Claimed By Shadow

Page 54

"You don't need to know. You will not give that book to the king. We will find another way to get to your vampire.”
"Yeah, because we did so great last time." Our brief visit had made one thing very clear: I'd never survive the beautiful hell known as Faerie long enough to find Tony without Fey help. And there was only one way to get it. I decided to try to reason with the lunatic, as the only alternative was force—something that scared me with Augusta's strength. "Don't you think that trying to kill me to keep me away from a book was a bit extreme?”
Pritkin looked disgusted. "If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead," he said flatly. "I simply want to talk sense into you. That book is dangerous. It must not be found!”
"It will be found—I don't have another choice." Prifkin's eyes, usually a pale, icy green, went almost emerald in fury. "But if you help me," I hastened to add, "I'll let you have first crack at it. You can take out whatever you feel is so dangerous, give me the counterspell for the geis and then we turn the rest over to the king.”
He looked at me as if I were speaking Martian. "Do you not realize what you did? You gave the Fey your word—they will hold you to it.”
"I said I'd give them the book. I didn't make any promises about the contents.”
"And you think that specious argument will hold up?”
"Yeah." I really wondered what world Pritkin had been living in, because it sure wasn't the supernatural one. "Anything not specifically spelled out in a contract is open to interpretation. If the king didn't want me gutting the book, he should have said so.”
Pritkin looked at me for a long minute. "One of the functions of the war mages is to protect the Pythia at all costs," he finally said. "Mac believed in you, or he wouldn't have died for you. But you were brought up by a vampire, by a creature with no moral compass at all, and have received no training. Why should I fight for you? What kind of Pythia will you be?”
It was the big question, the same one I'd been asking myself. I'd taken the power hoping to break the geis, or at least give me an edge over Myra. So far, it had done neither. The truth was, I didn't know what kind of Pythia I'd be. But I did know one thing without any doubt at all. "A better one than Myra.”
"So I am being given the choice of the lesser of two evils? You do not make much of a case for yourself.”
"Maybe I'm not trying too hard," I said truthfully. I needed Pritkin. I knew next to nothing about magic on the grand scale, and had no idea where to even start looking for the book. But I didn't think I could stand another Mac on my conscience. "If you're smart, you'll lay low until this is over. Let me fight my own battles. You might get lucky and Myra and I will kill each other off.”
"And why should I not kill both of you myself, and hope the next in line will be better?”
Billy's eyes got big, and I realized that while I was relatively safe in Augusta's body, he was still vulnerable in mine. I stepped in front of him. "There is no next in line," I told Pritkin flatly. "If there were another contender who could do a decent job, I'd have given her the damn power already! But the initiates are all under the control of your Circle, who I don't trust any more than the Black. I'm not going to hand world-shattering power to someone who can be manipulated, controlled or corrupted!”
Pritkin regarded me narrowly. "You expect me to believe you would give up the power, just like that, if there was a fit receptacle to receive it? You dragged us into Faerie to complete the ritual. Of course you want it.”
"I didn't drag you anywhere! You volunteered to go.”
"To find the rogue!”
I took a deep breath. Augusta didn't need it, but I did. "I went into Faerie to get Myra before she could get me. Picking up Tomas was a fluke, and completing the ritual was a bid to stay alive.”
"You told Mac you went after your father.”
"I did. Tony has him, or what's left of him, and I want him back. But the main goal was always Myra. I had reason to believe that she was with Tony." It had seemed like killing two birds with one stone, but I should have known better. When was my life ever that simple? "But now she's here, trying to kill Mircea. If she succeeds, he won't be around to protect me while I grow up, and I doubt I'll make it long enough to be a pain in your side, or anyone else's. If you want to get rid of me, here's your big chance.”
"Why are you telling me this? I could help Myra destroy you, and your vampire.”
"I know." And, frankly, it wouldn't surprise me. I was gambling a lot on Mac's faith in his buddy, a faith that could very well have been misplaced. But then, is it a gamble if you don't have a choice? I had Myra and half the European Senate against me. And the only one on my side was a very stressed-out ghost in an all-too-vulnerable body. What was one more enemy?
Pritkin was giving me another of his patented glares. "What do you think you can do alone, against Myra and the Senate?”
So he had overheard my little chat with Myra. I shrugged. "Possibly nothing. In which case, your problem is solved." I looked down at Billy. "Will you be all right on your own for a while?”
He shrugged. "Sure. Hell, if I die a few more times, I might even get used to it.”
"I am going with you," Pritkin announced.
"So you're what? Opting for the lesser of two evils, after all?”
"For the moment.”
It wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was good enough. "You're hired.”
Chapter 14
The street was still dark, even to Augusta's eyes, but I discovered other ways to see. All along the road were people, hidden in the night—in tenements, scurrying along the street or congregating in pubs. Many of them were amorphous, dark-clothed shapes against the night, but all of them had heartbeats, and it was those thousands of living, beating organs that called out to me like a siren song. Beyond the human river were darker spots, just a few streets back, but my skin prickled with awareness of their power. Vampires.
I pulled away so I wouldn't see Augusta's features reflected in the dark glass. "There's a lot of vamps in the area," I told Pritkin, "maybe a couple dozen." I had managed the sentence without my voice cracking, but my palms had started to sweat. Even in Augusta's body, there was no way I could fight those odds, and for all his toys, Pritkin wasn't likely to do much better.
"How long until they get here?" He sounded far too matter-of-fact for my frazzled nerves.
"What difference does it make?" I fought to keep from screaming it at him. "We need to find Mircea and hide— fast. It's the only sensible plan.”
Pritkin walked out the stage door and down the steps. I followed him, all the way to the front of the building, where he stopped, looking up and down the frost-covered road. "Humor me," he said.
"In case you've forgotten, the Senate isn't the only problem," I told him, low enough that I hoped no passing vamps would take notice. "I can't let Myra run loose—”
"Then don't. Deal with the rogue. I will handle this.”
"You'll handle this?" I'd rested my hand on a lamppost and didn't realize until I tried to pull away that I'd sunk my fingers almost completely through the cast iron. I pulled them out cautiously and leaned the listing post against a building so it didn't fall over. Getting angry in a vampire body was obviously not a good idea. "A corpse isn't much of an ally!" I told Pritkin frankly. "Some of these are Senate members. I doubt you could even slow them down. We need to hide.”
"They could track us by scent alone. Hiding isn't an option.”
"And suicide is?”
I would have said more, but someone grabbed me from behind. Again. For a half second I thought it was a vamp, but then I felt the heartbeat against my back and smelled the stink of unwashed man and stale beer. I pulled away, but the man came with me. I gave what felt like a gentle push, hardly expending any energy at all, and he went sailing across the street to crash into the heavy glass window of a pub. I could see the frozen shock on his face, the half dozen glass slivers that pierced his skin, even trace the arc of blood on the air.
His friend, whom I hadn't even noticed, gave a bellow of rage and ran at me, fist pulled back. I ducked and managed to subdue him by slipping an arm around his throat, cutting off his air supply. It was absurdly easy—the bones in his muscular workman's neck felt brittle, like a baby bird's, and instead of it being difficult to hold him, the challenge lay in not accidentally breaking anything.
I had never really thought about how delicate humans are, especially not human men, most of whom tower over me. It was suddenly all too apparent how careful vamps had to be not to leave a trail of bodies behind them. The man was making what he probably thought of as a violent attempt to break free, but to me, it was like holding a fragile butterfly by the wings and trying not to tear it. Just a little pressure to cut off the air, but carefully, gently, or the windpipe would collapse and this brawny creature would crumple like paper in my hands.
He finally went limp and I laid him down to check for a pulse. I found one and breathed a sigh of relief. "You seem to be doing well enough on your own," Pritkin commented.
"Against humans! It isn't humans hunting us.”
"No, but the principle is the same. When they looked at you, the two men saw only a weak woman, where they should have seen a predator." He gave me a brief, mirthless grin. "I often have that same advantage.”
"You can't take them all, predator or not!”
"The principle is the same," he repeated, wrenching the heavy lamppost I'd ruined out of the ground, then shoving it back into the hole, hard. The gas main underneath the street ruptured and caught fire with a whoosh, sending a bright plume skyward. I jumped back, Augusta's instinctive terror running through me. But a vamp I hadn't even noticed caught fire and ran screaming into another. Pritkin grinned viciously. "Never be what they expect.”