Touch The Dark

Chapter 10

A warm hand slipped under my collar to rest lightly on the skin of my collarbone, and a brief tingle ran up my arm. All of a sudden the suffocating sensation let up a little. The air was heavy and hard to breathe, but I could manage it.

"Release him, Raphael," Mircea barked, and I looked up to see that it was his touch that had broken through the mage's power. Rafe immediately complied, wiping his hand on his thigh as if he hadn't enjoyed touching Pritkin any more than vice versa. The mage shook with the effort of reining in his power. It continued to surge, but it was less violent, like waves lapping at the edge of a lake instead of crashing onto the shore.

Mircea nodded at Rafe, who went to the door and gave one of the servants an order. A few seconds later, another of the satyr-weres was brought in. He was a young blond male who, like the others, had reverted to his more nonthreatening form. His fur was a tawny gold color that complemented his hair and the faded denim of his eyes. He was easily six feet tall and as well built as most young satyrs are. If they aren't born that way, they work at it—nothing is worse in their view than being considered unattractive, unless it's impotence. Not that he had any problems either way. The uncertainty of the holding cell had wilted him, but he perked back up immediately at the sight of me. I forgave him; they literally couldn't help themselves.

"Watch and learn, mage." Raphael took out a knife and, with no warning, drew a shallow cut across the satyr's chest. The creature didn't moan, and I wasn't surprised. They weren't usually brave, but they'd never willingly show fear in front of a half-dressed female.

Rafe held his hand about a foot away from the satyr's torso, and slowly, as if pulled by invisible strings, drops of blood began to leap across the air between them to splash against his palm. As soon as they landed, they were absorbed.

"We can do it without the cut, without any wound at all," Mircea said softly. "Anytime, to anyone, anywhere. A brush against you in the subway, a handshake" — his gaze slid down to me—"or more pleasurable things; all will suffice."

I held Mircea's dark eyes and for a second I couldn't breathe again, although this time it was my own body I was fighting rather than someone else's power. No one's eyes should be able to look like that, as if they held the secret to every dream you've ever had, every wish come spectacularly true. The hand he kept on my naked flesh was suddenly stimulating rather than comforting. His expression changed, and I couldn't even begin to name it, but my body interpreted it as erotic. I had to actually clutch at the chair arms to keep from throwing myself into his arms. Damn, this was unexpected.

Mircea stepped away after a moment, and some of the river of heat flowing through me dissipated, but the longing remained. The problem, other than the fact that he might have to kill me on the Consul's orders, was that I couldn't be sure how much of what I was feeling was real, and how much was simply what Mircea wanted me to feel. I thought about that first night with Tomas, and his attempted seduction. I found it hard to believe that he'd been so overcome by lust at the sight of me in my big, cartoon-covered towel that he couldn't help himself. Had Tomas acted on the Senate's orders? Was Mircea doing the same thing now?

I knew Tomas hadn't needed to touch me to feed. Mircea hadn't told Pritkin, but a master doesn't need tactile contact. Any of them could have drained me from across the room, pulling my life from me in invisible, microscopic particles that wouldn't be seen or noticed by anyone else. And if they were as good as Mircea, there wouldn't even be a bruise or other telltale mark to show that blood had been stolen. I didn't think Pritkin would react too well to that tidbit of information, especially not with the hunted, half-panicked expression he still wore. He looked like a man who'd awakened from a dream to find himself surrounded by monsters.

I could have reassured him, if he'd have believed anything I had to say. Most vamps wouldn't be able to feed from him easily, if at all. His wards were almost certainly too strong—he would have had to drop them for Rafe to complete the demonstration—and his training would probably tell him that some form of threat was being made. But a norm wouldn't notice a thing, except perhaps for a slight feeling of lethargy. Vamps only left a fang-marked body behind in the movies, or if they were making a point. Tony would no doubt be receiving some shortly.

Louis-César took that minute to decide that Mircea had had enough fun for one day. "If you are so interested in our habits, Mage Pritkin, I can recommend several excellent treatises for you to study. This, however, is not the time." He looked at his colleague. "The day is passing, and the night will be full. May we proceed?"

Mircea inclined his head and sprawled elegantly back onto the couch, pausing to remove his suit jacket and toss it over the coffee table. He also loosened the top fastening of his high-collared shirt, as if the room had suddenly grown too warm. The shirt was a thick eggshell silk made in a Chinese pattern, with little toggles holding it together instead of buttons. The material had a lustrous sheen, the kind that made you want to run your hands over it to see if it felt as buttery soft as it looked, but no design. His suit was also plain, unrelieved black, but on him the understated look worked. It was like a simple frame around a fine painting: all you saw was the total effect, and it was stunning. I shifted in my thick robe. I agreed with him—the room was way too warm.

Pritkin's skin had turned the color of old mushrooms. I think some of the implications had started to dawn on him. He turned on Mircea. "Can you make more vampires in such ways? Can you call your victims?" I bit my lip.

Pritkin had definitely been out to lunch when Vampire 101 was in session. His ignorance made it seem odd that the Silver Circle would have sent him as their liaison to the Senate. From things the mages at Tony's had said, I'd gotten the idea that the war mages had different branches, each of which concentrated on a different major category of non-humans—vamps, weres, demons, Fey, and magical creatures like dragons. It made me wonder what his specialty was.

Louis-César frowned at him, maybe thinking the same thing, and Mircea held out a hand to me theatrically. "Come to me, Cassandra," he thundered. "I command you!" His usual slight accent had thickened to the point that he sounded like Bela Lugosi. I smiled in spite of myself. Mircea's sense of humor was notoriously horrible, but it did help to break the tension.

I snuggled closer against the softness of the overstuffed armchair. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm quite comfortable where I am." In fact, the couch looked far more attractive at the moment, which made staying where I was a very good idea. I knew perfectly well that part of my trouble was the aftereffects of the feeding, but Mircea would have tempted a saint all on his own. I didn't need any more complications, especially with a Senate member. He might genuinely like me, but in the end, he'd do whatever the Consul wanted. They all would.

Mircea was taunting Pritkin. "You see, my friend? Nothing. She spurns me. My allure must not be as strong as I thought."

"Only a bite can allow us to call one of you," Tomas told him shortly. He glanced at me, and his eyes were black with some emotion I couldn't read.

I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to start a debate. But the truth was that, even if Mircea had bitten me, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Vampires could control most norms through their bite: one was usually enough, two always were, and after three, the victim became a vamp bound to his or her master, so it was a moot point. But Tony had bitten me twice to ensure loyalty, once when I was a child and then again after my return to him as a teenager. Yet, if he'd been trying to summon me—a safe bet—it had failed.

My theory was that my constant association with ghosts had interrupted the signal. Billy Joe was almost always with me and I constantly wore his necklace, which bound us together even when we were apart. And vamps can't read ghosts. One of the points Billy had used to make our deal was that, with luck, he'd run a kind of spiritual interference. Maybe it had worked, or maybe I was one of the few who had natural resistance to the call. I doubted that, since it was usually only the case with particularly powerful magic users, but weirder things had happened. Hell, weirder things happened to me all the time.

Mircea was looking at me with exaggerated longing, and I smiled. "You could always join me." The minute I said it, I wanted to take it back. A clear head was impossible around him, and I wanted whatever abilities I had to be sharp. But I needn't have worried. Mircea looked for a moment like he was considering it, then smiled and shook his head.

"You are kind to offer, dulceaţă, but I am also quite comfortable here." He glanced at Tomas. "Perhaps later."

Louis-César planted himself in front of me while Tomas walked Pritkin back to his place by the door. The Frenchman appeared slightly stressed. From what little I'd observed of him, that was probably the equivalent of anyone else throwing a fit. "Mademoiselle, I need your attention for a moment, if you please. I know that you are tired and that this experience has been difficult, but please try to concentrate." I felt like pointing out that I hadn't been the one getting us off topic, but thought better of it. "Do you recall the name Françoise?"

I looked at him warily. So we were back to that again. "Yes."

"Please explain why you thought that name would convince me to spare you."

I looked at Tomas. He nodded curtly. "I have told them what I know, but I did not understand much of what we did. I only know that—"

"Be silent!" Louis-César ordered him sharply. "We cannot afford to have anything you say influence her." He turned back to me, and his eyes were a dark blue-gray like gathering storm clouds over the ocean. "Please tell me."

"Fine, but then I want to ask a few questions, okay?"

He nodded, so I went through it all, how he'd touched me and I'd somehow ended up in the castle, skipping over exactly where I was and what we were doing when I first arrived. "They burned her to death, but there was nothing I—we—could do. We had to stand there and watch it happen. Then I came back and you said something about wishing I hadn't had to see that, and you called her Françoise. Don't you remember?"

Louis-César looked faintly green. "No, mademoiselle, that is not how I remember our short time in this room. Neither does Mircea, nor Raphael. You fainted while I was attending your cheek, and when you awoke, you were upset and disoriented for a time. We attributed it to your recent experiences. You did not mention anything about a woman named Franchise. I was given a tour of the dungeons of Carcassonne once, it is true, but as far as I am aware, no one died that night." He closed his eyes for a moment. "It was quite horrible enough without that."

"I didn't dream it!" I was getting more confused by the minute. "You're saying you never knew anyone by that name?"

"One." Louis-César's voice was quiet, but his eyes could have ignited a match. "A young gypsy, the daughter of one of the guards at the castle. She worked as a servant, I believe in order to save for her wedding to some young man."

"What happened to her?"

He looked sick. "I never knew. I assumed her father thought we were becoming… too close, and had her sent away. I had something of a reputation in those days, and Françoise was one of the servants who regularly attended me. But I never touched her. I do not want a woman in my bed who is not there willingly. And a servant would have had little choice if I had… made advances. I would not have put her in such a position."

"Then why did someone want to kill her?"

He sat down on the edge of the sofa as if I'd punched him. "Because I was fond of her. I gave her a necklace—a mere trifle—because she had no jewelry and such beauty should be adorned. And twice I gave her money—again, trivial sums only, as my own resources were not great in those days. I thought only to help with her wedding expenses, and to repay her for her kindness. She must have told someone, or else they saw her wear the necklace and guessed…" He said the last as if talking to himself.

This wasn't helping. "Why would someone kill her just because you liked her? Who hated you that much?"

He leaned over, elbows on his knees, and his hair hid his face. "My brother." The voice was chokingly bitter. "He did worse to frighten me into submission through the years."

"Can you tell us anything else about that vision, Cassie?" Mircea's face was very serious. "Any detail could be vital."

"I don't think so." I thought about it—I hadn't been in the best mental state for making observations at the time—but I'd covered pretty much everything. "Except that the jailer used a weird name for me—us, I mean. M'sieur le Tour, or something like that."

Louis-César jerked as though I'd struck him. "Is that significant?" Mircea asked him.

He shook his head. "No. It is only—I have not heard that name in a great many years. I was called that once, although not usually to my face. It translates as 'the man in the tower'; I was often imprisoned in one. It had other meanings, too, at times," he added softly.

I glanced at Mircea, who looked grave but didn't comment. "Tell us about the second vision, dulceaţă."

I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that my little tarot cards had been even more on the ball than usual. I decided not to mention it. Louis-César had said the name wasn't important, and I didn't want them taken away. "Fine, but I don't understand it, either. Normally I See what once happened or what's about to happen, but it's like watching TV. I observe, and that's it."

"But not lately."

I shifted uncomfortably. I hadn't had time to process what had been happening yet myself, so how could I explain it to someone else? "It's been… different in the last day or so. I don't know why. Maybe because I was in someone else's body when I shifted the second time. That's never happened before."

"You never possessed anyone before tonight?" It was Pritkin's voice, and it was laced with skepticism. I wanted to ignore him, but I also wanted to know what was going on.

"No. I don't know how I did it, but when Billy Joe slammed into me…"

"Billy Joe is your familiar's name?"

"I don't have a familiar," I snapped. "Once and for all, I'm not a witch, okay? I am not a demon; I am not the freaking bogeyman! I'm a clairvoyant. Do you know what that is?!"

Maybe it was because I lost my temper, or maybe the bracelet remembered him and held a grudge. But without warning, twin knives, looking as gaseous and insubstantial as Billy after a wild night out, appeared in front of me and flew straight at him. They didn't look real—it was more like light had been carved into shapes—but they worked well enough. I didn't mean to hurt him, but the bracelet apparently thought otherwise, for the daggers plunged deeply into his chest. He screamed and I instinctively shrank back. The daggers came with me, flying back across the room to disappear into the bracelet.

"I'm sorry!" I watched, appalled, as two bright red wounds bloomed on his chest. "I didn't know it would do that!" I looked at the thing on my wrist in shock. It shouldn't have been able to harm a mage, but it had sliced through his shields like they weren't there.

"Where did you get it?" Mircea looked at my bracelet with interest.

"I, uh, sort of found it, recently."

"It deserted the dark mage for her!" Pritkin's voice had roughened with pain, and he was looking at me with hate. I really couldn't blame him this time. "Dark weapons are fickle; they always go to the greatest source of power, in order to increase their own." He grimaced and dropped to his knees. "She is dangerous, evil!"

Pritkin's chest, as messed up as if he'd been hit with real weapons, was gushing blood. I stared at him in horror, not quite believing what I'd done. I didn't like him, but killing him had definitely not been any part of my plan. He tore open his shirt and dragged in a lungful of air. He let it out slowly, muttering something. Within a few seconds, the gashes in his chest began to close over. So much for being all for the humans—he healed as fast as a vamp.

His lip curled. "So, sybil, you say you are human. Yet you wield a dark weapon, one that steals power from its opponents and turns it against them. Dark witches fight for you, and this night I saw you do something even a dark mage could not have done. The Black Circle itself does not have the power to steal someone's body, much less that of a mage who was warded against such things!" He grabbed the door latch and hauled himself to his feet.

"I didn't steal—"

He cut me off with a savage gesture. "But I have seen something similar before, a creature who takes others' lives and uses them for its own." He tried to push past Tomas but didn't get anywhere. That seemed to piss him off, and he shouted at me over Tomas' shoulder. "It is the darkest of magic, only available to the vilest of demons! The Circle was right to send me to you. They knew I would realize what you really are. How many lives have you stolen, sibyl?! How many murders has it taken to sustain your miserable existence?"

I stood up, and Louis-César didn't try to stop me. "My name is Cassie Palmer! I have a birth certificate to prove it. I don't go around stealing bodies. I am not a freaking demon!" I looked at Mircea, who was watching the whole scene like most people would a particularly entertaining movie. "Why do I have to keep saying that?"

He shrugged. "I have been saying it for years, dulceaţă, and no one believes me."

Pritkin took advantage of my momentary distraction to have a fit. Out of nowhere, his bevy of magical knives came streaming right at me. I wasn't expecting the attack and stood there like an idiot, with my mouth hanging open. Tomas moved like lightning but caught only two of the weapons. Two more dodged around his flailing arms to zero in on me. I didn't have time to think, much less do anything to protect myself. I felt my ward flare but didn't know if it could deal with enchanted weapons. A second later, I still didn't, because the knives were sticking out of the golem's torso, vibrating with the impact. I stared at it in incomprehension, until it dawned on me that Pritkin must have forgotten to withdraw his order for it to protect me. He bellowed for it to move out of the way, but by then Tomas had grabbed him.

I don't know if Tomas hadn't dealt with war mages before, but he underestimated this one. One of Pritkin's tiny vials flew at Tomas' head, splashing him with a red substance that looked like blood but burned like acid. Tomas didn't release him, but the stuff had gotten into his eyes and he was momentarily blind. Pritkin made an odd gesture, like jerking on an invisible rope, and the two knives sticking out of the golem came flying back to him. One hit Tomas in the leg and the other almost severed his left wrist. He went to one knee and Pritkin managed to break away. He dodged a knife thrown by Louis-César, leapt out of the way of Tomas' thrashing limbs, and pointed both his guns at me.

I didn't think; I reacted, which is probably what saved me. My hand jerked up and two gaseous knives flew at Pritkin, knocking the guns out of his hands as he fired. He got several bullets off anyway, but they disappeared harmlessly into the golem's clay. I glanced at it in surprise. It looked so awkward; it was hard to believe how fast it could move. At a word from its enraged master it was suddenly gone, and a second later was across the room battling with Louis-César. The Frenchman plunged his rapier into it again and again, but it had no vital organs to hit. He dodged its blows, despite the fact that they were so fast I could barely see them, but it was slowly driving him back towards the. far wall and away from the fight.

Pritkin yelled something and threw himself at me, a grenade in his palm. Tomas, who launched himself at him like he'd been fired from a cannon, froze in midair and crashed to the ground where he lay, unmoving. A split second later I understood why, when what felt like a giant, invisible hand grabbed me, holding me and my bracelet motionless. It was similar to the trick the dark mage had used, only there was no one to counter it this time. Pritkin vaulted over Tomas and dodged around Rafe, who had also been caught in the spell. The whole room was a frozen tableau, and I saw a grim smile flash across the mage's face. His eyes met mine, and I knew the crazy man was actually going to kill me, even if he died for it.

But Pritkin and I had both forgotten Mircea. He came out of nowhere, a dark blur across my vision, grabbed the mage, broke his wrist, and threw the grenade out the window. While I was still blinking in surprise, Mircea grabbed Pritkin around the throat and lifted him off the ground. Louis-César vaulted over the sofa a second later, the golem in pieces behind him, but I saw the realization cross his face that he would have been too late.

I still couldn't move, but Raphael had managed to throw off the spell and was batting at a couple of little vials that had homed in on him, using Mircea's discarded coat so that he didn't have to touch them. Then the grenade's explosion rocked the room, sending plaster raining down from the ceiling and shards of glass flying past the heavy curtain to scatter across the floor. The invisible hand finally released me and I coughed, falling back into the chair, choking on plaster dust and almost deaf from the loud ringing in my ears.

I shot a wild glance at Pritkin, but he was well and truly immobilized. His arsenal was another thing, but Louis-César had started chanting something under his breath that made the flying pieces sluggish. Rafe grabbed two vials that were hovering in front of his face and stuffed them in the fireplace basket after dumping a dried flower arrangement all over the tiles. He shut the wicker lid and then gathered up the other bits and pieces of the flying arsenal and added them to his collection. I could see the lid bump slightly up and down as his captives struggled to get free. One of the ones he missed tried to sneak up on me, moving slowly across the floor unnoticed by everyone else. I stared at it, wondering what defense wouldn't shatter the glass and end up dousing me with the contents after all, but my bracelet knew how to fight better than I did. It pulled my arm up and sent a knife to shatter against the vial. The tiny container evaporated with a pop, leaving only an odd, musty smell behind.

Mircea's voice was calm but utterly convincing. "Call them off, mage, or I will happily demonstrate an old-style feeding for you."

I believed him, but Pritkin was more stubborn, or more stupid. The shotgun rose off the ground on its own, pointing at me. "Go ahead, but I will take your demon whore with me!"

Louis-César leapt for the gun and jerked it up just as it went off. It blew a hole in the fireplace behind me. An inch to the left, and I would have been in more pieces than the golem. A hail of brick and mortar joined the dust cloud, and several flying bits nicked my skin. I cried out, and the next second it was like a hurricane had blown into the room. Through the storm of dust and debris that whirled around us, I could see that Mircea's jovial mask had peeled away and something feral looked out of his face. I'd seen other vampires without the human gloss, but they hadn't looked like this. He was terrible and beautiful at the same time, with glowing, alabaster skin, inch-long fangs and eyes of flaming, molten lava.

The wind blew Pritkin against the wall, and the force beating against him caused his face to distort wildly. His vision was unimpeded, though, and the expression in his eyes made it clear that he hadn't guessed what lay under the perfect facade. What had he thought, that the Senate members earned their spots through charity work? I was amazed the man had lasted this long.

"Cassandra is mine," Mircea told him in a voice that could have melted glass. "Touch her again and, Circle or no, I will bring you over and ensure that you spend the rest of eternity begging for death."

"Mircea!" Louis-César did not attempt to touch him, but his voice cut through the storm like boiling water through a snow drift. "Please; you know the situation. There are other ways to deal with him."

The wind slowly subsided and I found myself shaking from an excess of adrenaline. I got my trembling legs under me and walked to where Pritkin was still held against the wall by Mircea's power, although he no longer looked in danger of being forced through it. Several trickles of blood ran down my face into the collar of the robe, but I ignored them. Compared to Tomas, I had gotten off amazingly lightly. A very battered version of my former roommate was searching Pritkin for weapons. Tomas' wrist had already started to knit back together, tendons and ligaments reforming before my eyes, but his face was a mass of scalded flesh and only one eye appeared to be working. I shuddered at his expression, which clearly said that the only reason the mage wasn't already dead was because Tomas hadn't figured out which execution method would hurt the most.

I glanced at Mircea, and his face was no more comforting. The man I knew had always been an even-tempered, almost gentle presence, who told convoluted stories and awful jokes, liked dressing up and didn't mind playing endless games of checkers with an infatuated eleven-year-old. I wasn't as naive as Pritkin—I had known the truth was far more complex. Mircea had grown up in a court where assassination and cruelty were the order of the day, where his own father had traded two of his sons for a treaty he had no intention of keeping and where he had been tortured to what would have been a horrible death if the gypsy hadn't gotten to him first. That sort of thing didn't allow for much compassion. Still, a softer side was there, wasn't it? I honestly didn't know anymore.

I had never felt any kind of threat from him as a child. He had been serene, kind Mircea with laughing brown eyes that crinkled a bit at the corners. It was hard to reconcile that person with what I saw now. Was that terrifying aspect always there, simmering below the surface, and I had simply been too blind to see it? I saw it now, and it created a problem. As much as I disliked Pritkin, I didn't want him dead. He might be—make that probably was—crazy, but I needed him to explain what was happening to me, or to contact someone who could. It wasn't like I knew anyone else to ask. "Don't kill him, Mircea."

"We have no intention of killing him, mademoiselle," Louis-César answered, although he kept a wary eye on his colleague. Tomas had finished stripping off the mage's weapons, at least the ones we could see. I had a feeling that a lot were still available to him, and my bracelet seemed to agree. It glowed warm against my wrist, feeling heavier than it had a few minutes ago. I would have liked to get it off—it was starting to creep me out—but this wasn't a good time. "As of this night, we are already at war with the Dark Circle; we have no wish to also fight the Light."

"Be careful," Rafe said from beside me. "Make sure he's completely unarmed."

"He's a war mage," Mircea said flatly. "He's never unarmed."

"Until he's dead," Tomas added, and I noticed that he still gripped a struggling knife in his good hand. He moved like lightning—I guess he liked the irony of killing Pritkin with his own weapon—but Louis-César was a fraction faster. His hand caught Tomas' wrist a hairsbreadth from Pritkin's chest.

"Tomas! I will not have you start a war!"

"If you harbor that thing" — Pritkin all but spat at me—"you'll be at war with us whether you will it or not. I was sent here to find out what she was and to deal with her if she posed a threat. I expected to find merely a cassandra, a fallen sybil, but this is far worse than I anticipated. And what I know, the Circle knows. If I fail to kill her, expect a dozen, a hundred others, to come in my place." He looked at me, and if looks could kill, he'd have just saved his Circle the trouble. "I've fought one of these things before. I know what they can do and I won't leave it alive."

He lunged for me again, but all it accomplished was to almost choke him, since Mircea's invisible grip had all the give of a steel glove. It was weird, because Mircea's face was back to its usual placid expression. The eyes were no more than vaguely interested, the cheeks were their normal color and a slight smile curved his lips. The incandescent anger was nowhere to be seen. I shivered. Acting skills like those worried me. I turned my attention back to the mage, and it dawned on me that the only person who I was sure wasn't deceiving me was the man who'd just tried to kill me. Nice.

"I'm not an it," I told him, staying well out of reach. "I don't know what you think is happening here, but I'm not a threat to you."

He laughed, a rather strangled sound under the circumstances. "Of course not. I'm too old for a lamia to take an interest. I tracked the one I killed over the bodies of twenty children it used to sustain its abomination of a life. I won't let that happen again."

I fought down anger and turned to the window, parting the blackout curtain to see a flat, reddish-tan landscape and pale blue sky. Quite a group had gathered around the hole left by the grenade, but no one bothered us. I guess they figured we could take care of ourselves. I turned back to that hate-filled face. "What if you're wrong and I'm not some evil thing? Wouldn't you rather know for sure before killing me?"

"I already know. No human can do what you did. It isn't possible."

"A few days ago, I would have agreed with you. Now I know different." I found it hard to meet his eyes. I'd never had anyone look at me with that level of hatred. Tony wanted to kill me, but I was willing to bet that if he ever caught up with me his eyes wouldn't look like that. He viewed me as a royal pain and a way to seal a bargain, not as the incarnation of evil. Even though I knew Pritkin was wrong, I felt guilty, and that made me mad in a way his physical attack hadn't. I wasn't the homicidal lunatic here.

"You said you've hunted these things before. Isn't there some kind of test you use, to make sure you're right? Or do you kill anyone you suspect on sight?"

"There are tests," Pritkin said through clenched teeth, as if even talking to me was torture. "But your vampire allies wouldn't like them. They involve holy water and crosses."

I looked at Mircea in astonishment, and he rolled his eyes. What the hell kind of stuff was Pritkin reading? Bram freaking Stoker? Demons might be afraid of holy items, but vamps certainly weren't. Mircea's family crest showed a dragon, the symbol of courage, embracing a cross, a sign of the family's Catholicism. It decorated the wall behind his seat in the Senate, but I guess Pritkin had been too busy glaring at me to notice. I thought about giving him the lecture on vampirism being sort of like lycanthropy, in that it was a metaphysical disease. But I doubted he'd believe that the legends claiming that a demon came to roost in every new vampire had been caused by the hysteria of the Middle Ages. Pritkin seemed to see demons everywhere, whether any were there or not. In fact, the only ones of Hollywood's arsenal of weapons that actually worked on vamps were sunlight—for the younger ones, anyway—stakes and garlic, and the latter only if employed as part of a protection ward. Simply hanging the stuff over a door would have no effect at all—hell, Tony loved it on bruschetta with a little olive oil.

Mircea was no help; he only grinned at me. "And to think, I always believed that my least favorite things were bad wine and poor fashion." He smiled tolerantly at my expression. "Very well, dulceaţă. I think we can find a few crosses somewhere. And unless I mistake it, Rafe is keeping several vials of holy water imprisoned as we speak."

Rafe came forward with his box. It sounded like a bunch of Mexican jumping beans were inside, urgently trying to get out, and all of us looked at it doubtfully. "I don't agree with this," Tomas spoke up. "I was charged by the Consul to keep Cassie safe. What if he lies, and those things contain acid or explosives? You know we cannot trust him."

"Never trust a mage," Rafe agreed, as if quoting something.

"I will test them," Louis-César said and extracted a vial so quickly that I didn't have a chance to stop him. He didn't pour it over his own flesh as I'd half feared, but held the stoppered vial under Pritkin's nose. "I am about to spill this over your arm. If it is not safe to do so, it would be well if you told me now."

Pritkin ignored him, his glare still on me, as if he was more worried about what I might do than a roomful of master vamps. He obviously hadn't been around them long enough to understand nuances. Louis-César had said only that they wouldn't kill him—that still left a lot of possibilities wide open. I'd have been worried, but Pritkin was so busy giving me the glower of death that he barely noticed when a few drops of colorless liquid were drizzled over his skin. We all watched as if expecting his arm to start to melt, but nothing happened. Louis-César reached for me, but Tomas grabbed his wrist.

The Frenchman's eyes flashed silver. "Be careful, Tomas," he said softly. "You are not possessed this time."

Tomas ignored the warning. "That could be poison—he could have taken the antidote, or be willing to die with her. I will not have her harmed."

"I will take responsibility before the Consul if anything occurs."

"I don't care about the Consul."

"Then you had best care about me."

Two tides of shimmering energy began to build, enough to raise goose bumps on my arms and to set my bracelet dancing against my skin. "Enough!" Mircea waved a hand and the power in the room faded considerably. He plucked the vial from the Frenchman's hand and sniffed it delicately. "Water, Tomas—it is only water and nothing more." He handed it to me and I took it before Tomas could argue.

I trusted Mircea, and besides, neither the bracelet nor my ward reacted to it. "It's okay."

"No!" Tomas reached for the bottle, but Louis-César knocked his hand away.

I looked at Pritkin, who was watching me avidly. "Bottoms up." I swallowed the whole thing. Just as Mircea had said, it was only water, if a bit stale. Pritkin stared at me, as if expecting wisps of steam to start coming out of my ears or something. "Satisfied? Or do you want to hang a few crosses around my neck?"

"What are you?" he whispered.

I went back to my chair, but it was covered in brick dust so I opted for the couch instead. The window had shattered when Mircea tossed the grenade through it, so I had to brush shards of glass onto the floor first. Pritkin had better have some answers, because he was really getting on my nerves. "Tired, stiff and sick to death of you," I told him honestly.

Mircea laughed. "You haven't changed, dulceaţă."

Pritkin stared at me, and some of that terrible anger faded from his face. "I don't understand. You cannot have drunk holy water and shown no reaction if you are demon kind. But you cannot be human and do what I have seen you do."

Mircea settled himself on the sofa after carefully dusting it off with his handkerchief. He picked up one of my bare feet and stroked it idly. I suddenly felt a lot better. "I have learned, Mage Pritkin, never to say never to the universe." He glanced at me, and his expression was wry. "It delights in giving us that which we declare most emphatically cannot be."

Louis-César looked expectantly at me, and I nodded. "Yeah, I know. If people will stop trying to kill me for a minute, I'll tell you about Françoise, at least as much as I can." I quickly explained about my second trip, in as much detail as I could remember without mentioning that a seventeenth-century witch appeared to be wandering around Vegas. I didn't want my cell, if I ended up in one, to have padded walls. "That is approximately what Tomas said," Louis-César commented when I was done. "But that is not as I remember it."

"Which leaves us with three possibilities." Mircea ticked them off on his fingers. "That both Tomas and Cassandra are lying for no obvious reason, that they hallucinated the same thing at the same time, or that they are telling the truth. I do not smell a lie on either of them." He looked at Louis-César, who nodded. "And must I point out the absurdity of a dual hallucination of that degree of detail, about events neither could have known had they not been there?"

"Which leaves us with the truth." Louis-César gave a sigh that sounded like relief. "And that means…"

Mircea finished for him. "That they changed history."