by Karen Chance
He picked me up, dumped me on the couch, and yanked up one end. His buddy got the other, and the two vamps started carrying it down the hall. Either of them could have managed it alone, probably with one hand, but we had an audience.
The man and woman followed us to the elevators and pressed the button, and then we all waited until an empty car arrived. The door pinged and the two lovebirds got on. The woman held the door, but I shook my head at her. “It won’t fit.”
Marco glanced from the couch to the elevator and reached the same conclusion. Scowling, he put down his end of the sofa, shifted me to one side, and stomped a size thirteen foot down through the middle. There was a loud crack and the sofa broke clean in two.
“Oh, my,” the woman said, her foot firmly planted in the elevator door. It looked like the eggs could wait.
“Oh, jeez.” Marco’s buddy was looking from him to the sofa, back and forth, like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. “Oh, man, you shouldn’t have done that. That was a special couch. That was Lord Mircea’s favorite couch!”
“Lord Mircea doesn’t have a favorite couch!” Marco told him, trying to shove me onto the elevator. But the piece I was attached to was still too big, especially with two people already on board.
Marco grabbed the sofa arm that my cuffs were stuck through as if he meant to wrench it off, but his buddy stopped him. “I can’t let you do that,” he said seriously.
Marco stared at him for a moment. “Can’t let me do what?” he finally asked.
“I can’t let you do any more damage to Lord Mircea’s property. This is a special couch. See that leather? It was custom dyed. You can’t just go out and buy another one, not and have it match.” He surveyed the pieces with a worried frown. “The leather split along the seam. Maybe it can be repaired. Maybe we can—”
I never heard his suggestion, because Marco planted a fist to his jaw with enough force to send him sailing back against the wall. It shuddered when he hit, and a wall sconce tumbled to the carpet, shattering into pieces. The vampire didn’t look so good himself, sliding slowly down onto his haunches.
Marco glowered at him. “Don’t ever challenge my authority again. I’m in charge of this detail. You do what I tell you.” He turned back to the sofa and got a grip.
“Don’t do it,” his friend warned, slowly getting back to his feet.
“What did you say?” Marco asked softly, turning toward him again.
“I said. Put. It. Down.”
“Okay.” Marco let go of the sofa and carefully pushed the old woman’s foot out of the door. “Show’s over. Nothing to see here,” he told her, and hit the button for the lobby. As soon as the elevator car was away, he launched himself at the other vamp.
I’d known what was coming and was ready. Half a sofa weighed a lot less than the whole thing and was more maneuverable, too. I got to my feet as they staggered into a stairwell, cursing and clawing, and started dragging myself back down the hall.
Normally, I’d have shifted, but I’d already had a hard night—a trip of four centuries isn’t fun—and then had had to shift back from the airplane. Plus the small detour to the tarmac. I was pooped. And I didn’t think meeting the head of the Circle completely out of juice was a good idea.
I knocked sharply on Pritkin’s door. This time it opened to reveal a half-shaved war mage with a razor in his hand. He was wearing nicely pressed dress slacks and a sleeveless undershirt that fit him like a second skin. But for once it wasn’t the well-defined arms and muscular shoulders that caught my attention. It was the hair.
His short blond mane fell in waves over his forehead and just brushed his collar. It looked soft. It looked under control. It looked normal.
“Your hair.” I gaped at it.
He ran a hand through it. “I haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet.”
“Do you have to?”
Green eyes narrowed. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “And why aren’t you dressed?”
I didn’t reply because suddenly Marco was there with a scowl on his face and a rip in his suit. “All right,” he said, panting slightly. “Let’s go.”
“How do you think Mircea would like you manhandling me like this?” I asked, looking down at the hand gripping my bicep.
“The master wants you to wait for him upstairs.”
“You called him?”
“No. He left a message in case you showed up. I guess he knows you.”
I ignored that. “Since when do you deliver messages?” I looked at Pritkin. “He didn’t give me any of yours. I wouldn’t have even known about the meeting if it weren’t for Billy.”
“Why didn’t you give her my messages?” Pritkin demanded.
“Billy and I have this theory,” I told him, “that maybe the Senate isn’t too happy about—” I stopped because Marco clapped a hand over my mouth. Pritkin knocked it away, and the two sized each other up.
“I haven’t had dinner yet,” Marco told him. “Bring it.” Pritkin glanced at me and finally noticed that I was attached to something. “Why are you handcuffed to a chair?”
“It’s part of a couch,” I told him.
The elevator dinged and the old man and woman got out. They skirted the damaged furniture in front of the elevators and walked down the hall toward us, her limping slightly because of her hip. They finally reached us and the old man scowled. “I thought I told you to move that thing,” he said querulously. “I forgot my medication. I have to take it with breakfast or I’m messed up the whole day. And your sofa is blocking my door.”
Marco closed his eyes for a minute and then picked up the sofa. He broke off the arm that I was chained to and handed it to me. Then he proceeded to rip the rest into tiny pieces while the old couple watched him with big eyes.
He’d almost finished when his buddy, looking pretty beat up, came running out of the stairwell leading a detail of security. Since the hotel is owned by one vamp and managed by another, it isn’t too surprising that most of the security force is also among the life challenged.
“I’m her bodyguard!” Marco yelled at them as six vampires piled onto him. “You don’t understand—she’s in danger!”
“Uh-huh,” the leader of the patrol said, eyeing the old couple. “It looks like we arrived just in the nick of time.”
“Tell him!” Marco ordered me.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Marco was a new arrival on the scene in Vegas, having been brought in from Mircea’s court in Washington State. As a result, most of the casino employees didn’t know him yet. With luck, the guards wouldn’t get confirmation on his identity until after my meeting with the Circle was over. I stood there silently as they dragged him away while he stared at me with little narrowed eyes.
“Sorry about that,” the security chief was telling the old couple.
“You could comp us a buffet,” the old woman said hopefully.
“Damn straight,” the old man agreed. “There’s something wrong when a fella can’t even get to his meds.”
“What the hell is going on?” Pritkin demanded.
I held out the arm with the cuff. “Get this thing off and I’ll fill you in.”
Chapter Five
Half an hour later, I was standing in Dante’s lobby getting smacked around by a blond. For once, it wasn’t Pritkin. “Stop that!” The willowy creature at my side slapped my hands. I’d been trying to surreptitiously wipe my sweaty palms on the full skirts of my dress, but I guess I hadn’t been subtle enough.
“I’m not hurting anything,” I said as someone started sniffling nearby. I looked around, but all I saw was the gimlet-eyed group across the hotel lobby. They were filing in by twos and threes, attempting to blend in with the crowd. But despite the fact that Dante’s employees dressed in everything from sequined devil suits to dominatrix garb, they weren’t doing so great.
It might have been the heavy coats they wore despite the fact that the temperature outside was threatening to shatter thermometer
s. It might have been the ominous bulges under said coats. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that they all looked like they dearly wanted to kill someone. Since that someone would be me, I thought a few sweat stains might be forgivable. Too bad Augustine didn’t agree.
“After the way you brought back my last creation?” he sniffed. “Don’t even talk to me.”
I shifted my feet guiltily. Augustine was a dress designer who thought pretty highly of his work. That was why I’d stuffed the remains of the last dress he’d made for me, which had suffered a few unavoidable indignities, into a trash bag and hid it in a Dumpster. Somehow, he’d located it anyway. And when I showed up at his shop in the casino promenade half an hour ago, out of breath and desperate for something to wear to this meeting, he’d pointed to the poor, tattered remains.
Augustine had made it clear that off the rack was too good for me and flounced out. But half a minute later he’d had to flounce back in when Sal, my new, self-appointed assistant, had backed him into the workroom with a fang-filled smile. Apparently, Mircea hadn’t had time to alert the entire family to the fact that he’d prefer I miss this meeting. And Sal wasn’t about to let me embarrass us all in front of the Circle.
I’d gotten my dress—a rich green velvet that made me look vaguely like I was wearing Scarlett O’Hara’s curtains—barely in time to drag it on and sprint over here. Since it was an Augustine creation, I kept expecting it to morph into something or try to bite me, but so far it hadn’t done anything interesting. Except do its damnedest to make me look more sophisticated.
It had its work cut out for it.
Nothing was going to turn my five-foot-four frame statuesque, I hadn’t had a chance to redo my makeup, and an attempt to tame my flyaway curls with hairspray had given me helmet head. Not that it mattered: the Circle already knew what I looked like. They should, considering how many wanted posters they’d sent out.
Casanova, the hotel manager, sidled up, frowning. He was looking stylish as usual in a wheat-colored suit that set off his Spanish good looks and fit like it had been made for him, which it probably had. He gave me a glass and a glare. “What’s the matter? Is your corset too tight?”
“I’m not wearing a corset.” For once, Augustine had refrained from trying to asphyxiate me.
“Then would you mind attempting to look a little less like you’re about to fall over? You are supposed to be projecting an aura of strength.”
I took the champagne, but my hand was shaking enough to spill a few drops onto my bodice. “I’m trying!” I hissed as someone began weeping softly. “And what the hell is that?”
“Us, going up in flames,” Casanova said, leaving as abruptly as he’d come.
Augustine was looking a little smug. “Okay, what did you do?” I demanded.
“Call it insurance,” he said cryptically as more leather-trench-coat-wearing “tourists” filtered in through the door. They were war mages, the Circle’s version of a police force, FBI and CIA all rolled up into one maniacal package. I’d expected to see at least a few of them around as a precautionary measure. This was more than a few.
I did a quick visual survey and decided we might have a problem. Because the agreement Pritkin had worked out explicitly stated that each side could have no more than a dozen members present at the meeting. Ours were scattered around the room, mostly vampires on loan from Casanova. The mages had also fanned out, and while it was a little difficult to be sure with all the real tourists around, I was fairly certain I counted more than a dozen. Make that absolutely certain, I decided as another trio nonchalantly wandered in.
One day I was going to find allies who didn’t try to kill me on a regular basis. One fine, fine day.
Francoise, the pretty brunette witch flanking me on the other side from Augustine, shifted uncomfortably. “Pritkin, ’e ees ’ere, no?” she asked, her French accent more pronounced than usual. That meant she was nervous. Probably because, while she still had a little trouble with English, she could count as well as I could.
“Yeah.”
“I do not see ’im.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
I’d have preferred to have Pritkin glued to my side, in case this went the way of every other encounter with the Circle I’d ever had. But he’d argued that he could keep a better eye on the overall scenario if he had more freedom of movement. Francoise was there to run temporary interference if things got out of hand.
I wouldn’t have told her for anything, but that didn’t make me feel a lot better. I didn’t doubt her ability, but the fact was that the Circle didn’t play by the rules. Sometimes, I didn’t think they even had any rules. And they were supposedly the good guys. No wonder I was always in trouble.
“Zere are too many mages,” Francoise muttered, casting a glance at the entrance, where two more were sauntering over the bridge that separated the land of the living from the underworld. Below them, a couple of Charons were poling boats laden with clueless tourists across the Styx, or what passed for it. The vacationers were laughing and tossing coins into the water, making the usual jokes about paying the ferryman.
“They won’t try anything surrounded by norms,” I said, more to convince myself than her.
“Zey are already trying somezeeg!” she pointed out, frowning like someone who badly needed to be cheered up by some decent leadership. I kind of felt that way myself; unfortunately the one in charge was me.
“Are you planning to wait for them to attack?” Pritkin’s voice was loud in my ear. He’d done some sort of spell to allow us to communicate, or so he’d said. I should have known he’d use it to eavesdrop.
“If I leave, what then?” I asked reasonably. “We need the Circle.”
“And we need you alive!”
“They haven’t done anything yet.”
“Other than deceive us,” Pritkin said in his let-me-explain-this-to-you-in-little-words voice. “We said a dozen; I’ve counted more than twice that many. And if they will break one promise, why not another? We’ll have to try again.”
“And what if they refuse to meet again?” They didn’t like me already; a deliberate snub might be the last straw. If we were ever going to reconcile, someone had to take a risk and show a little trust. And it didn’t look like it was going to be them.
“Miss Palmer . . .”
“I thought we’d agreed that you were going to call me Cassie.”
“There are a few things I’d like to call you. Now get out of there!”
“I’ll shift out if there’s trouble,” I promised.
“If they explode a null bomb, you won’t be able to shift!”
“We discussed this,” I reminded him. “If they use a null bomb, it will cancel out all magic in the area—including theirs—and Casanova’s boys will wipe the floor with them. I only want to talk to Saunders for a few minutes.”
“He isn’t here! He sent one of his lieutenants instead. Richardson. He just came in.”
And sure enough, three mages had broken off the pack and started toward me. I didn’t have to ask which one was in charge. The man in the center was middle-aged and distinguished looking, with startlingly blue eyes and graying auburn hair that was swept back from a high forehead. He was wearing a business suit in a neat gray pinstripe with a bright blue tie. He looked more like a diplomat than a warrior. Maybe they actually did intend to talk.
“Get out now!” Pritkin repeated, sounding furious.
“If I leave, what then?” I whispered. “We don’t have a Plan B.”
“And if you die, we’ll never have a chance to form one!”
“Damn it, Pritkin. We need the Circle!” He didn’t reply. Maybe because Richardson and his cold-eyed buddies had arrived.
“I thought we’d agreed no more than twelve per side,” I said, and immediately wished I could take it back. I hadn’t planned to start off sounding so suspicious. If this meeting had taken place a month ago, I’d have handled it differently. But weeks of constant runn
ing, almost dying and frequent betrayal had sharpened my usual defensiveness to something approaching hostile paranoia.
Richardson didn’t look ruffled, however. “Had we met at a neutral site, we would have kept the bargain. But this”—he swept out a hand to indicate the gothic gloom of Dante’s lobby—“is not neutral.”
“It’s a public place! And if you had an objection, you might have mentioned it before now!”
“A public place owned by your master and run by his servants.”
“I don’t have a master.”
He smiled condescendingly. “That is what the vampires said. They speak highly of you.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.
“But you don’t believe them.”
“Tell me about Nicholas,” he said instead of answering.
It took me a second to respond, because I’d known Nick only by the abbreviated version of his name. He’d been a war mage acquaintance of Pritkin’s, one who had turned against the Circle but hadn’t joined my side. He had preferred his own.
I paused, wondering how to explain the complex series of events that had left the only book with a translation of Artemis’ spell in Nick’s hands, forcing Pritkin to kill him to keep it safe. I really hoped Nick and Richardson hadn’t been friends. “He was going to use the Codex for his own ends,” I finally said.
“Yes, so we were told. Unfortunately, there isn’t a shred of evidence to that effect. Unless you perhaps still have it? Even a page—”
“It was burnt.”
Richardson pursed his lips. “How unfortunate.”
“Pritkin did what was necessary—”
“On your orders.”
I started to argue the point but shut my mouth without saying anything. I hadn’t ordered Nick’s death, but I’d known how Pritkin worked and what his solution was likely to be. And I’d made no attempt to stop him. It was one of many decisions weighing on my conscience these days, although I still couldn’t see another alternative. If Nick had succeeded, we’d all be dead now—probably even him.
“We did what we had to do, whether you choose to believe that or not,” I told him.
