Page 27

I felt the witch go still against me, not even breathing. And then she licked her lips, the sound loud in my ears. Oh, he had her attention, all right.

“Give it to me,” she whispered.

“Give me the girl.”

“I’m not playing a game, vampire. I will kill her.”

“And I will make sure that you never get this,” his hand closed tightly around the stone. “Or live to see another daybreak.”

He meant it. Looking at his face, I had no uncertainty about that, at least. He looked fierce and deadly and furious; I had no idea why.

But I was beginning to wonder.

“We need to have that drink, Lord Mircea,” the older woman said quickly. “Before you do anything rash.”

But she didn’t get an answer. Probably because a group of witches had run up, having noticed that their leader was alive, after all. And ensuring that she didn’t have to worry about me jumping her.

Not that she had to worry about that anyway, with the spell that had just slithered around my neck.

A magical cord, of the type that witches used to tether themselves to things like their broomsticks, lifted me off the ground and began choking me. I tried to get purchase on the stone floor of the bridge, on the counter, on anything, but she’d judged the distance well. And although I scorched my fingers, trying to get them under the glowing golden rope, nothing helped.

“She doesn’t have long,” the witch told Mircea sweetly. “But if you want to wait . . .”

“Take it off!” he said, furiously.

“If you want it off, you know what to do,” she said mildly. And then before he could even answer, she was raging. “Give it to me!”

And Mircea did. I couldn’t believe it, but he tossed the ring over, glinting in the firelight of burning buildings on its way. And she caught it, a look of triumph and greed and fanaticism on her face.

I didn’t know what she planned to do with it, but I didn’t think it was anything good.

But I didn’t have time to find out. Because Mircea used the moment of the transfer, when everyone’s attention was on the ring, to make a play for our lives. I guessed he didn’t think she was going to spare us any more than I did, and wasn’t going to take the gamble.

And while I didn’t see what he did, with my eyesight starting to go dim, I smelled it when the wind changed, like a fresh breeze over the sea. And heard it when the thrum, thrum, thrum of a portal tore through the night. And felt it when a burst of cold, Thames water hit us with the force of a geyser behind it.

I guessed he’d lost the other half of his charm in the river, at the mouth of one of the roaring archways below us by the feel of things. Because the violence of that rush was enough to pick me up and throw me at the witch, knocking her off her feet. We went down amid tumbling waves, with me trying and finally succeeding to rip off the damned spell that had almost choked me, and then attempted to strangle her with it.

But eddies in the water tore us apart, and I ended up using it instead to throw around a signpost over a shop. That stopped my headlong journey down the raging river that the bridge was turning into, one studded with barrels and crates and screaming horses and thrashing people, because Mircea had opened the portal to what I assumed was its full size. Which turned out to be a hole in space big enough to drive a wagon through.

I didn’t know how many gallons of compressed water was flowing through that thing, but it was a lot. Enough to leave me almost horizontal as I was blasted by the rush. And had to struggle to hold on with burning hands because I couldn’t shield them from the effects of the spell.

And then I was grabbed by a mage who couldn’t swim.

He must have mistaken me for a witch, because he tried to kick me into the current, just before the witch’s rope spell died and we both fell into the waves. I fought him off, sending him spiraling downstream, but that didn’t stop me from following after him. Straight at a gap between two buildings, which had become a sixty-foot-tall waterfall into the river below.

Looked like I was taking the hard way out, after all, I thought, and tried to brace myself.

Only to be snatched out of the flow by a furious master vampire.

Mircea held on, how I didn’t know, as the water churned and frothed around us. And then pulled me up and out, because I finally realized—he’d retrieved our ride. The somewhat worse for the wear broomstick was still functioning, and I guessed the witch who owned it wasn’t in any condition to contest things this time, because we sped away unhindered.

For a moment, I just lay in his arms, heaving and choking and half drowned. And watching the moonlight glint off of gigantic streams of water gushing from the sides of the bridge. Then Mircea shut the portal down, leaving behind a sodden street with a few fires still burning on tops of floating islands of flotsam, and a mass of bewildered witches and mages bobbing about on what was supposed to be dry land.

At least no one looked interested in fighting anymore, I thought, and turned to look at my employer.

“Now what?” I managed to gasp.

“Now,” he said grimly. “We have that drink.”