Embrace the Night

Chapter 20

The guy who answered the door was in his early forties, with thinning hair under the wig that sat askew on his head, and many teeth already rotted away. He didn't look like somebody who should have been able to defeat a legendary wizard, but maybe he was just the butler. We followed him through a narrow hall and up a staircase to a library. It contained an ornately carved marble fireplace, bookcases lining two walls, mother-of-pearl detailing on dark wood moldings and about three dozen guests.

All of whom paused to look at us as the butler or whoever he was made introductions. I hadn't heard Mircea give his name, but the man knew it anyway, although I was just "and guest." I needn't have worried about our appearance: Mircea managed to make losing the coat seem like a fashion statement. I saw several other male guests surreptitiously shuck theirs after a moment, not wanting to miss out on a new trend. But one remained unmoved, muffled head to toe in a thick black cape that swept the ground and didn't leave so much as a nose visible. That was okay with me, because the people I could see were disturbing enough.

A woman appeared in front of us carrying a basket of knitted blue, white and red rosettes. I chose not to poke a hole in Augustine's creation, and carried mine, but I didn't like it. It felt funny; I couldn't figure out what material had been used.

"Human hair, probably from the guillotined," Mircea murmured. I quickly slid it onto a nearby table.

A moment later, a pretty, dark-eyed French girl sashayed up with a tray of wineglasses. She gave Mircea one and then just stood there, apparently waiting for him to finish it so she could give him another. It looked like the rest of the room was out of luck. But he didn't drink, I noticed; he just held the delicate stem casually in one hand, the bloodred contents glimmering in the low light.

I took one off her tray and downed most of it in a gulp. It was good, and the head-clearing fumes were better. Mircea watched me with a smile and switched our glasses, giving me his full one.

"You don't like wine?" I asked, sipping at my new drink with a little more decorum.

"Under certain circumstances."

"Such as?"

"Remind me to show you sometime," he murmured as our group was joined by a stunningly beautiful woman.

She was Japanese, or at least she looked Asian and had origami hummingbirds buzzing about, holding up her hand-painted train. And she was only the first of many. Despite the fact that we found a dark corner beside the fireplace to wait for the main event, a steady stream of people made their way over to speak to us. Or, more accurately, to speak to Mircea, since most of them barely gave me a glance. I couldn't help but notice that a disproportionate number of them seemed to be attractive and female.

I don't know why this surprised me. It had been the same way at court, when Mircea came for an extended visit to Tony. I'd overheard the staff complaining that they'd never had so many guests; even vamps who loathed Tony had shown up to pay their respects. Because Mircea wasn't just a Senate member, he was a Basarab, which pretty much put him in the movie star category as far as vampires were concerned.

Or maybe rock star, I thought, restraining myself from forcibly removing the hand that the current groupie, a statuesque auburn-haired witch, had placed on his arm. He moved back on the pretense of setting his empty glass on the mantel, and his admirer moved with him. His mouth curved into a rueful smile that, for a moment, I wanted to taste so badly that I couldn't even think.

I didn't blame the groupies. Much. Mircea was perfectly capable of using his looks and reputation to his advantage—it was practically a job requirement. But the hell of it was that most of the time he wasn't doing it on purpose. He simply enjoyed his surroundings, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, with an unconscious sensuality that was just as much a part of him as his hair color.

Even with the extra power my office lent me, the geis was strengthening. Just standing beside him was enough to get my heart racing, my pulse pounding. And my body was getting noticeably slower at obeying my brain's commands to look away, to not touch, to not notice every little thing about him. Like the way his hair still held the faint memory of the cold wind outside. Like the warmth of his skin when he touched the notch in my upper lip with a fingertip.

"A spec of potion," he murmured, his finger trailing over my lips.

Of course, sometimes he was doing it on purpose.

I looked up to meet eyes that were quiet and intense and focused. Under that gaze, it was easy to believe that I was the only person in the room who held any value for him, the only one on earth who mattered. But I'd seen that look before, and not just directed at me. Shy people became talkative, aggressive people became amenable and plain people blossomed, trying to live up to the regard they saw in his eyes. Or thought they saw.

I held his gaze for a drawn-taut moment before I blinked and looked away, angry that he was trying this on me, confused that he was doing it now, and I met the eyes of a dark-haired female vampire. Her garnet dress clung to some dangerous curves, and her silver mantilla framed a face so beautiful that for a moment I could only stare. She presented a hand, but I ignored it; it was too high to shake, so I assumed it wasn't aimed at me.

Mircea dutifully kissed it and said something to her in Spanish, but her eyes remained on me. This went on for an uncomfortably long time, but she didn't say anything, so I didn't either. After a while, she decided to look at him instead.

They had a brief conversation that I couldn't follow, but then, I didn't really need to. She was pretty good at conveying information silently. She stared into his face, batting her eyelashes, trailing her finger around the low neckline of her dress, running her hands up and down the sides of her body, and speaking in husky tones. Every look, every movement, said she wanted him, with perfect frankness and no shame at all. I looked away before I was tempted to do something really stupid.

Eventually she moved away, but not before shooting another strange look in my direction. "Old friend?" I asked, trying to make it light.

"Acquaintance," he murmured. His eyes were on a couple of new arrivals—both male vampires. They bowed in his direction and he nodded back, but his pose stiffened slightly. For the usually tightly controlled Mircea, it was the equivalent of someone else throwing a fit. Things suddenly began to make sense.

More than two hundred years of living adds a lot of strength, even to a first-level master. And vamps can sense changes in another's power level as easily as a human might notice a new hairstyle. Any vampire who got too close was likely to realize that something about Mircea was seriously off. He had used me to distract the woman, but I doubted the same trick would work on the men.

"You seemed really friendly for acquaintances," I commented, not bothering to keep the bite out of my tone. I resented being part of his ploy, even if I agreed with the reason for it.

"The contessa and I served on the European Senate together for some time. She was surprised to see me," Mircea said, as we watched the two vampires take their tricolor decoration with identical bland expressions. They started to circulate, but not in our direction. "I am supposed to be in New York at the moment, scouting out the possibility of beginning a new senate there."

"Great." That was all I needed, for the Mircea of this time to get back only to have Contessa Whoever quiz him about his Paris vacation.

"Do not concern yourself. She died in a duel before I returned. We spoke mostly about you, in any case."

"Me? Why?"

"She wanted to know why you wear my mark. I refused it to her some time ago and she expressed herself…surprised…that I had favored you."

"You refused her?" I imagine she was pretty surprised. I was looking fairly decent, having wiped most of the potion off and finger-combed my flyaway hair, but I wasn't in the contessa's league. I hadn't needed her expression to tell me that I never would be.

"She wanted into my bed less for pleasure than for the political advantage it would gain her," Mircea said mildly.

"You're not serious." What, was the woman stoned?

"There have been many through the years who have shared her view. When you have wealth or power, there are always those who will find such things more attractive than you."

"Then they're idiots." It was out before I could stop it.

Mircea suddenly laughed, his eyes alight. "You didn't ask me what answer I gave her, dulceata?."

I was probably going to regret this, but I had to know. "What?"

He leaned over and captured my hand, holding it dramatically to his chest. "That you have bewitched me."

"You didn't really tell her that."

He pressed a swift kiss on the pulse point of my wrist. "In those very words." I snatched my hand back, glaring. All I needed was another enemy to have to watch for tonight.

"She called you prince, didn't she?" I asked, deciding on a change of topic. I don't speak Spanish, but the term is the same in Italian. "I thought you were a count."

"There were no counts in Wallachia when I was young," Mircea said, letting me get away with it. "The term was voivode. The English sometimes translated it as ‘count palatine'; others preferred ‘governor' or, occasionally, ‘prince. We ruled a small country." He shrugged.

"Why don't you use it anymore?"

"The idea of a Romanian count was popularized a bit too much once Stoker's book came out. It would have been imprudent thereafter."

We were interrupted by the arrival of yet another gorgeous groupie. Apparently, all the homely girls had decided to take the night off. I stared into the distance and tried to think about more important things while she giggled and flirted. It didn't help much. I wasn't stupid, despite public opinion. I'd known all along that I couldn't have this. But making goo-goo eyes at him with me standing right there was not only tacky, it was insulting, and I'd had about enough. I slid my arm through his, sending the hussy my best glare. The galaxy rotating around my feet suddenly expanded, broadening its width by maybe a foot, enough that the hem of her dress caught fire. She was a witch, not a vampire, so she put out the small flames with a murmured word. But she didn't stick around afterwards.

I glanced at Mircea, belatedly realizing that I might have set him alight, too. But no pinprick-sized holes appeared in his black trousers and I didn't see any small wisps of smoke. Which didn't make sense, come to think of it. "Why aren't you on fire?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you wish me to be?"

"No, but…the dress had, uh, a slight effect on Marlowe." And it hadn't even been that bright then.

The eyebrow climbed a little higher. "You set Senator Marlowe on fire?"

"Well, not intentionally." Mircea just looked at me. "We were in the Senate chamber and he got a little too—"

"In the Senate chamber?"

I frowned at him. His face seemed to be twitching for some reason. "Yes, he'd dragged me to see the Consul—"

"You set him on fire in the Senate chamber in front of the Consul."

"It was only a little fire," I said, then stopped because he'd broken into laughter, his whole face crinkling up with it, all bright teeth and curving, irresistible mouth. "He put it out," I said defensively. He just kept laughing.

"Dulceata?" he finally gasped, "as much as I would give to have seen that, it would be as well if you did not repeat the performance this evening."

"I'm not—"

"I only mention it because I believe Ming-de wishes an audience."

"What?"

He inclined his head slightly at the opposite side of the room, where the Chinese version of a consul was flanked by her four bodyguards. "It would be prudent to refrain from setting the Chinese Empress ablaze."

"She looks busy," I said weakly. It was true—she had already gathered a large court of admirers—but I'd also had enough formidable females for one evening. Mircea didn't bother replying, just used our linked arms to pull me through the room.

We stopped in front of the dais on which Ming-de had parked her thronelike chair. It had dragons, too, writhing around the back of the seat, but at least they weren't moving. Unlike the fans that had taken up residence on either side of her head, fluttering and waving in the air like two overactive butterflies. No one was holding them, the guards' hands being preoccupied with the spears that, since they were vampires, I assumed were mostly ceremonial. Especially as the fans were razor-edged, and could probably go from circulating air to cleaving flesh at a moment's notice.

I'd been so preoccupied with the spectacle that was Mingde that I hadn't immediately noticed that she was talking until Mircea nudged me with his foot. I looked away from the dancing fans to liquid black eyes set in a tiny oval face. Mingde looked all of about twenty and yes, she was startlingly pretty. I sighed. Of course she'd wanted to see Mircea.

Only she wasn't looking at him. I wondered if maybe I should get a sign VICTIM OF ROGUE SPELL, NOT A THREAT before anyone started planning to remove the competition. Ming-de held out a hand with ridiculously long, bright red nails. I was so focused on them—the thumbnail alone had to be six inches long and was curled outward, like a spring—that it took me a few seconds to notice that she was poking something at me.

It was a staff with an ugly brown knot on the end. I shied back before it could cut out my heart or something. But it followed me until I managed to focus, despite having it almost shoved up my nose. The knot resolved itself into a shrunken head wearing a tiny blue captain's hat on its thin hair.

"Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Ming-de, Holy Highness of the Present and Future Time, Lady of Ten Thousand Years, would like to ask you a question," it said in a bored monotone that managed to convey absolute disgust with me, its mistress, and the world in general.

I blinked. "You're not Chinese." The British accent sort of gave it away, that and the fact that the remaining strands of hair were red.

The head gave a long-suffering sigh. "I wouldn't be much bloody use as an interpreter if I were, now would I? And how did you know?"

"Well, I just—"

"It's the hat, isn't it? She makes me wear it so people will ask."

"Ask what?"

"D'you see? It always works. It's part of my punishment, to have to tell the story of my tragic life and painful death to every Tom, Dick and Harry before they'll answer a simple question."

"Okay. Sorry. What's the question?"

It eyed me suspiciously. "You don't want to hear about my tragic life and painful death?"

"Not really."

It suddenly looked offended. "And why not? My death isn't interesting enough for you? What would it take, eh? Perhaps if Robespierre was hanging here, damn him, you'd care to have a listen, hmm?"

"I don't—"

"But a simple East India Company captain who made the mistake of firing on the wrong ship, oh, no, not enough to trouble yourself about?"

"Look!" I said, glaring. "I'm not having a great night here. Tell me, don't tell me—I don't care!"

"Well, there's no cause to yell," it said huffily. "The mistress simply wants to know the name of your seamstress."

"What?"

"The mage who enchanted your gown," it explained, in a tone that made it clear that the biggest trial in the afterlife was dealing with people like me.

"He isn't…available right now." Which was true enough, since he hadn't been born yet.

"Trying to keep the secret all to yourself, eh? Mistress won't like that," it said gleefully.

Mircea and Ming-de had been chatting while I talked with the help. I hadn't even tried to follow their conversation, which was in Mandarin, but I did recognize the phrase "Codex Merlini." And even if not, Mircea's suddenly tightened grip would have gotten my attention.

"We're here for the Codex?" he whispered.

I looked at him, wondering what all the fuss was about. "Yes. I told you—"

"You said a spell book!" Mircea started bowing and murmuring a rapid stream of Chinese and pulling me away from Ming-de.

"That's what it is!"

"Dulceata? describing the Codex Merlini as a spell book is roughly the same as calling the Titanic a boat!"

I didn't get what was going on, but I couldn't help but notice that we were heading straight for the door. "Wait! Where are we going?"

"Away from here."

I pulled backwards—why, I don't know since it did exactly no good at all. "But the bidding is about to start!"

"That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered, just as all the lights went out.

The room hadn't had much light before, only a few random candles, but now it was pitch-dark. I felt an arm slip around my waist and yelped, before recognizing the thrill of the geis. People were murmuring and milling around on all sides as Mircea made a beeline through the crowd, practically carrying me.

I didn't understand what was wrong with him; no one seemed happy about the sudden blackout, but nothing threatening appeared to be taking place, either. By the time we reached the stairwell, my eyes had adjusted enough to see by the light my gown threw off. The room was all starlight and shadow and appeared just as before. Until a bunch of dark shapes crashed in through the windows.

Mircea pulled me into his arms and all but flew to the foyer, where we met another half dozen dark shapes coming up. My eyes couldn't focus on them, but I didn't think that had anything to do with the lack of light. And then we were back upstairs, in about the same time it would have taken me to shift. Mircea paused at the library landing to avoid the mage who stumbled backwards out the door, Ming-de's flying fans buzzing around his head like angry wasps. One of them hit a candle sconce in passing and sliced it clean in two.

I glanced in the library door and saw nothing but a firestorm of spells, crashes and yells, all of it too bright to let my eyes pick out any details. Then Mircea grabbed a mage who was blocking the stairwell going up, and threw him downstairs. He hit the group of dark shapes who were all trying to fit up the narrow stairway at the same time, and most of them tumbled backwards. The fans followed like they were on a mission.

By the time I blinked, we were on the next level, where a mage was facing off with the contessa. Her pretty mantilla had expanded into a glittering net that wrapped around him like a spider's web. Right before we took the last flight of stairs, she jerked him to her, fangs already bared and glistening.

Someone grabbed my foot as we reached the attic level, but Mircea made a backwards kick and I heard the sound of whoever it was tumbling down the stairs. He wrenched open the door to what looked like a servant's bedroom, got a window open and had us out onto the slick, icy sill before I could protest. Then he paused, staring down at the main entrance below, where several dozen dark figures were heading in the front door. They must have run out of windows to break, I thought blankly.

"Can you do what you did at the casino?" Mircea asked, his voice a lot calmer than it had any right to be under the circumstances.

"What? No, not yet." The dizziness and nausea of that many shifts in close succession had mostly passed, but I still felt wiped out. I doubted I could have shifted myself, much less two of us.

Mircea didn't ask any questions, just moved me into a fireman's carry over his right shoulder. Which left me able to see the cloaked figure who burst into the room behind us. It was the hooded party guest. Still didn't want to see what was under there, I decided.

"I am going to have to jump, dulceata?" Mircea said, giving the newcomer an uninterested glance.

"Jump? What?" I was sure I'd heard wrong.

The cloak sent a spell hurtling down the stairwell, then barred the door by shoving a heavy wardrobe against it. "If you're going to jump, do it, or get out of the way!" it snarled.

And that's when I began to wonder when I'd gotten tipped down the rabbit hole. Stress, I thought vaguely. That has to be it. "I am waiting for the rest of the mages to enter in order to plant the bomb," Mircea replied tersely.

"What bomb?" The cloaked figure and I said it at the same time.

"The one the war mages of the Paris coven are setting to destroy this house and, they hope, the Codex along with it."

No wonder he'd freaked out down there, or what passed for it for him. He must have heard about this evening somewhere. And if it was interesting enough for people to tell stories about, I really didn't want to hang around. But I couldn't leave. Not when we were so damn close!

"Why destroy it?" I asked. "Don't they want it for themselves?"

"Yes, which is why they're currently searching. But if they don't find it, they will destroy this house and everything in it, rather than let it fall into the hands of the dark."

"The Codex isn't here," the cloak said, muscling its way out the window. Now there were three of us perched on the icy roof. "The coven is going to kill dozens of people needlessly!"

"I doubt that," Mircea said, nodding to where a fight had started in front of the house between the mages and the party guests, most of whom seemed to have gotten out of the death trap of a library just fine.

I flinched back as Parindra zipped past, so fast that the breeze ruffled my hair; it looked like he'd found another use for his carpet. He tossed something onto the crowd of mages below that exploded in a yellow haze that ate through their shields like acid and set a lot of them ablaze. It also caused the back of the barge to catch fire, which spooked the elephant.

The beast let out an unhappy bellow and went on a rampage, picking up a mage with its trunk and tossing him against a nearby house, which he hit with a sickening crunch. The attack scattered the rest of the mages, who went running in all directions to avoid being crushed by the elephant or by the heavy howdah, which had slipped halfway off its back and was getting slung around like a jewel-encrusted battering ram.

"That should do it," Mircea said.

"Wait. What are you talking about? Do what?" I asked, and felt his muscles tense beneath me. The commotion had left the area directly below us momentarily free of mages, I realized, and Mircea intended to take advantage of it. "Oh, no. No, no. See, I'm starting to develop a problem with heights and—"

"Hold on," he said, and we were airborne.

I didn't even have time to scream. I felt a rush of cold wind, a brief weightless feeling, and then we smashed into the deck of the ship. Mircea took the brunt of the fall, but it tore me out of his arms and sent me careening into the cloak, which had apparently jumped right along with us. It didn't feel like a vamp under there—no faint tingle was running up my spine—but how the hell had a human managed that jump and lived?

I didn't have time to find out, because a spell hit the barge, making it shudder and buck beneath us, sending both of us reeling into the railing, right beside where a mage was trying to climb on board. A guy dressed like Ming-de's attendants ran over and started stabbing at him with a spear, but the mage had managed to retain his shields, and all it did was piss him off. He came over the side, and he and the guard went down in a tangle of limbs, before rolling straight into me and the cloak. I got a foot to the stomach, which knocked the wind out of me, but the cloak fared worse, its head slamming hard into the heavy wooden railing of the barge.

Mircea had gotten back to his feet and staggered over to the rail. He barely pulled back before a spell sizzled past, exploding against the stone facade of the house behind us. It was hardly the only one. Spells were being flung around everywhere, making the dark sky look almost as light as day, if daylight came in every color of the rainbow.

"I will never get you through this alive, not without a shield," he said grimly. "And I am too drained at present to provide one. I will have to improvise." He had a brief conversation with the remaining Chinese vamp. "Zihao will protect you. Do not leave the ship," he added, right before jumping over the side.

"Mircea!" I peered over the edge of the barge, but the whole street was a working anthill of activity, and I couldn't see him. I did see someone else, though.

The contessa had apparently finished her meal and come for dessert, and I didn't have to ask who she'd slated to fill that role. Damn it! I knew something like this was going to happen.

She vaulted up on deck and said something in Spanish, which I didn't understand, and smiled viciously, which I did. I tried to get to my feet, but the train Augustine had added to the dress got in the way, wrapping around my ankles like a rope. She started laughing while I tugged at the silky material, which just plain refused to rip or to let go. Then she leaned over and freed my feet with a flick of her wrist.

"If you want heem, fight for heem, but on your feet, witch," she told me, as Zihao managed to find something else to do at the far end of the ship. Apparently defending my life did not include getting disemboweled by a jealous Senate member. I honestly couldn't blame him there.

I scrambled up and smiled tentatively. "That was very, uh, decent, of you," I said hopefully. Maybe we could work this out.

That glittering silver net rose up behind her head like a frame for her beautiful face. "Not really." She smiled. "I prefer to dine standing."

Or maybe not.

The lacy trap launched itself at me, like it had the mage who I was certain hadn't made it out of the house. But it stopped halfway between us, caught in a field of stars that had suddenly swirled up all around me, like a galaxy in miniature. For a few seconds, the mantilla hung in the air, immovable object meeting irresistible force. Then everything exploded outward like a star going nova.

I flung an arm over my eyes to shut out the glare, and when I looked again, the contessa was just standing there, as if nothing had happened. I didn't think that was the case, though. Because I could see pieces of the battle behind her, through the hundreds of little holes the starlight had carved right through her body. And then she fell, toppling off the side of the barge into the road below.

I stood there, staring down at her crumpled body, shocked and more than a little freaked. I was alive, but possibly not for long. Because a master vampire wouldn't be killed by something like that. Hurt, maddened, enraged, yes; killed, no. She could get up any second and, as soon as she did, I was toast. I really needed to get off this barge.

Zihao came by while I was trying to see an opening somewhere, anywhere, in the melee. He'd lost the spear, but had improvised a new weapon out of a large oar, which he started to ram through the cape's head. "Wait!" I sank to my knees, which were pretty wobbly anyway, and spread out my hands. The stars had gone back to their usual places and they didn't appear to be rotating anymore. But the guard paused anyway.

He said something that, once again, I didn't understand. I was starting to envy Ming-de her translation device, however temperamental. He finally seemed to realize that we had a failure to communicate. He jerked a thumb between the cloak and me, as if to ask if we were together, and I nodded vigorously. It wasn't true, but whoever was under there wasn't with the other side, either, and I'd seen enough blood for one evening.

That seemed to satisfy the guard, who ambled off to attack someone else. I turned my attention to the cloak, and wondered if I'd wasted my time defending a corpse. Because the man underneath lay motionless, one pale arm outflung, the hood still obscuring his face. He didn't even look like he was breathing, although there was so much loose material that it was hard to tell. But the arm was warm and it looked human enough, so I tugged back the hood to check for injuries.

And stopped dead.

I could hear the madness going on all around me, the elephant rampaging, glass breaking, people swearing. But none of it seemed as real as the face in the middle of all that black, cast in a myriad of colors by flying spells. A very familiar face.

No. I must have been hit in the head and had just failed to notice, because I had to be hallucinating. I blinked hard a couple of times, but it didn't help: the face stubbornly stayed the same. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and sat like that for a minute, not hyperventilating because that would be weak and I couldn't afford that, but maybe breathing a little hard. By the time I let my hands fall to my lap again, I'd managed to get a grip. A bit of a grip. Sort of.

I stared down at the face and, okay, maybe started hyperventilating just a little as my brain tried to twist around the crazy, stupid, completely impossible thing my eyes insisted on showing me. But they were wrong—they had to be—because that couldn't be Pritkin. I'd left him at Dante's, under the happy belief that I was turning in early. And unless he'd found a time machine somewhere, he was still there. But it wasn't Rosier, either. Because although I knew for a fact that the demon lord could bleed, I doubted he'd have been knocked unconscious by a minor head wound.

He did look a little different, I thought numbly, with longish red-gold hair falling in his eyes, brushing his shoulders. He looked younger, his face a bit thinner, making his nose look even larger than usual and throwing his cheekbones into stark relief. His lips, always thin anyway, were a fine slash across his jaw.

But I guess he'd have needed some kind of disguise. Couldn't just look the same, lifetime after lifetime; someone was bound to notice. Maybe that's why he knew so little about vampires. Wouldn't be smart to hang around with creatures as old as you, who might remember a face from a few hundred years ago, no matter what disguise it wore. And Pritkin had never been stupid.

No. Not Pritkin, I corrected myself. I heard the voice of a cranky djinn in my head, telling me that the author of the Codex had been half incubus. And Casanova had said that in all history there had been only one of those.

I stared at the face under the ridiculous pageboy—God, he'd never had a decent haircut, had he? — and didn't believe it. But the fact remained, I only knew of one half-incubus, British mage with a serious hard-on for the Codex who was around in 1793. And Pritkin wasn't his name.

Damn it! I'd even said it once myself—he just didn't look like a John. But, suddenly, he did look an awful lot like a Merlin.