Touch The Dark

Before I could explain to Billy exactly how much trouble he was in, Rafe's excited tones came from the doorway. "Master! I am sorry to disturb, but Rasputin is coming! He's almost here now!" Rafe had paused in the door and was staring hard at the floor, fairly vibrating in alarm. Tomas entered right behind him. I quickly pulled the quilt up, but he didn't so much as glance at me.

Mircea's eyes were blank and uncomprehending for a second, then he nodded. "How much time do we have?"

"I don't know." Rafe looked frantic. I'd never seen anyone actually wring their hands before, but he was doing it. "Louis-César has gone to meet him, but that Russian testa di merda has an army of weres and dark mages with him! And he has enough masters that he can try to take us in sunlight!"

Tomas nodded agreement. "The Senate is preparing a defense, but we are badly outnumbered. No one expected an attack with the duel set for tonight. I can take Cassie below. The vault should hold, for a while."

Mircea ignored Tomas' outstretched arms. He caught me up, quilt and all, and strode naked back into the living area of the suite. "Mircea." I looked up to find him grim faced and determined, and tugged on his icy hair to get his attention. "What's happening?"

Mircea glanced at me as we started towards the stairs to the Senate chamber. All around us, the iron wall sconces had turned outward, with the sharp, knifelike decorations on their bottom edges no longer pointing at the floor. I was starting to think that maybe they weren't decorations at all and hoped they knew who their friends were. "Do not worry, dulceaţă," Mircea was saying. "They will never breach the i

"That doesn't make me feel much better, considering that we'll all be dead before the other senates can catch up with him."

"Hurry!" Tomas flung open the heavy door to the stairs as a blast came faintly from somewhere outside. "They've breached the outer defenses." Several men and a woman rushed past us, toward the sound of the explosion. They had on enough hardware to make Pritkin look underdressed. I felt their power as they passed—war mages. Well, that should buy some time.

"I assure you that will not happen, Cassie. I will protect you."

I didn't answer. Mircea would try—I didn't doubt that—but Rasputin had to be crazy to attempt something like this. And a crazy man always has a serious advantage in making mayhem.

Pritkin rounded the corner and followed us as we began our descent. I glared at him and he returned the look. "What is happening? What trickery is this?"

Everybody ignored him. The stairs shuddered under our feet and the overhead lights swung dangerously. "Vaffanculo! The secondaries are down!" Rafe screamed. I didn't know what that meant, but a look at Mircea's face told me it wasn't good.

"That is impossible. They should not have been able to get through that quickly!" Mircea tucked my head into his chest, and the next second we were at the bottom of the stairs. I guess we flew, but it had happened so fast, I couldn't be sure. We moved into the Senate chamber at almost the same moment that another explosion came from above, and burning pieces of the stairway rained down behind us. A flaming splinter missed my face by a millimeter; then Mircea made a gesture and the heavy metal door into the chamber clanged shut.

Rafe stared around fearfully. "This ca

"You are needed to shore up the defenses," Tomas told Mircea urgently. "Give me Cassie!" He tried to take me, but Mircea jerked away and crossed the room in another lightning movement. A door opened in the rock where only flat, bare stone had existed before. It shouldn't have surprised me: this was a facility built by magic users, so there were probably more hidden doorways than visible ones. But it was still the best example of a perimeter ward I've ever seen, without a flaw even from only a few feet away. So that's how Jack had appeared out of nowhere earlier.

There was a deafening explosion behind us, and over Mircea's shoulder I saw the heavy door he had just secured blown inward like it was paper. A mage leapt through the opening, only to be speared by two pieces of iron that came out of nowhere. I glanced up to see that the chandeliers had undergone a transformation like the sconces upstairs. Those hundreds of razor-sharp points were now vibrating, sending a dull, metal throbbing echoing around the room, like the sound of thousands of feet stamping in unison at a football game. They were excitedly waiting for someone else to poke their head inside the room.

After Mircea finally convinced the wards to let us through, we swept down a long corridor. Torches burst to life left and right. Electricity tends to interfere with some types of wards and the corridor was fairly crackling with them. We went through three huge metal doors that were so heavily warded my skin felt pulled out of shape as we passed, like little hands were crawling all over me. The last one was the worst. The resistance was so strong that, for a minute, I didn't think it was going to let any of us through. But Mircea barked out a command, and finally the almost physical barrier weakened enough that we could push past.

Inside was a small room with four hallways branching off at different angles. Mircea stopped, so abruptly that Tomas almost ran into him. "Mircea! Which way?"

"How did they break through so quickly?" Mircea asked again, and for a moment I thought he was talking to me. Then I looked up and saw Tomas' face. There was nothing of the man I had known in it. It was a haughty, savage, beautiful countenance, something that would have looked right staring out from an ancient coin. I could see the Incan noble in his features; what I could not see was any sign of the gentle man I had known.

"We can talk later! Tell me the way, Mircea!"

Mircea smiled, his attention still apparently on me. "I have been a fool, it seems, Cassandra."

I glanced in confusion between the two of them. There was a building current of power in the room that worried me. The wards didn't like it either; the air was close and getting heavier by the second. "Tell me, Mircea!" Tomas demanded. "No one has to die today."

"Oh, I can assure you," Mircea replied, almost kindly, "someone will."

"What are you two talking about?!" I tried to get to my feet, but Mircea's grip didn't loosen.

Rafe answered from behind me, his voice bitter. "It seems Tomas has changed sides, mia stella. What was the price for your betrayal, bastardo?"

Tomas sneered at him, and the expression looked strange on his usually stoic face. "Did you really think I would work to keep myself in chains? I should be Consul! I would lead the Latin American Senate today if it had not been for that creature's interference. I will not let you keep me subject to the whims of a child!"

"Oh, okay." Billy Joe floated around Tomas' head.

"That's how the dark mages were able to figure out the wards so fast. Tomas told them what to expect. Guess he ain't thrilled with the idea of staying servant to that French guy." He glanced over his shoulder, back the way we came. "I'll be back in a minute."

"They will be here soon," Tomas told Mircea. "Don't be a fool. Help us, and you will be rewarded. I give you my word!"

"Why would anyone take the word of a traitor?" Rafe asked, his tone insulting. I would have told him to be quiet if I'd thought it would do any good. The expression on Tomas' face reminded me of Tony in a mood, and antagonizing him then had never been smart.

"What do you plan for Cassandra?" Mircea demanded.

Tomas' eyes flickered to me. "She has been promised to me, as part of my reward. She will not be harmed."