* * *
“It was epic,” Rosier said, as they watched Cassie sitting in her living room, opening more gifts. John scowled. His father was incorporeal today, not having had time to replace the body he lost in the explosion. So John could barely see him, just a smudged outline against the gaudy wallpaper the casino deemed elegant. But he was looking smug.
“You mean you got lucky.”
Rosier looked offended. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I drained her during the whole chase back to the elevator, until her body bled out, and by then I was close enough to pop back into mine. And even Ealdris has some trouble leeching a soul through the protection of a body. It gave me the few seconds I needed to finish the job.” The smug look spread. “I was awesome.”
“You were lucky,” Pritkin repeated, not that it was likely to do any good. Nothing, to his knowledge, had ever dented his father’s overweening arrogance, and he doubted anything he could say was likely to do so now. And in any case, that wasn’t why he had asked to see him. “Are you going to tell me why you came after Cassie?”
“Oh, yes, that.” Rosier shrugged, as if it was a minor detail. “The high council had a meeting a few days ago. After some deliberations to which they did not bother to invite me, I was summoned. They informed me that we were in mortal peril, and that your precious pythia was the cause.”
“There have been pythias for thousands of years,” John said, his eyes narrowing.
“Not one allied with a homicidal half-demon best known for killing one of the high council,” Rosier said dryly. “They were convinced that you had seduced her with the intent to use her power against them.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Not at all. Your well-known hatred for our kind coupled with her ability to time shift—the one power we do not possess—makes the two of you a formidable threat. You possess enough information about us and our history to know exactly where and when to strike. With her power at your disposal—”
“It isn’t at my disposal, and it wouldn’t work in the demon realms if it were!”
Rosier shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not, but it is immaterial. It works perfectly well here on earth. If she wanted to attack us at a previous point in our history, all she would have to do is to shift backwards in her own time stream, and then enter our realms from there. That would effectively put her back in our time, too, would it not?”
John didn’t answer. His mind felt strangely numb. Like he’d been hit by a blow so hard, he had yet to feel it.
“I can’t say I was surprised,” Rosier continued, sounding aggrieved. “I saw this coming some time ago. If you’d stayed out of the way I could have dealt with it before it became an issue--”
“By killing her, you mean,” John grated.
“I will never understand the attraction you have for those things,” Rosier hissed, leaning forward. “Time after time, you choose their side over ours, when you know perfectly well they. Die. Anyway. A year from now, a hundred--what difference does it make?”
“A great deal to them, I should imagine.”
“And none at all to us! We will be here when they are dust, when their civilization—or what passes for it—is dust. Do you have any idea how many of their petty little kingdoms I’ve seen rise and fall?”
John couldn’t have cared less. “And how does the council feel now that this great threat saved their asses?”
Rosier scowled. “You mean, after I saved—”
“You wouldn’t have been on hand to do anything if Cassie hadn’t led you there!”
“She’s human. We do not consider their actions worth—”
“But I am not, as you so frequently point out. And she wouldn’t have led you there if she hadn’t been looking for me. So in a way, you could say that I saved their asses.”
Rosier’s eyes narrowed. “Do I need to ask what your price is?”
“I think you know.”
“It appears you did get something from me, after all,” he said bitingly. “Fine time to recall it.”
John smiled as his father abruptly winked out, and dropped the silence shield he’d had up. For the first time since this whole mess started, he allowed himself to unwind, relaxing back in his chair as Cassie finished opening her latest gift. And then sitting up abruptly again when he saw what it was.
“What is this?” she asked, pulling out a length of gleaming lavender scales, fine as silk and far more precious.
Marlowe, who had shown up a few minutes ago searching for answers he wasn’t going to get, raised an eyebrow. “Lamia scales,” he breathed. “Now that’s a bribe worth having.”
“Lamia?” Cassie said blankly, and then flinched back when it hit her, dropping the shimmering length in a puddle on the floor.
“There’s no card,” Marlowe said, frowning, as he searched through the box. His dark eyes met hers. “Who would send you a priceless gift and not claim credit?”
“It isn’t priceless,” Cassie said, in disgust. “It’s horrible.”
The chief spy’s eyebrow climbed a bit higher. “Most people wouldn’t think so. You might not either, one of these days.”
“I doubt that,” Cassie said, staring at it in revulsion. John was having much the same reaction, unsure whether this was his father’s idea of a gruesome joke or a peace offering. Knowing him, it was probably a bit of both.
“Lamia scales are supposed to be good for—how should I put it? Aging skin,” Marlowe told her.
“Aging?”
“Not that you have anything to worry about for many years to come,” he added reassuringly, because her eyes had narrowed.
But not at him. Pritkin didn’t understand the odd look she was suddenly giving the softly gleaming pile. Until a few days later, when he happened to be in the suite when Mircea burst in the front door.
The vampire was looking less than pleased, and he had the glimmering lavender length with him. He held it out, his hand shaking slightly. “Cassandra! What on earth did you send Ming-de?”
Wide blue eyes met his, guileless and sweet. “Why, just a thank you gift, Mircea.”
John turned away, hiding a smile. She was learning.
The End
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