by Karen Chance
We looked at each other and had one of those moments of perfect understanding. Ah, enlightened self-interest: the coin of my old world. It felt good to get back on familiar ground. No talk of honor with Mircea; just plain business. “Did you train Tony or what?”
Mircea laughed delightedly. Louis-César shot him an unhappy look before turning his eyes back to me. “Mademoiselle, until tonight, I did not truly believe that anyone could do what you can. But now that I know, I have hope again. The Pythia is the final arbiter of disagreements within the magical community, our Supreme Court, if you like. Without a strong Pythia, with the power to enforce her rulings, the problem between the light Fey and the Silver Circle may escalate to war, as ours with the Black already has. The structure of our world is fracturing.”
He glanced at the door and Mircea cocked his head slightly. “The spell is active. Even with enhanced hearing, Pritkin cannot eavesdrop. Tell her.”
Louis-César looked at me and I got that feeling again of power sliding along my skin. His control was slipping. I thrust my bracelet into my pocket so it wouldn’t go nuts. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if it attacked him. “We believe that a challenger to the Consul, Lord Rasputin, is using the missing sybil in his bid for power. For months, Senate members have been attacked by their own retainers. In some cases those who have served them for centuries, who were thought completely loyal, have turned on them without warning. The guards in the Senate chamber who attacked you were some of these. Sworn to the Consul’s own power, still they turned. Now we may understand why.”
Maybe I was missing something. I wasn’t exactly at my best. “Okay, why?”
Rafe came forward and knelt at my feet. I petted his messy curls and felt a little better. He couldn’t do a damn thing for me, but it was nice having him around. “Don’t you see, mia stella? The sybil must have traveled in time as you did, and somehow she interfered with the bonding between servants and masters. It has long been thought that the Pythia experiences all times at once, instead of traveling only in one direction as we do. It may be that the missing sybil is gaining power as you have recently done. Only she has used the power for harm.”
“Wait a minute.” My head hurt. “There are so many problems with that statement, I don’t know where to start. How do you interfere with a bond that close? And how about the fact that I’m not the heir? Pritkin made that pretty clear.”
“No,” Louis-César said, “he made it clear that he did not wish the power to come to you. But obviously he fears that it has, at least in part, or he would not have tried to kill you. I apologize for that. If we had truly believed him that hostile, we would not have allowed him to stay. But we hoped he would confirm our suspicions.”
“Which he did, after a fashion,” Mircea commented. “He may not have said as much, but his reactions make it clear that part of the power the Pythia holds has leaked to Cassie, and therefore in all likelihood to the other heir as well.”
I shook my head. “But Pritkin said the Pythia can’t possess people, so her heir wouldn’t be able to either, right? And if that’s true, it would really limit what she could do. Energy reserves are used up fast in other times, real fast. Especially if you do anything more than stand around. When I was, um, in Louis-César, I didn’t have that problem, but if she can’t latch on to a human energy source, she won’t last long enough to do very much.”
“She might not need long,” Mircea said thoughtfully. “The act of creating a new vampire is a delicate process. Any deviation can have very unfortunate results.”
I’d heard a few horror stories. Best-case scenario, the new vamp simply never rose. He or she stayed dead after three days, and you knew there had been a problem. Worst-case scenario, they rose without any higher brain functions, a horrible mess called a revenant. They were like animals who lived only to hunt. And because they couldn’t reason, they didn’t acknowledge the mastery of the one who made them. The only thing to do was to hunt them down before they went crazy on a group of humans.
“What could someone with no more power than a new ghost do in, what, about an hour?” I looked at Tomas. “Is that right? How long were we there?”
“It could not have been much longer, but we were exerting ourselves heavily. We might have been able to prolong our stay otherwise.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t know how to interfere with a vamp making a new servant, and even as a spirit, I wouldn’t like to try. How would she do it?” “The sybil has Rasputin to tell her what to do,” Louis-César reminded me. “She would go with detailed instructions, and possibly others to aid her.”
“It would not be so difficult,” Mircea added. “The individual in question has to be pure, with no bites from another vampire in the last few years. They have to be willing and at peace when they are made, and healthy, or at least not seriously ill. If someone tampered with any of these conditions, centuries later, a powerful master such as Rasputin might be able to override the weakened bond.” He thought about it for a minute. “Interference in the first condition seems to me unlikely. That would result in the subjects failing to rise, which would not help Rasputin’s cause; the master would have simply selected other servants. It is also likely that a master would detect another’s bite and pass them by.”
“What would she have to do?”
He shrugged. “There are many possibilities. Poison them with a slow-acting toxin, for instance. They would die before it became obvious that they were seriously weakened, and the poison would not harm them once they rose. Yet it would severely diminish their attachment to their master. Or they could be given a stimulant powerful enough that they remained aware and afraid through the transition, instead of peaceful and euphoric.”
“But you can’t take stuff with you in spirit form,” I pointed out. “Where would she get the poison?”
“She likely retrieved whatever medium she used from where her allies had placed it. The Black Circle has existed almost as long as the Silver—it dates to the middle of the third millennium B.C.E.—and poison has always been a favorite weapon of its members. They could easily have provided what was needed.”
“But why would the old Black Circle trust Rasputin?” If he was strong enough to cause this much hell, I doubted the guy had actually been born a Russian peasant in the latter nineteenth century. It was probably a name he’d adopted, possibly after killing the owner or by making it up and using mental tricks to make people believe his story. But it didn’t seem likely that he’d been around long enough to have been at Carcassonne when I was there. The Senate would not have so badly underestimated a vamp that old.
“He is allied with their modern counterparts, who could tell him what to say,” Mircea explained. “The sybil could have taken a message to the dark mages, asking for aid. The Silver Circle is allied with us, and it is an old alliance. Disrupting it would be a coup for the dark.”
My head was swimming. I had a hard time believing that the Black Circle in any era would exert themselves for future gain that none of them would live to see. But it wasn’t my problem. “What do you expect me to do? Go back and arm wrestle her or something? Shouldn’t you be more worried about the duel?”
“We are.” Louis-César was grim. “In less than twelve hours, I am scheduled to duel Rasputin to the death. I will defeat him, if I am still here.”
“You planning on going somewhere?”
I meant it as a joke, but he didn’t look like he found it funny. “Possibly. Rasputin agreed to the duel believing that he would face Mei Ling. It was thought that, when I was named champion instead, he would withdraw. But he did not, even though he must know that he cannot defeat me.”
I decided not to point out how conceited that sounded. “But he can’t interfere with you. You’re a first-level master; he isn’t strong enough to influence you. Even if he weakened your bond with your old master, at your level, it doesn’t matter anymore. The tactics he’s used on the other vamps won’t work.”
“No, but h
e could prevent me from being made at all.”
I debated whether to point out the obvious. I decided to risk it. “No offense—I’m sure you deserve your rep—but there’s got to be other champions the Consul could choose. She’s been around two thousand years; she has to know people.”
“True.” Louis-César didn’t look insulted, to my relief. “She had other names in mind if I declined.”
“Then what’s the problem, other than for you personally?”
“The problem, dulceaţ?,” Mircea said, “is that Rasputin has also never lost a duel. There were other names on the Consul’s list, but none that we are confident can manage victory no matter the trickery used against him. Louis-César has fought more duels than the rest of the Consul’s choices combined. He must be our champion, for our champion must win.”
“And that has to do with me how?” I was getting a very bad feeling.
“We need to ensure that he does not alter time again, dulceaţ??. We need you to go back and stop him from interfering with the birth of our champion.”
“How would she do that?” Tomas asked before I could. “How can she guard him from a curse?”
Louis-César was looking at Tomas as if he’d lost his mind. “What curse?”
“Is that not how you were made?”
“You know perfectly well it was not!”
Billy Joe streamed in the window, a dove gray cloud. “Did I miss anything?”
“You are completely out of your mind,” I informed them. Too bad for their plans, but I wasn’t about to die for the Consul, or for anybody else if I could help it. “Do you get the implications here? I took Tomas back with me. Okay, it was by mistake, but if they’ve been doing this as long as you say, they’ve almost certainly figured out how to do it, too.” Someone had brought the gypsy into this century, and it hadn’t been me. “I could be facing Rasputin himself, and I’m not a duelist!”
“I missed something, didn’t I?” Billy Joe drifted around, but I ignored him.
“You took Tomas with you when you were inhabiting his body. The sybil can’t do that; Pritkin told us as much, dulceaţă.”
“Pritkin’s an idiot,” I reminded Mircea. “We don’t know that’s why Tomas was able to hitch a ride. Maybe all I have to do is touch someone. Maybe she can do it, too.”
Billy drifted in front of my vision, making the whole room look like I was seeing it through a glittery gray scarf. “We need to talk, Cass. You won’t believe what I found out at Dante’s!” I cocked an eyebrow at him but didn’t dare say anything. I didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence. I had a feeling I would need him before long.
Tomas was looking at me. “I am the Consul’s second choice. I can deal with Rasputin.” I brightened. Anything that would get me out of facing the mad monk in that house of horrors sounded promising.
Unfortunately, Mircea did not look convinced. “Forgive me, my friend; I do not doubt your prowess, but I have seen Rasputin fight. You have not. And where my life is concerned, I prefer a sure thing.”
Billy drifted a few feet away and put his hands on his hips. “All right. I’ll talk; you listen. I got a glimpse into the head of that witch you helped before she ran off with the pixie. The condensed version is that Tony and the Black Circle have been selling witches to the Fey, and guess where they’ve been getting them? I mean, the white knights would have noticed if a bunch of magic users suddenly went missing, right?” I glared at him. It was like being caught in the dentist’s chair with a chatty hygienist. It wasn’t as if I could answer.
“I can defeat him.” Tomas sounded certain, but Louis-César made an odd sort of sound, almost like a cat sneezing. I suppose it was French.
“You could not defeat me a century ago. You are not much stronger now.”
“You were lucky! It would not happen if we dueled again!”
Louis-César looked annoyed. “I do not have to duel you. I own you.”
I blinked in confusion. Had I missed something, trying to follow two conversations at once? Masters and servants usually had more of a bond than these two showed. Hell, even though Tony might try to kill Mircea, he wouldn’t talk to him like that. “I thought someone named Alejandro was your master?” I asked Tomas.
“He was. One of his servants made me, but Alejandro killed him shortly thereafter and took me for himself. He was carving out an empire within the Spanish lands in the New World and he needed a warrior to help him. We succeeded, and he eventually organized a new Senate, but his tactics never changed. He acts to this day as if every question is a challenge, every plea for leniency a threat. I challenged him as soon as I grew strong enough, and I would have succeeded in ending his reign of terror, if not for outside interference.”
I looked at Louis-César in surprise. “You fought him?”
The Frenchman nodded distractedly. “Tomas challenged for leadership of the Latin American Senate. Its Consul asked me to stand as his champion and I agreed. Tomas lost.” He said the latter with a slight shrug, as if it almost went without saying. It seemed to me that maybe Louis-César needed to lose once in a while. Carrying around that much of an ego had to be tiring. But then, if he lost he’d probably end up dead, and in this case, so would we. All things considered, maybe a little arrogance wasn’t so bad. And at least the lack of a bond was explained. Servants won through force had to be kept that way; it was never as close a relationship as through blood.
Something occurred to me. “You challenged? But you’d have to be a first-level master to do that.” I’d known Tomas was powerful, but this was a shock. That Louis-César could hold a first-level master in thrall was a hell of a statement about his strength. I hadn’t even known it was possible.
“Tomas is more than five hundred years old, mademoiselle. His mother was a high-ranking Incan noblewoman before the European invasion,” Louis-César said carelessly. “She was forced by one of Pizarro’s men, and Tomas was the result. He grew up in a time when a smallpox epidemic had killed many Incan nobles, leaving a vacuum of power. He organized some of the scattered tribes into a force to resist the Spanish advance, and thereby came to Alejandro’s notice. Although a bastard, he—” Tomas gave a growl, and Louis-César glanced at him. “I use the term technically, Tomas. If you recall, I, too, am a bastard.”
“That I am not likely to forget.”
The shimmering tides of power were back, stronger than before, and this time I got caught in the middle. It felt like two showers of scalding water had been flung at me, and I yelped. “Cut it out!”
“My apologies, mademoiselle.” Louis-César inclined his head. “You are quite right. I will chastise my servant later.”
Tomas glared at him regally. “You will try.”
“Tomas!” Mircea and I said it at the same time, in the same exasperated tone.
Louis-César shot him a warning look. “Be careful how you speak to me, Tomas. You do not wish me to make your punishment even more…thorough.”
“You are a child compared to me! I was already a master vampire before you were even made!”
Louis-César smiled slightly, and his eyes flashed silver. “Not enough of one.”
Billy waved a pale hand in front of my face. “Are you listening to me? Breaking news here!”
I mouthed, “Later,” but he didn’t go away.
“This is big, Cass! The Black Circle has kept the trade quiet by snatching witches who were fated to die young, in an accident or in the Inquisition or whatever. They could grab them at the last minute and sell them to the Fey without worrying that someone would miss them and report it. No one expected to see someone taken by the Inquisition again—they didn’t acquit too many, you know? It was a neat trick to get around the treaty.”
“But how did they know?” How could anyone know ahead of time when someone was fated to die? Unless…Mircea gave me an odd look, and I smiled innocently at him. It was a mistake. Those sharp dark eyes flitted about the room, but even a master vamp can’t see Billy.
“That witch you saved was snatched by a group of dark mages that same night,” Billy elaborated. “The gypsies have always stayed outside both circles, so I guess they figured they could take her without alerting the white knights.” I frowned. That still didn’t explain how she ended up in our century, if people from her own time took her, but there was no way for me to ask.
Mircea intervened before things could heat up any further between the vamps. “May I remind you that while you are grandstanding, time ticks away and our chances with it? Your quarrel will wait; our business will not.”
“But la mademoiselle does not want to do it,” Louis-César said, running a hand through his hair. It seemed to be a nervous habit. I noticed that his curls were darker than I remembered from my vision, or whatever it was. I wondered whether that was a trick of the light, or if hundreds of years out of the sun darkens auburn hair. “I was afraid of this. And we cannot force her.”
Mircea and I looked at him, then at each other. “Is he for real?” I couldn’t help asking.
Mircea sighed. “He has always been that way; it is his only real flaw.” He smiled at me, and it was Tony’s smile—his let’s cut the crap and get down to business smile. It was the expression that reminded me of the job Mircea did for the Senate. He was the Consul’s chief negotiator, and despite the rumors, he had not received the position because of the respect given his family name by vamps worldwide. They might be pleased to meet him for the prestige of it, something like a normal person getting to sit down with a favorite movie star, but it wouldn’t cut him any slack at the bargaining table. No, Mircea had won the seat fair and square, by making the best deals of any representative the Senate had ever had. And that was with people he didn’t know nearly as well as he knew me. “What will it take, dulceaţă? Security, money…Antonio’s head on a silver charger?”
“That last one sounds tempting. But it’s not enough.”
