Karen Chance - [Cassandra Palmer 04]

by Curse the Dawn (v5. 0) (html)

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Marsden was there, helping me up, and he was saying something but I couldn’t hear and didn’t care. I threw him off and lurched for the table and the one chance Pritkin had: his potion belt. But once I had it, I realized that I could barely see the pack now, and if I missed even one . . .

  My fingers fumbled on the belt, clumsy with adrenaline, my heart beating no time, no time, in a frantic pulse. In the end, I just threw everything as fast as I could shuck the little tubes out of their holders. My only concern was not to hit Billy, who was darting around the kitchen in my body, pursuing Pritkin’s fleeting form.

  The shadows retreated to the stairwell, waiting for me to run out of ammunition, which wouldn’t take long. It was now or never, I realized, and threw myself at Pritkin. Billy had the same idea at the same time and lunged from the other side, causing us to crash into each other with Pritkin’s spirit trapped between us.

  For a split second, I couldn’t tell which of us had him, or if either of us did. Then Pritkin stumbled into my body, I think by accident, but that was good enough. It grabbed him in a tight embrace and dragged him in despite his panicked efforts to get free. And just like that, we were back where we’d started.

  “Cassandra! Is that you?” Marsden asked as Pritkin sank slowly to his knees. He was white and shaky looking, but he appeared to be in one piece. That was the important thing, I told myself.

  “No, it didn’t work,” I said, bitterness staining my voice. Damn it! We’d been so close!

  Marsden gripped my arm. “What happened?”

  “Rakshasas.”

  “They aren’t supposed to attack the living!”

  “Tell them that.” I knelt beside Pritkin and revised my earlier assessment. His pupils were dilated, his color was bad and he was breathing heavy—until he suddenly slumped over my legs, his body relaxing into an awful stillness.

  “I’ll get my medical kit,” Marsden said.

  A clock fell off the wall, shattering into a hundred pieces. My head whipped around. “Now what?”

  “We’re under siege.”

  “Since when?!”

  “It began a few moments ago. It seems you were correct—the Circle is unwilling to wait for us to come to them.”

  “But you said they wouldn’t attack you!”

  “Those who served under me wouldn’t. But Saunders sent Apprentices.” Marsden’s tone was bitter.

  “Who?”

  “Young mages still in the last phase of their training. They joined the Corps after I left office. Saunders is the only Lord Protector they’ve ever known.”

  “Let me guess. They’ll follow his orders—whatever they are!”

  “That is a distinct possibility.”

  “So now what? Because I can’t shift!” At the moment, I was lucky to be vertical.

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “One crisis at a time, child,” he told me, and jogged upstairs.

  He’d barely gone when Pritkin tensed subtly and his eyes snapped open. I bent over him and, before I could say anything, he grabbed me by the back of my head, dragged my mouth down and kissed me. Kissed me, with no drama and no explanation, like it was just something we did.

  Knowing in a half-forgotten way that he kissed like a demon was one thing; experiencing it all over again was quite another. There was no refined seduction—Pritkin kissed openmouthed, hard and hungry, until I could hear nothing over the pounding of my heart, until I could taste my blood on his lips as his tongue thrust into me. My skin shivered helplessly, but my flesh wanted more, suddenly starving for this. . . .

  My brain informed me that there was absolutely no reason to find the scent of my hair or the soft spot beneath my elbow the slightest bit erotic. It pointed out that I was, essentially, kissing myself, but Pritkin’s body wasn’t buying it. Soft little hands racked up my shirt, slid across my chest, tweaked a nipple and oh, God.

  A breath of wind curled around me, an almost living prickle against my skin. It slid around my body sinuously, cool but not calming, not calming at all. I shuddered and the current shivered along with me. And a jagged cut on Pritkin’s arm softened, faded and melted into the golden skin over his bicep. I blinked, and when I looked again, there wasn’t even a scar. It was as if the wound had never even existed.

  I was dazed and extremely confused when we broke apart. Pritkin lifted his head and his eyes were fever bright and slightly unfocused. He radiated a barely leashed violence that was strange and nearly alien—but also echoingly familiar.

  I screamed and started scrambling away, but he caught me, holding me fast. “No! It’s me! It’s only me! Rosier isn’t here!”

  My own face coalesced in front of me and there was honest emotion in those striking eyes—worry, pain and a healthy dose of self-loathing. I stopped struggling. I was willing to bet Rosier had never had an honest emotion in his life.

  “But I felt—”

  “I’m wounded,” Pritkin said, flushing slightly. “It’s . . . something of an automatic reaction. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Automatic?” He didn’t take time to explain, just levered himself to a standing position using the counter.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said as another barrage hit.

  “You can barely stand up, much less fight!”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” he said stubbornly.

  “Not after attacking half a dozen demons on your own! What the hell did you think you were doing? You had no weapons, no shields, nothing.”

  “They would have killed you.”

  “So what did you think they were going to do to you?” He didn’t say anything. “Or was that the idea? While they were busy ripping you to shreds, I’d have time to escape?”

  “It was the only reasonable course of action.”

  The matter-of-fact tone had anger surging through me. “Reasonable? That was my idea—my stupid, stupid idea! If someone died for it, it should have been me!”

  “Your plan would have worked, had you been with anyone else.”

  “What are you talking about? Those things—”

  “Cannot normally attack the living. The demon lords made a covenant long ago not to ruin Earth—the hunting ground they all share—by overfeeding. Each race was limited to taking only one form of energy. In the case of the Rakshasas, they can only feed on whatever is left after death. But your body still lived; you should have been beyond their reach.”

  “So did yours. And that didn’t seem to matter!”

  “Rosier petitioned the Assembly of Lords to grant a special dispensation in my case.” There was an odd light in his eyes, not sorrow or pain or regret but some terrible combination of the three, a kind of emptiness that made me want to shiver. “One it seems he has managed to extend to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Pritkin took a deep breath. “I have never explored the demon part of my nature. It’s what Rosier wants, why he performed his obscene experiment in the first place. He hoped by incorporating Fey and human blood with his own, he would create a demon without the limitations of his kind. By refusing to investigate my nature, I’ve denied him the results.”

  “But you’ve also denied yourself. Don’t you wonder what else you can do? What abilities you may have inherited?”

  “I worry about that all the time.”

  “But that other side of you gave you immortality, didn’t it? So it can’t be all—”

  “I’m not immortal, and my longer life span came from my mother’s Fey ancestry,” he snapped. “Nothing from my father’s side is remotely positive! As he is currently demonstrating. I thwarted him, you humiliated him and he wants revenge.”

  “But Rakshasas can’t hurt me when I’m in my body. So how does he—”

  “You heard Jonas—you can’t do your job safely without resorting to possessions. But they cause your spirit to become vulnerable, even if only for an instant. And
with the Rakashasas, that will be enough.”

  “But my power as Pythia is supposed to be inexhaustible. Even if they attacked me—”

  “You’re confusing types of energy. Rakshasas feed off life energy, as do your vampires. Your magic doesn’t interest them.”

  Marsden ran down the stairs with a basket draped over his arm but stopped short when he saw Pritkin on his feet. He nonetheless proffered a vial of viscous orange sludge that boiled with darker glints in it. Pritkin scowled but downed half of it anyway before I could ask what was in it.

  “Energy potion,” Marsden said, catching my eye. “It’s harmless.”

  And foul, judging by Pritkin’s expression. “If I take it, will it help me shift us out of here?” I asked as a ceramic water pitcher danced down a counter and crashed against the tiles.

  “Oh, no. It isn’t that strong. Just adds a bit of pep, so to speak. But not to worry; I have another way out.”

  Pritkin groaned. “Tell me you didn’t bring that damn thing with you!”

  Marsden looked affronted. “That damn thing won me six titles, I’ll have you know!”

  “And almost got you killed at least as many times!”

  “A hazard of the sport.”

  Pritkin grabbed his coat and weapons while appliances rattled in their places and the dishes chimed together in the cupboard. One glance out the window showed why: bolt after bolt of energy was exploding against a bubble of protection that began just beyond the garden. None got through, but every hit shuddered the foundations of the house.

  Marsden threw open the back door and led us quickly across the garden. Beyond the cultivated area was a patch of weeds surrounding a small brick structure. He flicked on the lights and dragged a tarp off what turned out to be a gleaming red convertible. It was obviously a classic, with a long, low frame, high fenders and an odd arrangement of three headlights.

  “An Alfa Romeo Spider,” he informed us, grinning. “Finest sports car ever made. Bought new in 1932.” He slid behind the wheel, and Orion, the demon-possessed dog, jumped into the passenger seat. That was a little creepy since I hadn’t even noticed him being there. “Get in, get in!” Marsden said impatiently.

  “It only has two seats,” I pointed out, and Orion’s bulk pretty much filled his.

  “We’ll all fit,” Marsden said with the confidence of a man who was already seated.

  “You think we can outrun them?” I asked skeptically as Pritkin and I tried to squeeze two bodies into a negative amount of space.

  “I know we can!” Marsden yelled, starting the engine.

  And then the garage shuddered, and the door opened on a dozen mages all trying to fit through at once. Pritkin mumbled something, and I glimpsed several of them being plucked off their feet by vines as big around as my leg. But it didn’t matter because the rest came for us even as we started moving—straight at the garage wall.

  “Marsden!” I screamed, but he just floored it. And the old car jumped ahead with a growl that shook the frame, leaping straight for the very solid-looking brick wall.

  But instead of hitting brick, we sailed straight into the middle of a pulsing beam of white light. It was blindingly bright, shedding a killing radiance that made the sunny day look dark by comparison. The garage disappeared behind us, winking out of sight with a pop.

  I slid into the seat, pushing devil dog onto the floor-boards between my legs. Pritkin found a perch behind me, his bottom on the trunk, his feet knotted into the seat belts to keep him from flying off. My eyes finally adjusted to the glow, allowing me to look out on a glimmering white landscape. Blazing but cold, it reflected diamond-brilliant off of the surface of the car.

  We were in a ley line. But this one made the Chaco Canyon Line look like a backwoods road. I couldn’t even see an end to it on either side. But I could see dark shapes behind us, like tiny clouds obscuring the sun.

  “You know, I think this is where I came in,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Don’t worry!” Marsden told me, flooring the gas pedal. “I won three world titles in this car!”

  “Jonas is a former champion racer,” Pritkin explained.

  “You race in the ley lines?”

  “Used to. Gave it up a few years back.”

  “You mean they made you quit,” Pritkin corrected.

  “Why?” I asked fearfully.

  “Jealousy,” Marsden said, hitting the dashboard. “Pure and simple.”

  “Because it is fantastically dangerous, even with youthful reflexes,” Pritkin amended. “No one wanted to see you explode.”

  “Explode?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Marsden assured me. “We’re shielded.”

  And that’s when I noticed the pale golden shield all around the car, flowing over us like an elongated soap bubble and about as sturdy looking. I’d seen something like this before, a magical ward that allowed craft carrying multiple passengers to navigate the lines. It made me feel a little better . . . for about ten seconds. Until a jolt of power sizzled past us from the pursuing mages—the same ones who had just collapsed a much sturdier-looking shield around the house.

  Pritkin twisted around, lying over the trunk of the car to fire a spell at them. “Do you remember what happened last time somebody did that?” I screeched, grabbing him by the waistband.

  “The Belinus Line is perfectly stable!” he told me just as Marsden hit a patch of turbulence. If I hadn’t been hanging on, Pritkin would have gone flying, taking my body with him. As it was, we both hit back down hard, while Orion howled and Marsden cackled like the madman he undoubtedly was.

  Something smashed against the shield around us, almost rolling the car and threatening to give me whiplash. “Marsden!” I screamed. “They’re gaining!”

  “Not for long!” He jerked the wheel to the right, throwing me half out of the car. Pritkin grabbed me, pulling back hard enough that I almost kept my seat. We burst free of the line in a shower of silver-white fire—right into the middle of thin air.

  It took me a second to realize what had happened, because piercing cold hit me like a fist, knocking the breath from my lungs. It felt like my body had been encased in a sheath of ice. I tried to move, but nothing happened. I decided that I should probably worry that it didn’t feel like I had any legs, but I was too busy freaking out about the fact that I couldn’t seem to breathe.

  Most of my senses were useless: everything was utterly silent, and if there was any wind, I didn’t feel it. I gazed around, but there wasn’t much to see. The only clouds were miles below, leaving the sky an incredible, dazzling blue. . . .

  It was the view from an airplane, I realized, except we weren’t in one. We weren’t even in the shield because it was designed only to operate within a ley line. We were thousands of feet above the ground in a car that had no business being there. I stared at the Earth, so ridiculously far below, but I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs to scream.

  And then I was thrown back against the seat as Marsden nose-dived straight for the ground. The wind caused by our sudden plummet hit my eyes and I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think through the sheer terror of it. We were going to die, I thought blankly, we were all going to die—and then we hit another ley line head-on.

  This one was tiny, barely large enough for the car, almost brushing us on either side of the newly re-formed bubble. In the few seconds we’d been outside, my eyebrows had frosted up, my skin had turned a vaguely purple shade of blue and I swear my eyes had iced over. I blinked them rapidly, trying to see, and finally managed it—just in time to watch us slide straight down into a tunnel of leaping red fire.

  I’d gotten my breath back, so I used it to scream, but the engine noise mostly drowned it out. I eventually trailed off, my throat raw, and yet we kept falling. It was like being on a roller-coaster ride with no bottom. The seat belt was cutting into my lap, threatening to bisect me; devil dog’s hair was floating straight up; and Pritkin was gripping
the back of the seat with both hands to keep from being thrown against the top of the bubble. And still we dove.

  Then the brilliant red suddenly shifted to crimson as we plunged through some kind of border. The car went from an almost perpendicular plummet to a steep slide, throwing me half out of the car. My arm flung out in an attempt to grab something, anything, to steady me, and plunged straight into freezing water.

  Part of the car was outside the narrow confines of the line, creating a hole in the shield. My arm had gone out the hole and a flood of water was coming in. It hissed against the line’s energy, throwing a cloud of steam in my face.

  “Get back in!” Marsden yelled. “I can’t see!”

  “I’ll get right on that!” I snarled as the forward momentum did its best to rip my arm off.

  Pritkin tried to drag me back. But with only my strength to work with, it did no good. I turned, bracing my feet against the side of the car, and pulled. My arm popped out of the hole, the car swerved back into the line and devil dog shook himself, spraying me in the face with waterlogged fur.

  “The Channel,” Marsden yelled, looking perfectly normal except for the high energy in his eyes. “And I’d keep your hands inside the car, if I were you. The energy of the line tends to attract attention. Went a little offsides once and next thing I knew, there was this great dolphin in the passenger seat, flapping and writhing and thwacking me with its tail. Took me forever to get it out. Cost me the race.”

  I just stared at him until my attention was caught by the huge, dark shape that coasted by outside the line. It was indistinct through the jumping energy, but was easily as big as a house. “Whale,” Pritkin said from over my shoulder. “Some animals can sense the lines; we’ve never determined quite how.”

  “Damn nuisances!” Marsden declared. “That’s how Cavanaugh died, you know. Middle of the All Britain back in ’fifty-six, and this great blue decides to breach the line. Dove in right in front of him. Must have been daft.”

  “Then perhaps we should attempt to leave this one behind,” Pritkin pointed out.