And more guards were doubtless on the way.
The window was open, letting in a scattering of rain and offering a quick escape, but there was nothing but death out there. And if he was going to die, he was going down fighting, not cowering under a damned bridge! The secretary had just knocked the witch aside and now he looked up, in time to see the resolution settle onto Mircea’s face.
“You want this?” the man sneered, holding up the orb, which had just flushed a deep, dark crimson. “Take it!”
He threw the shield right at Mircea, just as the woman sprang off the floor, a heavy tray in her hands, which she swung at the secretary’s head.
And hit the stone instead.
The little thing slammed back into the vampire, hitting him smack in the middle of his chest. Mircea was halfway through a lunge, trying to grab the stone and the witch at the same time, only to have her grab him instead, sending both of them to the floor. “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!” she screamed, and this time, Mircea listened.
Because something very strange was happening to the secretary.
The long, dark hair he wore in a clip had come loose, and was flooding white, as quickly as if someone had poured a bucket of paint over his head. Like his skin, already vampire pale, was fading to alabaster. And the eyes, formerly beady and black, were now beady and blue, almost colorless.
He was albino pale as he batted at the orb, which appeared to have become stuck, and he started screaming: “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”
What looked like a whole squadron of guards appeared in the hallway behind him, but they didn’t get it off. They also didn’t come in. Perhaps because the secretary was screaming; the guard in the hidden room was yelling that he was sorry, sorry, so very sorry; and the witch was standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard and looking . . . fairly witchy.
She’d partly dried, leaving wild tufts of muddy hair sticking up everywhere. They matched her expression, which was a cross between anger and panic that mostly read as furious. And she’d just grabbed the broken spear shaft again, which was too thick for a wand, but it didn’t look like the guards knew that.
Do something, Mircea told her mentally. Pretend to cast a spell!
She did not cast a spell. She did, however, panic at the sound of his voice in her head, habit and fear overriding good sense. Which also seemed to be the case with the guards, when she suddenly ran at them, screaming and waving the “wand.”
They fell back against the outer wall of the hall, alarm on their features, while the secretary flailed wildly and the shield finally dislodged. It fell to the ground, almost clear again, spinning around on the hard tiles of the floor. The secretary gasped and went staggering backward, the witch screamed and beat him with her stick, and Mircea swallowed and stared at the orb.
And then took a calculated risk and grabbed it.
Nothing happened.
Nothing happened! Except that it felt warm and strangely full in his palm. As if it contained far more power than before, and it had already contained enough.
“Come on!” he yelled at the witch, and held it up.
And was immediately tackled by one of the guards, who hadn’t bought into the pantomime. Until Dorina flew at the man, doing something that made him scream and flail around, and Mircea yelled: “That’s it! Curse them! Curse them all!”
Suddenly, he and the witch were alone, the vampires thundering down the hallway, the secretary yelling profanity outside the door, and the guard in the hidden room sobbing apologies that echoed off the walls.
“I told you this would work,” Mircea breathed at the witch.
Who whacked him with her stick, very hard, several times.
And then they were gone.
* * *
—
“Dory! Dory!”
I opened my eyes to hardwood floors, a puddle of drool, and Claire kneeling beside me. So were Stinky, Olga, and the troll boy, whose smock was now truly a sight to behold. A handful of fey guards stood on the steps, all looking spooked.
But not half as much as I was.
“Are you all right?” Claire demanded.
“No,” I said, my head spinning as everything finally came together. “None of us are.”
Holy shit.
Chapter Fifty-six
An hour later, Coffee Lover was standing in the kitchen doorway, trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t hear him over all the screaming. “What?”
His mouth moved some more, but it didn’t help.
“Can you shut up for a minute?” I asked Marlowe, only to have him round on me.
“As soon as you start making some goddamned sense!”
“I have been. I told you—”
“That an ancient fey queen turned praetor turned . . . whatever the hell . . . is rampaging around New York wearing a war mage’s skin! Do you have any idea how that sounds?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“No, it means you’re crazy!” Marlowe snapped his fingers at his vamps. “We’re leaving.”
And found his arm caught by a pissed-off senator with flour in his hair.
Louis-Cesare had shown up just before the chief spy, and he hadn’t been baking. But Marlowe had been doing a lot of fist pounding on the kitchen table and, as a result, we were all a little starchy. Louis-Cesare just made it look good.
“You’re going to listen to her.”
“I have listened! And been fed the biggest pile of horse—”
“Then you can listen again. Perhaps with your mouth closed this time.”
Well, shit, I thought, as Marlowe turned puce. In fairness, he’d already been pretty close, since he didn’t seem to like my Alfhild-as-the-villain theory. And while I normally wouldn’t have cared what Marlowe liked, in this instance, we needed his help.
Which is why I didn’t respond in kind when he grabbed me. Even though it left me, him, and Louis-Cesare facing off on three sides of the kitchen table, and me bent halfway across it because I was too short for this. Like the room was too small for a conference.
“Release me!” Marlowe barked, ignoring the fact that he had me in the same grip.
Louis-Cesare did not release him. The tension ratcheted up a few more notches, and it had already been pretty high. Because some of the guys Marlowe had dragged along looked vaguely familiar.
Like I-might-have-recently-shot-a-few familiar.
I sighed, and wondered if I could make it to the door without anybody returning the favor. But before I could try, Louis-Cesare squeezed my other arm, completing the awkward triangle. “Tell him.”
“I already did. He doesn’t want to hear—”
“Tell him anyway. Then we’ll have Mircea tell him. Perhaps something will get through that thick skull!”
“While the only thing going through your skull,” Marlowe snapped, “will be my fist if you don’t let go!”
Louis-Cesare let go, but only so he could grab the spy’s lapels and drag him over the table.
“Damn it, man, think! If she’s right, the creature who attacked the consul is still at large, and you’re responsible for her safety! If there’s any chance—”
Marlowe broke his hold with a savage upward gesture, and I thought we were about to have round number two, electric boogaloo, only with no holds barred this time. And since that would involve masters’ powers, which in Marlowe’s case included the aforementioned ability to crack skulls, I wasn’t on board.
But then he made an annoyed-cat sound and flung out a hand in my direction. “Fine. Tell me!”
I looked at Louis-Cesare, who raised an eyebrow. And then around the room, at the sea of glowering faces. And sighed again.
Always nice to have an appreciative audience.