glance. “Is that it? No other properties?”

  Mac looked sheepish. “Nick didn’t know. All he had to go on was the auctioneer’s description, and those are known for being phrased to elicit the best possible bids. It may have other properties, but if so they weren’t listed. But it was enchanted at a time when thrones ran through family lines. Ensuring the succession would have been seen as equally, if not more, important than any weapon. And having the power to take fertility away from your opponents would be a great asset, throwing their lands into turmoil and civil war at the death of each king, and giving you a chance to invade in the chaos.”