Reap the Wind (34 page)

Heads rolled everywhere, rivers of blood spurted, and a tiny figure of a man leapt for the thrashing body before it could regrow anything it had lost. I didn’t see what he used for a knife—maybe another piece of shell. But whatever it was, it worked, piercing deep and sending the thing rolling onto its back, writhing in a spreading stain while the crowd went wild and Casanova stabbed it, over and over like a madman, until he was coated with as much black gore as the sand.

And the consul was yelling—yes, yelling—dignity forgotten, hair in her face, as jubilant as the crowd. Marlowe was staring, from Casanova to her to Adra and back again, his face blank but his eyes burning. And Mircea’s arm was tightening, dragging me back into the other room.

Immediately, the deafening sounds from the arena dimmed, leaving me with ringing ears and pulsing vision as my eyes tried to adjust to the darker interior. “What are you doing?” I asked as Mircea kept on going, past the buffet table and almost to the elevator doors on the other side of the room.

“Strange, I was about to ask the same of you!”

“You saw—”

“Yes, I saw!” He whirled on me, dark eyes glittering. “I saw you risk your life—again—needlessly, foolishly! I am beginning to believe—”

“It was necessary!”

“—that you have some sort of death wish! What were you
thinking
?”

“I was thinking that he needed help! I was thinking that someone asked me—”

“Then you tell them no!”

“He was my
responsibility
—”

“Your responsibility is there!” It was vicious and punctuated by a slash of his arm in the general direction of the buffet.

Where I belatedly noticed Jules standing awkwardly, holding a champagne glass and trying to look like he wasn’t there. It was a little difficult, because he and a no-longer-suspended Marco were the only ones left in the room. Everybody else had cleared out, all the finely dressed men and women now picking their way through the debris outside to clap politely for the victor.

While in here, another battle was brewing, and it wasn’t one I was prepared for.

I had just woken up. I was still in the pink cotton nightie I’d slept in, my hair was everywhere, and my stomach was growling, demanding breakfast. I did not want to do this.

But Mircea obviously did, and he was standing there, visibly angry, which for a master vamp usually meant he was close to wrecking the
room
. I didn’t even want to know what it meant for the Senate’s chief negotiator, who usually kept his cool even when everyone else was on meltdown. I didn’t want to know.

But I was about to, because I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted.

“I can’t change Jules back,” I began.

“And why not?” It was clipped. “I explained the procedure. All you have to do is age him. I will handle the rest.”

“Okay, ‘can’t’ might not have been the best choice of word—”

“Then do it. We are running out of time.”

“Out of time for what?” I glanced over, but Jules was apparently finding his champagne glass to be fascinating. “Is Jules going somewhere?”

“Our army is going somewhere—into faerie!”

I frowned. “I’m not making you an army, Mircea. I told you that last night.”

“And you have now had time to reconsider.”

“I’m not going to reconsider.”

“Damn it, Cassie!” The explosion made me jump, because Mircea didn’t speak like that. Not to anyone, and especially not to me. But then, he didn’t usually look like that, either. The playful, daring, humorous lover was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was facing a man who was visibly stressed and angry, like he’d had too little sleep and too much pressure, way too much, maybe over a long period of time. And what the hell had happened last night?

“This is for your good as much as ours,” he told me tightly. “How many times have our enemies tried to kill you? How many assassins have they sent? How many times do you think you are going to get lucky—”

“Why is it,” I cut in, getting a little angry myself, “that when someone else dodges a bullet, it’s down to skill, but whenever I do it, I’m ‘lucky’? I killed a Spartoi; I don’t get credit for that? I just took on that . . . that thing . . . out there and what? It was just its time to
go
?”

“You have power, yes, something that can help us greatly in this war if it is properly utilized—”

“By you, you mean. Funny, Jonas seems to think the same thing.”

“—but that is useless if misdirected—”

“Misdirected?”

“—and no matter how great the weapon, it must be—”

“I’m not a weapon, Mircea!”

“I am well aware of that—”

“Are you? Because I’m starting to feel like everyone thinks I’m just a gun for them to fire. But I’m not. My power is not. It came to me because I’m best able to use it—or to decide when not to,” I said pointedly, looking at Jules.

“Jules wants this.”

“Last night he didn’t know what he wanted.”

“He does now!”

“Do you?” I asked Jules, because some input here would be nice.

Annnnd now he was perusing the prosciutto stand, and trying to tease a paper-thin slice off with a little fork.

“Jules!” I said, and saw him jump.

“I—didn’t have lunch,” he said awkwardly.

“Have you decided?” I asked again. “Because Mircea seems to think you have.”

“I . . . well . . . that is . . .” He looked at Mircea.

“Don’t look at him! This is about your life.”

“My life.” Jules gave a burst of laughter, and then quickly shut it down.

“You can laugh if you want to,” I told him. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have a master anymore—”

“I know!” He flung out a hand, and an arc of champagne went with it. And then he looked down at his empty glass and grimaced. “I
know
, all right?”

“Then what do you want to do?” I asked again. And got a half-angry, half-helpless stare in return. “Jules, you were a master. You’ve been able to make up your own mind about things for a long time—”

“Yes, but this isn’t about
things
, is it?” he asked. “This is about
everything
. My whole future. My whole—I thought things were set. I thought—” He looked helplessly at Mircea. “It’s not . . . I appreciate, so much, all you’ve—I’d be dead without—I was going to do it, I was going to jump, and you saved me—”

“And I will again,” Mircea told him.

“Yes, but . . .” That helpless look was back, screwing up his face and fluttering the hand not holding on to his glass. Jules had always had such expressive hands, an actor’s hands. And now this one was all over the place, painting stories in the air I couldn’t read, but I guess he could, because his eyes were suddenly distant. “I never figured it out, you know,” he finally said. “Life. I just . . . never had the knack. Other people seemed to get it—they married, had kids, seemed to understand, to
fit
, in ways I never did. . . .” He trailed off.

“But then you became a vampire,” I prompted, because I wanted him to get to the point already.

And it seemed to help, because he nodded vigorously. “That’s just it. I was a lousy human. I wasn’t even that great of an actor, to be honest, and that was the closest . . . I thought it would be different, after. I thought, maybe this is it, maybe the reason I didn’t fit in as a human was because I was never supposed to be one. Maybe this is what I was meant for. . . . But I wasn’t. I was a lousy vampire, too!”

“You were a
master
,” Mircea said. “You know how few—”

“Yes, I know!” Jules said, cutting him off. And then looked stricken because you didn’t interrupt your master in the vamp world. You just didn’t. “You see?” he said, voice almost a whisper. “That’s me, right there. That’s why you sent me to Cassie. That’s why you sent me away.”

“I didn’t send you away,” Mircea said heavily. “I sent you where you could be best utilized. You are—were—powerful but not subtle. But Cassie needs defenders, not diplomats—”

“But I didn’t defend her, did I?” Jules interrupted again, unconsciously, and I bit back a smile. He really was almost completely tactless, which must have really sucked in a household renowned for its charm and diplomacy. “I tried, I really did, but she ended up having to defend me!”

He looked at me. “You asked what I want. How am I supposed to know? Maybe I’d be better off as a human again. Maybe a childhood not knowing when you’re going to eat next, or if you are, of being traded to whoever has a few dollars to rent your pretty face for a night, of being told you’re good for nothing when it was your work supporting the whole damned lot of them—” He broke off, lips tight.

“Jules . . . I’m sorry,” I said.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“It was a long time ago,” he told me. “But I always wondered if maybe the start I had in life was what screwed it up for me. If maybe I’d had a different family, one who gave a damn . . . But you really can’t go back, can you? You can make me younger, but you can’t erase what happened—”

“I can,” Mircea said. “If that is what you want—”

“No, you can erase the
memory
of it. But then who would I be? From a screw-up to . . . a blank?”

Mircea made a frustrated sound, which was another measure of how not-himself he was today. “It is difficult to help you when you don’t seem to know what you want—”

“Yes!” Jules nodded. “Yes,
exactly
. Before I became a master, back when I was a baby vamp, I was told who I was supposed to be. I was given the right clothes to wear, the words to say, the jobs to do. And after, I was still expected to be that person, just . . .
better
at it somehow. It was like being in a play—put on the costume, say the words, try to stay in character . . . and I did. I did that. But I’ve been a character for so long now, I don’t know who I am when I’m out of it.” He looked at me and spread those expressive hands. “Cassie, you didn’t mean to, but you stripped off the costume, took it clean away. And now you want to know what I want?
How the hell should I know?
”

I looked at him, and I thought maybe I did finally get it. I got something else, too. “We may not know what you want, but we know what you don’t want.” I looked at Mircea. “He doesn’t want to make this choice today.”

“And I did not wish to lose eleven masters tonight!”

“What?”

“The raid. The one you saw us preparing for?”

I nodded.

“Twelve operatives went out; only one returned. And they had power, every single one. And skill. And centuries of experience you don’t have.
And they died nonetheless
.”

“But . . . what can kill twelve masters?” I asked in disbelief. Because the answer should have been nothing. Sending a senior master—a first – or second-level vampire—after a problem was to suddenly have no more problem. It was like sending a whole battalion. Losing eleven . . .

Nobody lost eleven.

“We don’t know,” he told me, running a hand through his hair. “As of right now, we have no idea. But it was a carefully coordinated attack that required intimate knowledge of us. There are very few people with that sort of information, very few who could have stage-managed a series of ambushes dangerous enough to kill first-level masters.”

“You think Tony and his group were behind it.”

“That is the current assumption. They certainly have the most cause. But whether it turns out to be accurate or not, until we root them out, they will keep coming. They’ve proven that much, at least. And Antonio—”

“Is a threat,” I agreed. “And you know I want him more than anyone. But I’m a little more worried about Ares right now—”

“Ares may never return if his supporters are taken out!”

“But Rhea didn’t see Tony returning to kill us all, did she?” I asked. “She saw Ares—”

“And you believe her? A girl you barely know?”

“—and so did my mother, and so did Jonas’ prophecies—”

“Prophecies, visions—give me tangible enemies to fight. I can’t fight air!”

And that was it, wasn’t it? Mircea really
didn’t
like feeling helpless, didn’t like being on the sidelines, didn’t like leaving his fate in someone else’s hands. But a god at full strength was too much, just too much for any of us, and he knew he couldn’t fight him.

So he was trying to take on those he could.

I understood that. But I also understood something else. That if I gave in to him on this, I’d be giving in on everything. Because how do you step back after giving someone an army? How do you turn him down when he knows you’ll cave, even on the big things, even on the huge things, because you already did?

If I gave Mircea what he wanted, it might help now, but it would hurt later. And it would hurt a lot. Not just because of all the extra master vampires suddenly running around, but because I would have just confirmed that I was nothing more than a weapon for him to fire, whenever he chose, at whatever he chose, and I couldn’t be that. I couldn’t
do
that.

Not and have any legitimacy left.

“I understand—” I began.

“Do you? Then
give me an army
.”

And, okay, I was getting pissed again, probably because that had sounded a lot like an order.

“I am not your servant, Mircea.”

“I am not treating you as one. I am pointing out the best course of action under the current—”

“You are treating me exactly like one. You aren’t asking me; you’re telling me—”

“I am telling you what we need to do to survive!”

“And I’m telling you that taking out Tony won’t solve the problem! Ares has other supporters—Agnes’ old acolytes, for example. I think they may be after the Tears of Apollo to shift him across the barrier—”

“The barrier that has stood for thousands of years? Your acolytes are likely after the Tears to avoid capture by you.”

I shook my head. “One of the Corpsmen overheard them talking. He said they are planning to bring back a god—”

“And what did Mage Marsden have to say to this, when you told him?”

“I didn’t tell him. Rhea did—”

“Then what was his response to her?”

“He didn’t appear too concerned.”

“And did this tell you anything?”

“Yes! It told me he doesn’t take me seriously. I had hoped for better from you!”

“I do take you seriously—”

“No, you take my
power
seriously. It’s not the same thing! If you respect me at all, give me—”

I stopped, because Mircea had just crossed his arms over his chest, an implacable piece of body language that he never used. His normal style was approachable, open, relaxed. There was a reason that, despite his being a powerful first-level master and a senator, people
talked
to Mircea, in ways they just didn’t to others of the same rank.

Only it didn’t look like he was too interested in talking right now.