Claimed by Shadow

Chapter 13

I came around because a pounding was reverberating in my head. I realized three things simultaneously: I was back at Dante's, the pounding was coming from large speakers masquerading as giant tiki heads and Elvis was looking really rough-even for a dead guy. I blinked and Kit Marlowe shoved a drink into my hand. "Try to look normal," he murmured as Elvis started on the chorus to "Jailhouse Rock.”

I looked around dazedly but found it hard to concentrate on anything but the huge man in white sequins who was swaying in what I guess was meant to be an alluring fashion. The bullet that had recently scalped him had been large caliber, and I didn't think the emergency toupee was holding up too well. The ladies throwing everything from room keys to underwear onstage didn't seem to notice, though. I guess love really is blind.

I wanted to ask what was going on, but my brain and mouth didn't seem to be connected. I sat, swaying a little in my chair. Half the audience was doing the same, but their movements were an unconscious imitation of the performance and not because of an unclear concept of which way was up. What was wrong with me? I'd barely had the thought when I remembered: the portal. Unlike the unnoticeable transition at MAGIC, this one had packed a wallop. Trust Tony to cheap out. Judging by the way my head felt, he'd gone for the bargain-basement version since he hadn't planned to ever have to use it himself. I hoped it had given him a really big migraine.

Marlowe picked a blue lace thong off his ear, one of the offerings to the god of rock 'n' roll that hadn't quite made me stage, and tossed it over his shoulder. "We're in trouble," he said unnecessarily.

I raised an eyebrow. What else was new? Marlowe used his swizzle stick to poke the fist-sized shrunken head that was posing as a centerpiece. The fact that the ugly thing sat on a pretty nest of dark green palm fronds and orange birds of paradise helped not at all. A shriveled, raisin-like eye reluctantly opened and rotated in his direction. "Can't it wait? This is my favorite song.”

"I need a refill," Marlowe told it tersely. "One of the same." The head closed its eyes, but its mouth kept moving.

"What-" I paused to swallow because my tongue felt about twice the usual size, then tried again. "What is it doing?”

"Communicating with the bar," Marlowe answered, glancing around surreptitiously.

"I'm going to pass out now," I informed him.

Marlowe shot me a reproving glance. "You will do no such tiling. The Circle has us surrounded. Two of their operatives saw us flash in and now everyone they left at the casino is here. They're too wary of the internal defenses and your abilities to try anything without backup, so we have a few moments, but that's all. You have to be ready to move.”

"Move where? You said we're surrounded.”

"Casanova is going to arrange a diversion, but for the moment all we can do is sit tight. And have a drink," he added, as I tried valiantly to keep my eyes from crossing. "Alcohol usually helps in these cases.”

I nodded, but his words made less of an impression on my fried brain than the little head in the center of the table. It had finished talking to the bar and was now humming along with the music, which was quite a trick for a piece of plastic. I guess normal tourists thought there was some sort of microphone hidden inside the things that relayed their orders, but I knew better. I'd seen one of these before.

We were in Dante's zombie bar-the one known as Headliners because of the gruesome decorations and top-notch, if sadly deceased, entertainers. From past experience, I knew that the heads posing as centerpieces were fake, but not the way the tourists thought. They were enchanted copies designed to look like the only real one in the place, whose desiccated remains were suspended between two carved wooden masks behind the bar. It was rumored to have belonged to a gambler who had unwisely welshed on a bet. I heard him warn one guy that, at this casino, gambling money you didn't have wouldn't get you a little ahead. It would get you "a little head.”

The woman who had thrown the thong, a buxom blonde who had about five pounds to go before another adjective would be required, snatched her property off the floor and gave Marlowe an evil look. She stood by the stage and flapped the tiny piece of lace like it was a handkerchief, but Elvis' eyes were far too glazed to notice. His face was the color of mildewed grout and his jet-black toupee had slid to the right, exposing a line of greenish white flesh over his left ear. Fortunately, he'd segued into "Love Me Tender," which didn't require so many gyrations. Maybe the toupee would last the night after all.

The head stopped humming when the song ended and rolled its eyes around to me. "Did you hear about the comedian who entertained at a werewolves' party?" it asked chattily. Marlowe and I ignored it. "He had them howling in the aisles!”

A zombie waiter dressed in a Hawaiian shirt that clashed with his gray skin and Bermuda shorts that showed off his shriveled legs was threading his way through the tables in our direction. I watched him come closer and realized that without knowing it I'd finished off the martini Marlowe had given me. The alcohol did seem to have helped my head, but not my mood, which was getting darker by the minute. I had a good reason: Tomas had been right; the geis was still there.

That constant miserable pressure was back. I could feel it, a shimmering cord stretching from me across the desert to MAGIC. I tried strengthening my shields, but the glimmering strands shot right through them. But at least there was no crushing pain this time. Maybe becoming Pythia had gained me something, after all, or maybe the geis just needed time to compensate for my new power level. In any case, I was grateful for the reprieve.

"Where are the others?" I asked. Billy could be a real help letting us know when the Circle's reinforcements were coming.

"I have not seen the pixie or the girl. But the mage came through the portal with you," Marlowe said, keeping an eye on the six figures that had fanned out on either side of the entrance. They were all wearing long leather topcoats that had to be stifling even in air-conditioning. Coats that looked like copies of Pritkin's. Several more, I noticed now, were in a similar position near the small side exit. "I rendered him unconscious and locked him in the back room.”

"That won't hold him for long.”

"Cassie, if we're here much longer, Pritkin will be the least of our worries." The waiter sat a pitcher of martinis and a dish of olives on the table. Marlowe appropriated the pitcher, leaving me only a coconut carved to resemble one of the shrunken heads. The pina colada inside had possibly had a bottle of rum waved over it at some point, but none had made it inside. I sighed and drank it anyway.

"Okay, how about a riddle," the head burbled. "What's the best way to a vampire's heart?" It paused for a couple of beats. "Through his rib cage!”

The big blonde, who'd been getting increasingly strident in her attempts to gain the King's attention, finally decided the heck with it and crawled up onstage. Despite wearing stiletto heels, she managed to get within a few feet of him before the bar's discreetly dressed security people grabbed her. Casanova, who was standing next to the stage, smoothed over the potential debacle by sending in a handsome Latino. The no-doubt incubus-possessed man led the woman off to the bar with a smile that promised to make her forget all about dead rock stars.

"If that was Casanova's idea of a diversion, he falls really short of his reputation.”

"It wasn't." Marlowe sounded sure.

"How do you know?”

"Because, unless I miss my guess, the cavalry has arrived.”

I followed his gaze to where a trio of terribly old Greeks had just toddled into view, bearing gifts. They didn't come through the main entrance, where the mages had visibly stiffened at the sight of them, but from the side door near the bar. The guards for that door had disappeared. One of the bartenders, a gorgeous guy wearing only a pith helmet and a tiny pair of khaki shorts, caught sight of the threesome and poured half a bottle of Chivas on the bar before he noticed.

"A tough audience, huh?" the head asked. "Okay, but did you hear the one about the guy who couldn't keep up payments to his exorcist? He was repossessed. Ha! Now, go ahead, tell me that's not funny!”

"It's not funny," Marlowe said, unfolding his napkin.

"Hey, wait! I got a thousand of them! How about the-" Thankfully, the heavy cotton folds of the napkin cut the thing off before I kicked it across the room.

Deino approached our table with a toothless grin. "Birt' Day!" she said, beaming at me. I started in surprise: they were the first English words I'd heard her use, and it was obvious that she was proud of herself. I might have been more admiring if she hadn't followed her greeting by plopping a bucket of bloody entrails on the table right under my nose.

I looked at Marlowe fearfully. "Please tell me that isn't-”

"It's not human," he said, wrinkling up his nose. "Cow, I think.”

Pemphredo plopped a newspaper full of casino chips onto the table beside her sister's gift. None were the red and blue ones I use: most were black, with a few five-hundred-dollar purple ones scattered about here and there. I counted more than four thousand dollars at just a glance. I closed my eyes in despair-all I needed were the human police after me, too. Not to be outdone, Enyo placed a large three-tiered cake beside the other two gifts. It was covered in something slimy and green, which I guessed was supposed to be icing. I decided not to ask why it smelled like pesto.

Deino dumped the remaining piña colada out of my coconut shell and filled it with a generous measure of blood and guts. She shoved it under my nose and beamed at me. "Birt' Day!”

I managed not to gag. "Why are they doing this?" I asked Marlowe, who was looking almost as disgusted as I felt. Vamps don't drink animal blood. It does nothing for them and many find it actually repugnant.

"As a guess? They are making an offering. In the ancient world, blood sacrifices were common. If I were you, I'd be grateful they aren't slicing up a virgin on the table. Perhaps they couldn't find one in Vegas.”

"Ha, ha. What am I supposed to do with-" That was as far as I got. If I hadn't been so grossed out, I'd have noticed earlier that zombie Elvis had stopped singing halfway through a lackluster rendition of "All Shook Up" and was now trying to climb down from the stage.

Marlowe was on his feet. "We have to get rid of the bucket!”

I looked around at the close-packed tables full of clueless tourists. "How?”

Elvis scattered the handful of security types who had rushed forward and lurched toward our table. His eyes were no longer dull, but were filled with a burning hunger as they zeroed in on the bloody bucket. Then one of the guards with more muscle than sense grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to whirl him around. All he succeeded in doing was knocking the toupee the rest of the way off, revealing the top of an exposed brain. I guessed the voodoo types Casanova kept on staff had been a little overworked after the recent raid and had skimped on the repair work. That probably hadn't been a good business decision.

The sight of a gray-faced, slack-jawed zombie glowering from under a pulsing, bloody brain pretty much tore it for the people at nearby tables. Several of them let out screams, and they collectively knocked over chairs and one another in the stampede to get away. Other customers, who were too far back to get the full effect, began clapping, assuming that this was part of the night's entertainment. I wondered whether they'd still think so after Elvis downed the appetizer and started looking for a main course.

"Cassie!" Dimly, like an echo of an echo, I heard Billy's voice. I looked around but couldn't see him anywhere in the pandemonium.

Marlowe tugged me backwards, but my equilibrium hadn't returned and I lost my footing. I clutched at the table, trying to steady myself, while Elvis got a grip on the bucket's handle. Deino screeched and grabbed her offering, starting a furious tug of war. It slopped blood all over the tabletop, which was only a circle of glass perched on top of a grinning tiki head. Clots of coagulating blood spattered Françoise's beautiful dress and I instinctively grabbed a napkin to wipe them off but was stopped by an angry vampire.

"Forget that!" Marlowe gave me a little shake. "We have to get out of here!”

I gestured at the flood of mages who'd started pouring in the door. Ours wasn't the only cavalry to have come charging over the hill. "How?" I screamed.

"Can't you shift?".

The realization hit me that there was no longer any reason not to use my power. Whether I liked it or not, I was Pythia. I nodded, but before I could get an image of the street outside the casino, I heard Billy's voice again, and he sounded desperate. "Billy! Get in here!”

"What is it?" Marlowe demanded.

"Be quiet!" It was hard enough to hear as it was, without him bellowing in my ear. Billy had said something else, but I'd missed it. "Billy! I can't hear you!”

"Don't shift! I'm stuck.”

"He says he's stuck," I told Marlowe, just as the blonde got loose from her keeper and jogged over to be nearer her idol. A guard intercepted her, and in her struggle to get away she knocked into me. I lost my footing and went down just as a fireball from one of the mages sizzled overhead, barely missing me and setting Marlowe's doublet ablaze on its way to destroy the tiki bar. He had the garment off faster than I could blink, then looked around frantically for somewhere to dispose of it safely. Magical fire burns like phosphorus, so the options were kind of limited. He solved the problem by whipping it back the way it had come, where it sizzled out against the mage's shields.

Marlowe didn't appear injured, but his fangs were out and his eyes were furious. "It's going to get very hot around here very soon, Cassie. I can't think of a better time to make our exit. The ghost can catch up with us later.”

Billy must have overheard, because he began babbling like crazy. I couldn't make out most of what he was saying, but I got the gist. "Billy says not to shift.”

Marlowe looked incredulous, but my expression must have warned him not to argue. "Stay here. I'll arrange something," he said abruptly before vanishing in a blur of color.

I was left huddled under the table to escape the stampeding crowd. Through the transparent tabletop I could see that the female fan had finally fought her way to her idol, a look of devotion on her features. I could only assume that she was drunk or legally blind, because the object of her affection was looking pretty damn scary. The glowing eyes, pulsing brain and salivating mouth didn't seem to register with her, however, and she lunged for him just as Deino gave a mighty heave and ripped the bucket away. The force of the movement caused the contents to splash all over the woman, drenching her from head to foot and leaving what looked like a piece of liver wedged in her cleavage.

She screamed, which was the worse possible reaction, because it got the zombie's attention. It ignored Deino, who was yelling in an unknown language and repeatedly clouting it over the head with the empty bucket. Instead, it dove for the gory girl.

Casanova was trying to evacuate the lounge and direct the fight away from the remaining norms. "Get the damn bocors in here!" I heard him bellow, just as three security men threw themselves on Elvis. He went down on the blood-slick floor barely a yard away from me, with the woman underneath him. Wherever the voodoo workers who usually controlled the acts were, it didn't look like they'd be quick enough to prevent her from becoming a midnight snack for the King.

"Help her!" I screamed at the Graeae. Enyo didn't need to be told twice. In a blink she switched from old-lady mode to her alter ego, covered in her own blanket of blood. It's supposed to contain remnants of every enemy she'd ever slaughtered, and either the variety or sheer amount got the zombie's attention. He dragged himself to his feet, despite having three security guards hanging off him. He didn't let go of the woman, but tucked her under his arm and stumbled after his new prey.

At a frantic look from me, Pemphredo snatched the girl and shoved her at Deino before jumping on the zombie's back. He gave a very nonmusical hiss when she started digging in his open cranium, tossing out handfuls of bloody brains. Enyo stayed just out of reach, leading the stumbling creature on a zigzag course through the tables, while her sister continued the impromptu lobotomy.

Marlowe appeared at my elbow, hair wild and pantaloons scorched, but otherwise unharmed. I grabbed his shirt with both hands. "Tell me you have a plan!”

“There's a trapdoor under the stage, we just have to make sure none of the mages see us go through it.”

I didn't think that would be an issue. The zombies were a little short on fighting technique, but they made up for it in resilience. As Marlowe spoke, a mage thrust his arm completely through our waiter's abdomen, but despite the fact that his fist came out the other side, it didn't even slow the zombie down. Elvis, on the other hand, had either tired out or lost enough cognitive ability to forget what he'd been doing, because he had simply stopped three or four tables away. Enyo and Pemphredo abandoned him for the mages, leaving the newly arrived security people to deal with the King.

Casanova ran over at the head of the squad. "What are you two waiting for?" he screeched in a very unsexy voice. "Go!”

"I'll check out the exit and make sure there are no surprises," Marlowe said, slipping into the crowd. I started to follow when I was stopped in my tracks by a very unwelcome sight. A livid-looking Pritkin was standing by the smoldering remains of the bar, scanning the room. Marlowe's vermilion pantaloons must have caught his eye, because he zeroed in on him and, a second later, on me.

Uh-oh.

Casanova followed the direction of my gaze and said something a little stronger. He gave me a panicked look. "Mircea ordered me to help you, but there are limits! Locking the mage in an office while he recovered was one thing, but I cannot inflict actual harm. Not even if I'm staked for it!”

I stared at him. "What are you talking about?" I didn't get an answer because several mages had crashed through the undead lineup and were headed our way. He motioned for his security people, half of whom were vampires, to intercept them and started to follow, but I grabbed his arm. "When did you talk to Mircea?”

"He called a few hours ago, after you pulled your little stunt at MAGIC. He asked if I'd spoken to you and what we'd discussed. I told him." He saw my expression and his own grew even more irritable. "Did you really expect me to lie? I may serve two masters, Cassie, but I try to do it well.”

With that cryptic remark, he was off, leaving me to handle Pritkin on my own. I judged the distance to the stage and knew I wouldn't make it. The tables that weren't on fire had overturned, and a few had begun to liquefy under the barrage of spells, sending rivers of melted glass everywhere. There was nothing else for it; Billy's warning notwithstanding, I was going to have to shift. I called for my power, but it was sluggish. I wasn't sure whether that had to do with the portal scrambling my brains or the sight of Pritkin's face as he fought his way through the chaos. Either way, I was screwed if I couldn't concentrate better than this.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and whirled around to find Deino looking pleased. Her sisters were busy fighting war mages with unabashed glee, but she had stuck to my side like a burr. She still had a grip on the sobbing, half-crazed fan girl, whom she thrust at me. "Birt' Day!" she said happily, apparently pleased to have found a substitute tor her ruined gift. I shook my head violently. A human sacrifice wasn't on my wish list.

"You know why mummies don't take vacations?" a muffled voice asked from under Marlowe's napkin. "They're afraid they'll relax and unwind.”

The girl, who had collapsed in a shaking heap, had the presence of mind to start crawling off. Deino watched her gift scurry away with an exasperated expression, and that momentary loss of concentration was all Pritkin needed to jump her and send her crashing headlong into the clump of speakers. For an instant he had a straight shot at me but was too busy sending a fireball into the towering heads to take it. They exploded in a hail of flaming wood and flying mechanical parts that scattered across the stage, marring the polished surface with ugly scorch marks. The flames turned the area around the speakers into a leaping bonfire that quickly spread to the nearby piano.

Before I could scream, Deino's grizzled head popped up over the burning mass. She didn't appear to be so much as singed, but she looked plenty pissed. A second later, I got to see what the loopiest Graeae's special talent was. Deino didn't change shape or make Pritkin shoot himself as I'd half expected. She just turned those sightless eyes on him and he stopped dead, as if he'd run into an invisible wall. He dropped the gun he'd pulled, presumably for me, and stood gazing blankly around the room. He didn't appear to be harmed; it was as if he simply didn't know where, or even who, he was. The burning piano top collapsed in a musical' crash behind him, but he didn't so much as flinch.

Deino kicked the blazing statues out of her way and crossed to me. A mage threw a fireball at her from the closest segment of the fight, and she turned it back on him with a rude gesture. She tapped Pritkin on the shoulder and, when he turned around, she decked him. From this close, I could see that those hollow folds of skin were not as empty as I'd thought. They held a dark, roiling mist that in no way looked like eyes, but somehow gave the impression of sight.

"That must work really well in battle," I said, awed. It would be hard to throw a spell when you couldn't remember it, or even why you were fighting. Deino preened. "Will it wear off?”

She shrugged noncommittally, gave me a kiss on the cheek and mumbled "Birt' Day" in my ear before wandering off to join her sisters. The mages had shredded the zombies, whose twitching body parts littered the ground around the door, and were holding their own against the vamps. But I had a feeling that was about to change.

I intended to follow Marlowe's example, but Pritkin suddenly came back to life. I looked from his icy green eyes to the gun he'd retrieved. "There's one advantage to my blood," he hissed. "Mind games don't work.”

I decided not to bother trying to open a dialogue. I lashed out with my foot and caught him square on the knee. It probably wouldn't have done anything but piss him off under normal circumstances, but the surprise of it combined with the river of blood and slick entrails on the floor to send him sprawling. He slid into the piled-up tables, tumbling them like a bowling ball crashing into a bunch of pins. Heavy glass tabletops tumbled down everywhere, some rolling off to the side but a few landing on him.

The flaming orange spells were flying thick and fast now, with the last one slamming into the top of the stage, setting the overhanging canopy of silk leaves ablaze. It was the last straw for the stage's bamboo frame, which collapsed like a giant game of pickup sticks. I avoided being squashed only because I dove for cover under one of the last remaining upright tables. I was afraid the glass top wouldn't hold, but none of the bigger columns hit it, and the others merely rattled off.

When I looked back up, Pritkin had disappeared. I thought I saw Françoise's bright green dress for an instant, near the main entrance, but then it was lost to the black smoke boiling through the ruined nightclub. I did catch sight of another familiar face, though. "Billy!”

The almost transparent shape of a cowboy had appeared by the main doors. He saw me at almost the same moment, and a look of profound relief flooded his features. He zoomed straight at me. I was about to ask him where he'd been, but he slipped inside my skin without so much as a hello. All I got instead was some hysterical gibbering. Then I got a glimpse of the main fight and forgot about him.

Casanova threw the mage he'd been throttling into two others, then caught sight of me and shouted. I couldn't hear him over the din, but I didn't really need to-it was obvious what the problem was. The Graeae had left the building.

I did a quick mental survey and realized that, until a few minutes ago, Deino was the only one who had not saved my life. Enyo had held off the mages at Casanova's, Pemphredo had helped me in the kitchen afterwards and Deino had just made it a hat trick. They had paid their debt and now I was on my own. Casanova was yelling something again, while trying to hold off three mages at once. I still couldn't hear him, but I read the word on his lips easily enough. "Go!”

I nodded. The Graeae were my responsibility, but they would have to wait their turn. I wasn't sure whether it was okay to shift yet or not, and I couldn't get a thing out of Billy. I started to crawl off but was stopped by an iron grip on my foot. Pritkin was pulling his way out of the tables with one hand and holding on to me with the other. Damn it!

"Cassie!" I whipped around at the familiar voice and saw Marlowe's curly mop sticking out from under the remains of the stage. I couldn't imagine what he was still doing here. There was fire everywhere, and vamps have approximately the same flash point as lighter fluid. He gestured for me to get out of the way and I flattened myself without asking why. I glanced back in time to see Pritkin lifted off the ground by an unseen hand and thrown across the mass of overturned tables, close to the main fight. Marlowe beckoned for me to join him, but there was no way. Bits of burning green silk were raining down all around the stage, creating a minefield of magical fire. It was as dangerous to me as regular fire was to a vamp; I couldn't risk it.

I looked around quickly, but there were no other options. The fight going on behind me put the main entrance out of the question, the back room was a dead end and the side exit was a sheet of flame from where a fireball had hit the hanging bamboo curtain, setting it and half the wall ablaze. With no other choice, I did the only thing I could and reached again for my power.

This time it came readily, surging beneath my fingertips like someone had opened a floodgate. Almost dizzy with relief, I tried to think of the best place to go. Then Pritkin launched himself over the pile of tables, hands outstretched, and I freaked and shifted with no destination in mind. All I was thinking about was finding Myra. Wherever that led had to be better than hanging around while Dante's lived up to its name.

There was no bone-jarring landing this time-only a gradual darkening of the fiery scene until it disappeared altogether, to be slowly replaced by a very dark street. After a minute, my eyes adjusted enough to make out a large building with a sign proclaiming it to be the Lyceum Theatre. I didn't know what time it was-the street was deserted, but it could have been anywhere from midnight to close to dawn.

"I thought you'd be along," Myra said from behind me. I whirled, my hand jerking up automatically at the sound of that smug, childish voice. Two daggers sailed straight at her, but she just stood there in the middle of the street, unconcerned. A split second later I realized why as my own weapons came sailing back at me. They didn't wound me, but they hit with enough force to knock me off my feet and send me skidding back along the filthy street. Myra held up her hand. A gleaming bracelet that looked a lot like my own dangled from her thin wrist. Except, where mine had daggers, it had tiny interlocking shields. "A gift from some new friends. To level the playing field.”

I clambered to my feet. "When have you ever believed in a level playing field?”

She grinned. "Good point." Then her face changed as she got a good look at me. "So, you managed to complete the ritual. Congratulations. Unfortunately, your reign is destined to be the shortest in history.”

I got a good look at her, too. For the first time, she was solid. It made sense, considering that she'd been attacked last time in spirit form. It didn't make her eyes look any less creepy, I decided.

"Answer me one thing," I said wearily. "Why always London? Why 1889? It's starting to get tedious.”

"Convocation is being held in London this year," Myra answered, sweetly obliging. "That's the biannual meeting of the European Senate.”

"I know that!”

"Oh, of course. I keep forgetting, you grew up at a vampire's court, didn't you? Well, then, maybe you already know this, too. The Senate usually meets in Paris, but they've traveled to London this year to settle an old score. They got the idea that the crimes being reported in the newspapers as the work of Jack the Ripper were really being done by Dracula. He escaped their version of an asylum shortly before they began, so it seemed reasonable.”

"What does that have to do with me, or Mircea?”

Myra looked entirely too pleased with herself. "Everything. Mircea and that vampire the North American Senate sent to help him-”

" Augusta.”

"Yes. They proved that the crimes were the work of a human by capturing the man calling himself Jack.”

"And Jack was punished." I'd seen part of that myself, firsthand.

"Yes, but it seems that Jack went on his killing spree in an effort to impress Dracula, hoping to win a spot in his new stable. So the Senate blames Dracula for what happened.”

"And they want him dead.”

"Finally, you're starting to get it!" Myra clapped her hands approvingly. "Mircea managed to convince the European Consul to grant him a' few days to find and trap his brother before drastic measures were taken, but not everyone agreed with that decision. It seems Dracula made a few enemies through the years.”

I had a very bad feeling that I'd heard this story before. And it didn't end well for Dracula. Some senators with long memories had lynched him one foggy night in London. This night.

“They plan to kill him.”

Myra laughed. "They do kill him-it's part of that timeline you're so concerned with protecting, Cassie. Only this time, with a little help from me, Mircea found him before they did. And something tells me they aren't going to hesitate to take your vampire out as well, if he gets between them and their revenge.”

And he would. Mircea had spent years arranging for me to become Pythia in order to save one brother. I couldn't see him standing aside while another was murdered.

"It's simple enough, Cassie," Myra said brightly. "You want the position? Not a problem. Just be better than me.”

She flashed out, and at the same moment, I was tackled from behind. I hit the road again, this time face-first. That wasn't the reason I yelled, though. The geis was definitely still there, and it hadn't changed its mind about John Pritkin. Based on the spike of pain that jumped from my body to his, I was betting the geis had confused anger for passion. The mage was too macho to scream like a little girl, but he let me go fast enough.

I turned to find him lying on the sidewalk, looking dazed. He made no attempt to immediately come after me, but I didn't take much heart from the fact. He was probably just waiting to recover. He must have been near enough when I shifted to piggyback along for the ride. Great.

"I won't let you do it," he gasped. "No matter what the price!”

I was suddenly grateful for the geis, because he looked truly homicidal. But just because he couldn't touch me, didn't mean I was safe. He could still shoot me and not feel a thing. I decided to get out of there before that occurred to him, too.

I smashed one of the theatre's windows and wiggled inside, gaining a new respect for burglars on the way. I cut my hand, tore my dress and almost threw my shoulder out of joint, but I managed it before Pritkin could come after me. Unfortunately, I didn't manage it quietly.

"What do we have here?" Augusta 's voice sounded in my ear a second before I was jerked off my feet and slammed against the wall. A tiny, blue-veined hand held me there effortlessly. She settled her blue woolen skirts into perfect folds with a few flicks of her wrist. They had an elaborate design in black braid around the bottom, which matched the frog closures and jet brooch on the front of the gown.

"Nice dress," I croaked.

"Thanks. Yours, too." She looked me over. "It is Fey, but you"-she squeezed a little and my vision started to darken-"you are not.”

I didn't spend a lot of time debating options. Augusta could snap my neck with less effort than I would use to break a twig. I couldn't fight her, but I could use her. Pritkin would be far less of a problem with Augusta 's strength on my side.

I didn't like possessions; they weirded me out and left me feeling faintly dirty. That wasn't surprising since they were, no matter how I might justify them, a violation. I had planned to avoid them in the future if at all possible, but not at the cost of my life. The only question was, could I do it?

I'd possessed a dark mage once, although I'd been shoved out of his body within a couple of minutes. And that was with Billy Joe to help me. I'd never brought Billy along on a shift before, but had foolishly hoped he might be a useful ally. He wasn't sounding real useful at the moment, however. He was still a gibbering wreck, and I couldn't even get his attention, much less ask for help.

But if Myra could do it, damn it, so could I.

Luckily, Augusta 's knowledge of warding was amateurish: if she could ward with more than one element, I never saw any sign of it. Her shields looked impressive-towering slabs of steel riveted together like the side of a battleship- but a closer examination showed spots so weak with rust that they were almost transparent. That's what you get for not maintaining your shields with a little daily meditation. If Augusta 's protection had been as strong as it looked, she might have been able to expel me before I could take over. As it was, my fire burned a hole through her metal with surprising ease.

Everything was suddenly brighter, sharper, and closer than before, and I found myself staring into my own frightened eyes. I put a hand over my mouth before Billy Joe could make a racket, but that seemed the wrong thing to do because he went berserk. I finally bit the bullet and slapped myself across the face. I tried to do it gently, but I think I miscalculated because Billy's eyes rolled up and for a second I thought he was going to pass out. "It's me," I hissed.

He slowly nodded. After a moment, he got his borrowed lips to work. "I need a drink," he told me in a shaky undertone. "I need a whole freaking brewery.”

"Are you okay?" He didn't look it. My face was pasty white and my mouth was trembling. "If you're going to be sick, tell me now.”

Billy laughed, and there was a disturbing hysterical note in it. "Sick? Yeah, I guess you could say I was sick. Ghost, human, ghost, human; hey, it's all good.”

I stared at him in concern. "I don't understand-”

"What's there to understand? I just died, that's all!”

"Billy," I said slowly, "you died a long time ago.”

"I died a long time ago," Billy repeated, mockingly. "I died today, Cass, in case you missed it! An encore performance, courtesy of Faerie! Oh, God.”

His face crumpled and he sank to the floor, shaking. I hugged him, finally realizing why Billy was freaking out. When he went through the portal, his new body had been ripped away. I'd known that would probably happen but hadn't thought about the ramifications. He possessed people all the time, including me, and it had never seemed to bother him when he had to leave. But I guess it was different with his own body. He hadn't been possessed; he'd been alive. And when he went through the portal, he had, in fact, died all over again. I hugged him harder, forgetting whose strength I had now, but let go when he gave a bleat of protest.

"I almost didn't come back this time, Cass," he said weakly. "It's not automatic, you know.”

"What isn't?”

"Becoming a ghost. Nobody keeps stats, or if they do, they're not telling me, but it's pretty damn rare! And I almost… I got lost… I wasn't here, I wasn't there and I couldn't see anything. All I could feel was a pull, trying to wash me away, and the only thing holding me was the sound of your voice. And then you started talking about leaving, and then I found out-" He broke off with a strangled gasp.

"Billy… I'm sorry." It seemed really inadequate, but what do you say to someone who has just died for the second time? Even Eugenie's upbringing fell short.

He grabbed hold of me, and I hadn't known my arms were that strong. "Never. Leave. Again.”

I nodded, but inwardly I was having a crisis only slightly less intense than Billy Joe's. I couldn't let go of Augusta unless I wanted a very pissed-off master vampire gunning for me, but I couldn't babysit a traumatized Billy all night while Myra ran loose. Something had to give.

I started to get up, hauling Billy with me, when someone grabbed me by the hair and put a knife to my throat. It really annoyed me. Augusta 's ears could pick up the sound of rats scurrying in the theatre walls, the fact that its roof had a leak and the argument a cabbie was having several streets over with a drunken customer. So why hadn't I heard anyone sneaking up on me?

"Try anything, and I kill you," Pritkin said. I rolled my eyes. Of course.

"What do they teach you in mage school?" I demanded. "To kill a master vamp, you'd need to stake her-with wood, not metal-hack her head completely off, reduce the body to ashes and sprinkle them over a stream of moving water. Cutting her throat would only piss her off.”

Pritkin ignored me. "You will have to find somewhere else to feed tonight. The girl goes with me.”

"What girl?”

Billy was sitting with his back to the ticket booth, knees drawn up, red dress so big that it almost swallowed him. He looked up at me and his mouth gave a slight quirk. "He means me, Cass.”

Then I understood. "I don't know if the geis works when I'm in this form or not," I told Pritkin. "But I'd rather you let go before we find out the hard way.”

He released me so fast I stumbled. "I won't let you do it," he said, leveling a shotgun at me.

"That won't kill me, either," I informed him before snatching the gun away and breaking it in two. "But it would leave a nasty hole." Pritkin frowned at his ruined weapon, and I could almost see him reassessing matters. I decided to help him out. "Look, I'm Pythia now, whether either of us likes it or not. And FYI, whatever my faults, at least I'm sane. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for your precious Myra.”

Pritkin seemed confused, and I had to hand it to him-it looked real. "What are you talking about?”

I couldn't believe he was trying that. "You want her as Pythia. I've known about your agenda all along, so you can drop the incredulous look.”

"I would prefer to see neither of you in the position. Lady Phemonoe must have been senile to have anything to do with either of you!”

"So Marlowe was right! You are working with the Circle!" All that stuff at Dante's had been a blind after all. I shook my head at him, half in disbelief, half in admiration. "You know, it takes a real lunatic to risk bleeding to death just so I'd believe you.”

Pritkin ran his hands through his hair with the air of a man trying not to wrap mem around my neck. "I am not working with the Circle," he said slowly, as if talking to a four-year-old. "And I have only one agenda, as you call it.”

I eyed him suspiciously. "And that would be?”

"That whoever holds the position be someone with intelligence, ability and experience!" he replied savagely. " Myra is obviously mad and, based upon what I saw in Faerie, I have my doubts about you!”

"And exactly what is it you think you saw?”

He frowned. "You made a deal with the Fey king to retrieve the Codex.”

"So what? You said it yourself: most of the counterspells have already been discovered.”

"But not all of them.”

"What, there's some mystery spell you don't want found?" All I got was stony silence. I sighed. "Let me guess. You aren't going to tell me.”

"You don't need to know. You will not give that book to the king. We will find another way to get to your vampire.”

"Yeah, because we did so great last time." Our brief visit had made one thing very clear: I'd never survive the beautiful hell known as Faerie long enough to find Tony without Fey help. And there was only one way to get it. I decided to try to reason with the lunatic, as the only alternative was force-something that scared me with Augusta 's strength. "Don't you think that trying to kill me to keep me away from a book was a bit extreme?”

Pritkin looked disgusted. "If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead," he said flatly. "I simply want to talk sense into you. That book is dangerous. It must not be found!”

"It will be found-I don't have another choice." Prifkin's eyes, usually a pale, icy green, went almost emerald in fury. "But if you help me," I hastened to add, "I'll let you have first crack at it. You can take out whatever you feel is so dangerous, give me the counterspell for the geis and then we turn the rest over to the king.”

He looked at me as if I were speaking Martian. "Do you not realize what you did? You gave the Fey your word-they will hold you to it.”

"I said I'd give them the book. I didn't make any promises about the contents.”

"And you think that specious argument will hold up?”

"Yeah." I really wondered what world Pritkin had been living in, because it sure wasn't the supernatural one. "Anything not specifically spelled out in a contract is open to interpretation. If the king didn't want me gutting the book, he should have said so.”

Pritkin looked at me for a long minute. "One of the functions of the war mages is to protect the Pythia at all costs," he finally said. "Mac believed in you, or he wouldn't have died for you. But you were brought up by a vampire, by a creature with no moral compass at all, and have received no training. Why should I fight for you? What kind of Pythia will you be?”

It was the big question, the same one I'd been asking myself. I'd taken the power hoping to break the geis, or at least give me an edge over Myra. So far, it had done neither. The truth was, I didn't know what kind of Pythia I'd be. But I did know one thing without any doubt at all. "A better one than Myra.”

"So I am being given the choice of the lesser of two evils? You do not make much of a case for yourself.”

"Maybe I'm not trying too hard," I said truthfully. I needed Pritkin. I knew next to nothing about magic on the grand scale, and had no idea where to even start looking for the book. But I didn't think I could stand another Mac on my conscience. "If you're smart, you'll lay low until this is over. Let me fight my own battles. You might get lucky and Myra and I will kill each other off.”

"And why should I not kill both of you myself, and hope the next in line will be better?”

Billy's eyes got big, and I realized that while I was relatively safe in Augusta 's body, he was still vulnerable in mine. I stepped in front of him. "There is no next in line," I told Pritkin flatly. "If there were another contender who could do a decent job, I'd have given her the damn power already! But the initiates are all under the control of your Circle, who I don't trust any more than the Black. I'm not going to hand world-shattering power to someone who can be manipulated, controlled or corrupted!”

Pritkin regarded me narrowly. "You expect me to believe you would give up the power, just like that, if there was a fit receptacle to receive it? You dragged us into Faerie to complete the ritual. Of course you want it.”

"I didn't drag you anywhere! You volunteered to go.”

"To find the rogue!”

I took a deep breath. Augusta didn't need it, but I did. "I went into Faerie to get Myra before she could get me. Picking up Tomas was a fluke, and completing the ritual was a bid to stay alive.”

"You told Mac you went after your father.”

"I did. Tony has him, or what's left of him, and I want him back. But the main goal was always Myra. I had reason to believe that she was with Tony." It had seemed like killing two birds with one stone, but I should have known better. When was my life ever that simple? "But now she's here, trying to kill Mircea. If she succeeds, he won't be around to protect me while I grow up, and I doubt I'll make it long enough to be a pain in your side, or anyone else's. If you want to get rid of me, here's your big chance.”

"Why are you telling me this? I could help Myra destroy you, and your vampire.”

"I know." And, frankly, it wouldn't surprise me. I was gambling a lot on Mac's faith in his buddy, a faith that could very well have been misplaced. But then, is it a gamble if you don't have a choice? I had Myra and half the European Senate against me. And the only one on my side was a very stressed-out ghost in an all-too-vulnerable body. What was one more enemy?

Pritkin was giving me another of his patented glares. "What do you think you can do alone, against Myra and the Senate?”

So he had overheard my little chat with Myra. I shrugged. "Possibly nothing. In which case, your problem is solved." I looked down at Billy. "Will you be all right on your own for a while?”

He shrugged. "Sure. Hell, if I die a few more times, I might even get used to it.”

"I am going with you," Pritkin announced.

"So you're what? Opting for the lesser of two evils, after all?”

"For the moment.”

It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was good enough. "You're hired.”