Page 20

D arkness swamped me, blocking out the view of the warehouse. Laughter rang out around me, perhaps my own; I didn’t know, but it sounded mad. And maybe I was.

I felt mad.

“Let me go, Mircea,” I said, naming him, although I couldn’t have said how.

“No.”

It was stark, and I was suddenly furious that anyone would dare say that to me or try to keep me from my prize, which could be stolen at any moment.

“Let me go!” I said again and tore a swath across the darkness, seeing a brief gleam of moonlight before the blanket descended again, healing itself.

“Not until we’ve had a chance to talk. The other will wait—”

“He won’t!”

“He is underground in the Circle’s HQ, is he not?” the voice sounded reasonable, which only made me more furious. “That is where the portal was, not out in the street. He will keep—”

“Don’t tell me what he will do!” I roared and knew he felt the power behind it. Power that I was going to run through quickly because the so-called “god” that Jonas’s boys had dragged back was pathetic, and I’d only absorbed half his strength.

“Cassie—”

“They’ll find him!” I said, lashing out again and seeing daylight just ahead. But when I ran toward it, it healed up again, and when I swiped a hand through the space where it had been, it was gone.

“Perhaps it is better if they do,” the dark-haired man’s voice returned, and this time it was flat, judgmental. “You are not riding this much power; it is riding you. Let it go.”

And just like that, I felt some of it leave me. Not a huge amount, but noticeable. He was drawing it off!

“You’re feeding off me.” I couldn’t quite believe it. What was this creature? Not a god—

Vampire.

Master.

Powerful.

The words floated through my brain, but I couldn’t concentrate on them. Powerful! He was nothing to me! He was as weak as they all were! And yet he dared—

“Yes, I dare,” the voice came again. “For you, for all of us, I would dare a great deal more than this. Come back to us, Cassie. Fight! I know you’re in there; I can feel your conflict, your pain—”

“Get out of my head!”

And then I felt it again, a power draw: stuttering, imperfect, nothing like what I could do.

But effective. For a moment, it made my head swim, made me stagger, made me confused.

What was happening?

“I am drawing off some of the excess to give you a fighting chance,” the voice came again, echoing around the darkness. “But I can only do so much. Our connection is flawed, and I do not have the resources I once did to help me. No, not by half.”

Family, I thought. He’s talking about his family. I almost asked where they were and what had happened to them, then wondered what was wrong with me.

I didn’t care where they were!

“Don’t you?” The voice challenged from another direction, causing me to whirl around. “You don’t want to hear about Marco, then? How he died fighting for your court with a sword in each hand, facing down a god? He looked like the gladiator he once was, if only for a moment. I saw a flash of him right before I felt the agony—”

“Stop it!” I said because I suddenly felt it, too, a sharp, hard pain right under my breastbone, as if someone had shoved a sword through me.

“Or Fred,” the voice continued relentlessly. “Who I also saw, although he wasn’t mine. Marco was looking at him, ordering him to flee ahead of the danger when he wouldn’t himself. I saw him grab up several of the children, as many as he could carry, and turn toward the door. I saw his face right before fire took them both.”

“Stop it!” I was sobbing, although that didn’t make sense. What was this sorcery? What was he doing?

“He tried Cassie, even knowing it wouldn’t be enough. He tried—”

“Shut up!” I screamed, grabbing my head. The room was spinning like a mad carousel, faster and faster, but he didn’t shut up. And his voice was coming from everywhere now.

“I felt the rest of them, emancipated as they might have been, but still my children, my creations, my blood . I loved them as if they were my own flesh, and I felt it when each of the bright stars in my firmament went out. I felt it here,” I heard him beat his chest with a fist, but couldn’t see it, couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything but blurred darkness as I spun ever faster.

“Stop this,” I whispered this time, disoriented and in pain, although I didn’t know why.

“I know why,” the voice was relentless but gentler now. “You see them in your mind every time you close your eyes. You feel them in your veins, their blood burning through your system as yours once did in them. You hear their voices, their cries for justice, for help you couldn’t give—”

“I’m not a vampire! I hear nothing —”

“ You are vampire! ” the voice was terrible, all-encompassing, and suddenly cruel. How did it change so quickly? Why wouldn’t it stop? “Just as I am mage, and Pritkin and I are Pythia. We are one, the three of us joined in this triumvirate of power—”

Power.

It was the wrong word, and he knew it as soon as he’d said it, but it was too late. Because what was I doing, standing here, allowing him to... do whatever he was doing? I had to fight my way out, had to get back there, had to feed —

“You’re losing her,” someone else’s voice came as I screamed in frustration and fury and clawed at the darkness like a wild thing. It cost more power than I could afford, but this time, it worked. I tore free of the blackness and stood there, panting in the dim moonlight that suddenly seemed so bright.

Instantly, I saw them—a dozen people, maybe more, scattered around the big room. The dark-haired man, over to the left, shining like a star with stolen power; the man called Jonas, bleeding and disheveled and wild-eyed, near the portal to the right, holding back with outflung arms a bunch of murderous warriors who looked like they wanted to die tonight; the witches, gathered in a small knot straight ahead, staring at me with expressions varying from horrified to wondrous; and the cadre of fey behind them, the silver-haired one gripping his pike as if it would matter.

I could take them all, even the other demigod, who had expended the last of her power opening the portal and couldn’t oppose me. I could drain them, get back what the dark-haired man had stolen, and recoup my lost energy. And then bend the portal to my will and step through to another feast, a better one, before heading off to—

My head jerked up as a sound rang in the thin night air, a distant, bellowing challenge, but one fast coming closer. I screamed in frustration and fury, answering it even with the human voices echoing in my head and all around, yelling for me to stop. Fools, didn’t they know?

The portal’s power was like a blaring siren across the desert. That much energy was far too great for my kind to ignore, and they were coming. And I wanted them to.

I was weakened, but they were stupid and full of the energy I needed, far more so than the half-creature I’d been trying to reach. There were three of these, and they were fat, somehow. How had they gotten fat?

Where had they found so much energy here, of all places?

And then the first one burst through the wall, sending the humans and the rest scattering, and I leaped into the fray, taking on the so-called god who had stopped to stare at the portal. Its glowing color drew his attention, if only for an instant, but it was enough. It would have to be!

I tore into him, golden ribbons of power bursting out of my body and falling onto his flesh, starting the feed. He roared back, confused and furious, and I laughed because, yes, he was fat! And slow and stupid—too stupid to run, which was his only hope.

For I was ravenous, and he—

Was followed by two more.

They were the others I had sensed but not heard, for they had kept silent. These were different; they still had some semblance of a mind and appeared to be working together. And I was glad , the joy of battle singing in my veins, the dumb one’s power surging into me as he fell to his knees, almost drained already as the other two faced off against me, one on my left, the other moving to my right.

They would flank me, or they would try. But while there were two of them, and they were replete with power, they weren’t me. I was Artemis’s daughter, and it was time to prove it. Time to feast!

I roared a challenge in their faces even as their power flew out at me, trying to connect, to drain me as I had done to the other. But he fell away from me now, a dried husk, and I somersaulted over the one on the left, evading his attack, and took him from behind. Plunging my own power, which was more like golden spears now, into his glowing flesh and didn’t feed.

Instead, I used them to rip him apart, wanting to see if his friend would be stupid enough—

And yes, he was stupid enough! Chunks of boiling golden energy spilled everywhere from the writhing god, scattering all over the floor while he screamed in pain and loss. And his friend, who should have been helping him and feeding off me while he had the chance, was instead chasing those chunks! The feelers of power he had been sending at me suddenly glommed onto them instead, and yes, it strengthened him, but it cost, oh, so much more!

He gobbled up some of his only ally’s power and then turned on me, only to find that his friend was half dead, and I was shining like my mother.

God, she had loved it, hadn’t she? I thought, jumping at him. The thrill of this, the pureness of it. No hiding, no running, no constant second-guessing. No feelings of inadequacy burning in my gut every second of every day, just kill or be killed: glorious victory or ignominious defeat.

And the other understood it, too, fashioning a spear of golden light and lunging for me. I met it with a whip, turning one of my feeders into a weapon with a thought and lashing it around that spear before jerking back . It came flying to me, and I gobbled it up, then used my whip to lash him mercilessly, flaying off pieces of his power, more and more and more, until there was a storm of it, a hurricane of glittering confetti, spinning and flying and demolishing the remaining warehouse as if a bomb had gone off!

But it wasn’t a bomb; it was fuel, so much and so fast that I thought I would go mad with it! I staggered under the weight of all that power, drunkenly reeling around the space yet still slashing at my opponent, who was trying to reabsorb it and rebuild his strength. But not fast enough.

Instead, he completely flew apart, unable to hold form anymore. And then I turned on the wounded one, who screamed in fear and clawed at the floor, trying to get away. And was still doing so when his light went out and the final bit of his energy was absorbed, when I stood alone and roared my challenge into the night—

And was heard.

I paused, moonlight bathing the scene in silver while golden glitter spun around me like a whirlwind, the night coming alive with the energy I was struggling to absorb now because I was so replete. And listened. Far away on the distant horizon, I heard them, so many of my kind that I couldn’t count them all, who had stopped what they were doing and perked up their ears.

And then they did more than that. I could feel their energy all around me suddenly, tiny bits of it buzzing like gnats. Not biting me, not attacking if they even could from this distance, but questioning, wondering, asking: who is this?

I batted at them like flies, like the annoying storm they were, but they didn’t go away. More joined them all the time, with questions crowding me thick and fast. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? What do you want?

And then an answer came, only not from me. It whispered through the swarm, first in tiny echoes from a few throats, almost indiscernible above all the buzz. But it was quickly taken up by more and more, until it screamed through the crowd and was everywhere, and they all shouted with the same voice.

“Cassie Palmer, Artemis’ daughter, Cassie Palmer has returned! Cassie Palmer is among us; she is here among us; come and see. Come and fight! ”

The flies scattered in a twinkling of light, zooming home to their masters in faraway Las Vegas, but not far enough. I stood there, flat-footed and dazed, not knowing what to do with the joy of battle still pulsing through my veins at the same time that fear clawed at my belly. Because I couldn’t fight them all!

I didn’t even know how many there were, but it was a multitude. I suddenly realized that the majority of the greater gods in this part of the world, perhaps in any part, were all there in Vegas. I saw it for an instant, some of my own power having hitched a ride with theirs’, saw streets packed with my kind, saw intelligence gleaming in most of their eyes, saw—

My own death because I couldn’t fight them all!

Not yet. And I would never be able to if they caught me now. I pulled my power around me, all those little bits of my recent opponents still drifting through the air, and prepared to flee.

But not by way of the portal, for the gods could follow that road, could find me again, and I couldn’t risk that. There was only one way to move that even a god couldn’t trace, at least not these, and perhaps not any now. For my mother was dead, and so were all the rest who had once used that path save one, and she was useless, locked down, and a prisoner of the gods. But I could—

“Cassie.”

The word was quiet, less a shout than a whisper, but it cut through the madness. It sliced through the distant clamor of the gods, now streaming this way over the desert. It overrode the cries of the little people scattered around, who were yelling at each other things that didn’t matter and that I didn’t care about. It ripped through the cry of my mind, the hurry, hurry, hurry , screaming in my veins because this one—

I did care about.

I looked down to see him standing there, alone and unarmed. The blond head was shining in the glow of all the power spilling around me, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even seem to notice as he held out a hand, palm up, and waited.

As if he expected me to take it.

I was the size of a tree, having grown in the battle to fit my power. I was a giant now, barely fitting under what was left of the high, arched roof. I was a goddess , and he was a mouse, and yet he wanted...

Absurd! I did not have time for this! I had to get away while I still could before the others arrived and—

The dark-haired man was there now, too, also unflinching, even though I could literally crush either of them under my heel! He was also holding out a hand, and the sheer audacity held me there for an instant, staring down at them in bafflement. The rest were still screaming, still running about, still acting as if their world was ending when that had already happened, but these two...

Stayed in place, holding out their hands and saying nothing to try to sway me one way or the other.

For what was there to say? I thought as a sudden cascade of memories hit me.

Mircea laughing as he spun me around a ballroom in old Venice, a place we were definitely not supposed to be. “One dance before we go, Dulcea??. It is a shame to waste the night! ”

Pritkin, using the demonic powers he hated to sprout wings to catch me as I fell through the darkness, his strong arms grabbing me seconds before a grisly death. And the two of us spiraling up into the heavens instead, into beauty and moonlight and safety once more.

Mircea, fangs out and eyes glowing bright, leading his men on a harrowing assault on Aeslinn’s court, never hesitating because he knew I would have his back, just as he’d had mine when the three of us argued about whether we could take the city. He’d never doubted me, no, not for a second—

Pritkin telling Jonas he quit because he chose me over the Corps he loved—

I tried to stop it, but there were too many of them, and they just kept coming.

Mircea, naming me his Second when I wasn’t even vampire, trusting me with his life and, more importantly, with his family—

Pritkin, touching my foot on a balcony, telling me I was the strongest person he knew—

I staggered, confused and frightened, and yet that emotion was already receding as fast as it had come. Something else was rising to take its place, something clawing its way up from the heart of me, something that should have been weak and cowardly and human , but that was facing me down anyway. That was making me remember.

Mircea’s footprints, glowing brightly against the soil of an alien world, leading me on a path out of Aeslinn’s hideous camp while Pritkin’s power vaporized the fey hunting me left and right.

The three of us, coming together in a dance as old as time, hands sliding, lips merging, bodies sighing, to harness the power of a god to fight back against the All-Father himself—

I gasped, suddenly coming back to myself, and realized that I had shrank down to normal size only when their hands finally grasped mine. No one said anything even then, but I didn’t need it. We’d had our problems, yes, and might again before this was through, but we’d been each other’s refuge, our rock in a churning sea, the bedrock of our sanity when our world literally crumbled around us.

And while I still couldn’t think straight, I clung to that. I knew their touch, their names, their minds like I knew my own. We were one, and they were coming with me—

“Cassie.” It was the brunette this time, his mental gifts causing a raft of other faces to flash in front of my eyes, so many that I couldn’t focus on them all. Too many.

“I can’t!” I told him, and it was the truth. I could leave immediately. I had the power to shift anywhere in the world I wanted and save myself. I could even take some of the people that he was showing me and who were crowding the warehouse now, as more and more poured through the portal.

But not all.

Not most.

“We will help you,” Mircea said, grasping my hand tightly. And forming a connection that—

God! It felt electric, but not like a battery. More like a lightning bolt slamming through me and making a connection to the blond on my other side, lighting up the room.

The color flooding the space changed from a golden glow to a blue-white intensity that I thought would tear me apart. Pritkin, I thought, desperately clinging to the name. His name was...

My brain whited out.

I distantly understood that Mircea had been draining me, siphoning off what he could, hoping it would clear my mind. And now he was giving it back. But I had already replenished it from the other gods I’d drained, and now it was all thrumming through me, theirs, mine, ours, so much, too much!

Then use it , Mircea’s voice came again. Or maybe it was Pritkin’s. I didn’t know; couldn’t think.

Except that it wasn’t enough, not for all of them, even now, and the enemy was coming. I could feel the gods like a hot wind over the desert, taste the spice of their anger in the air, and feel their power begin to pepper my skin. We had moments only; we had to go.

Not alone . That was Pritkin, his voice booming in my head through the bond we’d somehow rekindled.

We do it together , Mircea agreed, even as I sent them all the reasons it wouldn’t work, how it would gut us and leave us vulnerable, how the others were coming, and we couldn’t be here when they arrived—

And the rest? Pritkin said. They’ll torture them for what they know. They’ll kill them all—

They don’t matter! I screamed mentally, even knowing that they did. They mattered to me in a way they hadn’t just seconds ago. Maybe because they mattered to my partners and I was in their minds and they were in mine, Mircea using his mental gifts to stabilize my psyche at their expense, risking himself to bring me even this far back. Like they would both have us risk ourselves to save the rest.

But it wouldn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t. Only one thing might.

Leave me , I said desperately. Take the power and go with as many of them as you can. You can use it; you’ve done it before, and the gods want me, not you—

No.

It was the most final no I’d ever heard.

You said you’d leave me! I screamed at Pritkin. You said only the mission matters! You said—

I lied.

And then the horde broke through what remained of the wall, the ceiling came down in a resounding crash, and I gathered us all, every single one, and—