Reap the Wind (39 page)

I didn’t need to bind another soul. I
was
the soul. And, according to Dad anyway, I was also the necromancer.

So why wasn’t this thing working?

“Cass—”

“I said give me a minute.”

“I don’t think we have a minute,” Billy said, rolling my eyes toward the door, where a couple more mages had just come in.

Damn.

I started thrashing around, trying to force the issue, and managed only to flip myself over. And apparently this thing was heavier on the front or something, because I couldn’t seem to get upright. Which left me crabbing about on the floor, half crushing my own prone body and vulnerable as hell.

“Cass—”

“I’m trying!”

“Cass!”

“Damn it, Billy!”

And then something abruptly snapped.

Namely, my left leg into the same leg of the golem. And then my right arm into its arm. And then the rest of my body, which a minute ago had been trying its best to float up out of this thing, was now comfy cozy. And what the hell?

The only difference I could see was that my necklace had become partly imbedded in the clay thanks to my gyrations on the floor. Only it wasn’t just a necklace, was it? It was a
talisman.
Like the control crystals the golems had but mine hadn’t, because it had shattered and broken when the demon left.

I was so proud of myself for figuring this out that I forgot there were two dark mages headed my way, until I saw the utter panic on my own half-frozen face.

Shit.

I grabbed the necklace off my body and shoved it harder into the clay. And then tried to draw my wayward left leg, which was still trying to do its own thing, back inside my smelly suit. And felt it click back into place.

And this time, it moved under my command, although my coordination left something to be desired. But I managed to get my new big feet under me anyway, and stood up. And found the body to be amazingly light, no heavier feeling than mine, maybe even less so.

Maybe clay was a decent choice, after all.

“What happened?” one of the mages demanded, advancing with his hand on a holster.

“Nothing,” I said as my leg tried to poke out the side again. “Don’t—don’t come any closer.”

“Why not?”

“Uh, it’s a trap,” I said, feeling around inside the golem’s leg with my wayward one, which didn’t seem to fit. Maybe because the golem was something like seven feet tall and I wasn’t. But no, no, no, you’re a
soul
, I reminded myself. You don’t have a size anymore.

But my brain didn’t believe it, and my brain kept insisting that I didn’t fit. And the second mage had now joined the first. And both were looking at me suspiciously as I juddered around, doing the golem equivalent of the hokey pokey.

“What kind of trap?” the second mage demanded, from beside his buddy.

“That kind,” I said, and knocked their heads together.

It felt like I’d barely touched them, but their skulls sounded like melons hitting pavement, and they went down in a heap. I swallowed, feeling sick, but then my head jerked up at the sound of fighting coming from the main hall.

And damn it, Armageddon had just broken out, and I had to
go.

There was no doubt at all that another me and a trio of dangerous witches were now in the house, and would soon be thundering through the second-floor hallway somewhere over our heads. And a moment after that, they would be gone, when the girls escaped and the past version of me disappeared. And a moment after
that
, the house was set to blow up.

I grabbed Billy and ran.

I stumbled into the stairwell and over the mage’s body, up the stairs and around a bend. And damn, this thing didn’t corner well! But it was fast, like, faster than I was, if you didn’t mind hitting the wall a couple dozen times on the way. And right now, I didn’t, despite the fact that my lolling body was starting to look a little worse for the wear by the time we burst out into the hall.

And straight into a bunch of mages tearing out of Agnes’ old rooms, weapons at the ready.

Because, of course—they’d heard the commotion, too, hadn’t they?

For a second, everything stopped. I looked at them and they looked at me, and nobody said anything. I would have swallowed, but I couldn’t currently do that, or frozen in fear, but that hadn’t been working so well lately, either. So after a moment, I just straightened my massive shoulders.

And walked right through the middle of them.

Because we were on the same side now, weren’t we?

It might not have worked under other conditions. But with the chaos from downstairs as a backdrop, they didn’t stop to question me. They took off again, flooding by on either side, heading for the fight. Forcing me to wade through a leather tide to reach the door of the suite again, only to stop and stare.

At the last thing I’d have ever expected.

My time spell was gone, along with maybe half the mages. The rest were clustered over by the safe, where one of their number was hard at work on the wards. Rico was by the sofa, frozen, with a hand raised and a snarl on his features. Fred was still missing.

And Rhea, little Miss Meek Voice, little Miss Whatever-You-Say-Lady, little Miss We-Wear-Grandma’s-Nightgown-and-We-Like-It, was standing in the middle of the room, wand out and leveled on the redhead. And
screaming
, “Did you
know
?”

“Oh, look,” the acolyte said. “The coven witch is going to curse us.”

“Did. You. Know?”

“About dear, departed Agnes? Of course we knew. The power ages Pythias fast, but not fast enough. If we hadn’t acted, she might have lived another twenty years or—oh,” she said, smiling gently. “You
are
going to curse me, aren’t you? Well, go ahead. Show us the power of the covens, witch. If you can break through
my
shields, I deserve to—”

She may have kept talking; I couldn’t tell. Because the French windows behind Rhea abruptly slammed open, and a gust of rain and wind swirled in, powerful enough to rip one of the curtains down. A lamp teetered on a table, one of the last standing, and then fell, shattering into a thousand pieces against the floor. And a great flash of lightning flew through the open doors and hit the raised wand, splitting into a triple strand that targeted all three acolytes at once.

And blew the redhead off her feet and back through the damned
wall.

I just stood there for a second, smelling ozone and seeing afterimages. And then three things happened at once: the mages targeted Rhea, I jumped in front of her with my broad orange back, and the brunette acolyte snarled and jumped back to her feet.

And was backhanded by a suddenly animated Rico.

Because nobody plays dead—or frozen—like a vampire.

“Get the safe!” I told him, in my scary demon voice. Which did not have the intended effect, because he turned his attention from the acolyte to me, probably because I was clutching my own apparently lifeless body.

But then I got help from an unexpected source.

“The golem,” the blonde screamed. “She’s in the golem!”

She hadn’t even gotten all the words out when what felt like a dozen spells slammed into me, all at once. They didn’t hurt, and they didn’t seem to work as intended, I guess being designed for flesh and bone instead of enchanted clay. But they rocked me and slowed me, and when I tried to move again, a big crack appeared in the huge expanse of my thigh.

“The safe! Get the
safe
—” I shouted as Rhea threw another spell from behind me, blasting several mages off their feet and causing several more to abruptly shield, because nobody was laughing at coven magic now.

But several more got off spells that caused my damned left leg to go dead, and sent me lurching into Rhea. And caused her last spell to go askew and hit the chandelier, exploding it into a thousand glittering shards. And then kept going, running around the room, popping recessed lights, and raining down glass and electric sparks. Followed by a veil of darkness that didn’t bother my golem eyes much but seemed to seriously freak out the mages.

Because, suddenly, spells were flying everywhere.

“The safe! The safe!” I kept repeating, I don’t know why. Probably because I was a little freaked-out, too, having the unique experience of being taken apart piece by piece while Rhea threw spell after spell and Billy cursed and Rico—

I didn’t know what the hell Rico was doing.

I was facing the other way, trying to shield my body and Rhea’s, too, and couldn’t see him. Until my big orange head got blown off my big orange shoulders and went rolling, and the eyes ended up facing the metal box that was still in the wall, although not for long. Because the next second, Rico threw aside the mage who was still working on the safe and plunged his arm
through the ward
. And through the front of the thick metal door.

And then jerked the safe out of the damned wall.

“Go!”
he yelled, lurching toward us, but I was already going. Surging back into my own form, I got hit with the disorientation of a body swap, a rush of pain from a dozen new bumps and bruises, and blindness from the almost utter dark that my human eyes couldn’t handle. And a body that still wasn’t enthusiastic about following my commands.

But that was too bad, because we were out of time—in more ways than one.

“Go! Go! Go!” the blonde was yelling, while clutching the redhead’s unconscious form. “Get out of here!”

“What?” the brunette staggered up, looking a little disoriented.

I assumed she’d had a shield up, or she’d have been looking a little dead, because Rico hadn’t pulled his punch. But the fog seemed to clear up pretty well when the blonde screamed, “It’s time!” and disappeared.

“Time for what?” one of the mages asked as the brunette winked out.

I kind of thought I knew. I grabbed Rhea and Rico, ripped Billy’s necklace out of the golem’s chest, and pulled my power around me. It didn’t want to come; it really, really didn’t. But if that damned brunette could shift while still half unconscious, so could I. So could I if it
killed me
, because it was going to kill me if I didn’t—

Like right now.

I had a half second to feel something massive shake the house, to hear an explosion that deafened me the rest of the way, to see light flashes going off in front of my eyes.

And then something grabbed me. Not the gentle, familiar lift and swoop, but like a fist closing around my body, around all our bodies. And not shifting so much as
flinging
us out of space and into time.

And we were gone.

•   •   •

“Rico,” I breathed.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” I stared at his arm, or what had been an arm. It was now . . . God, I didn’t even know. I’d gone to the first aid cabinet as soon as we got back, intending to dress it for him, but he hadn’t wanted to let me. He hadn’t even wanted to let me
see
it. And now I knew why. It looked like nothing more than a piece of charcoal from above his elbow to . . . to what had been his hand. His beautiful, perfect, long-fingered—

The other hand tilted up my chin, and his face swam in front of my eyes. “It will heal.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.

“It will heal within a day,” he told me quietly. “Two at the most. It is no different from you getting a paper cut.”

And, okay, that stopped the waterworks, because that was
bullshit
. Just because someone healed faster didn’t mean they didn’t feel the pain to begin with. Didn’t mean they couldn’t be hurt. Didn’t mean—

I looked back down at the arm, which he’d just covered with the sleeve of his leather jacket. He was hurt; he was hurt because of me. Because I hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t planned well enough. And I
hated
it.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to go anywhere, ever again. I wanted to do what everyone was always telling me: stay home, study up on my powers, stay safe. And make sure everyone around me stayed the same damn way.

I wanted to lock all the guys in the suite and never let them out. Because I’d once thought that nothing could hurt a master vampire, that they were like fleshy tanks, indestructible and immortal. And I’d liked that thought. I’d lost too many people in my life to ever want it to happen again, and surrounding myself with indestructible people had felt very reassuring.

It was less so now.

Because they weren’t indestructible. They could be hurt; they could even die. And suddenly, nothing felt safe anymore.

“I shouldn’t have taken you with me,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have taken anyone with me.”

“Then you did not believe what you said to Marco?”

“What?”

“That we are all in this together. That ‘vampire,’ or ‘mage,’ or ‘Pythia’ are not words that matter anymore.”

“Of course I meant it—”

“Then you believe you are the only one with the right to risk, to fight?”

“No, but—”

“And that the rest of us should be content to just sit about, waiting for those
putanas
to bring back a god? I, for one, would rather go down fighting—or to take them down instead.” He grinned suddenly. “And I wouldn’t have missed you slamming into the room as an eight-foot golem for anything.”

“Seven-foot.”

“It was at least eight, possibly nine. When you started barking orders in that demon voice, I think a few of the mages wet themselves.”

“They did not!”

“Well, that is the story I am going to tell,” Rico informed me. “Are you going to contradict me?”

I let my head rest against his chest for a moment, because it was warm and solid and alive, and I hadn’t managed to get him killed. My fist clenched in his jacket. “No.”

“Good. My drinks should be covered for at least a month.”

I didn’t answer. I also didn’t move. I couldn’t without letting him see my face, and I didn’t want him to see my face. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I used to be able to hide my feelings better than this. I used to not
have
so many feelings, not nearly so many, or maybe I just hadn’t had so many people to have them about. And it had been better that way. It had been . . .

I made a sound and tried to pull away, but a hard hand caught me. “You are Pythia,” Rico told me, dark eyes liquid. “Someday, people will die for you.”

“I don’t want people to die for me!”

“And that is why they will do it.”

I stared up at him, wondering if all Mircea’s masters were mind readers. And not even caring right now. Because everything I felt was probably on my face anyway.

“Okay, this is getting heavy,” Fred said, sticking his head in the kitchen, and looking back and forth between the two of us. “Come on out if you want to see the big reveal.”

They had put the safe in the lounge, on a big cleared spot on the floor near the pool table. Or what
had been
a big cleared spot, since it was now almost covered with people. Everybody was in there: the kids, the vamps, and Marco . . .

Who gave me an inscrutable look as we came in.

I found a spot on the carpet and settled down, because this might be a while.

It would have been easier if we didn’t have to worry about the integrity of a small glass object, or if the mechanism hadn’t gotten screwed up when Rico punched a fist through it, or if the safe hadn’t been quite so high-end. But it was what it was, so I waited. And chewed my lower lip. And watched as a blond vampire nicknamed Teddy, “’cause I’m so cuddly,” worked on the safe.

I wished to God he’d speed up, and then a second later I was wishing he’d slow down. Because right now, it was like Schrödinger’s potion bottle, both there and not there. But once that safe was opened . . .

I felt my palms start to sweat.

“It’s like a whacked-out Christmas morning,” Billy said, oblivious.

Several of the girls nodded, apparently agreeing with him, and a little one even reached out to touch him, giggling.

“What’s so funny?” he asked her.

“Hat,” she told him, looking at his Stetson.

“This hat?” He took it off and put it on her head. It didn’t exactly fit, floating a few inches above her dark curls. But she seemed happy.

“I’m gonna want that back,” he warned her.

She laughed.

“Hey, that’s like giving away your right knee when you’re a ghost! It’s all me.”

She laughed some more.

“This is going to take some getting used to,” he informed me, staring around. And apparently being weirded out by the fact that half the eyes he met were staring back. “Make that a
lot
of getting used to.”

Yeah, I thought, scanning the crowd of little faces. And suddenly feeling panicked. Because they were my responsibility now, too, all of them.

And how the hell did
that
happen?

“Remember that Geraldo thing?” Fred asked me suddenly. “With Al Capone’s safe?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re too young. Well, back in the . . . eighties, maybe? Geraldo did this big special where he was gonna open one of Capone’s safes live on TV.”

I wiped sweaty palms on my jeans. “And did he?”

“Oh yeah. In a big way, too. I mean, they promoted that thing for
weeks
.” He beamed at me.

“So?”

“So . . . what?”

“So what was in the safe?”

“Oh, well, that’s the thing. It was, like, this forty-hour special or something—at least it felt that way. It just went on and on and on. I mean, I think they interviewed anybody who had ever even looked at a
picture
of Capone. And they did all these reenactments. And they had all these talking heads come on to speculate about what kind of stuff might be in the safe. I guess they were just stretching it out for more commercial time, but I thought I was going to go crazy.”