I jumped, pulling hard and fast on his energy. At some point I realized I was hovering eight feet in the air, but I held my focus. I drained Marco.
He dropped his sword and fell to his knees, but I didn’t stop sucking his aura. I couldn’t. Not even when the air between us turned black. My soul seemed to quake with the force of whatever Triton had put in my pocket. I had to hang on until Saber came. Then Marco began to wither like a raisin, and I faltered.
Laurel crawled toward Marco’s sword, and Saber shouted, “Stop her.”
I swooped to the stage and kicked the sword away.
“Kill him. Behead the bastard,” Laurel screamed.
“No,” Triton said, suddenly on my right.
Saber was there, too, on my left. He took my shoulders and shook me.
“Cesca, stop now. Stop pulling Marco’s energy before you kill him.”
“But he must die,” Laurel screeched.
“He’ll be executed legally. Cesca, listen to me. His energy is black. It’s infecting you. Stop.”
“No,” Triton snapped, jerking me from Saber’s arms. “Marco must die now, or he’ll escape execution. The blackness is the sign of the Void. Marco must die and by your hand, Cesca. It’s the only way.”
“Let go!”
I sobbed and wrenched free of Triton, stumbled back. My right butt cheek burned, my throat felt like I’d swallowed oil, and I couldn’t think for the shrieking pain in my skull.
“Triton, I can’t kill him. I can’t.”
“Then give me the disk in your pocket. Now, Cesca. I need the medallion now.”
I expected the disk to burn me. It didn’t, and some instinct made me look at the medallion more closely. Hexagon-shaped, the size and thickness of a jelly jar lid, the clear crystal was shot through with silver and gold lines and framed in copper. A smattering of ancient-looking symbols were etched into the copper rim. I made out part of a musical note, and the Greek letter for Mu as the medallion beat its pulse into me, strong, slow, comforting. My heartbeat fell into synch. Just as it did, Triton cupped my hand and jerked me down to where Marco lay on his back. He flipped my hand palm down and pressed the medallion to Marco’s chest, over his heart. With Triton’s hand pushing on mine, he muttered a string of words in a language I didn’t recognize.
Brilliant, blinding rays of white light burst from every surface of the medallion, and beamed into Marco. One moment he was there on the floor, the next he had vanished. I gaped, started to ask what happened to him, but Laurel lurched forward.
“Mine,” she screeched, clawing at the medallion.
At her touch, the light arched into her. She writhed on the stage as if snakes infected her body. Then she, too, dissolved into nothing, and the light collapsed into the disk.
My fingers curled around the medallion as I stared into Triton’s deep brown eyes.
“You killed them,” I whispered. “You made me help you murder them.”
Triton shook his head, and a stray lock of his tobacco brown hair fell across his forehead.
“We didn’t kill Marco, Cesca. We released his soul, and his body left with it. The female released herself.”
I glanced at the stage floor where Saber’s handcuffs lay empty, then at the medallion in my hand.
“What the hell is this thing?”
“I don’t have time to explain.” He snatched the disk and dropped it in his shirt pocket. “Trust me now as you trusted me before. The dark forces have lost two minions.”
He kissed my cheek, murmured in Greek, “Until later, dear friend,” and bolted off the stage before I could react. I don’t know how long I knelt, stunned and alone, before Saber’s arms closed around me and drew me off the floor. I sobbed and buried my face in his shoulder.
“Cesca, honey,” he crooned as he stroked my hair. “Stay with me. I need you. Come on, now. The bad guys are gone, but we have a stage to clean up and people who are still enthralled.”
I blinked at him. “They are?”
“Every damn one of them. I don’t know why they’re still bound, but you have to release them. You can break down later.”
I hiccupped. “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you, but I don’t know how to release them.”
A footstep thudded on the stage.
“I do.”
TWENTY-TWO
029
We whirled toward the baritone voice—Saber tensed to fire his weapon, me darn near fainting when I saw the carriage driver from Wednesday night.
Except tonight he looked completely different.
He wore baggy black pants, a loose white tunic, and a midnight blue, honest-to-gosh full-length cape. His gray hair had seemed thin and dirty on Wednesday, but now it flowed to his shoulders like a white water wave. He stood with his hands resting lightly on Jo-Jo’s shoulders. Pandora in full panther size sat on her haunches beside him. I looked into Pandora’s eyes. “Your wizard, I presume?”
Pandora chuffed, but the man laughed.
“I am Cosmil, at your service. I promise, I offer no harm, only help.”