by Karen Chance
"Mircea—" Jerome said, staring at the curtain.
"I know." Mircea's hands deftly searched the mage, looking for a way out, a weapon, anything at all.
And to his surprise, he found one.
Or he found something, anyway.
The mage had a thick gold chain around his neck, heavy, exquisite work, the kind of thing a noble might wear. Yet it was hung with a plain rock crystal pendant. It looked like those the hawkers sold to the festival crowds, carved with the face of a saint, along with cheap glass rosaries, pilgrim badges and tiny silver crosses. It was not something that belonged on that chain.
Until Mircea pressed it, while searching for a catch or an opening.
And found more than he bargained for.
The stone started glowing with an intense yellow light that spilled over the dirty floor and highlighted Jerome's anxious face. And probably his own, because Mircea had no idea what it was. Or why it was now emitting some kind of odd noise.
"Is it important?" Jerome asked breathlessly. He'd always had trouble remembering that vampires don’t need to breathe.
"I don’t know." Mircea turned it over, looking for he knew not what. Instructions? An incantation? Any damned thing to get them out of here—
"I think it's important!" Jerome yelled, his hair blowing everywhere and his face suddenly whiting out.
Because a swirling circle of light had just appeared out of nothing in the middle of the room, with a terrifying drum, drum, drum sound that was so loud, it even drowned out the sound of the spells being lobbed outside. Which, judging by the colors suddenly exploding against the curtain, had just increased exponentially.
"I think it's a portal!" Jerome yelled, staring at it with huge eyes.
"What?"
"A gateway! I've heard of them before!"
"A gateway to where?"
"I don’t know!"
He stared at Mircea, and Mircea stared back. Because jumping into what looked like an inferno going who-knew-where was not either man's idea of fun. Of course, neither was staying here.
And then the decision was made for them, when the curtain abruptly gave way. Jerome screamed, Mircea cursed, and a barrage of spells hit shelves, exploding them into stinging, noxious, multicolored clouds. And a second later, he and Jerome and an almost-corpse were falling through wind and light and sound, screaming their heads off.
Except for the corpse, of course.
"Aaaaahhhhh!"
Thud.
"Aaahhhh!"
Crash.
"Aaaaaahhhhh!
Squelch.
"Ahh." That last was Jerome, who had landed on top of Mircea, who had landed on top of Hieronimo, who had landed in a pile of fish guts. A deep pile, which was why Mircea was no longer screaming—his head had gone under.
He came up, gasping, not for breath but because that's what you do when there are fish intestines on your face and what turned out to be an eyeball in your mouth.
"Gah!" He spat it out and sat up, staring around. And through hanging strands of innards saw what looked like a port.
"Where are we?" he asked Jerome, who was flailing about, trying to get out of the slippery substance.
"It . . . it looks like a port."
Thank you, Mircea thought evilly, and got up.
He rescued the corpse, in case it wasn't one yet, turning it right side up. But he didn’t do anything else, because he didn’t have time. Not because any of the mages had followed them through the portal, which had just winked out. But because there were plenty of others on this side, yelling and scuffling and fighting, in and among a group of dark buildings and out onto moonlit sand.
One of whom had just grabbed Jerome.
"Aahh!" Jerome said, which did not help.
Of course, neither did Mircea's attempt to drain the mage, at least enough for them to get away.
It did seem to make him angry, though.
"Shields, scum," the mage snarled, and the next thing Mircea knew, he was thrown against a wall and pinned there by an unseen hand.
It appeared to be trying to choke him to death, which wouldn’t work, or possibly to pop his head off, which might. Mircea started thrashing around, trying to get some kind of leverage, and failing rather spectacularly since his feet couldn’t even touch the ground. But Jerome's could, and fortunately, he took that moment to remember that he was a master.
The mage went flying, Mircea hit wet dirt, and Jerome screamed some more, because this really wasn't his forte. But it didn't interfere with his abilities any, which was why the mage splashed down a safe distance away, in the midst of dark ships, darker water, and bright spells. The latter were flashing here and there and everywhere, lighting up the night. It would have been oddly beautiful if they weren't so deadly.
"Get down!" Mircea told Jerome, who was just standing there.
Jerome got down. And grabbed Hieronimo, before following Mircea's crawl along a mud and blood and fish-filled bank. Some fishermen had cleaned their catch hours before, and left the waste to be taken by the tide. But it wasn't time for the tide, which didn’t seem to have gotten all of the last batch, in any case. And it was fairly odorous after baking in the Venetian sun. Add in the smell of the sea and the odd, lightning-scent of the magic being flung around, and Mircea was almost scent-blind.
It made him want to get out of here even more.
The question was, which direction wouldn’t get them killed?
Because the fight seemed to be everywhere.
It must have been how Hieronimo was injured; he'd been caught up in the battle, which was why he'd been late for his meeting with Jerome. And had used the portal stone to escape, only not before he was seriously injured. But they couldn't use the same means to return, since there were enemies at the bar now, too.
But they also couldn't stay here.
"Is the mage dead?" Mircea whispered to Jerome, once they found a temporary bolt-hole behind some barrels.
"What?”
"The mage! Did you kill him?"
"Oh." Jerome swallowed, and then shook his head. "No, I don’t think so. I just threw him, as hard as I could. He landed in the water, but I'm not sure where."
Mircea couldn’t blame him for that. Mages were hitting the water all the time, falling off of ships and being blown back into rigging, where fires were starting to break out. They were small at the moment, but they wouldn’t stay that way.
And even if they did, somebody was going to sound an alarm before long. Mircea had finally recognized this place, a prominent beach on the lagoon where ships of all types regularly anchored. That included humble fishing boats, rotund merchant ships, tiny skiffs used for shooting water birds, and gondolas. But there were also several sleek warships, their dark hulls blocking out the moonlight and towering above the scene.
They would almost certainly have a skeleton crew aboard, even if none of the others did.
Time to go.
Or it would have been, had Hieronimo not taken that moment to come around. "Mircea . . . ." The man's hand caught his sleeve.
"Stay still."
Mircea gripped the man's shoulder and concentrated, trying to will some life energy into the abused body. He didn’t know that it would be enough; his ability was limited, and he'd never tried to help anyone hurt this badly before. But it seemed to be doing something, because the mage began breathing easier after a moment.
"Should . . . should we take the knife out?" Jerome asked, looking from the mage to Mircea.
But Hieronimo shook his head, grinning strangely out of lips already turning blue. "A little late for that. Looks like . . . you’re on your own."
"On my own for what?" Jerome said. "I was told to meet with you, that you would help me find—"
"Do I look able to help anyone, boy?"
"I'm not a boy."
"Then stop acting like one!" The mage stopped for a coughing fit he couldn’t afford, because Mircea was pretty sure the man was right. He was fading, most of the bleeding
they'd tried to avoid making worse having just gone inside. Mircea could feel it, pooling low in the man's abdomen. He had minutes left, at most.
"What do you want to tell us?" he asked softly.
"See the ship with the lion flag? Fat merchant, riding low."
Mircea glanced over his shoulder, and nodded. The merchant vessel had the lion of St. Mark's on its flag, the crimson and gold motif lit up by spell fire.
"Bunch of witches in the hold. Have to get them out. Have to rescue—" Another coughing fit erupted.
"How are we supposed to do that?" Jerome asked. "And even if we could, I didn’t come here for witches! I came—"
"To stop a war."
Jerome nodded.
"Then you need those witches. They’re the key, boy. Lover's Knot . . . ." He trailed off, and Mircea was afraid it might be for the last time.
"Hieronimo!" He tried willing some more energy into him, but he was pretty sure it was too late. Too much damage for the body to heal meant he was just draining himself to no purpose.
But Jerome wasn't giving up so easily. "Hieronimo! We don’t understand magic, either of us! We don’t know what that means. You have to—"
"Stop telling me what I have to do," the man said, bloodshot blue eyes opening to glare at the small blond. "The only thing I have to do is die. You have to get those witches. The spell you want isn’t in a grimoire or anybody's head. It was once, but it was destroyed. Now the only place to find it is on them. Help my people get them out; they can do the rest. But be careful; remember, what happens to one, happens to both . . . ."
"What does?" Mircea shook him when he trailed off again, because it couldn’t hurt at this point. "Hieromino! What does?"
But there was no reply, nor would there be.
The man was dead.
And this time, it was Jerome's turn to swear.
Chapter Ten
Present Day, Dory
Still at an overpriced dress shop, Paris
"It's fine," someone was saying. "She does this from time to time. No need for concern."
"Are you sure?" Someone else sounded doubtful. I opened my eyes to see my confused, slightly distorted-looking face staring back at me, out of a sea of shiny silver. "Perhaps some brandy?"
"That would be perfect."
My face drew back abruptly, into the silver field stretching across Claude's impressive pecs, and then disappeared entirely as the great man hurried off. Leaving me looking at Radu's worried features instead, bending over to peer at me. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah." I swallowed and sat up a little straighter in the chair somebody had found for me, and wished for something stronger than brandy.
I felt like death.
"Then what is all this?" Radu demanded in a whisper.
"Dorina. She keeps knocking me out to show me stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"I don’t know! Weird stuff," I snapped, because my head was killing me. And because how the hell should I know?
And then there was brandy, which was tasty, if nothing else. Claude didn’t serve the cheap stuff. I drank it while Radu questioned the great man about his clothes, something I was barely listening to because my brain was trying to beat its way out of my skull.
Until I finished my drink, and realized that Claude was still talking.
"—think a spell is a single object, a whole cloth, if you will. When, of course, that isn’t true at all." He looked at me archly, pleased to have a new pupil. "Roman matrons, you know."
"What?"
He jerked over a rack with a bunch of bright yellow garments swinging from it. "Chinese silk," he said dramatically. "Highly prized in old Rome."
"Okay."
"But hugely expensive. Had to come along the Silk Road." A dark eyebrow arched expressively. "Bandits, you know."
"Uh huh."
"As a result, the end price was enough to make even royalty blanch. So what did they do, hm?"
I looked at him blearily. "No idea."
"They pulled a thread." Claude picked out a cheongsam-style dress with gamboling dragons—literally, they were chasing each other about, playing some sort of game involving a red ball and a lot of fire breathing. I jerked back to avoid one miniature flame, and wondered how the hell you were supposed to wear that and not burn the house down!
Claude was frowning at it, too, but for different reasons. He took out a tiny pair of silver scissors and snicked away a single, trailing strand, holding it up to the light. "Or, to be more precise, they had their slaves do it," he informed me. "Carefully picking apart the so-precious cloth, which the Romans had no way to make for themselves at the time. But they knew how to get what they wanted, nonetheless—"
"By destroying it?"
A diamond encrusted finger pressed against my lips. "No. By remaking it. Into filmy, gossamer garments, three and four and even more, all from a single piece of good, thick silk. They took what they wanted from the original creation, and made it their own."
I moved the finger, so I could push my lips past. "Okay, but what does that—"
"Unh, unh, unh. You haven’t let me finish."
The finger was back.
Any second now, I was going to bite it off.
"I read that story some years ago, as a young designer, and it stuck with me. It's the reason for much of my success. Well, that and talent, of course. But even talent needs help—"
"Which you found in old types of cloth?" Radu asked, looking me a warning.
Probably because my fangs were out.
I drew them back in.
"Which I found in old types of spells. After all, they’re made of threads, too, n'est ce pas? Myriad ones, each serving a different function, contributing to the whole. We don’t think of them that way anymore, and why should we? We learn them as children, toddling about. Say this, and your magic does that. Simple, non?"
"Non. We're not mages," I reminded him, after capturing the hand so it wouldn't tempt me again.
But Claude apparently mistook the gesture, and brought my clenched fist up to kiss it. "Of course you aren’t, dear girl. But I can assure you, most mages never think about their spells, much less what goes into them. Just as most people never think that you aren’t wearing a shirt, you are wearing a few thousand threads, arranged in a pattern."
"But you thought of it."
"Yes, and it changed my life! All of a sudden, I was seeing it everywhere—"
"Seeing . . . what?" I asked, confused. Because Claude's method of delivery was a lot like Radu's.
"Inspiration!" Claude abruptly released me and strode away. "Come, come!"
We came, came.
"I find it in all sorts of places," he told us, throwing the words over his shoulder as we headed back into the workroom. "The wards on venerable buildings, maintained but never upgraded; the incantations scribbled on a bit of parchment encased in ancient amulets; the dusty old grimoires in the back of tiny, used bookshops that no one ever bothers to dig out of crumbling piles. All of them, in their own way, they speak to me!"
"And tell you to make them into . . . those?" I asked, glancing back at the mirror outfits. Because it all sounded very cool, but the end result was a little anticlimactic. Like watching a bunch of TVs in a shop window, all set to the same channel.
"Oh, those," he waved them away. "I use them at the beginning of my shows, to project the motif du saison on dozens of models, all at once: roaring lions; crashing waves; a perfect orchid branch, shivering in the breeze . . . ."
"A single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man's—ow!" I said, because Radu had just stepped on my foot.
"It makes for quite a start," Claude said, oblivious. "A line of pretty girls or handsome boys, coming down the runway with beautiful clothing all shifting and changing in time to the music. I've received standing ovations."
"They’re, uh, they're very nice," I said, because I wanted to be able to walk tomorrow.
He whirled on me. "But they are nothing! Merely a
single strand of a far more intricate pattern. One note out of a symphony. Unlike this!"
And with that, a curtain was thrown back, with the flourish one might have used to reveal a recently discovered Da Vinci.
Claude struck a pose.
Radu and I peered into the little closet that had been revealed.
And then at each other.
And then back into the closet again.
"Armand!" Claude called, when it became painfully obvious that we didn’t get it.
Maybe because "it" was a bunch of fairly normal formal wear, with nothing to recommend it that I could see, except maybe the cut. The cut was nice. Or maybe I was just too much of a philistine to understand.
Only if I was, it ran in the family.
Because Radu was looking bewildered as well.
A tall, skinny young man with a buzz cut ran in, scratching a zit. "M'sieur?"
"Stop that!" Claude hissed, slapping his hand. "Our guests would like a demonstration of the consular line."
Armand stopped scratching the zit. And grabbed a tuxedo jacket off a hanger, pulling it on over his Metallica T-shirt and jeans, which wasn't a bad look. But apparently also wasn't the point.
"Allez!" Claude made a gesture, and the boy allezed. Out of the shop and down the street, where he almost crashed into Marlowe, who was still lurking about, pretending to be James Bond.
And still smoking a little.
I grinned.
The boy dodged and jogged on, before stopping to pet a mangy-looking cat and almost getting run over by a guy on a bike.
I knew all this because I was seeing it. Not through the windows, which I couldn't see from here, and not in some kind of Dorina-induced vision. But in the lining of a woman's cape that Claude was helpfully holding up.
On the outside, it was fairly normal looking: black velvet and floor-length, the kind you might wear over a ball gown if you were feeling particularly witchy. But on the inside, it was full-on cinema, not a mere reflection of what was in front of it, but an almost 360 degree view of everything around the boy.
Including the huge fist now headed toward his face, because the kid had gotten into a fight with the guy on the bike.
