Chapter Forty
He jerked me to my
feet, and I finally realized what he’d been waiting for. The house
lights had extinguished, leaving the once glowing ballroom dark and
silent. I couldn’t see very well, but from what I could make out, a
solid wall of people stretched across the glass opening, their
heads blacking out the lighter walls beyond, their jewels
occasionally catching the light.
It’s like stadium
seating, I thought blankly. Only what they were watching tonight
wasn’t the latest football game. It was an execution.
“They can’t help
you,” he told me. “But they can watch—as all their plans and
schemes and useless alliances go up in smoke. You die, the spell
fails and my father returns. And the last legacy of that traitor is
gone forever.”
I didn’t answer,
mainly because he backhanded me and I went sprawling. But then, I
didn’t have to. Because the darkness suddenly faded, the trees
whispering to one another as the pale smudge of a moon, like a coy
lady, glided up over a hill. And immediately, everything
changed.
The dark sky flooded
the color of polished silver, the wet grass sparkled like diamonds,
the hills and the trees and everything around us was bathed in a
brilliant white light. It reflected in the puddle I’d landed in, a
luminous, wavering orb like the one Deino had offered me, but that
I hadn’t understood. I’d never seen anything so
beautiful.
Not since the look of
mingled joy and pain and disbelief on my mother’s face as she gazed
at me.
My mother, who, if
the Spartoi hadn’t hounded her, wouldn’t have had to flee, wouldn’t
have ended up with Tony, wouldn’t have died. They may as well have
killed her. They’d driven her into the hands of the one who
had.
But they hadn’t
killed her. They hadn’t been able to
kill her. She might have lost her power over the centuries, but
she’d never lost her courage. She’d taken on four of these things
twice over and won. And she’d done it all while drawing from the
same well of power I did, power that was hers by right of
birth.
As it was
mine.
My power wasn’t some
alien thing, I thought, watching the sky in wonder. It wasn’t
borrowed from another or stolen from a better candidate. There
was no better candidate; there never
would be. It had flowed away from Myra as soon as it saw me, like
the tide when the moon comes out. Because it was mine—it was mine;
it knew it was mine.
I was the one who had
taken a little time to catch up.
I rolled over on all
fours, gathering strength to stand. I was a little wobbly, and my
wrist felt like it might just be on fire. But I got into a crouch
on the balls of my feet.
The Spartoi looked me
over. “You would duel me?” he asked, amused.
“That’s the
idea.”
“To what end? Even
were you somehow to win, my kind are immortal. My brothers would
simply resurrect me.”
“You know,” I told
him. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“And why is
that?”
“You sent them a
sixth time after my mother, didn’t you? To hedge your
bets.”
“Yes?”
“It didn’t go well,”
I said, and threw out a hand.
A time wave flowed
across the grass, churning up the dirt as it flowed toward him. He
transformed in an instant, surging up from the ground on a rush of
air that almost knocked me down as the wave flowed underneath. A
group of trees behind where he’d been standing suddenly shot up,
ten and twelve feet in seconds, but he was twice that high, huge
wings blocking out the light as he banked and turned and
dove—
The ground around me
exploded in fire even as I shifted. I landed in a nearby copse of
small trees, hoping for cover. But he must have anticipated that.
Because almost immediately I had to shift again, as the trees burst
into flame, flooding the landscape with garish light and sending
strange shadows writhing over the ground.
I could see them from
the other side of the hill, where I’d landed behind a rocky
outcropping. They backlit the huge form of the transformed Spartoi,
which was hovering in the air, powerful wings churning up the air.
His back was to me because he was still facing the trees. But I
couldn’t stay where I was. He was already spiraling up to get a
better look. Any moment now, he’d spot me—
A wave of fire came
my way, before I’d finished the thought. And it wasn’t a narrow
stream that I might have been able to dodge. It was a wall of flame
that blistered the air, like a tidal wave, if they came in crimson
and gold.
I shifted again
because I had no choice, but I couldn’t keep doing that. I had my
mother’s power, but not her stamina. I was already panting—that
time wave had been a bitch—and another few shifts would have me
close to exhaustion. I had to make the shifts I had left count.
Which is why, when I shifted again, it was back in
time.
Normally, I wasn’t
good at judging short time shifts. A day I could do, or even twelve
hours or so, but anything less was tricky. Sometimes it worked;
sometimes it didn’t. Okay, most of the time it didn’t. So I was
pretty surprised to land on the right side of the Spartoi at
roughly the same moment that it set the trees on fire.
But not as surprised
as having a second dragon pop out of the air right over my
head.
I froze, hiding in
the shade cast by my pursuer’s own body. I guessed I knew what that
quicksilver feeling had been earlier. He must have put the same
spell on me they’d used on my mother.
Which meant that I
couldn’t time shift, or I’d take the asshole with me.
Perfect.
The only thing that
saved me was that he’d been looking outward instead of straight
down and didn’t immediately spot me. Maybe because he was too busy
screaming a warning to his former self. I didn’t know what language
they used, but if he told him where I was about to shift to, former
me would soon be dead. Meaning present me would be dead.
Shit!
Luckily, everything
had happened so fast that his alter ego didn’t have time to
capitalize on the information. He went screeching toward former me,
my Spartoi spiraled up looking for present me, and I decided to
hell with this. Despite the cold, my hair was sticking to my
cheeks, my palms were sweaty and my heart was drumming in my ears.
I thought I had maybe one more time wave in me, if I was
lucky.
This one had to work.
And as fast as these things moved, there was only one way to ensure
that. I gathered my power and shifted—
Onto its
back.
I’d hoped it wouldn’t
notice an extra hundred and twenty pounds for a few seconds,
considering it had to weigh something like seventy times that. I
was wrong. I’d no sooner rematerialized than it let out a bellow of
rage that echoed off the surrounding mountains and almost deafened
me. And then it did a barrel roll.
I screamed, with
nothing to hold on to but rain-slick scales that tore at my palms
even as I grasped for them. But I launched my last time wave, even
as I fell. I saw it veer off course, saw it slice into one of the
great wings, saw it miss the body. But I didn’t have time to
curse.
Because the next
second, I was hitting down—hard.
I landed on my side,
and, of course, it was the side with the injured wrist. A wave of
pain engulfed me, so fast and so hard that it froze a scream in my
throat. Or it would have, if it hadn’t already been knocked out of
me. I writhed in the mud, too crazy with pain to do anything else,
including think, for a long moment.
And when I did manage
to gather some thoughts, they were nothing I wanted.
I told myself I’d
just had the wind knocked out of me, that I’d only fallen maybe two
stories, and onto soft ground that had just been churned up by the
talons of those two beasts. In a minute, I’d get my wind back, I’d
gather my strength, I’d get out of this. There was nothing to worry
about, no need for panic.
And if I’d had any
breath, I’d have laughed. Because if ever a situation called for
panic, this was it.
I did finally manage
to drag in a shaky breath, but by then it was too late. A shadow
fell over me, a human one, because the Spartoi had transformed
back. I suppose he didn’t think he needed the extra power to take
out a halfdead body, and it didn’t help that I kind of agreed with
him.
He stopped beside me,
staring down out of those horrible eyes. “You forgot,” he said
gently. “My father was Ares, god of war.”
And my mother was
death, I didn’t say, because I didn’t have the breath. I just
stepped out of my body and grabbed him.
I don’t know if he
could feel my dim, insubstantial hand around his throat, but he
acted like he felt something. He staggered back, flailing and
tearing at nothing. Because what I was, he could no longer
touch.
But I could touch
him, although for a long moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing
was happening, just like with the damn apples. And then, slowly,
almost imperceptibly, his face began to change.
Liquid skin pulled
away from flesh, from muscles, from bone. Eyes rolled in sockets,
hair grayed and whitened and then fell out as the skin holding it
in place rotted away. The tongue, a bloated black thing lolling in
his mouth, tried to move, to speak, to curse, before suddenly
deflating and disappearing, withdrawing back into the skull like
the eyes, like everything, until the bones cracked and splintered
and the whole thing dusted away on the breeze.
For a moment, I just
stared at the imprints of his feet in the soft soil, which were
quickly filling up with rain. That had worked. I couldn’t believe
that had worked. I’d . . . I’d won? I
didn’t feel like I’d won. I felt dizzy and sick and more than half
crazy, like I wanted to run screaming around the hillside. Only I
couldn’t. I didn’t have feet anymore, either.
I didn’t have
anything, I realized, except for the tiny bit of life force I’d
torn away with me when I came out. And after using up most of it on
the battle, it was fast running out. I turned, feeling misty and
jumbled and oddly . . . disjointed, like parts of me were already
trying to float away....
And saw the small
pale slash of my body lying almost halfway across the still-burning
hillside.
It was so far. How
had we come this far? I didn’t remember moving much at all. Of
course, I didn’t remember much of anything except watching the
Spartoi’s face peeling back.
A breeze came by,
blowing some burning cinders through me, and I flinched. I didn’t
feel them, was starting to have trouble feeling anything. Or
concentrating . . .
I needed to move. I
needed to get back. I needed to get back now.
I started forward in
a vague, streaming motion completely unlike walking. And that was
wrong, wasn’t it? It hadn’t felt this way before in the apartment,
had it? I couldn’t remember. But it was wrong somehow, a halting,
dragging feeling, slowing me down, pulling me back. I turned, half
expecting to see that a piece of myself had caught on something,
stretching my metaphysical form behind me like taffy.
But I didn’t. I saw
something worse.
A seething cloud of
blackness had boiled up behind me, blocking half the sky. It looked
like a storm cloud, except storms are laced with lightning, not
iridescent feathers. And they drop rain, not tendrils of odd, black
smoke.
“No,” I whispered,
knowing what it was. And that, without a body, I was nothing more
than a tasty snack for any passing spirit.
And then it was on
me.
I screamed, expecting
it to hurt, but it didn’t. It didn’t. But the draining sensation
ramped up a few dozen notches, causing my hand to shimmer in front
of my face as I reached out, trying to part the thick, blue-black
clouds to see. But it didn’t want me to see. If I could see, I
could find my way back, and once inside my body, I would have not
only its protection, but that of Pritkin’s talisman, as
well.
Pritkin. The name caused pain, caused my tenuous
concentration to wobble, and I felt a stinging slap to a face I no
longer had. Sentiment . . . sentiment in battle got you killed. Not
once in a while, not occasionally, but almost every single fucking
time. You do not stop to cry or whine or
mourn, not in battle, never in battle. That’s for later, when
you’re safe, when you’re home. Do you
understand?
I’d understood. I’d
told him I understood. I’d promised, and now I had to . . . I had
to . . . concentrate.
Yes, I had to
concentrate. I had to get back to my body . . . my body. Where was
my body? I couldn’t see. And now it did hurt some as the draining
sensation picked up and—
Blue-black clouds
were everywhere, almost completely cutting off any vision. I surged
forward, hoping I was going in the right direction, only able to
catch glimpses, here and there, of stars and trees and my body,
which seemed to be constantly changing position. I knew it wasn’t
moving, knew I was the one getting off course, but I couldn’t seem
to stop it.
I raised a hand, dim,
so dim, almost transparent now. I could see the mist through it,
like it was almost a part of it, like it was floating away . . .
and maybe it was. Maybe it already had. Maybe I had. Things were
getting dimmer, harder to see, and I didn’t know if that was the
clouds getting thicker with stolen power or my sight getting
dimmer, but either way, it was very bad news. Because I couldn’t
see at all now.
I stumbled on anyway,
hoping I would literally stumble into my goal. Would I know it? I
thought I would know it, but what were the odds? It was a huge
hillside and my body was small and I couldn’t see—
“Cassie!”
The sound was vague
and indistinct, like my form, like everything. I wasn’t even sure
I’d heard it, but then it came again, a faint, echoing sound, but
stronger to the right. Was it? I thought so, and instinctively
moved in that direction.
“Cassie!” It came
again, nearer now, or so it seemed, maybe . . . I couldn’t really
tell. I didn’t have ears; how could I hear without ears? Wasn’t
sure I had much of anything now, and I had a feeling a coherent
thing like a body might be too much for me to maintain at this
point. I had a flash of a dim silver ball, a little twinkling light
against a wall of clouds, bright, so bright, against the darkness.
But I was probably just making that up. I couldn’t see, after all.
I didn’t have—
“Cassie!”
I jerked, because
that had been close. Really close. Close, close, somewhere . .
.
There.
I felt a body, not
mine, but familiar. Warm. So full of life. Hurt.
Why was it
hurt?
“Cassie! Listen to
me. You have to merge with your body. You have to do it
now!”
My body. Yes. I had
to get back to . . . but where was it? I put out a hand, or what
would have been a hand if I had hands left, a tendril of power,
anyway—
And then snatched it
back, mewling in pain, after something took what felt like a bite
right out of it. God, that had hurt.
But it cleared my mind, or what was left of it, because I suddenly
remembered. My body . . . was on the ground.
I dove, and something
screeched in my ear, a furious, screaming cry, full of hunger and
pain and desperation—
And then I was back,
filling myself not in one quick rush as I had before, but in tiny
trickles here and there. Funny, it didn’t feel that different,
being back. It didn’t feel that different at all.
I stared up at the
sky, at the rain falling almost straight down, highlighted here and
there by stray beams of moonlight. It wasn’t enough to obscure the
stars, which were winking with pinprick brightness through the
trees. Or the moon, riding a sea of clouds overhead, silvering the
landscape. Beautiful.
I wondered if I was
dreaming. And then I knew I was, because he was there. Strong arms
went around me, pulling me up. Beautiful, I thought, looking into clear green
eyes.
He gathered me in,
folding me under his chin, and I thought there was something . . .
something strange about . . .
He had on a shirt too
light for the weather, thin cotton with the sleeves rolled to the
elbows, showing the tendons in his forearms. His forearms . . .
that was it. I could see the arms he’d wrapped around me because he
wasn’t wearing his old, battered coat. But Pritkin always wore . .
. didn’t he? Some reason floated here and there, darting across my
mind like a butterfly . . . but I couldn’t . . . couldn’t catch it.
. . .
“Cassie.” Warm
fingers trailed down my cheek, my neck. So warm, so warm. Was he
healing? I couldn’t remember him being this warm. But it felt good.
It felt . . .
A sigh leaked out
like blood.
We sat like that for
a moment, his chest hard at my back, his arms hard around me, so
solid, grounding, when I felt like I could float away. My head
lolled back against his shoulder. It seemed too hard to hold it up
anymore. His hand came up, burying itself in my hair,
clenching.
And then releasing as
he carefully laid me down on the grass again.
His face swam into
view over me. He looked different, and it wasn’t just the coat. His
hair was a rumpled, silky mess. His eyes were hot, the lines around
his mouth deeply etched. He was breathing hard. I watched it curl
out of him, silver air on a silver sky. . . .
Maybe I’m dreaming, I
thought vaguely. Maybe he wasn’t here at all, just some shade I’d
conjured up because I didn’t want to die alone. But he looked real,
sharply defined by dark shadows, highlighted at the curve of his
neck, the breadth of his shoulders, by moonlight. Substantial,
undeniably there. My fingers curled
around his, and he caught them in a hard grip.
I thought I could
write a ten-page paper, with illustrations, on all the ways
Pritkin’s features differed from the usual standards of beauty, but
that didn’t change anything about what I saw when I looked at the
man.
“Beautiful,” I
whispered. He closed his eyes.
Overburdened clouds
broke open with a rumble and a sigh and rain fell like a veil
across the horizon. I was watching it, mesmerized at how it blurred
the distant mountains, at how it—
Pritkin’s hands
framed my face. He bent closer, until his lashes brushed my cheek,
until his lips touched mine. “Kiss me.”
Or, at least, that’s
what I thought he said. But it was hard to hear. Something like
voices murmured in my head, like a hive full of lazy bees,
inarticulate and insistent, waxing and waning. I wished they’d shut
up.
“Cassie,” his fingers
tightened. “Like you mean it.”
And then he was
kissing me, lips soft and slightly chapped on mine, the scratch of
a three-day old beard against my skin, the smoothness of teeth, of
tongue. He tasted like coffee and electricity and power, so much
power. It filled my mouth like whiskey, like the best drink I’d
ever had. It flowed down my throat, burned along every limb,
snapping nerves back to life, filling veins, sending my heart
racing in my chest.
Suddenly, I could
breathe again, not shallowly, but fully, deeply. Only I didn’t want
to breathe. I wanted him. My hands came up, burying in his hair,
holding him, drinking from him, desperate and sloppy and greedy and
ravenous. All warm and good and power and, God, oh, God,
so good.
I groaned and rolled
on top of him, so hungry, so hungry. His hands settled on my waist,
not stroking, barely touching. Just holding me in place as I took
what I needed. I could see it in my mind, like I saw the Pythian
power sometimes, a glittering golden stream flooding out of him and
into me, so good. And then his hands
were clenching, holding me, bruisingly hard, for one last, brief
instant—
And then there were
people, people everywhere, running and yelling and pulling—on me.
Pulling us apart. I tried to fight them and my limbs actually
seemed to work now, to respond to my commands. But they were
vampires and so strong and—
And he was gone. The
hillside was spinning, people’s faces and the streamers of smoke
and the rain all blurring together into a kaleidoscope of don’t
care, because I didn’t want them; I wanted Pritkin. I struggled up,
and someone tried to push me back down, and I snarled at them and
they let me go.
I stumbled to my
feet, naked and muddy and bloody and half crazy, but he wasn’t
there, he wasn’t there. And in a flash, I knew why. He’d told me
himself—human or demon varieties. I’d
given him power to save his life, and now he’d returned it. And
while that didn’t mean anything in human terms, except emergency
and necessity and the only possible way out, in demon terms it
meant—
It
meant—
“What have you done?”
I screamed to no one, because he wasn’t there.
I dropped to my
knees, screaming in fury, and the earth shook. A time wave boiled
under the soil, causing roots to fly out of the ground, pushing up
boulders, sending a cascade of mud and debris spilling down the
hill and forcing several vamps to jump wildly out of the way. So
much power, I thought dully.
And it did me no
good, it did me no good, it did me no good.
“Now zat,” someone
said approvingly, “is a Pythia.”
And then
blackness.