by Karen Chance
It took a second before it hit me. “He’s a fire starter? Wow, that’s really…rare.” I caught myself, but it didn’t fool Tami.
“And really bad,” she said, her mouth twisting. “It put him straight on the Circle’s shit list, and they locked him up. His father spent two years petitioning to get him out, hired good lawyers, did all the right things. But they finally had to tell him it was hopeless. Something else, something minor, yeah, maybe they could have helped. But not for Jesse.” Her eyebrows drew together. “And I wasn’t going to put up with that shit!”
“You got him out.”
Her chin jerked up. “Hell, yeah, I got him out. They always treat us nulls like we’re useless, but when I walk up to a ward, it damn well goes down! But he’d been in there two years! He told me all kinds of things, how they live—like they’re in prison—how nobody ever touches them—like they’re contagious—and the rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“You haven’t heard? The Circle is talking about starting mandatory operations, as soon as the kids are old enough.”
I frowned. “For what?”
“To make sure they can’t reproduce, can’t pollute the precious gene pool, even if they somehow get loose!”
“It’s a charge the Circle denies,” Marlowe put in mildly.
Tami whirled on him in a fury. “The goddamned Circle wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them on the ass!”
Only Tami wouldn’t think twice about telling off a master vampire in front of half the Senate, I thought, as Marlowe backed up a step. He raised his hands, mouth quirking in a smile he mostly managed to conceal. “I never said I believed them.”
“But why are you here?” I asked. “I mean, I know you broke the law, but it wasn’t anything that serious.” Locking up a den mother in the most secure prison they possessed seemed a little overkill, even for the Circle.
Marlowe arched an eyebrow at me. “Blowing up half a dozen of the Circle’s educational facilities isn’t that severe? Oh, but I forgot to whom I was speaking.”
I frowned at him, and then the rest of what he’d said registered. I transferred my frown to Tami. “Wait a minute! You’re the Vixen Vigilante, aren’t you?”
She scowled, running a hand over her creased skirt. “Do I look like a vixen to you?”
Considering what she’d been through, I thought she looked pretty good. But that didn’t mean I agreed with what she was doing. “What on earth were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I needed to get my son away from those SOBs! But after I broke Jesse out, he begged me to go back in for some friends of his. And then they had friends and then the friends had friends…And sometimes wards weren’t the only obstacles, especially once they figured out I could get past them. They started rigging booby traps, so I started carrying explosives and…it snowballed.”
“Oh.” I blinked, finding it hard to reconcile the crazed vigilante with the woman I’d known. Of course, she was probably having a similar problem with me.
“But the Circle set a trap and I fell into it, and now they want me to give up the names of everyone who’s been helping me find homes for the kids. And I won’t.” She glared some more at Marlowe. “I don’t care what you do to me. You damn vampires can drain me dry and I won’t tell you a goddamned—”
“That’s not why you’re here,” I told her, jumping in. A show of spirit was one thing; insulting the Senate was something else. I’d already done enough of that for both of us. “I want to see Mircea,” I told Marlowe, pulling Tami behind me.
“He’s indisposed.”
“You already said that. I still want to see him.”
Marlowe’s expression blanked with that creepy speed the vamps sometimes showed. “No,” he told me seriously. “I don’t think you do.”
“Where is he?” Alphonse demanded. He and Sal had been prudently keeping to the background, but they came forward now. One of the Senate guards moved to intercept, but Marlowe made a gesture and he let them pass.
“He had to be moved to a more secure area.” Marlowe shot me a look. “I have need of every operative right now; I do not have the men to keep Lord Mircea safely confined.”
“Confined?” The word didn’t make sense in context with Mircea. He was a first-level master. They went wherever they damn well pleased. “What are you talking about?”
“He attempted to leave, I assume to find you. But he was not in full control of his faculties. We did not know what he might do if he escaped into the human population in such a state.” Marlowe grimaced. “He was…displeased…to have his wishes denied. I have six men in critical condition who can attest to that fact.”
I swallowed and tried for a neutral expression. I doubt I made it. When Mircea had been thinking clearly, he had ordered me away. If he was trying to track me down now, it meant that things had deteriorated—even faster than I’d expected.
“Where. Is. He?” Alphonse repeated, although it sounded more like “Don’t make me eat your face.”
Sal grabbed his arm while Marlowe just looked irritated. Clearly, he didn’t think much of Alphonse’s intelligence. It was a point of view I was coming to share. Challenging any Senate member wasn’t bright, but antagonizing the chief spy was suicidal, especially for someone who was barely a third-level master.
When Marlowe ignored him, Alphonse let out what could only be called a growl. “Control your servant,” Marlowe said, “or I will.”
It took me a moment to realize that he was addressing me. It didn’t make sense. Alphonse was not my servant. Alphonse was…oh, shit. “You’re treating me as Mircea’s second, aren’t you?” It came out okay, even though my lips had gone numb.
“He named you as such while he was still…capable,” Marlowe admitted.
Okay, this was bad. Really, really bad. It explained a lot of things, including why the Consul had yet to order me dragged off to a cell somewhere, but that was about the only positive aspect.
Technically, Mircea could appoint anyone he chose as his second, the person who spoke for the family in the event that the master was unable to do so for a time. It was the position Alphonse had held under Tony. But why on earth had Mircea chosen me? He had an entire staff at his home in Washington State, not to mention a vast family of adherents, any one of which would have made more sense as temporary guardian. I couldn’t defend the family, which was a second’s primary job. I had trouble just keeping myself alive! What the hell had he been thinking?
I licked my lips. It was a telling gesture that would have won me a smack upside the head from Eugenie, but they were suddenly so dry I couldn’t speak otherwise. But nothing seemed to be coming out of my mouth anyway.
“Well, of course he did,” Sal said. I felt an iron grip descend on my shoulder. It said, don’t you dare pass out and disgrace us all. I straightened my spine slightly, and the pressure eased enough that I might get away with only a slight bruise. “The master and the Pythia have formed an alliance.”
Marlowe’s expression made it clear what he thought about that, but then the Consul spoke up and nobody else’s opinion mattered. “Then you may speak for him,” she told me.
I moved a little closer, but stopped before the reflection cast by my dress hit the table. I doubted the little points of light it was giving off would be more than a flea bite to her, but I didn’t need any help pissing her off. I was probably going to manage that all by myself.
I looked up into that beautiful bronze face. “Why has Lord Mircea been imprisoned?”
“As you were told, for his protection. He was becoming difficult to control without inflicting damage. The snare also obviates the need for constant supervision.”
“The snare? You mean you put him in—”
“We had no choice,” Marlowe said quickly. “Nothing else could hold him.”
Alphonse cursed and I bit my lip before I said something I probably wouldn’t live long enough to regret. But despite my best efforts, I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. She
was talking about the type of magical cage Françoise had tried to use on the Graeae. It was meant for dangerous criminals, which meant the designer hadn’t worried about providing a lot of comfort—or about ensuring unconsciousness. The Consul’s offhand comment meant that Mircea was all alone in a blank world going slowly out of his mind, with no comfort of any kind—no voice to talk to, no hand to touch. Nothing. I couldn’t think of a worse fate.
“Are you going to accept that shit?” Alphonse hissed in my ear. His fist was clenched and he looked like a man who dearly wanted to run amok. “Because I—”
I stomped on his foot, hard, and amazingly, he shut up. “No.” I looked at the Consul again. “Mircea must be set free. Immediately.”
She inclined her head slightly. “You agree to complete the geis?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then he remains where he is,” she said flatly. “We cannot cure him. In confinement, he cannot injure himself or others.”
“He is being injured! The geis is driving him mad!”
“A fact you could prevent, if you chose.” A flash of anger rippled across that usually impassive face. “If he had not named you head of house, I would order you locked in a room with him and we would have done with this!”
“If Mircea wanted that, he wouldn’t have named me his second,” I pointed out, thinking frantically. And just like that, I realized why he’d sent me away, why he had taken the only step possible to ensure that the Consul could not force us together. “He’s afraid, isn’t he?”
“What?” Alphonse was obviously lost, but Sal looked thoughtful. I was starting to wonder who really ran that partnership.
“You’re Pythia now,” she said slowly, working it out. “And the geis responds to power.” Her eyes suddenly got wide. “Oh, shit.”
That settled it. I was never going to assume Sal was slow on the uptake again. She’d gotten it a lot faster than I had.
For Alphonse’s sake, I spelled it out. “When Mircea placed the geis on me, he was the most powerful of the parties involved, so it was under his control. It was supposed to be lifted before I became Pythia, but that didn’t happen. And now Mircea is afraid that my power will override his. That, if we complete the geis, I won’t be his servant—he’ll be mine.”
Alphonse looked like someone who had just had a load of bricks dumped on him. I left him to process things while I turned back to the Consul. “Tony had a portal,” I told her abruptly. “He used it for his smuggling operation. You can use it to send Mircea into Faerie, where the effects of the geis will be lessened. He should be in control of himself there.”
“The Fey will not allow it.” The beautiful mask was back in place, and so perfect that I almost thought I’d imagined the other.
“The dark will. Their king and I have an understanding. And one of his servants is available to escort Mircea to the palace, so he will not be harmed on the way. All we need is a power source to open the portal.” I gave Billy a metaphysical poke. I doubted that asking him to babysit a bad-tempered pixie was going to go over well, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t trust Radella. “Make sure she doesn’t try to double-cross Françoise,” I told him.
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“She can hear you,” I reminded him. For some reason, she’d never had a problem with that, even in our world. “Tell her the deal is off if she tries anything.”
Billy streamed halfway out of the necklace to grin at me. “This has potential.”
“And don’t antagonize her!”
“Of course not.” He put on his wounded face.
“That will not solve the issue at hand,” the Consul insisted, ignoring my one-sided conversation. The snake’s hood behind her flexed, a long, slow ripple that cascaded down into the gleaming caftan. I didn’t know if that meant anything, so I ignored it.
“I’ve been working on a permanent solution.” I had hoped to avoid bringing this up, considering how she was almost certain to respond, but I was out of other options. “There is a counterspell.”
“There is not. Our experts all agree.”
“Then your experts are wrong. The counterspell is contained in the Codex Merlini.”
Marlowe was looking at me with dawning understanding. He’d been there when the Dark Fey king had given me the commission to find the damn thing, when I’d discovered it contained a way out of the geis. “You found it,” he said softly.
I shook my head. “Not yet. But I know how to get it.”
“You will tell me,” the Consul said. It was not a question. “I will send for it, and if you speak the truth, I will order Lord Mircea released. You will remain here until it is brought to me.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, trying to keep my temper. “It isn’t somewhere, it’s somewhen. I’m the only one who can get it. I’ve been working on it for almost two weeks now!”
The Consul just looked at me. For a moment, I was afraid she’d gone into one of her famous time-outs, which could last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, but then she blinked. “Why should I believe that you wish to help one of us?”
“One of you?” I threw out my hands in exasperation. “Except for the blood-drinking thing, I practically am one of you!”
Her face broke into the first smile I’d ever seen from her. After one look at it, I hoped it would also be the last. “If that were true, you would be long dead for your defiance.”
Okay. Death threats aside, we were making progress. “If I wished Mircea harm, why am I here?” I asked. “What punishment could I give him that would be worse than what he’s already undergoing? If I wanted him to suffer, I’d just stay away. That’s how you know I want to help.”
“And what do you wish in return?”
Finally, we came to it. “I want Tami freed and the charges against her dropped.”
“Cassie!” I heard Tami’s excited whisper behind me, felt her eyes boring a hole in the back of my neck, but I swallowed the words I knew she hoped to hear.
She wanted me to demand that something be done about those damn schools the mages were running, but I knew better. The Consul might be able to pull a few strings over a single prisoner, but changing an entire area of Circle policy would be overreaching. She didn’t have that kind of authority, and asking for something I knew she couldn’t provide would only make me look like I didn’t really want to help Mircea. I’d already asked for more than I thought I could get—stipulating that the charges be dropped instead of simply that Tami be freed. I wasn’t going to do any better. Not tonight.
“In return, I will retrieve the counterspell and free Lord Mircea from the geis,” I said instead.
The Consul didn’t blink this time. “Done. But you will take one of us with you.”
“I had planned to take Alphonse—” I began, but she cut me off.
“No. A senator.”
I’d been afraid of this. Why settle for just saving Mircea when there was a chance she could get the Codex, too? Only that so wasn’t happening. I hadn’t gone through all this to put that kind of power into vampire hands. Fortunately, she hadn’t specified which senator.
I smiled, and didn’t even try to make it a nicer version than hers. “Agreed.”
Chapter 19
I landed on Dante’s rooftop two weeks in the past, and almost fell off. My feet were on concrete, but the bell of my skirt swung out over thin air. I grabbed the side of a turret hard enough to scrape skin, trembling slightly with the realization that a few inches to the left and I’d have landed on nothing at all. But I hadn’t, I’d made it, and after a moment, I managed to pry my hands loose from the fake rock and look around.
Everything was strangely silent this far up: the traffic noise was muffled and there were no discernible sounds of combat. Everything looked normal, too, with the lights of the Strip glittering in the distance, outshining the star-studded canopy overhead. But a sudden rush of wind from the base of a tower pushed at me, hard enough to shove me back
a step, and with it came the smell of gunpowder and ozone. It looked like I’d found the right place.
Moving cautiously back to the edge of the roof, I saw the parking lot spread out below in a panorama of chaos. The blue smoke had mostly dissipated on one side to reveal burned and blasted cars, a number of obviously dead bodies, and Tomas standing in front of a crowd of curious onlookers. He was doing his Obi-Wan impression—these aren’t the droids you’re looking for—while a wererat dragged itself toward the back door, leaving a bloody trail on the ground.
On the other side of the lot, farther from the street, cleanup had begun. It was briefly interrupted by a vamp running across the lot, waving his arms frantically, flames streaming out from the back of his jacket. Mircea moved to intercept, while more vampires emerged from a couple of silver-gray limos parked on the far side of the casino. Mircea brought the crazed vamp under control with a word, and several others jumped him with blankets, putting out the flames. Shortly afterwards, I saw myself, Françoise and a glowing dot that I assumed was the pixie flash out.
Other than Mircea, nobody seemed to notice their departure. Most of his vamps were too absorbed in getting the fires under control—when a stray spark can be deadly, you tend to pay attention. I glanced back to the other puddle of activity and saw that everyone there also looked pretty distracted. Tomas was now talking to two cops, while Louis-Cesare propped up the younger version of me so I could argue with Pritkin. It was as good an opportunity as I was going to get.
I shifted behind Mircea. “Miss me?”
His head whipped around and his eyes widened. He glanced at the spot where the other me had just disappeared, then back again. “What is this?”
I gave him a once-over. I hadn’t been able to tell from the rooftop, but he was looking a little rough. His jacket was burnt in a diamond-shaped pattern all along the back, with little tatters of black material fluttering out behind him like Halloween streamers. His hair was half out of its clasp, falling askew over a slice of cheekbone, and he had ash on his chin. At least the shirt looked okay: it was heavy Chinese silk with little toggles instead of buttons, and seemed to have been protected from electrocution by the jacket.
