Tempt the Stars

Chapter Thirty-two

“Are you really going to eat here?” Caleb demanded, fifteen minutes later.

“Damned straight,” I said, my mouth watering.

The restaurant wasn’t a cart, although it was about the size of one. It was a small rectangle wedged between the courthouse and a bunch of shops. The shops appeared to be closed, although there were some across the street that were open. Cars passed on the still-busy highway, zipping along with headlights that blurred slightly in my tired vision and doubled in the mirrorlike sheen of the street.

I looked up, and some rain hit me in the face. That might have been an illusion, too, for all I knew, but it felt real. Everything did. Just a dark blue, rainy street, closer to winter than summer, with people bundled up and hurrying along their way.

And a brightly lit slab of Formica in front of me, with a two-page menu taped to the top. And a bunch of smells emanating from a griddle in back that had me ready to crawl over the counter. Hot damn, I thought in wonder, I was actually going to get dinner.

Maybe.

I glanced around furtively, waiting for the hammer to drop. For someone or something to prevent me from getting any food. And it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of candidates.

I couldn’t tell what time of day it was, since it always seemed to be dark here. But there were plenty of people on the streets. And I knew where I was; I knew what they were, or most of them, anyway. But none looked all that sinister to me.

A mostly human-looking woman came by, with a shock of pale purple hair that could have come as easily from a trendy boutique as genetics. She was carrying a bag of groceries and talking on a cell phone with the preoccupied, slightly annoyed look of someone running late who is also getting rained on. She passed within a few feet of me and never gave me a second glance. She also didn’t attack me.

I stared after her for a moment, faintly surprised. I knew from experience that the Shadowland had plenty of people who would try something, given half a chance. But then, that was true of most human cities, too, wasn’t it? Was this really so different?

Okay, yeah, it was different, but—

“Are you going to order?” Pritkin asked, dragging my attention back to the menu. Where freaking everything looked good.

And then the short, squat guy in a grease-splattered apron handed Pritkin something in a paper boat that made my eyes bug out of my head. “They have Phillies?” I said, in something approaching awe.

“This street belongs to the potion sellers, and this cart has a fair amount of human traffic,” he told me, taking the greasy bundle of awesomeness. “But elsewhere . . . you have to be careful. Not everything here is safe for human consumption.”

“Yeah, but what’s in it?” Caleb asked, peering suspiciously at the towering mound of meat and melty cheese and peppers and onions and mushrooms and—

“I’ll have one of those,” I told the cook quickly. Right now I didn’t care what was in it.

“The usual.” Pritkin shrugged. “You know how hard it is to glamourize food and get everything right: looks, smells, taste . . . It’s easier and cheaper just to cook the real thing.”

“You sure?” Caleb asked, looking longingly at his buddy’s meal. “What about that old rule, eat in hell and you never leave?”

Pritkin arched an eyebrow. “I lived here for years. And I left.”

“Yeah, but you keep coming back.”

“Not by choice.”

In the end, Caleb ordered a Philly, too. Casanova eyed up the demon cook, who shot him the bird, and then we all got beers. And leaned against the front of the diner to drink them, since there was nowhere to sit.

Pritkin snared a cheese-covered mushroom off the top of his sandwich, and my stomach gave off a roar that sounded like thunder.

His lips twitched, but he ate it anyway, the bastard. Watching me as I watched him in hopeless desperation. And then licked his fingers while I salivated.

And then he handed it over.

Oh God. So good. I practically dove in face-first, and for a while, I didn’t know anything else.

When I came out of my food-induced stupor, it was to see that Pritkin had gotten what I guess was my order, and had eaten about half of it, while Caleb was just being handed his. “I’m gonna go sit on the bench,” Caleb said, nodding at one alongside the courthouse where Casanova was already slumped with his beer. I guess he was trusting Pritkin to save me from everything but cholesterol.

Pritkin nodded. Caleb took off with his food and a handful of napkins. And we ate, in my case until I was so full I thought I might pop.

I thought about undoing the top button on my jeans, but when I surreptitiously glanced around, Pritkin was watching me. And I suddenly realized what he must be seeing—hair everywhere, mouth and probably half my face shiny with grease, T-shirt dirty and sweat-stained. I swallowed the last bite I’d taken, feeling suddenly self-conscious, the way I’d been too hungry and tired to be before. I licked my lips.

And his eyes followed the movement.

My own eyes widened slightly, and then looked away, because that was what I always did when something like that happened. Not that it did often. Other than for a few bits of metaphysical lifesaving, Pritkin mostly acted like I was a boy.

Which was good. Which was how I liked it. Which was how it should be.

I drank some beer. “So, uh, how do you think it went?”

Pritkin went back to his food. “Difficult to say. But they seemed to take your mother’s warning seriously.”

“That’s good, right?” I asked. Because he had that particular crease between his eyes, the one that said he was puzzled about something.

“Perhaps. But then, they shouldn’t have needed it.”

“Come again?”

He made an unsatisfied sound, halfway between a grunt and a sigh. “The Circle might have managed to hide Apollo’s brief return to the supernatural community as a whole, but do you really think the lords didn’t know? When the battle took place at Dante’s? Where half the damned payroll are demon-possessed?”

“Well, yeah, but those are incubi. And maybe Rosier didn’t want them to say anything. Maybe he was afraid . . . I don’t know . . . that it would help your case—”

“But I didn’t have a case then,” he pointed out. “I didn’t until after you killed the Spartoi, which alone should have been enough to raise some eyebrows. It certainly caused me to start asking questions, when I woke up in my father’s court. It could hardly have done less for the council, unless the Circle covered that up, too?”

“They never had the chance,” I told him, grimacing at the memory. “The vamps were broadcasting the coronation, and the whole damned thing was seen live by a few hundred thousand people. Not to mention however many saw the newspaper articles and the photos and—”

“Then they know. And likely more than was reported. They would have investigated even without the incident with Apollo. And with it—that’s two major attempts to circumvent the ouroboros in as many months. They could not possibly have failed to notice. And yet the response to your mother’s announcement . . . it almost sounded as if most of them had no idea.”

I frowned. “Maybe the leaders are trying to keep from panicking everyone, until they can decide what to do.”

“Cassie, the council are the leaders. There is no head; each member has a single vote. It was set up that way after the wars, when no one wanted more bloodshed over who would rule. That isn’t to say that they have no factions, and of course some members’ votes carry others. But we’re not talking about a vote, we’re talking about information they simply do not seem to have had.”

I thought about that for a moment, and ate mushrooms. I was stuffed, but they had been browned on the griddle in butter, and then covered with melted cheese and crusty meat bits and, well. “But somebody has to decide what is brought up. I mean, they couldn’t talk about everything—they’d never do anything else.”

“That is what the Adramelech does.”

“The what?”

“Your mother referred to him as Adra, for short. I am not sure why.”

“I am,” I said dryly. Mom hadn’t exactly been on her best behavior in there. Or maybe she had.

At least she didn’t kill anybody this time.

“She didn’t seem pleased about the composition of the council,” Pritkin agreed. “But while not, perhaps, polite, the term was not an insult. Adramelech is a title, not a personal name. He functions as the speaker or president of the council.”

Damn. And he’d seemed like the nice one. “I thought you said the council doesn’t have a head.”

“It doesn’t, if you mean someone with more power than anyone else. He is mainly there to maintain order.”

“So he’s the one who should have maybe got around to mentioning that the old gods were about to stage a comeback?”

“Not necessarily. The Adramelech only organizes matters to be discussed and attempts to keep the debate on topic. He doesn’t usually propose topics himself.”

“Then who does?”

“Whoever has the oversight of the region in question.”

“And who has oversight of earth?” I asked, because Pritkin was sounding grim.

“You saw. That was the reason he was called forward. Asag of the Asakku.”

Great. “So, what reason does this Asag guy have for just ignoring the return of one god and the kids of another?”

Pritkin shook his head. “I don’t know. And I’m not likely to. I had difficulty even obtaining the basics on your mother. No one wants to talk about the ancient wars—or how they ended. Most go about trying to pretend they didn’t happen.”

“So they’re about to let them happen again?” I asked, in disbelief. “They can’t be that blind!”

“It’s not a matter of being blind,” Pritkin said, drinking beer. “It’s . . . fear, terror even. You have to understand, Cassie, the demons who dared to face the gods once . . . they were ancient compared to the ones you saw, powerful beyond belief, and bloodthirsty to a fault. They gloried in battle, lived for it, reveled in it. And yet they fell, as one of the few who would talk to me about it said, like a sky full of falling stars. Those who survived believe they cannot fight—”

“They can’t if they won’t even try! Would they prefer to be slaughtered?”

“They’d prefer not to think about it at all. The ones who lived—remember, they were those who didn’t interest your mother or the other gods. Who weren’t powerful enough to be pursued, or who survived by hunkering down, by playing it safe, by being cautious—”

“You can be too cautious. You can die hiding under a bed or whatever the demon equivalent is, as much as on your feet, fighting.”

Pritkin sent me an odd look.

“What?”

“When I met you, you preferred running, liked hiding. You told me several times it was what you were best at.”

“Yes, but it made sense then, when all I had to worry about was Tony. But it won’t help us now. Like it won’t help them!”

If anything, it would help our enemies, if the council decided to hide its collective head in the sand until a hungry god came along and ripped it off. No wonder Mom had been pissed. She must have looked over the group and wondered what had happened to the kind she’d fought. Or maybe she’d wished she’d left a few of the scarier ones alive.

“You look furious,” Pritkin said, watching me.

“I just—I can’t understand not fighting for your life— for what you want. Just giving up—”

A corner of his mouth quirked. “No. You would not understand that. You never stop trying, do you?”

“What else is there?”

“Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Depression.”

“But those don’t get you anywhere.”

He huffed out something that might have been a laugh, only it didn’t sound happy. “No. They don’t.”

I drank beer and didn’t say anything. Because I got the impression that we suddenly weren’t talking about the council anymore. But I wasn’t sure, since I couldn’t see his expression.

The proprietor had apparently not trusted scent to drum up enough business, and had draped strands of twinkly lights around the front of the shop. As a result, darkness shaded Pritkin’s eyes, which were above the lights, but under the shade of the awning. But cheerful, incongruous colors splashed everywhere else—green over a cheekbone, amber along a toned arm, rose across his neck. It looked like he was swimming in rainbow water.

He ducked his head slightly, and his eyes caught the light when he moved, flashing brilliant emerald. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Stay so . . . hopeful. Optimistic. Certain. You grew up around some of the most cynical creatures outside of demons. You saw the way they view the world, always hungry, always scheming. How their every waking thought is about improving their position in some way—”

“They’d say that it also improves their families’ position, and their allies’,” I reminded him. “Vampires aren’t selfless in the human sense, maybe, but they take care of their own. Sometimes better than humans, since it hurts their power base if they don’t.”

“Which is my point. It always comes back to them somehow. And you grew up in that, were steeped in it, and yet . . . you came for me.”

“Yeah, well, you know. That wasn’t entirely . . ”

“Wasn’t entirely what?”

“I just meant, I got something out of it, too, so you can’t say—”

“What did you get?”

“I—we covered that, remember?”

“No. No, I don’t remember. I thought we decided that you could find many other people—”

“Not many. I don’t know too many half-demon war mages.”

“—others, then. To assist you in my place. Such as Caleb. Or Jonas.”

“Yes, well . . . that’s . . ”

“But no, that’s not quite right, either, is it?” He tilted his head. “You said something else . . . something about needing me, for me. What did you mean?”

“I meant—I mean, well, we’re friends—”

“Are we? Are we friends?”

“I—yes. What else would you, uh . . ”

“I am not sure what I would call it. I had never given it much thought until recently. There did not seem to be a point.”

“Yes, yes, exactly. And there’s no reason to suddenly—”

“But I suppose I shall have to now, if I am returned, that is. Won’t I?”

“Um,” I said, and stopped. Because I knew how Pritkin argued. I ought to; it was his favorite hobby. Which would have been fine, except that he was better at it than me. And right now he was going in for the kill.

I could tell because of the voice, which had gotten faster and sharper, but also because of the expression. He’d moved slightly, leaning toward me, with one elbow resting on the counter propping up the hand he’d tucked under his chin. It was his boyish look, which he got when he was pleased, and that usually meant that someone else was about to be in trouble. And there was only one someone else here.

Someone who was employing tactic number two hundred and fifteen in dealing with irascible war mages, and changing the subject.

“I was wondering about something you said earlier, too,” I told him, after finishing off my beer. “You said you don’t come here by choice. Does that mean you don’t miss anything about it?”

Normally Pritkin got annoyed when I changed the subject on him—or when I tried. Because half the time, he called me on it. But he didn’t this time, and he didn’t seem upset. He even smiled slightly, a strange little half smile that I didn’t like at all.

“What would I miss?”

“I don’t know. Your father’s court was . . . well, parts of it were beautiful—”

“Many things are beautiful. Few are also good.” He moved a step closer.

“Yes, I . . . I guess,” I said, backing up slightly. “But it must have been hard, turning your back on all that wealth and power and . . ”

“There are only masters and slaves there. I did not wish to be either.” Another step.

“Well, no. But there must have been other things. I mean, he’s a demon lord—”

“There is nothing I want that he can give me.”

“But . . . but you could rule there. You could have anything you want—”

“Not anything,” Pritkin said softly, and my back bumped Formica.

I appeared to have run out of room. And he was still looking at me. But I couldn’t read his expression again, only this time, that wasn’t due to the lighting. I just wasn’t familiar with that particular—

He’s probably thinking how crappy I look, I told myself hurriedly, and that I’m going to have to go back in front of the council like this, and that it isn’t going to help our chances any, and damn, I wish I’d thought to grab one of those purloined Augustine dresses before heading out, not that it would probably have survived everything that happened in between, but you never know, and I wonder if any of these shops sell something that might be—

A thumb reached out and wiped away something at the corner of my mouth.

My thoughts froze.

I should laugh, I thought blankly. Grab a napkin, say what a mess I’d managed to make . . . only I couldn’t. I couldn’t seem to move.

And that was stupid, because clearly, he was just being nice. He was trying to make sure I didn’t go back in there and embarrass myself more than I was probably already going to. He was just trying—

The thumb began to move along my lower lip, slowly tracing its fullness. And my breath sped up, even as it tried to catch. Which should have choked me, but somehow got tangled up in my chest instead. To the point that it hurt.

This wasn’t—we didn’t—not that he—

“I did have regrets these past six months,” he told me quietly. “I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you . . ”

“John!” The voice came from a distance. He ignored it.

“I thought I was sparing you, but I think I was really trying to spare myself. For a long time, I was almost grateful for my father’s curse. As hard as it was, it made some things simpler. I didn’t have to worry; I didn’t have to risk—”

“John!” the voice came again.

Pritkin glanced up, grimaced, and then looked back down at me again. And his expression was fiercer than I’d seen it in a while. “But somewhere in the last six months, I realized that, after what happened to my wife, I returned to earth, yes. But I didn’t return to life. I was as much a prisoner there as I was at court. Not just because of the curse, but because I wouldn’t allow myself—”

“John!” The voice was closer now. It was Caleb’s.

Pritkin said something under his breath and grabbed my arms. “Cassie, I don’t know how this will turn out. With the council, there’s no way to know. But whatever happens, I want you to know, I want you to remember, that I’m glad you came back for me. I’m glad I had a chance to know you. I’m glad—”

“John!” Caleb grabbed his arm. “We have to go— now. They’re calling for you—they have a ruling!”

“Of course they do,” Pritkin said. “Of course they bloody do!”

And, apparently, you don’t keep the demon high council waiting. We left the rest of the food and jogged back down the sidewalk, Pritkin and Caleb grim and silent, Casanova bleary-eyed and staggering, and me—I don’t know what I looked like, but my head was spinning like a tornado.

Not because of what Pritkin had said; I couldn’t think about that now. But because they had to let him go. They had to. After everything Mother had said, they couldn’t just . . . could they?

I didn’t know. They were like a million years old, but that only made it harder to guess. I had enough trouble figuring out how centuries-old vampires thought. I had zero chance of predicting the behavior of creatures who made them look like children. All I knew was that they really hadn’t liked Mother, and as her child, I wasn’t any more popular. As Pritkin was a repeat offender, as far as they were concerned. But like Mom had said, he was just one guy, and if they weren’t going to cough up an army, the least they could do—

And then we were back, coming in the front doors at the same time that the double ones to the council chamber burst open. That was sort of a surprise—I’d thought they were the type to expect us to come to them, not the other way around. But the blond demon with the pleasant voice was coming toward us, and his hand was extended and there was a smile on his face. And that looked—dear God, it looked—Caleb said something, an expletive but there was a lungful of relief behind it. And I turned to him for a second, hugging his arm. Because we’d done it, finally, we’d done it—

And then someone was shoving me into Caleb, brutally hard, enough that we both went staggering. And there was a sound, new and deafeningly loud. And a cry, of such tortured anguish that it cut through the air, spinning me on my feet even as I fell, pulling my head up—

To see Pritkin, lit for a moment by harsh spell light, silhouetted against another explosion. But this time, there was no outrunning it.

His mouth was open, but it wasn’t moving, and neither was the rest of him. For a second, he hung suspended in air, caught halfway through a jump, as if I’d managed to freeze time. But I hadn’t; I knew I hadn’t. I could still see dust motes turning lazily in the spell light behind him, golden yellow and burning like the sun—

And then it engulfed him and he fell, still motionless, to the floor, his father rushing to grab him, another of those keening cries coming from that usually cynical mouth.

Pandemonium was breaking out between guards and council members, and people were jostling and bumping and stepping on me as I pushed and shoved my way forward, and then I was kneeling by Pritkin, grabbing him, screaming at Rosier, “What happened? What happened?”

“What happened?” Green eyes blazed into mine, bright with grief and incandescent with hate. “What happened is that you killed my son!”