by Karen Chance
“You think it was a trick.”
“I think that, if Ares had left part of his soul here, we would have heard about it long before this,” he said grimly. “And trickery is as much a part of warfare as battle. If Ares could demoralize you, persuade you that you were too injured to fight, it would help him, would it not?”
“Yes, but—”
“You told me recently that the barrier protecting us from the gods had been weakened by Apollo’s arrival, allowing Ares to contact supporters on this side—including your acolytes. If he was in mental communication with the mage when you attacked, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt you. But he could attempt to make you think otherwise.”
“But I felt it. And I was weakened afterward.” I looked up at him in confusion. “Wasn’t I?”
Adra looked grave. “I do not think he can reach you here. But there are many things about the gods and their powers that we do not know. Be careful, Cassie.”
Yeah, that was the real trick, wasn’t it? I thought, as I felt his spell lift. The room went back to normal, light and sound flooding in: people talking, glasses chiming, the baby making a relieved sound and starting toward us. And then Adra’s eyes lifted, in the direction of the door on the far end of the room.
“Ah. It looks as if we may receive some help, after all.”
I followed his gaze, expecting to see Mircea at last—and I might have.
But someone else was in the way.
“Dorina!” I heard Mircea’s voice thunder, felt his power flow around me, saw a stake pause in midair, headed straight for my face. And then it was slashing down, and someone was shoving me, and someone was screaming—
And then I hit the floor, at the bottom of the stands, hard enough to stun.
Although not as much as looking up and seeing the baby vamp, standing where I had been a second ago, because he must have been the one to shove me out of the way. And had been rewarded for his courage with stakes bisecting both heart and throat. The latter was so long the bloody tip jutted completely out the other side.
Until it was ripped out of him a second later.
“No!” I screamed as he turned to look at me, blood-splattered glasses gleaming in the firelight, and stumbled against the bench behind him.
But there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do. That blow would have taken vampires far older than him. It was another reason babies were kept separate from the rest of the household: for their protection, because they were so vulnerable at that age.
“No,” I said again, my eyes filling.
And then his assailant was jumping for me, bloody stakes in hand, moving like a blur, as someone yelled: “Slow her down!”
Mircea’s voice came again. “I am slowing her!”
But it didn’t look like it to me. I had a split second to see a pair of firelit eyes, to hear Adra’s voice booming “Assist,” and to take the last breath I was ever going to if I didn’t do something right fucking now.
And then a stake was splintering to pieces on the concrete where I’d just been, as I shifted behind the bar.
And almost threw up.
The room swirled sickeningly around me as I grabbed the table for support. Because my spell had unraveled halfway through, depositing me here instead of in the main hall above as I’d intended. And I wasn’t going to be trying again, not for a while, which was a problem because she was still coming.
And it was a she. A she with a gleaming cap of dark hair, who I got a glimpse of as she stared around, hunting for me. A beautiful, golden-eyed she who looked really familiar somehow and—
“You have got to be kidding,” I whispered, realizing that I was about to be killed by my boyfriend’s lover.
At least I was until I upended the table, just as she caught sight of me, too. Glasses crashed; bottles spilled and shattered; a river of booze ran everywhere. And the small candelabra that had been decorating one end of the table fell into the middle of it all, with a bonus I hadn’t expected. I’d just been trying to give her some glass to have to run across, because for some reason she was as barefoot as me.
But this works, too, I thought, stumbling back as the whole center of the room went up in flames.
And immediately thereafter exploded in screams and panicked, scrambling vampires.
Who became even more panicked when they realized that somebody, probably after their last escape attempt, had raised the wards.
The two humans who had been tending bar ran straight out the door, disappearing down the hallway. But the vamps who tried to follow slammed into something invisible, like birds hitting a plate-glass window. And then hitting it again and again, pounding against it as their fellow vamps piled up behind them, able to see freedom but not to touch it.
Kind of like me. I was human, so the ward should have let me pass, but I couldn’t reach it. Not with all the bodies in the way, and not after the fire spread from a tablecloth to the kindling the vamps had made out of a section of old, dry bleachers. They went up, and a full-on panic set in.
The vamps in front were clawing at the ward now, their fingers bloody, while the ones in back turned around and stampeded back this way, trampling me and then the senate in their desperation to avoid the flames.
And the woman calmly walking through the middle of them.
No, I thought, staring in spite of everything, because vampires didn’t do that. Vampires had the flammability of gasoline. Even masters ran at the sight of uncontrolled flames.
Except for this one, apparently.
And then she was on me.
I had a split second to see eyes like gold coins, fangs denting carmine lips, a bloody stake being raised in slow motion, either Mircea’s doing or because my freaked-out brain was playing tricks on me—
And then I blinked and she was gone.
I staggered back and abruptly sat down, hair in my face, staring around blindly. And trying to figure out what had just happened. Which would have been easier if the crowd hadn’t surged all around me.
But not to help me back up.
They were trying to get away from the battle I could hear but couldn’t see, the ring of steel on steel echoing clearly over screaming vamps and cursing masters, and the feet trampling me as I tried to get up—
And ended up crawling under the second table instead, out of self-preservation. Nobody else was down here, maybe because it fronted the fire. Giving me a view past the askew white tablecloth and running people and crackling flames, at a fight. One almost faster than my eyes could track, between the crazy, dark-haired woman—
And the baby.
I actually rubbed my eyes, I was so convinced I was seeing things. He was dead; he had to be. Even if she’d somehow missed the heart—and she hadn’t missed the heart—there was still the stake she’d driven straight through his neck.
And damn it, I hadn’t imagined it! I could see it: a dark red gash that had threatened to take off his head. Like the bloody stab wound in his chest, which had flooded the entire front of his light blue dress shirt with a dark purplish red.
But despite all that, he looked fine—no, better than fine. Better than he had a few minutes ago, when he was stumbling around the bleachers with the coordination of a two-year-old. Because it had to be five a.m. by now, and five a.m. was far too late for baby vampires.
But you’d never know it.
Suddenly, he had the grace of a master or a ballet star. Suddenly, he was freaking Baryshnikov in his prime, ducking and whirling and dancing out of the way of a blistering attack, liquid in motion and blinding in savagery, from the woman. I just stared, having never seen anything like it, and not seeing all that much of it now, because it was so fast.
But I was seeing enough.
I was seeing her jump up, maybe twelve feet in the air, and grab one of the hanging chandeliers, sending it crashing down onto th
e vamp’s head. I was seeing him throw it off, a huge cast-iron piece, and start it rolling down the length of the room, shedding sparks and candles everywhere and causing vamps to jump backward out of the way. I was seeing the two of them race up and down the bleachers, the sword sounds coming from sections of the metal supports for the same, which they had ripped off and repurposed.
Until the baby grabbed hers out of her hand and turned it against her, suddenly ending up with two “swords,” which he would have used to break her legs except she jumped over them and back-flipped. And didn’t miss a beat. The woman, who was apparently Teflon coated, landed in the fire, grabbed a piece of flaming wood, and slashed it at his head.
It was a good move—it was a damn good move—using the instinctive fear of fire to make him drop his guard and rear back, then searing his retinas. And that sort of thing doesn’t heal so easily. It’s yet another reason vamps hate fire: burns are a bitch to repair. That move would have left most, even most masters, blind for at least a few beats.
And as fast as she was, blind equaled dead.
Only not this time.
But not because she missed. A rash of blisters appeared across the baby’s face, a swath running from ear to ear, cutting him right across the eyes. Ugly, red, and excruciating-looking, they bubbled up and then broke, leaving me biting my lip in sympathy.
For a second. Because the next time I blinked, the burns were gone. Not better, not improved, not scarred over. Gone, wiped clean as he healed virtually instantaneously.
And suddenly, the room was silent.
Suddenly, the only sounds were my labored breathing and the crackling of the flames.
Suddenly, even the senate, which had been cursing and throwing young vampires off themselves, froze, a few with the offending vamps still in hand, in order to stare.
At the impossible.
Because the baby was walking through the flames now, dual-wielding his makeshift swords, forcing the woman back. Until she repurposed my trick. Finding a still-intact bottle and throwing it at his feet, where it exploded against the hard concrete and splashed everywhere, wetting his trousers. Causing fire to run up his legs and spike toward his torso, and the crowd to gasp in horror.
But not the baby. Another involuntary jerk, and he was back in control. A wave of his hand, a murmured word, and the flames died down and went out. And this time, even the woman stared.
I didn’t know what she might have pulled out of her bag of tricks next, other than the knife that was already in her hand. And I never got the chance to find out. Because a shadow had taken advantage of the distraction to slip up behind her, one whose arm went around her throat, and whose murmured words in her ear seemed to do what steel bars couldn’t.
And caused her to drop the knife.
And suddenly, the vampires went crazy.
If I’d thought they were loud before, it was nothing compared to this. You’d have thought their team had just won the Super Bowl, it was so deafening. And this from creatures who usually prided themselves on how silent and reserved they could be.
But not this time. The baby found himself abruptly jerked up and paraded around the room, like a pop star crowd-surfing a mass of loyal fans. The yells and cheers were like the roar of the ocean; even the senate was suddenly talking excitedly—and smiling.
And then Jules pulled me out from under the table, soda can in hand. “Are you all right?” he yelled, to be heard over the din.
I nodded. I thought so. Honestly, I had no idea.
Like I had no idea what had just happened.
“What’s going on?” I yelled back.
“They just . . . dhampir!”
“What?”
“I said, they just saw a baby vamp defeat a dhampir!” he screamed at me, grinning like all the rest.
I turned my eyes to the woman, who was now struggling in Mircea’s hold. She wasn’t going anywhere, but her fangs were out, her eyes were gold, and her beautiful face was set on snarl. I blinked. That . . . was a dhampir?
I’d never seen one before, but I’d heard about them. I’d heard all about them. They were the bogeyman. They were the vampire equivalent of John Wick. They were the half-vamp, half-human deformed monsters who hunted vamps the way vamps used to hunt humans, only with even more savagery and ruthlessness. Tony’s guys had loved telling stories about dhampirs.
And Mircea was . . . What the hell was Mircea doing with one?
“What is going on?” I yelled again, because nothing made any goddamn sense.
Until I caught sight of the baby vamp again, grinning from his throne of cheering supporters. So happy that he never even noticed the shadow pull apart from him and flit over to Adra. The head of the demon council met my eyes.
“I think we have our deal, Pythia,” he called.
Yeah, I thought. And the senate had their army, or at least the beginnings of one. Because the fight had done what I couldn’t, and whipped up some legitimate enthusiasm.
Which might have been why the consul was smiling as she stepped forward.
“Lord Mircea,” she called, her voice carrying over the din. Mircea’s head jerked up. For a moment, he just stared at her, dark eyes wide. And then they slowly slid over to me. “Would you please secure—”
“No!”
“—your daughter?”
I stared from Mircea to the struggling woman in his arms, uncomprehending.
And then it hit me.
“Daughter?”
Chapter Thirty-eight
“It was a cow pasture!” I whirled on Mircea as soon as we left the hallway. “I had to get you out of that room, and I couldn’t afford another fight, and—damn it! It was a cow pasture. The only thing hurt was her pride!”
“I know.” He closed the door behind him, and damn if he didn’t sound exactly the same as always. The velvet voice calm, the motions unhurried, the handsome face composed. It was infuriating.
We were back in the bedroom suite where I’d woken up, which was the only place he would talk, I suppose because he’d made sure it wasn’t bugged. But it meant that I’d had to come all the way back up here without saying a word, feeling like I was about to explode. While he’d had the trip back to prepare the defense, as Jules would say. So this was probably going to be another master class in—
No! Not this time! “Then what the hell—”
“She is dhampir,” he told me, still standing by the door. We were in the outer room with all the candles, and they danced in his eyes, making it even harder to read his expression. “They do not think as we do. Most . . . do not think at all. They are famous for their madness, almost as much as for their savagery. Dorina is . . . less unstable . . . than most. But her vampire half has been coming to the forefront more and more lately, and it has its own way of thinking about things.”
“Her vampire half? What, is she some kind of split personality?”
I’d said it scornfully, but he nodded. “In a manner of speaking, yes. She was whole once, but her vampire nature threatened to swamp her human child’s mind. I suspect that is why most dhampirs go mad: their two sides grow at separate rates, and one destroys the other. Leaving them vulnerable to hunters of all descriptions.”
“But that didn’t happen to her.” Because if she was Mircea’s child, his actual child, she had to be . . . God, something like five hundred years old. Or more, since he was almost six hundred himself. A five-hundred-year-old dhampir.
It didn’t compute.
Of course, none of this did.
“I managed to separate the two parts of her nature,” Mircea explained, “and build a mental block between them—it was the only way to save her life. But now that block is crumbling, and I cannot repair it. She inherited my mental gifts, and she is too strong. Her vampire half wants out.”
“And to kill me, apparently!”
He
shook his head. “You must understand, her vampire nature has not had the experience with our society that her human mind has. She is . . . something unique, a master vampire who has grown up, not only without a master, but also in almost complete isolation. Dory—the human side of her—dominated for centuries—”
“Why? If Dorina has your mental gifts, shouldn’t she have been the one in charge?”
“Yes,” he said patiently, “but that is what was causing the problem in the first place. I locked Dorina down to give Dory time to mature. I thought I was doing the right thing; otherwise, I would have lost both of them. But I . . . overdid it. Once the block was in place, Dorina was able to emerge only when Dory was under extreme duress, and her mental control was ragged. As a result, Dorina knows a great deal about combat, but very little about interpreting other types of human interaction.”
I tried to process that. It didn’t help much. “So she decided to kill me because I ticked her off?”
“No. She decided to kill you because she mistook your rescue of me for an assault.”
“How?” I spread my hands. “I was there to help you—”
“But she had no way of knowing that, Cassie. Her human half was in control at the time, and the block I put in place still exists in some areas, giving her only intermittent knowledge of what Dory sees. I am not sure how much Dorina understood of what happened that night.”
“Enough to be severely pissed!”
“So it would seem.” He met my eyes steadily. “My guess is that she was somewhat nearer to the surface than usual, owing to the recent collapse of my barrier. She knew that Dory was watching over me as I slept, knew I had been injured, knew that a powerful witch with a type of magic she had never seen suddenly appeared and removed her protection from me—”
“But she saw you later. She knew you were fine—”
“Which could have been due to fighting you off, could it not? Or from having someone else rescue me. She didn’t know you helped me; she wasn’t there to see. Only that you removed my protection and thus, in her eyes, left me vulnerable.”
