“That’s not what I heard,” Marlowe broke in cheerfully. He seemed to like talking shop. “They say she’d become extremely superstitious with age, and had been buying all sorts of questionable remedies. A knife believed to turn green when passed over unsafe food, an antique Venetian glass supposed to explode if filled with a poisoned liquid, a goblet with a bezoar set into the bottom—”
“Maybe she Saw something.” Agnes had been a seer, too, a powerful one. I shivered. How horrible would it be to see your own death, yet be able to do nothing about it?
“Perhaps.” Marlowe was smiling at me again, and I didn’t like it. “But if so, it appears to have done her little good. Which rather proves the point I am trying to make. The mages cannot keep you safe any more than they did your predecessor. We will be much more efficient, I assure you.”
Mac shot the vamp an unfriendly look. “Don’t listen to him, Cassie. If you don’t want to talk, don’t. He can’t force you with me here.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, mage. I know your reputation, but much of your magic is useless at present, and my strength is unchanged. Not that I would dream of forcing Cassandra to do anything against her will. I merely think she ought to know who her newfound ally is and what he wants.”
“You stay out of our business,” Mac said, his tone ominous.
“Ah, but it isn’t yours alone, is it?” Marlowe asked. “She has a right to know with whom she’s become involved.” He turned to me, looking innocent. “Or do you already know that Pritkin is the Circle’s chief assassin?”
Chapter 11
Mac choked on the contents of the flask he’d been sip-ping from, and then all but confirmed it. “That’s neither here nor there!” he gasped as soon as he got his breath back. Marlowe didn’t even look at him; his eyes were fixed squarely on me.
“I take it this is news?” he asked.
“Tell me.”
“Cassie, you can’t believe anything one of them says. It’s all rubbish—” Mac began, but I cut him off.
“I’m too tired to debate this, Mac,” I said, and the weariness in my voice was genuine. All I wanted was to find a soft patch of moss, one that wasn’t too damp and was free of moving tree parts, and sleep for about twelve hours. I was mentally and physically near exhaustion, and my emotional state wasn’t all that great, either. But Marlowe was right—I needed to hear this. I could decide whether to believe it later.
Marlowe didn’t need a second prompt. “We wondered why a demon hunter had been assigned as the Circle’s liaison to us. There are plenty of vampire experts available and many of them are far more . . . diplomatic . . . than John Pritkin. The timing was also suspicious, with the Circle removing their old liaison and substituting Pritkin only hours before you were brought in. It was as if they knew you were coming and wanted him to be there.”
“They hoped he’d mistake me for a demon and kill me,” I said. This was old news, something Mircea had figured out early on. It had almost worked. Pritkin didn’t know much about vamps, but he was an expert on demons. And some of my powers, especially possession, had made him very suspicious.
“I heard that theory, but it seemed strange that the Circle would simply assume you would do something to alarm Pritkin enough for him to attack you. Had things gone the way we planned—had you not escaped and Tomas not betrayed us—it would have been a quiet evening.” I fidgeted at this evaluation of my first meeting with the Senate, which had been anything but quiet from the start, but didn’t interrupt. “I thought there might be more to the story,” he continued, “and began a discreet inquiry.”
“You don’t know anything,” Mac said vehemently.
Marlowe raised an eyebrow, the look on his face one a king might have bestowed on a peasant who tracked mud across his castle floor. “On the contrary, I know a good deal. For instance, I know Pritkin has at least a thousand kills to his credit, and probably more. I know that he’s the man the Circle turns to when they want to make absolutely certain someone ends up dead. I know that he is famous for using unorthodox tactics to bring down his prey”—he gave me an arch look—“like having one mark help him to locate another—”
Mac uttered an expletive. “Don’t listen to him, Cassie.” He paused to stomp on a root that had been trying to curl around my ankle. It slunk off into the forest, but I had no doubt it would be back. I felt a strong yearning for an axe. “You may not know us, but you do know vamps. They lie more than they breathe. John’s a good man.”
Marlowe let out a contemptuous laugh. “Tell his victims that!” He glanced at me, as if trying to gauge my reaction to his news, but I’d hit that washed-out sensation that comes from too much exertion in too little time. I couldn’t manage to make myself care very much if Pritkin wanted me dead. It wasn’t exactly a novel idea; I’d been operating on that assumption all along.
I started searching through Mac’s backpack for some dry socks. I’d had a pair in my duffle, but Mac must not have bothered to pack them. It’s a clue that you are hanging with the wrong crowd when you have beer, guns and about a ton of ammunition, but no clean clothes.
Marlowe looked slightly put out that his bombshell wasn’t causing the uproar he’d expected, but he continued nonetheless. “You’ve entrusted yourself to Pritkin’s care, but you know virtually nothing about him! The Circle has obviously sent him to kill you.”
“This is a perfect example of what vamps do, Cassie!” Mac thundered. “They cobble together some half-truths that leave them looking lily-white and the rest of us covered in shite!”
“He needs your help to find the other rogue,” Marlowe told me earnestly, ignoring Mac. “But as soon as he has her, you’re dead. Unless you let us assist you. The Senate only wants—”
“—to control your every move!” Mac broke in. “Cassie, I swear to you, John was appalled when he found out what the Circle intends. They’ve gone power-mad! Even if they get their way and both you and Myra die, they can’t be sure their chosen initiate will become Pythia. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of unknown, untrained clairvoyants in the world. What if it went to one of them? And what if the Black Circle found her first?”
I smiled slightly. “Better the devil you know, huh?” Mac looked somewhat appalled at what he’d let slip, but it was exactly because he hadn’t made a rousing speech in my favor that I tended to believe him.
I glanced at Marlowe. “Mac has a point. Pritkin was declared a rogue himself today for protecting me, and was almost killed in the bargain. Seems kind of extreme for someone who is only setting me up.”
“He is known for such tactics,” Marlowe said, waving it off. He gazed at me intently, his eyes practically radiating sincerity. “Cassie, we have no desire to manipulate you. Our aim is to offer you an alternative to domination by the mages. That has been the fate of Pythias for generations, but it doesn’t have to be yours. We can—”
I held up a hand, both because I didn’t want to hear it and to keep Mac, who had grown dangerously red in the face, from going ballistic. “Save it, Marlowe. I know the truth. And I don’t intend to be dominated by anyone.”
“You know what you’ve been told,” he replied urgently. “And you will need allies, Cassie. No great leader has ever ruled entirely alone. Elizabeth has gone down in history as a magnificent queen, which she was, but one of her chief talents was choosing able people to advise her. She was great partly because those around her were great. You cannot remain isolated. You will not be able to work that way. In the long term—”
“I’m not real interested in the long term right now, Marlowe. ” I was just trying to live through the day.
“In time, you will come to understand that you need allies, and the Senate will be there. Unlike the mages, we want to work with you, not control your every decision.”
“Uh-huh. Which is why Mircea put the
dúthracht
on me?” There were a lot of things I wasn’t clear on, but that one was crystal. The
geis
wasn’t used to advise; it was used to control. The look on Marlowe’s face said he knew that.
“We will find a way to break it,” he promised. “And in the meantime, the Senate offers you its protection.” I rolled my eyes and Mac snorted.
“Yeah,” he said contemptuously, “just substitute ‘prison’ for ‘protection’ and—”
“You might wish to consider,” Marlowe said smoothly, “that despite Lord Mircea’s lapse of judgment, the Senate has protected you in the past. Whereas the facts make only one conclusion possible: the mages want their candidate on the Pythia’s throne and will stop at nothing to see her there—including your death.”
“Another lie!” Mac surged to his feet.
He looked angry enough to go for Marlowe’s throat, but he didn’t get the chance. I heard a rustling sound and, quicker than I could blink, the roots that had been bugging me all day wrapped themselves securely around Mac. He tried to say something, but I couldn’t make it out. Within seconds, only his outraged eyes showed over a coil of rope-like roots, some of them as big as my arm. Struggling seemed useless, although he appeared to be trying anyway.
Marlowe was in much the same predicament, but he sat quietly, making no attempt to resist. I noticed that, despite Marlowe being the stronger of the two, he was bound less tightly than Mac, with roots coming up only to his chest. Maybe the less you fought them, the less tightly they held you. I followed his example, hoping that they’d continue to ignore me. Then I realized they weren’t the only problem.
“We are not spies,” Marlowe said loudly, apparently to thin air.
“You are in our land without permission,” came the answer; “therefore, you are whatever we say you are.”
“Who are you?” an imperious voice demanded. A doll-like creature flew out from behind Marlowe to hover in front of my face. It was about two feet long, with a mass of fiery red hair and a huge span of bright green wings. It took me a moment to place it—her—as the pixie I’d seen a week before at Dante’s. Then she’d only been about eight inches high, but it wasn’t like I could be mistaken. She was the first member of the Fey I’d ever seen, and the image sort of sticks with you.
“Don’t give her your name!” Marlowe said urgently. The pixie frowned at him and a large root with a knot on it shoved its way between his lips. It’s a good thing vampires don’t need to breathe, because more roots followed, twining around his face so thickly that only a shock of brown curls could be seen. He was gagged so effectively that it didn’t look like I’d be getting any more help.
“I’m the Pythia,” I said, deciding that a title might be better than my name. As far as I knew, it couldn’t be used in enchantments. “We met before, at Dante’s, if you—”
“I’ll be rewarded highly for this,” she said, ignoring my attempt to trade on our brief acquaintance. “Seize them.” A large party of shaggy things burst out of the trees, clubs and hide-wrapped shields at the ready. I don’t know why they bothered with weapons—the stench coming off them in waves was enough to incapacitate anybody.
A couple of very odd-looking things converged on me. It looked like two gruesome trees had uprooted themselves and decided to go for a walk. The closest had a more or less human form, if humans were commonly four feet tall and at least as wide. But his hair was the color of the lichen on the roots, a bright flaming red despite the dirt that caked it, and his eyes were the same dung yellow as his teeth. He had skin as gnarled and pitted as old bark, and its color exactly matched the loamy forest floor. He was wearing only a small loin covering of oak leaves, which was almost hidden by the folds of his enormous belly.
His partner had him by about a foot in height but wasn’t nearly as wide. Filthy gray hair trailed down to his knees, with the look and consistency of Spanish moss. Stringy muscles stood out on impossibly long arms covered in greenish gray skin. His body resembled a cragged tree trunk more than a living being, with knobby extensions all over like stunted branches. Instead of clothing he had long strings of dirty gray moss and a few ferns that appeared to sprout directly from his flesh.
I clapped a hand over my nose and wished that I, too, didn’t have to breathe. “What
are
they?”
“Dark Fey,” Marlowe managed to say. “Giants and oak men.” The roots had withdrawn as quickly as they had come, baring him to the shoulders. I realized why when a ten-foot giant strode forward and knocked him in the temple with a club the size of a small tree. Marlowe sighed. “It’s always the head,” he murmured, then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed.
I backed away, lifting my hands to show how harmless I was. Unfortunately, it was the truth. The pack with my gun in it was too far away to reach and I had no other weapons. The shorter one laughed and said something in a guttural language I couldn’t understand. Judging by his expression, that was probably just as well. I backed away as they stalked forward, trying to keep an eye on them and also on the root-strewn trail. It didn’t work, and I ended up sprawled in the scattered leaves. As soon as I was down, roots wrapped around my wrists, trapping me. The next moment, the taller thing was on me, his breath like a ripe compost heap in my face.
“Cassie!” I heard Mac’s voice and looked up in time to see him slide through the weakened hold of the roots and sprint for me. Everything seemed to slow down, the way it does when you see what’s about to happen but can’t stop it. The roots dove for him, and before I could draw breath enough to scream, one had pierced him like a living spear. All I could do was lie there and watch as he twisted in pain, a wooden limb as sharp as a knife erupting from the flesh of his upper thigh. He wavered and went down hard, dropping to his knees as I finally managed to scream.
I felt rough fingers on my legs; then they found the fastening of my shorts and broke the zipper in their haste to get them off. I barely noticed, watching in horror as Mac writhed on the ground, trying to pull out the wooden mass that had pierced his thigh. He managed to get the slender spike out with steady hands, ignoring the abrupt wash of blood that stained his clothes, but another immediately wound itself around his neck, choking him.