Curse the Dawn

Chapter Seven

There was a small quiet as we all stared at the hill. I could hear hollow echoes of the blast reverberating in my head and feel sweat trickling down my cheek, stinging a cut on my lip. Then someone started walking toward the ridge, a black silhouette against the dim glow, and we all followed.

I made it to the crest of the dune and froze. The canyon looked like a giant meteor had hit it. Where a cluster of adobe buildings had once stood, there was nothing but a yawning crater, black and still smoking. The initial heat must have been incredible. In places the sand had taken on a runny, glasslike sheen, melted in an instant.

Nothing moved.

No

, I thought, but it was distant and blank. We all stared at the place MAGIC should have been for a long moment. Finally, somebody started moving and the rest of us followed. We picked our way down an old path until it was lost under a drift of dirt and rock thrown up by the explosion. Judging by the colors, some of it had come from far underground. The once pale tan landscape was now raw umber, old gold, blackened bronze and ash gray. It was also slippery in places, where cooling glass hid under the softer sand that was still raining down. I kept my footing because Pritkin had me by the arm, his grip mirroring the tight clench of his jaw.

The mages seemed to have forgotten I was there. We sidestepped over broken stones together, across drifts of white-speckled ash, under clouds of fine black particles that billowed up with every movement and settled over our clothes, our faces, our hair. I could taste them at the back of my throat. Nothing could have survived.

My legs suddenly gave out, dumping me in the dirt. I rested my head on my knees and took slow, deep breaths, forcing the hollow, aching fear pushing at my ribs to still. More ash floated up, threatening to choke me, and I didn't care. I saw a succession of faces across my vision, all friends who lived and worked at MAGIC—or had. One in particular caught my breath. Rafe, my childhood friend, was the closest thing I ever had to a father. And he was buried under there along with the rest, assuming he hadn't been incinerated by the explosion.

Part of my brain was busy running the odds, looking for an angle that would provide a way out—even when I knew damn well there wasn't one. I wrapped my arms around my torso and shook but not with grief. Not yet. It was rage that stopped my throat and made it almost impossible to speak. It felt like being flayed, being hollowed out and filled with boiling acid. I'd never experienced so much anger, such a bitter desire to strike back. Because this wasn't something that our enemies had done to us.

I'd said we were going to tear ourselves apart; I just hadn't thought it would start so soon.

The mages were shuffling around like zombies, blank faced and disbelieving. Their feet stirred up black and gray clouds, disturbing the embers. Something was burning underground. There were glowing orange-red spots beneath the ashes, dotted here and there like a huge funeral pyre. I watched them with eyes that stung and watered from more than the particles in the air.

The Senate was gone. Beyond the personal tragedy, it was a military disaster—the disaster—that would almost certainly hand Apollo a win. Not today, maybe, but soon. Whether their arrogance allowed them to see it or not, the Circle couldn't hold out alone against the forces he had amassed. It would be lucky to last the month.

"Shift us inside," Pritkin said, his voice a harsh rasp. Several nearby mages heard him and turned to look at me, expressionless and tense as drawn wire.

I slowly lifted my head, gazing at Pritkin through a haze of grief and rage. His eyes were dark and wild, the pupils devouring the green, leaving a corona of feverish jade. He looked wounded; he looked the way I felt, as if he'd done the calculations, too. As if he already knew we'd lost.

"I thought we'd at least get to fight the war first," I said.

"The lower levels. Cassie—with MAGIC's wards, some may still be intact!" He gripped my arms like there was some kind of urgency. Like any wards could have held against that. "Take us there!"

"Null net," I said, unable to get anything else out.

"Remove it!" I heard Pritkin order someone, but I didn't bother to see who. Sweat was running down my back, soaking the seam of the dress, and I must have touched something hot because my palms were burned. "She is innocent of the charges. Let her prove it—remove the net and she'll help us!"

"Help us?" Liam stepped forward, almost unrecognizable with his grubby face, blossoming black eye and hate-filled snarl. "She killed a dozen mages tonight!"

"The fissure killed them," Pritkin retorted. "And she had nothing to do with that."

It was like Liam didn't hear him. "They were good men! Richardson most of all, killed while still in mourning for his son—another of her victims!"

The unfairness of the accusation should have bothered me. It would have, ten minutes ago. Now I didn't even blink. For some reason, I wasn't angry anymore; instead, I felt empty, like someone had hollowed out my body and replaced my bones with dry wood, like I'd break if I moved too fast.

"She didn't kill Nick," Pritkin said, maintaining his temper although his glare could have powdered diamond. "She wasn't even there when it happened. And Richardson died in the fissure."

"So you say," Liam sneered. "Yet she survived."

"Barely."

"I don't understand why you threw everything away in support of her, but it may not be too late," Liam told him, suddenly earnest. "Help me bring her in and I'll vouch for you. We all will. You can say anything—that you were bewitched, that she and those vampires did something to you—and as long as she's out of the way, the Council will believe it. We need people like you now more than ever!"

"And the girl?" Pritkin demanded.

"She'll get a trial," Liam said, his face closing down.

"A trial she'll lose."

"It's one life! One life against the thousands who will die if we can't bring cohesion back to the Circle. You or I would gladly give our own lives in such a cause. If she's any kind of Pythia, can she do less?"

"You can't have it both ways," Pritkin said harshly. "By your reasoning, she's evil and must be destroyed before she can help our enemies, or she's innocent and must be destroyed to preserve the Circle. Either way, she dies."

"For the common good!"

"For the Circle's good. I'm not so sure that has much to do with what's good for everybody else. Not anymore."

"What did she do to you?" Liam asked, his voice soft with amazement. "You almost died defending the Circle on more than one occasion!"

"It was a different organization then."

"Nothing has changed! I know Marsden has been stirring up trouble, but—"

A spell came out of the night and dropped Liam to his knees. I looked around, confused, because Pritkin hadn't cast it. A tall African-American mage stepped forward as Liam toppled over. He had a buzz cut and enough muscles to give Marco a run for his money. "We don't have time for this," he said harshly, and waved a hand at me.

My power suddenly came rushing back, a steady hum running under my skin, through my bones, singing in my cells, ready, ready, ready. I pulled it around me like a familiar coat as the mage glowered at me. "Caleb, meet Cassie," Pritkin said dryly.

The mage didn't look to be in the mood for pleasantries. "We have no way to get them out, assuming there is anyone alive down there. But you do," he told me.

It had the flavor of a command more than a request, especially in his deep baritone. But at the moment, I wasn't feeling picky. I didn't really believe anyone had survived that, wards or no. But I had to know for sure. "I can take only two people with me," I said.

"Me and Pritkin," Caleb said, extending his hand. I eyed it unhappily. I'd already taken one mage's hand tonight, and look where that had got me.

Pritkin didn't say anything, letting me make the decision for once. Only there wasn't much of one to make. Whatever my feelings toward the Circle, right now, I needed the help. I took his hand. "Where to?" I asked Pritkin.

"How strong is your ward?"

"I think the ley line blew it out. Why?"

"That creates a problem," he said, glancing at the other mage.

"Don't look at me," Caleb said grimly. "The line all but fried me before I could get out of there, and what was left I expended shielding us from the debris. I'm done." There was a general round of agreement from the watchers. It looked like nobody had shields worth a damn.

"What difference does it make?" I demanded. The idea that there might actually be survivors had lodged in my head and was beating a frantic tattoo against my skull. I felt almost dizzy at the rapid shift of emotions—from disbelief to rage to numb horror to barely acknowledged hope—all in the space of maybe half an hour.

"We can't risk shifting in there without a ward," Pritkin said flatly. "MAGIC's shields may have held, but if not, we could find ourselves inside a landslide—"

"Then I'll shift us back out!"

"— or solid rock."

"We have to risk it!" Pritkin was usually the one pulling the crazy stunts. This was no time for him to learn caution.

"We can't." It sounded final.

"Watch me," I told him seriously.

"There is a difference between courage and foolhardiness! Dying yourself will not help—"

"And neither will standing here! Rafe deserves better than that from me. He'd give me better than that!"

Caleb looked confused. "Rafe?"

"Vampire," Pritkin said shortly.

"You'd risk your life for one of those things?" Caleb asked me, incredulous.

"Yeah. Too bad you don't have friends like that. But if they're all war mages, I can't say I'm surprised," I snapped.

"Miss Palmer." That was Pritkin, and since he was back to formal mode, I assumed he wasn't happy. Unfortunately for him, neither was I.

"I'm going with or without you. So which is it?"

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he couldn't stop me from going alone and he knew it. "Take us to the Senate chamber," he finally said. "It's on the lowest level and well-warded. If anything survived, it should have."

"Hold your breath," I told them. "If we shift into the middle of a mess, I'll get us out. Don't panic."

Caleb looked at Pritkin. "Did she just tell me not to panic?"

"She doesn't know you."

"Guess not."

I didn't bother to comment. I took a deep breath and shifted.

It was second nature now to fling myself outward, everything blurring around me as I streaked through insubstantial layers of stone, thought translating instantly to motion. It was less familiar to land in a vast mud pit. But that's where we ended up, in a suffocating ocean of muddy water, over my head deep and impossible to see or breathe through.

I was about to shift us back out before we could die an unfortunate and very moist death when the guys started swimming, taking me with them. A moment later, we surfaced with a splash and a gasp. The air was warm and full of dust and already going stale. Whatever method this place used for air circulation seemed to be off-line.

I floundered around, trying to free my hands from Pritkin's and Caleb's iron grips so I could wipe the mud out of my eyes. Even when I managed, it didn't help. There was absolutely no light, with the enormous iron chandeliers that usually light the Senate chamber either dark or missing. But at least I could breathe.

Until someone forced my head back underwater.

It was so unexpected that I sucked in a lungful of mud and choked while I was towed what felt like half the length of the chamber. My head finally broke the surface again, but I couldn't seem to get any air. Pritkin hit me on the back—hard—half a dozen times until I probably had bruises but, mercifully, also clear lungs. I clutched the edge of something solid and pondered the wonder of oxygen for a minute.

Light spun up and expanded from a sphere in Caleb's hand, allowing me to see a few yards into the gloom. Not that there was much to see. The Senate's main meeting hall was normally mostly bare, with a high ceiling that disappeared into shadow, leaving plenty of space below for the massive mahogany table that formed its only major piece of furniture. Except for today, when little was visible besides the undulating black ocean. And what I could finally identify as the Senate table, floating despite its weight and currently serving as our life raft.

A loud clanking noise suddenly came from overhead. It sounded like rusty machinery and reverberated harshly off the walls. Caleb held up the sphere and light glinted off the jagged metal tips of the chamber's chandeliers.

They were enormous, easily twelve feet across, with rows of barb-filled rings sitting one inside the other. I couldn't tell how many darts there were on each ring, but it looked like a lot. And every time a ring emptied, it dropped back to a lower tier, allowing a new one to cycle up into place. The sound had been the closest chandelier rotating a new set of lethal darts to bear on us.

I'd forgotten the tendency of the fixtures in the Senate chamber for launching iron spikes at intruders, mainly because they had never before viewed me as one. "Why are they shooting at us?" I demanded. As if they'd heard me, a barrage of foot-long projectiles tore loose from their moorings and came hurtling our way.

Our combined weight had pushed half of the table underwater, leaving the other half raised like a partial shield. But even the rock-hard mahogany didn't stop them all. My eyes crossed, taking in a particularly vicious-looking dart that had partially penetrated the wood, stopping barely an inch from my face. It had hit with enough force to push out finger-length shards ahead of the razor-sharp point, one of which brushed my cheek. Somebody let out a small, hiccupping scream.

"Be silent!" Pritkin hissed in my ear. "The wards are attracted to motion and sound."

Now he told me.

"The ley line breach confused them," Caleb whispered. "They're targeting anything that moves. Shift us into the corridor outside!"

I started to answer when there was a reverberating crack overhead. One of the darts that had missed us was sticking out of the wall, where its force had widened a fissure that had already been leaking water. What had been a spout was now a waterfall, and from the sound of things, it wasn't the only one. It looked like an underground stream had ruptured. Trust me to find a way to drown in the desert, I thought as a flood of icy water poured onto my head.

It was heavy enough to knock my grip free and send me falling back into the void. I reached out, desperate to find a handhold, and something brushed my wrist. Something living, but not human-warm.

I jerked back, the small hairs on my arm prickling at the ghostly touch. I got a vague glimpse of it—motion, something like eyes that glittered in the almost darkness, teeth.

Oh, shit.

Hands grabbed me roughly under the armpits and hauled me back to the surface. Where I quickly discovered that I'd drifted beyond the protective shadow of the table. Pritkin jerked me out of the way right before two darts plowed into the water, and we ducked back into place with a slither of legs and flailing arms.

I gripped his shoulder hard, scanning the area where I'd just been. But the only thing in sight was the light from Caleb's sphere reflecting off the ripples. "I think there's something in the water," I gasped.

"I'm more concerned about what's in the air!" Caleb snapped. "Get us the hell out of here!"

"And go where?" I demanded. "In case you've forgotten, there are wards in the corridors, too!" Dagger-edged sconces studded MAGIC's hallways every five feet. We wouldn't even make it to the stairs.

"Yes, but those don't work! We hadn't finished repairs from the last attack yet!" He meant the storming of the complex a month ago by a group of suicidal dark mages. For once, I was grateful to them.

I nodded in relief and grabbed his hand, but Pritkin pulled back when I reached for him. "It's your call," he told me seriously. "But we don't know what we'll find once we get out of here. It would be wise to conserve your energy if you plan to rescue anyone."

Caleb stared at him incredulously. "You actually think they made it out of here without being turned into shish kebabs? And even if they did, this place is more than half flooded—putting the corridors outside completely underwater!"

"Something that would not overly concern a vampire," Priktin said, meeting my eyes in understanding. Caleb was thinking about the disaster from a human perspective, but the people in this section of MAGIC hadn't been human in a long time. If they had survived the initial blast, they might actually be okay. Rafe might be okay. I felt a little light-headed suddenly.

"It looks like no easy way out, then," I said reluctantly.

"You can't be serious!" Caleb was looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

I bristled, because I wasn't any happier about this than he was. "I can only shift so many times in a day, and taking two people with me drains my strength pretty fast," I told him flatly. "Pritkin's right. If I exhaust myself now, I won't be able to help any survivors. Even assuming we find some."

"Then how do you suggest we get out of here?" he demanded, glaring at me. Like I'd come up with this idea instead of his buddy.

"You're war mages," I told him irritably. "You figure it out. Preferably before we drown."

"Yeah, you're a Pythia all right," he muttered.

"I'll check out the corridor," Pritkin offered, stripping off his heavy coat. "It might not be as bad as it looks." He took a deep breath and dove—leaving me alone with a war mage who, until a few minutes ago, had been doing his best to hunt me down. From his expression, I could tell that Caleb was thinking the same thing.

"I guess it's a compliment for one of us," I said a little nervously.

"Not really. If I kill you, how do I get out?" I stared at him, and he was expressionless for a drawn-taut moment. Then he sent me a brief flick of a smile. "John knows me."

Yeah, I thought darkly. He'd known Nick, too.

"What was that?" Caleb suddenly demanded, whipping his head around.

"What was what?"

He ducked the sphere underwater, but there was nothing to see but our legs churning up the mud. After a minute, he brought it back up, where it highlighted a scowling face. "I thought I felt some—" he began, and then his head disappeared.

I stared blankly at the spot where it should have been for a second before looking around frantically for a dart with a scalp. But there was nothing. Nothing except tiny ripples in the water.

I scanned the surface, but the only clue to his whereabouts was the ghostly glow of his sphere, sinking fast. Somehow I didn't think he'd suddenly decided to take a swim. And then a trio of darts thumped into the wall behind me, giving me something new to worry about. They almost hit a dark shape that had been crouched on a jut of rock, making it leap outward to avoid them. Of course, it jumped straight at me.

My arm jerked up and my knives met the creature halfway through its arc, slamming into it right before it slammed into me. I had a brief impression of hot, stinking breath and bloodstained jaws, and then it was on me. A body thick with fur and muscle knocked me out of the water and back onto the scored and pitted tabletop.

A guttural growl vibrated through my skull as a clawed foot slashed at the wood. It caught the bell of my sleeve, ripping it completely off. I rolled to the side just as a heavy head came crashing down, burying powerful jaws in the thick planks beside me.

My instinct was to run, but there was nowhere to go. Instead, I ended up with handfuls of wet, stinking fur as I fought to keep the slippery head against the table, where it could chew on wood instead of on me. But even partly trapped, it was strong and ferocious.

Claws raked my dress, and for once I was grateful for Augustine's exuberant use of fabric. The heavy, waterlogged folds kept my skin from getting shredded as badly as the material. Powerful legs scrabbled on the slick tabletop, trying to find purchase, while my knives stabbed it over and over, the little blades punching holes that splattered hot blood over my chest, arms and face.

Despite my efforts, the creature finally tore free of the wood by ripping out a large chunk of it. It turned with serpentine quickness, reared up on hind legs directly over me—and was stabbed in the back by a dart. The iron wedge exploded out of its midsection and over my head, soaking me in gore as it passed.

I slid back into the water, trying to stifle a scream. It was easier than usual, thanks to the bubble of panic that had lodged somewhere between my stomach and throat. My fingers tightened convulsively on the slab of wood while I gasped and choked and tried not to move. I really didn't want to end up like whatever had just tried to eat me.

A moment later, Caleb's head broke the surface. He still had the sphere clutched in his fist as he heaved and coughed and brought up what looked like a quart of muddy water. "You all right?" I asked when I could speak.

The light glinted off the drops beading his buzz cut, silver on black, and the dark trickle of blood sliding down his temple. "Better than it is."

"You killed it."

"Hope so." His smoker's growl was a little more prominent.

"Good," I said shakily. "What was it?"

"Don't know." His eyes focused on something just behind me. "You kill that?"

I looked at him blankly before following his gaze to where my knives had impaled something furry and scaly and really, really wrong to the tabletop not three feet away. I shrieked and jerked back, and the knives followed the motion, letting go of their prey to be reabsorbed by my bracelet. And untethered by anything, the gory body slid slowly off the tilted side of the table.

Caleb pushed it aside, giving the darts a target other than us. We crouched in the dark, hearing the steady thud of metal into meat, until Pritkin surfaced at my elbow a few moments later.

Pritkin popped up at my elbow a moment later. He gasped in a lungful of air before catching sight of the dark hulk of the creature floating a few yards off. "What is that?"

"The welcoming committee," Caleb said straight-faced. "What did you find?"

"The corridors are flooded, but the nearest staircase is clear from about halfway up. It's doable."

"If we make it that far," Caleb growled, glancing upward.

As if it had heard him, the chandelier finally stopped rotating. Without the scrape of metal on metal, the chamber was almost silent. The only noise came from the water lapping against the walls and splashing into the flood. And the even softer sounds of wretched sobbing.

Both men tensed and Caleb waved the light around, but of course he didn't see anything. "What is making that noise?" Pritkin demanded.

"Augustine's idea of a joke. He spelled my dress," I told him.

Pritkin sized me up for a moment. "Take it off."

"What?"

"I can use the charm on it to confuse the wards."

The arm that wasn't holding on to the table crossed protectively over my chest. "But. . I'm not wearing anything underneath."

"Nothing?"

"Maybe panties." At least I thought I was. After the day I'd had, I wasn't really sure.

Pritkin pinched the bridge of his nose. "Would it help at all to remind you that I've seen it?"

"Once! A long time ago! And it was really, really dark!"

He started to say something and then seemed to catch himself. "Give me what your maidenly modesty can spare, then."

"Why do you need it again?"

"Oh, for—Give me the damn dress and I'll show you!" Before I could reply, he pulled out a knife, reached underwater and sliced off what felt like half the skirt.

"Why do these plans of yours always involve me getting naked?!" I whispered viciously—to no one because he'd already gone.

In a minute, another row of darts tore loose with the earsplitting sound of shredding metal. They ignored us in favor of targeting Pritkin and the row of sobbing fabric he was sticking in cracks and crevasses along the wall. The material was fast turning into tatters as dart after dart hit it, fracturing the stone behind and letting in what could now literally be called a flood. Between the crying dress and the rushing water, the wards suddenly had plenty to shoot at besides us.

"Come on!" Caleb tugged me out of the protective shade of the table. "That charm won't last forever!"

We swam full out for the far wall, staying underwater as much as possible. The wards had rotated away from us to fire volley after volley in Pritkin's direction, their rusty clanging a cacophony in the enclosed space. I peered into the gloom every time we surfaced, desperately trying to see him, but the light was just too low. The most my eyes could pick out were brief flashes off multiple knifelike edges, as dozens of darts were flung through the air.

I was still looking when I swam into the wall. Caleb steadied me and then ducked underwater for a minute. "The door is just below us," he told me after surfacing. "John was right: the corridor is completely flooded. But the stairs are only about fifteen feet to the left." He started to dive again, but I caught his arm.

"John will be all right."

I stared at the hail of darts that were still being unleashed behind us. Chunks the size of boulders had been carved out of the wall where they hit, with a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from the larger ones. "How could anyone be all right in that?"

"Trust me—I know him."

"So do I," I said savagely. "That's what's worrying me!" A crack echoed through the room, loud enough to momentarily drown out the wards. And the next second, a huge piece of the wall gave way, dropping almost whole into the flood like the calving of a glacier. It hit the water with the granddaddy of all belly flops. The resulting wave reached even us, slamming me back into Caleb.

"Don't move," he whispered as the nearest chandelier rotated our way, drawn by the disturbance of the water. It swiveled this way and that, sending darts slicing through the waves crashing all around us.

"We're going now," Caleb said in my ear. "Okay?"

I searched the dark one more time for any sign of Pritkin, but there was nothing. Damn it! I should never have left him!

"Cassie!"

"Okay." It came out more like a croak. I'd never felt so helpless.

That was the longest fifteen feet of my life. I ducked underwater, following the dim light of Caleb's sphere through the black rectangle of the doorway. And almost immediately I realized I had a problem. I'd planned just to follow Caleb, but although I knew Caleb was somewhere right up ahead, I couldn't see him. There was too much dirt and debris in the water, choking off what little light his sphere gave out and leaving the flooded corridor almost pitch-black.

I quickly lost all sense of direction, unable to find up or down in the dark, freezing water. Everything looked the same, and the burn in my lungs was making it hard to concentrate. My pulse pounded sickeningly at my temples, and a flood of cold ran through my limbs, turning them sluggish and slow to respond to my brain's frantic commands.

My grasping fingers finally found something that felt like a doorway and my foot scraped against a jagged surface that might have been stairs. I kicked against it instinctively but didn't go very far. The remains of my waterlogged outfit dragged me down as I tried to fight my way toward the dim undulation that I really hoped was the surface.

Then a hand wrapped in the front of my dress, threatening to strangle me, and with a kick and a heave, I broke into air. I grabbed the sleeves of a wet white shirt and stared at the man wearing it. For a second, everything went gray except his face. His eyes looked too green, too clear, with a diamond-sharp, surreal edge. It took me a moment to notice that his face was flushed and his eyes were bright as lightning. The lunatic had enjoyed himself.

"How the hell did you get here before me?" I demanded, gasping as much from relief as lack of air.

Pritkin shrugged. "I took the back door and came around."

"Pritkin. There is no back door."

"There is now. The projector punched a hole in the south corridor."

"Bit of a design flaw," Caleb rumbled.

"I don't think the wards were ever tested over a sustained period," Pritkin told him. "Something to keep in mind when we rebuild." He finally noticed my expression and frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I'm trying to remember all the reasons you are indispensable and can't be killed slowly and painfully."

He ignored that and hauled me to my feet. I gathered up my tattered skirts, along with whatever dignity I'd managed to salvage. Then the three of us squelched up the stairs.