by Karen Chance
Claude made a sound of disgust, and quickly closed the cape, smiling that huge, fake smile at me. "You see?"
"Not really," I said. Because a few Go-Pros could do the same thing. Or one of those helmets the Google Earth guys wore, which admittedly were seriously dorky. But after seeing some of Claude's stuff—
Radu pushed me behind him.
"Anthony asked for these?"
Claude nodded. "He saw the ones outside, and fell in love. I told him they only utilized a fraction of the original spell, and he simply had to know what else was possible."
"And you showed him."
The great man's face took on a long-suffering expression. "It was so much work, I can’t begin to tell you. And I was in the middle of the winter line! But it was Anthony, so I pushed myself. And a few weeks later I had a prototype—and he was overcome. Wanted to outfit the entire court! Well, those with partners, at least. You know that they’re always looking for new amusements?"
Radu nodded.
"Well, he's planning a scavenger hunt! But instead of things, people will hunt for les amoureux. He's building some sort of maze, there at court, and everyone will wear a piece of my special line, allowing them to see what their sweetheart sees. The first twenty or so to find each other will win a prize!"
I managed not to roll my eyes, but it was close.
Because no.
Radu just frowned slightly. "Then this spell, it only works on lovers?"
Claude nodded. "Yes, I warned Anthony about that. What if someone is involved with more than one person, I asked. It could become . . . awkward . . . if a pairing turned out to be a threesome! Or if a man goes looking for his wife and ends up finding his mistress! Or if the spell doesn’t work because l'amour, it has faded. I told him he was playing with fire, but you know Anthony."
"Mm," Radu said, as the great man went to fetch the jacket from his returning assistant, and to berate him for getting it ripped in the scuffle.
"Anthony isn’t doing a scavenger hunt," I told Radu in an undertone.
"What? Oh, of course not."
"Which raises the question, just how "in love" do people have to be for this to work? One true pairing stuff, or . . . ."
A magnificent eyebrow raised. "A night of passion with one of Anthony's famous beauties?"
"Followed by a 'forgotten' bit of clothing left behind?"
"It wouldn’t need to be. Once the connection was established, some of their own clothes—or jewels or anything else they owned—could be spelled as a sort of one-way mirror into their lives."
I blinked, because I kept forgetting that Radu did this sort of R&D for the senate all the time. Finding unusual answers to problems was his job, when he wasn't being Mircea's flashy younger brother. I suddenly wondered if that was one reason he was a clothes horse: to give him access to creative geniuses who didn’t know what they had.
"And wards won’t pick it up, as it isn’t a known surveillance spell," he added.
"So Anthony could infiltrate any of the rival courts, during the war talks, see what they’re really planning?"
"Or hear." Radu's head tilted thoughtfully. "Claude?"
"My dear?"
"You wouldn’t be able to make one of these with just sound, would you? I'm thinking about introducing Anthony's game to our court, but sight seems too easy."
And apparently, those were the magic words, because the great man lit up like the sun. "My dear. I'm sure I could. Anthony mentioned something of the kind himself, but I haven’t had time. It's such an elaborate spell—so many threads! I've only begun to pull at them . . . ."
Claude glided to a desk in a corner, and started sorting through the piles. Unlike the workroom, which was almost fanatically clean and organized, the desk was a mess of sketches, fabric swatches, notes and books. Including a huge, fat old thing stuffed with a bunch of mismatched pages that looked like they'd been torn from other volumes.
Some were typewritten, all nice and neat and modern, but most were older, the pages yellowed or moth-eaten or both. And a few, like the one he stopped on after a brief search, wasn't paper at all, but vellum, a half-burnt piece of scraped down animal hide that looked like it had been sourced from the pages of an illuminated manuscript. One made by a monk with issues.
There were no bright jewel tones or whimsical animals or pictures of hardy peasants here. Instead, it was all deep blue, gold and black, with the gold mostly used to pick out the slanted eyes or accentuate the hooves on the demonic little creatures who scampered around, doing creepy stuff. Like stretching people on racks, their pale bodies showing up starkly against the dark background, or boiling them in oil, or pulling their guts out, all while grinning delightedly at the viewer.
As if to say, don’t you wish you were here?
No. No, I don't, I thought, as Claude prattled on. There was something disturbing about them, more than just the obvious contrast of the badly drawn, almost cartoonish figures, and what they were doing. Something that made my hair stand up and my skin tighten. Like the piece of parchment they were written on. Which, when it caught the light just right, bore what looked like a scar and part of a tattoo, hidden under all that ink.
I shivered.
"Only the one page survived, I'm afraid," Claude said cheerfully. "Leaving me with but part of a spell to work with. Or part of a curse, as it was originally. I think it was based on demon magic—"
"What gave it away?" I asked hoarsely.
Radu kicked me.
But Claude mistook the question for interest. He beamed at me. "The method of transmission. Curses are like viruses, you know: they need a pathway into your magic. It's what feeds them, after the initial energy of the spell is expended; they literally torture you with your own power!" He looked appreciative of the ingenuity.
Radu started to look disturbed.
Like maybe he hadn’t known that his couturier dabbled in demonology.
"In any case, whoever invented the original curse knew something about demons," Claude told us. "Specifically incubi. And employed their method of penetrating the body's defenses and gaining access to a person's magic."
"And that method was . . . ." I prompted.
"Why, emotion, of course! L'amour. That's why it only works on those with a close, personal bond."
"And why it's called Lover's Knot," Radu said, frowning at the page.
"What?" I realized that maybe I should have been paying attention to the text, instead of the freaky decorations.
"Nodo d'amore," Claude agreed, looking at me. "It's an Italian spell. Have you heard of it?"
I didn’t answer. I was suddenly seeing a moonlit port, a dying man and a haze of spell fire. And wondering if Dorina had been trying to tell me something useful, after all. But our communication sucked, and I wasn't sure what yet.
And it wasn't like I had any way to ask.
"I heard it was dangerous," I said, because both men were looking at me.
"Oh, not any more." Claude patted my hand reassuringly. "I was able to recreate it, even with so little to go on—all you have to do is follow the pattern, you know. But I didn’t use anything like the whole spell. It's so intricate, it will take years to explore. But if it results in my designs being showcased in two courts . . . ." His breath trembled slightly at the thought.
Radu smiled at him. "And who deserves it more? You say this design entranced my son?"
"Yes, indeed." Claude nodded proudly. "He ran off with the twin to Anthony's costume, something about wanting to see if it worked. I told him my designs always work, but there you are. I suppose he had to see for himself!"
"Ran off with . . . what, again?"
"Anthony was in the middle of a fitting when he received some kind of communication." Claude tapped his head solemnly. "The way vampires do."
Radu nodded.
"Well, he left immediately, still wearing his suit. Louis-Cesare took the other half of the pairing, the dress belonging to la reine, to see if he could trace him."
"Because it showed him what Anthony saw," I said, exchanging looks with Radu.
Okay, getting excited now.
And I guess Radu was, too, because the smile he turned on Claude was blinding. "What fun! I would so enjoy trying that myself. You wouldn’t happen to have another item we could borrow, would you?"
"Another item?"
"From Anthony's set?"
Claude looked from Radu to me and back again. "But that was what? A week ago? You'll follow it to the laundry, non?"
"Perhaps. But I would still like to try."
Claude looked confused, but he appeared to be familiar with the eccentricities of his patrons, because it didn’t last long. But instead of another one of those fake smiles, Radu received an apologetic frown. "You know there is nothing I would like better than to oblige you, my dear Radu. But there is nothing left. And I would need at least one half of a pairing here, in order to create another. Now, if Anthony—"
"I believe he is busy at the moment," Radu interrupted smoothly. "However, Dory and Louis-Cesare are lovers."
Claude looked at me in surprise. "Vraiment?" And then he smiled. And, for the first time, it actually looked genuine. I guess it’s true what they say about the French and l'amour.
Or maybe he was seeing a six-figure wedding gown in my future.
"How divine," he gushed. "In that case, choose a garment, my dear. Just anything you like."
My motto has always been that I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker shade, but considering we were after a clear image here, I went with a bright silver top instead. And watched impatiently as Claude did his thing, with a wand, no less. But all the muttering and waving about didn’t seem to help. Because the shirt shimmered and shook and flickered—and stayed the same.
Claude looked chagrined, and a slight flush appeared on the powdered cheeks. "My dear. I am so sorry."
I frowned. "It didn’t work?"
"These things happen, you know. I wouldn’t let it make me feel—"
"Why didn’t it work?"
He stopped, and looked at me awkwardly. "Sometimes, the affections, they can be a bit . . . one-sided—"
"One-sided?" I scowled. "You did it wrong. Do it again!"
The awkward slipped into the tragic. "I am afraid the outcome would be the same. The spell, you see, it has to have something to work with—"
"It has plenty to work with!"
"—on both sides—"
I growled at him, because I was perilously close to going with option one. And slamming the great man against a wall and demanding that he find a way to make this happen. Which wouldn’t help, but neither was this!
Radu stepped in. "Perhaps you could try it on me? Louis-Cesare is my Child. Our bond is strong."
"It's usually done with lovers," Claude said doubtfully. "But I could try."
More waving and incantation muttering followed. I didn’t say anything, but if it worked for Radu and it didn't for me . . . . I bit my lip and didn’t say anything.
But the top stayed stubbornly silver.
Radu frowned at it. "You said the original was a curse?"
Claude nodded. "Oh, yes, a nasty one! It bound two people to the same fate. I think it was used as a torture spell once, a way of getting someone to break by letting them know that whatever unpleasantness was being inflicted on them was acting on their beloved, as well."
"What happens to one happens to both," I said, suddenly remembering something a long-dead mage had said.
"Yes, barbaric times." Claude shuddered delicately. "But, of course, I stripped all that out—"
"Can you put it back?"
"What?"
I grabbed his arm. "Can you put the original spell on me?”
"You want me to curse you?" The pretty blue eyes behind all the liner were suddenly wide and startled, probably because my fangs were out again. "Whatever for?"
I looked at 'Du. "I have an idea."
Chapter Eleven
1457, Mircea
A burning ship in the Lagoon, Venice, Italy
"H-have I mentioned how much I hate fire?" Jerome said, jerking his cape closer around him.
"A few dozen times," Mircea said, through gritted teeth. Because he didn’t love it any better.
"Oh, good. Just wanted to make that clear," Jerome said, and then gave a little scream when some burning rigging fell on him.
Mircea pulled it off, and sent it flying at a sailor coming at them with a cudgel. And watched him go up in flames, because he was a vampire, too. And then watched him put out said flames with a muttered word, because he wasn't a normal vampire.
Mircea cursed and hit the deck behind some barrels, which exploded a second later as a spell hit them—the kind his people weren't supposed to be able to throw. And which caused him to scurry away, toward the bow of the ship, in the exact opposite direction from Jerome. And from where they needed to go.
The good news was that the shipload of magical vamps all seemed to be following him, giving Jerome a clear shot at the hold.
The bad news was that the shipload of magical vamps all seemed to be following him.
And were intent on using him to test out their shiny new powers. Because killing him the old fashioned way wouldn't be nearly as much fun, would it, Mircea thought grimly, as a dozen burning barrels came hurtling his way. And shattered against deck and mast and his legs as he dove under a furled sail.
And watched blowing bits of fiery wood make light shadows against the canvass as they scattered everywhere—any one of which could have served as a stake if they didn't set him alight first!
The same was true of the spindles freed by a single cannonball that smashed through the railings a second later, over and over and over again, as if batted back and forth by an unseen hand. Mircea, who had just crawled out from the other side of the sail, dove and ducked and rolled and swore. And then ripped up a heavy trapdoor to use as a shield, keeping the flying, jagged things from piercing his heart.
And had one pierce his leg, instead.
The sharp splinter slammed through his calf, causing a bright shock of pain, but less than the fire that caught in his hair a moment later. Mircea ripped off his shirt, using it to put out the flames, while desperately trying to come up with something, anything, to keep his pursuers busy. Something other than killing him!
And he found it.
Underneath the trapdoor was the deck with the cannon—and the small kegs of gunpowder used to light them. Because the humans who built this ship didn’t have magic, did they? But what they did have worked pretty well, Mircea thought, jumping down and grabbing a keg, and pulling out the plug. And touching the now flaming end of his shirt to the ring of black powder around the opening, before launching it back on deck.
And into the pile of vampires who had been in the process of following him down.
Ha! Mircea thought, as the keg went off in their faces, which was good.
And sent flying, burning, exploding debris everywhere, which was bad.
Very bad, when some of it ripped through additional kegs, setting them alight, which in turn exploded and caught more, and suddenly it sounded like half the ship was going up.
But Mircea couldn’t be sure.
Because he was down a couple more decks, proving just how fast a really motivated vampire could move. And was still staying just ahead of the flames, which were everywhere now. Which was probably why Jerome was staring at him in horror as he ran through the door of a cargo hold and kept on going, before realizing what he'd just seen and backing up.
"Luridi branco di cani bastardi!" Jerome yelled.
"What?"
"Those filthy sons of bitches! They're blowing up the ship!"
Mircea blinked at him. "Yes. Yes, they are."
And then Jerome was hitting him, which all things considered, he couldn’t really blame—
Oh.
His hair had still been on fire.
"We have a problem," Jerome yelled, shaking him.
&
nbsp; "I'm aware of that—"
"No. Them!" And Jerome gestured at a huddled group of women, who were staring up at the ceiling, where all the screaming and yelling and running and exploding was going on, on the upper decks. And then looking back down at him and Jerome. And then a pretty redhead threw out a hand and Mircea hit the far wall, so hard and so fast that it took him a minute to realize he'd actually gone through it.
Or, rather, his ass had.
His ass was now outside.
And he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about that, since it was also the only reason the ship wasn't sinking as well as burning, since they were below the waterline. Which was a problem because they were coming. The women, that is. All of them. And they did not seem friendly.
"Don’t they want to be rescued?" he asked Jerome, his voice a little high. And didn’t get an answer, because Jerome was facing the women with his hands spread out, trying an ingratiating smile.
Judging by the fact that, the next time Mircea blinked, Jerome's ass was acting as a second plug, it hadn’t worked.
"Why are they doing this?" Mircea said. "Why are they—"
"I don’t know can't you do something?"
So Mircea did. And considering his current state, he didn’t have a lot of options. So he initiated his original plan for getting them out of there with a whole skin.
Of course, that had involved a suitably grateful and highly cooperative group of damsels in distress, instead of a group of furies trying to kill him, but he'd sort that out later. Right now, they needed a miracle, and he just so happened to have one. Mircea pressed the stone on Hieronimo's necklace, and the huge yellow maw of the portal flashed into existence in the middle of the cramped deck, almost consuming it.
And did consume the women, who had been charging them all at once. Until they suddenly winked out of existence, followed quickly by Jerome and Mircea, wiggling painfully out of their holes and into the portal. And by an awful lot of rushing water.
"Shut it off! Shut it off!" Jerome was screaming. As what felt like the whole ocean followed them through the already terrifying ride through the portal. And back into what was now a terribly cramped and very damp back room of the bar.
