But it wasn’t impossible. I’d spent two or three minutes talking to the mage, another minute or so in Augustine’s, and maybe a couple more for the hound to run amok. And then Rhea . . .
No, it wasn’t impossible at all.
I started fumbling around in my shirt.
Things got both faster and slower after that, like someone was playing around with time. But I didn’t think it was me, since I couldn’t even manage to get the high collar of the nightgown open. Maybe because of the shrapnel from that first blast.
Pieces of it were sticking out of the hands I’d thrown up to shield myself; out of my side, which was drenched with blood; out of one of my knees. And then another spell hit nearby and I gave up and tried to crawl. The pain was excruciating, because I think I was crawling on the shrapnel, but I did it anyway. Because it was that or die, make it to the shop or die, make it soon or die, making a rhythm that thrummed in my head, in my heart, in the blood in my ears.
But not so much that I didn’t notice other things.
Like the violet spell, thrown by the girl with pink hair, which wrapped around a vicious red curse heading my way and stopped it cold, burying both of them in the floor. Or like the net spell that engulfed two mages who were running at me, and then constricted, throwing them off their feet. Or like the lasso that tripped up half a dozen more, because they hadn’t seen the thin line snaking across the floor at ankle height until it was too late.
And none of it mattered.
Because the men behind the fallen were just stepping on their brothers in their eagerness to get at us. And the defensive spells from our side were already getting overwhelmed, having to try to pick up two curses at once, which didn’t always work. And using offensive magic against well-warded dark mages was almost a waste of energy, most of it just glancing off to explode harmlessly against the floor.
We only had maybe half a dozen yards to the shop, but we weren’t going to make it, were we? We were about to be overrun—
And then we were, when a stampede of impossible blue and silver creatures burst out of the shop, roaring and trumpeting and growling as they thundered past. And over, clearing us with the grace of leaping tigers. Which some of them were, I realized, blinking at the herd of Augustine’s little origami animals sailing by overhead. Although they weren’t so little anymore, being life-sized and savage-looking—
And utterly harmless, because they were still made out of freaking wrapping paper!
But the mages, who had just been decimated by the hound from hell, didn’t know that. They abruptly shifted their target from us to the horde, which exploded in bursts of silver and blue confetti—also harmless. But there was a crap ton of it and it was everywhere and totally unexpected. And the reflective foil took on the colors of the offensive spells being lobbed around and—
And we had a couple seconds, didn’t we? I realized.
“Pull back!” I yelled, trying to crawl and rip my collar open at the same time. “Pull back!”
I didn’t know that anyone even heard. Panic had set in, and people were running everywhere, and plaster and glass were raining down, and the sprinkler system had come on and was further confusing the issue. Along with whatever Mircea was doing, because he was doing something. I could still see parts of that other room, along with a glimpse of glowing amber eyes—
Because he was trying to see through mine, I realized. And maybe he could, but I couldn’t. Like I could barely move because two minds can’t control one body.
“Cut the connection!” I yelled, choking on water and plaster dust. “Cut the connection. I can’t see!”
And I guess he did, because the room suddenly snapped back into focus, and control of my body came with it. I stared around, still half-blind because of the plaster mask mixing on my face, my hands tearing at the damn collar. And finally grabbing the ugly necklace inside just as a blur of blue ran past.
It was Carla, freaking out like everyone else, but who stopped when I snagged her arm. “Do you have any microphones?”
“What?”
I slipped in the slush on the floor as I staggered back to my feet, only her hand on my arm keeping me standing. “The flying things—the microphones! Do you have any more?”
“What? Yes—I—yes.” She stared at me like I was crazy. “Why?”
“Send one to the Graeae. Tell them to pull back to defend the shop—”
“But the tourists—”
“The mages aren’t interested in tourists—they’re interested in me.” It wasn’t a guess; fully half those spells had been aimed my way. Looked like the hound had made an impression. “Keep them that way. We only need ten minutes—”
“But, Lizzie, your court—”
“They can’t reach Lizzie if they’re busy trying to kill me! Pull everyone back behind Augustine’s wards, have the Graeae defend you if they break, and make sure you keep my body in view—”
“Your body?”
“—and try to find a way out through the floor, the back, whatever. But do not take me out until you absolutely have to. They have to see me. They have to stay focused on me—”
But she wasn’t focused, and who could blame her?
“What do you mean, your body?” She grabbed me. “Are you hit?”
“I’m all right!” I said, at the same time that a ghostly cowboy finally decided to join the party. “It’s showtime,” I told him.
Billy Joe, my ghostly companion for years now, yawned. “You know, I really hate it when you— Holy shit!”
The reporter was fumbling around in my clothes, looking for some terrible wound I didn’t have instead of listening. But I saw Françoise staring at us from the shop opening, where she’d managed to drag Rhea. “Did you get all that?”
She nodded, handed Rhea off to a young man, and sent a huge fireball at a couple of mages who had just jumped back to their feet. It blew them backward, almost to the opening in the ward, where they crashed into some of their buddies on the way in. The flames hitting off multiple sets of shields all at once sent mad red flashes over the crowd.
And finally snapped the reporter out of her panic.
She snatched her purse off her back and started throwing things out of it, and I looked at Billy. “You’ve got babysitting duty.”
“What?” He had been staring around, mouth open, hand holding on to the cowboy hat he’d been wearing for the last century and a half. But at that his head swiveled back to me. “Wait!”
But there was no time to wait.
“Get everyone back to the shop and get that ward up,” I told the reporter as our desperate SOS took flight.
“And what are you going to do?”
“Buy ten minutes,” I said, and closed my eyes.
Chapter Ten
Suddenly, everything was easier.
I gave a sigh of pure relief as the pain from a dozen wounds fell away, like my body behind me. Until Billy caught it, halfway to the floor. I felt him step inside my skin as I broke free, a warm, comforting presence who might not know what was going on, but who knew the routine.
Because we’d done this before.
When I first started shifting, I hadn’t known what I was doing, but I had known that body − soul = corpse. So when I found out that Pythias often shifted in spirit form—easier and we didn’t pick up any nasty plagues that way—I’d had some issues with it. Like possessing someone in another time, which I’d never learned to enjoy, and like returning to a dead body afterward.
I’d eventually realized that every other Pythia managed it by using time travel to return to their bodies at almost the same moment they left, making the interval away too short to do any damage. But in the beginning, I hadn’t known that. So I’d handled it the only way I knew how: by leaving another soul behind in my place.
And since the only soul I trusted—more or less—was Billy Joe, he got the nod.<
br />
And to be fair, the only damage my body had encountered as a result was a hangover, because Billy took his pay in beer. I traveled mostly in the flesh now, but those early lessons hadn’t been for nothing. Because I’d learned a thing or two about possession.
Like the fact that it didn’t have to be voluntary.
And right now taking control of the dark mage leader, even for a few moments, was the only way I saw us surviving this. But that required finding him. And after Enyo’s initial assault, he’d pulled back behind his men and I hadn’t seen him since.
And I wasn’t going to this way, I realized.
The war mages’ coats rose around me as I pressed through the ward, thick and black and suffocating. Worse, they had spells woven through them to provide an added layer of protection. And all those spells altogether left me feeling like I was sinking in a swamp of dark magic, one that had me choking and blind, with zero chance of finding anyone.
And I didn’t have a lot of time.
Sooner or later, somebody was going to realize the obvious: that all they had to do to beat us was to organize themselves into a unit again. And stop trying to fit through the narrow opening that was restricting their numbers and allowing us to defend a small area. And just take out the rest of the ward—
And then somebody did.
I was still trying to see through the crowd when all of a sudden, I didn’t need to. The leader jumped up on a barrel in front of the shops on the other side of the drag, putting him head and shoulders above everyone else. And grabbed a post so he could hang off the side, yelling and waving an arm.
“Form up! Form up! Damn you—form up!”
And shit.
I tried pushing forward, but nothing worked. There were so many bodies, and so much magic being slung around, I could barely tell where forward was. And then it got worse, as the gridlock around the “gate” started to pull back into formation. I ended up on the floor, getting trampled by boots that stomped right through me and coats that slung in my face and dark magic that weighed me down, like a heavy blanket—
Until the surreal moment when I pushed off from the floor, just desperate to get away, to get up—
And I did.
Way up.
It suddenly felt like I was a helium balloon some kid had dropped, that was spiraling out of control, up and over the crowd and rushing toward the ceiling—
And then through it, into the conference room above, freaked out and flailing because I wasn’t sure how to get back down again. Because I didn’t do this. I stepped out of my body and into someone else’s; I didn’t go floating around like a female version of Billy Joe!
But at the moment, that’s what I was. And I found that my thrashing did have an effect. I stopped just short of the ceiling, banked, and swooshed back around, like pushing off the side of a pool when swimming. Except the water was air and the air was in the wrong room and I needed to get back down there, get back down there fast—
Okay, little too fast, I thought, because the ceiling flew by in an instant, and then the crowd was rocketing toward me, and I was pulling up, flying out over their heads, banking and searching—
And finding.
The leader was still on his barrel, and a second later, so was I. And almost falling off the other side, because I didn’t know how to stop properly yet. But I didn’t need to. All I needed now—
Was to step inside.
I’d invaded the body of another dark mage once, one who’d shielded with wood. Or what had looked like wood, because we’re talking magic here. But any element will work as long as it has meaning for you, since it’s just a way to focus your power.
In his case, he’d chosen to visualize what looked like a wooden wall all around his body. Which had been lucky for me, since I ward with fire. My fire had burned through his wood, letting me in and putting me momentarily in charge. Until he figured out what was happening and kicked me out on my insubstantial ass, because the owner of a body always has an advantage.
I’d expected something similar this time.
I didn’t get it.
There was no discernible wall, of wood or anything else, in my way, which should have worried me. But it didn’t. Not until a horrible, shudder-inducing feeling hit as I breached the skin, which I didn’t remember from before. Like I didn’t remember the face that abruptly turned toward mine.
It was made out of fire—not good, not good, because I only knew how to shield with one element. And how was I supposed to burn through fire with more fire? But I didn’t have time to worry about it.
Because, the next second, the eyes rose and locked with mine, and I realized that I had a much bigger problem.
Because they weren’t eyes.
They weren’t anything I’d ever seen before or wanted to see again. Just darkness, but not the normal kind. This was the limitless, unending black of a sky without stars. The emptiness an astronaut sees when his tether has just been cut, and his only way home destroyed. A void, horrible and deep and soul-destroying.
And pulling me in.
I screamed, and the fiery face laughed, laughed as I was drawn down, as I felt pieces of myself begin to disappear into that darkness, as my soul stretched and split and started to tear—
I screamed again, mindlessly, because right then I didn’t have a mind. Right then I barely had anything. It had been just that fast, from shock to terror to terrible, mind-shattering loss, with no tether even in sight anymore as darkness boiled overhead, as it took my sight, as it poured down my throat, as I felt the world slip away. And like that astronaut, began to wheel in endless parabolas, still screaming—
Until someone grasped my fingers.
It wasn’t a grip. It was barely a touch. But in the darkness of absolutely nothing, it felt like everything. I grasped it like a scared child caught in a nightmare, hugged it to me, tried to wrap myself around it, whimpering and sobbing and utterly, utterly terrified.
And that was before something hooked me on the other side, like a barb thrust into my side. Something that didn’t want to lose its prize, something that was trying to drag me down into nothingness, something that was massive and strong and powerful, like no mage could ever be. Something—
That hadn’t expected me to have help.
“Will you challenge me for her, vampire?” An amused voice shivered through the nothingness, as the fiery face looked upward.
And then around, as if it couldn’t quite find its challenger.
“Looking for me?” Mircea’s voice was a whisper, an echo that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I was holding on to his fingers, but I couldn’t have said for certain where he was. And it didn’t look like my captor was having any better luck.
“You dare play games with me?” It almost sounded more surprised than angry.
“You’d be surprised what I dare,” Mircea hissed. And this time, I was sure the voice had come from the left.
So was the face, which abruptly turned that way.
And as it did, a tiny bit of its grip on me loosened.
“No, no. As the humans say, you’re getting colder,” Mircea said, and this time, there was a definite thread of mockery in the tone.
It caused the face to flame up, so hot I could swear it burned me. And to twist to the right, where the voice had come from that time. But Mircea wasn’t there, either.
Because a moment later, he was overhead whispering, “Surely, you can do better than that?” And then from the left again. “See, I was here all the time.” And then from everywhere at once, forming an echo chamber that didn’t make sense, because there was nothing for his voice to echo from—
Only there was.
I could see it suddenly, a hazy vision of the battle on the drag. Not clear, not even close. But like I was viewing it through some type of barrier, thick but transparent, and vaguely tinte
d. Something like . . .
Someone’s skin.
Because I was out; I was almost out!
The power that gripped me had been so focused on finding Mircea that I had slipped away from it little by little. But it realized that at the same moment I did, and the fire that had been flaring in anger was suddenly burning everywhere. I saw it like an impenetrable wall, blazing all around me. Felt it like acid, etching into my soul. Heard it in my voice as I screamed and screamed and screamed—
And fell, as heavily as if I had a body again, slamming into something that I vaguely recognized as a floor.
For a moment, I just lay there, stunned and whimpering, barely conscious.
“Mircea?” I whispered, after a long moment.
But I couldn’t hear him anymore. No more than I could that other voice, or feel its talons. I couldn’t feel much of anything, except for aching loss, the memory of terror, and overwhelming confusion.
None of which I had the strength to do anything about.
So I just stayed there, feeling wet tile against my face, because the overhead sprinklers were still on. Eventually, I noticed that the water was pattering down on the rest of me, too, tiny drops hitting my body and face and rolling down my cheek. I lay there some more.
I didn’t have a cheek.
I didn’t have a hand, either, although there was one on the floor in front of me.
It was getting wet, too.
I swallowed, trying to focus, trying to think. But that was a mistake, since all my mind could focus on was that thing I’d just fought. On the feel of it eating my soul, tearing it away in great chunks, the darkness wolfing it down. Did you get it back? I wondered. Did you rebuild it like blood that was lost or skin that was shed? Or was part of you, a precious, irretrievable part, simply gone, gone for good, gone to feed the creature that had ripped you to shreds, that had raped your soul, that had—
Stop it! Just stop it!
After a moment, I did.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Start with what you know.
I was on a floor.