by Karen Chance
Pritkin frowned. “Perhaps, but it is of little use to us. And the last? Dagaz?”
“A breakthrough,” I murmured. “A new beginning.” I could really use one of those.
Mac nodded. “Traditionally, yes, that’s the meaning. But how it is interpreted in the case of battle runes . . .” He shrugged. “Nick doesn’t know.”
“Then what is his best guess?” Pritkin asked it before I could.
“He doesn’t have one.” Mac threw up his hands at our expressions. “Don’t shoot the messenger! It wasn’t purchased with the others—in fact, no one has heard of it ever being up for sale. So there’s not a lot to go on.”
I felt frustrated. One rune that was no use to me was bad enough, I didn’t need two. “What about other sources?”
Mac shook his head. “Nick said he would double-check, but the man has a mind like a computer, love. I doubt he missed anything, not about his favorite hobby. The rune is mentioned in several old sources, but they’re mute about what it does.”
“There is one way to find out,” Pritkin said. I raised an eyebrow. “Cast it.”
“Did you sleep through the story about the rampaging ogre, or what?”
“I will cast it if you are afraid,” Pritkin said, assuming a sneer. “Where is it?”
I sighed and thought it over. I really needed to know what the thing did, and if Pritkin wanted to risk his neck to find out, who was I to stop him? Besides, he had a point: without his help, I might never get to Tony in the first place, and even if I did, what if the rune was another like Jera? I needed to know before I used it on the fat man and just ended up making him horny. I shuddered at the mental picture and Mac shot me a questioning look. “You said the runes have to recharge after every use,” I reminded him. “If we cast it, we won’t be able to use it again for a month.”
Pritkin answered before his friend could. “Perhaps. However, if it hasn’t been used in centuries, it may have a cumulative charge built up that could last through many castings.”
“I don’t know whether it’s been used lately or not.”
“Or the cumulative effect may simply make the casting an especially strong one,” Mac pointed out.
Pritkin looked annoyed with his friend, but I thought the guy had a point. “One thing is certain,” Pritkin said testily. “We cannot plan how to use it if we do not know what it does. As it stands, it is useless to us. Casting it would not make it more so.” I wanted to debate him but couldn’t. “Where is it?” he demanded.
I sighed. “Promise you’ll teach me the spell to trap the Graeae, and I’ll tell you.”
He didn’t even pause. “Done.”
I shrugged. “In that duffle over there.”
Chapter 6
I thought the two mages were going to rupture something trying to get to the bag. Mac beat his buddy, but only because he was closer and Pritkin’s unzipped pants tried to fall down on the way. I watched him zip up with some disappointment, then gave myself a mental slap. At the rate things were going, I was going to need therapy.
Mac started setting items on the top of the fridge, one by one. His actions were reverent, like someone handling nitroglycerine. The two null bombs gleamed softly silver under the overhead lights. Behind them was the insignificant-looking box that had housed the Graeae for who knew how many centuries. Finally, Mac fished out the velvet pouch and carefully, one at a time, set the rune stones in front of the rest of the items.
It took him several tries to find his voice. “Quite a collection, ” he said, breathlessly. The wolf totem tattooed on his back stopped in midhowl and peeked over his shoulder to see what all the fuss was about.
“Was this everything?” Pritkin asked. “Did you take all the Senate had?”
“Of course not! I know there’s a war on—I was there when it started, remember?”
“What else do they have?” Pritkin inquired, while Mac stood and drooled at the items on his fridge.
“None of your business.” I decided to let him think I’d been daring enough to carry out a highly dangerous raid on the Senate—it sounded better than the truth. In fact, I’d returned from a trip to the past with Mircea only to find the Consul waiting for us. She’d reached for me, I had instinctively jerked back and, thanks to my unpredictable new power, ended up three days in the past. I had shifted in time, but not in space, so I was still in the inner sanctum of the vamp portion of MAGIC. Since their cache of magical goodies was literally right in front of my face, I’d decided to help myself to a few items before making my getaway.
I’d been in a hurry because their wards had almost certainly informed them I was there. I paused only long enough to grab the stuff from one shelf and barely even noticed the rest. But since the unit housing the vamp’s treasure trove was taller than me, there was a good bet I hadn’t left them defenseless.
“We will need help in Faerie,” Pritkin pointed out, making an obvious attempt to hold on to his temper. “If you stole these things, you could get others.”
“I’m not going to take the rest of their weapons! They’re at war!” I might be pissed at Mircea, but leaving him at the mercy of Rasputin and his allies wasn’t in my plans. Not to mention that my old friend Rafe was with him. There were plenty of nasty vamps out there, but they weren’t all tarred with the same brush, no matter what Pritkin liked to think. “Anyway, I couldn’t get back in there without using my power, and I’m trying to avoid that.”
“Why?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “It is the best weapon you have.”
“It’s also the scariest. As you pointed out, I don’t know what I’m doing. And if I mess up, it could get a lot of people killed.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t shift us out of Dante’s?” he demanded. When I nodded, an expression crossed his face that managed to be both puzzled and angry at the same time. “That makes no sense. You took us to the nineteenth century earlier, trying to get away from me!”
“I did not!”
“I was there, if you recall,” he retorted angrily. “Your lover almost killed me.”
Unless you counted one out-of-body experience, Mircea and I weren’t lovers. And thanks to the geis, I couldn’t risk us ever being so. However, I didn’t intend to explain that to Pritkin. It wasn’t his business, and I was sick of feeling like I was constantly on trial with him as judge, jury and, possibly, executioner.
“I don’t care whether you believe this or not,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “But I didn’t have anything to do with us ending up at that play. The power just flared—I don’t know why. The only thing I did was to get us out of there as quickly as possible.”
“The Pythia controls the power, not the reverse,” Pritkin said, calling me a liar.
“Believe what you want,” I said, suddenly weary. Fighting with him got old fast because it never seemed to solve anything. “If what you said earlier about us needing every advantage is true, I have a job for Mac.”
Mac glanced up, still looking dazed. “What?”
“My ward,” I said, tugging down the back of my tank to show him the top of the pentagram. “Pritkin said the Circle deactivated it. Can you fix it?”
“I did not say ‘deactivate.’ That would be impossible,” Pritkin corrected as Mac moved to take a look. “From a distance, the Circle can only block it, which they almost certainly did for fear that you would use it against them. They would not have closed the connection otherwise—whenever it flared, it gave them an approximation of your location and they want to find you badly.” Pritkin suddenly moved forward until he invaded my personal space. “Your explanation of the power’s actions makes no sense,” he said, his voice harsh. “Not if you truly are Pythia.”
I suppose he was trying to be intimidating, but it didn’t work out quite that way. He had stopped about an inch from me with his bare chest right in my line of vision. It was lightly furred over muscles that were hard and sleekly defined, and the inadequate air-conditioning had caused rivulets of sweat to run in
fascinating ways through all that hair. The only men I’d ever touched had been smooth, or almost so, and I had the insane desire to run my hands through those damp blond curls to see what patterns I could make with my fingers.
I didn’t know why the mage, whom I didn’t like in the least, was affecting me like this, but I felt like someone who’s been on a starvation diet for weeks and just caught sight of an ice cream sundae. My hands were sweaty and my breath was coming faster, to the point that I’d be panting in a minute. I tore my eyes away from his torso before I lost control, but that didn’t help since they only drifted lower, to what was concealed by that infuriating expanse of tight denim. I swallowed and struggled to get a grip before I gave in to the burning desire to rip the jeans off him.
I had almost succeeded in talking myself into stepping back, even if it meant letting him think he’d intimidated me. That would, after all, be better than the truth. But then I made the mistake of looking him in the eyes. I finally figured out why he had always appeared a little odd: his sandy lashes and eyebrows were so close to his skin tone that, from a distance, he didn’t appear to have any. This close, I could see that his lashes were actually long and thick, and that they framed clear green eyes—the rare kind with no hint of any other color.
Despite strict orders to the contrary, my hands were on him, tracing the muscles in his chest. His pupils expanded to the point that his eyes turned almost black and a shocked look crossed his face, probably more so than would have been true if I’d slapped him. But he didn’t pull away. There was an odd tingle in my hands where they pressed against his pecs, and his skin felt warmer than it should have even with the shop’s lousy air-conditioning. Or maybe that was me. I didn’t care: very little thought was happening in my mind, except how to get that damned zipper down.
Before I could act on that plan, Pritkin grabbed my wrists. I’m not sure whether he meant to push me away or to pull me closer, and judging by the look on his face, I don’t think he did, either. But neither of us had the chance to find out.
It suddenly felt like someone had doused me in gasoline and thrown on a match. It wasn’t pain that flared through me; it was agony, and it seemed to spear every cell in my body simultaneously. I screamed and jumped back, hitting Mac and taking us both to the floor. Pritkin followed us down because he still had hold of my wrists, and I vaguely heard Mac yelling something at him, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to understand. I arched my back and began convulsing like a fish out of water, only what I wanted wasn’t air but relief from the excruciating pain.
I gained a real understanding of what it must feel like to burn alive, fire ripping its way up my spine, every nerve ending exploding with white-hot agony. I forgot where I was, forgot my problems, which suddenly appeared trivial to the point of absurdity next to the torture I was undergoing. I think I would have forgotten my name in another few seconds, but then, as abruptly as it had come, the pain was gone.
I found myself on the linoleum floor of Mac’s workroom, trying to relearn how to breathe. I looked up to see him holding Pritkin’s wrists captive. He’d obviously pulled him off me, and for that I could have kissed him, if I hadn’t been shaking too hard to even sit up. Once he’d solved the immediate problem, Mac dropped Pritkin’s hands and turned to me.
“Are you all right? Cassie, can you hear me?” I nodded, unable to do more at the moment. “Right.” He looked freaked out, his usually laid-back, G’day, mate, attitude entirely gone. “Stay where you are and I’ll be right back. Whatever you do, no touching!”
Mac disappeared through a door that led off from his workroom, and I heard water running. The pain had receded, but the memory of it was burned into my body the way an afterimage of a blinding light damages a retina. My nerve endings pulsed with vivid recall and, although I was no longer convulsing, a light tremor seemed to have settled in for good. I was terrified to move, afraid that I might accidentally trigger it again.
I vaguely realized that the gasping breaths I was hearing weren’t all mine, and shifted my eyes to the side without moving my head. I got a glimpse of Pritkin, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling with eyes that showed white all around. His face was flushed, his muscles corded, and his breathing was as shallow as mine. It occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t been the only one affected.
Mac returned with a damp washcloth, which he put on my forehead. I was about to tell him that I needed a bit more than that, like a shot of codeine or a bottle of whiskey, but the small gesture did seem to help. I watched a moth circle the halogen light overhead and tried to regain motor control. The very idea of sitting up sounded insane, so while Mac tended to Pritkin, I lay there and thought. I had been having what qualified, even after some memorable experiences in the past, as a crazy day. So maybe it was understandable that it would take me this long to figure something out.
I’d been reacting strangely all day around men. Normally, I noticed attractive guys as much as the next woman, but I’d had years to learn how to admire in a detached sort of way and then move on. Living on the run meant that any guy I became involved with got the added bonus of a death threat. Not wanting to get anyone killed, I’d made sure to keep my distance, and practice, as they say, makes perfect.
I’d found it hard to concentrate around Casanova and Chavez, but come on. They were both drop-dead gorgeous, not to mention being possessed by incubi. I’d assumed I was having the reaction any heterosexual female could expect around them, and had just been grateful that I hadn’t dragged one or both into the nearest closet. But Pritkin was another matter.
Not only did I find him completely insufferable, and had ever since we met, but I’d also never thought him particularly attractive before today. Okay, I was willing to admit that his body was pretty good and that his face wasn’t that bad, when it wasn’t wearing its usual sneer. His hair was unfortunate, looking like it had been styled with a Weed Eater, but nobody was perfect. But Pritkin definitely wasn’t my type. I’ve never been attracted to blonds, especially homicidal ones who probably have my name on their target list. Yet all of a sudden I was seriously lusting after him.
I abruptly sat up, feeling sick, and barely managed to grab the damp cloth before it fell in my lap. What if Mircea was fiddling around with the geis, trying to force me to finish the ritual? I knew he could do it, since he’d modified it once before to accept Tomas in his place. Maybe he could alter it to accommodate even more partners—a lot more, if today was anything to go on. I covered my eyes with my palms, pain of a different kind lancing through me. The idea that Mircea might not care who completed the rite, just so long as I ended up Pythia for good, was like a cold fist to the chest.
After a few minutes, I hauled myself up from the floor, using the tattoo table for leverage. Surprisingly, my body didn’t protest. “Could Mircea have altered the geis?” I asked. I was proud of the fact that I managed to keep my voice steady.
Pritkin had also regained his feet and as an added bonus had put his shirt back on. He glanced at me, then quickly looked away. “Unlikely.”
“Would somebody please tell me what the hell just happened here?” Mac asked.
“Then why am I suddenly lusting after every guy I meet?”
Pritkin was staring intently at the wall behind the fridge, and after I found myself starting to focus on the front of his jeans, I decided to do the same. “The pain was the geis defending you against an unauthorized partner,” he told me. “It would not draw you to one.”
I felt a sudden surge of relief, strong enough to make me weak in the knees. I clutched the table with both hands and fought not to grin like an idiot. After a few seconds, I managed to tamp it down. Maybe Mircea hadn’t set me up—this time— but I obviously still had a problem. “So what is going on?”
“I . . . am not sure.” Pritkin took in a ragged breath and closed his eyes. After a moment the flush in his cheeks faded a little. “Did anything go wrong during the ritual?”
“What ritual?” Mac was trying to ca
tch up but not doing real well. I’d felt the same way all day.
“The transfer ritual,” I clarified, “the one required to become Pythia. I don’t know what it’s called. Agnes started it but she said that I had to, uh . . .” I trailed off in deference to Mac’s old-fashioned sensibilities.
“But Mircea took care of that,” Pritkin said.
“Not exactly.” I could understand his confusion. Other than for the play interlude, the last time he’d seen Mircea and me together we’d been nude and sweaty. Well, technically I’d been wrapped in a blanket, but you get the idea. “We were interrupted. Rasputin attacked, remember?”
“Vividly.” Pritkin wrinkled his brow as if trying to get his mind around a difficult concept. “You’re saying that you are still a virgin?” he asked bluntly. His voice held the same level of incredulity anyone else would use if told that a spaceship had landed on the White House lawn. Like something barely possible but highly unlikely.
I stopped looking at the wall to glare at him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes!”
He shook his head in disbelief. “I would never have considered that.”
I was getting ready to become seriously annoyed when I found myself admiring the way the damp hair at the base of his neck curled up. Damn, damn, damn! “Do you have a theory or not?”
“The most likely explanation is that the Pythian Rites are trying to complete themselves.”
I stared at him blankly for a moment. He didn’t notice, being too busy counting bricks in the wall. “Let me get this straight,” I finally said, sounding a little strangled despite my best efforts. “Since Mircea isn’t here, the unfinished ritual is starting to draw me to other men to complete itself. But the geis doesn’t like that, and it’s making its feelings known by torturing me and anybody who gets near me. Is that right? And more importantly, is it going to keep happening?”
“What geis? You’re under a geis?” Mac asked.