Karen Chance - Embrace the Night

But until Pritkin found us an actual, honest-to-God lead, I didn't have much else to do. Except to stare obsessively at the clock, wondering how many seconds of freedom I had left. Staying busy helped with that. A little. And Casanova had a point about the outfit. My shiny PVC shorts and bustier combo didn't hide much, but with elaborate eye makeup and a long black wig, I barely recognized my strawberry-blond, blue-eyed self. I fiddled with the head and tried to look nonchalant, hoping the disguise would hold up.

The man sitting beside me started complaining. "A thumbscrew?" He slapped the drinks list down on the bar. "What the hell is that?"

"You're not in Hell," the bartender corrected him. "And no souls eat or drink in Purgatory."

"Then what do they do?" the guy asked sarcastically.

"They suffer." I thought the bartender's dungeon master garb, consisting of a bare chest, hangman's hood and studded cuffs, should have already made that clear. If not, the couple dozen torture devices serving as wall art might have clued the guy in.

"I am suffering—from thirst!" the tourist insisted.

"A thumbscrew is a screwdriver," I explained helpfully.

"Gee, thanks, Elvira. So what I gotta do? Solve a riddle before I can order a drink?"

"It's not that hard," the bartender said patiently, placing a flaming cocktail in front of another guest. "A Lynching is a Lynchburg lemonade, an Iron Maiden is an old-fashioned, a—"

"All I want is a Bloody Mary! You got one of them?"

"Yes."

"What's it called?"

"A Bloody Mary."

The vampire had paused beside me. "It won't work," I told him. No way was I changing my mind. Vampires in general aren't to be trusted, but the Senate makes the average vamp look like a paragon of virtue.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," the head spat. "This is an outrage!"

I set the ungrateful thing back on its ashtray and swiveled to face my unwanted visitor. "And why bother with a disguise? It's not like I wouldn't know what you are."

"It wasn't meant for you," the vampire said, throwing back the hood.

A pair of rich brown eyes met mine, the color as soft and familiar as well-worn suede. Only their agonized expression was new. I started in shock. "Rafe?"

He collapsed against the bar, holding his stomach as if he'd been punched. I slid off my stool and helped him onto it, feeling him shiver despite the thick, fuzzy wool cloak he clutched around himself. The streets outside were shimmering in the late June heat, yet he was bundled up like we were scheduled for a blizzard. I'd known him all my life, and I'd never seen him look this bad.

We'd met at the court of the vampire who turned him, the aforementioned Tony, who had ordered Rafe to paint my bedroom when I was a child. I doubt that Tony had done it to please his resident clairvoyant. It just fit his warped sense of humor to give the greatest artist of the Renaissance the most menial jobs he could find. But Raphael had actually enjoyed it, and in the months it took to litter my ceiling with angels, stars and clouds, we'd become fast friends. He'd been one of the few things that had made growing up at Tony's bearable.

Rafe's lips were cold when he kissed me briefly, and his hands were like ice. I warmed them in mine, worry gnawing at my insides. He wasn't supposed to be cold. Vampires are as warm as humans unless they're famished, but that couldn't be it. Like all masters, Rafe could feed from blood molecules drawn at a distance. If he felt like it, he could drain half the bar without anyone noticing until the bodies started hitting the floor.

"I'm all right, Cassie." Rafe squeezed my hands and I immediately felt more centered. He always had that effect on me, maybe because he comforted me so often as a child. I'd grown up believing that, if he said something was okay, it must be true, and old habits die hard.

"Then what is it? Something's wrong." He swallowed, but instead of answering, he just looked at me pleadingly, his face dancing with neon shadows from the glass «flames» that surrounded the bar. My short-lived calm fled right out the window. "Rafe! You're scaring me!"

"That wasn't my intention, mia stella." His voice, usually a lightly accented tenor, was a harsh croak. He swallowed, but when he tried to speak again, he only strangled. He let go of my hands to claw at his throat, his face contorted in a rictus, and I stumbled back a step, colliding with the cool column of mist that was Billy Joe.

Some people have spirit guides, wise, serene types who give them help from the great beyond. I have a smart-aleck ex—card shark who spends more time rigging the casino games than he does advising me. Of course, considering that his mortal existence ended with him taking a header into the Mississippi, courtesy of a couple of cowboys he'd been cheating, that might not be such a bad thing.

"He's fighting a command," Billy said unnecessarily.

I shot him an impatient glance. Billy's status as the life-challenged segment of our partnership often means he knows more about the supernatural world than I do, but of the two of us, I know more about vamps. Growing up at Tony's had seen to that.

Even vampires who become masters are still bound by their own master's control—unless they reach first-level status, which most never do. But older vamps have more flexibility in interpreting commands than a newborn. A lot more, if they're smart and willing to risk punishment. And Rafe had stretched a point for me before, informing Mircea of Tony's plan to kill me even at great risk to himself. If he hadn't helped me, I'd have never lived long enough to become the Pythia.

"Tony isn't around to give any orders," I said slowly, and some of the terrible tension left Rafe's face. The bane of both our existences was literally out of this world, hiding somewhere in Faerie. "He couldn't have forbidden you to see me—unless it's an old command."

For a long moment Rafe held himself unnaturally still, the flickering lights of the bar the only movement on his face. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, his head moved side to side. I glanced at Billy Joe, who had drifted off a few feet. The flames filtered through him eerily, gold and red and translucent umber. He pushed his Stetson up with an insubstantial finger. "Well, that sorta narrows it down."

I nodded. With Tony gone, there was only one person left whose commands could make Rafe choke at the mere thought of contradicting them: Tony's master.

The bar was hot and humid with too many bodies, but chills shivered down my arms anyway. Unfulfilled longing swept through me, blood and bone and skin stretched paper thin as part of me yearned, reaching out for someone who wasn't there. I glanced up at the sign over the bar: LEAD ME NOT INTO TEMPTATION; THAT WOULD MEAN BACKING UP. No freaking kidding.

Rafe was looking at me with big, concerned eyes. I could only think of one reason for him to be here: to ask me to see Mircea. And wasn't that just all I needed. I bit back the urge to scream. My nerves had a perpetually scraped-raw feeling these days, but it wasn't Rafe's fault. "You may as well go back," I told him unsteadily. "There's nothing I can do."

Rafe shook his head in a wild, negative motion, causing his dark curls to dance madly about his face. He looked around the room, eyes shifting in sudden darts as if he thought someone might be sneaking up on him. His nerves were showing, something he'd never been able to completely control, even at court. It had cost him more than once.

His gaze returned to my face, and there was desperation in it, but also determination. "I am not well," he said, and paused, as if waiting for something.

I blinked, fairly sure I was missing the point. Vampires don't get sick. Shot, burned, staked, yeah; the flu, not so much.

"I can summon a healer," I offered. Dante's was more than familiar with little accidents. A couple of hungry gargoyles had decided to snack on some of the animal acts the night before, only to discover that the trained wolves weren't wolves at all. The result had been a near apocalyptic battle in the lower levels that had given the on-site medical staff something to do for the rest of the night. And that sort of thing wasn't exactly unusual.