by Cat Adams
He chuckled and winked. “At least you have an excuse.”
It was walking through the door of the banquet room that made her stutter to a nervous stop. Mike, his mission accomplished, let go of her arm and kept walking toward his wife with a small wave good-bye. Boy, that moment of happiness didn’t last long. All of the firm employees were lined up along the walls, drinks in hand and eyes wide as they surveyed the dozens … no, hundreds of pysanky that filled the room. They were lined up side by side like toy soldiers along a low shelf that encircled the room. They rested on the buffet tables among the chocolate-covered strawberries and caviar. There were even little tree-shaped holders, like would normally bear deviled eggs, up on the podium. She could only look at Tal helplessly, seeking some advice on what to do.
Vegre had trumped them both. There were too many people in the room to just start walking around the room, destroying eggs. And some of them might be boobytrapped, just like Tal had done with Sela’s door.
Her dismay was complete when she heard a tapping on the microphone and looked up to see Vegre himself staring down at her and Tal. He was in a full tux, with a bloodred cummerbund that had various pysanky designs embroidered on the fabric. Sela stood behind him now, the lights catching the shimmering silver floor-length gown she wore that so flattered her blond beauty and was accented by a stunning necklace with a center diamond the size of a pigeon egg.
Vegre looked down at Mila with open amusement. The smirk he wore was shared by the two mages from the prison. They were dressed as hotel security, complete with dark sunglasses and black fingerless gloves on both hands. They flanked the stage on which the podium sat, looking annoyingly capable.
“Shit.” It wasn’t a word she’d heard very often from Tal, but she couldn’t deny it fit the circumstance.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Sanders, Harris & Hoote—I’m David Pierce, and on behalf of myself and the staff and management of Peircevil Holdings and the Palace Hotel, I welcome you.” His voice was smooth, without a trace of the lofty British accent she’d heard before.
All of a sudden, the lights dimmed and she felt the heat and blinding light of a spot on her. She looked around frantically but then understood when he spoke again. “Please join me in a round of applause for your own Mila Penkin, who both arranged for this affair and was the … inspiration for the lovely decorations you see scattered around the room. Mila is quite an artist herself, and several of the eggs you see were made by her.” Everyone obediently clapped, hollered, and looked at her but she only had eyes for Vegre. His smile was self-satisfied and turned briefly to a sneer before settling back into more civilized lines.
He gestured to one of the waiters she recognized as one of Demeter’s Children. “Fetch Ms. Penkin a drink.” When the woman failed to move, to even react, his brow furrowed, but Sela covered for him, “Yes, do.” As if in a daze the waitress brought a tray of champagne flutes, offering one each to Tal and Mila.
“To the oh-so talented Mila Penkin.”
To Mila’s horror she was the center of attention as everyone obediently raised their glasses. “To Mila.”
Pierce flashed a venomous smile. “Now everyone, please, eat, drink, be merry.”
The old toast continued on in her head, For tomorrow we may die.
Vegre stepped off the stage and was immediately surrounded by the partners of the firm, many of whom had never met him. His guards stood just in front of the crowd, keeping a close eye on Mila and Tal.
Mila set her flute on the nearest table. A sense of hopelessness filled her and she stared around at her friends, wondering what it felt like to burn to death in lava. Would it be fast, or agonizingly slow?
Tal’s voice whispered in her ear. “I tried to talk to my mother.”
Mila blinked at him, but didn’t say a word. She wasn’t sure what to say.
“She didn’t even recognize me, or Kris, either, for that matter. She’s completely bespelled.”
“I wonder if they all are?” She nodded toward a long line of people—dressed as waitstaff, even though last time they’d been wearing red robes with flickering flames. They barred the exit as well as if they were iron chains. Oh, they moved aside easily enough for the other members of the firm, but she was fairly confident the two of them weren’t going anywhere.
But Mila still had a few tricks up her sleeve. She whispered to Tal from the corner of her mouth, “We need a little privacy. Stay with me and don’t ask questions.”
He nodded, his face worried but trying to show confidence. She began to walk around the room, waving and chatting with people as she surveyed the room. Mostly she was looking for a particular place along the curtained wall. It was possible, just possible, that Vegre didn’t know about the side exit from this room into the adjoining one that was hidden behind the fabric. While it was obvious there wasn’t a person standing there, it could be chained. She spoke as she turned, so it wouldn’t seem like they were plotting. So far, just being party guests wasn’t attracting attention. “See if you can block me from view for about five seconds.”
Tal nodded and glanced around. He spotted Mike standing with one of the intellectual property attorneys, Trixie Sang. He and Mila were both equal to Mike in height, which was about a head taller than Trixie. In seconds, he had managed to strike up a conversation with them and kept moving by inches until Mila couldn’t see the door guards. And if she couldn’t see them—
She grabbed the opportunity. She pulled down lightly on the curtain so it wouldn’t rustle and be noticeable and then poked her head behind the fabric. It wasn’t. No locks or chains on the push-lever door. Casually she pulled her head back out and went back to inspecting the various pysanky with an overly critical eye. She nodded to Tal when he looked over and he ended the conversation smoothly before moving back over to her side.
“I found a way out for one of us. We can’t both go missing or they’ll know something’s up.”
Tal nodded and responded, his lips hardly moving. “I’ll go. I’m better prepared to fight if it comes to it—” he paused and then added, “magically, that is.”
Apparently, he’d noticed how she’d kicked butt on those guys down below. She’d been proud of herself for that. She hadn’t had much chance to use her defense skills since she took the class, and was glad they really had sunk in as instinct. It was nice he considered her to be capable of taking care of herself. “Thank you.” It was worth mentioning.
He bent to look at one of the pysanky that she’d actually created, a stunning blue-and-yellow with a harvest motif. “Do you have a plan beyond me getting out?”
She really didn’t. But just then, she noticed Rachel standing up after having been bent over an egg, her nose wrinkled and an odd look on her face. She felt a smile growing inside that finally erupted on her face. “As a matter of fact I do.”
As quickly as she could, she went to where Rachel had been standing near a large potted plant with psanky arranged around the base. She took tiny little breaths near the wall, trying not to be noticed. “Block me again.”
Tal did as instructed and soon she was palming two of the pysanky and holders and had moved the surrounding eggs to where they covered the gaps. She gingerly slid one into each of Tal’s jacket pockets by stepping around him casually to see the next batch of eggs.
She straightened, just in time to hear a whispered conversation between two of her co-workers.
“Money isn’t everything. I wouldn’t marry the man. Did you hear the way he ordered her around? ‘Sela you will go and fetch them. No other. Now!’” Nicole’s voice mimicked Vegre’s perfectly enough to send a chill up Mila’s spine.
“And she did?” Rachel’s voice held surprise. “I mean, she didn’t strike me as the submissive type.”
“Oh, she went all right. But she didn’t look too happy about it.”
Mila shook herself. Grabbing Talos by the hand, she led him away from the women and the overheard conversation. When she’d managed to find a place where th
ey could speak without danger of eavesdroppers she explained her plan.
It hadn’t been easy to make it this far. Mila had to barge her way onto the stage to get to the microphone. But then she’d proceeded to discuss all of the food and drink that was the product of one client or another and soon all eyes were on her—including Vegre and all the Demeter’s Children in the room. It had been a simple matter to slip out the door she’d found. Tal wound up in a masquerade party in the next room and simply had to apologize his way across the room as needing to find a bathroom.
Mila’s idea was brilliantly simple and could be the ruin of Vegre’s plan. Tal made his way to the basement after casting himself invisible, somewhat surprised that the spell actually worked in Vegre’s stronghold. He looked briefly for Alexy, but didn’t find him. Either he’d been captured or had found a lower point of the building. But it didn’t matter if he found him, for the plan only required he get to the furnace room.
Tal did his best to ignore the bloodstains on the floor when he entered the room. He prayed that Mila’s grandmother would recover, but she hadn’t looked good. Far worse, in fact, than he’d been willing to admit to Mila. He found a spot to hide and waited until a thermostat on the ground floor triggered the furnace to fire. When it did, he identified the duct that carried the air out of the basement and went back to waiting until the furnace turned off.
Then he went to work, using a coin from his pocket to loosen the screws on the duct. He only needed two of them out before he could easily manipulate the steel with heat. When he heard the click that would make the machine fire, he took the eggs from his pocket, shook them up a little, and heaved them against the inside of the duct with a silent prayer of hope. “Here goes nothing.”
The scent that billowed out of the weeks- or months-old pysanky was enough to make him retch. He turned, covering his face with his arm, and caught the gleam of light refracting off something in the far corner of the room, half-hidden by a stack of boxes. Despite the growing stench, he had to investigate.
He bent down, and found Mila’s fire opal in its new focus glove.
What in the blazes? How did this get here? He shuddered. Alexy had taken this from him not an hour ago. Had his friend been captured?
A part of him desperately wanted to hunt for his friend, but there was no time. They had to stop Vegre, and the plan needed him to take as much advantage of the stench as possible. Saying a swift prayer, he left the furnace room and hurried back toward the party. There were already shouts and people racing around when he reached the lobby again. The doors to the banquet room where the attorneys were meeting burst open, as did the doors of several other rooms.
“My God! What is that smell?!” Women in heels and men holding noses raced for the exits. Mila was at the back of the crowd, pushing them out and calling for a maintenance staffer. She winked as he approached and kept moving past him.
In moments, only Vegre and his cronies were left in the room. He looked livid as Tal steadied himself in the doorway, but there was grudging respect in the mage’s eyes. “Bravo, young crafter. Well played.”
Tal smiled, just a slight twist of lips. “Thank you. But I’m not so young as I might appear, Vegre. I remember you of old.”
That raised his brows. “Do you now? Well, you might as well close the doors. I presume you mean to settle this, and I’d hate for my staff to see your charred body staining the carpet.”
Apparently even Vegre wasn’t quite willing to have the world know of their kind until he was good and ready, so Tal knew there wouldn’t be any trouble until the doors were closed. He wished Alexy was here, because his powers were still completely unmanageable. He didn’t even dare put on the glove—not unless or until he had no choice. Because it wasn’t that he couldn’t do spells. They were just too powerful—a sledgehammer when only a pushpin was needed and the opal merely amplified the problem.
The first blow came when the door clicked shut. He barely avoided the searing blast of heat that scorched the floor. Vegre had on his glove now, and Tal felt naked without his. He only hoped he could do offensive spells without it … because he had no idea where the power that filled him was coming from. “Ataka abo!”
A blast of pure white light erupted from his hand, as though there was a stone there. He could feel the magic flow through his fingers and bind into a powerful beam that nearly threw him backward onto his rear.
Vegre blocked the attack, but the others weren’t so lucky. Cardon the witcher was screaming and the fact that nobody came running told Tal there was likely a silencing charm on the room. Naturally, it would make all the people he anticipated dying in the room much easier to hide.
A loud crash sounded from the wall and then a wave of water knocked him off his feet. A pipe was sticking out from the wall, moving around like a snake to follow him as he moved. The water quickly turned into icy daggers that sliced through skin. He pulled over one of the banquet tables and ducked behind it while simultaneously sending searing fire their way again.
The draperies behind them caught on fire, and the witch was forced to turn the water away to put out the blaze.
“I stand corrected,” Vegre said, his voice tightening from smug satisfaction to something approaching annoyance. “You’ve more skill than I gave you credit for.”
Tal remained behind the table, keeping an eye on them in the convex mirror near the ceiling. He didn’t know why it was there, but it was certainly handy for watching multiple attackers.
The smell of the rotten eggs was burning his nose and it reminded him of the other pysanky lining the walls. He took a moment to send a blast of fire toward them and watched with satisfaction as they exploded and covered the walls with blackened, rotten goo.
“No! Stop him, you idiots! Garack … now!”
A baritone he recognized as the alchemist minion, who must be named Garack, spoke. “Bereh … boloto.”
Abruptly, Tal felt himself sliding, felt mud forming under his body. He scrambled to get away from it, but it sucked him down quicker than he could move. He’d seen Alexy using the swamp charm before, but had never actually had it done to him. The more he struggled, the quicker he sank. He concentrated, making his body heat to dry the mud. He’d just about climbed out when the side door behind the curtain opened and Mila stepped inside.
Vegre was to her in moments, his arm around her neck. “Give up, mage, or the woman dies.” He put the diamond right next to her head and sneered. Tal’s heart sank and he was nearly ready to do as commanded.
But then Mila grabbed his arm with both hands and dropped. Just let her entire body weight fall. It threw Vegre off balance and he bent forward, just in time to receive a sharp kick to his jaw that threw him back again. “The woman doesn’t think so, asshole.” She rolled quickly away from him and shouted “Avatay!” the moment she saw the witcher’s hand rise. Whatever the spell had been passed sideways shattering even more of the eggs, causing Vegre to roar with rage.
Mila laughed and Tal couldn’t help but smile. “Keep it up, boys. We got lots more shells to break.”
“Enough of this!” Vegre raised his hand, his diamond flashed, and movement in the room ceased. But instead of being completely frozen, Tal could move … just a little, but it might be enough. He waited until Vegre’s attention was elsewhere and began working his hand toward the focus and glove. So … close.
Vegre stared at Mila for a long moment, disgust written on his face as he touched his lip and came away with blood. “You have been an annoyance of extraordinary proportion. I’d hoped to save you, bring you over to see that my plan is the only way to save this world.” But then he shook his head. “Your skills are valuable, but not worth the price. Moratay.”
She mouthed the word, but no sound came out and he watched as shock flowed over her face. He was suddenly frightened, panicked in a way he’d never been before. He closed his eyes and reached out for her, threw open the door in his mind until he touched her. I won’t let him kill you. Hold onto me.
Her mind grabbed hold, but her words added to his hurry. I’m losing consciousness, Tal. If I black out, I’ll let go. He began to whisper every counterspell he could think of, struggling to hold her against the slow death that Vegre had cursed her with. But even as he felt her heartbeat start to steady, her face remained slack. Hopefully that would keep Vegre off guard enough that when the old mage turned his back on what he thought was a victim, he wouldn’t know she still lived, and still plotted.
“And now that your lover’s dead, mage, it’s your turn.”
There was only one chance, one hope. It would kill him, he knew that, but Mila would live, and the world would be safe from Vegre and his evil. Tal had just enough movement to turn the opal focus stone toward Vegre and put all of his will into a single word that spat from his mouth with all the venom he felt. “Befouler.”
Blinding light and the shriek of a chorus of angels … or devils filled the room as egg after egg began to explode and release wild magic into the air. Tal covered Mila’s body with his own, dropping to the ground. Vegre’s containment spell was destroyed as the lights began to chase him and the others while they threw magic and curses and blasts of power to attack the bolts of energy.
The villains’ hideous screams joined the cacophony as wild magic assaulted the three crafters. It was like watching a death by a thousand cuts as each bit of magic took its measure, tearing at the men until they were screaming and crawling on the floor.
He could feel Mila’s heart beating frantically against his chest. He held her close, waiting for the death curse to claim and drain him, knowing that this embrace would be his last.
Pain, hot and intense, burned at his arm, as he watched the sleeve of the jacket he wore begin to char in the image of the meander pattern she had drawn on his arm.
The pain faded, the screams died. It was done. What used to be three men was now a pile of expensive clothing covered with black goo that smelled much like rotten eggs.
