Karen Chance - Embrace the Night

I glanced at the Consul. She didn't nod or blink or anything so obvious, but something shifted behind her eyes. I really hoped I was reading her right, because if not, I was toast.

I pulled the Codex out of my bodice, and Apollo's eyes immediately focused on it. One last gamble; one last chance. Because I didn't need it, after all; I knew the author. And he really, really owed me one. "Jesse," I said briefly, "do your thing."

"What?" His eyes had hardly left his mother the whole time. I didn't know how much he had understood, but I didn't need him to understand. I just needed him to do what he did best.

"Fry it," I said.

"You cannot circumvent fate, Herophile!" Apollo snarled. "The Circle is weakening, fracturing from within. And when it falls, the spell falls with it! Don't choose the losing side!"

"I'm not." I tossed the Codex into the air. Time seemed to slow down as it flipped once, twice—then a plume of fire thicker than my leg caught it before it even approached the top of its arc. When the flames cleared, there wasn't enough left to make ashes. "And my name is Cassandra."

"You might have done well to remember your namesake's fate, Cassandra," he spit, as two dark mages started toward me.

And the vampires just stood there. I desperately tried to shift out with Jesse, but I was too tired, and nothing happened. At least, nothing normal.

A bubble formed out of nothing and bobbed around just out of reach, heavy and strangely thick, distorting the room in its reflective surface. And then there was another one, smaller than the first, and for a moment the two were bouncing around like helium balloons, colliding and rising and drifting with no particular direction. Until the larger one drifted against the taller mage.

Instead of bouncing off, it clung to his outstretched arm, flowing over the leather of his coat like molasses. And despite my panic, I couldn't seem to look away. Because the sleeve under the bubble was changing.

The leather grew dark and hard and started to crack, and the mage began to scream as the sleeve dusted away like the cover on one of Pritkin's old books. It flaked and crumbled until I could see the arm underneath. Only it wasn't an arm anymore, I realized, as the mage tore away from me. He left behind the tattered remains of the sleeve and the hand clutching my wrist, which was now nothing more than a collection of bones under brown, papery skin.

I flinched and the bones collapsed, hitting the ground with a dry rattle. I looked up to see the mage staring at me, a look of horror on his face as it aged decades in a few short seconds. I gasped, realization slamming into me even before a clear, almost transparent substance peeled away from him. It reformed itself into a bubble that floated off a few feet before popping out of existence. What was left of his body collapsed like a deflated balloon.

I stared at him, remembering the dead mages in the fight with Mircea two weeks ago. I thought they'd been hit by friendly fire, by a spell gone awry. Looked like it hadn't been so friendly after all.

"I see you have had lessons from someone." Apollo was seething. "The traitor Agnes must have had more time with you than I thought. No matter—you cannot defeat them all." And the entire line of mages surged toward me.

I watched them come out of blurry, exhausted eyes. What had that been, anyway, some way of speeding up time within a small area? I didn't know, but one thing was sure: I couldn't do it again. If I hadn't been holding on to Jesse, I'd have been on the floor already.

But the mages didn't reach me this time. The ones on the front row, six in all, were met by a stinging desert storm that blew up out of nowhere and concentrated only on their bodies. They were shrouded in whirling, dancing sand for maybe twenty seconds, and when it dissipated, the only things left to fall to the floor were bones and metal weapons. The rest of the mages were met by angry vampires, half of them Senate members, and the fight was on.

I clutched Jesse and stared at the Consul. "You took your time!"

"If we are to be allies, I had to be certain that you are strong enough to be an asset," she replied serenely. "I assume you have the spell to break the geis memorized?"

"I know who does," I replied.

"And that would be?"

"The mage Pritkin. I…told it to him."

She raised an eyebrow, but didn't call me on the obvious lie. "You had best hurry, then. He was battling another mage in the lobby earlier. I do not think he was winning."

I started for the stairs but was called back by Jesse's cry. "What about Mom?"

I looked at the Consul. "If we're to be allies, I'd think you could trust me."

She looked at me for a long minute, then released her hold on Tami. "Do not disappoint me, Pythia."

The tone was menacing, but it was the first time she'd ever used my title. On balance, I decided it was a positive step. I picked up my skirts and ran.

I woke up in an unfamiliar bed in a posh room painted a soft, muted blue. The curtains were tightly drawn, so I assumed it was daylight outside because a vampire sat beside my bed. "You ran into the wall," Sal said, looking up from buffing her nails. "It was real embarrassing."

I sat up and immediately regretted it. Everything hurt. "I did not."

"Yeah, you really did. Bam! Out like a light. Not that you weren't pretty close already."

I felt my head and, sure enough, there was a big, fat bruise. "I feel like shit."

"You look worse. On the plus side, we won the battle. And what you did with those two mages was pretty cool."

"So, you're saying what? I'm breaking even?"

"Just about." She laid something hard and cold on my chest. "A little girl dropped this off for you. Said to tell you that your necklace is haunted."

I wrapped my fist around the familiar weight and felt the brief energy sizzle that told me Billy was in residence, soaking up energy. "I know," I said tearfully. "The kids are all right, then?"

"I guess." She grimaced. "There seem to be a lot of them around."

"And Françoise and Radella and—"

"What do I look like? The six o'clock news? Ask the mage if you want to know."

"Pritkin! How is—"

"He's fine. After you took a nosedive, the Consul sent Marlowe after him. Turns out, he didn't need the help. He'd already killed the guy."

I swallowed and lay back. Nick. She meant Nick. And Pritkin had had to kill him because I'd been stupid enough to hand Nick the answer to all his dreams. Or at least, he'd probably thought so. I remembered his face when he'd told me that the Codex was the key to ultimate power. Too bad he hadn't understood—the power didn't go to us.

"I need to see him," I told Sal.

"Good." She got up and stretched, and her cat suit told me that I was a pain in the ass in big purple letters. "Because he's really starting to get on my nerves."

"He's here?"

Sal rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. And I don't know how you put up with him."

"He kinda grows on you."

"Uh-huh." She didn't look convinced. "Oh, and one other thing." She tapped a black box beside the bed with a long fingernail. "The Consul left this for you. And she's getting snippy."

I almost asked what it was, before I remembered: Mircea. Sal was right. I wasn't done yet. We might have won the battle, but my personal war remained to be fought.

I nodded and Sal left, or tried to. She'd barely opened the door when Pritkin barged past her. He didn't look like he'd bathed or changed, but his hair was once again an independent entity. "They said you destroyed it!"

"I'm fine," I said, checking under the covers to see that I actually had clothes on. I did, although it was a T-shirt and sweatpants, not the ruined evening dress. I sat up again. "Thanks for asking."