Touch the Dark (28 page)

Mircea stepped away after a moment, and some of the river of heat flowing through me dissipated, but the longing remained. The problem, other than the fact that he might have to kill me on the Consul's orders, was that I couldn't be sure how much of what I was feeling was real, and how much was simply what Mircea wanted me to feel. I thought about that first night with Tomas, and his attempted seduction. I found it hard to believe that he'd been so overcome by lust at the sight of me in my big, cartoon-covered towel that he couldn't help himself. Had Tomas acted on the Senate's orders? Was Mircea doing the same thing now?

I knew Tomas hadn't needed to touch me to feed. Mircea hadn't told Pritkin, but a master doesn't need tactile contact. Any of them could have drained me from across the room, pulling my life from me in invisible, microscopic particles that wouldn't be seen or noticed by anyone else. And if they were as good as Mircea, there wouldn't even be a bruise or other telltale mark to show that blood had been stolen. I didn't think Pritkin would react too well to that tidbit of information, especially not with the hunted, half-panicked expression he still wore. He looked like a man who'd awakened from a dream to find himself surrounded by monsters.

I could have reassured him, if he'd have believed anything I had to say. Most vamps wouldn't be able to feed from him easily, if at all. His wards were almost certainly too strong — he would have had to drop them for Rafe to complete the demonstration — and his training would probably tell him that some form of threat was being made. But a norm wouldn't notice a thing, except perhaps for a slight feeling of lethargy. Vamps only left a fang-marked body behind in the movies, or if they were making a point. Tony would no doubt be receiving some shortly.

Louis-César took that minute to decide that Mircea had had enough fun for one day. “If you are so interested in our habits, Mage Pritkin, I can recommend several excellent treatises for you to study. This, however, is not the time.” He looked at his colleague. “The day is passing, and the night will be full. May we proceed?”

Mircea inclined his head and sprawled elegantly back onto the couch, pausing to remove his suit jacket and toss it over the coffee table. He also loosened the top fastening of his high-collared shirt, as if the room had suddenly grown too warm. The shirt was a thick eggshell silk made in a Chinese pattern, with little toggles holding it together instead of buttons. The material had a lustrous sheen, the kind that made you want to run your hands over it to see if it felt as buttery soft as it looked, but no design. His suit was also plain, unrelieved black, but on him the understated look worked. It was like a simple frame around a fine painting: all you saw was the total effect, and it was stunning. I shifted in my thick robe. I agreed with him — the room was way too warm.

Pritkin's skin had turned the color of old mushrooms. I think some of the implications had started to dawn on him. He turned on Mircea. “Can you make more vampires in such ways? Can you call your victims?” I bit my lip.

Pritkin had definitely been out to lunch when Vampire 101 was in session. His ignorance made it seem odd that the Silver Circle would have sent him as their liaison to the Senate. From things the mages at Tony's had said, I'd gotten the idea that the war mages had different branches, each of which concentrated on a different major category of nonhumans — vamps, weres, demons, Fey, and magical creatures like dragons. It made me wonder what his specialty was.

Louis-César frowned at him, maybe thinking the same thing, and Mircea held out a hand to me theatrically. “Come to me, Cassandra,” he thundered. “I command you!” His usual slight accent had thickened to the point that he sounded like Bela Lugosi. I smiled in spite of myself. Mircea's sense of humor was notoriously horrible, but it did help to break the tension.

I snuggled closer against the softness of the overstuffed armchair. “Thanks for the offer, but I'm quite comfortable where I am.” In fact, the couch looked far more attractive at the moment, which made staying where I was a very good idea. I knew perfectly well that part of my trouble was the aftereffects of the feeding, but Mircea would have tempted a saint all on his own. I didn't need any more complications, especially with a Senate member. He might genuinely like me, but in the end, he'd do whatever the Consul wanted. They all would.

Mircea was taunting Pritkin. “You see, my friend? Nothing. She spurns me. My allure must not be as strong as I thought.”

“Only a bite can allow us to call one of you,” Tomas told him shortly. He glanced at me, and his eyes were black with some emotion I couldn't read.

I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to start a debate. But the truth was that, even if Mircea had bitten me, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Vampires could control most norms through their bite: one was usually enough, two always were, and after three, the victim became a vamp bound to his or her master, so it was a moot point. But Tony had bitten me twice to ensure loyalty, once when I was a child and then again after my return to him as a teenager. Yet, if he'd been trying to summon me — a safe bet — it had failed.

My theory was that my constant association with ghosts had interrupted the signal. Billy Joe was almost always with me and I constantly wore his necklace, which bound us together even when we were apart. And vamps can't read ghosts. One of the points Billy had used to make our deal was that, with luck, he'd run a kind of spiritual interference. Maybe it had worked, or maybe I was one of the few who had natural resistance to the call. I doubted that, since it was usually only the case with particularly powerful magic users, but weirder things had happened. Hell, weirder things happened to me all the time.

Mircea was looking at me with exaggerated longing, and I smiled. “You could always join me.” The minute I said it, I wanted to take it back. A clear head was impossible around him, and I wanted whatever abilities I had to be sharp. But I needn't have worried. Mircea looked for a moment like he was considering it, then smiled and shook his head.

“You are kind to offer,
dulceaţă
, but I am also quite comfortable here.” He glanced at Tomas. “Perhaps later.”

Louis-César planted himself in front of me while Tomas walked Pritkin back to his place by the door. The Frenchman appeared slightly stressed. From what little I'd observed of him, that was probably the equivalent of anyone else throwing a fit. “
Mademoiselle
, I need your attention for a moment, if you please. I know that you are tired and that this experience has been difficult, but please try to concentrate.” I felt like pointing out that I hadn't been the one getting us off topic, but thought better of it. “Do you recall the name Françoise?”

I looked at him warily. So we were back to that again. “Yes.”

“Please explain why you thought that name would convince me to spare you.”

I looked at Tomas. He nodded curtly. “I have told them what I know, but I did not understand much of what we did. I only know that — ”

“Be silent!” Louis-César ordered him sharply. “We cannot afford to have anything you say influence her.” He turned back to me, and his eyes were a dark blue-gray like gathering storm clouds over the ocean. “Please tell me.”

“Fine, but then I want to ask a few questions, okay?”

He nodded, so I went through it all, how he'd touched me and I'd somehow ended up in the castle, skipping over exactly where I was and what we were doing when I first arrived. “They burned her to death, but there was nothing I — we — could do. We had to stand there and watch it happen. Then I came back and you said something about wishing I hadn't had to see that, and you called her Françoise. Don't you remember?”

Louis-César looked faintly green. “No,
mademoiselle
, that is not how I remember our short time in this room. Neither does Mircea, nor Raphael. You fainted while I was attending your cheek, and when you awoke, you were upset and disoriented for a time. We attributed it to your recent experiences. You did not mention anything about a woman named Françoise. I was given a tour of the dungeons of Carcassonne once, it is true, but as far as I am aware, no one died that night.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “It was quite horrible enough without that.”

“I didn't dream it!” I was getting more confused by the minute. “You're saying you never knew anyone by that name?”

“One.” Louis-César's voice was quiet, but his eyes could have ignited a match. “A young gypsy, the daughter of one of the guards at the castle. She worked as a servant, I believe in order to save for her wedding to some young man.”

“What happened to her?”

He looked sick. “I never knew. I assumed her father thought we were becoming . . . too close, and had her sent away. I had something of a reputation in those days, and Françoise was one of the servants who regularly attended me. But I never touched her. I do not want a woman in my bed who is not there willingly. And a servant would have had little choice if I had . . . made advances. I would not have put her in such a position.”

“Then why did someone want to kill her?”

He sat down on the edge of the sofa as if I'd punched him. “Because I was fond of her. I gave her a necklace — a mere trifle — because she had no jewelry and such beauty should be adorned. And twice I gave her money — again, trivial sums only, as my own resources were not great in those days. I thought only to help with her wedding expenses, and to repay her for her kindness. She must have told someone, or else they saw her wear the necklace and guessed . . .” He said the last as if talking to himself.

This wasn't helping. “Why would someone kill her just because you liked her? Who hated you that much?”

He leaned over, elbows on his knees, and his hair hid his face. “My brother.” The voice was chokingly bitter. “He did worse to frighten me into submission through the years.”

“Can you tell us anything else about that vision, Cassie?” Mircea's face was very serious. “Any detail could be vital.”

“I don't think so.” I thought about it — I hadn't been in the best mental state for making observations at the time — but I'd covered pretty much everything. “Except that the jailer used a weird name for me — us, I mean.
M'sieur le Tour
, or something like that.”

Louis-César jerked as though I'd struck him. “Is that significant ?” Mircea asked him.

He shook his head. “No. It is only — I have not heard that name in a great many years. I was called that once, although not usually to my face. It translates as ‘the man in the tower' ; I was often imprisoned in one. It had other meanings, too, at times,” he added softly.

I glanced at Mircea, who looked grave but didn't comment. “Tell us about the second vision,
dulceaţă
.”

I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that my little tarot cards had been even more on the ball than usual. I decided not to mention it. Louis-César had said the name wasn't important, and I didn't want them taken away. “Fine, but I don't understand it, either. Normally I See what once happened or what's about to happen, but it's like watching TV. I observe, and that's it.”

“But not lately.”

I shifted uncomfortably. I hadn't had time to process what had been happening yet myself, so how could I explain it to someone else? “It's been . . . different in the last day or so. I don't know why. Maybe because I was in someone else's body when I shifted the second time. That's never happened before.”

“You never possessed anyone before tonight?” It was Pritkin's voice, and it was laced with skepticism. I wanted to ignore him, but I also wanted to know what was going on.

“No. I don't know how I did it, but when Billy Joe slammed into me . . .”

“Billy Joe is your familiar's name?”

“I don't have a familiar,” I snapped. “Once and for all, I'm not a witch, okay? I am not a demon; I am not the freaking bogeyman! I'm a clairvoyant. Do you know what that is?!”

Maybe it was because I lost my temper, or maybe the bracelet remembered him and held a grudge. But without warning, twin knives, looking as gaseous and insubstantial as Billy after a wild night out, appeared in front of me and flew straight at him. They didn't look real — it was more like light had been carved into shapes — but they worked well enough. I didn't mean to hurt him, but the bracelet apparently thought otherwise, for the daggers plunged deeply into his chest. He screamed and I instinctively shrank back. The daggers came with me, flying back across the room to disappear into the bracelet.

“I'm sorry!” I watched, appalled, as two bright red wounds bloomed on his chest. “I didn't know it would do that!” I looked at the thing on my wrist in shock. It shouldn't have been able to harm a mage, but it had sliced through his shields like they weren't there.

“Where did you get it?” Mircea looked at my bracelet with interest.

“I, uh, sort of found it, recently.”

“It deserted the dark mage for her!” Pritkin's voice had roughened with pain, and he was looking at me with hate. I really couldn't blame him this time. “Dark weapons are fickle; they always go to the greatest source of power, in order to increase their own.” He grimaced and dropped to his knees. “She is dangerous, evil!”

Pritkin's chest, as messed up as if he'd been hit with real weapons, was gushing blood. I stared at him in horror, not quite believing what I'd done. I didn't like him, but killing him had definitely not been any part of my plan. He tore open his shirt and dragged in a lungful of air. He let it out slowly, muttering something. Within a few seconds, the gashes in his chest began to close over. So much for being all for the humans — he healed as fast as a vamp.