Curse the Dawn (10 page)

“Are you planning to wait for them to attack?” Pritkin’s voice was loud in my ear. He’d done some sort of spell to allow us to communicate, or so he’d said. I should have known he’d use it to eavesdrop.

“If I leave, what then?” I asked reasonably. “We need the Circle.”

“And we need you alive!”

“They haven’t done anything yet.”

“Other than deceive us,” Pritkin said in his let-me-explain-this-to-you-in-little-words voice. “We said a dozen; I’ve counted more than twice that many. And if they will break one promise, why not another? We’ll have to try again.”

“And what if they refuse to meet again?” They didn’t like me already; a deliberate snub might be the last straw. If we were ever going to reconcile, someone had to take a risk and show a little trust. And it didn’t look like it was going to be them.

“Miss Palmer . . .”

“I thought we’d agreed that you were going to call me Cassie.”

“There are a few things I’d like to call you. Now get out of there!”

“I’ll shift out if there’s trouble,” I promised.

“If they explode a null bomb, you won’t be able to shift!”

“We discussed this,” I reminded him. “If they use a null bomb, it will cancel out all magic in the area—including theirs—and Casanova’s boys will wipe the floor with them. I only want to talk to Saunders for a few minutes.”

“He isn’t here! He sent one of his lieutenants instead. Richardson. He just came in.”

And sure enough, three mages had broken off the pack and started toward me. I didn’t have to ask which one was in charge. The man in the center was middle-aged and distinguished looking, with startlingly blue eyes and graying auburn hair that was swept back from a high forehead. He was wearing a business suit in a neat gray pinstripe with a bright blue tie. He looked more like a diplomat than a warrior. Maybe they actually did intend to talk.

“Get out now!” Pritkin repeated, sounding furious.

“If I leave, what then?” I whispered. “We don’t have a Plan B.”

“And if you die, we’ll never have a chance to form one!”

“Damn it, Pritkin. We need the Circle!” He didn’t reply. Maybe because Richardson and his cold-eyed buddies had arrived.

“I thought we’d agreed no more than twelve per side,” I said, and immediately wished I could take it back. I hadn’t planned to start off sounding so suspicious. If this meeting had taken place a month ago, I’d have handled it differently. But weeks of constant running, almost dying and frequent betrayal had sharpened my usual defensiveness to something approaching hostile paranoia.

Richardson didn’t look ruffled, however. “Had we met at a neutral site, we would have kept the bargain. But this”—he swept out a hand to indicate the gothic gloom of Dante’s lobby—“is not neutral.”

“It’s a public place! And if you had an objection, you might have mentioned it before now!”

“A public place owned by your master and run by his servants.”

“I don’t have a master.”

He smiled condescendingly. “That is what the vampires said. They speak highly of you.” It didn’t sound like a compliment.

“But you don’t believe them.”

“Tell me about Nicholas,” he said instead of answering.

It took me a second to respond, because I’d known Nick only by the abbreviated version of his name. He’d been a war mage acquaintance of Pritkin’s, one who had turned against the Circle but hadn’t joined my side. He had preferred his own.

I paused, wondering how to explain the complex series of events that had left the only book with a translation of Artemis’ spell in Nick’s hands, forcing Pritkin to kill him to keep it safe. I really hoped Nick and Richardson hadn’t been friends. “He was going to use the Codex for his own ends,” I finally said.

“Yes, so we were told. Unfortunately, there isn’t a shred of evidence to that effect. Unless you perhaps still have it? Even a page—”

“It was burnt.”

Richardson pursed his lips. “How unfortunate.”

“Pritkin did what was necessary—”

“On your orders.”

I started to argue the point but shut my mouth without saying anything. I hadn’t ordered Nick’s death, but I’d known how Pritkin worked and what his solution was likely to be. And I’d made no attempt to stop him. It was one of many decisions weighing on my conscience these days, although I still couldn’t see another alternative. If Nick had succeeded, we’d all be dead now—probably even him.

“We did what we had to do, whether you choose to believe that or not,” I told him.

“We all do,” Richardson commented mildly, offering his hand.

This conversation wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, but at least we were talking. It was a start.

His hand was warm and slightly damp and his grip was firm—a little too firm. His fingers tightened as he drew me close, bending his head as if to say something privately. But all I heard was a low-voiced incantation that sent a sharp frisson running over my skin.

“Nick was my son,” he said gently.

I stared up at him, seeing the resemblance that should have registered before—the auburn hair, darker than Nick’s carrottop but with the same natural wave, and the eyes, surprisingly translucent when the light was right and dark as sapphire at the rim. And the expression, which told me as clearly as if he’d screamed it that talk wasn’t what he’d come to do.

Francoise muttered a spell, but before she could finish, Richardson flung out a hand and she went flying. Two of Casanova’s security team started forward, but the mages flanking us threw up a shield that they couldn’t penetrate. That wouldn’t last, but then, it didn’t have to. Richardson reached out and, with a savage motion, ripped open the air.

The darkness of the casino’s lobby was suddenly brilliant with icy blue light that highlighted the patched areas in the carpet and the hidden speakers in the corners. It made Richardson’s eyes brighter and colder even than they were while washing all human color from his face. I tried to shift but nothing happened. I pulled back, but his grip had turned to steel.

“We need each other,” I reminded him. “You don’t want to do this!”

His face took on an expression that was nothing like a smile. “Oh, but I really think I do.”

A movement caught my eye and I looked up in time to see Pritkin jumping down from the second-floor balcony. But it was too late. Richardson jerked me to him, an arm encircled my waist and we were gone.

I knew what had happened as soon as I saw the familiar tunnel of leaping energy all around us, although the sensation in my stomach—rising, sinking, a bit like flying, only far more terrifying—would have been enough. We were skimming the surface of a ley line, a term the mages used for the rivers of power generated when worlds collide: ours, the demon realms, Faerie or any of a hundred others.

For the width of a couple of football fields on either side was a sea of glimmering blue, a thousand shades from robin’s egg to sapphire running together like an electric ocean. In front and behind, energy sparkled and danced along gleaming bands of pure power, telescoping out to an infinite vanishing point. It wasn’t a calm picture: everywhere knots and snarls of blue-tinged lightning were tossed up like flotsam or, as someone had once explained it to me, magma in a tectonic drift.

The mages had long ago learned how to skim along the surface of these metaphysical hot spots, surfing their currents to rapidly travel from one point to another. The lines didn’t go everywhere, which was one reason trains, planes and automobiles were still in use by the magical set. Another was the fact that most people didn’t have shields strong enough to navigate this otherworldy highway system. Without them, the energy of a ley line would turn a human into dust in seconds.

“Shift, damn it!” Pritkin’s voice echoed in my ear, the connection staticky and weak.

Yeah. Like that never would have occurred to me. I glared at the passing stream of vivid color and wished I could yell back. But if Richardson learned we could communicate, he’d probably figure out some way to block it. The only way to retain my tenuous connection with Pritkin was to keep my mouth shut.

“Cassie! Can you hear me?”

I realized that I had to say something. He couldn’t help me if he didn’t know what was wrong. “Why can’t I shift?” I asked Richardson.

“You can’t shift?” Pritkin repeated. His voice was wavering in and out, like a badly tuned radio, and I wasn’t sure he’d heard me.

“Because it doesn’t make sense that
I can’t shift
,” I repeated as loudly as I dared. “And don’t tell me you used a null bomb, because then your shields wouldn’t work. We’d both be dead by now.”

“I used a null net,” Richardson said, strangely matter-of-fact. He sounded like we were having the conversation over lunch instead of hurtling down a magical river that was trying its best to consume us. “The power you’ve usurped won’t help you.”

“A null net?” I prompted, hoping someone would take the hint. It was a little hard to fight something I’d never even heard of.

To my surprise, Richardson filled me in. “A bomb is designed to project the null effect outward—to stop a battle, for instance. A net does the opposite, projecting the power inward, over a more limited surface—in this case, your body.” He sounded pretty pleased with himself; I assumed the net had been his idea. “It blocks your ability to access your magic but does not interfere with that of anyone around you.”

Pritkin used one of his favorite swear words, so I knew Richardson wasn’t lying. “Are you still on the Chaco Canyon Line?” Pritkin demanded, like I’d know. I’d experienced the part thrill, part terror of ley line travel only recently, since most vampires don’t find rivers of fire a fun way to get around. Tony had never used them, and as a result I wasn’t up on all the ins and outs. I knew that different worlds intersecting created different colors, due to variations in the atmospheres, but I hadn’t even begun to know which color went where.

I wouldn’t have had a chance to answer anyway, because a burst of power exploded right in front of us like a solar flare. The arm around my waist tightened convulsively, almost cutting off my air, as we spun out of control. The centrifugal forces were greater at the borders of the lines, where thick bands of power helped to push mages out of their version of a subway. Only we weren’t leaving. My captor merely used the opportunity to regain control before we were back in the midst of the stream.

“All this blue is blinding,” I said breathlessly. “I don’t know how you can see to navigate.”

“He’s taking you to MAGIC,” Pritkin confirmed.

“Yes, we’re on the Chaco Canyon Line, on our way to MAGIC, where she will stand trial for her crimes. Is there anything else you’d like to know, John?” Richardson asked politely.

“He can’t hear us,” Pritkin informed me quickly. “He’s guessing based on your comments. They weren’t exactly subtle.”

Well, excuse the hell out of me
, I didn’t say.

“You can’t let him get you to MAGIC,” Pritkin continued. “Once you’re in the Circle’s cells, it will be almost impossible to get you out. I’ll create a diversion. Use the opportunity to force him out of the line, and I’ll follow you down.”

Right. Because I’d navigated a ley line on my own all of once, and that had been using an artificial shield because no way were mine up to this kind of stress. I’d almost gotten myself killed, and that had been without a war mage to incapacitate—one who I couldn’t knock out, even were that physically possible, because then his shields would go and we’d both die. The same was true if Pritkin’s “distraction” made him lose his concentration.

“Tell me, in your head, do these plans actually sound like they’re going to work?” I asked.

Richardson made a huffing sound that might have been a laugh. “Just do it!” Pritkin snapped.

I ignored him. I wasn’t going to risk getting fried if we were going to MAGIC. Because, yes, it was the mages’ stronghold, but it also happened to be the vampires’. And while the Consul didn’t like me much, she saw me as a potentially useful tool—and in vamp terms, that was better than affection. By now, Casanova would have informed the Senate that I’d been taken, and none of them was exactly slow on the uptake. Richardson might get more than he bargained for when we arrived at MAGIC.

Since I couldn’t very well tell Pritkin that without also alerting Richardson, I used the time to begin calculating what the Consul was going to demand for saving my life. No way was I getting this for free, even if it benefited her, too. That wasn’t how the game was played.

A few moments later, Richardson started maneuvering us toward the side of the line again. I braced myself for what was usually the bumpiest part of the ride, which turned out to be a good thing. Because we hadn’t even started to exit when something smashed into his shields, shuddering them all around us.

For a split second I thought it was another flare until a weirdly distorted face appeared in front of me. It was bathed in jumping blue light, like a photograph taken underwater, and was squashed into the mage’s shields as if pressed against a glass bubble. But the wild blond hair and furious green eyes were the same as ever.

Shit.

The mage stared at Pritkin for a startled second, apparently as shocked as I was, and then he scowled and jerked us hard to the left. We bounced off a thick band of power running along the side of the line and ricocheted back the other way. As we passed Pritkin, who was trying to pull up from a dive toward where we had just been, Richardson threw a spell that exploded against my partner’s shields like a bomb blast.

I screamed, knowing what it meant if Pritkin’s shields failed. But before the blast even cleared, he plowed into us again, hard enough to almost force us out of the line. Unfortunately, Richardson recovered quickly and hit back, bouncing Pritkin’s bubble of protection so far into the distance that it was lost from sight among the jumping blue maelstrom.