Karen Chance - Claimed by Shadow

"Hurry up," I called, and Pritkin waved an arm before disappearing through the doors to the lobby.

Mircea smiled, and it was one of his better efforts, despite the fact that he was covered in blood, most of it his. "Are you not interested in pursuing your quarrel with the young hoyden who was here earlier?”

"What?" I stared at the box for a moment, uncomprehending. Then what he'd said sunk in. No. No way. I'd been trying so hard to find Myra, and now she was being dumped in my lap? Or, to be more precise, waved under my nose? It was bizarre.

"I intended the trap for my brother," Mircea said. "But when I saw that he had been captured already, I decided to employ it for other purposes. The young… woman… made the mistake of running to the balcony to watch the effects of her device. I found her there.”

He put Myra 's box on the boards, and put a hand on Dracula's. "The Senators will be back," I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the small black container that imprisoned my rival. For some reason, my ears were ringing. "They'll just kill him anyway.”

"Kill who?" Mircea was mildly curious. "You cannot mean my brother. Tragically, he died in the blast.”

"They'll smell him.”

"Not in this." Mircea sounded like he knew. And it wasn't as if they'd search him for the box. They might risk war over Dracula himself, but over a suspicion? I didn't think so.

"Why do you cry?" he asked suddenly, his hand on my cheek. His thumb wiped away a tear I couldn't remember shedding. As mild as the contact was, it woke up the geis. I caught my breath, and Mircea's eyes widened.

I pulled away. "Please… don't." Unlike in my own time, there was no physical pain at withdrawal. But the emotional price was still there, and it was high.

Mircea waited, but I offered no explanation. To my surprise, he let it drop. "Unless I am mistaken, you won," was his only comment. "Victory is usually a reason for smiles, not tears.”

"Victory came at too high a price." Way too high.

“They often do." Something moved on my arm, and I jumped. I looked down to find a small green lizard on my forearm, quivering in fear. It stared at me out of big black eyes for a second, then scurried off to hide behind my elbow. Mircea laughed.

"Where did that come from?" It was one of Mac's; I recognized it.

"It must have hid out, Cass," Billy murmured. "I guess it latched on to me when I threw the others. It looks like we saved something, after all." Its tail was ticklish as it scurried up my inner arm, but I let it alone. I'd learned a long time ago; something, however small, was better than nothing.

Pritkin slammed open the theatre doors, dragging in Stoker's six-foot-two frame, and I snatched up Myra 's box. Mircea took the one containing his brother, and I didn't protest. For all I knew, this was how it had happened all along. Maybe Mircea carried his brother home in secret, letting everyone believe that the lynching had gone off as planned. In any case, I wouldn't have won a struggle, and Pritkin was too close to risk it. He'd said he didn't want Myra as Pythia-and after what she'd just pulled, I assumed he meant it, even if he hadn't before. But I still didn't trust him. There were far too many unanswered questions about Mage Pritkin.

I shoved Myra into a pocket of Françoise's voluminous skirts, well out of sight. Mircea saw, but said nothing. He went to the edge of the stage and took Stoker's limp body from Pritkin, hefting it out of the pit as if it were weightless.

"One thing further," he said, after laying Stoker on the boards. He pulled something out of his coat and slipped it onto my foot.

"My shoe." It shone with all the glory a $14.99 special could hope to achieve.

"You dropped it at our first meeting, in your haste to leave. Something told me I might have a chance to return it." His eyes met mine, and the smile edged perilously close to a grin. "That is a lovely gown, but I must say, I preferred your other ensemble. Or lack of it.”

I gave a wry smile and removed the shoe. With my life, I needed combat boots, not heels. Besides, this Cinderella had the Circle, the Senate and the Dark Fey to deal with. She wasn't going to be living happily ever after anytime soon. I handed it to him, careful to avoid actual contact. "Keep it.”

He looked at me quizzically. "What would I do with such a thing?”

I shrugged. "You never know.”

Mircea searched my face for a moment, then moved as if to take my hand. I snatched it back, and a frown line formed on his forehead. "May I assume that we will meet again?”

I hesitated. He would meet me, and make the mistake that would lead us to this. Whether I would see him in my future was another story. If I didn't break the geis, I'd never be able to risk it, and the thought twisted my insides into a tight knot. I was so tempted to warn him not to lay the geis that I had to bite my cheek to stay quiet. But as much as I hated it, the damned thing had played a big part in getting me where I was. It had protected me from unwanted advances as a teenager, helped Mircea find me before Tony did as an adult, and convinced him to let me go in the Senate chamber. If I changed that one thing, what would my life be like? I just didn't know.

I finally decided on a literal interpretation. "I think that's safe to say.”

Mircea nodded, picked up Stoker and bowed. He somehow made it graceful despite having a two-hundred-fifty-pound man draped over one shoulder. "I look forward to it, little witch.”

"I'm not a witch.”

He smiled slightly. "I know." He walked offstage without another word. I gritted my teeth and let him go.

"You do make interesting allies," Pritkin commented, vaulting up onstage. "How did you persuade that creature to aid you? They are usually extremely self-interested." I thought he meant Mircea, and was about to explain the extreme folly of referring to any vamp, especially a master, by that term. He saw my expression and elaborated. "The incubus, the one called Dream.”

My brain skidded to a halt. "What?”

"You didn't know what it was?" Pritkin asked, incredulous. "Are you in the habit of taking aid from strange spirits?”

Billy laughed. "No," I said, ignoring him. "The name- what did you call him?”

"It," Pritkin corrected.

"But the name-”

"Appropriate," he agreed, "an incubus called Dream." I goggled at him, and he frowned. "That is what the names it gave you mean. They are all variations of the same word. Why do you ask?”

I sat frozen in stunned comprehension, hearing a rich Spanish accent telling me that his name was Chavez, and exactly what that name meant. I rolled onto my back, staring sightlessly at the high ceiling. I'd handed three boxes from the Senate's prison into Chavez's manicured hands outside the ice rink. It would, of course, be too much to hope that none of them had been Dracula's.

I briefly wondered if the incubus had been playing me all the time, or if it had been luck that he ended up as my driver. Not that it mattered-either way, I was screwed. There was no way those boxes had made it to Casanova. Which meant that, in my time, Dracula was on the loose again. And it was my fault.

"Finally!" someone said behind me. For a moment, it barely registered. I was adding Dracula to my to-do list and trying not to think about how long that list was getting. But there was something very familiar about that voice. "I didn't think that vampire would ever leave! Now we finish this.”

I turned slowly to find a ghostly outline of a young brunette hovering a few feet off the stage. I remembered those big blue eyes and the long white dress from the last time I'd seen this particular spirit. She'd informed me that she preferred appearing as she had been when traveling in spirit form, rather than duplicating her actual appearance. As a result, she still looked about fifteen.