Tempt the Stars

Page 53

Someone knocked on the door.
I looked up, my heart in my throat, sure it was Marco with a phone in his hand.
And then Fred pushed open the door with a foot, because his hands were full of beer, one of them wrapped in a paper towel because we’re classy like that.
“Oh, thank God,” I said as he handed it to me.
He looked a little surprised at the fervency of his welcome. “Figured you could use a drink,” he said, and tossed my phone on a chair so he could sit down on the bed.
I drained half the bottle in one go and then flopped onto my back again. And stared at the ceiling some more, which looked slightly more friendly now that I had beer. But no more helpful.
“Is Jules all right?” I asked, after a minute.
“He’s human,” Fred said, with an odd lilt in his tone. Like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “He’s a little hysterical, sure, but otherwise, he’s fine. I mean, maybe not if he stays like this, you know, but for now . . . So there’s no need to go tearing yourself up over it, all right?”
Yeah. Unless I couldn’t figure out how to reverse this.
“Did everybody go home?” I asked hopefully.
“Oh, hell no.”
Of course not.
“Jonas and the witches are having it out. You know, I used to think it was just an old fairy tale, but witches really don’t like missing a party, do they?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “I guess not.”
“I tried to eavesdrop for you, but they’re in the kitchen under a silence spell. And they closed the blinds.” He looked aggrieved. “All I got was that they think he’s monopolizing you, and a bunch of arm waving.”
I hoped that arm waving wasn’t of the spell variety. “Is Marco with them?”
“No, he’s trying to get some sense out of that girl.”
“What girl?”
“Rhea something; I didn’t get a last name. You know, the witches brought her.”
“She’s not another witch?”
“Yeah, but not a coven leader. Best I could gather, she’s one of your court.”
“My—” It took me a second. “You mean the Pythian Court?”
“You got two?”
“I wasn’t sure I had one. It’s not like they’ve bothered to come by and say hi.”
“Well, now they have.”
Yeah, and I guess the outfit should have clued me in. “What does she want?”
Fred sighed. “I don’t know. But she keeps babbling something about this being all her fault—”
“What is?”
“Jules. Oh, not the getting-cursed thing; that’s all on him. But the other. It seems like having one of your coven around increases your power or something—”
“Wait.” This was going way too fast. “What coven?”
“Your coven.”
“Fred,” I said impatiently. “We’ve been through this. I’m not a witch. I don’t have—”
“Well, according to her, you do. That’s what the Pythian Court is—the Pythia’s coven. And coven members give their leader a power boost. It’s sort of the reason they exist,” he added when I just looked at him. “For a bunch of magic workers to pool their power. You know?”
Yeah, I just hadn’t known it applied to me. But that’s the sort of information that might have been useful, oh, a few hundred times. I frowned.
“I don’t feel like I’ve had a boost.”
“Maybe not now. But I think she’s saying that you wouldn’t have, er, overshot the mark with Jules if she hadn’t been here. And given you a lift you didn’t expect.”
I took a second to absorb that. “And she didn’t bother to mention this before?”
“She said she thought you knew. And I think she was waiting for the witches to leave before talking to you. I got the impression they didn’t get along that great.”
“Why was she with them, then?”
Fred didn’t say anything.
“Fred?”
“Maybe you want to wait and ask her—”
“I asked you.”
He sighed again. “She said she fled to the covens for protection. Seems there’s some kind of problem with your court. She wouldn’t say what, won’t talk to anybody but you, but she found out and went to the witches.”
“And they decided to drop her on my doorstep.”
“Pretty much. I got the idea they think she’s a nut, but they wanted to get a look at you anyway, and she was a good excuse. And she’s . . . well, maybe you’ll have more luck with her.”
Great. “Luck” in my life now meant finding out about some new problem I was going to have to deal with. When it already felt like I had plenty on my plate, thanks.
But one thing the whole situation with Mircea had taught me: putting stuff off rarely made it easier.
“Come on,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, because at least the room had finally calmed down. “Let’s go find out—”
Somebody started screaming.
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
It turned out to be Jules, standing in front of the balcony, a double shot of whiskey in hand, exercising his newly human vocal cords. But I didn’t think the transformation was to blame. At least, not entirely.
“Get back in the bedroom until we deal with this!” Marco ordered, as soon as I came out of the hall.
I didn’t answer, being too busy staring at the huge, gaping hole that had opened up in the far wall. The one with the fiery red edges and the disturbing sounds and the swirly black heart and the wind strong enough to flutter my hair. It looked like Casanova had been right, I thought blankly.
You knew it when you saw it.
“Cassie!” Marco snapped. “Get out of here!
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Because . . . I think that’s for me.”
He looked at me incredulously. “What?”
“I kind of have an appointment.”
“With who? Lucifer?”
“Hope not,” I muttered, and took a single step forward.
And stopped. Because, for the first time ever, I saw Marco do the unthinkable. And throw one of his highly illegal and ridiculously expensive Cohiba cigars in the trash.
“Get back. In the bedroom. Now.”
I stood there for a second, debating. But not because I was intimidated. The worst Marco would do was to throw me over a burly shoulder and cart me off. And considering the state of my dignity these days, I didn’t think another hit was going to matter.
“Is it always like this around here?”The Valkyrie had come out of the lounge, and was standing in front of the sliding doors, hands on her hips. And looking at the hell-mouth with disbelief.
“Pretty much,” one of the vamps said lazily.
“Damn it, Cassie!” Marco looked pissed.
“We’ve talked about this,” I reminded him. “You’re not my jailer.”
“Well, someone damned well should be!” he shot back, black hair whipping in the wind. “Running around all over creation, battling demons, what you did to Jules, and now this—”
“Battling demons?” I blinked, because I hadn’t thought he knew about that.
It seemed absurd, like of course he would. But he hadn’t mentioned it, and not even Marco was that tight-lipped. And this was Dante’s, where loud, supernaturalthemed shows took place every day. And that one had lasted all of what? Five or six minutes?
I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think it could have been longer than that. And yeah, there had been a ton of witnesses, but those were either clueless tourists or guards under Casanova’s control. Like the security cameras . .
“You didn’t know about that,” I said, watching him.
“Bullshit. Everyone knew—”
“You didn’t. Not half an hour ago.”
Marco didn’t say anything, but his face was enough. Because he was no more a diplomat than Jules. Mircea didn’t send diplomats to me; they’d just be wasted anyway.
He sent tanks.
“How did you find out?” I demanded.
Marco crossed massive arms and tried staring me down. “I told you. Mircea knows what goes on around here—”
“Mircea? He called you?”
“That’s not the—”
“When?”
“A few minutes ago, and we’re not—”
“Mircea called you . . . and not me?” I asked, wanting to be sure.
“Maybe he thought he’d get further with me!”
Yeah, or maybe he was avoiding me.
And suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Mircea was avoiding me. I’d been so busy doing the same thing to him, I hadn’t noticed. But of course he was.
He was busy, but he was also a first-level master. He could go without sleep for days if he needed to. There was a cost in power, sure, but he had it to burn. If he’d wanted to talk to me, he’d have talked to me. For as long as he liked and about whatever he wanted, and I doubted that my attempts at evasion would have worked for a second.
But they had.
“He’s avoiding me, isn’t he?” I asked Marco, in disbelief.
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” the Valkyrie demanded. We looked at her. She pointed at the portal. “What the hell is that?”
“Yes,” Jonas said, coming up behind her. And regarding the hellmouth over his spectacles.
I looked back at Marco. “Tell me the truth. What’s going on? Why doesn’t he want to see me?”
Marco looked around, like he expected somebody to offer up a suggestion. But the vamps were clearly all suggestioned out. A couple of them were trying to talk Jules into going back down the hall, but hysteria feeds hysteria, and it didn’t look like they were having much luck. A lot more were over by the bar, clearly feeling that tonight went into the above-and-beyond category and they’d had enough. And the rest—Jonas, the witches and the girl—were staring at the hellmouth, which had started spinning fast enough to flip the pages of a magazine on the coffee table.