Chapter Thirteen
The bathroom of the
suite turned out to be as impressive as the rest. Golden marble
with thin veins of burnt umber running through it covered
everything from the floors to the ceiling to the double sinks to
the spa-like tub, all polished to a high gloss. There was a plush
dark orange rug, matching towels, and a basket of expensive
toiletries all done up in cellophane like the Easter bunny had just
delivered it.
And there were
mirrors, lots and lots of mirrors.
Almost every surface
that wasn’t covered in marble had one, and all of them informed me
that I looked like hell. My makeup was long gone, my hair was a
freaking disaster, and my body was smeared with mud and various
other substances I didn’t want to think too hard about. I sighed
and peeled the laddered foot of what had been an expensive pair of
stockings off my filthy feet. My polish was chipped and my toes . .
. well, they looked like you’d expect after being dragged across
cobblestones.
I contemplated my
shredded toes and sighed. One day, one fine, fine day, I was going
to be in peril in a damn pair of sneakers. Of course, I’d settle
for not being in peril at all.
Not being in peril at
all would be good.
I grabbed a couple of
sinfully plush towels and got my beat-up, grimy self into the nice,
clean shower. I didn’t even try for a bath, because I’d immediately
turn the water black. Kind of like the evening’s entertainment had
done to me.
After I got clean
enough to be fairly sure that whatever was left wasn’t dirt, I took
stock. I had a swelling bruise on my ankle, another on my hip and a
third, long and horizontal and rapidly darkening, on my lower
stomach, probably where I’d hit down on the damn carriage ride from
hell. Add that to the bruises I was still carrying from the bathtub
incident and, oh yeah, I looked sexy.
Not that I wasn’t
happy to be alive in any shape. I just didn’t understand why I was.
Particularly not if Mircea’s theory was correct about what we’d
been fighting.
It had seemed crazy
when he said it, because demigods weren’t exactly thick on the
ground. The gods, or the creatures calling themselves that, had
been banished a long time from Earth, and most of their by-blows
had either gone with them or been rounded up by the Circle. And
because I couldn’t imagine what a bunch of half gods could want
with my mother.
But now that I had a
chance to think, it did explain a lot. Like how resilient the mages
had been, not bothering with shields but bouncing back from blows
that should have left them a smear on the concrete without them.
And why they’d seemed so damn strong.
Pritkin had once told
me that war mages never used a hundred percent of their power for
attack. In battle, the standard ratio was seventy-thirty, meaning
that seventy percent of a mage’s power went to defense—to the
shields and wards needed to keep him or her alive—with maybe thirty
percent leftover for offensive stuff. Particularly powerful magic
users could hedge on that a bit, maybe taking the total needed for
defense down to sixty-five or even sixty percent, because their
excess power made up for it. But nobody went completely
unprotected. If they did, the first spell to so much as nick them
might take them out of the fight—permanently.
Pritkin himself
regularly used only about a quarter of his power for defense,
although he didn’t admit as much to the Circle. But what if someone
could shrug off being trampled under horses or slung against
buildings or dragged half the length of a street, despite not using
shields? Being able to put everything toward attack would make even
a low-level mage look pretty damn impressive. And if he or she was
already extra-strong to begin with . . .
Well, that mage might
look something like what I’d just seen. But as reasonable as that
sounded, it couldn’t be right. Because my mother couldn’t have
fought off four demigods and a crazy-ass kidnapper all by
herself.
Could
she?
It seemed ridiculous.
But, then, if the answer was no, why was I still here? If the mages
had killed her or the kidnapper had carted her off, or anything had
happened to keep her from meeting my infamous father, then I should
have vanished. And other than for the rather large amount of skin
I’d left in the road, I hadn’t.
And that was . . .
well, that was kind of an epiphany. The whole damn night had been,
really. Because I’d never seen the Pythian power used like that. In
fact, I’d rarely seen it used at all, which was one of the reasons
I’d been having so much trouble mastering it.
Jonas did his best to
help me, but he wasn’t a Pythia. He’d overheard some of the stuff
Agnes had said when training her heirs, and he’d seen a lot of what
she could do. But trying to harness time with his help had been
like building a car from a set of oral instructions when you’ve
never seen one and the guy giving them has only a vague idea of
what one is supposed look like.
It had been the blind
leading the blind all month.
It had gotten
frustrating enough that I’d actually thought of going to the
Pythian Court for help. But I hadn’t, and not just because one of
their number had already tried to kill me. They probably weren’t
all homicidal maniacs, but I doubted I was real popular with a
group who had zero chance of advancement as long as I
lived.
Which might explain
why I hadn’t heard from them all month. Not a “congrats,” however
insincere; not a “fuck you”; not a peep of any kind. I didn’t know
what that meant, but it was more than a little ominous. And Jonas
sure as hell hadn’t suggested stopping by for a chat.
So I’d been on my
own.
And being on my own
sucked ass.
But then had come
tonight. And . . . damn.
Somehow, I’d gotten
into the habit of thinking about my power as defensive—shifting to
get out of a tight spot, throwing time bubbles to ward off
attackers, stopping time to give me a chance to run like hell.
Maybe because that was mostly how I’d been using it. But my mother
. . . she hadn’t been real big on defense. She’d been real big on
kicking some demigod butt.
The war mages might
have been running a full-on offensive, but she’d been right there
with them. She’d sent them screaming in terror. She’d imprisoned
one like a bug under glass. She’d run one the hell
down.
Mom, I realized in
shock, had been kind of a badass.
And so was the
Pythian power in the hands of somebody who actually knew how to use
it. And while I didn’t realistically think I’d ever be anywhere
near that good . . . still. It gave me a lot to think
about.
Only this wasn’t the
place, because I was going all pruney. I hadn’t known a shower
could do that, but this one was hard and hot and enthusiastic, to
the point that my fingers and what was left of my toes were
wrinkling up. I got out of the shower, dried my hair, and swiped a
hand over the nearest mirror.
It showed me what I’d
expected: a thin, pale girl with scraggly blond hair, dark circles
under her eyes and a bruise in her hairline. I leaned in, pulling
my hair back, searching my own face. I had a lot more to go on now
than a grainy photo taken at a distance. I’d stared her right in
the face from barely a foot away. Yet try as I might, I couldn’t
see even a distant echo in me.
My eyes were blue,
but they were just blue. My hair was reddish, sort of, in the right
light, but nothing like that beautiful bronze color. And my face
was . . . just a face.
It looked back at me
now, too-round cheekbones, a toostubborn chin and a scattering of
unfashionable freckles over a tip-tilted nose. It wasn’t a bad
face, as faces go, but it wasn’t going to be launching a thousand
ships anytime soon. I stood there, searching it anyway, desperate
to find some trace of that ethereal beauty.... And it suddenly hit
me. If I hadn’t taken after my mother, then I must look
like—
Him.
The dark mage who had
wooed her away from the court, from her rightful place in the
succession, from everything she’d ever known. Agnes had told me
once that my mother had been a natural with the power, the best
she’d ever seen, and I’d had plenty of proof of that tonight. And
yet she’d left it all behind for an evil man, a onetime member of
the notorious Black Circle, who looked like . . . me?
I leaned closer. Was
this the face that had commanded an army of ghosts to spy on the
Silver Circle, who had almost seized control of the Black and who
had somehow seduced the virgin heir to the powerful Pythian throne?
My reflection didn’t answer; it just dripped at me, looking vaguely
like a drowned Kewpie doll.
I scrunched up my
face and tried to look menacing.
Now I looked like a
Kewpie doll with gas.
I sighed. Maybe I’d
taken after some distant relative or something. I might never know,
since I didn’t have even a grainy image of my father. Not that I
wanted one, at least not as a keepsake, but it would have been nice
to know what he’d looked like.
It would also be nice
to get dressed before the rest of the hot air leaked out of the
bathroom. My clothes had been left in the limo, and, frankly,
they’d been no big loss. But there were some plush terry cloth
robes on a rack beside the door, and I had an arm in one before I
remembered.
Oh, dear
God.
Had I really just
agreed to walk out there naked?
I just stood there
for a minute, clutching the robe and staring blankly at the mirror,
which was mercifully fogging back up. I told myself that it didn’t
matter, that I’d just been naked in the freaking limo, for God’s sake, flashing who knew how many
people on the way here. But it had been dark and I’d been
half-crazy with relief and Mircea . . . Well, Mircea could make a
girl forget her own name when he put a little effort into it. But
that was a lot different from walking out there cold and naked and
bruised and pruney and—
Shit. How did I get myself into these
things?
I bit my lip and
stared at the door. I didn’t have to do
it. Mircea might be disappointed, but he’d live, and I could
say—
What? That I was a
freaking coward? That I knew I wouldn’t live up to the standards of
his—very many—other women? That most of them had been among the
world’s great beauties, and here I was, with cracked toenail polish
and rat’s-nest hair and no makeup and a body that looked like it
had been used as a punching bag?
I ran a comb through
my hair while I stood there debating it. Okay, okay. There was no
denying that I didn’t look my best. But honestly, even polished to
a high gloss, I wasn’t going to compete in the looks department
with a porcelain doll like Ming-de. Or the Grace Kelly look-alike
I’d seen with Mircea at the theater once. Or the sloe-eyed countess
who had been willing to fight a duel over him. Or the
athletic-looking brunette with the big boobs that he’d kept a
freaking photo album of until it was destroyed in an accident, and
wasn’t that just too goddamned bad?
Yeah. So. I had what
I had, and it might be a little beat-up, but it was pretty much the
package. And it had been really dark in the limo, but that wouldn’t
bother a vampire’s sight, and he hadn’t seemed exactly put off
then.
And, hey, at least I
was clean now.
I took off the robe
and looked at the door again. I felt cold. And really, really
naked. Like, super-ultranaked. Which was stupid, because naked was
naked and goddamn it! Just do it already.
I grasped the
doorknob, feeling nervous and jittery and silly and kind of turned
on and—
I took my hand off
again.
How often do you get
a free pass? the less cowardly part of my brain demanded. I didn’t
answer, because talking to yourself is a little too close to the
scary side of crazy, and I was teetering on the brink as it was.
But I knew the answer anyway. If I didn’t do this, if I let myself
chicken out, I knew damned well I’d regret it. Maybe not now, but
soon, and I had enough regrets. Tonight I wanted to
live.
I put my hand back on
the knob. It’s like pulling off a Band-Aid, I told myself sternly.
Just do it fast and the hard part will be over. Before I could talk
myself out of it again, I took a deep breath, grabbed the doorknob
and flung it open.
And burst out into a
room full of vamps.
The fat little
manager was standing over by the fireplace, along with Mircea and a
couple of young guys dressed like waiters. Another waiter type was
by the door, wheeling out a room service cart, but of course he
turned to see what the commotion was about. And I didn’t doubt that
he got a good view. The room was dim, lit mainly by a couple of
lowburning lamps in the corners and the bright white light flooding
in behind me.
Spotlighting me like
freaking Gypsy Rose Lee.
For a moment, I
stared at them and they stared at me and it was like Agnes’s party
all over again, after it had been frozen in time. Nothing moved
except the flames somebody had stoked in the fireplace. And then I
gave a shriek and the paralysis broke.
One of the guys
jumped and one of them grinned and Mircea held out a hand, and then
I don’t know what happened because I ran back into the bathroom and
slammed the door.
Oh, God.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh
God.
Tonight sucked. Tonight sucked so damn hard I just didn’t
even know—
Someone rapped on the
door.
I could feel it in my
shoulder blades, because I had my back to the damn thing and I
wasn’t moving. I might never move again. “Dulceață?”
Shit.
“Dulceață? Are you all right?”
I didn’t say
anything, because he knew damn well I was all right. He could hear
me breathing through the door. This close, he could probably feel
the heat from my flaming cheeks, which a glance in the mirror
informed me were bright, lobster red. As was my neck and a good bit
of my chest, all of which was perfectly visible, and oh,
God.
“Dulceață?”
“I’m fine,” I choked
out, hoping he’d just go away. If there was some kind of disaster
scale for dates, this one had just hit ten. Or maybe twenty. Or
maybe some number heretofore unknown in the history of dating, and
I really didn’t think I could take a conversation on top
of—
I heard a door close
outside, with a discreet snick. “They’ve gone, dulceață,” Mircea said, his voice sounding a
little funny.
Somewhere in all
that, I had slid down to my haunches, with my arms over my head,
hoping the floor might be merciful and swallow me up. But that tone
got me back on my feet. I grabbed one of the damn robes and jerked
it on, and then stuck my head out the door.
“Are you laughing at
me?” I demanded incredulously.
“No,” he said, and
pulled me against his chest.
It was
vibrating.
“You are laughing at me, you complete and
total—”
“I’m not,” he said,
but he had a hand on the back of my head and he wouldn’t let me
look at his face.
“This was your
fault!”
“Dulceață—”
“Don’t call me that!”
I was feeling anything but sweet at the moment. In fact, if I could
have gotten an arm free, I’d have probably hit him. But his had
gone around me and they were holding me tight, although at least I
could move my head now. I looked up.
His face was
absolutely and suspiciously sober, but his eyes were
dancing.
“You’re a
bastard,” I said with
feeling.
“I assure you, my
parents were properly wed. And I was merely going to say that
you’re right.”
“I know I’m right!” I
blinked. “What?”
“I should have warned
you that they were here, but I did not expect you to be quite so .
. . bold.”
And no, he probably
hadn’t, I realized. He’d probably expected me to come out in a robe
or a towel, or at least to poke my head around the door first. Not
to storm out like the bathroom was on fire. Or like a really,
really inept stripper.
I winced and let my
head fall forward. “That’s me,” I told him miserably. “I’m
bold.”
“To a frightening
degree at times,” he murmured, combing his fingers through my wet
curls.
“I don’t try to
be.”
“I
know.”
We just stood there a
while, and it felt really good. He was freshly washed, with his
dark hair still damp and combed back from his face, and he was
wearing a robe like mine. I guessed that either the suite had a
second bathroom or, considering how the hotel manager had been
pretty much genuflecting, they’d opened another room for him. Or
possibly the entire floor.
Anyway, this was
better. This was the best part of the date so far.
Not that that was
saying much.
“Cassie?”
“Hm?”
“You can’t stay in
the bathroom all night.”
“Why
not?”
“It’s
wet.”
“Don’t
care.”
“It’s going to get
cold.”
“Don’t
care.”
“And you’ll miss
dinner.”
I looked up, feeling
a slight bit of hope creeping in past the utter mortification.
“Dinner?”
“Dinner,” he said,
and pulled me out the door.