“And you thought they’d listen? A bunch of overpowered nutjobs hopped up on dark magic who were about to win?”
“And who were about to be overrun by the Circle.” I saw his expression. “I know, but that’s what I planned to tell them. That the Circle had gotten here faster than expected, and they had about a minute before they showed up in force. I hoped they’d scatter—some of them, maybe all of them—and by the time they realized it was a lie, maybe it wouldn’t be.”
Marco just looked at me.
“It wasn’t like I had a lot of options!”
He looked like he was going to say something, but changed his mind at the last minute. “But you didn’t get in.”
“No, I got in. But it didn’t help, because someone had beaten me to it.”
The big head tilted. “Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s hard to possess someone when they’re already being possessed by someone else. There was another spirit in there.”
“And you think it was Ares.”
“I know it was. He was possessing that mage. Or doing something to that mage, I don’t know. But he was in there. The way he felt, what he did—it had to be him. Which explains the attack, why it was his style, not theirs. His impatience, his arrogance, not theirs!”
“And now they’re dead, and he’s still out there smelling like a rose,” Marco summed up. “Is that it?”
I nodded.
“And doing what? Looking for a new body?”
I hugged my knees. “I don’t know. I don’t know how much he can do, from the other side of the barrier. I don’t even know if it was a real possession. He seemed to have . . . limitations.”
“Like what?”
“Like it took him a second to see me, when I first moved inside. Not a long delay, hardly anything really, but—”
“But more than you’d expect from a god.”
“Yeah. And then he attacked, but Mircea confused him enough for me to get away—”
“Wait. Mircea took on a god?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Marco stared at me for a second, and then burst out laughing. “No.”
“What’s funny?”
“I called him earlier—our way, you know?” He tapped the side of his head. “And he told me to switch to a phone ’cause he had a headache. I thought he was joking!”
“He wasn’t joking.”
“Damn.” Marco shook his head, still grinning.
And yeah, I supposed it would sound funny.
If you hadn’t been there.
Eating, he was eating you. He was—
My hands started to shake and I shoved them under my armpits. “It, uh, it also took him longer to react to some of the things . . . that happened in the fight . . . than I’d expect from the god of war.”
“Maybe he’s not so good at this possession thing,” Marco said, eyeing me. “You know it squicks out us normal types, right?”
“I’m being serious!”
“I know. That’s what scares me.”
“Nothing scares you,” I said as one of his arms went around me, pulling me close.
And damn, it was huge. I didn’t understand how some guys got so big. It was almost like they were another species.
Of course, Marco sort of was, but it didn’t matter. He felt solid, strong, reassuring. I might have even leaned on him a little. Maybe I needed a bit more of that comfort stuff than I’d thought.
“A lot scares me,” Marco said. “Anybody says they’re never scared is an idiot. But I’ve learned a few things over the years.”
“Like what?”
“Like, if you don’t want to burn out, you can’t live here.”
I frowned. “In Vegas?”
“No, not in Vegas! Although that probably doesn’t help,” he added wryly. “No, here. In this bathroom, huddled against this tub. Here with your hair falling in your face and your body shaking in memory—”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“—and from hunger, ’cause you’re punishing yourself for not saving everything—”
“That’s not what I’m doing!”
“—when you saved something. You saved a whole lot of something that wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t practically wrecked yourself!”
I got up. I suddenly wasn’t feeling so comforted anymore. “So you’re saying what? Be happy I survived and just forget everything else?”
“Not forget. Lessons won that hard you hold on to. But there’s a difference between remembering shit when you need to and living in it. You do the job when you got the job; then it’s done. Ever wonder why soldiers just back from the field are laughing and talking and playing cards instead of sitting in a corner reliving it all?”
“Because they’re crazy?”
“No, because that’s how you avoid the crazy. You do the job when you got the job; the rest of the time, you live.”
I sat on the edge of the tub. Yeah, like I’d ever done that. Like I knew how to do that.
I grew up at a vampire’s court, one of the ones where you didn’t live; you survived. And even after I fled Tony’s little house of horrors, it hadn’t been much better. I’d thought I was getting out of a cage, only to learn that I’d just exchanged it for a different one, one of my own making, one where I hunkered down every night and hoped I didn’t wake up to his boys busting down the door.
And then one day they did, but thanks to a warning, I wasn’t there. And after that came the senate, “protecting” me as long as I did what it wanted. And the Circle, which was pretty much offering the same deal. And here I was, caught in the middle, still just trying to survive and to help everyone else survive, because that’s what I knew; that’s what I did.
That was what I called living.
“Cassie?”
“I’m . . .” I looked up, and met somber dark eyes. And for some reason, found myself telling the truth. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”
“Then maybe you need to be reminded. Get some clothes on and come upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” I looked at the ceiling in confusion. “Marco . . . we don’t have an upstairs.”
He stuck his cigar back between his teeth. “We do now.”
Chapter Fourteen
Marco left and I eased into shorts and a T-shirt, checking out the real estate in the process. Which wasn’t looking so good. Which was kind of looking like I’d taken up roller derby, and sucked at it. But the parts were all there and they worked, more or less.
The less was an inch-long gash in my side, which was missing the concrete scalpel that had caused it, but had gained some stitches. It was not happy. And neither was I, when I inadvertently pressed too hard when rebandaging it and saw the room swim before my eyes.
I grabbed the dresser and hung on for a minute, dizzy and more than a little nauseated. It wasn’t just the pain. It was the constant stress, the I-just-got-up-and-want-to-crawl-back-into-bed exhaustion, the utter insanity of the last few weeks but especially this morning. It was everything, and it hit all at once.
Great.
Perfect, even.
“Armored warrior . . . canopy of stars . . . must unify . . .”