Tempt the Stars

  Jonas shook his head. “We have no idea what Tony used it for between now and then.”

  “To hold down papers?”

  “And what else?” Jonas asked severely. “We don’t know; therefore we cannot risk removing a piece of a very delicate puzzle. We could inadvertently change history!”

  I frowned. “If you’re not going to take it and you’re not going to hide it, then what are we doing here?”

  “I needed to see it, to know what I’m looking for. ‘Paperweight’ could mean anything—”

  “I described it to you!”

  “—and to verify that the vampire Antonio had not lied about your father’s fate merely to torture you.”

  Which he totally would have done, I realized. Tony and I had had what you might call a suboptimal relationship. “But he didn’t.”

  “No. For once, it seems, he told the truth. Which means we must return this,” Jonas said, shaking the paperweight at me, “lest Antonio realize its importance and alter his actions in the future. Then we may never find it!”

  I said something unladylike, which he didn’t hear because it was becoming impossible to hear anything. I felt like screaming right along with the wards, if I’d had the breath and if it would have done any good. But it wouldn’t—just like using the last of my energy to shift us to the office, where we’d be trapped all over again, because I wasn’t going to be doing this twice in close succession. Not the way I felt right now, and not carrying two. And that was assuming I could manage to do it at—

  “Cass! Get ready to shift!” Billy’s panicked voice cut through the din.

  “In a minute,” I said irritably, rubbing the back of my neck.

  “Not in a minute! Now. Now, now, now, now, now, now, now!”

  My head came up. “What is wrong with you?”

  “You know how you said if I ran into problems to come back? Well, I’m coming back. And I got problems!”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “What kind you think?” he snapped. “I’m trying to lose ’em, but they know this place better than I do and I think they’ve finally found a reason to work together—”

  “Wait.” I glanced around. Narrow corridor; isolated part of the house; nobody around but us and a couple of more-or-less indestructible vampires. “Don’t try to lose them.”

  “What?”

  “Just get back here—now.”

  “You don’t get it, Cass. When I said problem, I meant—”

  “I got it. Just do it.” I stood up.

  “Cassandra?” Jonas was watching me narrowly. “What is it?”

  “Um,” I said brilliantly, since explaining this sort of thing usually didn’t go well. But it didn’t matter because I didn’t have time anyway. A second later, a horrible wail cut through the air, making the shrieking wards sound like a melody in comparison.

  I whipped my head around, but there was nothing to see. And Jonas didn’t look like he’d noticed anything. Until the air suddenly became thick and cold and hard to breathe, and the hallway started to shake perceptibly, and the light fixtures overhead blew out, one after the other in a long line.

  “Cassandra?” Jonas said, a little more forcefully this time.

  “I think it’s time for the midnight express,” I said, hoping I hadn’t just made a really big mistake.

  “And what does that mean?” he demanded.

  “It means choo-choo, motherfucker!” Billy screamed, swooping out of the ceiling. And right on his tail was a train, all right—of what looked like every damned ghost on the property.

  Holy shit, I didn’t say, because I was busy grabbing Jonas and throwing us at the nearest door, just before the unearthly wind slammed into the hallway like a tornado.

  We crashed into the floor on the other side as it hit, boiling down the hall like a freight train of fury. Merely the wind of its passing was enough to rip light fixtures off the walls, to puff a week’s worth of ashes out of the fireplace, and to send china figurines plummeting to their doom. Half a dozen books went flapping madly through the air over our heads, only to tangle in the wildly twisting drapes as I dragged myself back up.

  Jonas lifted his head to stare at me. “What the—”

  “Ghosts!” I told him, staggering for the door.

  My ankle hurt, my lungs were still crying out for air, and my neck was on fire. But I didn’t stick around to assess the damage. I didn’t even wait until the storm was over. I stumbled out into the hall with Jonas on my heels, the two of us being buffeted here and there by late-arriving spirits.

  And then I stopped for a second in awe.

  Because there were no ghost trails here. The corridor in front of us was a solid rectangle of pulsing, angry green. There was no furniture dam anymore, either, just random bits of wood sticking out of the plaster like quills on a porcupine.

  There was also no pissed-off vamp.

  The one behind us was okay, judging by the renewed sounds of destruction battering the mound. But whoever had been on this end . . . well, I didn’t know where he had ended up. But I didn’t think it was a good idea to go looking for him.

  Because the train was headed back this way.

  “Run!” I screamed at Jonas, and sprang for the office door, just as the storm barreled back at us again, flinging a deadly cloud of debris ahead of it. He dove in behind me, damned spry for an old guy, as jagged shards of paneling whipped by outside like knives.

  And then he slammed the door.

  I stared at him incredulously. “Ghosts, remember?”

  He looked a little shamefaced. “Right.”

  And then they were back.

  We hadn’t even made it into the inner office when Billy zoomed through the door, screeching something I couldn’t understand because an infuriated tornado was right on his nonexistent heels. Something tore through the outer office as we dove into the inner one, upending filing cabinets and sending a blizzard of paperwork dancing madly through the air. Jonas leapt for the hat rack, I leapt for him, and Billy grabbed me around the neck, still babbling something.

  “What?”

  “You owe me, you so owe me!”

  “Did you get it?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking!”

  “Billy! Did. You. Get—”

  “Yes, damn it, yes! I got it! I got it!”

  “Thank you,” I told him fervently.

  And shifted.

  Chapter Three

  “Don’t,” I told Marco, a decade and a half later, when he opened the door to the Vegas hotel suite I called home. “Just . . . don’t, okay?”

  Marco is my chief bodyguard. He’s about six foot five, maybe two hundred and fifty pounds, and built like a freight train. My legs aren’t as big around as his arms, which might feel weird except that most men’s aren’t, either. He’s a swarthy, hairy, foulmouthed, cigar-munching, example of machismo who is usually covered in weapons he doesn’t need because he’s also a master vampire.

  Which is why it’s annoying when he decides to play mother hen.

  Not that that appeared to be happening tonight.

  “Hadn’t planned on it,” Marco said, and yanked me inside.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, because Marco was looking kind of freaked-out. That was worrying on someone who, I strongly suspected, had been assigned to lead my bodyguard because he was the oldest of Mircea’s masters. He’d seen it all and he didn’t rattle easy.

  Although he was kind of looking rattled now.

  “We got a problem,” he told me grimly.

  I shook my head, letting loose a little cloud of Tony’s lousy housekeeping. “No.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I’d have thought that was obvious since I was dragging in at two a.m., covered in soot, plaster, and sweat, with a bruised ring around my
neck and an all-but-destroyed T-shirt. But apparently not. I edged around him, balancing a cup and a bag of heart-destroying pastries from the coffee shop downstairs, because it wasn’t like I was going to live long enough to have to worry about cholesterol.

  “It means I’ve had enough for one night. I’m tired; I’m going to bed. If there’s a problem, it can wait until—”

  I stopped, because I’d just noticed the living room. It would have been called sunken if it hadn’t been on the twenty-second floor of the hotel. It was a tasteful medley of white and blue and yellow, since I’d had a say in redecorating after the last disaster hit. It was also usually deserted, the guards preferring to hang out in the lounge with the pool table and the beer fridge.

  But that wasn’t true tonight. Tonight, every guard on duty was either sitting in the little conversation area, smoking out on the tiny balcony, or gathered by the bar. It was like a party.

  Or maybe a wake; the guys were looking pretty damned grim.

  “Why’s everybody out here?” I asked Marco, who had followed me down a short flight of stairs.

  “’Cause of them in there,” he said, hiking a thumb at the lounge. Which I’d just noticed was closed off, with the pocket doors shut tight. I’d never seen them that way; the guys preferred an open floor plan to better keep an eye on me.

  But it looked like they felt they could do without an eye on whoever was inside.

  “Who’s ‘them’? I don’t have any appointments tonight.” At least, I really hoped I didn’t. The kind of guest I got at two a.m. tended to be of the fanged variety, and not the fun kind. “Tell me it’s not more senators,” I said, because I really, really wasn’t up to that.

  “I wish.”

  I sighed and crossed my filthy arms. “Okay. Out with it.”

  But he didn’t come out with it. “Where’s Jonas? You’re supposed to be with him.”

  I shrugged. “Home?” I’d dropped him off in the lobby before going for coffee. And it had been a while, since despite the fact that I looked like a war refugee, I’d still had to wait in line.

  Vegas.

  “Damn it!” Marco looked genuinely put out. No, that wasn’t right. Marco looked almost—

  The sliding doors opened and a small vamp sidled out, before slamming them dramatically shut behind him. “Refreshments!” he said shrilly.

  “What?” Marco glowered at him.

  “You heard me,” the vamp said, wild-eyed. “They say if they have to wait any longer, that they deserve—”

  “I’ll tell you what they deserve,” Marco said menacingly.

  “—something to eat, but you know we don’t have any food in the place and I don’t know what—” The vamp stopped abruptly, staring at me.

  Or, to be more precise, at my small white bakery bag.

  “No,” I said, trying to hide it behind me. But a second later, it was in his hand anyway.

  The guy who had just crossed a room in an eyeblink was named Fred. He looked like an accountant when he stood still long enough—with wispy brown hair and a somewhat portly figure—which was fair, since that’s what he had been before getting tapped for guard duty. I still hadn’t found out who he’d had to piss off to get stuck with that.

  I knew who he was managing to annoy tonight, though.

  He saw my expression. “No, no, no!” he said, backing up, his big gray eyes going huge. And then the little weasel ran for it.

  “Come back here!” I demanded, but Fred wasn’t. Fred was a blur, clutching the bag I’d just stood in line twenty freaking minutes for, and heading for the kitchen.

  Only to find me waiting on him when he arrived.

  “What—how—shit!” He stared at me, hand over the heart that wasn’t going to attack him, since it hadn’t beaten in a few hundred years now. “You know I hate it when you do that!”

  “Then give me back my stuff!”

  “I . . . can’t,” he said, looking around desperately.

  Marco had come in behind him, but he wasn’t doing anything, just standing in front of the door with his massive arms crossed, waiting it out.

  “Please,” Fred said tragically when I grabbed for my property. And then, “Please! Please! Gaaah! Gaaah!”

  I let go of the bag, because I honestly didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. “What the hell’s wrong with him?” I asked Marco.

  “He’s afraid.”

  Fred didn’t deny it.

  “Of what?”

  “Of them in there.” The thumb hike was backward this time, over his shoulder. But it didn’t help, since the shutters partitioning the kitchen from the lounge had been closed, like they were for the formal parties we never had.

  “Who in there?”

  Marco opened his mouth, but it was Fred who spoke. He was looking in the bag, and he didn’t seem happy. Maybe because he’d squashed it in all the agitation, and a smear of red had bloomed like blood on one side.

  He grabbed a plate and turned it upside down, dumping out the contents. And then he just stood there, staring at three sadly mushed pastries. “What are those?” he demanded.

  “What do they look like?” I snapped. Damn it, most of the powdered sugar had come off, and that was the best part.

  Big gray eyes lifted to meet mine, with the look of a man seeing his doom. “What did you buy?” he squeaked.

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know! They have all kinds of things down there—dainty tea cakes and tiny tarts and pain au chocolate and finger sandwiches and those cute little baby macaroons! Why didn’t you get the baby macaroons?”

  “I don’t like macaroons.”

  He stared at me. “What do you mean you don’t like macaroons? Everybody likes macaroons!”

  “Well, I’m somebody and I don’t,” I said, reaching for the plate. And getting my hand slapped for my trouble.

  “But . . . but I can’t serve them these,” he said, a little madly. “And room service takes forever and there’s always a line downstairs and what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re supposed to tell me what’s going on before I strangle you,” I said ominously.

  But Fred was past that. Fred looked like he thought strangling would be a step up. He was hunched over the plate, his eyes darting around the kitchen’s gleaming surfaces as if he thought a tea service and accompanying canapés were sure to appear somewhere.

  “Oh God . . .” he said miserably when this did not happen.

  I looked at Marco, expecting a little sanity. Only to find him regarding the plate, too. “Maybe you could . . . fluff ’em up,” he said, apparently serious.

  “Fluff ’em up? Fluff ’em up?” Fred hissed. “They’re jelly doughnuts! There’s nothing to fluff!”

  “They’re my doughnuts,” I said, reaching for the plate again. And had it snatched away.

  “Have an apple,” Fred snarled, tossing me one from a bowl.

  “If I’d wanted an apple, I wouldn’t have bought doughnuts!”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” he hissed, hunched over my dinner like Gollum with the ring. “Because I’m not going out there and telling a bunch of mumble—”

  “What?”

  “—that we don’t have anything for them. I’m not, do you hear?”

  Not really. “A bunch of what?” I asked, for clarification.

  The darting eyes made a return, and his tone was barely audible. “Wumble,” he said reverently.

  “What?”

  He looked up, a faintly annoyed frown creasing his forehead. “Wichel!”

  “What’s a wichel?”

  Marco sighed. “Witches,” he translated.

  “Witches?” I frowned.

  “Yes!” Fred said vehemently. “Witches! Witches! Wi—” He suddenly realized he’d been yelling, and bit off the word. And
crouched down behind the kitchen table so, I suppose, Marco and I would be the better targets. “Witches,” he whispered.

  I put a hand to my head. I just wanted a doughnut. A sweet, squashy, jelly-filled reminder that there were good things in life, however much fate seemed determined to deprive me of them.

  “What witches?” I finally asked.

  “The coven kind,” Marco said dourly. “They showed up almost an hour ago, demanding to see you.”

  “Did they have an appointment?”

  Marco looked faintly uncomfortable. “No.”

  “Then why did you let them in?”

  “’Cause they appeared on the balcony and let themselves in through the wards?” Fred asked, peeking over the table and prompting Marco to shoot him a look.

  “Because one doesn’t just tell a bunch of coven leaders to get lost!” Marco bit out.

  “If they don’t have an appointment, you do,” I said grimly.

  I wasn’t trying to be inhospitable, but seriously, this shit had to stop. Morning, noon, and night, ever since my not-exactly-a-coronation, it had been the same thing: senate leaders, Circle leaders, Pack leaders, press-trying-to-pretend-to-be-leaders of something, anything, that would get them in, all showing up. To gawk at me. And in the case of the latter, to get the story of the century.

  And the worst thing was, it wasn’t even mine.

  Yeah, I was the Pythia the vamps had pulled out of the woodwork a few months ago, who nobody knew anything about. And yes, that would have been front-page news in any situation. In any other situation.

  But, suddenly, nobody cared that I had been brought up by Tony the Louse instead of being carefully nurtured at the Pythian Court. Nobody was bothered by the fact that I’d therefore received practically no training for the job I was supposed to be doing. They didn’t even seem to care that an untutored vampire’s protégée was occupying one of the most important positions in the magical world while said world was being consumed by a major war.

  No.

  They only cared about one thing.

  They only cared about my mother.

  You see, it wasn’t my dad’s soul that had put that paperweight at the top of Jonas’ Christmas list. It was the fact that, shortly before he and Mom and their Buick were blown into a million pieces, my mother had done something that had linked her soul to his. So when Pop’s spirit was captured in the magical snare Tony had devised, hers went along with it.