Death's Mistress

by Karen Chance

  “I prayed so long for a miracle, and there was nothing. For years I thought that God had abandoned me, now that I was tainted. Unclean.” She looked down at her blood-streaked clothes, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “But then He sent you to me, and all became clear.”

  “I made things clear?” I asked, panting in an effort to keep up.

  “It has been your life’s work, removing their stain from humanity. But there are too few of you. Too few dhampirs and so very many of them. And they reproduce at will, constantly making more and more. You need help.”

  “And you are going to help me?”

  “I’m going to do more than that. After tonight, the vampire world will be in chaos, families feeding on one another as they once did, master against master, line against line. They will destroy themselves, and those who are left will be annihilated in the war. And you will be able to sit back and watch it all happen. I only wish I could be with you.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  She shot me a puzzled look. “Because I’ll be dead. The rune was my last chance to survive what lies ahead. But I am beginning to see that perhaps I was not meant to survive it. Now that the work is done, I can shed this horrible skin, these baseless cravings. . . .”

  “If you tell me a little more about what you plan to do, maybe I can help,” I offered as bricklined nineteenth-century work blurred into modern concrete.

  “You have already helped. You gave me the key.”

  Christine ducked into a side tunnel and I scurried to keep up. “You’d think I’d remember something like that.”

  “For a long time, I could not understand why God had allowed this to happen, why I of all people should be chosen for this fate,” she told me. “But over many years, it slowly became clear: in order to destroy them, I had to be one of them. Only one who knew them intimately could devise a way to bring them down.”

  “You’ve been planning this for a while.”

  “Something like this,” she agreed. “But I was missing a key element. Killing one or two vampires, here and there, does nothing. Killing masters is better, for then an entire line is weakened. And killing senators is truly useful, for it undermines the political structure and starts the process toward anarchy. But one or two senators will not do. They are merely replaced. To truly destroy their society, I needed a way to kill a great many leaders, all at once, from a great many Senates. But it seemed hopeless. When were they ever together?”

  “For the Challenge,” I said, starting to feel a little cold.

  “I realized the opportunity the Challenge presented at once, but I did not know how to capitalize on it. I should have known that God would not let me come so far and fail to provide.”

  “He provided the rune?”

  “No, Dory.” She laughed. “He provided you. The task seemed impossible, but you showed me the way.”

  The darkness up ahead fractured, pierced by a dozen tiny shafts of light. It turned out to be a manhole cover, with a ladder leading up. I grabbed her sleeve with both hands. “How did I do that, exactly?”

  Her head tilted. “But don’t you see? If we had not gone through the park that night, I would never have thought about using the portal.”

  “What portal?”

  “The one in the East Coast headquarters. I had been trying to think of a way to smuggle a bomb into the Challenge, but I knew it would be impossible. The wards would detect it immediately and detonate it inside a force field. It would all be for nothing.”

  “But then you met me,” I said, feeling sick.

  “And you showed me that I didn’t have to get a bomb into headquarters. One was already there, in the form of their portal.” She reached into a pocket in her skirt and came out with a small gray ball. I recognized the remains of my explosive putty.

  “That’s why you insisted on coming home with me,” I said dully. “You wanted to take it from my bag.”

  “I am sorry for that,” she said, apparently sincere. “I would have asked, but I did not think you would trust me with it. I am a vampire, after all.”

  “But you could have taken it at Elyas’s,” I said, desperately trying to stall. I couldn’t catch Christine on the open streets, and headquarters was too close. By the time I made a call, she’d already be there. “You were alone with my duffel in the office while I talked to Mircea.”

  “No, Raymond was there. He would have seen. But in the confusion after the fey attacked, it was easy.”

  Yeah, easy. Like walking into the East Coast headquarters would be easy. Christine wasn’t a dirty dhampir or a wanted criminal. She probably wouldn’t even be challenged. And a mass of explosive like that in a large active portal—

  She was right: she was clever.

  There was a cascade of images in front of my eyes, and this time, they were my own. Radu in his ridiculous dressing gown; my mother, glimpsed through Mircea’s eyes, the scene suffused with a love I had never believed existed; Louis-Cesare, head thrown back in passion, fingers gripping my arms like he never wanted to let go.

  And Christine, off to destroy all of it.

  There was only one solution left, and it meant I was about to disappoint Louis- Cesare. But there was no other choice. If I let her leave, it was over.

  I pulled a gun out of my coat; Christine didn’t even notice. She was halfway up the ladder, reaching for the manhole cover, happy and confident in her newfound purpose. And still carrying the putty in her right hand.

  I didn’t even try to take cover; there was no point. If the blast didn’t kill me, Christine’s death energy would. Or the tunnel would collapse and crush me. Any way I looked at it, I wasn’t getting out of here. But at least this was something I could do. For once, I didn’t need to be stronger or faster or have better weapons in order to compete. I just had to pull a trigger.

  So I did.

  Epilogue

  “I told you she was evil,” someone said as I blinked open my eyes.

  I was in my bedroom. A wash of afternoon sunshine cascaded over the old sheets, turning the off-white cotton faintly yellow. A vampire sat beside my bed, and he was in yellow, too. And before my eyes focused on the face, I knew who it was. There aren’t many people, even in the vampire world, who think that daffodil-colored satin is appropriate day wear.

  Radu crossed his legs and flipped over another page in the magazine he was reading—Car and Driver, ominously enough—while I checked myself out. The parts I could see poking out of a faded blue T-shirt all appeared to be functional, although most were trying to decide between a livid red and a blue- black color scheme. But I’d looked worse, and I’d certainly felt worse. And, frankly, I was grateful to be feeling anything at all.

  Even if I didn’t understand it.

  I pushed the extra pillow behind me and sat up. “Maybe you can clear something up for me that I’ve always wondered about,” I said, meeting those famous turquoise eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “Why do you insist on dressing like freaking D’Artagnan when you were born two hundred years before that?”

  Radu frowned. “Formal wear in my day was robes, Dory.”

  “And?”

  “Nasty, long, hot, smothering robes. Good in winter, of course, but the rest of the time . . .”

  “Vampires don’t sweat.”

  “Yes, but knee pants are so much more flattering. You can see my legs.”

  “You want people to see your legs?”

  “I have very nice legs!” We both paused to admire them for a moment.

  “Are you here to shake me down for the car?” I asked, getting it over with. “Because I don’t have three hundred thousand dollars.”

  ’Du’s eyes flicked over the well-worn furnishings and faded quilts. “I never would have guessed.”

  “I’m not likely to have it in the future, either.”

  His frown grew. “I’m not here about the car, Dory! I bought it for Gunther, in any case. I don’t drive.”

  “Gunther? Your bodyguard?
”

  “He’s a very good bodyguard.”

  I looked at him severely. “ ’Du, you’re not falling for a human, are you? You know how tacky that is.”

  “Certainly not.” He shook out a sleeve. “Anyway, I bought him another one.”

  I grinned.

  “Stop that.”

  “If you’re not here over the car, why are you here?” I asked curiously. Radu was certainly strong enough to withstand daylight, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable.

  He poured me a glass of water from a bedside carafe and settled back with a disgruntled look. “Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure. Perhaps I thought you might want to know how the trial went.”

  I sat up a little more. “They still had it?”

  “Well, of course they still had it. Elyas is still dead, isn’t he?”

  “As far as I know. What happened?”

  “Louis-Cesare was acquitted of murdering that sniveling creature.” I felt my spine relax slightly into the pillow. “And convicted of mass endangerment by knowingly concealing a revenant.”

  I sat back up again. “What?”

  “Well, what did you expect? She almost butchered Anthony.”

  “What’s the sentence?” I asked, feeling my stomach drop.

  “Death.”

  “Death?”

  “But since Christine was under Elyas’s care—and supposed supervision—while committing the murders, Mircea managed to successfully argue that the sentence should be carried out on him.”

  “On Elyas?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “But he’s already dead.”

  “Yes. Quite the time-saver, that.”

  “So . . . they’re just going to let Louis- Cesare walk?” That didn’t sound like the Senate.

  “Not entirely. He did sire her, after all, and failed to deal with the problem. He’s lucky they didn’t do worse.”

  “Radu! What did they do?”

  “Threw him off the Senate—both of them. And he is banned from taking Senatorial office again for at least a century.” He crossed his legs to get them out of a creeping patch of sunlight. “Of course, that’s a lot of tosh. It was really the only compromise anyone could think of to the problem of which Senate should get him. Neither was willing to back down, and we can’t very well afford a conflict when we’re already in one. . . .”

  “So Louis-Cesare had to fall on his sword?”

  “In a manner of speaking. For my part, I think he should be pleased. It’s going to be hell in the senate until all the new members settle in.”

  “So the challenges went off without a hitch?”

  “Thus far. Of course, tonight was merely round one, and no one truly expected a problem yet.”

  “I assume Ming-de’s candidates are cleaning up?”

  “No. In fact, she had a rather poor showing. The only candidates to move on to the finals from the Chinese delegation were Zheng-ze and Lord Cheung, although it’s early days.”

  “Zheng-ze?”

  “Very odd sort. Believe it or not, he fought the whole night with a severed head tied to his belt!”

  So Scarface was on his way to a Senate seat, after all. I grinned. “I believe it.”

  There was a knock on the door and a hairy little head poked in. Big gray eyes regarded me silently for a moment before Stinky scrambled up the bedpost and plopped down beside me. He had something wet and dripping in his hand, and before I could stop him, he slapped it to my forehead.

  “Thank you,” I told him as icy water dribbled down my neck.

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said, coming in with Aiden on her hip and a blond at her back. Her hair was extra bouncy today. I guess because of the curlers. “But he insisted. He seems to believe it’s some sort of magic cure-all.”

  I surreptitiously passed the dripping offering to Radu, who put it on the nightstand. “I seem to be doing okay without it, although I’m not sure why.”

  “I am,” the gorgeous blond man behind her said. He had a chair in each hand, both of which he put down in order to give me a kiss. “Hello, Dory.”

  “Caedmon. When did you get here?”

  “Last night, as soon as our time streams caught up with one another,” the fey king said.

  “Heidar’s here, too,” Claire told me, “along with about fifty guards. It’s a madhouse downstairs.”

  “It could be worse. Heidar wanted to bring half the army,” Caedmon said drily.

  “We could have used them,” I told him. “How the hell didsubrand get loose? Claire said he was secure.”

  “It was clever,” Caedmon admitted. “My sister wrote to me, begging to be allowed to see her son. Foolishly, as it turns out, I agreed.”

  “Why foolishly?”

  “Efridís is adept at glamourie—good enough to fool even our own people. She paidsubrand a visit, they spoke for a time, and she left. At least that was what my guards believed.”

  “You’re saying she took his place?” He nodded. “But how? If you knewsubrand had her ability—”

  “On the contrary. Glamourie has always been difficult for him; he takes after his father in that regard. But my sister was veiled when she arrived, and through the gauze, the roughness in his assumed features was not obvious. And due to her rank, the guards did not check her too closely. Meanwhile, their prisoner’s appearance was flawless.”

  “Then you have your sister in jail?”

  “At present, yes. She resumed her old form once her son was safely away. It is an untenable situation, however. I cannot detain the Svarestri queen indefinitely, a fact she well knows.”

  “So she’s sitting around your hunting lodge, playing cards or whatever, while that son of a bitch tries to kill Aiden?”

  “But from what Claire tells me,subrand was not trying to kill Aiden during the attacks. In fact, he never so much as looked for him. Both times he went directly after you. He even waited to attack the second time until he knew you had returned home.”

  “He wanted me to tell him where Aiden was.”

  “Did he say so directly?”

  I tried to think back. It wasn’t easy. My brain felt fuzzy and my tongue was as dry as sandpaper. I sipped some of the water Radu had poured. “Not in so many words, no. But that was the idea.”

  “But do you not think it is significant that he did not focus his attention on Claire? She was a double threat. Her null abilities allowed her to destroy the wards that made the constructs possible, and her Dark Fey heritage made her a formidable opponent, particularly when protecting her child.”

  “Maybe he knew she’d never give up her son’s location and believed I’d be an easier target.”

  “Perhaps. But he had fought you before and had not managed to break you. In his situation, I would have concentrated on killing Claire, then you, and then searched at my leisure for the child.”

  Claire stared at him, horrified. “You would what?”

  “I am merely telling you proper military procedure,” he told her patiently. “Andsubrand was trained as I was, to be logical in the choice of adversaries. Yet his actions here were not—if Aiden was his target.”

  “You don’t think the Svarestri want him dead?” I demanded.

  “Oh, they wish that, certainly. But I do not think they feel a sense of urgency. It will be decades, probably centuries, before he is powerful enough to pose a real threat.”

  “They tried to kill him before,” Claire said angrily.

  “Yes, but as a postscript, if you will, to an attempt to kill me. He became a priority only once they believed I was dead. Then he was the only thing standing betweensubrand and the throne. As long as I live, that is not the case.”

  “Then you think the attack at the castle had nothing to do withsubrand?” Claire asked skeptically.

  “Yes and no. I do not think he ordered it, but the main conspirator was the father of Ölvir, one of the traitors I was forced to execute after his recent coup attempt. The man committed suicide before we could lay our han
ds on him, but he left a letter. He said that as I had deprived him of a son, he would deprive me of a grandson.”

  Claire shivered.

  “subrand has been preoccupied with the search for Naudiz, in any case. Having an invincible commander could sway many to his cause, and it is a powerful symbol. It is only given to the heir to the throne.”

  “But you just said he was after me,” I pointed out.

  “Yes.”

  It took me a second, but it finally clicked. “I don’t have it, Caedmon!”

  “Not anymore,” he agreed, holding something up. It was a crudely cut stone, off-white in color and about the size of my thumb. A few scratches on one side formed a crude glyph.

  I pounced on it. “Where did you get this?”

  “That vampire found it.”

  “Louis-Cesare?”

  “Yes. I knew it was some ridiculous hyphenated name.”

  “It was discovered under your body when he pulled you out of the wreckage,” Radu said, shooting Caedmon a less than friendly look.

  “What was it doing there?” I asked, bewildered.

  Caedmon shrugged. “It fell off your skin after its energy was expended, deflecting the blast.”

  “Off my skin?”

  “Naudiz is meant to be worn into battle. When cast, it melts into the skin so that it cannot be dislodged.”

  “Like a tattoo?”

  “No. The magical tattoos your mages wear are visible on the body. One of the advantages of Naudiz is that it is not. An enemy can therefore never be certain when the wearer is protected, and must assume that any attack made upon him will be very risky.”

  “That is why everyone wanted it for the challenges,” Radu said. “Most magical aids would be detected. But Naudiz was specifically designed not to be.”

  I stared down at the small thing on my palm, my head reeling. “I had it? The whole time I was running all over the city, going crazy searching for it, it was on my damn skin?”

  “And fortunately so. Had it not been, you would most certainly be dead.”

  “But . . . how did it get there?”

  “We got a theory about that,” a familiar voice said. It took me a second to recognize the guy who stood in the doorway. Because, for once, all his parts were where they were supposed to be.