by Karen Chance
“I always do.”
His forehead wrinkled. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted “I always will,” he wanted promises she couldn’t make, he wanted certainty. What he received were lips against his throat, feathery-soft, a tongue that licked the salt of his sweat away, and hands that branded their touch into his flesh.
His arms clenched fiercely around her, reassuring himself that she was solid, real. Their lips met in a kiss that melted down his spine and coiled in his gut, but it wasn’t the passion that undid him. It was the breath in his mouth, the feel of that small heartbeat against his, the knowledge that she was alive and that it had all been just another nightmare . . .
And then the warm lips suddenly fastened onto his with the hunger of a leech, the wet tongue probing further than it should have been able to reach, further than a human organ could go. And suddenly it didn’t feel like it was probing into his flesh, but into his soul. He could feel each heart-deep tug as she ripped part of him away, and he was gasping on a voiceless scream in seconds. It felt like being flayed alive, like his soul was being skinned away in flinching strips.
Which is exactly what was happening, he vaguely realized. She was peeling his spirit out of his body in great bloody rents, and yet he couldn’t reach his weapons, couldn’t fight, couldn’t move. Until his bad leg suddenly gave out.
His knee hit the sidewalk, hard enough to shoot a spike of agony through his body—and to shatter the spell. When he looked up, there was no Cassie, no lampade. Instead, a creature with a snarled mass of magenta-red hair stood over him, watching him hungrily. He’d seen wolves with that very expression, godless and cold, completely devoid of even the concept of mercy.
Just a narrow-eyed watchfulness as they sized him up for the kill.
“Well, shit,” she said, as he scrambled away, getting the brick wall of the building at his back. Not that he trusted it; not that he trusted a god damned thing here.
The creature facing him pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her rat’s nest hair. She lit up, leaning against the wall before taking her first drag. “So, you want to do business, or what?”
“Rakshasa,” he spat, as he held himself upright with an effort of will.
She looked down at her blood-streaked form, naked except for the usual necklace and a belt. In the habit of her kind, the necklace was strung with trophies she’d taken from her victims—tufts of hair, small finger bones, and what looked like a withered tongue. The belt was worse.
Rakshasas were soul hunters, living off the life essence of others. This one had three tattered remnants hanging from a worn leather strap, the ghostly forms writhing gently as if in an unseen wind. They were so decayed that it was impossible to tell what kind of bodies they had once inhabited before she ripped them free. One still moaned softly, hopelessly.
She looked back up at him. “What gave it away?”
A killing fury leapt up white-hot inside him. He didn’t go for a gun; they were useless against such creatures. But there were things on his potions belt that were far more effective. His fingers closed over one, itching to use it, even knowing that it would open him up to a retaliation he might not survive.
She noticed the movement and sneered. “You can’t hurt me.”
“We’re not in the human world now. I assure you, I can.”
“Yes, but then the pack will be on to you, and we wouldn’t want that.” Her free hand spread the gore over her body in what he assumed was supposed to be a sensual slide. It made his gorge rise. She sighed and dropped the act. “Look, you can’t have the one you want, but you can have me. It’s not a bad deal. I won’t take that much—”
“You’ve taken enough!” He could feel the rents she had made in him, the coldness where there should have been warmth, the void where something he would never get back was missing.
She looked at him cynically, through a veil of smoke. “Will you miss it?”
“Will you miss yours?” he snarled.
“Never had one to worry about.” She crushed the cigarette under her bare heel. “If you didn’t come for the usual, why are you here?”
He dragged the back of his hand across his face, smearing the spattered blood that stained his skin. It was always the same, every time he came here, the taste of blood in his mouth, the scent of death in the air. He hated this place and everything in it.
But he hated his bastard of a father a little bit more.
Normally, it would not have been difficult to trace him. Incubi could feed from virtually anything that could feel human-like lust, but his father had high standards. There were only a few establishments he was likely to view as fit for his personal patronage.
But the higher-end houses were also frequented by the types Rosier would prefer to avoid just now, including some of his own nobles. And he was desperate enough not to be picky. That left John with block after block of low-rent brothels to check.
He had to narrow it down or he’d never find him in time.
“If you can read minds, you already know,” he said harshly.
She lit another cigarette with nicotine-yellow fingers. “That’s the problem with minds. They don’t hold thoughts all nice and indexed. I just get flashes,” she waved a hand tipped with long black nails. “Here and there.”
He carefully did not think his father’s name. Some bands of Rakshasas had entered into an alliance with him recently, and with John’s luck, this would be one of them. “I need to find an incubus,” he said instead. “He was badly drained in an accident and needs help.”
He thought he’d phrased it in such a way that it might sound as if he wanted to assist him, but she wasn’t fooled. “Plan to finish him off, huh?” She didn’t look concerned.
“Where would he go?”
“I might have an idea, for a price.” She bared her teeth at him.
“You’ve had your price—without permission. If you do not wish me to lodge a complaint with the guild . . .”
Of course, he couldn’t go to the guild, not with a price on his head. But apparently, that was one thought she didn’t pick up. “He won’t be in one of the regular places,” she said sourly, crushing out her second cigarette.
“How do you know?”
“Because they won’t let him in. In that state, he’s likely to drain somebody. If he’s one of the higher ranked of his kind, maybe the whole damn house. They won’t want him near the merchandise.”
“Then where would he go?”
She smiled, her eyes flicking over him contemptuously. Then she decided it deserved better than that, and she laughed. And then she told him.
Chapter Eight
S o that’s it,” Cassie said, squatting in the darkness and clutching Casanova’s cell phone. “I don’t know what I did, but I must have done something because we’ve looped like six times now and nothing seems to help. Every hour and fourteen minutes—”
“—and twenty-nine seconds,” Casanova added, poking her with his bony finger. As if a few seconds more or less mattered. But nitpicking the details seemed to be some kind of crutch for him.
Sad, Cassie thought, and ate more chocolate.
“Anyway, we loop. And my power doesn’t work and Pritkin’s run off somewhere and nobody but me and Casanova seem to remember what’s happened! And before I can get Marco or anyone to listen those things show up and kill us all again and—”
“Cassie, calm down.” The warm, composed tones on the other end of the phone were a balm to her frazzled nerves. “We’ll sort this out. Give me a moment.”
She waited, heart pounding, as the magical community’s version of a president thought things over. Jonas Marsden was the second smartest man she knew when it came to magic—and her best hope considering that the absolute smartest had gone AWOL. If Jonas didn’t know how to fix this—
Cassie shut down that line of thought fast. No, Jonas would know. Jonas knew everything. Of course, it would be exactly her luck if the first problem to stump him was the last one she ev
er had.
“What’s he doing?” Casanova demanded.
“He’s thinking.”
“Well, tell him to think faster! If we run out of time we’ll have to explain all this to him again and we’ll never get anywhere.”
“I’ll get right on that,” Cassie snapped, and pushed his elbow out of her ribs. They were in a janitorial closet on the sixteenth floor. It wasn’t roomy or comfortable, but it had the huge advantage of being the one place they’d found so far that the Alû hadn’t.
And a cleaning cart stocked with Godiva’s didn’t hurt.
“We’ve been working on freezing time,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “It’s arguably a Pythia’s greatest weapon, and I wanted you to concentrate on it until you’re comfortable.”
“Which I’m not.”
“Yes, but you’ve practiced that spell more than anything else you’ve done with your power, other than shifting. And in a time of crisis, we gravitate toward what is familiar.”
“But I didn’t freeze time, Jonas. I . . . looped it. And I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“It isn’t. That is to say, there isn’t a spell for it that I’m aware of. And I think it unlikely that you perfected an entirely new one on the spur of the moment.”
“Then how do you explain this?” she asked, trying to sound calm and in control. In reality, she thought she might be going back into the screaming phase again, because she really wanted to yell the place down, or punch something, or—
She ate more chocolate.
“Do you recall what I told you about that particular spell?” Jonas asked. “About what it actually does?”
“You said it temporarily removes me and whoever I cast it on from the timeline.”
“Yes. Everyone isn’t really frozen around you; you simply aren’t immersed in the time stream anymore, therefore it appears so. You are the one who is stationary, not them.”
“Like an island in the middle of a creek.”
“Yes, only now I fear you are in a whirlpool, endlessly circulating a single point in time, that of your death.”
“Yes, but why?”
“You knew something was wrong, knew from John’s expression that it was potentially catastrophic, but you didn’t know what it was.”
“Yes.” Casanova was poking her again and tapping his watch. She was going to rip that finger off his body later, but for the moment, she refrained. It sounded like Jonas might be onto something.
“I believe you wanted to give yourself a chance to figure it out,” he continued. “Consciously or unconsciously, you knew you needed more time.”
“But time. Isn’t. Frozen.”
“Because you did not complete the spell. You began it, but you died before you finished.”
Cassie frowned. “That can’t be right. When a Pythia dies, her power goes to her successor. But mine is still here. I can’t shift or do anything else with it, but it keeps on pulling us back.”
“Exactly. You died, but your power did not go to another, because it was busy.”
“Busy?”
“Trying to complete your last spell. That is why Pythias traditionally pass their power to a successor before they die, to prevent that sort of thing.”
“I think I have a headache.”
“Think about it like this,” Jonas said, with that infinite patience she’d come to rely on. “You were dead. Taking your body back in time would have been useless—”
“Assuming it could have found anything to take,” Casanova muttered.
“Your power therefore took itself back, to a time when you were alive and could complete your command. And when it reintegrated with you, you received the memories of what had happened.”
“But I can’t complete it!” Cassie said, feeling herself start to panic. “I told you, I can’t do anything. The power just ignores me. I can feel it, but it won’t—”
“If that were true, why do I also remember everything?” Casanova interrupted. “The power didn’t “reintegrate” with me.”
“In a way it did,” Jonas argued. “You were pulled onto that island with her. And as to that, where were you when the bomb went off?”
“Coming down the hall towards the bedroom. I’d had to get permission from Marco to ask her High—to ask Cassie something. And it had held me up.”
“And where was he?”
“Right behind me. Why?”
Jonas didn’t answer. “Cassie, you said John is missing?”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t hear it. “Casanova thinks he’s in the demon realms, chasing Rosier.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Casanova made an impatient sound and plucked the phone from her fingers. “Lord Rosier possessed the leader of Cassie’s bodyguards,” he said rapidly. “I would guess that was how he smuggled in the bomb, since it should have been caught long before it made it to her. And he must have also turned off the wards, because they haven’t so much as hiccoughed all through this. In any case, Pritkin jumped what was left of Marco after the explosion and figured it out. Then he pursued Rosier to the demon realms when the bastard decamped.”
Jonas was silent for a moment, absorbing this. “I didn’t think it possible to possess a vampire,” he finally said.
“Normally no, not without permission. But Rosier is a demon lord—considerably more powerful than most. And Marco nearly died in the last debacle around here. He was ordered to take a month off but instead of staying in bed, swilling vodka and smoking those horrid cigars of his, he insisted on coming back to work.”
“His illness made him vulnerable, and Rosier took advantage,” Jonas summarized.
“Essentially. But Rosier isn’t here now; my incubus can detect him and she swears Marco is clean. And even weirder, the Alû weren’t here before. The bomb caused the problem the first time, not those head-lopping maniacs! They didn’t show up until Cassie dragged us back in time on the first loop.”
“You’re sure? Perhaps you merely did not notice them before then.”
“I tend to pay attention when someone is trying to cut my head off!” Casanova said, a little shrilly.
“Yes,” Jonas said. “Quite.” And then, “I think I may have it.”
“Have what?” Casanova asked, before Cassie snatched the phone back.
“You know what happened?” she asked. They were almost out of time, and there was no way of knowing if Jonas’ epiphany would strike him again next go around.
“I know you said you cannot remember, Cassie,” he said gently, “but it would be very helpful to know if you focused the spell on yourself . . . or if you perhaps left it open.”
Cassie gripped the phone tighter. It was slick with sweat and kept threatening to shoot out of her palm like a bullet. “And if I did leave it open?”
“Your power might have thought you meant to include everyone in your vicinity.”
“Meaning?”
“Everyone near you at the time.” Casanova looked confused, but Cassie felt her stomach drop. This was starting to sound terribly familiar.
“When a spell doesn’t conclude, there are usually only three possible causes,” Jonas continued. “It was cast improperly, someone is blocking it, or an element is missing. We know the spell was cast properly, because it is working—repeatedly, in fact. And I do not see how anyone can be blocking you when no one else realizes you are looping. We are therefore left with the third option: something, or in this case, someone, is missing.”
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait,” Casanova said, catching up and stealing back the phone. “Are you telling me that the spell can’t complete itself until that little prick gets back?”
“If you mean John, yes,” Jonas said, sounding disapproving. “And Rosier, too. They were both in the vicinity when the spell was laid and are likely vital parts of it.”
Casanova broke into a string of Spanish curses and Cassie grabbed the phone again. “But . . . if we keep going back in time, why isn’t Pritkin here? He should be downs
tairs, buying me a donut, but he isn’t. We’ve looked!”
“You aren’t going back in time, Cassie,” Jonas explained patiently. “Your power removed you from the regular time stream. You’re on that island we discussed earlier. And without John’s presence, you have no way off it.”
“But he got off it!”
“Yes, by transitioning to the demon realms. And time doesn’t function there the same way as here. They are like Faerie, with their own, separate time line. Therefore, when John entered the Shadowland, he left the island, removing him from the spell temporarily and causing the problem we have now.”
“Great,” Cassie grumbled, and felt around for another chocolate. Only to find out that she’d eaten them all. No wonder she felt queasy.
Well, that and the whole death thing.
“What about Marco?” Casanova demanded, wrestling back the phone. “If your theory is right, he should be looping along with the rest of us.”
“It is an interesting question,” Jonas agreed. “If a spell is cast on a possessed person, whom does it affect: the person or the spirit possessing him?”
“Both, obviously!”
“Ah, but magic is rarely obvious. It has its own rules; even when a spell is carefully thought out and rigorously tested, unexpected events can arise. And Cassie’s spell was neither carefully planned nor perfectly executed. It wasn’t even completed. Under the circumstances, it is possible that the spirit possessing Marco, in this case Lord Rosier, was caught in the spell instead of the body he was using. But, like John, he left for the demon realms shortly thereafter, and is thus unaffected—for now.”
“For now?” Cassie asked.
“All right, all right, but what about the Alû?” Casanova persisted. “None of this explains why they’re here.”
“They are under the council’s control, are they not?” Jonas asked. “And Rosier is a member of council. Perhaps he had them along as backup, as it were, in case something went wrong.”