Claimed by Shadow

  Deino kicked the blazing statues out of her way and crossed to me. A mage threw a fireball at her from the closest segment of the fight, and she turned it back on him with a rude gesture. She tapped Pritkin on the shoulder and, when he turned around, she decked him. From this close, I could see that those hollow folds of skin were not as empty as I’d thought. They held a dark, roiling mist that in no way looked like eyes, but somehow gave the impression of sight.

  “That must work really well in battle,” I said, awed. It would be hard to throw a spell when you couldn’t remember it, or even why you were fighting. Deino preened. “Will it wear off?”

  She shrugged noncommittally, gave me a kiss on the cheek and mumbled “Birt’ Day” in my ear before wandering off to join her sisters. The mages had shredded the zombies, whose twitching body parts littered the ground around the door, and were holding their own against the vamps. But I had a feeling that was about to change.

  I intended to follow Marlowe’s example, but Pritkin suddenly came back to life. I looked from his icy green eyes to the gun he’d retrieved. “There’s one advantage to my blood,” he hissed. “Mind games don’t work.”

  I decided not to bother trying to open a dialogue. I lashed out with my foot and caught him square on the knee. It probably wouldn’t have done anything but piss him off under normal circumstances, but the surprise of it combined with the river of blood and slick entrails on the floor to send him sprawling. He slid into the piled-up tables, tumbling them like a bowling ball crashing into a bunch of pins. Heavy glass tabletops tumbled down everywhere, some rolling off to the side but a few landing on him.

  The flaming orange spells were flying thick and fast now, with the last one slamming into the top of the stage, setting the overhanging canopy of silk leaves ablaze. It was the last straw for the stage’s bamboo frame, which collapsed like a giant game of pickup sticks. I avoided being squashed only because I dove for cover under one of the last remaining upright tables. I was afraid the glass top wouldn’t hold, but none of the bigger columns hit it, and the others merely rattled off.

  When I looked back up, Pritkin had disappeared. I thought I saw Françoise’s bright green dress for an instant, near the main entrance, but then it was lost to the black smoke boiling through the ruined nightclub. I did catch sight of another familiar face, though. “Billy!”

  The almost transparent shape of a cowboy had appeared by the main doors. He saw me at almost the same moment, and a look of profound relief flooded his features. He zoomed straight at me. I was about to ask him where he’d been, but he slipped inside my skin without so much as a hello. All I got instead was some hysterical gibbering. Then I got a glimpse of the main fight and forgot about him.

  Casanova threw the mage he’d been throttling into two others, then caught sight of me and shouted. I couldn’t hear him over the din, but I didn’t really need to—it was obvious what the problem was. The Graeae had left the building.

  I did a quick mental survey and realized that, until a few minutes ago, Deino was the only one who had not saved my life. Enyo had held off the mages at Casanova’s, Pemphredo had helped me in the kitchen afterwards and Deino had just made it a hat trick. They had paid their debt and now I was on my own. Casanova was yelling something again, while trying to hold off three mages at once. I still couldn’t hear him, but I read the word on his lips easily enough. “Go!”

  I nodded. The Graeae were my responsibility, but they would have to wait their turn. I wasn’t sure whether it was okay to shift yet or not, and I couldn’t get a thing out of Billy. I started to crawl off but was stopped by an iron grip on my foot. Pritkin was pulling his way out of the tables with one hand and holding on to me with the other. Damn it!

  “Cassie!” I whipped around at the familiar voice and saw Marlowe’s curly mop sticking out from under the remains of the stage. I couldn’t imagine what he was still doing here. There was fire everywhere, and vamps have approximately the same flash point as lighter fluid. He gestured for me to get out of the way and I flattened myself without asking why. I glanced back in time to see Pritkin lifted off the ground by an unseen hand and thrown across the mass of overturned tables, close to the main fight. Marlowe beckoned for me to join him, but there was no way. Bits of burning green silk were raining down all around the stage, creating a minefield of magical fire. It was as dangerous to me as regular fire was to a vamp; I couldn’t risk it.

  I looked around quickly, but there were no other options. The fight going on behind me put the main entrance out of the question, the back room was a dead end and the side exit was a sheet of flame from where a fireball had hit the hanging bamboo curtain, setting it and half the wall ablaze. With no other choice, I did the only thing I could and reached again for my power.

  This time it came readily, surging beneath my fingertips like someone had opened a floodgate. Almost dizzy with relief, I tried to think of the best place to go. Then Pritkin launched himself over the pile of tables, hands outstretched, and I freaked and shifted with no destination in mind. All I was thinking about was finding Myra. Wherever that led had to be better than hanging around while Dante’s lived up to its name.

  There was no bone-jarring landing this time—only a gradual darkening of the fiery scene until it disappeared altogether, to be slowly replaced by a very dark street. After a minute, my eyes adjusted enough to make out a large building with a sign proclaiming it to be the Lyceum Theatre. I didn’t know what time it was—the street was deserted, but it could have been anywhere from midnight to close to dawn.

  “I thought you’d be along,” Myra said from behind me. I whirled, my hand jerking up automatically at the sound of that smug, childish voice. Two daggers sailed straight at her, but she just stood there in the middle of the street, unconcerned. A split second later I realized why as my own weapons came sailing back at me. They didn’t wound me, but they hit with enough force to knock me off my feet and send me skidding back along the filthy street. Myra held up her hand. A gleaming bracelet that looked a lot like my own dangled from her thin wrist. Except, where mine had daggers, it had tiny interlocking shields. “A gift from some new friends. To level the playing field.”

  I clambered to my feet. “When have you ever believed in a level playing field?”

  She grinned. “Good point.” Then her face changed as she got a good look at me. “So, you managed to complete the ritual. Congratulations. Unfortunately, your reign is destined to be the shortest in history.”

  I got a good look at her, too. For the first time, she was solid. It made sense, considering that she’d been attacked last time in spirit form. It didn’t make her eyes look any less creepy, I decided.

  “Answer me one thing,” I said wearily. “Why always London? Why 1889? It’s starting to get tedious.”

  “Convocation is being held in London this year,” Myra answered, sweetly obliging. “That’s the biannual meeting of the European Senate.”

  “I know that!”

  “Oh, of course. I keep forgetting, you grew up at a vampire’s court, didn’t you? Well, then, maybe you already know this, too. The Senate usually meets in Paris, but they’ve traveled to London this year to settle an old score. They got the idea that the crimes being reported in the newspapers as the work of Jack the Ripper were really being done by Dracula. He escaped their version of an asylum shortly before they began, so it seemed reasonable.”

  “What does that have to do with me, or Mircea?”

  Myra looked entirely too pleased with herself. “Everything. Mircea and that vampire the North American Senate sent to help him—”

  “Augusta.”

  “Yes. They proved that the crimes were the work of a human by capturing the man calling himself Jack.”

  “And Jack was punished.” I’d seen part of that myself, firsthand.

  “Yes, but it seems that Jack went on his killing spree in an effort to impress Dracula, hoping to win a spot in his new stable. So the Senate blames Dracula for what happened.
”

  “And they want him dead.”

  “Finally, you’re starting to get it!” Myra clapped her hands approvingly. “Mircea managed to convince the European Consul to grant him a few days to find and trap his brother before drastic measures were taken, but not everyone agreed with that decision. It seems Dracula made a few enemies through the years.”

  I had a very bad feeling that I’d heard this story before. And it didn’t end well for Dracula. Some senators with long memories had lynched him one foggy night in London. This night.

  “They plan to kill him.”

  Myra laughed. “They do kill him—it’s part of that timeline you’re so concerned with protecting, Cassie. Only this time, with a little help from me, Mircea found him before they did. And something tells me they aren’t going to hesitate to take your vampire out as well, if he gets between them and their revenge.”

  And he would. Mircea had spent years arranging for me to become Pythia in order to save one brother. I couldn’t see him standing aside while another was murdered.

  “It’s simple enough, Cassie,” Myra said brightly. “You want the position? Not a problem. Just be better than me.”

  She flashed out, and at the same moment, I was tackled from behind. I hit the road again, this time face-first. That wasn’t the reason I yelled, though. The geis was definitely still there, and it hadn’t changed its mind about John Pritkin. Based on the spike of pain that jumped from my body to his, I was betting the geis had confused anger for passion. The mage was too macho to scream like a little girl, but he let me go fast enough.

  I turned to find him lying on the sidewalk, looking dazed. He made no attempt to immediately come after me, but I didn’t take much heart from the fact. He was probably just waiting to recover. He must have been near enough when I shifted to piggyback along for the ride. Great.

  “I won’t let you do it,” he gasped. “No matter what the price!”

  I was suddenly grateful for the geis, because he looked truly homicidal. But just because he couldn’t touch me, didn’t mean I was safe. He could still shoot me and not feel a thing. I decided to get out of there before that occurred to him, too.

  I smashed one of the theatre’s windows and wiggled inside, gaining a new respect for burglars on the way. I cut my hand, tore my dress and almost threw my shoulder out of joint, but I managed it before Pritkin could come after me. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage it quietly.

  “What do we have here?” Augusta’s voice sounded in my ear a second before I was jerked off my feet and slammed against the wall. A tiny, blue-veined hand held me there effortlessly. She settled her blue woolen skirts into perfect folds with a few flicks of her wrist. They had an elaborate design in black braid around the bottom, which matched the frog closures and jet brooch on the front of the gown.

  “Nice dress,” I croaked.

  “Thanks. Yours, too.” She looked me over. “It is Fey, but you”—she squeezed a little and my vision started to darken—“you are not.”

  I didn’t spend a lot of time debating options. Augusta could snap my neck with less effort than I would use to break a twig. I couldn’t fight her, but I could use her. Pritkin would be far less of a problem with Augusta’s strength on my side.

  I didn’t like possessions; they weirded me out and left me feeling faintly dirty. That wasn’t surprising since they were, no matter how I might justify them, a violation. I had planned to avoid them in the future if at all possible, but not at the cost of my life. The only question was, could I do it?

  I’d possessed a dark mage once, although I’d been shoved out of his body within a couple of minutes. And that was with Billy Joe to help me. I’d never brought Billy along on a shift before, but had foolishly hoped he might be a useful ally. He wasn’t sounding real useful at the moment, however. He was still a gibbering wreck, and I couldn’t even get his attention, much less ask for help.

  But if Myra could do it, damn it, so could I.

  Luckily, Augusta’s knowledge of warding was amateurish: if she could ward with more than one element, I never saw any sign of it. Her shields looked impressive—towering slabs of steel riveted together like the side of a battleship— but a closer examination showed spots so weak with rust that they were almost transparent. That’s what you get for not maintaining your shields with a little daily meditation. If Augusta’s protection had been as strong as it looked, she might have been able to expel me before I could take over. As it was, my fire burned a hole through her metal with surprising ease.

  Everything was suddenly brighter, sharper, and closer than before, and I found myself staring into my own frightened eyes. I put a hand over my mouth before Billy Joe could make a racket, but that seemed the wrong thing to do because he went berserk. I finally bit the bullet and slapped myself across the face. I tried to do it gently, but I think I miscalculated because Billy’s eyes rolled up and for a second I thought he was going to pass out. “It’s me,” I hissed.

  He slowly nodded. After a moment, he got his borrowed lips to work. “I need a drink,” he told me in a shaky undertone. “I need a whole freaking brewery.”

  “Are you okay?” He didn’t look it. My face was pasty white and my mouth was trembling. “If you’re going to be sick, tell me now.”

  Billy laughed, and there was a disturbing hysterical note in it. “Sick? Yeah, I guess you could say I was sick. Ghost, human, ghost, human; hey, it’s all good.”

  I stared at him in concern. “I don’t understand—”

  “What’s there to understand? I just died, that’s all!”

  “Billy,” I said slowly, “you died a long time ago.”

  “I died a long time ago,” Billy repeated, mockingly. “I died today, Cass, in case you missed it! An encore performance, courtesy of Faerie! Oh, God.”

  His face crumpled and he sank to the floor, shaking. I hugged him, finally realizing why Billy was freaking out. When he went through the portal, his new body had been ripped away. I’d known that would probably happen but hadn’t thought about the ramifications. He possessed people all the time, including me, and it had never seemed to bother him when he had to leave. But I guess it was different with his own body. He hadn’t been possessed; he’d been alive. And when he went through the portal, he had, in fact, died all over again. I hugged him harder, forgetting whose strength I had now, but let go when he gave a bleat of protest.

  “I almost didn’t come back this time, Cass,” he said weakly. “It’s not automatic, you know.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Becoming a ghost. Nobody keeps stats, or if they do, they’re not telling me, but it’s pretty damn rare! And I almost . . . I got lost . . . I wasn’t here, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t see anything. All I could feel was a pull, trying to wash me away, and the only thing holding me was the sound of your voice. And then you started talking about leaving, and then I found out—” He broke off with a strangled gasp.

  “Billy . . . I’m sorry.” It seemed really inadequate, but what do you say to someone who has just died for the second time? Even Eugenie’s upbringing fell short.

  He grabbed hold of me, and I hadn’t known my arms were that strong. “Never. Leave. Again.”

  I nodded, but inwardly I was having a crisis only slightly less intense than Billy Joe’s. I couldn’t let go of Augusta unless I wanted a very pissed-off master vampire gunning for me, but I couldn’t babysit a traumatized Billy all night while Myra ran loose. Something had to give.

  I started to get up, hauling Billy with me, when someone grabbed me by the hair and put a knife to my throat. It really annoyed me. Augusta’s ears could pick up the sound of rats scurrying in the theatre walls, the fact that its roof had a leak and the argument a cabbie was having several streets over with a drunken customer. So why hadn’t I heard anyone sneaking up on me?

  “Try anything, and I kill you,” Pritkin said. I rolled my eyes. Of course.

  “What do they teach you in mage school?” I demanded. “To
kill a master vamp, you’d need to stake her—with wood, not metal—hack her head completely off, reduce the body to ashes and sprinkle them over a stream of moving water. Cutting her throat would only piss her off.”

  Pritkin ignored me. “You will have to find somewhere else to feed tonight. The girl goes with me.”

  “What girl?”

  Billy was sitting with his back to the ticket booth, knees drawn up, red dress so big that it almost swallowed him. He looked up at me and his mouth gave a slight quirk. “He means me, Cass.”

  Then I understood. “I don’t know if the geis works when I’m in this form or not,” I told Pritkin. “But I’d rather you let go before we find out the hard way.”

  He released me so fast I stumbled. “I won’t let you do it,” he said, leveling a shotgun at me.

  “That won’t kill me, either,” I informed him before snatching the gun away and breaking it in two. “But it would leave a nasty hole.” Pritkin frowned at his ruined weapon, and I could almost see him reassessing matters. I decided to help him out. “Look, I’m Pythia now, whether either of us likes it or not. And FYI, whatever my faults, at least I’m sane. Which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for your precious Myra.”

  Pritkin seemed confused, and I had to hand it to him—it looked real. “What are you talking about?”

  I couldn’t believe he was trying that. “You want her as Pythia. I’ve known about your agenda all along, so you can drop the incredulous look.”

  “I would prefer to see neither of you in the position. Lady Phemonoe must have been senile to have anything to do with either of you!”

  “So Marlowe was right! You are working with the Circle! ” All that stuff at Dante’s had been a blind after all. I shook my head at him, half in disbelief, half in admiration. “You know, it takes a real lunatic to risk bleeding to death just so I’d believe you.”