“Uh, there’s a problem with the show.”
The older guard clicked his fingers at the younger one, who walked over and handed a tablet to Curly. It showed the security feed of my twin, along with the entire cast. Every one of whom was now clustered on her side of the stage, the murmuring audience forgotten. I watched the scene through the guard’s eyes, and then through my twin’s, who was staring into the desperate, pleading face of the mother.
She couldn’t understand her, I realized. There was a connection, but she didn’t know what to do with it. She knew the creatures wanted something, could feel it like a palpable thing, but she didn’t speak their language.
She didn’t realize; she didn’t need to.
I sent the mother images: the room with the watery window, Fairfax thrashing frantically against the glass, the girl on the table, shrunken and brown. And then emotions, which are the same in any language: despair, need, hope, question?
The mother didn’t nod; that gesture didn’t exist in her culture. But her hands were suddenly scrambling against the barrier, clawing at it as if she were trying to break through.
Images flashed across my mind. Girl, she showed me. Water, she showed me. Swim.
I tamped down my frustration. Yes, we needed to get her to water, but how?
“What the hell? What’s she doing?” Curly asked, staring at the tablet.
The older guard shrugged. “You know vampires. They’re all crazy—”
“Give it to me,” the taller man said, coming closer. I still couldn’t see him well, but there was something familiar about the voice. Something not from my mind, but from my twin’s. Something I couldn’t place, because he was yelling. “The Basarab girl! You fool!”
I quickly sent the creature an image of the ward over the tank, strong and thick. It hadn’t so much as wavered under Fairfax’s relentless attack, and the avatar I was riding was human. Even assuming he was a mage, and that I could force an assault, he didn’t have the power to break through. Wards like that were made to withstand a prolonged siege by numerous mages, and I could ride but one at a time.
How? I showed her an image of the wall breaking, over and over. How, how, how?
I felt the question fly through the link, saw the female’s excitement when she finally understood, heard the answer forming in her mind—
The tablet hit Curly on his bald head, sending him staggering back. The older guard just stood there, looking back and forth between the two men, obviously not sure what to do. And then not having to worry about it when the taller man grabbed him. “Kill her!”
“What?” Curly grabbed the guard, too, before the man could move, and whirled on his partner. “Are you crazy?”
“She’s a danger—”
“So is killing a senator under my roof! You have any idea how much hell that would rain down on me? And I need her—”
“She’s on the task force designed to shut you down!”
“So was Geminus! And she’s willing to deal. I have it on good authority—”
“She lied! I’ve dealt with this bitch before.” He turned to the guard. “Kill her! Take everyone you have—”
“Remember who pays your salary,” Curly snapped.
“If you need protection, you come to me,” the taller man said, bending over Curly menacingly. “We have a deal—”
“No!” The little fat man had clearly had enough. “I had a deal with Geminus. One I stupidly agreed to continue with that albino bastard, because he said he was in charge after the big guy’s death. But he kept screwing with the deal, and now you—who the hell are you?”
“The one in charge.”
“Not here! This is my place, and I don’t need you anymore. I made a deal for a new protector, and one better connected than you! I don’t need any—”
The tall man’s arm moved, as quick as a vampire’s, and the next second Curly was hitting the wall on the other side of the room, unconscious or worse.
The guards just stood there, their eyes huge.
“I said kill her!” the man hissed. “Or you’re next!”
They ran.
Chapter Twenty-five
I woke up to find myself in Olga’s box, wrestling a Mormon for his bicycle.
I wrenched the thing away from a pleasant-looking older man with a kindly, concerned face and angry little troll eyes that glittered at me from behind the mask. Then swung it toward the stage like a puppet on a string, with no intention of doing any such thing. But I couldn’t seem to control my actions, like I couldn’t seem to see properly. The theatre slurred along with me, a wash of brilliant reds, gleaming golds, and glittering jewel tones from the women’s clothes, interspersed with more somber smears of the men’s.
Somber smears that were suddenly running for the exits, climbing over people, and elbowing others out of the way, chivalry be damned, because spell fire and gunfire had just erupted from below.
People started screaming, which didn’t help my head, and neither did the bullets strafing the box. Everyone ducked, including me, although I hadn’t told myself to do so. But I hit the floor anyway, cursing silently because I also couldn’t seem to speak!
Dorina, I thought furiously. What are you doing?
No response.
Give me my body back!
The lack-of-response thing continued, and I remained flopped on the ground, unable to move. But I could hear: people screaming, glass shattering, bullets firing in the distance, or striking like hammer blows against the wooden front of the box. And I could smell: spilled alcohol from someone’s glass, acrid gunpowder as the trolls began firing back, and buttery popcorn that had been trampled underfoot.
I could even see a little better, down in the gloom, and realized that my eyesight problems were from double vision: I was seeing both here in the box and wherever Dorina was, some dim room with strange, underwater light crawling up the walls. That other room kept throwing shadows over this one, distorting it, but it couldn’t cast shadows on the dark. And then somebody shot out a sconce by the door, which made things even better.
Enough that I could see Olga’s jewelry jump off her neck and onto a guard’s face, like something out of Alien, sending him staggering back—
Into a dozen more, headed through the door.
Curly’s boys were mages, and a few even seemed to be pretty good ones. But the fey have a partial resistance to human magic, and the guards didn’t look like their hearts were in the fight. Especially after a few Hulk smashes around the box by some of the larger trolls. Had it been just them, they’d have run in seconds.
But it wasn’t just them.
“The fuck?” Ray yelled, as a vampire leapt over the front of his box and tried to wrench his head off.
He and his attacker disappeared from view, hidden by the wall that separated the two boxes, but only for a moment. A mage was getting choked out on this side and started wildly throwing spells. One set the curtains on fire, another hit a couple vampires that had been leaping for us from the theatre floor, sending them flipping backward into darkness, and a third slammed through the partition, obliterating most of it.
That left Louis-Cesare staring at me through the burning wreckage, a vampire under each arm and his hair alight.
“You’re on fire!” I yelled, because vamps had the flammability of kerosene-soaked rags.
And then I realized that I’d just said that aloud.
I jumped back to my feet, staring around in confusion, because I was suddenly back in charge of my body and I didn’t know why.
Then I noticed: those few vamps had been merely the vanguard—of a legion. They were leaping up from the floor of the theatre, despite the fact that we were two stories high, and crawling over the fronts of the boxes like humanoid spiders. Dozens of them.