The Cassandra Palmer Collection

by Karen Chance

  Kit’s eyes flicked around, even as his brain told him that it was over, that there was nothing to be done, that this was not going to happen—

  Then he was running and leaping and grabbing for her as she shot past. Because he’d obviously gone mad at some point and hadn’t noticed. But at least it couldn’t get any worse, he thought, as he hit the side of the cask and held on for dear life.

  Until it rolled over and he ended up dangling upside down.

  The only reason they weren’t spotted immediately was the thick smoke cover, but there were alarming gaps in it and a hovering cask with two glowing riders was a bit hard to miss. But, on the positive side, his impact had caused their mad conveyance to change course slightly, allowing them to miss the thick of the fight. On the negative, they were now careening for the west wall of the castle at an alarming rate.

  He tried to grab the witch and jump off, but she wouldn’t budge. It took him a vital few seconds to realize that she’d lashed herself in place with rope, and by then, it was too late. A huge gray expanse filled his vision and, even with vampire reflexes, they were out of time. He threw his body to the side, causing the barrel to spin—right into the wall.

  The impact didn’t break the wood, because it never hit the cold, unforgiving stone. Kit did, at a rate of speed not recommended for vampire-kind. For a moment, it felt like his body had actually merged with the rock, and he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t. Because when the barrel suddenly jerked and pulled away from the wall, it felt like some of his hide stayed behind.

  There was no time to check, however, because they weren’t slowing down. The impact should have absorbed most of the forward momentum, but they hadn’t simply wobbled off a few yards and stopped. Instead, the barrel seemed to have a mind of its own, and it was quite obviously demented.

  Kit held on, fingers clenched white against the wood, as they swooped around the edge of the ramparts, causing several of the guards who had remained at their posts to have to hit the ground face-first. But others retained their dignity—and their ability to fire. The barrel rolled and plunged, weaving in and out of the cover of smoke, as a rain of arrows shot by. One of them grazed Kit’s arm, leaving a stinging track across his skin, while another buried itself in the wood between his spread legs.

  He stared at it wildly—there were certain things he was not willing to sacrifice for queen and country—only to have the witch start kicking at him. It looked like she wasn’t dead, after all, he thought, as a dirty heel smashed into his nose. He grabbed it, trying to see past the blood flying in his face, and caught sight of wild red hair and glaring gray eyes.

  “Let go!”

  “Do you promise not to kick me again?” he demanded thickly.

  “Yes!”

  He released her and she jerked her foot back, only to bury it in his throat a moment later. Kit would have cursed, but he thought there was an outside chance he might never talk again. And then a mage jumped him.

  Their demented ride immediately took them into the open air once more, the mage holding onto one of Kit’s boots as the vampire tried to kick him off. He finally succeeded, losing a fine piece of footwear in the process, only to have another mage jump at them from the ramparts. Kit tensed, ready for a fight, but the barrel suddenly stopped dead and the man sailed on by, more than four feet off course.

  Kit turned his head to grin at the mage and received another kick upside the jaw.

  “I’m trying to help you!” he told the witch indistinctly.

  “It’s a weak charm! You’re going to wear it out!”

  Kit personally thought that would be a vast improvement, particularly when the crazed cask suddenly went into convulsions. He held on, feeling rather like he was trying to break a particularly cantankerous horse, as it bucked and shuddered and shook. And then it suddenly flipped and dove straight for the ground—with him underneath.

  He cursed as he was dragged across the battle, through the sides of burning sheds and over piles of debris. The fire worried him most—he’d lost his cloak and his doublet was quickly being shredded, leaving little barrier between the deadly embers and his skin. Thankfully, the barrel didn’t seem to be the patient sort, and a moment later they were back in the air.

  Kit decided that enough was enough and snapped the rope holding the witch, preparing to leap off with her, only to be smashed in the face by something huge and heavy. It took him a moment to realize that it was the side of the tower. They had circled back to where this whole crazy ride had started.

  And then the equally crazy witch lunged for the spelled window ledge again. “Are you mad?” he asked, grabbing her.

  “Let me go!” Her elbow caught him in the stomach, but he grimly held on.

  “You’ll get yourself killed! The ward—”

  “Is down,” she gasped, struggling. “It expended its energy last time—I can get through now!”

  “You can get trapped now,” he shot back. He didn’t understand enough about magic to fully follow what was going on, but the guards running for the base of the tower were all too familiar. As was the spell that hit him in the back a moment later.

  For an instant, he thought the witch had thrown it, but she wasn’t even facing his way. As soon as the stun loosened his hold, she grabbed the window ledge and, with a wriggle and a twist, squeezed through. Kit slumped over the barrel, staring blearily down at a red-headed dwarf at the bottom of the tower, who was pointing the witch’s staff and glaring menacingly up at him.

  There was little he could do if she chose to hit him again, but instead she glanced behind her at the approaching guards, grabbed the little girl’s hand and towed her away. Kit concentrated on not falling off the barrel, which he might survive, into the forest of guards, which he probably wouldn’t. His head was numb and his fingers clumsy, but he managed to grab the window ledge on the third try and somehow slithered through the opening.

  “You complete ass!” The woman looked at him as he collapsed to the floor. “Did you push it away?”

  “Push what away?” he asked thickly, trying to figure out which way was up. The stunner had been a strong one, and while he could throw it off, it would be a few minutes. And he wasn’t sure they had that long.

  “The barrel!”

  She leaned dangerously far out the window, and cursed. A moment later, he managed to sit up, only to have the blunt end of a pike hit him upside the temple. It was a glancing blow, but it slammed his head back into the wall. He sat there, watching the room spin, as several witches fished around outside the window with the sharp end of the pike.

  They resolved themselves into one madwoman a moment later, about the time he heard the approach of far too many mages on the stairs. Of course, in his condition, one might be enough to finish him off. Kit staggered to his feet and started toward the door, only to have the witch flap a hand at him. “I warded the room!”

  “It won’t hold them for long.”

  “It won’t have to.” She’d hooked the barrel—Kit could see it bobbing outside the window—and was in the process of loading it with the contents of a large trunk. “Well, don’t just stand there!” she said frantically. “Help me!”

  “Help you do what?”

  For an answer she shoved a double handful of wands, charms and bottles of odd, sludgy substances into his hands. He didn’t know what half the things were, but although some of them buzzed, chimed and rang like a struck tuning fork against his skin, nothing appeared to be attacking him. For a change.

  “Put them in,” she said impatiently.

  “Put them in the barrel?” he asked slowly, wondering if he was following this at all.

  “Yes! By the Goddess, are you always this slow?”

  Kit thought that was a trifle unfair, all things considered. But then the door shuddered and he decided to worry about it later. He threw the weapons into the cask, turned and almost bumped into the witch, who was right behind him with another load.

  He sidestepped and dragged the heavy tru
nk over to the window, earning him a brief glance of approval. “I don’t see what good this is going to do,” he pointed out, as they finished cramming the barrel full of the trunk’s contents. “The fight is halfway across the courtyard—”

  “As this is about to be.” The witch started to climb out the window, onto the overstuffed cask, when a spell came sizzling through the air. Kit jerked her back and it exploded against the stone, leaving a blackened scar on the tower’s side.

  “God’s Bones, woman!” he cursed, fighting an urge to shake her.

  “It wasn’t meant to happen this way,” she said, staring blankly at the window. “I planned to have the weapons out before anyone noticed.”

  “They appear to have noticed,” Kit said grimly, looking for other options. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any. The room was small and wedge-shaped, with but one door and window, both of which the Circle was now guarding.

  She rounded on him. “You should have stayed out of it! If you hadn’t jumped on board, they might not have spotted me!”

  “If I had stayed out of it, madam, you would be dead,” he snapped. “And I was not the one sending us careening about like a drunken hummingbird.”

  “Neither was I!” Gray eyes flashed like lightning. “Winnie thought you were attacking me. She was trying to shake you off.”

  “Winnie would be the demented dwarf?”

  “She isn’t either,” the witch said heatedly. “And say that sometime in her hearing!”

  “I will, should I live so long,” he replied, as the door shuddered again.

  The witch stared at it, and then back at the barrel. And then she snatched a wand from the chest and aimed it at the fully-loaded cask.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, grabbing for her arm. But the stun had made him clumsy and before he could knock it aside, their only way out of this death trap went flying off like a bullet.

  “Giving us a fighting chance.”

  “That was our chance!”

  The witch shook her head violently. “None of us have a prayer if they don’t get that gate open!”

  “And now what?”

  “Now this.” She rotated her wrist and the barrel followed the motion, spewing its contents across the smoke-blackened scene.

  “That wasn’t what I meant!” Kit said, giving into temptation and shaking her. “How do you plan to get out of here?”

  She licked her lips. “We fight.”

  “With what? You’ve just sent our only weapons to the other side of the castle!”

  “Not all of them,” she protested, glancing at the pieces that lay scattered across a nearby table. “As long as it’s only guards, we should be—”

  The sound of a heavy fist, pounding on the door, cut her off. “Open in the name of the queen!”

  “She isn’t my queen!” the witch yelled.

  There was a pause, and then another voice spoke. “Then open in the name of the Circle.”

  Chapter Six

  G illian stared at the vampire, who looked blankly back. She didn’t have to ask if he had any ideas. His face was as pale and tight as hers felt.

  Outside, someone’s spell smashed the barrel into a thousand pieces, but too late. There was a huge shout from the crowd as the witches realized what had just rained down on them like manna from heaven. And then the fighting resumed, far more viciously than before.

  It was what she’d wanted, what she’d worked for. There was no way of getting Elinor out of here if the gate stayed closed, and no chance to break through without weapons. But the plan had been to ride the barrel back down before sending it off into the fray. Not to get trapped five stories off the ground with the Circle on either exit.

  “Master Marlowe,” the mage’s voice came again. “We know you are in there with the witch. Send her out and you may leave peacefully.”

  “Peacefully?” The vampire snorted. “Your men attacked me!”

  “Because you were protecting the woman. Cease to do so and we will have no quarrel with you. We promised your lady safe passage and we will honor that agreement.”

  Gillian braced herself, sure he would take them up on the offer. She had friends who would have abandoned her in such a situation, and she wouldn’t have blamed them. And this man owed her nothing.

  But he surprised her. “I have need of the witch,” he said, gripping her arm possessively.

  “Then you can petition the council.”

  “Would that be the same council that sentenced her to death?” he asked cynically.

  “Send her out, or we shall come in and take her.”

  The menace in the man’s voice made Gillian shiver, but the vampire just looked puzzled. “Why?” he demanded. “Why risk anything for a common cutpurse? She is of no value to you, while my lady would reward you handsomely—”

  The mage laughed. “I am sure she would! Do not think to deceive us. A common cutpurse she may have been, but the guards saw what the old woman did. We know what she is!”

  The vampire looked at her, a frown creasing his forehead. “What are you?” he asked softly.

  Gillian shook her head, equally bewildered. “Nobody. I . . . nobody.”

  “They appear to feel otherwise,” he said dryly. Sharp dark eyes moved to the table. “I don’t suppose any of those weapons—”

  “Magical weapons are like any other kind,” Gillian told him, swallowing. “Someone has to use them.”

  “And I’m not a mage.”

  “It wouldn’t matter. Two of us against how many of them? No weapon would be enough to even the odds, much less—”

  A heavy fist hit the door. Gillian jumped and the vampire’s hand tightened reflexively on her arm. It shouldn’t have been painful, but his fingers closed right over the burn the eldest had given her. She cried out and he abruptly let go, as the mage spoke once more.

  “Master Marlowe! I will not ask again!”

  “Promises, promises,” the vampire muttered.

  Gillian didn’t say anything. She’d pushed up her sleeve to get the fabric off the burn, but no raw, red flesh met her gaze. Instead, she found herself staring in confusion at an ancient, graceful design etched onto her inner wrist.

  Her fingers traced the pattern slowly, reverently. It wasn’t finished, with only two of the three spirals showing dark blue against her skin. But there was no doubt what it was. “The triskelion,” she whispered.

  “The what?” the vampire asked.

  She looked down, in the direction of his voice, and found him sprawled on the floor for some reason. Her head was spinning too much to even wonder why. “It’s the sigil used by the leaders of our covens.”

  His eyes narrowed. “A moment ago, you claimed to be of no importance, and now you tell me you’re a coven leader?”

  “But that’s just it, I’m not! At least . . .” Gillian had a sudden flash of memory, of the Great Mother’s hand gripping her arm, of how she had refused to let go even in death—and of the ease with which the elements had come to her aid thereafter. She had put it down to the staff magnifying her magic. But no amount of power should have allowed her to call an element that was not hers.

  “At least what?” he asked, getting up with a frustrated look on his face.

  “I think there’s a chance that the Great Mother . . . that she may have—” she stopped, because it sounded absurd to say it out loud—to even think it. But what other explanation was there? “I think she may have passed her position to me.”

  She expected shock, awe, disbelief, all the things she was feeling. But the vampire’s expression didn’t change, except to look slightly confused. And then his head tilted at the sound of some muttering outside. It was too low for her ears to make out, but he didn’t appear to have that problem.

  “They’ve sent for a wardsmith,” he said grimly. “Before he arrives and they rush the room and kill us both, would you kindly explain what that means?”

  “They offered you safe passage,” Gillian reminded him.

>   “And I know exactly how much faith to put in that,” he said mockingly, hopping up onto the table. “Now tell me.”

  She took a deep breath. “Every coven has a leader, called the Great Mother or the Eldest. In time of peace, she judges disputes, allocates resources and participates in the assembly of elders at yearly meetings. In time of war, she leads the coven in battle.”

  He’d been trying to press an ear against the ceiling, but at that he looked down. “And you agreed?” he asked incredulously.

  “She asked if I was willing to fight for my own,” Gillian said defensively. “I thought she meant Elinor, to get her out of this . . .”

  “So, of course, you said yes!”

  “I didn’t know she was putting me in charge!”

  “That is why the mages marked us,” he said, as if something had finally made sense. “I wondered why they were focused on you when there were dozens of prisoners closer to the gates.”

  Gillian shook her head. “They don’t want me, they want this.” She held out the arm with the ward.

  “For what purpose?”

  “The triskelion gives the Great Mother the ability, in times of danger, to . . . to borrow . . . part of the magic of everyone under her control,” she said, struggling for words he would understand. “It’s meant to unite the coven in a time of crisis, allowing its leader to wield an awesome amount of power, all directed toward a single purpose. It’s why the Circle fears them so much, why they’ve hunted them so—”

  She broke off as her voice suddenly gave out. The vampire frowned and pulled a flask from under his doublet, bending down to hand it to her. She eyed it warily, thinking of Winnie and her brew, but it turned out to be ale. It was body-warm and completely flat, and easily the best thing she’d ever tasted.

  He balanced on the edge of the table in a perilous-looking crouch, regarding her narrowly. “If the ward is that powerful, why did the jailers not take it off the witch once they had her in their grasp?”