by Karen Chance
I stared at the latter for a second, unable to keep up. And then I noticed: the crowd was still audible, but muffled. And the dazzling lights were outside a large viewing window, like a skybox at a stadium. And the well-dressed group around the buffet was looking at me with polite surprise, but no more. The most I received for standing there covered in black blood and panting at them was a slightly raised eyebrow.
And that was from Adra, the head of the demon council, who was looking as blandly agreeable as always.
“Is there a problem?” he asked pleasantly, right before Marco bellowed and went for him, because he’d somehow come along, too.
I tried to stop him, but a master vampire moves like lightning, and I didn’t even get my mouth open before he passed me in a blur of motion.
And then froze, midleap, held in place by nothing I could see, because Adra hadn’t so much as moved.
For a moment, everything stopped. There was no sound, other than the ocean crash of the crowd, no movement except for the thing that two master vamps had been trying to kill for the last minute wriggling off the end of Marco’s knife and scurrying away, no anything but a vampire suddenly realizing he wasn’t in Kansas anymore and rolling shocked dark eyes over at me.
I licked my lips.
And then Rian burst in from a door I hadn’t noticed, wild-eyed and frantic, her long dark hair tangled about her beautiful face. “They’re killing him!” she told me, grabbing my hand.
And we ran.
The sound of the crowd slapped me in the face when we burst out of the main room onto a balcony, a wide, plush thing like the suite behind us, and unlike the rest of the run-down stadium. But when I crossed the expanse and hung over the railing, I saw the same thing I had before, only from a better vantage point: Casanova in the middle of a sea of sand, being chased by half a dozen different kinds of creatures, and naked, bleeding, and defenseless—or as much as a master vampire ever is.
Which was looking pretty damned defenseless right now.
Rian stared down at him, her hand clenched, her face frantic and furious and terrified, as he narrowly avoided being skewered by what looked like a giant beetle. It was the same one that had almost steamrollered me, and I’d been wrong about the size. The legs were as big as cranes, the shell was the size of a house, and it must have been diamond hard, because the next second Casanova vaulted over the top of it and brought down two joined fists with a master’s strength behind them.
And didn’t even dent it.
The creature had better luck, flinging him off with a twisting motion. And the legs, which might have been huge but were really freaking fast nonetheless, started slamming down, here, there, everywhere, which was pretty easy considering that the thing had six. And Casanova was doing what looked like interpretive dance but was more like fleeing for his life while the creature’s movements threw up huge spouts of sand, half hiding him from view.
And then they did hide him, as the thing stopped trying to skewer him and started trying to bury him instead, crashing down against the soil and flinging up great gobs of sand on top of its shell with every leg it had.
Until I shifted it to the other end of the arena, in a move that sent me to my knees, whether because of the thing’s size or because we weren’t on earth anymore, I wasn’t sure.
“Cassie—Cassie!” somebody was yelling, I think it was Rian. Possibly because my blurry vision showed me that I’d just expended a lot of power for very little result. I stared through railings as Casanova clawed his way out of the sand, his usual Spanish good looks dirt-streaked and wild-eyed, although the latter might have had something to do with the fact that the massive beetle thing was already on its way back toward him.
So I flipped it, and oh God, not good, not good, not good, I thought as a wave of crippling nausea hit like a sledgehammer, hard enough to drop me the rest of the way to the floor. But I had to get it together, because something was happening. And I doubted it was anything good, because when was it ever? And because the crowd seemed to like it.
The upswell of sound from below was almost deafening even this high up, adding to the confusion in my head and the pounding in my ears and the sickening queasiness in my gut when I grabbed Rian’s hand, trying to get back to my feet.
And discovered that it was Adra’s hand instead.
“Impressive,” he told me, hauling me up as easily as if I weighed nothing.
He looked like a pudgy banker today, in a nicely pressed gray suit that I was seriously considering hurling all over.
But I didn’t. Because I could see the arena over his shoulder, and . . . and it hadn’t been so bad, after all. I let go of his hand to grab the railing, in time to see a bunch of the little bug things attack the big bug thing. Along with some other things, half of which made my brain hurt to look at them, because I guess the glamourie couldn’t do anything with them, either. But they suddenly surged forward, having been hugging the sidelines, waiting for scraps, but were now seeing an opportunity for a feast instead.
Because the big beetle was still on its back, rocking side to side, trying to get back up but not having much luck. Maybe because it was being chowed down on by what had to be a hundred other creatures. And I guess the belly wasn’t as hard as the shell, because they were chowing fast.
I looked away, relieved and sickened in about equal measure. Until I caught sight of Casanova running back this way, looking up at us and yelling something I couldn’t hear over the crowd. But I guess Adra did, because he glanced over as well, and shook his head.
“Denied.”
And I guess Casanova heard that, because he started waving his arms furiously and screaming something I still couldn’t hear but didn’t have to.
“What—what’s denied?” I asked as Rian stared at Adra with open hate on her face.
“He killed it,” she spat. “You said he could go if—”
“He killed nothing,” Adra told her, smoothing down the small moustache he’d acquired since I last saw him, I guess trying new ways of dressing up the pudding face. It was as blond as his hair, though, so didn’t make much of a difference. “He was saved by the Pythia, if only momentarily.”
“Momentarily?” I asked, looking back and forth between them. “Wh-why momentarily?”
“But it’s dead!” Rian shouted. “That’s what you wanted, entertainment for your creatures—”
“This isn’t about entertainment,” Adra said.
“—and you’ve had it! Now let him go!”
“When he has defeated an opponent on his own. He broke the law, invaded a sovereign state—”
“What state?” I asked, suddenly seriously afraid that I knew.
The almost invisible brow went up again. “You were there.”
“Rosier’s.”
I received a slight nod that I didn’t need, because getting Pritkin out of his father’s court had required getting into said court in the first place. And that had required Rian, who, as one of Rosier’s succubi, knew it like the back of her hand. But, unfortunately, the reverse was also true.
She was known by sight to too many people, who might have guessed what we were up to if they’d glimpsed her. So she’d needed to travel inside her host’s body, said host being the unfortunate Casanova, where she was all but invisible. And she’d said she could protect him, that he wouldn’t be in any danger, and we’d both believed it—
And now we’d just gotten him killed.
No. I had gotten him killed. I had put the damned mission in place; I had convinced Rian to help; I had ordered Caleb, a war mage friend of Pritkin’s, to drag Casanova literally to hell and back, kicking and screaming and protesting the whole way. And now he was paying for it.
“He did it on my orders,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. Because I doubted demons liked weakness any better than vamps.
“Yes!”
Rian said, latching on to the comment. “Yes! The Pythia gave the order, and she just defeated your creature! This is over!”
“This is not over,” Adra said mildly.
“You’re supposed to be helping me find my acolytes,” I pointed out, trying to keep my voice level. “Not depriving me of an ally.”
“A poor ally.”
“He managed to raid one of your courts.”
“Yes.” Adra glanced over the balcony. “I am sure he was a huge help.”
I didn’t look to see what Casanova was doing. I probably didn’t want to know. “Then why punish him?”
Adra shrugged. “Process of elimination. The prince was punished already. You are a needed ally, and in any case, your power makes any such contest . . . unequal. Rian informed her master of your intent, and thereby won a pardon. And the war mage you used—” He snapped his fingers.
“Caleb Carter.”
“Yes. He is protected by a treaty we have with the Silver Circle. And even were he not, the case could be made that he was functioning as your bodyguard and was therefore under your control.”
“And Casanova? Why can’t he be considered a bodyguard?”
Gray eyes looked behind me. I turned to see Casanova fleeing from a group of tiny bug things, none bigger than the size of my hand, that were hopping along the dust cloud behind him, nipping at his heels.
I turned back to Adra and tried another tactic. “Why punish anyone? No harm was done. Rosier isn’t even—”
“I beg to differ. Harm has been done. Our borders are inviolable; have been so since the Sufferings following your mother’s time, when vast armies held them at great cost. The armies are no more, long since disbanded. But the idea remains. To allow anyone, even you—especially you—to violate their sovereignty with impunity would be to challenge that idea, and could lead to untold misfortune.”
“You’re going to make an example out of him,” I said, because of course they were.
I felt a lead weight drop into my stomach.
“We’re allies.” I tried again. “New ones. As a gesture of friendship—”
“But I am already making such a gesture, am I not? And it is not only I who have a say. The council will be hard-pressed to find a reason to return to you the one with whom you breached our borders.”
I swallowed.
Yeah.
That could be tricky.
“Cassie, please!” Rian said. And then whirled on Adra. “How can you—”
But he held up a hand. And focused somewhere behind my head. “Ahh,” he murmured.
I would have turned around, but I didn’t really want to know what the head of the demon council thought worthy of that sound. And because I was trying to scan the arena, to see if there was anything Casanova could possibly use as a weapon. But I guess those weren’t allowed. Because all I saw was the huge oval, terribly pitted now, and filled with scattered scurrying things. And a massive gate of iron-banded wood at the far end, which was currently closed but which several lumbering creatures were plodding toward from either side.
I didn’t want to know what was behind that door.
I really didn’t.
Even more, I didn’t want to fight it. Adra could probably keep this up all day, but I couldn’t, and neither could Casanova. We needed another solution. We needed one now.
What we got instead was more trouble.
A slender wrist draped over the balcony railing, right beside mine. It was honey-colored and elegant, with emerald green nails, and had a viper curled around it like a bracelet. The snake flicked a slender black tongue out at me.
I closed my eyes.
“I don’t need this,” I whispered.
“And may I ask,” a familiar, sibilant voice asked, “what ‘this’ is?”
Chapter Thirty-three
I turned around and saw what looked like the whole damned Senate milling about the balcony, looking a lot less blasé than usual. Including Mircea, darkly handsome in a navy business suit, and standing behind the queen with the snake fetish. He looked slightly surprised, which was the vamp equivalent of gob-smacked, but right then I didn’t care.
Because why didn’t I think he’d gotten here through a portal?
“Wrong number?” I asked sharply.
“Right number, wrong address,” he murmured, all but confirming it. They must have planned to drag me into some kind of metaphysical teleconference via the link in Mircea’s brain, but got dragged somewhere themselves instead.
Good, I thought viciously. Maybe it would teach them something. Although judging by her highness’s expression, I doubted it.
The Senate’s leader must have been on casual mode today, because she’d swapped the robe of writhing serpents she usually wore to freak out the humans for a flowing caftan in bright green silk. It set off her dark, sloe-eyed good looks, and would have made her look almost normal except for the twin living bands wrapped around her like a belt.
She usually looked bizarre.
She usually looked terrifying.
Right now, right here, she looked pedestrian, ordinary, almost dull.
Except for the eyes, which were sparkling and open and lacking the usual baleful ennui she reserved for most of life, but especially for me. Right now they were animated, and curious, and swiftly taking in the scene. Like a child on Christmas morning, which somehow managed to be even more creepy than usual.
I suppressed a shudder and tried to move away, but a bejeweled hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, swift as a snake.
Wonder where I got that analogy, I thought, as another of her little pets hissed at me.
I didn’t hiss back, but it was close. It was damned close, especially when those green talons started eating into my skin. I was suddenly glad that I was almost tapped out, because if I’d had the power to spare, I swear to God—
“Where are we?” she asked, slightly less politely.
“Where does it look like?” I snarled, which I was probably going to pay for later, but damn it, I didn’t need this right now!
“Cassie!” Rian said urgently.
“I’m thinking!” I told her. And I was. But mostly what I was thinking was that we’d just gotten Casanova killed.
And then I knew we had, when the crowd went crazy, the wash of noise like a physical blow. And the huge doors at the end of the arena opened with a sound like tearing metal, cutting through even the cacophony going on below. I gripped the railing, praying for something doable, something easy, something, anything, that Casanova might actually be able to handle.
Annnnnd that was not it.
“The fuck?” I said in disbelief.
“No,” Rian whispered, her hand gripping the rail tight enough to bend it.
“How wonderful,” the consul said, leaning over the balcony like a girl at a parade, trying to see better.
I seriously considered shoving her in.
But then Casanova was running back this way, no longer trailed by anything, because everything else in the arena had just dove for cover, a hundred little creatures burrowing under the sand all at once, melting away like they had never existed. Leaving him alone in the huge space except for the gigantic thing that had just crushed one of the guards under a massive claw, with a crunch that echoed off the stands and through my head. And then I was grabbing Adra by the front of his natty gray jacket.
“Why don’t you just kill him? You may as well!”
“Cassie.” It was Mircea’s voice in my ear, and his hand on my shoulder, but right then I didn’t care.
“The contest rules are clear,” Adra told me.
“This isn’t a contest, it’s slaughter!”
“And the selection is random—”
“It’s bullshit! Give him something else! Give him a chance—”
Soft gray eyes looked down
into mine, but they weren’t angry. They were watchful, curious, intent. As if he couldn’t quite figure me out.
And then Rian pushed between the two of us, her beautiful face distorted by pain and fear and the same impotent rage I felt. “Let me go to him!”
Adra looked at her. “You have been pardoned.”
“I renounce it!”
“We can do that?” I asked, my hands clenching on Adra’s lapels.
Like Mircea’s on my shoulder. “No!”
“Can we?” I asked urgently, staring up into bemused gray eyes. Because I might be able to—
And then I was being jerked away, hard enough to almost send me to the floor, but for the arms caging me.
“Mircea,” the consul said.
“She isn’t facing that thing!”
“That’s not your call!” I told him, furious. “I got him into this—”
“And now you’ll stay out of it!”
“I don’t answer to you!”
“You are tired,” Adra said, watching me. “And your power is weak here. You have defeated one challenger, but I assure you, this one will not be so easy. Do you truly believe you can take it?”
“I know damned well Casanova can’t!”
“And you would risk yourself for him?”
“Yes!”
“He is not your kind; not your responsibility.”
“I’m making him mine!”
“Why? We were surprised that you would risk yourself to save your court, but they are yours: your power base, your coven. They give you strength as well as prestige. Allowing them to die would cut at both—”
“Is that honestly all you can see? All you can understand?”
“It is all most people understand. Why risk yourself for someone who is not yours? Why not sacrifice him and save yourself?”
“He’s a friend—”
“You lie. You don’t even like him.”
“How do you—”
“We know much. We understand much. We do not understand you.”
“What is so damn hard?” I said, looking down at Casanova—right down at him. Because he wasn’t running anymore. He wasn’t fighting. He was just standing there, below the balcony, staring up at us. Because he knew this was the only chance he had.
