Lover's Knot

by Karen Chance

  "I don’t . . . know how . . . to shut it off," Mircea said, slipping and sliding on the potion-slick floor, while half an ocean kept trying to drown him and people kept stepping on him and a witch kept trying to eviscerate him with something.

  He didn’t see what, because all he saw was searing yellow light and splashing water. But someone threw a fiery plume that evaporated a good deal of the latter a moment later, after he dodged the witch's attack. And a mage, who had been standing behind him, did not.

  And went up in flames.

  "You said they'd have left by now!" Jerome yelled, as the fiery mage went running out the door screaming, and ran into a crowd of others coming this way.

  They seemed to have been waiting outside for the most part, maybe because there was nothing to sit on in here, but were now flinging themselves into the fray.

  And into the water, because the first man had just set them alight.

  "I think they were waiting for us to come back!" Mircea yelled.

  "I know they were waiting for us to come back!" Jerome shrieked, looking furious. "But you said they'd all be gone!"

  "It appears I was wrong!"

  "I know you were wrong! What do we do now?"

  The portal cut out abruptly, after dumping another ton of water on them. Which helped with the mages, who had recovered just in time to get washed off their feet again. It didn’t help at all with the witches, who had braced themselves in the corners and by the counter, and were now looking daggers at Mircea. And raising some of those stick things he'd seen earlier, and which might not have been sticks, after all.

  Cazzo!

  The portal spiraled into being again, and Mircea jumped through, hoping Jerome would have the sense to do likewise.

  He did.

  Unfortunately, so did the witches, who seemed to be a good deal more persistent than their mage counterparts. Or perhaps they are just crazy, Mircea thought, as one grabbed him around the neck while they were still sliding. Good thing I don’t need to breathe, Mircea thought, and threw her off.

  And then thought it again as the portal let out—into a flooded hold, because it was almost completely underwater now. Which surprised Mircea, who thought all the water had drained down the portal. But apparently not.

  And then the whole thing lurched to the side, sending a wave sloshing through the hold and Mircea slamming into a wall.

  Jerome surfaced alongside him, while Mircea was still trying to blink salt water out of his eyes. "We need . . . to find . . . the witches," Jerome said, grabbing his arm. "They'll drown!"

  "I don’t think they’re going to drown," Mircea said, staring.

  "What? Why?"

  "That's why!" Mircea grabbed his friend, and jerked him down, just as a bolt of something blasted through the water and took out the wall behind them.

  Leaving them underwater in a rapidly sinking ship full of what looked like vengeful mermaids, because the witches weren't in danger. The witches were the danger, having either done some sort of spell to help them breathe under water, or being really good at holding their breath. And, either way, they were coming.

  Which, Mircea belatedly realized, was why he could still see, despite the fact that the portal light was now gone. Because spell fire was lighting up the water, just as it had the air outside, in bright streamers of pink and red and gold and orange. Which made it a little hard to distinguish from the fire still burning on the decks above, reflecting down through the open doorway.

  The whole image was so surreal, that for a moment, Mircea just stared.

  And then Jerome's voice came in his head, resounding like a scream. Snap out of it, or I swear to God I'll kill you myself!

  Mircea snapped out of it. And started swimming. And, fortunately, vampires swim really fast, because he and Jerome found themselves having to navigate a gauntlet of collapsing doorways, exploding spells and detonating casks of gunpowder. Apparently the latter hadn’t had time to get really wet yet, or else the spells the witches were flinging were able to compensate, because they went up just fine.

  And they went up everywhere. The previous explosions had blown holes in the upper decks, allowing casks and cannonballs to rain down from above, and Mircea was damned if the witches missed a single one! The force of the explosions battered him and Jerome violently as they struggled toward the surface, chased by spells, dodging falling cannon, and pierced by shards of glowing wood from every explosion, which didn’t set them aflame only because they were under a few tons of water!

  And all while they struggled to spot an area above where it might be safe to surface.

  Jerome spied one and pointed, just before a trio of casks went off underneath them. The resulting upswell of water shot them toward the surface, and they helped by swimming as fast as they could, hoping the witches were momentarily blinded behind them. And somehow, they made it, breaking through the surface a moment later, bleeding from a few dozen wounds and staring around in terror.

  At slick patches of oil still burning on the surface. At the battle going on, even fiercer now, between the remaining ships. At vampires, whose night vision could spot them even in the dark shadow of a sinking hull, and drain them, if they didn’t keep their heads down.

  And somehow manage not to scream.

  At least, Mircea managed it. Jerome had been screaming in his head for pretty much the whole time, and didn’t seem likely to stop. Until Mircea slapped him.

  "W-what?" Jerome spluttered and went under again, before emerging to glare at Mircea. "What the—"

  "Snap out of it, or I swear to God I'll kill you myself!"

  Jerome stared at him wildly for a moment. And then he blinked. "All right," he said, swallowing. "All right, I deserved that. Now what?"

  "Now we get out of here!"

  "We can’t get out of here without those witches!"

  "The hell we can’t! They want to kill us!"

  "Listen to me," Jerome grabbed Mircea's shoulders. Which would have been more comforting if his gray eyes hadn’t perfectly reflected the spell fire flashing everywhere. "If we don’t find them, and somehow get them to Hieronimo's people, we are going to lose this war—"

  "I don’t care about your war! I have a daughter to think about!"

  "Yes, you do. And how well do you think she's going to be treated by the rebels, if they gain control? How well will you be, as a known associate of the consul's? We already chose our side, Mircea! And now we live with it, or we die with it—and our houses."

  Mircea stared at him for a moment, and then he swore. Which was cut off when something grabbed his heel from below. And jerked him down, lightning quick, like some fell monster from the deep.

  But it wasn't a monster; it was a witch. And only the one. And while there had been a time when Mircea had had qualms about fighting a woman, that was before he'd seen what the women of this new world could do. They were easily a match for the men, and might be worse, if these damned witches were anything to go on!

  If she wanted a fight, so be it.

  He spun and jerked her up, getting a hand on her neck. And started to drain her. Only to find out in shock that she was already doing it to him.

  She'd somehow acquired the skill of a vampire, and one far more powerful than he.

  Mircea stared up at her as she forced him down, at her gleeful face limned by fire, at her hair turned green by some trick of the light, and despaired. He could feel the life draining out of him, and young as he was, with no family to draw from, exsanguination was a death sentence. Even if the witch didn’t curse him when she was done, it wouldn’t matter.

  He would drift here on the water, immobilized, unknowing, unseeing, a corpse in all but name.

  Until the sun came up and finished the job.

  Dorina, he thought, and began thrashing about, fighting not just for himself, but for her. Jerome was right; she wouldn’t survive on her own, not with only a half-blind servant to protect her. He had to get free . . . .

  But the witch was too powe
rful. She wasn't absorbing the blood she was pulling from him, her human body unable to use it, so it floated around them in a cloud. He tried to reabsorb it, but it was mixing with seawater and already breaking down. What he received back wasn't a tenth of what he was losing.

  And losing fast.

  He wasn't going to win this.

  He stared upwards, and the face above him changed, from that of a stranger to that of another girl, the one he loved most in the world. The one he'd tried so hard for, risked so much for, yet it hadn’t been enough. His eyesight was fading, but still he saw her, so clearly.

  "Dorina—"

  His hand went out to touch her face for the last time, and his mind searched for hers, wanting her to know how he felt, for her not to blame herself. "I chose this," he whispered. "I chose . . . ."

  He felt something swell up inside him, and overwhelming surge of love and sorrow and loss, things he couldn’t put into words on the best of days, and certainly not now. But he sent it to her anyway, holding nothing back, and felt it flood her mind. Felt the cheek under his hand, which had been tense and hard, soften, and turn into his touch . . . .

  And the next moment, he was being pulled to the surface, was breaking through the waves, and was staring dizzily at Jerome, who had just fought off one vampire.

  And had three others coming up behind him.

  Who were suddenly blown off the side of the ship and back through the air, Mircea didn’t know how. Until he looked behind him, at the witch with the red hair who had cursed him halfway through a ship's hull, and then drained him almost dry. And who was now cuddling up behind him, her arms around his waist, her cheek rubbing against his back like a cat.

  "What?" Jerome asked, looking from Mircea to the woman and back again. "What?"

  But Mircea had no idea.

  What the hell?

  Chapter Twelve

  Present Day, Dory

  In the back of a freaked out cabbie's car, Paris

  "What the hell?" I woke up to pain, bone-deep and aching, to ringing in my ears, and to a vampire in my face.

  Who was promptly thrown against some glass hard enough to shatter it. Someone screamed, something slung wildly back and forth as I leapt after the vamp, and someone grabbed my fist. And whoever had grabbed me was strong, because it took effort to continue with the plan of breaking the vamp's nose.

  Successful effort, I thought, hearing it crunch.

  There was more screaming after that, some rather inventive cursing, and a sudden forward and then backward motion, as whatever kind of conveyance we were in abruptly stopped. A car door opened and didn’t shut. And somebody went shrieking bloody murder down the street.

  "Can you handle this?" A woman asked, and got a growl back from somebody.

  "Catch him!"

  It was the vamp speaking, I realized. He had fangs out, and there was blood on them. My blood. I slammed my fist into his face a dozen more times in quick succession before realizing who it was I was beating up.

  And then I hit him again anyway, before he snarled and threw me out of the cab, shoving me up against an old brick wall.

  "Careful," someone else said.

  I blinked, and saw my uncle Radu sitting in the back of a cab, leaning forward to peer out at us.

  "Always am," I told him, and decked Marlowe.

  Or, rather, I tried. But the damned man was sturdy. It was annoying.

  He caught my fist, his face swelling up nicely, and squeezed.

  "Ow," I said, and saw him smile.

  He was missing a tooth.

  I smiled back.

  And then I did deck him, because I have two hands.

  There followed a tussle, which ended with me cheek to brick again, my jacket being ripped off and my shirt torn in half.

  "I have a boyfriend," I informed him, through smushed lips, and heard him mutter something.

  It sounded like "not with a ten-foot pole", but I could be mistaken. The ringing in my ears had slacked off, but wasn't entirely gone. Like the pain.

  I jabbed an elbow in Marlowe's direction, and heard him swear. Which did not stop him from probing what was obviously an open wound. "What the hell?" I yelled, and thrashed some more.

  "I need more light!" he snapped, and Radu got out of the car, I assumed to come rescue me. Because my messed up head was still trying to see two places at once, a moonlit ocean and a moonlit street, and my eyes kept crossing. It was interfering with my plan to kill Marlowe before he finished digging my spine out of my back, so some assistance would be appreciated.

  But no.

  Radu casually knocked over a streetlamp instead, which caused another yelp from somewhere nearby.

  "How did he do that?" Some guy yelled in French. "How did he—"

  "Go to sleep!" a woman said, and a moment later, somebody was snoring.

  Probably the cabbie I could see through the side of my eye, now draped over the hood of his vehicle. Oblivious to the fact that I was being manhandled by a seriously pissed off master vamp. Or make that two, because Radu was holding the streetlamp almost in my face.

  "What are you doing?" I demanded, because he wasn't as family obsessed as Mircea, but he didn’t usually help people assault me, either!

  "This was your idea," he said mildly. "Now do hold still."

  "Can you see anything? Is there anything there?" the woman's voice asked, from closer in.

  "Get out of my light!" Marlowe snapped.

  She got out of the light.

  "Did you bite me?" I growled at Marlowe. Because there was going to be hell to pay if so.

  "No! But if you don't hold still I’ll consider it."

  "Then why is my blood on your fangs?"

  "You scratched yourself when you belted me in the damned mouth!"

  "Oh."

  Okay, then.

  "Is there a place called Amour?" Marlowe asked, after a moment.

  "Amour?" That was the woman again, and she did not sound happy.

  "You know it?"

  "Yes, but . . . we don't usually go there."

  "And why not?"

  "It’s run by the Pentacle."

  "The what?" I asked.

  "Five powerful families that control a number of illegal activities throughout Europe," she told me. "Amour is a club they use as a sort of . . . central meeting place. It's what the name stands for: Aurand, Macedo, Østergård, Umberger, and Razzanti. They named it after themselves. We usually leave them alone."

  "You leave alone rival powers to your senate?" Marlowe demanded.

  "They aren’t rival powers. They have their own . . . areas of concern . . . and we have ours."

  "If they’re vampires in your territory, they are your concern! That's what a senate is!"

  "That may be what your senate is. Anthony does things differently—"

  "Yes! And where is Anthony?"

  "Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" I demanded. Because my back hurt like hell.

  And looked like it, too, when somebody held up a mirror.

  It was a small compact variety, and the little alley where we'd stopped was dark, except for where the streetlight was threatening to blind me. But I somehow managed to focus anyway. And promptly freaked the hell out.

  The next moment, Marlowe was being slammed against the wall, repeatedly, while the woman made startled noises and Radu sighed.

  "Best to let them get it out of their systems, my dear." He pulled her back.

  "They're going to kill each other!"

  "Oh, probably not."

  "Don’t take any bets," I snarled, and threw Marlowe over the car.

  The woman was the blonde from the plane. I recognized her when I tossed the streetlight after Marlowe. Elise something.

  And then I hit hard cobblestones, because I swear the bastard turned in mid-air, batted the lamp away and pounced on me, like a damned cat.

  "Would you listen to me, you insane bi—"

  I put a fist in his mouth, because I don’t like that
word. I don’t like having things carved into my flesh, either! "You let him do this?" I asked Radu, feeling strangely hurt.

  "You let him do this, only he didn’t do this, Louis-Cesare did," Radu said, with his usual lack of clarity.

  "What?"

  Marlowe, who I had just flipped to more easily pound his head into the ground, flipped me back. And somehow succeeded in holding me down for a minute. Mainly because I was still staring at Radu.

  "Listen to me, you—" he caught himself that time. "Will you listen?"

  "To what? What the hell—"

  "Did you or did you not ask to be cursed?"

  "Are you crazy? Why would I—" And then it hit me. Claude and his reconstructed spell. And then everything came flooding back, including me carving a question into my forearm, because what happened to one happened to both, right?

  So I'd hoped Louis-Cesare would get the fleshy version of an email.

  I held my arm up. My healing ability had already started to smudge it, but the outlines were still there. Like whatever he'd replied—on my back!

  "Let me up," I told Marlowe, more calmly.

  He hesitated.

  "Or I'll knee you in the groin."

  He let me up.

  "What does it say?" I asked, taking the mirror from Elise. But between the now destroyed light and the fact that the cuts were backwards in the mirror, it was impossible to tell.

  Well, for me anyway.

  "How did you even think to do this?" she asked, staring at my bloody flesh.

  "My uncle taught me."

  She looked at Radu.

  "Not that uncle."

  Her eyes widened.

  "Can you read it?" I asked impatiently.

  "I . . . yes. Yes. It's Anthony's writing," she said, bending closer. And then looked up excitedly. "That must mean they’re together!"

  "Together where?"

  She smeared some blood out of the way. "It's Louis-Cesare's words. Anthony must be transcribing for him." Yeah, well, it’s a little hard to carve up your own back. "He says he traced Anthony to Amour and then lost consciousness. He woke up in a cell with—yes! They’re together!"

  "I'm thrilled you're pleased," I gritted out. "Does it say where?"