by Karen Chance
“Come again?”
“Near as I can figure out, they’ve turned the whole inside of the house into a portal. The outside is still here, but they’ve transported the inside . . . somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. There’re only two doors that work—the front and this one—and none of the windows do. I guess when you go through one of the working doors, you go through the portal to . . . well, wherever they’ve taken the place. And when you come out, you’re back here.”
“That’s why I can’t shift,” I said slowly. “They’ve taken the house outside this world, and my power only works here.”
“That would be my guess, yeah. So, like I said, you’re not getting in.”
“Oh, I’m getting in.” This only made me more determined. Not only were they having my coronation without me, but they were having it somewhere my own power didn’t even work. And, apparently, no one saw the irony in that.
Billy crossed his arms. “Okay, say you do. What then? Most of the major players in the sup world are in there. If something big is about to go down, let them handle it.”
“They can’t handle it if they don’t know what it is.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“And I’m not going to if I’m stuck out here. Now get back in there and get me something I can use!”
Billy sighed and faded away, muttering something, while I stared in frustration at the ultramodern sphere looming overhead. It looked vaguely like aliens had crashed into the side of the mountain, leaving half of their flying saucer sticking out. Much of the visible part of the house was glass, I suppose to take advantage of the panoramic view of the tree-lined valley below and the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas beyond.
It was gorgeous, sleek and impressive, much like its owner. With a shell just as maddeningly hard to crack. But I had to figure something out or this was going to be one memorable evening—for all the wrong reasons.
I was still standing there when a couple emerged from the darkness. The man had a seventies nerdstache and eyes as cold as a new razor blade. The woman adjusted a spill of mink over her shoulder and tried not to look like she’d been feeding a vampire in the woods in the middle of the night. Neither paid any attention to the snack carrying snacks as they mounted the stairs.
The man rapped imperiously on the door, which promptly opened. His lip curled as his eyes took in Jack’s complete dearth of sartorial elegance. “Even tonight, you couldn’t make an effort?”
“An effort?” Jack inquired, deliberately disingenuous.
“You know what I mean! Half the guests are human!”
“And half are vampire.” Jack ran a bony finger under the guy’s too-wide polyester tie and gave it a flip. “Do you think for a moment that fine clothes and a pretty face make them forget what we are?”
“Not with you wearing that ridiculous costume!” the man snapped with a total lack of irony. He and his dinner swept inside.
Jack laughed. It looked no better on him than the smile, but the sound was surprisingly full and rich. “Everyone here is in costume,” he called after them. “Some are even smart enough to know it!”
“Everyone except you,” I said.
His eyes slid back to me, reflecting the gaslight from beside the door. It made flames dance in his pupils, like he needed the added creepy. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s how you really look, isn’t it?” Judging by the brown lace of his cravat and the frayed cuffs on his coat, they might have been Victorian originals. And his pale face and limp, lifeless hair looked that way because he was exerting no power to make them appear otherwise. I was in disguise; the other vamp was in disguise. But Jack was just Jack.
I hadn’t really expected an answer, but he suddenly bent forward, his breath raising goose bumps on the still-wet skin of my neck. “Tell me, little one, do you know why vampires find the Hollywood stereotype so loathsome?”
“Bad dialogue and worse acting?”
“Because it shows us stripped bare, exposed and naked in our brutality—in other words, as we really are. We’re all monsters, under the skin.” He grinned at me. “Even the beautiful ones.”
I ignored the jab at Mircea, who most definitely fit that description. “Is that why they stuck you guarding the back door? Because you embarrass them?”
“They’re afraid of what I might say if allowed to mingle with all our fine guests.” His tone was light, but there was something dark in his eyes.
“Same here,” I said, trying to find common ground.
His gaze met mine, and there was the tiniest glint of laughter in those beetle black depths. He knew he was being played, but he was bored and pissed and he didn’t care. “I thought they were afraid that their precious asset might get her soft, white throat cut.”
I swallowed, resisting a strong urge to cover up the vulnerable skin in question. “That’s what they say, because it sounds better. But I think they’re ashamed of me. I grew up in a vampire’s court, but it wasn’t the right court. You know?”
He nodded. It was no secret that Tony had been the vampire equivalent of white trash. It was one reason why I was starting to suspect that I would never fit in with vampire society. That and not actually being a vampire.
“We outcasts should stick together—is that your contention?” he asked.
“You’re the one who said this party needed livening up.”
“So to speak.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“My orders were to stop you.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Jack beamed like the owner of a dim-witted puppy that has finally done its first trick. “No, it wasn’t, was it?”
“Well?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You are about to become Pythia.”
I crossed my arms. I knew what was coming. “And?”
“And you may have an opportunity to do me a small favor in the future.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Nothing too disturbing,” he murmured.
Since this was Jack, that didn’t reassure me much. “I’d have to approve of whatever it is,” I said reluctantly. It felt like I was making a pact with the devil, which wasn’t far from the truth. But I had to get in there.
“Agreed,” he said, so quickly that I knew I was going to regret this. But he flung open the door with a flourish. “I look forward to seeing Lord Mircea’s reaction to your presence.”
“That makes one of us,” I muttered, and hurried inside.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jack had set up a stool at the end of a walnut-paneled hallway just outside the kitchen. There was a mirror on the wall, probably for the servers to use to check themselves out, so I did—and got a shock. My strawberry blond curls were still hidden by the wig, but it was my own tip-tilted nose and wide blue eyes staring back at me.
“Antiglamourie charms,” Jack murmured, watching me with amusement.
Great. And the green velvet did not, as I’d hoped, look black in the low lights. I tried pulling up the too-low top, but that merely raised the skirt to indecent levels, so I stopped. “Anything else I should know about?” I demanded.
“Almost certainly,” he said cheerfully.
I shot him a look, which did no good at all, and headed down a corridor. It let out onto a vast foyer with a sweeping staircase, heavy with aged wood and hushed elegance. And another half dozen guards.
That was a problem, because a couple of these guards I knew. Tall, blond and impassive, they were like perfectly matched bookends, right down to the sleek black tuxes and eerie golden eyes. I ducked behind a porphyry vase taller than I was and silently cursed.
No wonder Jack had let me in so easily; he knew I wouldn’t get ten yards. And he was right, damn it. There was no way they weren’t going to recognize me. Those two had been assigned to my bodyguard detail until this little shindig took precedence, and ancient eyes didn’t miss much. Even worse,
the staircase ended not two yards away from them, meaning I couldn’t even try to find another entrance without being nabbed.
I was about to double back and see if there was another exit through the kitchen when the front door burst open, letting in a swirl of rain and a couple of glittering corpses. They must have been important, because half the guards jumped to greet them and the rest were staring like starstruck teenagers.
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—”
