Authors: Karen Chance
“Their—you mean the barmaid?” I asked, strangely relieved. Although that may have been because he’d finally realized he was choking me and loosened his grip slightly.
“Or were you distracting me while your accomplice searched the place?” Pritkin suddenly stared around, as if he thought his prize was about to drop from a tree or something. “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s here!”
“No, I—”
“Then tell me where it is if you want to live!”
And, okay, things suddenly weren’t so funny anymore. Because Pritkin wasn’t kidding. I knew him well enough to know his don’t-fuck-with-me expression when I saw it. Just as I knew I couldn’t give him what he wanted. The map he’d lost had led to something called the Codex Merlini, a book of spells that needed to molder away exactly where it was, since some rather delicate events would later hinge on that. Some delicate, potentially world-ending events.
But I somehow didn’t think that trying to explain that was going to go over well.
And then I didn’t have to.
Half of the wall we were standing against suddenly crumbled in a cascade of rocks and dust and, oh,
crap
. I got a half-second glimpse of an incensed Pythia standing backlit amid the billowing clouds, parasol at the ready and chin tilted determinedly, and then I panicked. And since there weren’t a whole lot of options, I did what I usually do when terrified and defenseless, and shifted.
But not me.
The power that allows me temporal shifts also permits spatial ones, to a limited degree. Limited in that I have to know where I’m going, which I didn’t, and can see where I’m landing, which I couldn’t. I also couldn’t leave Pritkin with the cursed soul due to arrive any minute, and it’s not like I had a lot of time to think about it and—
And so I shifted her.
“Was that supposed to
help
?” Rosier demanded, staring at the sight of a waterlogged Pythia rising from the dark and, okay, faintly slimy canal, lavender curls hanging dispiritedly around a by now truly furious face.
For a split second, I just stared back in horror. I’d been aiming for the opposite bank, but I couldn’t see shit and—and damn.
“Run,” I squawked. Only to find out that I couldn’t. Because Pritkin wasn’t letting go, not having managed to follow all of that.
But Rosier had and he grabbed his satchel back and took off. Leaving me behind, because nobody had ever accused him of being noble. But for once, I thought he had the right idea.
“You want . . . the Codex?” I asked Pritkin, panting from lack of air and utter, utter terror. “Because you just let it get away.
He
has it!”
And, okay, that worked, I thought, as Pritkin started after the fleeing demon lord. Sort of, I amended, as he jerked me along for the ride. But that was okay; that was good, even. I just had to keep them close and keep him from killing Rosier and keep an eye out for the damned soul while I was at it.
Well, and one other thing, I amended, as the gnarled old limbs of a tree exploded into flower as we passed.
I turned around while still running, watching through pelting rain as the massive trunk shrank, old bark became new, twisted limbs straightened and flowered and hung heavy with life. It would have been beautiful, except for the knowledge that a blast of reverse time like that wouldn’t do me the same good. Would, in fact, age me right out of existence.
Good thing she couldn’t see me any better than I could her, huh, I thought, right before something like the sun suddenly flooded the area all around us. Something exactly like, I realized, staring up at the darkened sky. And at a patch of icy slush the size of a house that had just been replaced by clear blue skies and fat, happy-looking clouds.
Damn, I didn’t know we could do that, I thought, as the light of another day shone down around us, out of some type of time portal I didn’t understand because I didn’t understand much about this job. But if the idea was to turn a searchlight on us, it was doing okay, I thought, and jerked Pritkin into the shade of a nearby bridge.
“What the—” he began, staring upward at the shimmering beam that was sparkling off the water, and throwing moving shadows of tree limbs onto snow-covered streets as it started moving around, looking for us.
“New magic?” I said weakly. And received a frown in return, because Pritkin isn’t stupid.
But before he could work it out, something like a speedboat tore out from under the bridge, drenching us with freezing spray.
I hadn’t seen who was driving it, but I guess Pritkin had. Because he swore and dragged us down a rusty ladder into a small dinghy, which seemed kind of useless since it had no form of propulsion that I could see. Outboard motors didn’t exist in 1794.
But magic did. At least, I assumed there was some sort of spell involved when we zipped out into the canal, so fast that it sent me tumbling into the stern and had the prow of the boat leaping out of the water, barely touching the waves. But we were doing better than Rosier, who I saw when I scrambled back to my feet, just ahead of us.
He was in another speeding boat, courtesy of his big bag o’ tricks, I supposed, but whatever he was using must not have come with instructions. Or steering. Because he was weaving back and forth along the narrow waterway, his boat hitting other boats and the high brick walls of the canal and basically anything and everything in his path, making his frantic face and waving arms kind of superfluous.
Yes, I knew he was in trouble.
But then, so were we.
Because the makeshift searchlight was now chasing us, flowing along the sides of the canal like bright water. The portal looked like an oval of colored film imposed over the black-and-white landscape around us, some avant-garde cinematography about youth and age. Behind us, skeletal trees became green, snow melted into leaf-strewn streets, people strolled along the shore enjoying a bright spring day.
And then stopped to stare through the portal at us, including one guy who ran into a tree.
I stared back as time boiled along a line just behind us, bisecting day and night. And summer and winter. And the bottom of our boat, sending me scrambling frantically into the front and Pritkin cursing and somehow increasing our speed.
It worked, sort of. We jumped ahead, all but flying now, with a sound like the crack of a mighty whip. Or, I realized a second later, like half a boat splintering and breaking and falling away.
I stared behind us through my wildly flying hair as what had been the back of our boat was swallowed by that other day, bobbing and listing and then sinking in bright spring sunshine. And realized that we weren’t going to be any better off soon. Half a boat doesn’t float well, and only our crazy speed was keeping us momentarily above water.
I looked around frantically, trying to spot Rosier, planning to shift us onto his vessel, which at least was still in one piece. But it was dark ahead, even without the glow from behind obscuring my vision. And the sleety half rain, half snow was coming down harder now, making it almost impossible to—
And then Rosier made it easy by crashing headlong into the back of a barge.
It sent him hurtling out of his craft and through the air, and I grabbed Pritkin and shifted even before he landed. We ended up right beside him, which would have been impressive—if I’d remembered to leave our broken craft behind. But we were still clinging to the sides, so our boat had come, too, and for a second there, it was skipping along the long, unladen surface of the barge, right beside a falling, cursing, and rolling demon lord. And then Pritkin reached out and grabbed his father. And I shifted us again, about a second before we would have plowed into the back of the captain’s cabin.
So we plowed into one of the small bridges that spanned the canals instead.
That actually wouldn’t have been so bad, since our little half craft had managed to land on top. But then we kept right on going. I screamed and grabbed Pritkin, who was clutching Rosier in a death grip but manfully keeping silent. Unlike the elegant demon lord, who was yelling right along with me as our momentum carried us across the narrow span, which was little more than a brick arch sans railings.
And off the other side.
And into a patch of bright sunlight and the front of a larger boat being guided along by a still-dripping Pythia.
“Well, hello,” she said, smiling at me evilly, as I looked up from a pile of demon.
“Well, good-bye,” I gasped, and kicked her into the canal.
Our tiny boat shuddered and shook as Pritkin got control of it again. And then abruptly detached itself from the Pythia’s stately barge. And skittered off down the canal, through the early-morning sunlight of that other day that had now engulfed us, with Rosier clinging to the bow, Pritkin holding on to him, and me drowning along behind, my body half in the water as I gripped an oar I’d snared at the last second and hung on for dear life.
I tried to pull myself up, which would have been easier without all the kicking and scuffling feet in my face. And without being slung back and forth wildly, because no one seemed to be driving this thing. But then I forgot about all that; I forgot about everything.
Because I’d just looked up.
And seen a new form of light shining out of a pair of brilliant green eyes.
My throat closed up for a moment in sheer, unadulterated relief. And then opened so I could scream, “Hex him!
Hex him!
”
That won me a glare but nothing else, because Rosier was in a stranglehold and couldn’t speak the damned words. And I could barely hold on, much less help him out. And then the little boat got even more crowded when the triple-damned Pythia shifted in next to me with a snarl.
That would have been bad—really bad—if our craft hadn’t suddenly sped into darkness again. And not because we’d passed under another bridge. It fell all around us, like night arriving in a moment, all but blinding after the glare. And then just as abruptly we hit something.
Hard.
We were thrown into the high front of the boat, all of us landing in a wad of thrashing limbs and screaming faces. And then we bounced off the prow and fell out the nonexistent back, because our craft was suddenly not budging. I realized why a second later, when my butt hit something hard and ice-cold.
Which was a good description since it was, in fact, ice.
More was spread out all around us, and had frozen the boat in place, which explained why we weren’t moving.
I stared around at dim moonlight reflecting off a long ribbon of solid canal and felt dizzy and confused. First we’d been in a sleet storm, then in a sunny spring day, and now where were we? If we’d somehow escaped the other Pythia’s time portal, or whatever the heck that had been, shouldn’t we be back where we started? But there was no driving rain, no sleet, no boiling dark clouds to be seen. Just a quiet midnight scene, an icy canal, and a stooped figure on a bridge overhead, silhouetted against a harvest moon.
It was a tiny woman with a black cloak billowing in the breeze. And a wispy bun of white hair. And a pissed-off expression.
Rosier and Pritkin were wrestling over to the side, thrashing around in a way that threatened to break through the ice. I desperately wanted to go and help, but I didn’t. Because the patch of sunlight had stopped just behind us, as if it was afraid to come any closer.
Like my counterpart of the dripping cherries, who wasn’t looking so confident, suddenly.
“Lydia,” Cherries said nervously. “I—I can explain.”
“What?” The old woman scowled at her.
“It’s me, Gertie.” It was louder this time.
“What?”
“Ger—oh, for goodness’ sake. Your horn.”
“Speak up, why can’t you?”
“Your horn! Put in your
horn
!”
“Give me a moment,” the old woman said querulously. “I’ve got to put in me horn.”
She pulled an old black ear horn out from under her cloak and held it to the side of her head. “What?” she demanded again.
“It’s me,” the other Pythia repeated, loud and slow. “Gertie. And I know we’re out of place—”
“Demmed right, ye’re out of place!”
“Yes, I know. But—”
“Always breaking the rules, you were. And now ye’re consorting with the likes of him!”
“Consort . . .” Gertie puffed up. “I am doing no such thing—”
“Knew I should have trained your sister,” the old woman muttered.
“I’m trying to get him back where he belongs!”
“Oh, I’ll get ye back,” the old woman said ominously.
“No! No, Lydia, you must listen—”
But listening didn’t appear to be Lydia’s strong suit. And a second later, there was no more Gertie. Who, I assumed, had just been sent packing to the 1880s.
By her 1794 counterpart.
It was getting crowded with Pythias around here, I thought blankly, as the old woman turned her attention on me. I smiled weakly. And then I shifted to the boys, not even waiting to get a good grip on them before shifting us all through the rapidly closing time portal behind us.
To my surprise, it worked. We landed in daylight, which was good. And in the middle of a canal that was no longer solid, which was bad. But that was still okay.
Until my damned useless partner sank like a stone.
I dove after him, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him back to the surface, where he flailed and spluttered and tried to drown me.
“I thought your kind were supposed to float!” I said, smacking him upside the head.
“That’s . . . witches,” he gasped, but calmed down slightly.
Until we looked around for Pritkin. And almost got run over by a canal boat full of tourists, instead. A Japanese guy in an “I got high in Amsterdam” T-shirt hung over the open side of the boat, snapping pictures of the waterlogged crazies, while Rosier cussed and flailed and swore and sank. And I stared around in confusion at a few hundred bicycles, a bunch of tiny cars, and no Pritkin, cursed or otherwise.
And all right, then, I thought, letting the water close over my own head.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.
For a number of strange-but-they-make-sense-in-context-I-swear reasons, home base for me is a penthouse in a Las Vegas hotel. It’s usually pretty crowded, which is why I don’t just shift inside anymore. I have enough problems without appearing in the middle of one of the vampire bodyguards who live with me and who already have a tendency to scream at odd moments. So I’ve learned to show up in the marble-floored foyer, which is usually pretty deserted, instead.
Usually, but not today.
I hit the ground from a good five feet up, because I’d forgotten I was swimming, in a rain of dirty canal water and a hail of tiny silver fish. And a soggy demon lord who almost fell on my head. And then a vampire screamed and pointed a gun at me.
A second later, he screamed again and pointed it at the floor. I thought that was a bit excessive until I blinked brackish water out of my eyes and realized that it wasn’t the vamp who was screaming. It was the wards.
The spells that protect the suite must have been recalibrated to hate-demon mode while I’d been gone, which, considering some of the stuff that had happened lately, wasn’t real surprising. But it was annoying. Like earsplittingly annoying.
The caterwaul went on and on as I coughed up half the contents of the canal and tried to remember how to breathe. Which left me a little too busy to understand what the vamp was saying, much less try to answer back. I settled for sprawling there and gasping at him instead.
Rosier was less reticent, but luckily, the wards drowned him out, too. Even when he was pounced on by five large guards who tore out of the suite and proceeded to pummel the problem. I watched them for a moment, and then I scooped something I really hoped was seaweed out of my cleavage and started trying to get up.
It didn’t go so great.
I felt like one of the tiny fish: beaten up, exhausted, and gasping for breath I still wasn’t getting because of the damned corset that came with my outfit. I was also wearing about fifty pounds of waterlogged wool, half of which had managed to wrap itself around my legs, leaving me about as mobile as a beached seal. But I managed to get to my hands and knees anyway, and did an inchworm impression in the general direction of the front door.
Which opened the same moment I reached it, to show me a pair of overlarge Cerutti loafers.
They were black and had a nice gloss to the leather. That was good. Because suede wouldn’t have handled the miniature tide that rolled over them nearly as well.
I looked up to see their owner mouthing some not-so-gentlemanly words and glaring at me. And then at the ruckus over my head. And then back at me again as I pointed and gesticulated and tried to convey over the din that I didn’t actually want Rosier beaten up.
You know,
that
badly.
And then I found myself being lifted by two ham-sized hands, which brought me face-to-face with my chief bodyguard, a swarthy giant named Marco.
It also left my feet dangling off the floor, because I am five foot four and Marco is not. But I didn’t worry about giving him back strain. He could hold me there all day if he wanted, soggy wool and all. The ferocious package nature had provided had been upgraded centuries ago with a pair of fangs he didn’t need, because who was going to jump Lou Ferrigno’s big brother?
Unfortunately, I managed to strain him in other ways, like at the moment, judging by the frown that creased his forehead. And by the way he tucked me under one massive arm after a final glance at the chaos. And by how he carted me inside like a soggy sack of potatoes.
“I can walk,” I protested breathlessly as the wards abruptly cut out. The combo of corset and Marco’s idea of a gentle grip had left me with maybe half an inch of inflatable lung room.
Marco didn’t answer. That was bad, since informing me of my various failings is Marco’s favorite way of releasing tension. It was when he got quiet that you had to worry, so I was.
And that was before I was lugged through a living room filled to the brim with strangers.
Female strangers. All of whom looked like they were attending a Victorian-era tea party. Some appeared to be as young as two or three, others maybe ten years older, although it was hard to tell with the bows in their hair and the old-fashioned, infantilizing outfits they had on and—
And crap.
No wonder Marco wasn’t happy.
“What are you doing?” One of the girls demanded, jumping off the sofa and hurrying up. “What is happening?”
She was a cute brunette, probably the oldest of the lot, and her name was Rhea. She was a member of my court, like the rest of them, although not one of the ones who wanted me dead. At least I didn’t think so, although her expression was pretty fierce.
But then, she wasn’t looking at me.
“Your mistress is back,” Marco told her grimly.
“What are you doing with her?” she demanded. “Is she injured?”
“Not yet.”
Judging by Rhea’s expression, she didn’t like that answer. It was almost funny, since people did not scowl at six-foot-five vampires with vicious tempers. Sane people, anyway. But Rhea had proven to have weird ideas about who was scary, and she actually seemed more intimidated by me than by my suite full of fanged monsters.
“Put her down!” she demanded, not that it did any good.
Marco just continued wading through the sea of girls, all of whom were now staring at me, some with their mouths hanging open.
So much for making a good first impression.
Not that it mattered. Next to my predecessor, the perfect and all-knowing Agnes, I already looked . . . well, I mostly tried not to think about how I looked. I sighed and let my head droop onto Marco’s brawny forearm.
Might as well get the lack-of-dignity thing out of the way early.
But Rhea didn’t seem to think so. She followed us across the living room, through the lounge, and into the hall that led to the bedrooms. Which was harder to navigate than usual because it was piled high with folded cots. And then she kept on following us into my room, which had pallets all over the floor and pillows and blankets slopped around because, yeah.
My court needed somewhere to sleep, didn’t they?
It was one of those things I probably should have thought about before running off with Rosier. But then, I hadn’t expected to be saddled with a troupe of young girls I’d never met and didn’t know what to do with. And time had been of the essence.
And thanks to his utter, utter ineptitude, it still was.
“About . . . the guy . . . I came in with?” I said breathlessly, catching myself at the last moment.
I didn’t get an acknowledgement. I did get tossed onto the bed, though, instead of dropped on the floor, so I supposed that was something. I landed facedown on a nice brocade bedspread that was going to need changing after this, groaned, and flopped over. And watched as a pissed-off vampire tried to figure out how to remove my boots.
Considering that it had taken me fifteen minutes to get the damned things on in the first place, and that was before the laces got waterlogged, I didn’t give much for his chances. But I should have known better. Marco had skills. And a sharp pocketknife, which I guessed was okay since it wasn’t like I was going back to the 1880s again anyway.
“I need him. Alive,” I clarified, because around here, you never knew.
Marco still didn’t say anything.
I glanced at Rhea. She was standing at the ready, looking as if she was contemplating beaning an ancient vampire over the head with something, and wasn’t that all I needed? “Can you give us a minute?” I asked.
She curtsied and bit her lip. But she didn’t go anywhere. One of my boots did, though, squelching off and releasing a small tide of filthy water onto the carpet.
“It’s okay,” I told her as Marco tackled the other one. “He’s . . . We need to have a chat.”
“No, we needed to have a chat
yesterday
,” Marco said, his voice low and venomous.
“We need to have an argument,” I corrected. “Profanity may be used.”
“I don’t care,” Rhea said staunchly, glaring at him. “I need . . . that is, I would like to request an audience.”
“With who?”
She looked at me.
“Oh. Right.” I wasn’t used to being referred to like some kind of royalty. And didn’t plan to get used to it, either. But that could wait. “In a little while.”
Rhea curtsied again, and then just continued to stand there.
“He isn’t going to hurt me,” I assured her, and she finally left, still shooting Marco evil looks. And a second later the other boot came off.
The rug promptly went from filthy to unsalvageable, but I didn’t care. I lay back against the bed with something between a sigh and a groan and wriggled my poor toes in relief. Along with his other failings, Rosier had gotten my boots two sizes too small.
“Oh God, that feels good,” I said fervently.
The door slammed shut.
Uh-oh.
I didn’t bother getting up. Experience had shown that I could be yelled at lying down just as easily. Of course, I didn’t need to get up, I thought sleepily. I needed to get
back
. But even assuming that Pritkin’s soul hadn’t already flitted off somewhere, that the various Pythias had dispersed, and that we could get close enough to lay the spell without getting hexed, it still wouldn’t do any good.
Because I was pooped.
And a jump of more than two centuries was tough enough even when I wasn’t.
Marco’s handsome, if alarmingly large, face appeared in the space over mine. “If you fall asleep on me, I may trash the room,” he warned.
“Too late.”
And look, it seemed like I could sit up, after all, I thought, as I was jerked back to the perpendicular. I would have protested, but Marco was busy relieving me of some of the god-awful wool, so I didn’t. “I don’t suppose this could wait?” I asked as he stripped off the high-necked jacket.
“You know, that’s funny,” he told me, slinging it across the room, where it squelched wetly against the wall. “That’s what I said to myself, just this morning. ‘She’s sleeping. Let the kid get some rest. There’s plenty of time to find out what the hell happened last night!’”
“Last night?” I was fuzzy on last night. Maybe because, for me, it had been several nights ago. Or days. Or . . .
Time travel was hard.
“I can take my own skirt off,” I told him, although not for modesty’s sake. Being undressed by Marco was akin to being stripped by a rabid wolverine.
Might as well have saved my breath. But at least I had on four layers of petticoats, or crinolines or whatever the right term was, under there. Hell, I could outfit a whole house.
Which might be just as well, since I didn’t see any luggage.
“Where’d you put the girls’ stuff?” I asked, after Marco rolled me out of the skirt and almost off the bed.
“They didn’t have any.”
“They didn’t have—”
“They said,” he told me viciously, “that it was blown up!”
Oh, right.
That
last night.
“Um. Well, see—”
“No,” he said, crouching down beside the bed, getting on my level.
“No?”
“No.” Dark brown eyes stared humorlessly into mine. “No lies. Not this time.”
“I don’t lie.”
“Or evasions. Or tricky answers. I swear you’re as bad as the master.”
Considering who his master was, I decided to take that as a compliment. “Thank you?”
“Damn it, Cassie! I want to know what the
hell
is going on.”
“Yes, well—”
“And when I want to know, is now!”
I licked my lips.
It wasn’t that I liked keeping things from Marco. He was actually a very good bodyguard. Or he would have been for anybody else. I sometimes felt pretty bad for him, since he was the type who liked to think he was on top of things, that he had everything under control, that the world was sane and all was in its proper place.
Boy, had he gotten the wrong job.
But even if I’d been willing to spill secrets that weren’t really mine, the fact was that Marco
didn’t
want to know what was going on.
He didn’t want to know that the reason he had a living room full of Pythian initiates was because a handful of their number had just tried to kill them by blowing up the old Pythian Court. Not because they hated them, but in order to set a trap for me. One that had almost worked.
He didn’t want to know that the acolytes responsible were still out there somewhere. Or that the abilities they’d received from the old Pythia before she died had never been rescinded. Meaning that they could technically pop in here at any moment.
I didn’t actually think they would. I was a lot more vulnerable elsewhere, and it was me they were after. But still. I didn’t think Marco wanted to know that all the wards, guns, and vampire skills in the world might not be enough to deal with those girls’ power if they decided to risk it.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I’m thinking.”
“Damn it, Cassie!”
“Can you help . . . with this thing?” I asked, gesturing at the corset, which was the kind that laced up the back.
I wasn’t stalling for time; I really was having trouble breathing. All that water had tautened the strings, as Marco found out when he flipped me over and tried to loosen them.
He muttered something and pulled out the knife again. “I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know where you are!” he told me, hacking away. “Or who you’re with. Or what the
hell
you’ve been up to!”
“Exactly,” I muttered into the mattress.
Marco also didn’t want to know that I’d been hanging out with Satan’s good buddy, only no. Satan, assuming he existed, probably had better taste. So did I, but I was stuck, at least for the moment.
And damn it, we’d been so
close
!
“You’re not going to tell me a damned thing, are you?” Marco asked, flipping me over again.
The corset was in shreds, allowing me to take my first deep breath in what felt like days. For a moment, I just lay there, exploring the wonder that was oxygen. And staring up at Marco, who, despite current appearances, was a good person and a good friend. He deserved better than the insanity that was my life these days.