Karen Chance: Embrace the Night

"Tried what?" I asked Pritkin.

"The counterspell. I cast it for you in France. Twice."

I stared at him, Casanova momentarily forgotten. "That was a fake. It didn't work."

"It didn't work," he agreed, "but it wasn't a fake."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that all three of them are together right now!" Casanova raged. "Who knows when we'll get this opportunity again? Get up, get down there and talk some sense into that witch!"

I stared at Pritkin. "It has to work. We've already tried everything else!"

He just shook his head. "I cast it on you not only in France, but here in our time as well. It failed. That is why I have been searching for an alternative."

"Well?" Casanova demanded.

"And?" I asked Pritkin frantically.

"Nothing. I do not understand why the geis is behaving this way. It shouldn't still be there—it can't still be there. And yet it is."

"Are you even listening to me?" Casanova all but screamed.

"Yes!" I snapped. "The Graeae are downstairs, all together, and you want me to trap them before—" I stopped, staring at him.

"Yes. So let's go." He hauled me to my feet.

"My thoughts exactly," I said, grabbing Mircea's trap and Pritkin's hand.

"Where are we going?" Pritkin asked, looking confused.

"To end this!"

We reappeared in Mircea's suite at MAGIC. It was two weeks in the past, just after I'd dropped him off following our time in Paris. I'd concentrated on him instead of a place when I shifted, because I hadn't known for certain where he'd be. But I hadn't counted on catching him coming out of the shower.

"Dulceata?. Always a pleasure," he said, unselfconsciously toweling himself off. He glanced at Pritkin. "Why?" he asked, obviously pained.

"He isn't here to fight. We need to cast a spell on you," I said quickly, and then realized that maybe I should have worked up to it a little more.

Under a lot of wet brown strands, an eyebrow raised in a sardonic arch. "You do not know magic, Cassie. Therefore I assume that what you meant to say is that he needs to cast a spell."

Wow. Less than thirty seconds and we were already to the «Cassie» stage. I wondered how long it would be before we hit Cassandra. Before I could say anything, four large vampires rushed into the room, guns drawn and scowls on their faces. They stopped inside the bathroom door, and stood there, looking blankly from Mircea to Pritkin to me.

Pritkin drew a gun, but Mircea didn't react, except to drape a towel around his waist. "Yes?" he asked politely.

"The wards," one of the vamps said, a little awkwardly. He was taller and more muscle-bound than the others, but judging by the energy he gave off, also probably the youngest. "They indicated an intruder." He scowled, his eyes on the gun in Pritkin's hand.

"They were mistaken," Mircea said smoothly, as if we weren't standing right there.

Three of the vamps immediately bowed. "Our apologies, my lord," one of them murmured formally. "I will have the wards checked before any erroneous reports are filed. Although it could take an hour or so."

"See that it does."

"Yes, sir."

Three of the vamps started for the door, but the bigger one hesitated. "My lord, with respect, the Consul said most definitely that any unregistered persons should be detained and reported as possible—"

"But there are no such persons here," Mircea repeated.

"My lord!" He swept an arm to indicate the scowling war mage and beat-up clairvoyant currently crowding Mircea's bathroom. "They are standing right—"

"Do you see anyone?" Mircea asked one of the other guards.

"No sir!" he replied, looking right at me.

"They must have done something to fool your minds! There are two mages right—"

Mircea made a small gesture, and the vamp suddenly stopped talking. His eyes darted around my general direction, but could no longer seem to find me. "But—but there were people here!" Mircea raised an eyebrow and the vamp's companions dragged him from the room.

I stared worriedly at the door. "Will they be back?"

"No. But they will have to report this, in an hour or so. I take it your business will need no more time than that? Because if so, I shall need to make further arrangements."

"I'm not really sure how long it will take," I said awkwardly. That depended on just how difficult he was about to be, among other things. "It's, uh, kind of complicated."

Suddenly he laughed and gestured for me to precede him into the bedroom. "With you, when is it ever anything else?"

Like the bathroom, the outer areas of the suite were lit with candles, not electricity. I remembered why: this was the night the war began, at least officially—the night MAGIC was attacked. The big wards were up, and they don't mesh well with electricity. The dim light didn't prevent me from seeing Mircea's inquiring look, however.

I sighed and glanced at Pritkin, who had settled himself into the chair Tami would later occupy. He shrugged unhelpfully. We'd been over this already—there was no way Mircea was going to agree without some kind of explanation. But I didn't have to like it.

"It's a long story," I said quickly, before I lost my nerve, "but basically, there was this accident with the timeline and the geis was doubled. And then it started growing or morphing or something, and I was going out of my mind until I inherited the Pythia's power. It gave me a reprieve, but you ended up half crazy and, well, in here." I held out the black box. "The Consul ordered you locked up so you wouldn't, um, run amok or…or anything."

"Basically?" Mircea repeated dryly.

"Well, yeah, pretty much. But I think I know why the counterspell won't work. Because the geis was put on two of you—one in the current timeline and one in the past. But since only one of you is present whenever we try the spell, it doesn't think you're all there. So to speak."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's like with the Graeae," I explained impatiently. "I accidentally set them loose and we've been trying to trap them again ever since. Only it seems they register as one person for the sake of any magic used on them, and if one of the three is missing, the spell won't work. So they just make sure that they are never all together anymore. Then we can cast the spell all day and nothing will happen."

"Let me see if I understand," Mircea said, pulling on another of Ming-de's little gifts. "You believe the geis views the two of me on whom it was placed as one person."

"Because you are."

"But because I hold the spell in two separate timelines, if it encounters only one of me, it does not view me as a complete person, and therefore will not work?"

"Exactly. We all have to be present at the same time—two of you and one of me, because I had it placed on me only once, but you had it done twice. Once by the mage who initiated the spell and once by me. At least, I hope I have that figured right, because if we need another me this is really going to get complicated."

"Going to?" Pritkin muttered.

"That would be why, in Paris, your dress did not harm me," Mircea mused, ignoring him. "Because, linked as we were by the geis, it saw us as one. And, of course, it would not harm its owner."

"Well, two-thirds of its owner, but yeah, that's it."

"I am in there, am I?" Mircea slipped onyx cuff links into the French cuffs on his shirt and eyed the box skeptically.

"We can let you out," I said dubiously, "but I don't think…that is, I'm not sure how you'll react. Marlowe said he couldn't control you, there at the end…"

"Can we get on with this?" Pritkin demanded.

Mircea ignored him, but he gave me back a frown. "Has it not occurred to you that the mage has deceived you? Perhaps in an attempt to get into this very room, past security, to assassinate me in a vulnerable position?"