by Karen Chance
But Rhea didn’t have an answer for that.
“Did you want to see me about something?” I asked, after a minute. And turned back to the bureau to jerk on a fresh tee.
She nodded. “The children. They’re . . . I think it would do them good to see you. That you’re all right, I mean.”
I glanced at the bloody pile of clothes on the floor. Yeah. Maybe should have thought to shift to the bedroom.
“Mage Royston was popular,” she said, following my gaze. “He used to do magic tricks for the girls.”
“A Circle member would be good at that.”
She shook her head. “He was terrible. His magic . . . It wasn’t very strong anymore, so he did the human kind.”
“You mean the fake kind.”
She nodded. “Card tricks mostly . . .”
“And the girls liked that?”
“They liked trying to figure them out.”
Too bad I didn’t know any.
I finished dressing and followed Rhea back into the living room. The door to the foyer was closed now, but the girls were still staring at it. And looking grim, anxious, shocked, and stoic by turns, depending on their natures. But none of them was looking all that great—or that well cared for.
They’d had enough to eat; I knew Marco well enough to be sure of that. But their clothes were starting to look grubby, which I guess wasn’t surprising since they’d been wearing the same things for two days now. And damn it, this was no place for children!
I had a brief moment to wonder if they wouldn’t have been better off with Jonas, before the first one noticed me. And the look of joyous relief on her face made me feel ashamed. These girls had been brought up to have their whole lives revolve around the Pythia, only to have her abruptly snatched away from them. And then to almost die when her acolytes tried to kill them. And then to get dragged off here, into the midst of a bunch of what they probably thought of as monsters, in the service of another Pythia they didn’t know and who was never here anyway.
If I were them, I’d have hated me.
But instead, they pushed past the vampires to get to me, a wave of grubby white gowns and reaching hands, touching me, pressing around me, worried about me instead of what had happened to them. And what, from their perspective, was still happening. The knot of shame in my breast grew exponentially, but so did something else. The same something that had flared when that damned acolyte grabbed Rhea. A fierce, almost frightening possessiveness.
They were mine, this ragtag group of girls, and I wasn’t turning them over to Jonas. Wasn’t seeing them broken apart, wasn’t having them sent off to those damned schools the Circle ran, wasn’t giving them into the care of people I didn’t know and sure as hell didn’t trust. I was going to take care of them; I was going to figure it out. They were my court, and . . . and that’s all there was to it.
But I couldn’t tell them that.
Suddenly, I couldn’t seem to say anything.
And then Fred came to the rescue.
“No, no, no, I got this,” he said, jogging in from the lounge, and talking to someone over his shoulder.
“Got what?” I asked warily as he turned to me and grinned. And shoved out a fistful of floppy.
It took me a second because of the color. “Balloons?”
“Picked ’em up at the grocery store,” he told me proudly. “Thought they might come in handy.”
“The grocery store?”
“Yeah, they had a sale. Practically giving them away. Don’t know why.”
Because they’re depressing, I didn’t say, since he was only trying to help. But honestly, who bought black balloons? Fred, apparently, and now he was blowing them up.
“Trust me . . . I used to do this . . . all the time,” he told me in between breaths. He soon had a cluster of long, skinny tubes, which he then proceeded to tie together using vampire speed. One second, there was a depressing bunch of cylinders, and the next . . .
It was worse.
The kids were glancing at each other, like they didn’t know what to make of it, either. But Fred looked hopeful. And then he started moving his creation up and down, so that the tortured appendages hanging off either side flopped about in a dying-bird sort of way. One of the littlest girls made a sound and hid her face.
“Fred,” I began, trying to figure out how to say please stop without hurting his feelings.
And then one of the guys solved the problem for me. “What the fu—uh, heck?”
“Leo,” Roy said, frowning at him from beside the bar.
“What? I said heck. And look at that thing.”
“What is it?” another guy asked. “A spider?”
“A bat, obviously,” Fred said. And flapped it about some more, on the theory, I assume, that he just hadn’t been vigorous enough the first time.
“Freakiest thing I ever saw,” the vamp mumbled.
“Freakiest?” Roy dropped ice into a glass. “You haven’t been here long enough.”
“Then why does it feel that way?”
“I have more,” Fred said, finally realizing that his distraction was not a hit. “A lot more. I used to make these all the time—well, the pig bladder kind—”
“But were any of them any good?” Leo asked.
Fred stopped to glare at him, while Roy assessed his latest attempt. “What is that?”
“It’s a clown!”
“Oh, demonic clown. Great choice.”
The little girl started sobbing softly.
“Hang on a minute,” I said, rooting through a side table and pulling out a pack of battered old tarot cards.
They were grubby and creased and kind of pathetic-looking, and I should have replaced them years ago. But they’d been a gift from someone I cared about, so I just never had. Plus, they had a charm on them I thought the girls might like. It had proven oddly accurate at reading the atmosphere around a situation and giving advice in the form of a pertinent card.
And sure enough, practically as soon as I touched them, one popped up.
A black one.
A black one with a leering devil on it.
Well, shit.
I tried to stuff it back in the pack before it made a bad matter worse, but it was slick and my hands were fumbling and it got a good start on its speech first: The devil card signifies that the querent feels stuck or restricted in life, bound like the figures in chains on the card’s surface. But while these bonds may seem unbreakable, a closer look shows that the chains are in fact quite loose, and that the querent therefore has it in his power to slip free of them whenever he chooses. The people on the card are not bound by real chains, but by fear, lack of hope, and lack of belief in their own abilities. The devil card teaches that, as long as you are willing to allow others to exploit and restrain you, they can and will. But no one has power over you unless you give it to them. And what you give, you can take back again.”
The card went on, burbling happily about the history of the tarot and the card’s reverse meaning and God knew what else. I wasn’t listening anymore. I was staring at the devilish figure on the front, and feeling like the clue bat had just smacked me across the head.
“Cassie?” someone said, and I looked up to see Rhea staring worriedly at me. Along with the vamps. And the kids, except for the one who was still sobbing quietly, because I hadn’t done jack about that, had I?
And I still didn’t. Because a moment later, Fred was being muscled aside, and Marco knelt in front of the crying child. And pulled a playing card out from behind her ear.
She blinked at it, and then at him, and then went back to crying. But she was still watching through her fingers when it suddenly went up in flames. Several of the vamps took a rapid step back, causing Marco to sneer at them. And to let it burn down almost to his fingertips before he threw it into the air, where it dis
integrated into powder.
Only to pull it out from behind the girl’s ear again, whole and new and not even singed.
Her mouth made a perfect O of astonishment as she looked from him to the air and back again. Marco sat back on his heels, looking satisfied. Until she reached over and pulled the original card out of the pocket of his shirt.
He met my eyes.
“Magical children,” I said.
“Yeah. They always surprise you.”
“Marco—”
“Do what you gotta do,” he told me bitterly. “Just come back, all right?”
I nodded and pulled Rhea into the hallway.
Chapter Thirteen
The plaster had been vacuumed up—mostly. The guys didn’t let housekeeping in when we were under siege, I guess afraid of a mage posing as a cleaning lady, so they’d taken care of it themselves. Which explained why the corners were still white and glass shards glittered here and there on the Berber.
But Rhea wasn’t looking at them.
She was looking at the bullet holes.
Yeah, she’d had a baptism by fire these last few days, hadn’t she? I knew what that was like. But I wasn’t about to make it any better.
“Would it work?” I asked.
“Lady?” Her eyes moved back to mine.
“Could the acolytes shift Ares here, from beyond the barrier?”
“I . . . What?”
“Elias said they were trying to bring back the gods, and we know they were after the Tears. I’m asking if they could be connected.”
She shook her head. “I . . . don’t think so.”
“Are you sure? Even if they all worked together?”
She shook her head, harder this time. “The power is limited to earth. Apollo made sure of that, so it couldn’t be used against him or his kind. I don’t see how it could now be used to save them.”
“I’ve used it outside of earth.”
“You are the child of Artemis, Lady; the acolytes are not.”
“But we use the same power. I just access it better—for now. But if they get their hands on enough Tears . . .”
“Lady Phemonoe had full access to the Pythian power, and she was well skilled in its use,” Rhea pointed out. “Yet she told me once that she did not dare go beyond the confines of earth. The power is chained here; it cannot leave this world.”
“But that’s what I’m telling you. It did leave. At least a few times—”
“Yet, if you think back,” she said tentatively, “were you not in places close to earth on those occasions? Places accessible through portals or the ley line system?”
“Well, yeah. But that would be everywhere!”
“Not everywhere. You may be able to access your power through a portal, if you are close enough, or even through the ley lines, if our time line and that of the world to which you have traveled are somewhat aligned. But even then, it will not be reliable. The lines fluctuate, disrupting the flow; time lines go in and out of synch; and portals are notoriously—”
“Yes, I know. My power doesn’t work well outside earth, but it can work—”
“Through a conduit. But the ouroboros is not a conduit, Lady; it is a wall. Your mother’s spell was designed to keep things out, not to let them pass through. It is the opposite of a portal.”
I started to say something, but then stopped, because she had a point. “So you’re saying they couldn’t do it.”
“I am saying . . .” She licked her lips. “I am saying that I do not think they can. It seems to me, if such a thing were possible, Myra would have already done it for Apollo.”
And, okay, I couldn’t argue with that. Apollo had tried to bypass the barrier my mother put in place by overloading a ley line, and had ended up barbecued. I didn’t think he’d have chosen that option if he could have just had his pet acolyte shift him here.
“So what do they want this for?” I held out the bloody bottle.
Rhea just stared at it. She still looked stunned, pale, and more than a little freaked out. So much for an easy first assignment.
We don’t get the easy jobs. . . .
I’d said it to Pritkin once, and it had never felt more true. The Pythia’s position sounded so powerful, so invincible. What couldn’t be fixed with the ability to manipulate time?
A lot of things, as it turned out.
But maybe one of them could be fixed another way.
I went back to the bedroom and started rummaging around under the bed for my sneakers.
“I need you to talk to Casanova,” I told Rhea, when she followed me in. “Tell him I want rooms for the girls and I want them now. This place is too dangerous for kids.”
“I—yes. Yes, of course.”
“And make it a suite—or three. We don’t need the littler ones figuring out how to turn a doorknob and wandering around the damned hotel.”
“Yes, that sounds like a very good—”
“And get them some clothes; they haven’t changed in days.”
“I will, of course, but—”
“And make them normal ones. The less they look like initiates, the safer they’ll be!”
“Of course. I mean, I will, that is, I would, but—”
“But what?”
“It’s just that . . .”
“It’s just that what?” I asked, coming up with two sneakers, but they were both for the left foot.
“It’s just that there’s a problem with the money,” she admitted.
“What problem?”
“The . . . fact that we don’t have any?”
I looked up at her, one arm still under the bed, trying to snare another shoe. “You’re telling me the Pythian Court is broke?”
“No.” She looked shocked. “The court has plenty of money; we just can’t access it.”
“Why not?”
“The Circle locked the accounts. I had to borrow money from your chief bodyguard for groceries—”
“From Marco?”
She nodded. “I didn’t know what else to do. The accounts were accessible to the Pythia and her heir. But the Lady is dead, and Myra is—”
“Also dead.”
“—and Mage Marsden, that is, the Lord Protector, said the accounts were frozen until a new Pythia was proclaimed—”
“Which I have been.”
“—but he hasn’t released the accounts yet.”
“Why does he even have them?” I asked, finally coming up with matching shoes. “That’s court business!”
“It’s supposed to be,” Rhea agreed. “But because of the unsettled state of affairs at the time of the Lady’s death, she left him the pass codes to give to her successor—”
“And instead, he decided to use them as blackmail, to get the court back where he wants it.”
“I—don’t know,” Rhea said, but she was frowning. Because yeah, that’s the way it looked.
“So test a theory,” I told her, jerking on the sneakers. “Ask him for them and see what he says.” She nodded. “In the meantime, surely the court has some money? It’s been running on something for the last three months!”
“Our main bills were automatically paid by an arrangement with the banks—electricity, water, that sort of thing—”
“And food?”
“We had accounts with local grocers—”
“And incidentals? There had to be some cash on hand!”
“Yes, there is. Was. Until it went up in—”
“Smoke, along with everything else.”
She nodded.
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t getting a headache so much as realizing that I already had one, a pounding, pulse-hammering explosion behind my eyes. “Then tell Casanova to give them rooms anyway. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with me. Tell him he’
ll get his money as soon as we get ours.”
“Yes, Lady.”
“And call Jonas and explain what happened.” She grabbed a pad and pencil off the nightstand and started scribbling. “Tell him what Elias said, and have him send us whatever Tears he may have on hand. We’re best suited for guarding them.”
“I—yes. We are. But he may not agree after—”
“No, because that would be too easy,” I snarled.
Rhea was also looking a little overwhelmed and more than a little frazzled. Probably wondering how she was going to tick all the things off her list and also take care of all those kids. And it wasn’t like she was going to be getting much help from me, or the bachelor brigade.
“You must have had help with the kids in Britain, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “A daytime staff—cooks, housekeepers, tutors—”
“Nannies?” I asked hopefully.
But Rhea shook her head. “The acolytes and the older initiates were expected to help with the younger girls, and assist with their training. But—”
“But you ended up doing the lion’s share,” I guessed.
She nodded.
But that wouldn’t work here. I had only one acolyte, and I needed her for other things. Like training me.
“There’s a woman named Tami,” I told her. “Tamika Hodges. The front desk can put you in touch with her. She’s staying here at the hotel with some kids. Give her a call, and ask her to help you.”
“But . . . if she already has children of her own . . .”
I thought back to the brood Tami had when I first met her, which had numbered almost this many. Yet she’d still been out, scouring the bus stops and the soup kitchens, the parks and the homeless shelters, looking for magical runaways to take in.
She’d taken me in and calmed me down when I hadn’t trusted anybody. When I’d been skittish and afraid and prone to jumping at my own shadow, she’d somehow made me part of her not-so-little family. You want to talk about magical? Tami was freaking magical.
“Call her. You’ll be surprised.”
Rhea nodded, looking hopeful.
“And if Jonas won’t give us the Tears, tell him to lock them up. Somewhere secure. Somewhere even the acolytes can’t get to them!”
