by Karen Chance
No one was looking at me, so I went forward with the rest, hoping to edge around to the ballroom while the Amazon who had just come in provided a distraction. Easily seven feet tall, the voluptuous redhead was gleaming in a silver sheath and enough mink to send PETA into paroxysms.
Or at least she was before she shrugged it off and tossed it over my head.
“Meercha! I vant Meercha. Vere is dat beautiful scoundrel?” she demanded.
“In the ballroom, my lady,” someone murmured. Or maybe they said it normally; I couldn’t tell. The damn coat was heavy enough that I almost went down, and left me as little more than a mink-covered lump.
“Lyubov Oksinia Donskoi is a grand duchess; her correct title is Illustrious Highness,” the small, bald man said diffidently, as I fought my way free.
“My apologies,” the guard said, only to be bopped on the head with a jeweled fan.
“Vell? Vat are you vaiting for?”
“My lady? I mean, Your Illustrious . . . ness?” he guessed.
The bald man nodded slightly, but his companion didn’t look like she gave a damn. She raised long, white-gloveclad arms, like an opera star about to sing an aria, showing off breasts like the prow of a ship and enough diamonds to make a person wince. “Tell heem to come greet his Lyubochka!”
The guard just stared for a moment, looking suitably dazzled. Then he swallowed and manned up. “I would, but . . . but he is with the Pythia at the moment, madam.”
“Ze Pythia?” Carmine lips pursed. “Vat is dees?”
“The new seer,” the bald man said. “You remember, Lyly—the coronation?” She looked blank. “The reason we’re here?”
“I am heer to see Meercha.” Slanted hazel eyes looked down at the guard, which appeared to make him nervous. He was over six feet tall, so I suppose he wasn’t used to it. “Do you not know vere your master ees?”
“The ballroom, Your Illustriousness,” he repeated, starting to look worried.
“Zen eef you know vere he is, vhy are you standing here?” She gave him a playful smack on the arm that sent him staggering.
“Yes, my—your . . . Right away.”
The vamp scurried off and I scurried after him, trailing about a hundred pounds of mink. And neither of the guards gave me so much as a first glance, much less a second. Then I entered the ballroom and stopped worrying about the vampires behind me. I was more concerned by the one who lay ahead.
I spotted him almost at once. He stood in the middle of a cluster of people, near the patent leather shine of a piano, looking like something out of a ’40s movie. Tall, dark and handsome, he was the perfect foil for the blond perfection on his arm. Every hair in his companion’s upswept chignon was in place, except for the ones artfully arranged to curl around her ears. The low-cut, midnight blue evening gown she wore was likewise flawless, somehow managing to hug every curve without being vulgar.
She looked too good, I decided.
No way was anyone going to believe that was me.
“Zat?” I jumped at the sound of a booming voice right behind me. I turned to find the principessa or serinissima or whatever the hell her title was standing less than a yard away, checking out my doppelgänger through a pair of specs on a stick. “Zat ees ze new Pythia?” she demanded, of no one or everyone; it was hard to tell.
The little man at her side said something I couldn’t hear over the conversation and music and sounds of people stuffing themselves. But it didn’t seem to sit well with Lyly. “Common,” she announced in a tone that said it ended the matter.
And was about as loud as the announcer at a football game.
Not surprisingly, everyone in the vicinity stopped to stare at us—including Mircea, whose eyes slid off Lyly and latched onto me before I could bolt. They narrowed and his lips tightened, which for him was the equivalent of a hissy fit. Then just as quickly the expression blanked and he turned back to his date, laughing with her about something.
And then I didn’t see any more because I was being propelled out of the room by another vamp wearing a tux and a scowl.
Kit Marlowe was the Senate’s chief spy. He was known for laughing dark eyes, messy brown curls and an easy smile—and a reputation at odds with all of them. Most of the time, I found it difficult to see the dangerous vamp everyone swore was under the handsome exterior.
I wasn’t having that problem tonight.
“I want to talk to Mircea,” I told him, as I was hustled toward the back.
“You are talking to him,” he said, his voice clipped. “And it might look a little odd, don’t you think, if he suddenly left the side of the Pythia-elect to chat with a servant girl?”
“She isn’t the Pythia. She’s a sitting goose who’s about to be cooked. There’s going to be an attack, Marlowe!”
“Very probably.”
I dug in my heels, trying to slow him down, which didn’t help a lot on the highly polished floor. I don’t even think he noticed. “If you’re so certain, why the hell are you doing this?”
“Because it’s tradition. Because the damn mages insisted. Because no one is going to sign the infernal alliance without at least meeting the new Pythia.”
“And if she gets killed, are they going to sign then?” I demanded, as Jack thoughtfully opened the back door.
“No one is going to be killed tonight, I assure you. We’ve taken precautions. It’s perfectly safe.”
“If it’s so safe, why can’t I stay?”
“Because you’re tired and you want to go back to the hotel,” he said with enough power behind the suggestion to leave me light-headed.
“That doesn’t work on me!” I told him furiously.
“Then how about this?” he asked. And for the second time that night, the door was slammed in my face.
“Marlowe!”
After a moment, when it became obvious that he wasn’t joking, I sat down on the steps. They were cold and clammy, like the mist that surrounded the house. It was August, but this high in the mountains, summer was just a concept.
I glared at the thin veil of stars overhead and a spattering of rain hit me square in the face. I didn’t bother to wipe it off. It fit my mood.
Was this what it was going to be like? Locked out or locked up? My whole life spent spewing out predictions, with no say in how they were used or even if they were?
It sounded like Tony’s all over again. It was Tony’s all over again, just with the Senate in his place. Don’t expect to influence anything; don’t expect to control anything; don’t expect to make any decisions.
Just stay in your corner and do what we tell you.
Just wear the pretty dresses and smile.
Just behave yourself, little girl.
And I had. I’d done what I was told until I found out what Tony was doing with the information. The people he was hurting. The lives he was ruining. And then I’d gotten out, because I wouldn’t be responsible for hurting or maybe killing other people, even by proxy. Because I wouldn’t be a part of a system I knew nothing about. Because I had had enough.
When had I forgotten that?
The door cracked open, but I didn’t turn around. Somebody came down the steps and a jacket was placed around my shoulders. It smelled like rich spices and dark forests and Mircea. I hugged it around me automatically.
“You said it wouldn’t make a difference,” I said without looking up.
Mircea didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. “It did not. This has nothing to do with our personal relationship.”
“Doesn’t it?” I looked up, feeling angry and betrayed and hurt and powerless.
He came around in front, and since I was sitting on one of the higher steps and he was standing on the ground, when he bent over and took my hand, we were almost eye to eye. I remembered something I’d read once, about executives making sure their seats were higher than their subordinates’, so they would have some kind of psychological advantage. Mircea didn’t use tricks like that. Mircea didn’t
need them.
“No, it isn’t. We have two relationships, Cassie. You know this. It can’t be otherwise. And this was a professional decision—as was last night’s.”
“Professional,” I said bitterly, staring into beautiful dark eyes. They reflected the gaslight, just like Jack’s. And yet managed to look so very different.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s talk professional,” I said quietly. “A month ago, you promised me you wouldn’t interfere with me doing my job.”
“A month ago, Apollo was dead and I thought the worst was past us.”
“So you lied.”
“No. I said I would try. And I have. But this is not about your job.”
“It’s my coronation!”
“It’s a formality. One that has made me nervous from the beginning.”
To my surprise, he sat down on the wet step beside me, getting his Armani-covered tush wet. I guess he could just go change; this was his home, after all. Not that I’d ever had a chance to see it.
“I would have had you here long before this,” he said, with that uncanny ability of guessing my thoughts. “But we were attempting to make it secure. We knew the coronation would be an obvious target, but it was impossible to forgo it. The people need to see you—”
“Only, apparently, they’re not going to.”
“We had planned for you to be here; all along, that was the intent.”
“Then what changed?”
He looked at me in amazement. “The past week changed. Three attempts on your life in as many days changed! The chance of an attack went from a possibility to a probability to a certainty, and the risk was deemed too high. It was determined—”
“Yes, it was,” I cut him off. “It was determined. Without consulting me, without even telling me—”
“And if we had told you? If we had said, ‘We have decided to hold the ceremony with a doppelgänger in your place for security reasons.’ What would have been your reaction?”
“What the hell do you think?” I said angrily. “I’ve told you a hundred times—it is not okay for someone to die for me!”
“And I have told you that sometimes it is necessary. She is a professional; she takes risks such as this all the time. It is her job—”
“And this is mine!”
We stared at each other, and Mircea’s face reflected the frustration, even some of the anger, that I was feeling. I was surprised he’d let me see it; his facade was flawless when he wanted it to be. I searched his face, wondering if this was a trick, if this was some way to manipulate me into feeling guilty for causing him more problems, for taking him away from his duties, for being a pain in the ass once again.
If so, it was doing a pretty good job. I did feel all those things, along with a nagging suspicion that he had a point. The problem was, so did I. And he couldn’t see that, couldn’t see anything but that little eleven-year-old girl cowering in her room. I wasn’t that person anymore; I hadn’t been for a while now, but I didn’t know if he’d ever be able to see that, to see me—
My thoughts scattered as something knocked me broadside. It wasn’t an attack, or if it was, my own power was doing it. Something like a fist knotted in my being, jerking me, tugging me, trying to drag me somewhere, somewhen else.
Mircea was talking, saying something that probably sounded logical and reasonable and charming all at the same time, and it might have been really persuasive, except that I was a little too busy to listen right then. And then the tug became a heave and the pull became a wrench, and it was like before I became Pythia, when the power had just tossed me around here and there, wherever it needed me to go. And it must be needing something pretty damn bad, because fight as I would, I was losing.
Mircea must have finally noticed something wrong, because he grasped my shoulders. “Cassie! Cassie, what—”
“Fair warning,” I told him through clenched teeth. Because his hands were gripping my arms, and if I went before he let go, he was coming along, like it or not.
“What?”
“Fair warning!” I yelled, trying to pull away. Because I didn’t know where my power was taking me, but judging by the intensity of the pull, it wasn’t going to be anywhere fun. “Let go!” I told him, but his hold merely tightened, fingers digging into my flesh.
And the next moment, we were gone.
Chapter Thirty-five
Time twisted, colors ran and the bottom fell out of my stomach. And the next thing I knew, I was bouncing on the lap of a tuxedo-clad man in the back of one of London’s iconic black cabs. I stared at him and he stared back, brown eyes big and astonished. After a second, I leaned back and checked him over.
His tux didn’t tell me much, but the wide-eyed woman clinging to his arm was wearing a cute bob and a flippy little piece of chiffon that practically required rouged knees. “Twenties?” I guessed, because for some reason my time sense was seriously messed up.
“Sixties,” Mircea told me, staring out the back of the cab as it crept along through a snarl of traffic.
I adjusted my position so I wasn’t actually straddling the speechless guy’s leg. “How do you know?”
“Because they didn’t have miniskirts in the twenties.” He nodded at a nearby giggle of girls in tiny outfits.
“Are you sure?”
“Believe me, dulceață, the advent of the mini is forever emblazoned on my mind.”
I scowled; it would be. But under the circumstances, I preferred some confirmation. I poked the girl, who jumped and gave a little screech. “What year is it?” I asked, but she only stared at me.
“Che anno è?” I tried.
Nada.
“En quelle année sommes-nous?”
Uh-uh.
“What are you doing?” Mircea asked.
“I don’t think they speak English.”
“I think it more likely that they are merely startled.”
“Okay. But they’ve had time to get over it now.”
“N-nineteen sixty-nine,” the woman finally whispered.
I frowned. “Then why are you dressed like that?”
“We’re on our way to a fancy dress party, if you must know,” her date said, finally finding his voice. “Now, who the hell are you and how did you—”
“There!” Mircea cried, pointing at something in the crowds outside.
“Thanks for the ride,” I told the partygoers, as we climbed over them to get out of the cab.
Outside, snow was swirling down out of a black sky, gilded by the lights that poured out of shop windows and glittered from stacks of multicolored signs. It looked vaguely like Times Square, except it was more of a circle, with a tipsy Cupid presiding over what looked like the Christmas rush. Hanging nets of illuminated stars hung across every street, swaying lightly in the wind. A wreath dangled drunkenly off a nearby lamppost. And half the people filling the sidewalks and dodging the street traffic were carrying shopping bags.
I looked at Mircea. “Is this—”
He nodded. “Piccadilly.”
That meant nothing to me, except that this was where my mother had dropped us off on our last little trip into time. And now, for some reason, we were back. And so was she, judging by the Victorian coach that was lying on its side across one lane of traffic, causing a major jam.
The horse was still in place, bucking and rearing at the smell of smoke from the burnt-out hulk behind it. My heart clenched; why I don’t know. I was still alive, which meant my mother had to be, too. But I didn’t see her or the kidnapper or anything else in the rapidly growing crowd.
But I guess Mircea did, because he grabbed my hand and took off.
“I think I left a shoe in the cab,” I told him, struggling to keep up as we wove through the human obstacle course at a breakneck pace.
“Considering how often that happens, perhaps you should consider ankle straps.”
“They’re dangerous.”
He tossed a disbelieving look over his shoulder. “That is what
you consider dangerous?”
“You can break a foot.”
“And we wouldn’t want that,” he said, sweeping me up in his arms as we came to the entrance to a tube station.
I stared around as we were swallowed up by London’s steamy underbelly, but I didn’t see anything but coat-clad torsos, all of which appeared to be in a hurry. Finding one hustling couple in the wall-to-wall crowd wouldn’t have been easy at any time. But doing it while being buffeted by pointy elbows, harassed mothers and kids with the hyperactive look of the overly sugared was pretty much impossible.
“I’m not tall enough,” I told him, only to be hoisted up onto a strong shoulder. I put a steadying hand on the grimy wall and tried to spot a tall woman in an electric blue evening dress. The mage’s tux blended with the standard city uniform in any era, but that color would be hard to miss.
Only apparently I was missing it, because I didn’t see them.
“Did they shift again?” Mircea asked, as I desperately scanned the crowds.
“No, I’d have felt it.”
“Are you certain?”
“She’s the heir, but I’m Pythia. I’m certain.”
And a moment later I spotted her, wearing a shabby brown overcoat that wasn’t quite long enough to cover an eye-searing hem. The mage was by her side, a lanky figure in a tan trench hiding his formal blacks, but it was the right guy. I saw him clearly when he turned from the ticket counter, a panicked look on his face and that damned suitcase in his hand. And then he dragged his captive back into the crowd and down a hallway.
I hopped down and we took off after them, Mircea hoisting me over turnstiles and then forging ahead to clear a path. It was still tough going, but the crowds parted for him a lot better than they would have for me, and my bare toes got stepped on only a few dozen times before I limped onto a platform behind him. And stopped in confusion.
There were maybe three dozen people sitting on benches or leaning against walls, waiting for the next train. But a quick scan showed that none of them were the two we were after. “They didn’t shift,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the pungent smell of pot and body odor.
