Touch The Dark

Chapter 4

It was finally decided that Louis-César, Rafe and Mircea would accompany me to my room and fill me in. Pritkin didn't like it, but he wasn't prepared to challenge the Consul's decision. Considering that it would have meant facing her in a duel, I was relieved to hear it. I'd had about all the fighting I could stand for one night; besides, I didn't know what would happen if a war mage of the Silver Circle went up against a two-thousand-year-old vampire, but it wasn't a show I wanted to see.

I was thankful that two out of three of my companions were friends or at least friendly neutrals, but it made me anxious, too. The Senate was acting suspiciously nice, defending me against would-be assassins, not handing me over to Tony or the Circle, clucking over my health and making sure that my companions were ones I would like. It made me wonder what they wanted, and how much I wasn't going to enjoy giving it to them.

Barely a minute later, I wasn't so sure giving up my bodyguard had been a good idea after all. We were about halfway up a second flight of stairs when we met a werewolf on the way down. He was a huge gray and black specimen with the characteristic long muzzle and mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Chartreuse eyes locked with mine for a second, and I froze, one foot halfway to the next step. I'd seen only one werewolf before, and never this close, but I knew instinctively what he was. It was more than his size; there was intelligence in those eyes that no animal would have had. What I couldn't figure out was what he was doing there.

To say that vamps and weres don't get along is a laughable understatement. Maybe it has something to do with them both being predators, or maybe Tony was right when he insisted that weres envy the vamps their immortality. Whatever the cause, they're like oil and water. Or more often, blood and fur, both of which go flying when they meet up. I expected a reaction, probably a severe one, from one or more of my escorts, but the only thing I noticed was Rafe's hand tightening slightly on my wrist. Louis-César nodded a greeting at the were as if he regularly met giant wolves in the stairway. "Sebastian, good to see you." The were didn't respond, of course, since he was in animal form, but he slipped by us without offering challenge. It was a seriously surreal experience. It also told me I wasn't in Kansas anymore, or Atlanta, either, for that matter.

As we emerged from the stairs to the aboveground areas, I finally got a glimpse out a window and confirmed that, wherever I was, it wasn't north Georgia. The view also explained why the Consul was worried about time. I must have lost more hours than I'd thought after Tomas bespelled me, enough for me to be moved, and not merely across the state. The colors outside the window were a different palette than you could see anywhere in Georgia: the dappled greens and grays of the deep South had been replaced by midnight blue skies and indigo clouds. A black, star-studded canopy stretched overhead, but the line of deep violet along the horizon showed that the desert was beginning to remember the day.

"It will be dawn soon."

Louis-César followed my gaze as he threw open a door. "Not for some time yet," he replied easily. I narrowed my eyes at the offhand tone. Even Rafe, old as he was, became uptight as dawn approached, with a tendency to talk too much and to drop things. The younger the vamp, the earlier it started. It was sort of a built-in security net to make sure no one ended up getting fried, and I had never seen anyone left completely unaffected. Yet the Frenchman seemed perfectly at ease. He was either a lot more powerful than the vamps I knew or a great actor; either way, it didn't make me feel better.

I walked past him and found myself standing in the living area of a suite decorated to match what I imagined the daytime view out the windows would be. Pale turquoise walls were clothed in Native American blankets in burnt umber, turquoise and Navajo red, a matching rug had been flung over the rough wood floor and terracotta tile outlined the fireplace. The leather sofa, chair and ottoman were a complimentary shade of deep red, with enough wear on them to look comfortable. It was an oddly cheerful room; apparently, the Senate didn't share Tony's love of the Gothic.

"Please, mademoiselle, asseyez-vous." Louis-César moved to stand beside the overstuffed armchair near the fireplace. I glanced at Rafe, but he stood resolutely looking out over the view, what there was of it. His hands were clasped together tightly behind his back and his shoulders were tense. Yep, right on schedule: dawn was coming. What I wanted was to drag him off and get some straight answers, but even assuming he was in the mood for it, I wasn't given the chance.

Mircea put a light hand under my elbow, just enough of a touch to guide me into the chair. "Louis-César will not sit when a lady is standing, dulceaţă." My dear one: his pet term for me when I'd sat on his knee and listened to his stories. I hoped he meant it; if Rafe was my only friend in the room, I was in trouble.

I plopped down and the Frenchman knelt in front of me. He smiled reassuringly. I blinked. The man—no, the master vampire—had dimples. Big ones. "I wish to attend to your wound. If you permit?"

I nodded cautiously, not convinced that a vamp was the best person to clean off blood, especially one who had looked pretty hungry earlier. But the dried variety doesn't appeal to them and besides, it wasn't like I had a choice. He was being polite, asking my permission as if it mattered what I said, but I knew better. There were two Senate members in the room; they could play gentlemen as long as it amused them, but when it came down to it, I would do what they wanted. They knew it, and so did I.

Louis-César smiled approvingly and I suddenly realized why he was making me jumpy. This close, I could tell that he was one of the most human-looking vamps I'd ever seen. Barring Tomas, who'd had a reason to look as human as possible, most vamps forget little things like breathing, making their hearts beat and turning their skin a more believable color than new-fallen snow. Even Rafe, who was fairly convincing, usually remembered to blink only a few times an hour. But I could have passed this one on the street and mistaken for him for human, assuming he got a wardrobe change. I found myself counting the seconds between breaths to see if he missed any. He didn't.

Growing up I'd seen thousands of vamps from all over the world, some as flamboyant and otherworldly as the Consul and some as normal-looking as Rafe. Before today I would have sworn that I'd know one anywhere, but Tomas had fooled me at close quarters for months, and Louis-César could have done the same if he'd wanted. I didn't like that—it made me feel like a nonsensitive, like one of the millions with no protection from the supernatural world because they can't even sense that it's there. I'd grown up around vamps, but the power the Senate members radiated was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It had me wondering what else I was overlooking, and the thought made me cold.

Louis-César was examining my face slowly, I think more to give me a chance to get used to him than out of any real need. It didn't work. When a glossy brown curl, which had come loose from the cluster at his neck, brushed against my shoulder, I jumped as if he'd slapped me. His hand, which had been reaching for my hair, immediately stilled. "Mille pardons, mademoiselle. But perhaps you will pull your hair back for me? It would help to see the extent of the injury."

He handed me a golden clip that he'd pulled from his own hair. I took it, careful not to brush his fingers with mine. My hair was barely shoulder length, but I got most of it into a messy ponytail as he watched. I tried to talk myself out of the near panic attack I was having, but it didn't work. Some instinct older than reason, older than polite phrases spoken in well-lit rooms, wanted me to run and hide. Of course, that could have been a reaction to the night I was having, but part of me definitely didn't like him so close. I forced myself to sit still as he finished his examination, to pretend that my arms hadn't broken out in goose bumps and that my pulse wasn't racing through my veins like I was already fleeing for my life. I didn't understand my reaction, but harsh experience had taught me to trust my instincts, and every one I had was loudly begging me to get away. "Ah, bon. Ce n'est pas très grave," he murmured. Seeing my expression, he smiled, and it lit even his eyes. "It is not serious," he translated. I fought not to scream.

Louis-César rose and walked to a nearby table, and suddenly I could breathe again. I tried to figure out what there was about him that so alarmed me, but there was nothing tangible. His face, which was set in pleasant, friendly lines, looked to be that of a man maybe five or six years older than me, although if his clothes were anything to go by, he'd been around for centuries. His eyes were mild—a calm blue with flecks of gray that held no discernable attempt to influence me—and his movements, while graceful, were nothing a mere mortal couldn't have imitated. Admittedly, my nerves weren't in great shape—even I wasn't used to almost getting killed twice in the same night—but that didn't explain why, out of all the possible candidates, it was Louis-César who was freaking me out.

He returned, and my panic rose with every step he took. I watched him the way a small animal does a predator, staying quiet, barely breathing, in hope that the big, bad thing won't pounce. He knelt again in a puddle of gleaming satin and lace, and the overhead lights glinted on a few strands of auburn threaded through his hair. He'd brought back a first aid kit, and he lined up an antiseptic, several gauze pads and a packet of baby wipes on the tiles in front of the fireplace. "I will clean the wound, mademoiselle, and bandage it for you. A nurse will come tomorrow and improve on my clumsy efforts." He was relaxed, even cheerful, but it took every bit of self-control I had not to run for the door.

A pale, slender hand framed in cascading white lace engulfed my filthy, blood-stained one. His fingers were cool and his grip light, as if he thought his touch would give reassurance. It didn't. No matter how careful he was, I knew that hold could tighten in an instant, trapping me as securely as a steel handcuff. I felt the fingers of his other hand moving deftly over my scraped skin, then the barest brush of the cloth as he began cleaning it. Although the antiseptic stung only lightly, I shuddered and closed my eyes. I had a very bad feeling that I knew what was coming.

"Mademoiselle, are you ill?" His voice came from a distance and echoed hollowly in my ears. I felt a familiar sense of disorientation wash over me, and I fought it with everything I had. I struggled harder than ever before, trying to push it back inside whatever part of me usually held it, begging it to go back to sleep. Whatever it wanted to show me, I was absolutely certain I didn't want to See it. But, as ever, the gift was stronger than I was; it always had been. I gave in to the inevitable when I felt a cold chill settle on my face. It wasn't cold in the sitting room, but part of me was no longer there. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

The chill came from a window partially open to the night.

The breeze was nipping at my bare skin, raising goose bumps all along my exposed flesh. The window looked sort of like stained glass, except that there was no color and no pattern, other than small diamond shapes where its many panes had been joined together. The glass was thick and wavy, like in some of the historic houses in Philly, and it gave back only an indistinct reflection. But it was enough to make me begin to breathe faster.

I looked around in panic and my eyes lit on a mirror across the room. The image it returned was also dim, but more because of the faint light, which came from a few candles and a low-burning fire, than because of poor construction. In fact, it was a masterpiece of a mirror, huge, with a massive gilt frame, opulent like the rest of the heavy, carved-wood furniture. The room had a feeling of luxury about it: the dark cherry of the great four-poster bed gleamed with reflected flames from the marble fireplace, and echoed the color of the heavy velvet drapes of the canopy. The walls were stone, but hung with tapestries, their colors as bright and vibrant as if they had been completed only that day. A bouquet of deep-red roses sat on a nearby table in a painted porcelain bowl. I was in no mood to appreciate the scene, though, being far too distracted by the reflection in the mirror.

A man knelt on a bed approximately where I should have been. I couldn't tell who it was because a black velvet mask covered most of his face except for cutouts for the eyes. It looked comical, like part of a bad Halloween costume, but I didn't feel like laughing. Maybe because it was the only thing he wore. Long auburn curls hung below the velvet, sticking to his upper body, and in the candlelight they gleamed with strands of bronze and hints of gold. The warm, faintly golden light of the room drenched him, dripping down his skin from the muscular chest to the flat planes of his stomach and the slight indentation of his navel. It glistened on the tiny beads of sweat dewing his torso that the chill from the window had yet to dry, so he looked like he was wearing a transparent shirt strung with tiny diamonds. He was a gilt statue come to life, except that statues aren't generally rampantly erect. I swallowed and so did he, and the blue eyes in the mirror widened as realization hit.

But that was crazy, not to mention impossible. I didn't star in my visions. I was a watcher, off to the sidelines, as unseen and uninvolved as a ghost. Or, at least, I had been until tonight. Before I could even start to think what to do, I felt a warm hand close over me in a very personal place, and looked down in shock to find a brunette young woman lying beneath me, almost buried in the heap of blankets on the bed. The room smelled of sex, musty and heavy, and now I knew why.

A dainty little hand played over my—his—flesh with a sure touch. She stroked me again, harder this time, and I watched with something close to horror as an anatomical part I'd never possessed grew even longer under her hand. A flood of familiar sensations came from that very unfamiliar equipment, along with thoughts I was absolutely sure weren't mine. She flicked a fingernail over the rosy tip that had curved towards her and I almost screamed. Arousal had never felt like this. Of course, my experience wasn't exactly extensive, and it came from the other side of the coin, but this was almost unbearable. I was used to a languid heat that built slowly and spread from my core outwards along my veins, not this desperate need to thrust into her white body as deeply as I could.

She writhed in the blankets that lay thick and soft against our naked skin. "What is wrong, handsome one? Don't tell me you've lost interest already!" She sped up her pace and I suddenly found it hard to breathe. "You can manage a third; I know it."

My almost-trance broke when she moved closer, wetting her lips, and I flung myself back. I yelped in pain, both because she hesitated for a second before letting go, and from my borrowed body's demand for release. It was so stimulated it was painful, but I was in no way interested in what was on offer. I honestly thought I was going to be sick as I stared from her bemused expression to the undeniably male form I was wearing. There are no words for what I was feeling—utter confusion and disbelief miss it by a hell of a lot.

My hands scrambled for the edge of the mask and yanked it up. Staring at me from the mirror was Louis-César's face, white with shock. I wanted to scream at him to make this stop, to get out of me, but I knew it was the other way around. Somehow, I had invaded him, and I had no idea how I'd done it or how to undo it. The woman let out a shriek and grabbed for the mask, tugging it out of my hand and trying to put it back in place.

"Don't take risks, monsieur. You know how literal your keepers can be—never take it off." She smiled up at me wickedly. "Besides, I like it when you wear it while we make love." She wrapped her arms around my neck and tried to draw me down to her. "I'm cold without your heat. Kiss me."

I jerked away from her and scrambled to the end of the bed, wondering what would happen if I gave in to the black fog at the edge of my vision and fainted. Would I wake up back where I belonged, or was I stuck here? I decided to not even think about that last possibility. After a moment, the woman sighed and lay back on the bed, caressing her small breasts lightly. Her nipples were very brown against the white of her skin, and she watched me with a knowing smile. "Are you tired, my love?" Her hand trailed lower, tangling in the dark hair of her groin, and she smirked. "I'll wager I can revive you."

Before I could even try to persuade my overloaded brain to think up an answer, the heavy oak door opened and a middle-aged woman entered, flanked by four guards. Her expression told me she hadn't come to join in, thank God. "Get him up." Two of the guards dragged me out of the bed, and the woman I'd recently gotten to know far too well shrieked and pulled the covers up to her chin.

"Marie! What are you doing? Get out this minute! Get out, get out!"

The older woman ignored her and looked at me, the scorn on her already unattractive face not improving her looks. Her eyes ran over me contemptuously. "Always ready, I see. You get that from your father." She glanced at the guards. "Bring him. "

I was forced out of the room with no chance to get dressed. The brunette tossed me a heavy brocaded robe, which I slipped over the embarrassing evidence of my condition, but there was no time to get shoes or even trousers. The girl in the bed screeched strange obscenities after us, most directed at the older woman. It dawned on me that she was not speaking English, although I could understand her perfectly. Or maybe this body could, and was somehow translating for me. I had no time to wonder about it, since I was manhandled down a long stone corridor to a set of stairs. They had deep hollows in the center of each step, where thousands of feet had walked over hundreds of years. It was dark down there and the air coming up was freezing, to the point that I was surprised that I couldn't see my breath in front of my face.

The woman paused at the top of the stairs and turned to me. She didn't look scornful now; the emotion in her dark eyes was closer to fear. "I will go no farther. I have already seen what waits for you, and have no wish to do so again." Her expression changed to something like pity. "All your life, you have experienced the rewards that come from silence. Tonight you will learn the punishment for breaking it."

She turned away without another word and the guards started to muscle me towards that black hole. I was stronger in this body, but nowhere near enough to allow me to take on those guys. I looked wildly back at the woman, but she was already walking away, spine stiff and straight under her mulberry-colored dress. "Please! Madame! Why are you doing this? I have said nothing, I swear it!" The words weren't mine—they popped to my lips uninvited—and they didn't stop her.

"If you want to know who to credit with this night's work, ask your brother," she flung over her shoulder before disappearing into a room and shutting the door firmly behind her. It was a very final sound.

The stairs were too narrow for my captors to keep hold of my arms, but since they were behind me and there was nowhere to go but down, it didn't really matter. There was almost no light; only a few thin slivers of moonlight filtered in through ridiculously narrow windows as we descended. The steps were slick with damp, and the depression in the middle made it almost impossible to keep my footing, especially without shoes. I was also uncomfortably cold despite the robe, although at least that seemed to have gotten rid of any lingering arousal. But a very unfamiliar weight hung slack between my legs, an unwelcome and alien sensation that was doing more than anything else to make me want to start yelling and just not stop. I stubbed my toe about halfway down but was almost grateful for the pain; I was very close to losing it entirely, and the throbbing in my foot gave me something else to think about.

Torchlight flickered on the stairs as we finally came to the bottom, making shadows dance over everything and gleaming off the trails of liquid that seeped down the walls. Suddenly it was not chilly anymore; it was cold, intensely so, as if my blood had turned to ice in my veins. I was surprised not to see frost hugging the walls, but the damp trickles ran freely.

Far worse than the burning cold or the surroundings were the piteous wails that came from behind an iron-banded door a few yards ahead. They were soft, muffled by the thick wood, but they nonetheless hurt the mind. It was painful to hear voices so raw, so full of despair, and so sure that the help they called for would never come. I instinctively tried to back away, moving into a puddle of light cast by a nearby sconce, when a rough hand shoved me forward. I stumbled, striking my knees on the uneven stone of the floor.

"In there."

I was slow obeying the command, but a kick to my ribs winded me and a rough hand pulled me upright. I looked down and saw a man, balding, overweight, wearing a bloodstained apron and rough, dirty wool trousers. At five foot four, I'm not used to looking down at many men, and I blinked at him in pain and confusion. Fleshy lips split into a grin, showing a mouth full of gray teeth, and I flinched back. That seemed to please him. "Good. Be afraid, M'sieur le Tour. Remember, you're no prince tonight." He looked me up and down. "Soon we'll see if you live up to your name. Tonight, you're mine!"

A huge iron key was fitted into the lock, and the door swung open. I had a brief glimpse of a large, square room with thick stone walls and high ceilings before I was pushed through. I fell again, this time onto filthy straw that stank of urine and worse, and did little to soften the hard floor. Some part of me was outraged at the way this crude man was treating me, but a moment later, all feelings besides horror melted. I met the eyes of the emaciated, naked woman stretched impossibly tight on a rack and I was unable to look away. Blood had run in rivulets from her tortured body and dried in thick, viscous rivers on her skin, and brown stains covered the floor below her. There was so much blood, I couldn't believe one body had held it all.

Men in chains along the walls were crying, begging me to save them, but I barely noticed. All my attention was on the woman, although she made no sound. The torchlight reflected in her open eyes, and I couldn't tell if it was a trick of the light or if some life still burned in there. For her sake, I hoped not. The man saw the direction of my stare and walked over to her. "Yes, your friend won't be fun much longer." He tested one of the ropes binding her hands, and I saw that her nails were missing. The ends of her fingers looked as if they had been shredded, or eaten away by some animal, and the knuckles were swollen so large that there was no way she could have closed her hands, even if she'd been free to do so.

I'd seen a lot at Tony's through the years, but the violence had usually been fast and unexpected, like what I'd been through tonight. By the time I had a chance to react, it was normally all over. Tony used torture at times, but I hadn't seen it. Eugenie had been very strict on that point, and I was beginning to see why. This was worse than the ferocity I knew: it was too casual, too matter-of-fact, too studied. There was no anger behind it, nothing personal to mitigate it or at least make it understandable. Her pain was just part of the job.

"She'll do for a demonstration, though," the man continued. He motioned to one of the pair of men working the rack and he brought forward a grimy wine bottle. "This is what happens to all who anger the king. Watch and remember, bastard."

As I stood frozen, saying nothing, the man poured the wine over the woman's head, face and neck. It soaked her hair until it dripped onto the stone floor below her in a thin red puddle. I snapped out of my shock when I realized what was coming.

His hand reached for a candle stub and I moved. "No! You can't! Please, m'sieur, I beg you…" I could already tell from the delight flooding his face that I'd given him exactly the reaction he'd wanted, and that he had no intention of stopping. He watched my face with something like glee as he held the candle to a nearby torch. It had almost guttered, but a tiny flame caught on the candlewick nonetheless. I didn't try to argue with him again, but launched myself forwards, grabbing for the burning candle. I wrestled it from his grip, but the two torturers grabbed my arms and dragged me off him. The man, who I assumed was the head jailer, turned eyes on me that had little humanity left in them; then he smiled. He bent and, very slowly, picked up the candle stub and relit it.

I looked at the woman as he approached; I couldn't help myself. There was a sheen of tears in her light brown eyes, and she blinked once, drops of wine falling from her lashes, before his body obscured my view. Part of my mind said that he would stop short, that he would not, could not, do this. A voice spoke in my head, saying that he wanted to terrorize me, that this scene had been staged to make me more pliable later, and that may have been true. But it didn't save her.

The scene before me wavered, and thoughts that I didn't recognize began to flood my mind. Scenes flashed before my eyes of other places, other people, like a film was being projected onto a transparent veil in front of me. Through it all, I could still see the woman and the torturer, frozen a second before the impossible occurred.

That voice in my head piped up again, gibbering about being brought up in captivity but never knowing true cruelty. I dressed in fine linen and handmade lace, it insisted; I had my books, my guitar and my paints with which to amuse myself; my jailors bowed low when they entered my room and did not sit in my presence unless I gave them permission. Royal blood flowed in my veins, and no one ever forgot that. Never had I seen brutality like this; never had I known such fear. And following quickly behind it was a red rush of pure rage. This was not justice, was not necessary to preserve peace or the stability of the land, or whatever high-sounding phrases they were currently using. It was the actions of a sadistic coward who kept his hands lily white at court, while such things were done behind closed doors in his name. And they called me the abomination.

I shook my head and tried to get the voice to shut up and to clear the cobwebs off my vision; after a second, it worked. But then I was back in the nightmare, with a clear view of that candle inching towards its destination. I watched in stunned incredulity as the torturer held the tiny flame to a few strands of the woman's wine-soaked hair. It caught with an audible whoosh and the blaze spread eagerly to the rest of her head and shoulders. Within seconds, the top part of her body was only a dark outline in a dancing curtain of fire. I screamed, since I couldn't do anything else. The other prisoners took up the cry until the room was filled with shrieks and the sound of chains beating uselessly against unyielding stone. We could do nothing else for her, so we made our cries almost shake the walls, but the woman herself made no sound as she burned.

"Mademoiselle Palmer, what is it? What is wrong?" Louis-César's face appeared in front of my eyes and I vaguely felt someone shaking me. The high-pitched, hopeless cry of the cell filled the room, and it took a minute to realize that it was coming from me.

"Mia stella, be calm, be calm!" Rafe pushed the Frenchman away and drew me against his chest. I ran my hands under the cashmere of his sweater, pulling him as close as I could, and buried my face in the soft silk of his shirt. I breathed deeply of the familiar scent of Rafe's cologne, but it didn't drive out the smell of the urine-soaked prison and the cooking flesh of what had once been a woman little older than me.

After a minute, I looked up and met Louis-César's eyes. "Tell me she was already dead, that she didn't know!" My voice was desperate, and my face in the mirror over the fireplace had wide, haunted eyes. They looked like the woman's, only hers had seen far worse things than had mine.

"Mademoiselle, I assure you; I am willing to do all in my power to assist you, but I do not understand what it is you ask."

Rafe was stroking my hair and rubbing soothing circles on my back. "It was a vision, mia stella, only a vision," he whispered. "You have had them before; you know that the images, they will fade in time."

I shook my head and shivered in his arms until he drew me closer. I hugged him so tightly that, if he'd been human, he would have been in pain. "Not like this. Never like this. They tortured her and then they burned her alive, and I couldn't… I just stood there…" My teeth wanted to chatter, but I bit down on my lip and wouldn't let them. It would make me remember the terrible cold of that place, and then I might think of the only source of heat. I wouldn't think of it; I wouldn't, and it would go away. But even as I echoed Rafe's words, I knew I lied.

I had had thousands of visions in my life, some of the past, some of the future, and none very pleasant. I'd Seen all kinds of terrible things, but nothing had ever affected me like this. With time and practice, I'd learned to let go of what I Saw, to treat it the way other people do disturbing news reports on television—as distant and not quite real. But then, I'd never before been part of the action, smelled the smells and tasted the fear of someone who had lived the events. It was the difference between driving by a brutal car accident and being in one. I didn't think I would forget that woman's stare anytime soon.

"Mon Dieu, you saw Françoise?" Louis-César stepped towards us, looking stricken, and I cringed away.

"Don't touch me!" Before he had smelled vaguely like some expensive cologne, but now he seemed to reek of the woman's cooking flesh. Not only did I not want him to touch me; I didn't even want him in the same room.

He backed off and his frown deepened. "My sincere apologies, mademoiselle. I would not have wished you to witness that, not for any cause."

Rafe looked at him over my head. "Are you satisfied, signore? I told you we should not use the Tears yet, that when she is already upset or ill, the visions, they are not pleasant. But no one listens. Maybe now you understand." He paused when Mircea appeared at my elbow and handed him a short crystal glass.

"Let her drink this," he commanded, and Rafe immediately obeyed.

"But I did not," Louis-César protested. "I do not even have them with me."

Rafe ignored him. "Drink it, mia Stella; it will do you good." He settled alongside me in the large armchair, and I sipped the whiskey for a few minutes until my breathing returned to normal. It was so strong that it felt like it etched my throat on the way down, but the sensation was welcome. Anything that pushed away the memories would have been. I realized that I had knotted a fist in Rafe's once pristine cashmere sweater, reducing it to a sodden, wadded mess. I let go and he smiled. "I have others, Cassie. You are well and I am here. Think on that, not whatever it was you Saw."

It was good advice, but I was having trouble following it. Every time I glanced at Louis-César, the images threatened to overcome me again. Why had the Senate wanted me to See something tonight, especially something like that? What had he done to me, to make the vision so different?

"I need a bath," I announced abruptly. It was mainly a way to get away from Louis-César, but there was no doubt I could use one.

Mircea took my hand and walked me to a door opposite the entryway. "There is a bathroom in there, and it should have a robe. I will have food brought while you bathe, and we will talk when you are ready. If you require anything, do not hesitate to ask." I nodded, gave the almost-empty glass back to him, and escaped into the cool, blue-tiled oasis of the bathroom.

The tub was large enough to count as a sauna, and I climbed in gratefully after peeling away my ruined outfit. I turned the water up as hot as it would go and leaned back, so tired that I simply stared at the soap for a minute, vaguely wishing for someone to wash my back. My emotions, thankfully, had fled somewhere, leaving me feeling blank. I had been exhausted physically and now my mental state wasn't much better.

I finally got down to the process of cleaning the dried blood off my body and out of my hair. I told myself that what I Saw had nothing to do with the modern world, that that poor woman had suffered and died centuries before I was even born. As horrible as it had been, it wasn't a warning of an impending disaster or anything else I could do something about. I tried to believe that it was only a more intense version of one of the psychic hiccups I sometimes got when touching very old things that had been in traumatic circumstances, but it hadn't felt like that.

I'd learned early to be careful of negative psychic vibrations. Alphonse collected old weapons of all kinds, and once as a child I accidentally brushed against a tommy gun he had recently acquired and was in the process of cleaning. I immediately flashed on the mob slaying in which it had been used, and what I Saw gave me nightmares for weeks. Usually I could tell if an item was likely to cause trouble before I touched it, almost as if it gave off a warning I could feel if I was paying attention. But few people triggered the reaction—even ones centuries old, like Louis-César, who had undoubtedly seen their share of tragedy. Still, I'd made it a habit to avoid shaking hands with strangers so I wouldn't accidentally learn who was cheating on his wife or was about to commit a crime. And I never, ever touched Tony, not even in passing. I decided that a new name had just made the avoid-at-all-costs list.

I rinsed off, let out the bloody bathwater, and started over. I wanted to feel clean, and something told me that that was going to take a very long time. I put in enough bubble bath that the foam puffed over the sides of the tub and ran onto the floor. I didn't care. My only thought was to wonder whether I could hang out in the bath until daybreak and postpone hearing whatever the Senate had planned for me. I was grateful they were protecting me but doubted the help would come without a heavy price tag. Not that it mattered. I didn't know where I was and, even if I escaped, I'd just be running straight back into the mess with Tony. Whatever the Senate wanted, I'd probably have to pay up.

The problem was that I'd promised myself, other than where Tony and his goons were concerned, never to let my abilities be used to hurt anyone again. I had no idea—a fact for which I was really grateful—how many people I'd indirectly harmed or killed while working for the slime king, but I knew it wasn't a small number. I hadn't known at the time what some of my visions were being used for, but that didn't make me feel a hell of a lot better. The people who make nuclear bombs don't set the policies that decide when to use them, but I wonder if that helps them sleep at night. I hadn't been sleeping well for a long time. If what the Senate wanted would result in harm to others, which seemed a safe bet, I was about to find out exactly what my principles were worth to me.