Touch The Dark

I began struggling into the woman's clothes, which were scattered everywhere, and tried to come up with a response that would make sense to Mircea. I thought about the four Senate guards who had been killed. By the look of them, they had been with the Consul hundreds of years and must have served her faithfully or they wouldn't have been entrusted with protecting the Senate chamber. They may not have decided to betray her: the sybil had interfered with their transition and Rasputin was a powerful master who might have been able to force their obedience. It seemed unlikely that they would have chosen to essentially commit suicide by taking me on in front of such an audience if they had had a choice. But that fact hadn't saved them.

Vamp law was very simple, if a little on the medieval side, and intent wasn't nearly as important as in human courts. Nobody cared why you did something. If you caused problems, you were guilty, and the guilty had to pay. If you were in a quarrel with another master, your own might intervene to save you if you were useful enough to make it worthwhile, either by a duel or by offering reparations, but no one could do anything about a threat to the Senate. There was no higher power to which to appeal.

After only a minute, I gave up trying to figure out how the unbelievably complicated dress worked and threw on the lightweight slip instead. It was too thin, but at least I was covered. I crawled under the bed and retrieved the woman's shoes, then sat looking at them in a

"Would you like me to help, dulceaţă?" Mircea was holding out a peacock-colored dress that I assumed the woman had been wearing at some earlier time. "It has been some time since I played lady's maid, but I believe I remember how."

I narrowed my eyes at him. I bet he did. After five hundred years, Mircea probably couldn't remember all the boudoirs he'd been in. "You forget," I told him, as he helped me on with the heavy dress, "that there will still be a way into time, even if the sybil dies."

His hands were warm on my shoulders as he pulled the gown into place. He adjusted the low neckline, and his hand lingered on the exposed flesh. "The Pythia is old and sick, Cassie. She will not last much longer." I looked up into his face, and there was tenderness there, but also implacability. Mircea was willing to talk me around to his point of view, but not to really listen to mine. He had already decided how to deal with this—find the sybil, kill her, go home. It was utterly practical, if absolutely cold-blooded.

"But I will," I reminded him. "Or were you pla

Mircea widened those borrowed blue eyes, but there was none of Louis-César's i

It sounded frighteningly like Tomas' speech. I had known, of course, that that was how he saw me. It was how any master would see a human servant, as a possession. In my case I was a useful, and therefore highly prized, possession, but that was all. But it was still hard to hear it stated so flatly. "And if I don't want to be owned? What if I want to decide for myself what I do?"

Mircea kissed the top of my head tolerantly. "I ca

I saw, all right. I saw a life lived in thrall to one of the circles, to the Senate or to Mircea personally. Whatever he might say about the respect and influence my power would bring, the truth was that I would never be viewed as anything except a pawn to be used. If I became Pythia, I would never be free. Damn. I hoped metaphysical sex didn't count.

"Yes, of course." I sat down on the bed while he took my foot in his hands and drew on one of the woman's long, white stockings. I let him finish dressing me, and tried to think of some way to save the sybil, since arguing obviously wasn't going to cut it. I had to get him somewhere out of the way until I could find her and figure out whether she was in this voluntarily or not. Otherwise, the very practical vampire I was with would simply kill her. While that would solve the problem, I didn't think it was a solution I could live with.

Something occurred to me by the time he slid the last garter into place. "Mircea, you told me that your brother made Louis-César. That was why what Tomas and I did didn't change anything. Instead of being cursed with vampirism by Françoise's family, he was brought over the usual way by Radu, right?"

"Yes, it would seem our Frenchman had a destiny that would not be denied."

"Then Rasputin doesn't have to go after Louis-César directly, does he? If he destroys Radu, no one bites Louis-César and he dies at the end of a normal life, instead of living to become a master. Radu must be restrained somehow or they wouldn't have been able to keep him here. And killing someone tied down and helpless would be a lot easier for a spirit than attacking a strong, free man, wouldn't it?"

Mircea had grown pale. "I am a hundred times a fool, Cassie! Come, quickly! They may already be there!"

I resisted as he tried to draw me to my feet. "You go ahead. In case I'm wrong, I should stay here to catch them if they come."

"Rasputin is a master vampire! What could you do against him?"

"He's a master in our time, but he's only a spirit here. I have a body, so I'll be the strong one. Besides, I think Radu is a far more likely target, don't you?"

Mircea wanted to argue, but worry about his brother overcame his usual caution, and finally he went. I waited thirty seconds, then slipped out after him. I made my way to the corridor where I had encountered the swarm of ghosts and, with effort, managed to feel them even inside borrowed flesh. I couldn't see them as I had in spirit form, which was a

The shadows wrapped around me like an invisible cloak, shielding me from the dazed eyes of the mutilated woman who appeared to be hovering in the doorway. She was suspended three feet above the ground, but although I couldn't see them, I knew who carried her. I waited until her body floated down the stairs, carried in Tomas' invisible arms, then started as a puzzled voice whispered a question in my ear.

"In English, please," I told him impatiently. In this woman's body, I could understand French if I concentrated, but it took effort and I needed my strength for other things. Slowly, Pierre appeared before me. He was nowhere near as clear as before, but I didn't feel like complaining.

"How is it that you can sense us, madame?"

I realized that he saw the woman I was possessing, and not myself. "It's a long story, and we don't have time for it. Bottom line is, we both want vengeance, and I think I know a way to make that happen."

A few minutes later, my ghostly army and I descended on the lower dungeons. I thought I had already seen the worst Carcasso