Curse the Dawn

Chapter Five

Half an hour later, I was standing in Dante's lobby getting smacked around by a blond. For once, it wasn't Pritkin. "Stop that!" The willowy creature at my side slapped my hands. I'd been trying to surreptitiously wipe my sweaty palms on the full skirts of my dress, but I guess I hadn't been subtle enough.

"I'm not hurting anything," I said as someone started sniffling nearby. I looked around, but all I saw was the gimlet-eyed group across the hotel lobby. They were filing in by twos and threes, attempting to blend in with the crowd. But despite the fact that Dante's employees dressed in everything from sequined devil suits to dominatrix garb, they weren't doing so great.

It might have been the heavy coats they wore despite the fact that the temperature outside was threatening to shatter thermometers. It might have been the ominous bulges under said coats. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that they all looked like they dearly wanted to kill someone. Since that someone would be me, I thought a few sweat stains might be forgivable. Too bad Augustine didn't agree.

"After the way you brought back my last creation?" he sniffed. "Don't even talk to me."

I shifted my feet guiltily. Augustine was a dress designer who thought pretty highly of his work. That was why I'd stuffed the remains of the last dress he'd made for me, which had suffered a few unavoidable indignities, into a trash bag and hid it in a Dumpster. Somehow, he'd located it anyway. And when I showed up at his shop in the casino promenade half an hour ago, out of breath and desperate for something to wear to this meeting, he'd pointed to the poor, tattered remains.

Augustine had made it clear that off the rack was too good for me and flounced out. But half a minute later he'd had to flounce back in when Sal, my new, self-appointed assistant, had backed him into the workroom with a fang-filled smile. Apparently, Mircea hadn't had time to alert the entire family to the fact that he'd prefer I miss this meeting. And Sal wasn't about to let me embarrass us all in front of the Circle.

I'd gotten my dress—a rich green velvet that made me look vaguely like I was wearing Scarlett O'Hara's curtains—barely in time to drag it on and sprint over here. Since it was an Augustine creation, I kept expecting it to morph into something or try to bite me, but so far it hadn't done anything interesting. Except do its damnedest to make me look more sophisticated.

It had its work cut out for it.

Nothing was going to turn my five-foot-four frame statuesque, I hadn't had a chance to redo my makeup, and an attempt to tame my flyaway curls with hairspray had given me helmet head. Not that it mattered: the Circle already knew what I looked like. They should, considering how many wanted posters they'd sent out.

Casanova, the hotel manager, sidled up, frowning. He was looking stylish as usual in a wheat-colored suit that set off his Spanish good looks and fit like it had been made for him, which it probably had. He gave me a glass and a glare. "What's the matter? Is your corset too tight?"

"I'm not wearing a corset." For once, Augustine had refrained from trying to asphyxiate me.

"Then would you mind attempting to look a little less like you're about to fall over? You are supposed to be projecting an aura of strength."

I took the champagne, but my hand was shaking enough to spill a few drops onto my bodice. "I'm trying!" I hissed as someone began weeping softly. "And what the hell is that?"

"Us, going up in flames," Casanova said, leaving as abruptly as he'd come.

Augustine was looking a little smug. "Okay, what did you do?" I demanded.

"Call it insurance," he said cryptically as more leather-trench-coat-wearing «tourists» filtered in through the door. They were war mages, the Circle's version of a police force, FBI and CIA all rolled up into one maniacal package. I'd expected to see at least a few of them around as a precautionary measure. This was more than a few.

I did a quick visual survey and decided we might have a problem. Because the agreement Pritkin had worked out explicitly stated that each side could have no more than a dozen members present at the meeting. Ours were scattered around the room, mostly vampires on loan from Casanova. The mages had also fanned out, and while it was a little difficult to be sure with all the real tourists around, I was fairly certain I counted more than a dozen. Make that absolutely certain, I decided as another trio nonchalantly wandered in.

One day I was going to find allies who didn't try to kill me on a regular basis. One fine, fine day.

Francoise, the pretty brunette witch flanking me on the other side from Augustine, shifted uncomfortably. "Pritkin, 'e ees 'ere, no?" she asked, her French accent more pronounced than usual. That meant she was nervous. Probably because, while she still had a little trouble with English, she could count as well as I could.

"Yeah."

"I do not see 'im."

"That's kind of the point."

I'd have preferred to have Pritkin glued to my side, in case this went the way of every other encounter with the Circle I'd ever had. But he'd argued that he could keep a better eye on the overall scenario if he had more freedom of movement. Francoise was there to run temporary interference if things got out of hand.

I wouldn't have told her for anything, but that didn't make me feel a lot better. I didn't doubt her ability, but the fact was that the Circle didn't play by the rules. Sometimes, I didn't think they even had any rules. And they were supposedly the good guys. No wonder I was always in trouble.

"Zere are too many mages," Francoise muttered, casting a glance at the entrance, where two more were sauntering over the bridge that separated the land of the living from the underworld. Below them, a couple of Charons were poling boats laden with clueless tourists across the Styx, or what passed for it. The vacationers were laughing and tossing coins into the water, making the usual jokes about paying the ferryman.

"They won't try anything surrounded by norms," I said, more to convince myself than her.

"Zey are already trying somezeeg!" she pointed out, frowning like someone who badly needed to be cheered up by some decent leadership. I kind of felt that way myself; unfortunately the one in charge was me.

"Are you planning to wait for them to attack?" Pritkin's voice was loud in my ear. He'd done some sort of spell to allow us to communicate, or so he'd said. I should have known he'd use it to eavesdrop.

"If I leave, what then?" I asked reasonably. "We need the Circle."

"And we need you alive!"

"They haven't done anything yet."

"Other than deceive us," Pritkin said in his let-me-explain-this-to-you-in-little-words voice. "We said a dozen; I've counted more than twice that many. And if they will break one promise, why not another? We'll have to try again."

"And what if they refuse to meet again?" They didn't like me already; a deliberate snub might be the last straw. If we were ever going to reconcile, someone had to take a risk and show a little trust. And it didn't look like it was going to be them.

"Miss Palmer. ."

"I thought we'd agreed that you were going to call me Cassie."

"There are a few things I'd like to call you. Now get out of there!"

"I'll shift out if there's trouble," I promised.

"If they explode a null bomb, you won't be able to shift!"

"We discussed this," I reminded him. "If they use a null bomb, it will cancel out all magic in the area—including theirs—and Casanova's boys will wipe the floor with them. I only want to talk to Saunders for a few minutes."

"He isn't here! He sent one of his lieutenants instead. Richardson. He just came in."

And sure enough, three mages had broken off the pack and started toward me. I didn't have to ask which one was in charge. The man in the center was middle-aged and distinguished looking, with startlingly blue eyes and graying auburn hair that was swept back from a high forehead. He was wearing a business suit in a neat gray pinstripe with a bright blue tie. He looked more like a diplomat than a warrior. Maybe they actually did intend to talk.

"Get out now!" Pritkin repeated, sounding furious.

"If I leave, what then?" I whispered. "We don't have a Plan B."

"And if you die, we'll never have a chance to form one!"

"Damn it, Pritkin. We need the Circle!" He didn't reply. Maybe because Richardson and his cold-eyed buddies had arrived.

"I thought we'd agreed no more than twelve per side," I said, and immediately wished I could take it back. I hadn't planned to start off sounding so suspicious. If this meeting had taken place a month ago, I'd have handled it differently. But weeks of constant running, almost dying and frequent betrayal had sharpened my usual defensiveness to something approaching hostile paranoia.

Richardson didn't look ruffled, however. "Had we met at a neutral site, we would have kept the bargain. But this" — he swept out a hand to indicate the gothic gloom of Dante's lobby—"is not neutral."

"It's a public place! And if you had an objection, you might have mentioned it before now!"

"A public place owned by your master and run by his servants."

"I don't have a master."

He smiled condescendingly. "That is what the vampires said. They speak highly of you." It didn't sound like a compliment.

"But you don't believe them."

"Tell me about Nicholas," he said instead of answering.

It took me a second to respond, because I'd known Nick only by the abbreviated version of his name. He'd been a war mage acquaintance of Pritkin's, one who had turned against the Circle but hadn't joined my side. He had preferred his own.

I paused, wondering how to explain the complex series of events that had left the only book with a translation of Artemis' spell in Nick's hands, forcing Pritkin to kill him to keep it safe. I really hoped Nick and Richardson hadn't been friends. "He was going to use the Codex for his own ends," I finally said.

"Yes, so we were told. Unfortunately, there isn't a shred of evidence to that effect. Unless you perhaps still have it? Even a page—"

"It was burnt."

Richardson pursed his lips. "How unfortunate."

"Pritkin did what was necessary—"

"On your orders."

I started to argue the point but shut my mouth without saying anything. I hadn't ordered Nick's death, but I'd known how Pritkin worked and what his solution was likely to be. And I'd made no attempt to stop him. It was one of many decisions weighing on my conscience these days, although I still couldn't see another alternative. If Nick had succeeded, we'd all be dead now—probably even him.

"We did what we had to do, whether you choose to believe that or not," I told him.

"We all do," Richardson commented mildly, offering his hand.

This conversation wasn't going as well as I'd hoped, but at least we were talking. It was a start.

His hand was warm and slightly damp and his grip was firm—a little too firm. His fingers tightened as he drew me close, bending his head as if to say something privately. But all I heard was a low-voiced incantation that sent a sharp frisson running over my skin.

"Nick was my son," he said gently.

I stared up at him, seeing the resemblance that should have registered before—the auburn hair, darker than Nick's carrottop but with the same natural wave, and the eyes, surprisingly translucent when the light was right and dark as sapphire at the rim. And the expression, which told me as clearly as if he'd screamed it that talk wasn't what he'd come to do.

Francoise muttered a spell, but before she could finish, Richardson flung out a hand and she went flying. Two of Casanova's security team started forward, but the mages flanking us threw up a shield that they couldn't penetrate. That wouldn't last, but then, it didn't have to. Richardson reached out and, with a savage motion, ripped open the air.

The darkness of the casino's lobby was suddenly brilliant with icy blue light that highlighted the patched areas in the carpet and the hidden speakers in the corners. It made Richardson's eyes brighter and colder even than they were while washing all human color from his face. I tried to shift but nothing happened. I pulled back, but his grip had turned to steel.

"We need each other," I reminded him. "You don't want to do this!"

His face took on an expression that was nothing like a smile. "Oh, but I really think I do."

A movement caught my eye and I looked up in time to see Pritkin jumping down from the second-floor balcony. But it was too late. Richardson jerked me to him, an arm encircled my waist and we were gone.

I knew what had happened as soon as I saw the familiar tunnel of leaping energy all around us, although the sensation in my stomach—rising, sinking, a bit like flying, only far more terrifying—would have been enough. We were skimming the surface of a ley line, a term the mages used for the rivers of power generated when worlds collide: ours, the demon realms, Faerie or any of a hundred others.

For the width of a couple of football fields on either side was a sea of glimmering blue, a thousand shades from robin's egg to sapphire running together like an electric ocean. In front and behind, energy sparkled and danced along gleaming bands of pure power, telescoping out to an infinite vanishing point. It wasn't a calm picture: everywhere knots and snarls of blue-tinged lightning were tossed up like flotsam or, as someone had once explained it to me, magma in a tectonic drift.

The mages had long ago learned how to skim along the surface of these metaphysical hot spots, surfing their currents to rapidly travel from one point to another. The lines didn't go everywhere, which was one reason trains, planes and automobiles were still in use by the magical set. Another was the fact that most people didn't have shields strong enough to navigate this otherworldy highway system. Without them, the energy of a ley line would turn a human into dust in seconds.

"Shift, damn it!" Pritkin's voice echoed in my ear, the connection staticky and weak.

Yeah. Like that never would have occurred to me. I glared at the passing stream of vivid color and wished I could yell back. But if Richardson learned we could communicate, he'd probably figure out some way to block it. The only way to retain my tenuous connection with Pritkin was to keep my mouth shut.

"Cassie! Can you hear me?"

I realized that I had to say something. He couldn't help me if he didn't know what was wrong. "Why can't I shift?" I asked Richardson.

"You can't shift?" Pritkin repeated. His voice was wavering in and out, like a badly tuned radio, and I wasn't sure he'd heard me.

"Because it doesn't make sense that I can't shift," I repeated as loudly as I dared. "And don't tell me you used a null bomb, because then your shields wouldn't work. We'd both be dead by now."

"I used a null net," Richardson said, strangely matter-of-fact. He sounded like we were having the conversation over lunch instead of hurtling down a magical river that was trying its best to consume us. "The power you've usurped won't help you."

"A null net?" I prompted, hoping someone would take the hint. It was a little hard to fight something I'd never even heard of.

To my surprise, Richardson filled me in. "A bomb is designed to project the null effect outward—to stop a battle, for instance. A net does the opposite, projecting the power inward, over a more limited surface—in this case, your body." He sounded pretty pleased with himself; I assumed the net had been his idea. "It blocks your ability to access your magic but does not interfere with that of anyone around you."

Pritkin used one of his favorite swear words, so I knew Richardson wasn't lying. "Are you still on the Chaco Canyon Line?" Pritkin demanded, like I'd know. I'd experienced the part thrill, part terror of ley line travel only recently, since most vampires don't find rivers of fire a fun way to get around. Tony had never used them, and as a result I wasn't up on all the ins and outs. I knew that different worlds intersecting created different colors, due to variations in the atmospheres, but I hadn't even begun to know which color went where.

I wouldn't have had a chance to answer anyway, because a burst of power exploded right in front of us like a solar flare. The arm around my waist tightened convulsively, almost cutting off my air, as we spun out of control. The centrifugal forces were greater at the borders of the lines, where thick bands of power helped to push mages out of their version of a subway. Only we weren't leaving. My captor merely used the opportunity to regain control before we were back in the midst of the stream.

"All this blue is blinding," I said breathlessly. "I don't know how you can see to navigate."

"He's taking you to MAGIC," Pritkin confirmed.

"Yes, we're on the Chaco Canyon Line, on our way to MAGIC, where she will stand trial for her crimes. Is there anything else you'd like to know, John?" Richardson asked politely.

"He can't hear us," Pritkin informed me quickly. "He's guessing based on your comments. They weren't exactly subtle."

Well, excuse the hell out of me

, I didn't say.

"You can't let him get you to MAGIC," Pritkin continued. "Once you're in the Circle's cells, it will be almost impossible to get you out. I'll create a diversion. Use the opportunity to force him out of the line, and I'll follow you down."

Right. Because I'd navigated a ley line on my own all of once, and that had been using an artificial shield because no way were mine up to this kind of stress. I'd almost gotten myself killed, and that had been without a war mage to incapacitate—one who I couldn't knock out, even were that physically possible, because then his shields would go and we'd both die. The same was true if Pritkin's «distraction» made him lose his concentration.

"Tell me, in your head, do these plans actually sound like they're going to work?" I asked.

Richardson made a huffing sound that might have been a laugh. "Just do it!" Pritkin snapped.

I ignored him. I wasn't going to risk getting fried if we were going to MAGIC. Because, yes, it was the mages' stronghold, but it also happened to be the vampires'. And while the Consul didn't like me much, she saw me as a potentially useful tool—and in vamp terms, that was better than affection. By now, Casanova would have informed the Senate that I'd been taken, and none of them was exactly slow on the uptake. Richardson might get more than he bargained for when we arrived at MAGIC.

Since I couldn't very well tell Pritkin that without also alerting Richardson, I used the time to begin calculating what the Consul was going to demand for saving my life. No way was I getting this for free, even if it benefited her, too. That wasn't how the game was played.

A few moments later, Richardson started maneuvering us toward the side of the line again. I braced myself for what was usually the bumpiest part of the ride, which turned out to be a good thing. Because we hadn't even started to exit when something smashed into his shields, shuddering them all around us.

For a split second I thought it was another flare until a weirdly distorted face appeared in front of me. It was bathed in jumping blue light, like a photograph taken underwater, and was squashed into the mage's shields as if pressed against a glass bubble. But the wild blond hair and furious green eyes were the same as ever.

Shit.

The mage stared at Pritkin for a startled second, apparently as shocked as I was, and then he scowled and jerked us hard to the left. We bounced off a thick band of power running along the side of the line and ricocheted back the other way. As we passed Pritkin, who was trying to pull up from a dive toward where we had just been, Richardson threw a spell that exploded against my partner's shields like a bomb blast.

I screamed, knowing what it meant if Pritkin's shields failed. But before the blast even cleared, he plowed into us again, hard enough to almost force us out of the line. Unfortunately, Richardson recovered quickly and hit back, bouncing Pritkin's bubble of protection so far into the distance that it was lost from sight among the jumping blue maelstrom.

"Pritkin! Get out of here!" I yelled, the need for subtlety over. I received no reply. I really hoped that, for once, he'd been sensible and retreated. He was at a serious disadvantage otherwise. He couldn't hit Richardson hard enough to risk rupturing his shields and killing us both, but the mage could attack him with impunity.

Make that mages. A flicker of movement caught my eye and I glanced behind us to see a dozen or more ripples in the energy stream, like sharks slicing through water. And off to the left, something dark appeared against all that jumping color. I deliberately didn't look directly at it in case I tipped Richardson off. He didn't see it, but apparently one of the mages following us did. A bolt of energy—red instead of blue—flashed past to explode against Pritkin's shields.

"No!" Richardson yelled. "Not inside the line!"

Nobody paid him any attention. Two more bursts screamed by us moments later, barely missing Pritkin, who dodged out of the way at the last second. Leaving the spells to burst against the river of power below.

I didn't see what they did—we were moving too fast and were almost immediately beyond them—but I felt it. The line trembled and wavered all around us, and energy bands that a moment before had been straight and more or less steady were suddenly arcing across our path. The already dangerous flow of the ley line became a raging torrent, tossing us around like a speck of dust in a cyclone. Lightning or something equally energetic sparked off the mage's shields as we spun, rolled and bobbed uncontrollably, swimming on wild currents of power.

I caught a glimpse of Pritkin barely avoiding being speared by a tower of blue flame. But he ducked under a fiery arch the size of a house and it surged past him. We weren't so lucky. Richardson swerved to avoid a stuttering mass that had erupted right in front of us and ran straight into another one hard enough that the impact reverberated through my bones.

Glowing streaks and odd swirls of light curled all around us. For a moment, all I could see were bursts of power exploding everywhere, burning through our bubble of protection like acid, before the mage made a sudden, violent motion and tore us free. The current tossed us to the side of the line, where a thick band of power threw us back once more, straight into the path of the granddaddy of all fissures.

It covered half the line's width in a towering column of angry blue fire. A tidal wave of prickling energy rushed over me as we breached the outer skin, and then it flared into a blinding brightness. I couldn't see anything, blue-white light filling my vision and my brain, overwhelming and unbearable.

My eyes slowly adjusted to show me the inside of the flare. Power pulsed everywhere in glowing blue-white streams that sheared chunks off Richardson's remaining shields every couple of seconds. They couldn't last at this rate—and as soon as they were gone, so were we.

Richardson must have had the same thought, because he started prying my arms off his waist. "I regret that there will not be a trial," he said as I struggled and fought. "I looked forward to hearing you beg for your life."

My fists bunched in his suit coat, trying to hold on, but he tore them loose and got his hands around my wrists. "Please! You can't do this!" I screamed, my eyes on the leaping wall of fire outside.

"I suppose that will have to do," he said regretfully. And with a brutal shove, he sent me flying backward, straight into the heart of the flame.