Siren's Song

by Karen Chance

  John had already known that, but hearing it stated outright made him feel like Atlas holding up the world. But she was right; if the Corps didn’t have a counter spell, there was nothing they could do to help. Whatever happened in this city today, the people on the ground were going to have to deal with it.

  Speaking of which—

  “No!” he said, as her hand moved to end the communication. “I need something else!”

  Betty sighed. “Well, out with it, man.”

  “I.D. First name Dory. Perhaps five two, dark hair, female vampire, appears youthful. Says she’s a fellow operative, sent by the North American Vampire Senate on an investigation to the city.”

  “And you have reason to believe otherwise?”

  “A few,” John said, glancing at the Irin.

  The vampire’s servant had said they were Circle allies, but John had his doubts. The Irin were treacherous beasts, and not to be trusted. And since the vampire was trying to save him, she was likely on his side, whatever that was.

  And the Return to Sender had ended here.

  John thought back to the massacre in the storeroom. Had a group of arrogant humans decided that they could run this scheme better than a powerful, immortal being? Had they turned on the Irin and been mostly slaughtered, but not before he got off an SOS? It would explain why the woman had been carrying so much purchased magic, when she was basically an army all on her own. If John had been planning to fight a squad of dark mages, he’d have had a lorry’s worth of weapons, too.

  Only that it didn’t explain why she’d left John alive. Or why the Irin had been bleeding power even before he arrived here. Or why a vampire would be helping to blow the city sky high with her in it!

  “You didn’t get a full name?” Betty asked, pulling a stick out of what had been a smooth chignon, and was now a dusty mess. John had assumed that it was one of the chopstick-like hair ornaments that some women used to keep a bun in place, but now . . .

  It was looking a little suspicious now.

  The ginger apparently agreed, having just finished digging himself out of the avalanche, only to abruptly burrow back in.

  “Er, no,” John began, before what was most definitely a wand flicked and blasted a three-foot corridor in the dirt.

  “One moment,” Betty said, and crawled off, John supposed toward the set of filing cabinets that had been revealed on the other side of the room.

  After a moment, the ginger’s head poked up again, dirt clumps falling off the helmet. Huge blue eyes stared at John, and then at the newly carved tunnel. The boy swallowed, looking more than a little off-kilter.

  John had an idea.

  “Jonas’s errand is going well, then?” he asked genially.

  The blue eyes blinked. “I . . . suppose so?”

  “You haven’t received any reports?”

  The red head shook, dislodging more dirt. “No, other than Mage Jelani requesting additional help yesterday.”

  “Mage Jelani?”

  “On loan from the Jamii ya Uchawi.”

  John managed to keep his eyes from narrowing—just. The Jamii ya Uchawi were a separate but allied magical authority, also known as the East African Warlocks. Why was Jonas, head of the biggest magical organization on earth, requesting outside help? And then needing additional assistance beyond that?

  “Really. I don’t think I know him,” John said, wondering how to elicit more information.

  He needn’t have worried.

  “He arrived with the group a week ago,” the boy said, his eyes lighting up. “There were at least twenty mages—or so I thought—all in these gorgeous robes and with magical tattoos of a type I’ve never seen before. They looked like liquid gold against their skin, and they constantly changed patterns—”

  “You thought?” John interrupted, because he was running out of time.

  The boy stopped. “What?”

  “You said you thought there were twenty mages?”

  The boy nodded. “It looked like they’d brought some kind of dogs with them, huge, shaggy things in these tremendous jeweled collars. But it turns out that the dogs were also mages! Or, Bouda, I guess, magic workers who can change into hyenas for tracking purposes—”

  “Tracking?”

  “You know, for all those creatures that got out in the recent attack?”

  John blinked.

  He did not know.

  “Well, they’ve been brilliant at chasing them down,” the boy informed him. “We’ve got back almost half so far, and some were pretty fearsome! Guess that’s why the Lord Commander called for help—”

  “No doubt,” John said, thinking about the cache of magical creatures the Corps had rounded up through the centuries, and kept in stasis pods on HQ’s lower levels.

  Some were leftovers from the era of the gods, strange beasts that had no place in the modern world. Others were escapees from the hells or Faerie, who had found Earth a much easier hunting ground—for a while. The latter were often repatriated back home once they were located, assuming their points of origin could be determined. But others had been stuck in limbo for years, even centuries, like the mad war mages that nobody knew what to do with.

  And now they were out?

  “Does the Lord Protector think—” John began, but didn’t get a chance to finish, because Betty was back.

  “Trainee McFadden! Are you discussing things you oughtn’t?”

  “No, sir! I mean, ma’am. I mean, Special Agent Armitage!”

  “See that you don’t. Or you’ll be making coffee and running errands for the rest of your career. As for you—” Annoyed gray eyes turned on John, who felt a strange urge to salute. He repressed it.

  “Special Agent?”

  “Stop interrogating my trainees.”

  “We were merely making conversation—”

  “Spare me. You should lie better than that at your age. As for your request,” a photo was held up.

  John nodded. “That’s her.”

  The cat’s eyes glasses, now sadly smeared and dusty, settled onto an equally dirty nose, causing it to wrinkle. But Betty didn’t take them off, probably because there was nothing to clean them with. “Dorina “Dory” Basarab,” she read, out of a file. “Newly appointed member of the North American Vampire Senate—”

  “Basarab?” No. It couldn’t be.

  “—and trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab—”

  Goddamnit!

  And then something else she’d said registered. “Trueborn?”

  Betty looked up in order to scowl at him. “It means of the flesh, rather than of the blood. She’s a physical daughter instead of a blood slave. And stop interrupting me, mage.”

  John stopped interrupting.

  “Now then, trueborn daughter of Lord Mircea Basarab, currently Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate—”

  “The what?”

  Betty looked at him in exasperation over top of her spectacles. “The newly combined senate of all vampires on earth, for the purpose of fighting the war. I know you’ve been sidelined for a while, mage, but you could pick up a newspaper! Now, may I continue?”

  John attempted to look properly cowed.

  “And designated liaison to the fey,” Betty finished triumphantly. “I therefore have no idea what she’s doing in Hong Kong. Would you like me to check with the senate, so they can tell us to mind our own business?”

  This is our business! John almost said. But didn’t because he knew the senate a little now, and suspected that Betty was right. They weren’t going to tell him a damned thing.

  And because somebody had just snuck up on him.

  “Thanks for the help,” Basarab’s daughter said, reaching over his shoulder. “But we’ll take it from here.”

  The screen went blank.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  S he was exactly like her father, John decided, a few moments later.

  The Basarab woman hadn’t been fooled by his little ruse, likely because dar
k mages didn’t tend to announce their arrival quite so loudly. But she’d played along, wanting to see who he planned to call. Since that had ended up being the Circle’s HQ instead of some den of dark mages, he was now part of the team—for as long as he proved useful.

  Or until she decided to gut him and throw him in a ditch.

  Exactly like, he thought, scowling.

  She had her back to him at the moment, kneeling beside the Irin with her nape unguarded. And the devil of a thing was, he didn’t get the impression that she was deliberately being provocative. She simply didn’t view a war mage as much of a threat, something that would have seemed breathtakingly arrogant if she hadn’t just beaten the shit out of him.

  Even more disturbing, she was back to looking completely human, just a petite brunette with better than average features, a trim figure and dark eyes. The strange amber color was gone, as were the small fangs she’d flashed during the fight. He could have passed her in the street and never looked twice.

  He extended his senses, but the disturbing, skin ruffling feel of her kind was altogether missing. And when John briefly shut his eyes, he saw . . . nothing. The dark wells of power he’d observed back in the tong’s meeting hall were completely absent.

  She read as human, nothing more.

  It was extremely disquieting, especially considering who her father was.

  Mircea Basarab was near the top of John’s most hated vampires list, and might even take the prize. Not because he was one of the “bad” vamps the Corps had had to deal with in the past, since there weren’t many of those anymore. The days of almost constant warfare between vampires and humans were over, and while some masters still got out of line from time to time, they were normally dealt with by the senate—the very body that Basarab helped to rule.

  But frankly, John would have preferred open hostility to Basarab’s easy smile and blithe air of bonhomie. At least with the admitted bad guys you knew where you stood. Basarab could smile and smile and be a villain, as the Bard had put it.

  And stab you through the heart with that same handsome smile on his face.

  Or air of concern, he thought now, watching the daughter, who had her father’s expressive brows, although thinner and more feminine, and his sensual mouth, one that would have done an incubus proud. John compressed his own thin lips and wondered if that was fake concern on her face, as it would have been on her sire’s. Although why she would bother, he didn’t know.

  There was no one here to impress.

  The Irin was still slumped on the floor, slowly eating himself; the vampire’s servant was glaring at John malevolently whilst chewing on a hangnail; and the vampire herself was talking to a frustrated looking healer.

  “Claire. You, uh, might want to hurry.”

  “I know that!” The healer in question had no fewer than three phones under her chin, trying to do a conference call with other practitioners. Not too surprising. A fey wouldn’t know much about healing demons.

  Highborn, John thought, noting the delicate bone structure, unconsciously elegant movements, and bright red hair of the woman in the mirror. The coffee boy with Betty had had red hair, too, but nothing like this. Hers was captured flame, past her waist and with a life of its own, crackling messily around her head as if a campfire had run out of control.

  It matched the expression on her face, which was starting to look a little panicked.

  “Dory, can you stop the bleeding?”

  “I—no.” The vampire shook her head.

  “What do you mean, no? You have to have something you can use for bandages—”

  “Claire, he’s not—” She looked down helplessly. “He doesn’t have blood. Just some glow-y gold stuff I can’t even feel!”

  She stared at the Irin, obviously out of her depth, and John wrestled with a dilemma. He could save the creature, and thereby possibly put the power behind this whole nightmare back into play, or let him die and not figure out how to stop it in time. If the Irin was behind it all, he was both lock and key in one, but John was not confident of his ability to pry anything out of him.

  On the other hand, after learning who the woman was, he wasn’t so sure that the Irin was responsible.

  Mircea Basarab was a bastard, but they were on the same side in the war. And while John might seriously dislike the creature, he had no reason to believe that he’d suddenly turned traitor. Of course, his daughter might be a different story, but in that case, why wasn’t Caleb here?

  The Return to Sender should have kept him close if the target remained on site. Of course, the amount of magic in the air from the storeroom fight might have confused the spell, or disrupted it all together. But there was another possibility. Caleb could be out there, following the real cause of all this, meaning that John was wasting time he didn’t have!

  And then there was the fact that John didn’t like coincidences, and having the Corps’ HQ attacked just last week was a hell of a coincidence. There was no known spell that could hold this many mages in thrall, or the Corps would have found it by now. So, it was something new.

  Or something very old that had just been released from captivity?

  John glared at the fallen Irin, not sure what to do. Not that it mattered. Because the decision had just been made for him.

  “What—no—put that down!” the vampire said sharply, although nobody was holding anything that he could see.

  Except for her. Her right hand was clenched around a knife that John was sure hadn’t been there a second ago. Even weirder, her left hand seemed to be trying to hold it down, and away from the Irin.

  “I mean it! Cut it out!” she snarled.

  “Are you talking . . . to your hand?” John asked, but was ignored.

  “Dorina—”

  “I will fix,” the vampire said, cutting herself off. Only, this time, the voice was different. Deeper, darker, richer, but with an underlying monotone that made it faintly robotic. As if she understood language, but didn’t use it much.

  It matched the expression on her face, which had gone from flushed and animated to calm and eerily composed between one heartbeat and the next. She was looking at the Irin, her total concentration fixed on him, but John felt a shiver run down his spine nonetheless. He’d seen wolves look that way at their prey, just before they pounced.

  “What was that?” he snapped, fear and confusion making his voice harsh. “Who is Dorina?”

  It was her name, but it had sounded like she was talking to someone else.

  “Calm down!” the vampire snapped back, color returning to her face. “I got this!”

  “Do you?” Ray asked, eyeing her warily.

  It was a fair question considering that the hand with the knife was slowly inching closer to the collapsed Irin.

  John cursed silently, and stood there in indecision for a moment. Ray, on the other hand, grabbed onto the weapon to help hold it back, although it didn’t look like he made a difference. That would have surprised John, considering how strong even run of the mill vampires were, if he hadn’t felt the power behind the woman’s slender limbs.

  “Yes!” the redhead suddenly shouted from the mirror. “Yes, thank you!”

  “Yes, what?” the vampire demanded, looking hopeful.

  “Yes, let her do it!”

  “What?” she stared.

  But the redhead was busy talking to someone on one of the phones and didn’t answer, and the wrestling match was not going the vampire’s way. Or perhaps it was. John couldn’t tell, because he didn’t know what the hell was happening!

  But he knew desperation when he heard it.

  “Some help here!” she said, looking up at him.

  John provided some help. More to buy himself time than anything else, because once the deed was done, it was done. Not that he made a difference, either.

  The woman’s left hand had a mind of its own and the power of a bull elephant.

  “What . . . are you?” he demanded, straining, because no one was this stron
g!

  “Dhampir.”

  “Dham—” he did a double take. “They’re myths!”

  “Well, a myth is about to kill our only witness if you don’t put your back into it!” she snapped, causing John to utter an expletive. And then a spell, which seemed to help for a second, the added power causing the possessed hand to slack off. John let out a sigh of relief, his muscles throbbing from trying to hold back an irresistible force.

  One that suddenly leapt toward its goal again.

  “We need . . . to work . . . on our . . . communication!” the woman gritted out, after catching the knife an inch or so before it plunged into the Irin’s chest.

  John just stood there, unsure who she was talking to, but it didn’t appear to be him. Or anyone else in the room. Unless there was someone else there, just not someone he could see.

  His eyes narrowed. Dhampirs were one of the few magical creatures—from earth at least—that he’d never met, mainly because he hadn’t thought they actually existed. A cross between a vampire and a human should have been impossible, since dead sperm don’t swim.

  Trust Basarab to have found a way, he thought, trying not to stare.

  He gave up after a moment, because there was someone else there, not in body but in mind. There was clearly a second consciousness within the dhampir—her vampire half? He didn’t know, but he’d seen possessions that were less unnerving.

  He watched waves of expression ripple over her face, as two different people tried to occupy the same space at the same time. She reminded him of Hong Kong and its dual nature. He knew how that worked for the metropolis, but how did it work in a body?

  Or did it, he wondered, staring at the only internal struggle he’d ever seen greater than his own.

  “No, Dory, listen,” the redhead said hurriedly. “You have to let go—”

  “I let go and she’ll kill him!”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” the healer said. “He’s dying anyway. By the time they start fading, it’s usually too late—”