Staring too long into a mirror is always a freaky experience, and that’s when you know no one is staring back. I didn’t know it now, and for the first time, I tried to get a glimpse of my other side. But the black eyes were the same, with no additional life experience that I could see. And so was the too-pale skin, the cap of dark hair, still slightly damp from the shower, and the teeth biting a lower lip in indecision. Damn it!
“I’m not going to do it,” I told her. “I’m not, okay? That was his idea, not mine!”
Nothing.
“He doesn’t speak for me—he never has!”
More nothing.
So we were back to not talking, huh?
What a shock.
“I’m still not,” I told her, feeling angry and frustrated and destructive—and mad at myself for it. Trashing the kids’ room wasn’t going to help. And neither was anything else.
Mircea could scheme all he wanted; she was going to do what she was going to do.
“Do what you want with your life,” I told her. “You have to live with it. I’m going to live mine—while I still have one!”
I got up and slammed out of the room.
And into another world.
Chapter Fifty-four
Mircea, Venice, 1458
Merda! Mircea grabbed the witch, clapped a hand over her mouth, and spun the two of them back against a wall. And into the shadow of the second story of a house, the kind Venetians liked to push out over the street to gain themselves a little more room.
He thickened the shade around them as much as he could, but his heart was still in his throat as what had to be a hundred vampires rushed past the opening of the alley, just a few feet away. He stayed stock-still, the woman flat against him, her frantic heartbeat sounding like thunder in his ears. And probably in their pursuers’, too, only it was drowned out by real thunder from above.
The last soldier finally passed, but Mircea stayed in place a little longer. Not because of worry that they’d double back, but more because he couldn’t get his body to move. It seemed to like the freezing-cold wall just fine.
But the witch didn’t and started beating on him, so he let her go. Only to find his arm clutched in a surprisingly strong grip. “How the hell are we supposed to get through this?” she hissed. “They’re every—”
Mircea’s hand clapped back over her mouth, winning him a glare worthy of a praetor. He ignored it. Thunder was crashing like ocean waves above them, and echoing off the high, close-packed walls all around. Rain was bucketing down, causing water to cascade off rooflines and shoot out of gutters, crisscrossing the narrow streets with liquid arcs like suspended canals. Meanwhile, the real canals rushed like rivers, adding their roar to the cacophony. But vampire hearing could not be underestimated.
Not aloud, Mircea thought at her, as hard as he could.
She jerked, and stared at him, eyes wide and startled. And Mircea felt welcome relief flood through him. It was easier to communicate mind to mind with his own kind; humans were more problematic, especially magical ones. And God knew nothing else had gone right tonight! But now, at least, they could talk.
Only the witch didn’t seem to agree.
Because he’d no sooner released her again than she started screaming. “Augghhh!”
Stop it! he thought at her frantically.
“Augghhh!”
Shut up! You’re going to get us—ooof. The last was because she’d just elbowed him in the ribs, which hadn’t mattered, and then kicked him in the shin, which had. Mircea’s still-healing bone sent a spear of pain lancing through him, and the witch took the opportunity to scramble away, bouncing off the narrow walls and looking crazed.
Mircea tackled her halfway down the alley, but slipped on some muck, sending them sliding into a wall, and giving her the chance to kick him viciously in the face and run. He felt the little space slur around him, and his eyes go fuzzy for a moment. Damn it, they couldn’t afford this!
Then his vision snapped back, allowing him to spot her, silhouetted by a burst of lightning in the middle of a small bridge, and glowing like a beacon.
Merda!
A moment later, the light flicked out, plunging the scene into darkness. But the heavens cracked open again almost immediately, along with a cannon boom of thunder. Showing Mircea a party of the praetor’s guards instead, their shiny breastplates running with lightning and all but glowing against the now-empty bridge.
Because the witch had disappeared.
The light faded and Mircea hugged cobblestones, hoping against hope that his dark hair and clothes would hide him. And he guessed they did. Because the guards’ steps pounded in another direction, and he clambered back to his feet, his mind whirling with fear and confusion.
He limped down the alley to the little bridge, but still saw nothing. Which was impossible; no human moved that fast! And she’d said she was out of power, so what . . . ?
Oh.
That was what.
A rogue pain had caused Mircea to look down at his calf, just as a dimmer scrawl of lightning flared overhead. It was less blinding than illuminating—in more than one way. He retraced his path, stepped off the bridge, and knelt beside the small, rickety structure to peer underneath.
And saw the witch, huddled in the freezing water up to her neck, probably hoping it would muffle her heartbeat, which it hadn’t. And that it would hide her from the guards, which it had. But only because they’d been distracted by the storm—one that couldn’t last much longer.
Mircea slid down the muddy bank, and got on her level.
The witch’s flame-red hair had been part of a glamourie she could no longer maintain, leaving mousy brown locks to straggle dispiritedly around a face that was less alluring at the moment than pinched and pale and freckled. She had brown eyes, too, not unattractive in their own way, but a far cry from the luminous blue she’d been wearing. Not to mention that everything she had on was soaked.
She looked like a drowned rat.
A very frightened one.
For a long moment, Mircea simply knelt there, listening to the skies, which sounded like they’d had some of Horatiu’s infamous garlic torta. He didn’t want to spook the witch more than she already was, but they couldn’t stay here. They couldn’t stay anywhere.
They were being hunted, and the noose was tightening.
Because their little ruse hadn’t worked.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. They’d managed to float away from the pier under a bit of flotsam, while everyone else stared at the burning gondola or ran for cover. The latter had been the popular choice, since vampires are even more flammable than humans, and they’d just seen two people incinerated.
But while the distraction had helped him and the witch get away, it hadn’t done much else. By the time they’d swum a safe distance, they’d barely had the strength to drag themselves onto dry land again. But they’d nonetheless been forced into a mad scramble through streets still teeming with vampires—too many of them.
Their pursuers should have been heading for home or for the taverns and betting parlors where hunting was still to be had. And some of them were. But those were mainly the locals who had been pressed into service while the praetor mobilized her coterie of guards, who were suddenly everywhere.
Because she wasn’t as stupid as her creatures.
She hadn’t bought the lightning bolt story.
Mircea and the witch had stayed alive this long only because of the storm, with the rolling thunder covering their footsteps, the pounding rain masking their scent, and the lightning causing so many helpful shadows to flicker and jump that even vampire eyes had trouble knowing where to focus. But it couldn’t last much longer. They were going to die unless they got out of this city, and did it soon.
“I have an idea,” he said, in between thunderclaps.
The witch had been staring at the water with a blank look. The same one she now turned on him. Her moods had ranged wildly during the chase, from defiance to desperation to strange euphoria to . . . whatever this was. But at least the panic was gone.
“That was you,” she rasped. “In my head.”
“Yes.”
“The praetor . . . she used to talk to me like that. I thought”—she licked her lips—“I thought she’d found me.”
“No.”