by Karen Chance
My foot slipped in something, in someone, but I kept my balance and followed the sounds of metal on metal. The long, polished oak table in the dining room bore muddy boot prints, but it, too, was empty. Behind me, I heard the scuffle of claws on tile and glanced back in time to see the leader’s head stick in through the door. I didn’t think its body would make it through the narrow arch, but I didn’t intend to wait around and find out.
Beyond the dining room lay a library, with tall windows on one wall and a floor-to-ceiling collection of books on the others. Weirdly, it looked almost untouched, the only damage a vase of flowers that had been knocked off a small table. I skirted the mess and went through to the next room, which I did recognize: the small antechamber leading down to the wine cellars.
Shit.
I peered down the stairwell. It gaped up at me like a maw. I really hate dark staircases, and this one had no light at all. I remembered that we’d dined by lantern light; maybe Radu had never had electricity run down there. Great, just freaking wonderful.
A crash behind me made me turn in time to see a huge, birdlike body topple over the library table and crush the fallen vase to splinters. Okay, there were things I hated more than the dark—like the things that prowl in it. I practically leapt down the stairs, slamming the door shut behind me.
The stone was cool beneath my bruised feet, and almost total darkness closed around me, sinking into my bones. I couldn’t see anything while my eyes adjusted, but the stairs were evenly spaced and they went only one place—to the small wine-tasting room where we’d dined. Here, a few oil lamps burned, illuminating the room’s only occupants: the hundreds of bottles that lay on their sides, many broken, leaking Radu’s label all over the stones until I couldn’t tell by sight what was wine and what was blood. I jumped up on the tabletop to get to the other side of the room without lacerating my feet. Behind me, the door at the top of the stairs burst open with the crack of splintering wood. I rapidly pushed on toward the sound of the fight, loud enough now that I knew I had to be close.
There was only one door in the room besides the one I’d just come through. I took it and found a stone corridor lined with barrels. It led, presumably, to the winery next door. The only light came from a far door at the end, which was standing wide open, and the faint glow behind me. Halfway down the rows, Caedmon, still wearing Mircea’s face, battled Drac.
I started forward, so relieved I was almost sick, and fell over something. Or, more accurately, someone. Vivid turquoise eyes met mine, and I breathed in the faint scent of salt and ozone. “Radu.”
“Dorina…”
A rustle of wings reminded me of what was behind me. I grabbed Radu and rolled to the side, putting a large barrel between us and the door. I was pretty sure the leader couldn’t break through solid stone walls, but it might be able to squeeze through the opening.
“A weapon,” I hissed, searching Radu’s body. The only thing I encountered was blood, and the seeping warmth told me that at least some of it was his. “Don’t you have anything?” I demanded, peering over the barrel. The half-breed appeared to be caught in the doorway, but I wasn’t buying it. The one at the top of the stairs was no wider, and it had made it through that. And there had been more than enough intelligence in those yellow green eyes to think up a way to lure me out from behind the protection of the barrel.
A knife was slipped into my hand. It was a lot shorter than I would have liked, but better than nothing. “Stay here,” I said. “I may be a few minutes.”
The leader screeched as I reemerged, loud enough to reverberate off the stone in an eardrum-rupturing echo. I ignored the theatrics and darted out into the hall. It was clear; Drac and Caedmon must have taken the fight into the winery.
As soon as I was in the open, the creature tore loose from the door and came at me in a whirl of claws and wings. I felt a line of fire splash across my arm from that wicked beak; then the tail caught me in the gut and knocked me back against the stone wall, rattling every bone in my body. Before I could move, the creature was on me, a low, ugly sound of fierce delight echoing around us. I lashed out with the knife, almost blindly, and by sheer luck the blow connected. A dark rain splattered my face, blood-warm and slick as engine oil, and I twisted away.
As the impossibly graceful shape flowed upward to the ceiling, I realized that the damn Fey wine hadn’t worn off completely. In a moment of sickening disorientation, I felt the touch of an alien hunger. I could hear it in my mind, half-human thoughts through a haze of fury. Rend, pierce, kill. Hot blood spraying, teeth closing on something weak and soft… tearing the underbelly, where the slickest, thickest taste resides… violet looping entrails and wet sacks of meat, so sweet…
I pushed the alien thoughts aside, panting, and realized I’d lost sight of the damn thing. Lightless black, the creature’s color blended in well with the shadows, and the muffled sound of its claws on the stone ceiling seemed to echo from all directions at once. I couldn’t see anything, but the hairs on the back of my neck started prickling. I learned a long time ago: never argue with instinct. I made a sudden leap behind a barrel at almost the same moment that the creature dropped out of the darkness. It crashed into the barrel but missed me. Burgundy flooded the floor, glimmering faintly in the poor light and sending the pungent odor of wine everywhere. For a second, the creature was caught, its beak buried deep in the wood, its great claws scrabbling for purchase. Then the barrel snapped in two and I vaulted behind the next one in line.
I kept my eyes on the creature until they watered, afraid to blink in case it moved. It sank to the floor, doubling over on itself with the bonelessness of a cat. It sidled a flowing step forward as I worked to get leverage under the massive barrel shielding me. The huge dark outline came closer, blocking out what light there was. I knew I’d only get one chance at this—it was too smart to fall for it twice—so I took my time. I braced my back against the wall and put my feet on the barrel, ignoring the way the muscles in my thighs protested the deep crouch. When I could no longer see anything but blackness in front of me, I pushed with everything I had.
The barrel flew off its holder, crashed into the creature and forced it into the unyielding stone wall opposite. I heard the crunch of bone, then silence, but didn’t trust it. Circling carefully, I reentered the tasting room and grabbed the biggest of the lamps. Taking it back with me, I set it on the top of the barrel, trying to see the thing’s head. I intended to put the knife through at least one of those disturbing eyes.
Then time seemed to stand still as I caught a glimpse of the bloody blade, shining bright with reflected lamplight. It was the knife from my dream, with the family crest half-obscured by blood. Fitting, I thought, my head spinning. But before I could reason it out, Radu screamed my name. I scrambled back to where he lay in the middle of a puddle of his best stock. I felt a grip, hard as steel, on my wrist. “Jonathan has him,” he gasped. His voice sounded funny. “The damn mage hit me with something… I think he believes me dead.”
“It looks like he’s half-right.” I realized why his voice was strange—Radu’s chest was all but gone, the red-streaked white tissue of his lungs clearly visible through his shattered ribs. There was no place for sound to resonate.
He grinned up at me weakly. “Don’t believe it. I’m hard to kill.”
“Radu…”
He gripped my hand, hard. “I never had any honor, Dory. I’ve been sneaky and underhanded and downright dishonorable my whole life. Just like Father.” A quiver of mad laughter bubbled up from his throat, along with a lot of blood. “I only ever… I did one thing right. One thing… don’t let that bastard take him away.”
Before I could answer, the air shivered and broke apart, shattered by a soundless scream. Somewhere nearby, power had been unleashed—a lot of it. Louis-Cesare, I thought, and forgot everything else. I ran.
The winery was equipped with bare-bulb lighting overhead, but it was currently out of commission. A few lanterns burned here and there instea
d, seeming almost unnaturally bright as I exploded out of the dim corridor. The place was larger than I’d expected, on two levels, with the lower housing the stainless-steel vats used for fermentation. They lined the walls like chubby sentinels, their shiny surfaces reflecting my own face back at me multiple times. Up a set of wooden stairs was a catwalk leading to the rest of the building. At the moment it was ringed by faces—Caedmon, Drac and Olga were looking down, not at me, but at the crumpled body in the center of the floor. A mage lay in a twisted pile, like a doll thrown down by a two-year-old. I didn’t need to check to know that he was dead. Unfortunately, he wasn’t Jonathan.
Drac recovered first and lunged at Caedmon, who sidestepped the blow, his sword back up in the space of time between thoughts. Even in the narrow confines of the catwalk his fighting form was perfect, a smooth flow of muscle and sinew, every motion exquisite. Drac’s style wasn’t nearly as pretty, but it seemed effective. Caedmon was bleeding in several places, while Drac was bloody only on one arm. Too bad it wasn’t his sword arm.
My brain was so focused on what was happening ahead that I didn’t notice the faint rustle of wings behind me until the room was suddenly filled with the tuneless howl and fury of the leader. It came at me out of the dark, trailing one wing uselessly, but it didn’t need it in the confined space. I leapt backward, away from those slashing claws, and then I saw them, Louis-Cesare, Jonathan and some flunky on the floor near one of the huge vats.
At almost the same moment, Jonathan glanced up, probably at the sound of the leader slamming into the vat beside me, and our eyes locked. He huddled over the vampire’s unmoving body protectively, like a predator over his latest kill. Before I could move, he drew a knife from his boot and cut a deep gash across Louis-Cesare’s throat.
A white hiss of panic crowded rational thought from my head for a stunned moment, as blood flooded down the pale torso and across my vision. But one thought got through clearly enough: challenge had been made. I couldn’t see if Louis-Cesare still lived; all I knew was that he wasn’t moving, and it was more than enough. Challenge was accepted.
As I started forward, Jonathan threw a hand out, shedding a trail of fox fire in its wake, and something exploded around me in a wave of red sound. Power rolled over me, knocking me to my knees, turning the room hot and vivid and scarlet, until I was drowning in the blood-ripe taste of it. I tried to reinforce my shields, but I couldn’t sense them, couldn’t sense anything but the crash of those waves across my body. Somehow, I’d ended up on my back. I watched Jonathan start to drag Louis-Cesare toward the wooden staircase leading to the upper areas of the winery while my pulse throbbed in my ears and I struggled to breathe.
“Dorina! Behind you!” The shout came from the fight above—Mircea’s voice. I was still so disoriented that it took a moment to realize what he was talking about. The creature had righted itself from its wild ride into the vat and begun to stalk me with quiet, deadly intent. I could see it getting larger, a black hulk reflected in the nearest vat, lurching at me across the floor. But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
Jonathan had hit me with a souped-up disorienting sphere. I’d seen them before, but never been able to afford one. Apparently, the mage had a bigger bank account. I could throw off the usual kind in a matter of minutes, but this version was a wartime weapon used to take out whole groups of mages at once. I had no idea how long the effect would last, and it didn’t look like I’d live long enough to find out.
Above me, blades clashed hard enough to strike sparks, and Caedmon gave way first. Drac pushed him back using sheer force, striking with hammer blows that Caedmon met but didn’t have the strength to return. So much for the Fey’s boast about his dueling ability. I struggled to move, but couldn’t even manage to sit up. I felt a presence behind me, and braced for the attack.
It never came. Olga tossed something over the balcony, and a gray blur hit the floor with a graceful roll. Before I could identify it, the tiny whirlwind was streaking across the floor at me, snarling and snapping useless fangs and launched itself right over my body. It took forever to figure out which way to turn my head to see what was going on. When I did, I was treated to what even a baby Fey can do when it’s really and truly pissed.
Stinky’s long, twiglike fingers had found purchase on the leader’s neck. His tiny body was saved from that vicious beak by the simple method of hiding behind the creature’s own head. Stinky was little more than a fuzzy bump on the vast expanse of leather-like back, safe from beak and claws as he slowly choked the creature to death. It was a great plan, except that the leader realized that the game was up and decided to try to take me with him. Instead of moving forward, in a vain attempt to cross the last few yards to me, it suddenly sprang backward, directly into a huge holding vat. It had dented the thing earlier; now the force of its final assault punctured the steel, letting loose a river of wine that spilled outward in a crimson flood, threatening to drown me.
Finally, the madness I’d been expecting, but which Claire’s presence had prevented, washed over me. Only this time, it didn’t pull me under, didn’t make me black out. I’d never in five hundred years had a chance to find out what happened during one of my fits, other than to examine the carnage afterward. I found out now.
The disorientation didn’t go away, but the animal that lives in my veins was far less affected by it. I didn’t manage to stand, but I didn’t need to stand. Hands and knees got my head above the wine, and propelled me in a drunken crawl toward the staircase. I caught a glimpse in another vat of a crazed-looking creature with matted hair, gleaming fangs and mad, amber eyes staring out of a black-streaked face. I hoped it was me, because I really didn’t want to fight it if not.
Movement made the disorientation worse, as my confused inner ears tried to keep track of new sensory input when they hadn’t yet sorted out the old. Colors, shapes and sounds all ran together around me. I ignored them and stayed focused on Jonathan, who had almost reached the top of the stairs with his prize.
I knew I’d reached the bottom step when I felt old wood under my hands. I dragged myself onto it by feel alone. Jonathan was trying to heave Louis-Cesare’s deadweight the last few feet while fighting off an attack by Olga, who had positioned herself in front of the door leading out. He didn’t see me, but the mage helping him did and panicked. Instead of throwing a spell, which might have worked, he grabbed the nearest lantern. The oil lamp arced through the air, straight at my wine-soaked clothes. I caught it in the air and whipped it right back.
It hit the mage, but glanced off his chest to shatter on the hard wooden slats of the catwalk. The oil spread rapidly over the wine-spattered floor, fire caught and within seconds the circle of boards was a ring out of hell. The mage backpedaled, batting at the tongues of flame that had landed on his shirt and trousers, the soles of his boots aflame and starting to singe. He bumped into Olga, who tipped him over the balcony with a casual motion of one huge hand. There was a sudden whoosh, and the wine-soaked floor exploded in flame.
I caught sight of Stinky, scaling the side of the vat like a little monkey, well ahead of the flames. He leapt from the top of the vat to the catwalk, and turned to stare at me, as if to say, what’s taking you so long? My legs were like rubber, but I made headway using my arms, scraping my palms as I dragged myself slowly upward.
Caedmon had been driven back almost to Olga’s position, and his perfect form was starting to falter. His eyes kept straying to the burning catwalk, and the fire that was quickly spreading their way. Drac, on the other hand, was shining with power. His sword strokes were easy, and he ignored the smoking hot floor beneath his feet as if the threat didn’t exist.
The two of them reached Olga at the same time that I topped the stairs. Caedmon made a misstep and dropped to one knee, Drac surged forward for the kill and Olga’s hand shot out, palm forward, as if she thought she could merely push him back. Drac looked at her, his flat expression saying as clear as words that he was considering how best
to snap her neck. I would have screamed if I’d had the voice—no matter how strong she was accustomed to feeling, there was no doubt Drac was stronger. But then I saw that there was something in Olga’s hand.
It flared to life the instant it touched Drac, and within seconds was so bright I could see it through the flesh of her hand, like sunlight through butterfly wings. Drac dropped his sword and stood staring down at his chest. He looked up at Mircea, and there was something in his eyes for a second, something that looked almost like triumph. A shudder started at his head and ran to his feet, gathering force like a fist about to land. And then he exploded from the inside, raining blood and bits of flesh over everything.
Something fell to the catwalk and rolled off, bouncing down the stairs, boring and dull once again. It hit my foot before disappearing into the flames below—just a tiny piece of stone, gray and unprepossessing. I looked up at Olga, stunned and impressed as hell. I should have remembered: she’d been married to one of the big names in the illegal-weapons trade. Of course she’d have brought a few nasty surprises.
“You outbid me.” It looked like Mrs. Manoli and her cursed gravestone had claimed one last victim. Considering the number of women Drac had murdered in his time, I thought she would have approved. Olga merely shrugged. “Did you see Jonathan?”
“No.” She glanced over the railing, unconcerned. “He not leave. Maybe fall off.”
I didn’t think so. With a final heave, I dragged myself onto the landing. The boards were uncomfortably warm under my hands as I stayed on hands and knees for a moment, panting harshly. Stinky ran down the smoking railing, his long toes clutching the wood as surely as hands, until he reached me. He hopped off, chattering about something in an unknown language, or maybe it was the Fey equivalent of baby talk. He grabbed my hand and started tugging me toward the door and I got the idea, but my head was swimming and I still didn’t trust my legs.
