Page 10

T hings changed abruptly with the arrival of the party crasher. The necromancers cleared the field so quickly that I lost our new guide, which I wasn’t exactly upset about, and it was just as suddenly flooded by demonologists, which I was. A large group of them ran forward to greet Rosier’s chariot as it came to rest on the riverbank, clustering about him so thickly that only the golden-red glow he was shedding for some reason allowed me to follow his progress through the crowd.

Which was fast because he was pissed, knocking groveling fanboys out of the way left and right and ignoring the screams of the one his creatures had just decided to eat. He had only one thing on his mind, and I damned well knew what. I just didn’t know if it was good for us, and if it wasn’t—

“What do you mean, his father?” Alphonse demanded.

“It’s a long story—”

“Condense it!”

“We don’t have time—”

“Make time!” Suddenly, I found myself lifted off the ground and jerked up to a vampire’s face. One I couldn’t see because his glamourie was hiding it, but which I assumed wasn’t happy. Maybe because he was feeling out of his element in a major way and thus vulnerable, and vampires hate that.

Especially master vamps who are used to being the biggest, baddest person in any given area, but not here.

This crazy world didn’t run by the rules he knew. It ran by these, I thought, as I sent a tendril of necromancy through his cloak, which promptly wrapped him up like a mummy and forced him to drop me back on my feet. Because I meant it; we didn’t have time for this!

“If you want to go back and wait with the fey, go back,” I told him harshly. “And that goes for the rest of you. But if you stay with me, I’m in charge, understand?”

“I don’t understand a damned thing, and don’t try the trick with the cloak,” Topknot said, pulling a wand on me. “Just explain.”

“That’s Pritkin’s father,” I said, pointing at Rosier. “And he’s volatile as all hell. I don’t know what he’s come for or what he’ll do, but it will probably involve dragging Pritkin off somewhere, and I need him! So we get to him before Rosier does, we get to the portal, and we get out of here!”

I was yelling but didn’t care, as nobody outside our group could hear me over the chaos anyway.

And, apparently, Topknot didn’t, either.

“Okay.” She put the wand away.

I stared at her. “Okay?”

“I just wanted to know,” she said amiably enough. And I belatedly remembered that, in the covens, screaming at each other was taken for civil debate.

“Well, come on then!” I turned to go.

And then had to turn back around to release Alphonse. I must have looked as harassed as I felt because Zara shot me what might almost have been a glance of sympathy. As if to say, “Leadership is fun, isn’t it?”

No, I thought grimly.

No, it wasn’t.

And then we were pushing through the crowd, part of which appeared jubilant, part dour—I guessed depending on which side the mages in question were on—and part confused, probably the ones too drunk to know what was going on. But the scaffold was still being worked on, the bonfire was still being built, and people were acting like a demon lord joining the festivities wasn’t any reason to call the whole thing off. Which meant we’d better hurry because whatever Pritkin was planning to do would happen soon.

Very soon, I thought, as more spell fire lit up the night in celebration like fireworks going off overhead. Caleb was getting a royal send-off, which meant he must have been causing them a lot of trouble. And yeah, that sounded about right.

There was just one thing I didn’t understand.

“Aren’t they afraid of alerting the gods?” I asked Zara, who had come up alongside me; I supposed for moral support.

She was wearing the form of a tall, thin mage with a shock of limp gray hair and seams of dirt in his withered cheeks. She’d been using his age in her disguise, staying partly bent over as if from arthritis, to hide the areas where her true form showed through the less-than-perfect illusion. Not that anybody was likely to notice with showers of sparks and fleeing shadows everywhere, making all our bodies run with light and color.

“The gods can’t read dark magic,” she said, flinching as a particularly loud spell burst nearby as we skirted the celebration, staying close to the river. “Either that or they ignore it, as it doesn’t feed them. Too polluted, apparently.”

“But aren’t they curious?” The mages were making a hell of a racket, far more than we had out in the desert.

But Zara shook her head when I pointed that out. “The ones in Vegas weren’t drawn to any ‘racket.’ The portal’s magic got their attention, and they came running, hoping to eat the fey who had cast the spell. Or they would have if they had that much mind left.”

“That much mind?” I repeated. Because the only thing I could think of worse than a god was a mad one.

“Occasionally, you’ll come across one with enough brainpower left to be canny,” she confirmed. “But most of those moved on long ago to better hunting grounds. The rest are like slavering beasts, acting almost completely off instinct. We call them the Mindless.”

“But doesn’t this tell even them that something is happening?” I gestured around. The last thing we needed was some crazy gods showing up!

“Something interesting is always happening,” Zara said bitterly. “In most places, civilization has devolved into kill or be killed, but the gods pay no attention to that. They don’t care if we savage each other. And as far as the Black Circle is concerned, they’re all supposed to be dead.”

“Dead?”

“The gods turned on them as soon as they finished mopping up everyone else.” Her lips curled into what might have been a smile if it hadn’t been so vicious. “The survivors chose this place as their base because the gods had already torn through it when they mounted their final assault on the Silver Circle. They think it’s deserted.”

“Well, that won’t stay true if the idiots keep doing that!” I said as a combined spell hit the sky, showering bright green sparks against the darkened clouds and reflecting in the river to our right. And in the remaining stained glass in the windows of the medieval church to our left, its ancient walls and field of tombstones now blushing verdigris.

“The mages force the remaining locals to provide them with food and necessities,” Zara said. “They keep them quiescent by protecting them from roving bands of bandits and by allowing them to throw celebrations occasionally to alleviate the tedium.”

“So the gods think that’s what’s happening now?” I said because this was some celebration.

“The gods don’t think, Cassie!” she whispered viciously. “They react! And a few human spells aren’t enough to get their attention. Most people have wards these days, and they fritz out all the time! Now, what’s the damned plan?”

It was a good question. We’d managed to get by the main knot of celebrants, who were spread out around the front of the scaffold like a scattering of gold from all those torches. Rosier had reached the structure and climbed on top, staring out over the crowd with a scowl, and I wondered again if I could trust him.

Having a demon lord on our side would come in very handy right now.

But that was the thing: would he be on our side? Rosier had only ever had one side—his own—and maybe Pritkin’s at times, although they were almost the same thing. He’d had a son intending to use him to bolster his power in the hells, and he probably needed him more than ever now.

He and Pritkin had come to a sort of equilibrium when Rosier finally managed to see him as a distinct entity and not just an appendage of his own. But how much of that was likely to hold up now? Not much, I reluctantly decided.

If Rosier managed to find Pritkin before we did, we’d be a man down faster than we could blink.

Fortunately, I knew where Pritkin was about to be, even if Rosier didn’t.

“See that cage in the shadow of the scaffold?” I said, pointing. “That’s where Pritkin’s heading.”

“Yeah, and the damned demon’s almost on top of it!” Alphonse hissed because he’d decided to come along after all.

“But it’s butt up next to the structure, so he can’t see it from where he is—”

“He don’t have to see it. His groupies are all over the place. They’ll tell him if we get anywhere near it or kill us themselves.”

“And we look like their rivals,” Zara said quietly. “I don’t think they’re going to be pleased to see a necromancer and his horde sneaking up there.”

“We could lose the cloaks,” Purple Hair put in.

“And then we’re a bunch of humans sneaking up there.”

“Worse, we’re a bunch of witches,” Gray Curls said. “We wouldn’t make it five yards, and then there’d be a sight more bodies swinging in the wind!”

“It looks like they’re planning something like that anyway,” Butch Cut said. “That thing could hold a dozen, maybe more.”

“We could go for the entrance,” Topknot said. “While everyone’s distracted. I still remember how to call it up.”

“Call it up?” I asked, but suddenly, everybody was talking at once.

“And leave Pritkin?” Alphonse demanded.

“Better than dying alongside him!” Topknot said.

“We need him for the wards on the lower levels,” Purple Hair protested.

“Do we?” Topknot grinned; she clearly enjoyed a good argument. “He’s not been in there for fifty years! We know the place better!”

“I need him for Vegas,” I said harshly.

“Sounds like a you problem,” Gray Curls muttered.

“We could help you in Vegas,” Butch Cut began before being shouted down by her sisters.

“Are you mad?”

“Speak for yourself!”

“That place makes this one look like a walk in the park!”

That last was from Topknot; surprisingly, Zara hadn’t said anything. But she hadn’t volunteered, either, and I didn’t expect her to. Not to mention that I wasn’t leaving Pritkin behind anyway, so they could all bite me!

“If you know how to get in, get in,” I told them tightly. “I’m going for the cage.”

I started off, but Alphonse grabbed me. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe.” I honestly didn’t know anymore. “But if we can’t get through this, we can’t get through Vegas, so we might as well find out.”

“Find out later when you’re rested up, not now!”

“He’s got a point,” somebody said, but I didn’t look around to see who because, no, he didn’t!

“Pritkin isn’t going to wait! Not even with his father here. He can’t because they won’t!” I gestured at the horde. “They’re going to hang Caleb any minute now, Pritkin’s going to do something, and all hell is going to break loose—”

“Looks like it’s already here,” Alphonse said.

“I have to go!”

“Then I’m going with you.”

I stared at him. “Why? You’d be better off with the witches—”

“Sure, like I’d have been better off staying with the fey and letting you go off and get killed—”

“I’m not going to get killed!”

“Yeah, only say you do because you’re a psycho , almost as much as that weirdo you’re dating, and then what happens to me? I’m not staying here, okay? I got a life, and maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s a life , and I wanna get back to it—”

“Alphonse—”

“—and I need you for that, so you don’t die. But I know you; I try to stop you, and it’ll not only get worse, it’ll get weird , and I can’t deal with any more of that right now—”

“ Alphonse —”

“—and maybe I like the idea of saving the world. It has a ring to it: Alphonse, Hero of Mankind.” He rolled the words around in his mouth as if testing them out. “Yeah, sounds about right.”

I just stared at him because everybody was insane except me, and I wasn’t sure about me. But there were necros in the crowd; they hadn’t all left. And nobody seemed to be attacking anybody, maybe because the new arrival was bossing his groupies around, sending them scurrying off in search of his son.

Pritkin, I hope you’re well concealed, I thought, and scowled at everybody. All of whom seemed to be waiting on me to make a decision. Yeah, like I knew what I was doing!

Only I did because we didn’t have to find Pritkin, who was damned clever when he wanted to be. We just had to get to Caleb, knock out a couple of guards, take their places, and then Pritkin would find us. And then we could slip into the mages’ sanctum together while Rosier was busy causing a distraction, and who would have thought the old bugger would prove useful, after all?

I informed the others of my plan and saw them brighten slightly. Probably because if Pritkin didn’t find us, it wasn’t their problem, and we still had a way out of this. And with Caleb, who had presumably been inside those tunnels more recently than they had.

Of course, he’d gotten caught, too, but I decided not to point that out.

“Okay, come on then, if you’re coming,” I said and started off again.

I didn’t stay in front for long as Alphonse passed me, those long legs eating up the ground. He was striding forward with the confidence of a guy who was much harder to kill than the rest of us, and that, plus his imposing size, allowed him to get closer to the main event than he probably should have. We followed in his wake, trying to walk like we knew where we were going, or at least I did.

“Want a wand?” Topknot asked, coming up alongside me. “I got a spare.”

“I don’t know how to use one of those.”

“Yeah. Like you didn’t know black magic,” she said and cackled. “Here, take it.”

“I can’t use it.”

“Take it anyway. You can poke it in someone’s eye.”

“Put it away! Mages don’t use those!”

“Suit yourself.” It disappeared back under the rags her avatar was wearing. “But if it comes to fighting, our cover’s already gonna be blown.”

Thanks for that, I thought blackly, but for a wonder, nobody immediately challenged us, and Caleb was just ahead and still in his cage. His prison was guarded and probably warded, and he still looked more like raw, human-shaped hamburger than the mage I knew, but I’d take it. The only problem was that, in my time, he’d been tall, black, broad, and confident, like a force of nature with the magic to back it up, but this man...

I wasn’t sure he could even stand.

Maybe Alphonse could carry him? And if he did, would his cloak cover two and make them look like just one mage? Because if so, maybe we could walk right out of here and—

Something rippled over my skin when we were maybe twenty yards from Caleb, interrupting my thoughts and causing me to flinch slightly, and Zara hissed. “Detection wards.”

So, not everybody was too drunk to think straight, I thought, staring around our group. But the skinwalker cloaks proved their worth; the illusion didn’t so much as waver. And we passed into the area around the side of the scaffold, which was ironically quieter than the raucous party just in front.

And much more sober with nobody stumbling around in here. These mages seemed pretty alert, with more than just the ones by the cage fingering sidearms or being circled by a bunch of animated weapons like an extra shield. That seemed overkill for one half-dead war mage, but what did I know?

Not much, I thought, pausing along with everyone else when the ground abruptly pushed up into a small hillock not far away. A cave-like opening appeared in the side of the small hill, causing a few scattered daisies to flop over the door and into the mouth of an ominous black oval. For a moment, nothing else happened.

And then a bunch of emaciated-looking war mages stumbled out.

One of whom I knew.

“Jonas,” I breathed, watching the one-time leader of the fearsome Silver Circle stagger into the light.

It must have been the first time he’d seen it in a while as he squinted about, blinded by the torchlight. Or perhaps that was because the Coke bottle glasses he usually wore were missing. And so was just about everything else, except for a heavy gag and heavier chains binding his wrists, as he’d been stripped down to his underwear, and what it revealed...

“Damn,” Zara said, her borrowed face looking stunned at the signs of abuse all over the skeletal frame, but it hit me somewhat differently.

Jonas had to be approaching two hundred and fifty, and even for a mage, that was old. Yet he was here, through everything, still leading his men. I felt my hands clench at my sides, my breathing speed up, and Zara’s hand clamped on my wrist hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t.”

It was a single word, but I knew what she meant. Go for Jonas, and we wouldn’t find Pritkin. We wouldn’t find anybody because Jonas was the one all the well-armed and very sober mages were waiting for. He was the reason they were fingering their weapons and looking like they were wondering how they got stuck with this duty.

What she didn’t understand was that Pritkin was going to go for all of them, Caleb, Jonas, and the string of equally abused mages behind him. No way did he leave them here, not to this fate, not a chance in all the hells that had ever existed. So we did something now, something big, and damn the odds, or he was going to do it for us and—

“’Ere, you lot,” a big, tough guy said, causing me to jump and Zara to make a slight sound, neither of us having noticed him until he was almost on top of us. “Wot you doin’ ‘ere?”

“Dining,” Alphonse said, and a moment later, another empty was thrown into the shadows.

“Call it,” the big vamp said, looking at me. “’Cause I can’t eat ‘em all.”

I stared at the emaciated group now being pushed forward with jeers and curses. And at all the animated hardware surrounding them, including another two dozen well-armed guards who followed them out. And at all the backup in the crowd, backup we didn’t have.

Yet.

“Hit the deck,” I said.

“What?”

“Hit the deck! ” I yelled and threw everything I had left—at the bonfire.