Claimed by Shadow

Chapter 8

I hugged porcelain in the bathroom for the next half hour. Once the power receded, I was wiped out and had a headache so severe I was nauseous. With my usual luck, Mac decided to check on me right after I returned and found me green and shaking. He left to round up a snack, apparently on the assumption that my problem was low blood sugar. If only.

Billy moved over so I could stretch out on the cot without having to lie through part of his body. "Did you see Casanova?" I croaked. I had commandeered one of Mac's beers to help my dry throat, and almost succeeded in making myself sick again when the alcohol hit my stomach. I hastily put it down.

"Yeah, but Chavez is AWOL. Maybe he's lying low until the mages vacate Dante's, I don't know. But Casanova said he'd lock up the stuff whenever he gets there." I nodded. It was as good as I could have hoped for. If Chavez had been smart enough to dodge the invasion of his workplace, the items he was carrying should be safe.

"Are you gonna do it?" Billy asked, shuffling the deck of cards. He never lifts things unless forced or showing off, but I was too sick to be impressed.

"Do what?" I lay back on the cot, trying to convince my stomach that there was nothing left to throw up. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I'd shifted in time before and never felt like this when I returned.

"Fix the ward.”

I blinked wearily at him. I'd almost forgotten about that. My pentagram would have come in really handy with Dmitri, and it had proved capable of traveling through time with me before. Unfortunately, I couldn't risk fixing it. "Yeah, and I'd owe the power a favor, too.”

"Seems like it owes you a couple, if you ask me. You've been running its errands. It's not like you wanted to go anywhere.”

"But I don't know if it looks at things like that.”

Billy blew smoke from an insubstantial cigarette, making a ring that floated up almost to the ceiling before disappearing. I asked him once why he could smoke ghostly cigarettes but couldn't drink ghostly booze, which would save me some embarrassing incidents and a lot of his whining. He'd said that whatever was with you, as in touching your body or within a few feet of it, when you died could materialize with you. It was all part of your energy, of course-so Billy was essentially smoking himself-but it was apparently satisfying on some level. Too bad he hadn't had a whiskey flask tucked away when he took his burlap swimming lesson.

"Why are we talking about this power like it's a person?" he asked thoughtfully. "You sound like it has a tally sheet and is marking down every favor so it can demand that you pay up one of these days. What if that's not true? Maybe it's a force of nature, like gravity. Only instead of keeping everything glued down, it responds to problems with the timeline by sending a repair person to fix it.”

I shook my head. His theory was surprisingly logical, but some part of me knew that whatever I was dealing with was conscious, not a mindless force. It knew I didn't like being on its repair crew. It just didn't care. "I don't think so.”

"Okay, let me make sure I understand this." Billy dealt out a hand of cards consisting of two black aces, a pair of black eights and the king of spades. It's called the Dead Man's Hand in poker because, according to legend, that's what Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back. Hickok died in 1876, almost two decades after my dealer, but Billy knew his poker lore-and how to be obnoxious with it. "You're going to refuse to fix the ward even though you've got more people after you than I can count and you're going into Faerie, where trespassers are usually killed on sight? Just so you don't maybe owe a possibly nonsentient power a favor, which it might not even bother to collect?”

I was too tired to glare at him. "I don't know.”

"Oh, well, I'm glad you've at least thought it out.”

"Why are you nagging me about this?”

"Because, turtledove, in case you've forgotten, we made a deal. I've kept my end and I expect you to keep yours- which you can't do if you're dead. Okay, yeah, you don't like being bossed around. Who does? But, newsflash, being dead is a lot worse. Have Mac reattach the damn ward. If you don't need it, great, you don't owe anybody anything. But if you do, it'll be there, and when the smoke clears, so will you.”

"Uh-huh," I said testily, giving up on the idea of getting any sleep with Billy around. "And what if it flares when it isn't a lífe-and-death situation? I don't have control over what the power perceives as a threat. If it's fueling the ward, it'll be in charge, and it's already tried to trick me…" I trailed off because Billy hadn't been there when I'd assaulted Pritkin, and I didn't want to be teased about it. Luckily, either he didn't notice or he let it go.

"Okay, you're taking a risk, wagering a few chips that this thing won't be able to trick you. But that's a lot better than gambling your life on not needing the ward and then finding out you were wrong. Take it from someone who knows, Cass-never bet when you can't afford to lose.”

We were interrupted by Mac returning laden with the four fast-food groups-salt, grease, sugar and caffeine-in the form of fries, burgers and extra large, sweetened coffees. I forced myself to eat, as it was the fastest way to regain some energy, despite feeling queasy. Halfway through the meal I told Mac that I'd decided to have the ward reactivated. Billy gave me a thumbs-up and I grimaced at him. The only thing more annoying than Billy when he's wrong is Billy when he gets something right. I'd hear about this one for a long time.

When Pritkin returned, I'd just finished dressing after Mac's adjustment. The ward remained lopsided because fixing aesthetics could wait. Mac said he thought that the power transfer had gone well, but I was skeptical. I couldn't feel anything-not a single spark or twinge. Of course, I usually didn't unless there was a threat, but I would have liked some sign that it was back at work. It didn't look like I was going to get one, though. I guessed I'd have to wait until someone tried to kill me to find out whether Mac was as skilled as he claimed. The way my life was going lately, that shouldn't be long.

"We need to go," Pritkin said without preamble. He tossed something over my head and it caught on my ear. I pulled it off and saw that I was holding some kind of charm-actually several charms-on a sturdy red cord. The little cloth pouch contained either verbena or a really ripe gym sock-they smell about the same-but I wasn't sure about the significance of the others.

"Rowan wood cross," Billy identified, "set with amber and coral-all three said to ward off Fey attacks. The pentagram is probably iron," he added, squinting at it despite the fact that that couldn't possibly help his eyesight. "It looks like he's serious about this crazy expedition. I'm beginning to think he's as nuts as you are.”

Pritkin had pulled another, matching necklace out of the bulging pack on his back. It would have made him look like Santa Claus, except that I doubt the jolly old elf ever looked that grim. He threw it to Mac and scowled. "The Circle's closing in.”

"As expected," Mac said lightly. He stood and brushed off some crumbs. We'd been talking about wards before Pritkin showed up, mainly because Mac had wanted to distract me from focusing on what he was doing to my star. He grinned at me now and held out his right leg. "Here's one I didn't have time to tell you about," he said, pointing to a small, square patch of empty skin below his knee.

"I don't get it.”

Mac just grinned bigger and took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He spread it out on the cot and I identified it as a map of Las Vegas and its surroundings. It was old and yellowed, except for patches of bright red inked onto different areas. It reminded me of a subway map, except that, of course, Vegas doesn't have one.

"There," Pritkin said, pointing out an area close to MAGIC's canyon.

Mac nodded. "No worries." He raised an eyebrow at me. "Ever see The Wizard of Oz?”

"Uh, yeah. Why?”

"You might want to hold on to something," was the only reply I got before what felt like a giant earthquake hit the shop. I clutched the cot, which was bolted down, while Pritkin looped a foot around the table and held on with both hands. Only Mac looked unperturbed, ignoring the spinning, tilting and bucking room to trace a finger along a line on the map from the city to the desert. A few seconds after he finished, the building gave a last thudding shudder and was still. A few pieces of paper wafted down from where they'd been tossed near the ceiling, but otherwise, it was like nothing had ever happened.

"What was that?!”

"See for yourself." Mac waved a hand at the front of the shop, and after regaining my rubbery legs, I walked into the front room. Instead of the asphalt street and busy hamburger restaurant that had constituted the view out of the front window, there was only a bare expanse of desert, without so much as a cactus to break up the monotony.

"I think she needs a backup," Mac was saying as he came through the curtain.

"She has those damn knives.”

"They're unreliable-they came off a dark mage and their loyalty is in question. They serve her now because it suits their purpose, but later?" Mac shook his head. "I don't like it. Not to mention that we don't even know if they'll work there.”

"You reactivated her ward; that should be sufficient,” Pritkin replied, dragging his sack out of the back room and starting to unload it on the counter. "She is more than strong enough already.”

Mac didn't say anything, but he quietly reached up to his left shoulder and grabbed something that had been concealed by the gently waving leaves. He put a finger to his lips and glanced at Pritkin, who was lining up a collection of weapons on the counter. If he thought we were going to carry all of those, I hoped he'd brought a cart.

Mac reached for my arm and I looked down to see a gleaming gold charm in the shape of a cat being held to my elbow. As soon as it touched bare skin, it morphed into a sleek black panther with narrowed orange eyes. I recognized them as the ones that had been peering at me malignantly earlier, and they didn't look much happier now. The kitty didn't seem pleased to have lost Mac's generous camouflage, and after a brief glance around, it ran up my arm and disappeared beneath my shirt.

I could feel it almost like it was a real cat, with warm fur and little claws that pricked my skin. It was weird and it tickled and I didn't like it one bit. "What the-”

"Come on, Cassie, you need to finish lunch," Mac said, pushing me ahead of him through the curtain.

"What the hell is going on?" I hissed once we were in the back. Mac shushed me and made a weird gesture in the air.

"Silence shield," he explained. "John has better hearing without enhancements than most do with them.”

"Mac, if you don't explain what-”

"I just gave you that other ward you wanted. Sheba will take good care of you. Top of the line, she is.”

Ms. Top of the Line was crawling around on my stomach, occasionally stopping to lick me, and it was creeping me out. "Mac! Get this thing off me!”

He chuckled. "Can't. That kind can only be transferred once a day. Sorry.”

He didn't look sorry, and I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth. I frankly doubted it. "Mac!”

"You may need her, Cassie," he said more soberly. "You let me reactivate your ward, but it's like John said: your power may not work in Faerie, and if it does it could be sporadic. If the energy isn't flowing to fuel it, your ward won't function. Sheba 's going to tag along to make sure you have some protection even if your main ward fails-think of her as a slightly temperamental backup. There aren't many wards that'll work in Faerie, but that one will. I bought it off the Fey who enchanted it. And I wouldn't be much of a gentleman to let you go off defenseless, now, would I?”

"But I'm not going alone." Sheba had now climbed around to my back and was doing something with her claws that was less than pleasant. I reached around to get her to stop and got swatted at by a small paw for my trouble. Fortunately, the next minute she curled up in a warm ball at the base of my spine and went to sleep. If I concentrated, I could hear her purr contentedly.

"You're assuming we'll all get past the guards. But it won't be as simple as just walking in tonight.”

"You said you know them.”

"I do, but they know me, too. I used to be John's partner before I retired. He's a wanted man now, after that exhibition you two put on this morning, so my walking in there out of the blue and making small talk is going to look strange. The idea is that I create a diversion and you two run into the portal while the guards are busy with me. But there's no saying it'll work. Even if it does, you and John are going to be on your own after the guards apprehend me.”

I squirmed uncomfortably, both because Sheba 's lazily twitching tail was ticklish, and because of Mac's easy nonchalance about defying the Circle. "What'll happen when they catch you?”

He shrugged. "Likely nothing. It won't be a slap on the wrist and Bob's your uncle, I'm back on the streets. But I know a trick or two. With a little luck, I should be able to convince them that John put me under a compulsion spell and forced me to help.”

"And if you're not lucky?”

Mac grinned and patted me on the shoulder. "That's why we're going tonight. My old mates may not be happy to see me, but neither is likely to kill me. I pulled their nuts out of the fire a time or two-they owe me.”

"But the Circle-”

"You let me worry about them," he said as Pritkin stuck a suspicious face through the curtain.

"What's going on?" I saw him mouth before Mac dissolved the shield around us with an unobtrusive flick of his wrist.

"Finishing clogging our arteries," Mac said cheerfully. "I'd ask you to join us, but I know you've stretched your rules once today." He winked at me. "Never let John be in charge of the food, Cassie. He'll poison you with wheatgrass and prune juice.”

"It's better than the kind of thing you call food," Pritkin said, but he disappeared back out front as if satisfied.

I ate a little more of my burger, but the grease had started to congeal, and anyway, I'd lost my appetite. I was tired of other people getting hurt because of me, and falling into the Circle's hands definitely came under that category. Maybe people did owe Mac a few favors, but would it be enough? What if they tortured him to find out what he knew about me? I wouldn't put it past them, old soldier or no. I felt sick again, a combination of the type of food I'd consumed, nerves and worry. Mac didn't seem to have that problem, and ultimately finished off my burger himself.

I wandered back out front to find that Pritkin was loaded for bear. The mass of weapons was gone, but he didn't appear any more weighed down than usual. I realized why when I saw him clipping some very unusual charms to a link bracelet. "Iron," he explained as he fastened it around his wrist. "It saps Fey energy, tears through their defenses like silver does to a were.”

"I didn't peg you for the jewelry type," I said, although I'd pretty much figured out what he'd done. Not even a homicidal mage wears a charm bracelet with tiny machine guns, rifles and what looked suspiciously like a grenade launcher dangling from it. The latter was especially telling, since he'd pulled a life-size model out of his sack earlier.

"I shrank them," he said impatiently. "It's the only way to carry that much weight for any distance.”

"I thought you said our stuff doesn't work there?”

"I said our magic may not work properly, if at all. This"-Pritkin tapped the Colt on his belt-"isn't magic. And it's loaded with iron bullets. Speaking of which, here." He gave me a long coat that almost matched his own. "Put that on.”

I took it from his outstretched hand and almost collapsed to the floor. It felt like it was lead lined. After a minute, I realized that was pretty much the truth. The added weight came from boxes and boxes of bullets of every conceivable caliber that had been stuffed into the coat's many pockets.

"You have got to be kidding," I said, dropping the thing on the floor. It landed with an audible thud. "I won't be able to run in that! I doubt I could walk in it!”

"You won't be running." Pritkin picked it up and stuffed it back in my arms. "We would never outrun the Fey on their own turf, so we won't try. If we come across any and they're hostile-”

"And they will be," Mac put in, emerging from behind the curtain. He had a small backpack into which he put the contents of my duffle and, with a wink, a couple of beers.

"Then we stand our ground and fight," Pritkin finished. "Running is a waste of time and would play into their hands if it separated us. No matter how grim a battle seems, don't panic.”

"Of course not. I'll stand my ground while they mow me down." I was struggling into the hot leather and feeling cranky.

Pritkin checked his shotgun and, for the first time since our incident, he met my eyes. "If you're with me, you won't die," he said. He sounded so certain that, for half a second, I believed him.

I swallowed and broke eye contact. "Why can't you shrink my stuff, too?”

"Because I am not entirely certain that the reverse spell will work in Faerie, so I am carrying both shrunken backup weapons and regular-sized primaries. Your ammunition is for the primaries.”

I was busy trying to sort through my emotions, which ranged from pissed off to terrified, so it wasn't until we stepped outside that I remembered our wild ride. Freakish though it had been, it actually ranked pretty far down the list of weird things that had happened to me lately. "How did we get here?" I asked Mac.

"I took a short cut," he said, pulling a wide-brimmed hat over his bald head. He turned around and tapped the blank square that decorated his knee. I stared at the very odd sight of a tattoo parlor sitting all alone in the middle of the desert, just before I was treated to the even odder one of it folding in on itself and winking out of sight entirely. Mac grunted and examined his leg, where a miniature version of the front of the shop, complete with bright neon sign reading mag ink, had appeared. It fit perfectly into the bare spot I'd seen earlier.

The little sign on the tattoo flashed on and off just like the real thing. After a second, I realized that it was the real thing. "We've spent the whole afternoon inside one of your wards?" I asked incredulously.

"Right in one," Mac said. "My shop goes wherever I do.”

"What do you do? Pick out an empty lot and then, bam! New retail location?”

He grinned. "Something like that.”

"What about zoning? What about pedestrians walking by and all of a sudden, there's a building? What about the cops?”

"What about them? Norms can't see it, Cassie, any more than they can one of the tattoos." He took my arm compan-ionably. "You've got to realize that the so-called magic you've seen all your life is only the tip of the iceberg. Those sad bastards the vamps use for warding and such are the bottom of the barrel. If they had any real talent, whatever issues got them disavowed would have been overlooked or they'd have been chastised and put back to work. Or, if it was something truly heinous, they'd have run off and joined the Dark-only even they won't take screwups. The type that ends up working for vamps are those with only enough magic to qualify as menaces-to themselves and everyone else. They couldn't do a complex spell if their lives depended on it. You stick with us, and you'll see some real magic.”

Pritkin stopped and took something out of his pocket. "Good idea," he commented, and a second before he did it, I knew what was going to happen. It wasn't a Seeing, just my kind of luck. The idiot was going to cast the mystery rune.

I hit the dirt and tried to drag Mac down with me, but my feet got tangled in the hem of the heavy coat and I had to let go of him to break my fall. I scraped my palms on rock-hard dirt, and the pain and subsequent struggle to free myself from the leather distracted me for a few seconds. There was a flash of light and a popping noise, like a very large champagne cork. When I looked up again, Pritkin and Mac were gone.

Although I could see a good distance in every direction, there wasn't so much as a shred of cloth or a footprint to show that they'd been there. I felt around with my senses, but there were no unusual vibrations. That was almost as strange as the disappearance-a major magical object had just been set off, yet there wasn't so much as a metaphysical ripple for miles. The only thing I could pick up was the slight buzz of MAGIC's wards off to the northwest.

I didn't understand it. If the rune had killed Pritkin and Mac-even if it had vaporized their bodies-I should be able to see their spirits. And, so far, I couldn't. After walking a large circle around where the mages had vanished and coming up with nothing, I turned my attention to my own position. It wasn't good.

I was miles from Vegas with no food, water or transportation. Worse, the only nearby source of those things was MAGIC, where half the people hunting me currently resided. Breaking in by myself would have been daunting, even if Billy had been there to help. But he, like the mages, was currently a no-show. That thought started me worrying that perhaps the rune could destroy ghosts, too, and that was why I couldn't see Pritkin or Mac's spirits. I shied away from that concept quickly when I began to shake. Billy was a royal pain, but he'd been with me through some pretty crazy times. It was hard to think about being truly alone, without a single person I could claim as an ally-not even a dead one.

The only good news was that I was wearing enough ammunition to wage a small war. Unfortunately, I'd have to drive off my enemies by throwing it at them, because I didn't have a gun. Pritkin hadn't offered to share, and my own Smith amp; Wesson was in my purse, which Mac had stuffed into the backpack-a backpack he had been holding.

I was watching a gorgeous desert sunset with rising panic when I noticed something small and dark in the sky. It was only a tiny spec highlighted by the rays of the setting sun, but it was getting bigger fast. I barely had time enough to think that Mac had been right, it did remind me of Oz, before the thing grew so huge that it blotted out what was left of the sun. I hit the ground, huddling inside the thick coat while my brain flashed on an image of me lying under Dorothy's farmhouse, with only my dead legs sticking out. Too bad I'd lost the shoes from Dante's; they'd have been perfect.

My inner monologue began to babble as something huge hit the ground nearby with a bone-shaking thud. A hail of rocks and dirt rained down on me, and my brain lost it. It was hysterically insisting that getting crushed to death wouldn't be fair-I was only a slightly bitchy clairvoyant, not a wicked witch-when the dirt storm finally passed.

I peered out from inside the coat, but there were no Munchkins or yellow brick roads in sight. Yet there was a house. It took my dust-filled eyes a few seconds to realize that the structure sitting so incongruously on the desert sand wasn't a rogue Kansas farmhouse but an urban tattoo parlor, with its neon sign flashing as cheerfully as Mac's grin.

I was lying in the dirt, shaking, when the door burst open and Pritkin and Mac ran out. They looked pretty forbidding, but then Mac caught sight of me, gave a whoop and sped over to pick me up and spin me around in a circle, lead-lined coat and all. "Cassie! Are you all right? You had us so-”

"Where the hell did you two go?" I was sobbing and half hysterical, so relieved that I felt weak and simultaneously as mad as hell. I hit him in the chest and, although I doubt it hurt much, his eagle screeched and pecked viciously at my hand. I shrieked and tore away, ending up back in the dirt. I had just been attacked by a painted bird that was not now and never had been real. Despite my afternoon crash course on advanced wards, it didn't seem possible, but it was hard to argue with evidence that hurt that much. Then Sheba woke up and things went from bad to worse.

I felt the unwelcome fur ball stretch along my lower back and, when Mac bent over to help me up, she flowed along my torso and down my arm. I looked in surprise at the line of bright red that suddenly appeared on his forearm. Despite the size of her paw, the gash it left behind was three inches long and deep enough to need stitches. Even worse, I had no idea how to call Sheba off.

Pritkin jerked me away from his friend and sent me staggering, releasing his hold quickly before Sheba could get her claws into him. His lips were thin with anger. "Stop it, both of you! Before you activate the wards for real and tear each other apart!”

I looked down at my hand, which now sported a painful two-inch gash, and gulped in enough air to say, "For real?" How much worse did they get? I don't know what else I might have said, but I glimpsed Billy over Pritkin's shoulder and temporarily forgot everything else. I pointed a trembling finger at him. "Where were you? It's almost dark and MAGIC is right over there!”

"Calm down, Cass-it's okay. Everything's fine, but you need to get a grip or your new pet is going to do some serious damage.”

"My ward didn't flare." I stared at Mac, who was busy healing his wound. Lucky him-I'd wear mine for a while. Yet, although it was Mac who was bleeding, it was Pritkin who was glowering at me. That was so unfair it was breathtaking, considering that all of this was his damn fault.

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Mac said. "It's a bit more advanced than those. It's designed to sense intent, and I didn't mean you any harm." He had managed to stop the blood flow, but a raw red weal remained behind to mark his skin, leaving a gap in the leaves that they brushed against but couldn't cross. "I'm sorry, Cassie-I shouldn't have grabbed you. But when you disappeared we-well, we didn't know what had happened.”

So they'd thought I was dead, too. Mac's confession that he, at least, had been worried helped me calm down-that and the fact that I wasn't about to face an ambush alone. "I've been right here," I told him shakily. "You two are the ones who disappeared. Where did you go?”

"You were aware that we were gone?" Pritkin asked with a frown. He glanced at Mac. "We were wrong, then.”

"Not necessarily." Mac looked at me keenly. "Maybe time displacements don't affect her like the rest of us. That could be why she didn't come along for the ride even though she was as close to you as I was.”

"You went somewhere in time?" What, could anybody do it anymore?

"We think that thing"-Mac gestured at the rune Pritkin still held in his fist-"is a do-over.”

"A what?”

"It carries the caster back in time about twenty minutes. So if you get in a tight spot, you cast it and have a chance to redeem a mistake.”

I sent Pritkin a less-than-friendly glance. "Something that might have been very useful where we're going.”

"I'm sure it will be," he commented, tucking it out of sight inside his coat.

I would have reminded him that the rune was mine, except that he would almost certainly have replied that I'd just stolen it first. I glanced at Billy and nodded slightly toward the mage. He floated over while I started an argument to distract Pritkin. "Well, it's useless now, at least for a month.”

"We could not risk employing it without first learning what it does," Pritkin insisted, his eyebrows drawing together in their usual expression. "If it has not been used in as long as we think, it should be possible to cast it again soon.”

"But you don't know that," I pointed out angrily. "You can leave rechargeable batteries plugged in as long as you want, but they only hold one charge. Maybe the rune works the same way.”

"Permit me to think that I know a little more about magical artifacts than you," Pritkin replied with disdain as Billy slipped an insubstantial-looking hand into his pocket. A few seconds later, my rune floated out as if levitated. It made its way to me and I surreptitiously pocketed it. "I am reasonably certain it will work," the mage added. "Now, if you have finished having hysterics, we should be going.”

I said nothing but retrieved the backpack from Mac and took out my gun. It was fully loaded, but I checked it anyway. Pritkin's lips thinned out even more as he watched; pretty soon he wasn't going to have any at all. He obviously didn't like the idea of my carrying a weapon-maybe he was afraid I'd shoot him in the back-but he refrained from comment.

He struck out across the desert and I followed. Mac and Billy Joe trailed after us as soon as the mage again absorbed his mobile business. Not a word was said for half an hour, until the dim outline of MAGIC spread below us.

The complex is designed to look like a working ranch, just in case any norms with a little talent wander by and manage to see through the perimeter wards. But it's centered in a canyon with high sides, far away from any tourist facilities, so that isn't likely. Not to mention that there are all kinds of metaphysical keep off signs everywhere, starting about a mile out, that make norms very uncomfortable.

The starlight had turned the landscape into something like the moon's surface-all mysterious dark craters and endless silver sand. MAGIC itself was dark and quiet, with all the external lights off and no movement among the buildings. It looked like whatever was happening tonight was taking place underground.

I collapsed onto a relatively rock-free piece of sand while Mac and Pritkin debated approaches. The hike had been a bitch. I'd stumbled through the growing darkness, stubbing my toe about every fourth step and falling on my face twice. The coat kept getting tangled around my legs and made me feel like I was carrying another person on my back. I'd been too busy lately for regular gym visits and it showed. Running for my life was obviously not giving me enough exercise.

"Is he in there?" Billy asked, hovering a few feet off the sand.

I hugged the coat around me, grateful for its thickness now that the desert had started to cool off. "I don't know.”

"Want me to check it out?”

"No." If Mircea was there, I didn't want to know. With luck, we'd escape into Faerie before he figured out that I'd been crazy enough to drop by.

"Is your ghost here?" Pritkin interrupted to ask. He surprised me by being cautious for once-maybe the idea of breaking into MAGIC scared even him. He had Mac describe his guard friends to Billy, who agreed to go see whether anyone had changed the duty roster unexpectedly. He streamed off across the sand, quickly becoming invisible against the night. In the meantime, we waited.

Once upon a time, when I was a child reading fairy tales, I'd ached to have my own adventures. Not that I'd wanted to be some drippy heroine languishing in a tower, awaiting rescue. No, I'd wanted to be the knight, charging into battle against overwhelming odds, or the plucky country lass who gets taken on as the apprentice to a great wizard. As I got older, I'd found out the hard way that adventures are rarely anything like the books say. Half the time you're scared out of your mind, and the rest you're bored and your feet hurt. I was beginning to believe that maybe I wasn't the adventurous type.

Billy returned after half an hour with news. The guards fit the descriptions Mac had given him and, lucky for us, there was a major uproar in the vamp area. "It's like a circus, Cass-everybody's there. The rest of the place is practically deserted!”

"Well?" Pritkin was looking impatient. "What does he say?”

"It's okay-the right guys are on duty." Billy, I noticed, was looking way too pleased about something. Maybe it was just relief that our job might be easier than we'd thought, but I doubted it. I knew his expressions almost as well as I knew my own, and he was practically ecstatic. "Okay, out with it.”

Billy grinned and twirled his hat around an index finger. For some reason the finger was less substantial at the moment than the hat, so it looked like his headgear was doing a giddy little jig all on its own. "It's too perfect," he crowed, his grin threatening to split his face. "Talk about a good omen!”

"What are you talking about?”

"Is something wrong?" Pritkin demanded. Billy and I both ignored him.

"I know your birthday doesn't start for a couple more hours, Cass, but you're getting your present early.”

"Billy! Just tell me already.”

He laughed delightedly, to the point that it barely missed being a cackle. "It's that bastard Tomas. He was captured early yesterday morning. I think they're trying to decide what would be the most painful way to execute him. That's why everyone's crowded into the vamp section-they want to see the show." Billy threw his hat up into the air jubilantly. "I wouldn't mind taking a peek myself, if we had time.”

The only thing that saved me from falling was that I was already sitting down. Tomas was about to be executed and might already be under torture? I sat blinking at Billy as my brain tried to comprehend it, and whatever showed on my face he didn't like. His grin faded and he started shaking his head violently.

"No. No way are you doing this! He deserves this, Cass, you know he does. He betrayed you-hell, he almost got you killed! For once, fate is taking a problem off our hands gratis. Let's smile, say thank you and stay the hell out of it!”

My face felt numb. I wondered vaguely whether that was due to the night breeze or to horror. I was betting on horror. "I can't.”

"Yes, you can." Billy flickered like a candle flame in his agitation. "It's easy. We walk into MAGIC's nice, quiet halls, make our way to the portal and pass through. That's it, that's all. No biggie.”

"Yes biggie." I stood up, wobbling a little, and Pritkin caught my arm. As usual he wasn't gentle, but this time that was a plus. I barely kept my balance even with his iron grip. "Very much biggie.”

"What are you talking about? What's going on?" Pritkin was talking, but I barely heard him. All I could hear was Tomas' voice raised in agony, all I could see was him tied down like an animal, waiting for Jack.

If I closed my eyes, I could see a different scene. It was Tomas in the kitchen of our Atlanta apartment, frowning in puzzlement at the stove. It hadn't cooked the brownies he'd intended as breakfast for me, possibly because he hadn't known to turn the thing on. He'd been wearing one of my aprons, the one that said does not cook well with others, over the smiley face pajama bottoms I'd bought to keep him from sleeping in the altogether. We'd had separate bedrooms, but just the thought of Tomas down the hall wearing only his skin had been keeping me up nights. I'd explained how the range operated and we'd eaten the whole pan of brownies before I went off to work, resulting in a sugar buzz that lasted most of the day.

That was the first time I'd let myself begin to hope that he might become a permanent fixture in my life. He'd already been my best friend for six of the happiest months I'd ever known. Against all odds, I'd actually started to create a more or less normal existence. I'd liked my sunny apartment, my wonderfully predictable job at a travel agency and my gorgeous roommate. Tomas had been a dream come true-handsome, considerate, strong, yet vulnerable enough to make me want to take care of him.

I should have remembered the old phrase about something that looks too good to be true, but I'd been too busy enjoying the gift fate had dropped in my lap. What followed had proven that the gift had been more of a curse, and the normal life only a mirage. All those rosy dreams had come crashing down around my head, leaving scars that hadn't even scabbed over, much less healed. I realized with a jolt that the brownie incident had been only a few weeks ago. That seemed impossible; it had to have been at least a decade.

Pritkin was shaking me, but I barely noticed. I opened my eyes, but it was Jack's pale face and crazed expression I saw. The Consul's favorite torturer loved his work, and he was very, very good at it. He'd probably had plenty of firsthand instruction from Augusta. I'd seen him in action on one very memorable occasion, and no way could I leave Tomas in his hands. No matter what he'd done; no matter how furious I was with him. There was no freaking way.

It looked like I got to be the knight on the white horse after all. Only never in my wildest dreams had I planned on the odds being quite this bad. There was such a thing as a heroic challenge and then there was suicide, and I had no doubt into which category this fit. If Tomas' death was being made into a public show, most of MAGIC would be there: vamps, mages, weres, maybe even a few Fey. And somehow we not only had to get past them and snatch him from under the Consul's nose; we also had to battle our way to the portal afterward. It was worse than a nightmare. It was insane.

"We have a problem," I told Pritkin, choking back an absurd urge to giggle at the understatement.

His eyes narrowed to pale slits. "What problem?" Since he forced the words past clenched teeth, it looked like he'd already figured out that he was going to hate this. That was good; it saved time.

"Billy says the halls are almost empty because everyone's in the vampire area. They're executing someone tonight, and it's drawn quite a crowd.”

"Executing who?" Pritkin's icy green eyes stared into mine and I smiled weakly, remembering the last time he and Tomas met. To say that they weren't pals was missing the mark a bit. People don't generally try to behead their friends.

"Um, well, actually…" I sighed. "It's Tomas.”

I couldn't keep myself from wincing slightly, but Pritkin barely reacted, other than to look slightly relieved. "Good. Then this should be simpler than I'd anticipated." He noticed my expression and his frown returned. "Why does this constitute a problem?”

I swallowed. I'd have preferred a little more time to lead up to it, like a year or two, but I couldn't afford to stall. Every second that passed was dangerous for Tomas. Jack liked to play with his victims before finishing them off, and no one would be happy with a short show. But it had been dark for well over an hour. Jack could do a lot of damage in that time.

I looked at Pritkin and worked up a smile. It didn't seem to help, and I gave it up. "Because we, uh, sort of have to rescue him.”