Shadowland

by Karen Chance

  “--oh, no. They’re too busy running errands for Her Highness!”

  “They’re assisting the guards,” John pointed out, “not running errands. And that isn’t her title.”

  “I don’t care about her title!” Casanova slammed his hand down on the STOP button, why John didn’t know. That only worked in the cinema.

  Unless, of course, you didn’t mind setting off an alarm.

  “Bugger it!” Casanova snarled, looking around as a klaxon blared like a ship about to go down.

  “I thought that was my line,” John said, leaning back against the wall as Casanova pressed buttons and snatched the phone out of its box and yelled at it, and then at the ceiling when that didn’t work. Finally, one of the overworked security guards called in to ask if there was a problem.

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” his boss snarled. “Yes! Yes, there’s a problem! Turn off the damned alarm!”

  Which the man did.

  And which resulted in the elevator proceeding on its previous course.

  Casanova cursed some more until John leaned over and pressed the Door Closed button as they glided to a halt. It wouldn’t avoid eavesdropping from Cassie’s vampire bodyguards, but Casanova looked to be beyond caring. And John didn’t want him ranting in front of her.

  “What?” he asked flatly.

  Casanova regarded him for a second, lips pursed, as if actually wondering if charm might work. He wisely decided against it. “She’s a sitting duck here,” he said finally. “You know that.”

  “You just pointed out that she’s surrounded by guards.”

  “Yes, but why are they necessary? Because every damn body knows where she is. Smart money is to get her somewhere they don’t know, at least until the war is over. A safe house—”

  “There are no houses safe enough for Cassie.”

  “Well, neither is this. Everyone knows she’s here, and despite everything, more than a few have managed to get at her. And your…and certain people…can be persistent.”

  “Yes, they can,” John said, letting his voice go clipped. “Dangerously so.”

  It was Casanova’s turn to just look at him.

  He didn’t say anything else.

  He didn’t have to.

  If there was one thing he and the vampire shared, it was antipathy for the head of their dysfunctional clan. John wasn’t completely clear what Rosier, Lord of the Incubi, had done to offend Casanova, but it was probably a long list. For a creature whose stock in trade was charm and seduction, Rosier managed to make a lot of enemies.

  Including his own son.

  John had a list of grievances against his father longer than his arm, and at one time had actually believed that he couldn’t hate him any more. Until a little over a month ago. Until Rosier joined the queue of people trying to kill Cassie.

  It hadn’t helped that it had been partly John’s fault.

  The demon council, of which Rosier was a member, was afraid of the influence Rosier’s disaffected son might wield over an impressionable young woman—one who possessed a power they lacked. Cassie didn’t just see the past, she was able to visit it as well, and to take a person or two along for the ride. The council was afraid that John would be that person, and that the knowledge he had of their activities would allow him to destroy them before they even knew he existed.

  It was absurd. Not his antipathy for the council, which was well-known and well-founded. But the idea that he would move against the only power keeping the other demons in line—demons who would like nothing better than to descend on Earth en masse. Or that he would risk involving Cassie if he did. But convincing his father of that might have been difficult.

  For all his centuries, there were certain concepts Rosier would never understand.

  Fortunately, Cassie did. And when, in the process of trying to kill her, Rosier almost managed to let Sid, another disgruntled family member, destroy the entire demon council, Cassie had intervened. And John had made damned sure that his father returned the favor. Namely, he’d forced the slimy son of a bitch to take a vow to never again lift a hand against her. And knowing Rosier, he had made it as air-tight as possible.

  If he broke it, he died.

  John was sure of it.

  Well, as sure as he could be when dealing with someone who had had thousands of years to create a new definition for deviousness…

  “We both need her out of here,” Casanova said softly, watching him. “For different reasons, perhaps, but does that matter? You could talk to the Circle. They can protect her against almost anyone...”

  Yes, except themselves.

  What was the world coming to, John wondered, when Cassie was safer with a bunch of blood sucking fiends than her own kind?

  Speaking of which…

  A huge hand inserted itself between the crack in the silver doors. The thick black hair dusting the knuckles told John who he would see before a single black eye peered through at him. “You guys making out in here, or what?” a deep voice asked.

  “He would be so lucky,” Casanova sneered, and pushed his way out into the small, marble-tiled entry leading to one of the Casino’s nicer suites.

  John was glad to see two guards, upper-level vampires judging by the fact that they were active in broad daylight, lounging by the door to the suite, having a smoke. Not that they were needed with the huge bear of a creature facing him. Six foot five and not slightly built with it, Marco liked to think of himself as Cassie’s senior bodyguard. John let him since it was easier, and since he rather liked having something the size of a Mac truck guarding Cassie when he wasn’t around.

  Marco might be one of Basarab’s creatures, but he was competent. He also wasn’t stupid, which was probably why John was getting the hairy eyeball as he stepped out in Casanova’s wake. “Something got you spooked?”

  “No.” No more than usual.

  Marco looked like he was going to say something, but stopped when another vampire poked a head out into the hall. “She’s up.”

  They all went inside, except for the two smokers, who would remain in place until they were relieved by the next crew. And if someone managed to get past them, they would be met by the most formidable wards the Circle could devise, which John had augmented by a few tricks of his own. Not to mention a dozen more master vampires in a very bad mood.

  And a half-demon war mage in an even worse one.

  Cassie was as safe as he could make her, which was pretty damned safe, he told himself, trying to stop the frisson crawling up his spine as she came out of the hall leading to the bedrooms. She was yawning and still pink-cheeked with sleep, all tumbled blond curls and drowsy blue eyes, and dressed in a rumpled, oversized tee that declared: ‘Stressed spelled backwards is desserts’. She looked about twelve, not like someone who should have the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  The impression heightened when she noticed the white bag perched between the coffee cups. “Whaddjabringme?” she demanded.

  “Some stress.”

  He didn’t know if she got the reference, or just didn’t care. She grabbed the bag and poked her nose in. And came out with a little powdered sugar clinging to the end, and a disappointed expression. “Pritkin?”

  “Yes?”

  “You brought me one doughnut?”

  “Yes.”

  “One?”

  He crossed his arms.

  “I didn’t think they even came like that,” she muttered.

  “I can take it back—”

  Cassie snatched the bag and took it off to the bedroom, along with her coffee. She often did that, despite having both a dining room and a breakfast bar in the suite. He had the impression she didn’t like to eat in front of the vampires, or perhaps she just tired of all the eyes on her all the time. But it had become a habit for him to drop by with something appropriately caloric every morning, and for her to eat it while they discussed the day’s schedule.

  He followed her down the hall and into the large bedroom, wh
ere she began pushing some gaily wrapped packages off a small table by the window.

  “More bribes,” she said, plopping the bag down in the cleared spot.

  John settled into his usual chair. “It’s traditional for the leaders of the magical community to give the pythia gifts on her accession,” he reminded her. “They’re not all bribes.”

  “Oh, of course they are,” she said, wolfing down the pastry in a couple of bites. She had to take big ones, but she was trying to make a point about the paucity of his offering, and by God she managed it. “They figure they have to play nice until somebody kills me.”

  John had just taken his first caffeine-laced sip of the day, which was usually something approaching nirvana. But that one didn’t go down well. Damn it, he hated when she did that. They were busting their arses to keep her safe, and she talked like it was only a matter of time.

  “Now you’re mad again, aren’t you?” she asked, reading him easier than he’d prefer.

  “No. I simply wish you wouldn’t plan your funeral quite so soon.”

  “Well, somebody has to,” she joked, and then caught his expression. And stopped.

  “Nobody is going to kill you,” he said shortly. “They’ve tried and they’ve failed—”

  “There’s always the next time,” she said, in a smaller voice. The kind that was worse than the bluster and bravado. The kind that let him know she meant it.

  “There’s not going to be a next time,” he said harshly. The brief euphoria from his run had just taken a nose-dive.

  “Okay,” Cassie said softly, because she’d just gotten up and she didn’t want to argue, either. She drank coffee and pulled over the nearest gift. “Hey, maybe it’s something fun this time. They keep sending me god-awful jewelry and I already have more of that than I—”

  “No!”

  Chapter Three

  John had perhaps two seconds notice before Cassie died. It was enough to allow him to jerk up his head, to let the coffee cup fall from his fingers, to start up from his chair. It wasn’t enough to save her.

  “No!” he shouted, diving for the chair where she sat. She looked up, blue eyes wide and startled, and the pretty package she’d been unwrapping fell from her fingers. “Don’t touch—”

  A tremendous blast interrupted him, tearing through the suite. His shields slammed into place automatically, but not before he was sent hurtling backwards through the bedroom wall. He hit something on the other side, hard enough to shatter his protection and to push all the air out of his lungs. Then everything went black.

  A stabbing pain in his right leg dragged him back to consciousness. Acrid black smoke boiled through the air, threatening to choke him, and when he tried to move, he discovered that he was half buried in debris. He groped about for a hand-hold only to have his fingers slip on what he vaguely identified as piano keys. It took him a second to realize that he’d been blown almost to the foyer, landing near the baby grand.

  “Cassie!” He struggled to his feet, listening for a response, any response, but heard nothing. The loud ringing in his ears left him all but deaf, like the smoke deprived him of sight, but there was a slightly lighter patch of air ahead. He started that way only to have his leg spasm and collapse beneath him.

  His groping hands discovered a piece of rebar making a bloody mess out of his upper calf. He couldn’t walk on it, and with the rod in place, he couldn’t heal. His hand twitched, clenching on the rough surface for a moment as he took a steadying breath. And then he jerked it out.

  The spike of pure agony that followed made the room swim sickeningly around him. He dropped forward onto his hands, panting harshly and fighting a strong urge to vomit. But the panic twisting in his gut was worse than the pain. As soon as his head cleared enough, he slapped a shield patch over the wound and staggered back to his feet.

  Casanova pushed past as he neared the bedroom, disappearing into the smoke. A moment later, it cleared enough for John to see him, clutching what remained of the bedroom doorframe with both arms and a leg. His mouth was moving in creative curses and it wasn’t hard to see why.

  His other leg dangled over nothing but air.

  The master suite wasn’t destroyed; it was gone. Only a few smoking shards of once expensive flooring remained, clinging to the space in front of the miraculously still-standing door. Below, it looked like a large bite had been taken out of the building, with nothing for several floors besides tumbled concrete, twisted rebar and expensive rubble.

  “What happened?” Casanova mouthed, but John didn’t answer. He also didn’t try to stop. His shields clamped back into place and changed shape as he slid across the floor and off the side of the building.

  Eighteen floors was a difficult height--too long to fall without a shield chute and too short to give it time to deploy properly. He landed on top of a Mercedes hard enough to cave in the hood and to send a lance of agony from his leg up into his chest. But he’d missed the majority of the wreckage, landing beyond the smoking pile below the casino’s jagged wound.

  He strongly suspected that he’d just cracked a rib, but at least his hearing was improving. It still sounded like he’d stuffed cotton wool in his ears, but the dozen or more car alarms screaming on every side were audible. But they receded into the distance for him, like cries on a battlefield, as he rolled off the car and scanned the parking area.

  It was hard to know where to even start looking. The debris was scattered widely, all the way to the fence at the far end of the lot. And thanks to the nature of the bomb, every bit of it was potentially deadly.

  He saw several pieces of glowing balcony railing eat through the roof of a Lexus and drop onto the seat below, immediately starting a conflagration within the car. He saw one of the ornamental topiaries that ringed the casino, this one shaped like a satyr, writhing in almost human-like agony as it was turned into ash by strange silver flames. He saw a couple of vampire security members hacking at the limb of one of their own, whose hand had come into contact with the wrong bit of rubble.

  He saw no sign of Cassie.

  Panic, horror, pain—his body was screaming with all of them but he forced himself to focus on the search. Wrapping an extra layer of his shields around his hands, he started throwing aside piles of blackened furniture, ruined clothes and the remains of once-expensive drapes, some of which were still burning. But there was no spill of blond curls anywhere, no stupid pink tee, no—

  No thrumming feel of feedback from the trace charm he had on her.

  The thought slid sickly across the panic, stopping him in his tracks. She could have shifted, he told himself, as ice settled into the pit of his belly. She could have used the ability she possessed for travelling through time to go almost anywhere. To outrun the blast.

  A blast she hadn’t known was coming?

  He shoved the small voice away and shouted her name, trying to listen over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. There was no answer. But a faint trace of familiar magic tugged at his senses, leading him like a rope to the far end of the lot.

  Blown up against the chain link fence, like flotsam after a storm, was a twisted snarl of blackened metal. It was only just recognizable as mangled box springs, warped into modern art by the force of the blast. And underneath, barely visible through a layer of grime, was a dull glint of red. It was just one shard among many, but this one wasn’t glass.

  The chill settled into his bones, threatening to paralyze him, as he picked up the charred remains of a once-potent talisman. The chain was missing, the gold filigree of the setting half melted and the stone cracked and dark. Useless.

  He stared at it blindly, outwardly calm. But inside his head every curse and prayer he’d ever heard roared like a gale force wind. It scoured him out, swept through all the corners of his mind and threw open the doors, leaving nothing but the bitter truth.

  She hadn’t shifted. There hadn’t been time. Even more telling, she wouldn’t have done it, wouldn’t have left all of them to die in her plac
e. She was far too stubborn for that. If she’d shifted, she would have taken the bomb with her.

  And she hadn’t.

  Everything went a little vague after that. There were flashes of people shouting, of the parking lot filling up with useless emergency personnel, of the hard asphalt giving way to the sponginess of earth beneath his boots. He slowly sank to his knees in the dirt of the empty lot behind the parking area, his right leg throbbing with every heartbeat.

  Shields were not meant to be used as field dressings, and his was leaking badly. His rib was also stabbing him in the side, making each breath painful. But he couldn’t seem to care very much. It was like being high, or really, really drunk.

  He sat there, scraping flakes of dried blood off his hands, while sweat rolled down his neck and adrenaline went stale in his veins. Nearby, part of a corpse sizzled in the sunlight, the smell both nauseating and strangely familiar. The smell of home, he supposed, and felt a hysterical laugh building somewhere in his chest.

  Until the corpse grabbed his pant leg.

  He lashed out automatically, before belatedly recognizing one of Cassie’s vampire bodyguards. Or part of one, as everything below the waist appeared to be missing. A single column of naked spine twisted in the dirt, glistening wetly in the sunlight, like a pale snake.

  “Where?” Marco asked, blood spilling down his chin. “Where is she?”

  John tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. He silently held out the remains of the talisman she never took off, the one who linked her to her ghost servant. And saw when it registered.

  “What was it?” Marco asked harshly.

  “Brimstone.” John left it stark, as there was no point in softening it. Humans used the name as an alternative to sulfur, probably because the pungent smell was similar. But this wasn’t nearly so benign. Found solely in an obscure demon realm, real brimstone burned with an unquenchable fire. It wouldn’t extinguish until it had finished consuming whatever living flesh it encountered. There was no antidote.