Touch The Dark

"Twelve mages?" I looked at the body of the mage by the wall, who hadn't moved a muscle; his neck was lolling at an angle that said he probably never would again. Three others had been taken out by my knives, which had returned to hover beside me, one on either side of my head. None of the three on the floor looked dead, and their buddies must have agreed because they were pulling them back towards the stairs instead of leaving them where they fell. But they also didn't look like they would be returning to the fight. "I only count eight still active, Rasputin. Ask your friends which one wants to die next."

He didn't bother. Maybe he didn't like the odds, or perhaps his friends weren't all that friendly when it came down to giving up their lives for him. Anyway, his spirit corps streamed at me in a shining cloud and got as far as the edge of my ward when my group attacked. "Don't hurt the girl!" I yelled, as thousands of spirits flashed past me in a flickering wave of color and shade. Greenish white sparks rained down everywhere as the spirits of Carcasso

While the pyrotechnics went off over our heads, I bent to help the dazed figure of the lost sybil. She looked pale and frightened, but at least she was alive. Large gray eyes peered at me out of a small, oval face, framed by limp blond hair. "Don't worry," I told her, although it sounded pretty strange under the circumstances. "I won't let him harm you. We need to get—"

I never finished the sentence because, suddenly, everything froze. I looked around fearfully, wondering what new threat I had to deal with, and noticed that the knife was still in the sybil's hand. It was also all of about a millimeter away from my chest. I stared at it in disbelief. The bitch had been about to stab me! And, judging by the angle, it would have been a heart blow. Admittedly, it wasn't my body, but I thought it would be polite to return it without any big holes in it. Besides, I didn't know what would happen to me if the woman died. Even Billy hadn't known. Maybe I'd survive, maybe not, but I sure as hell wouldn't be much help to Radu or Louis-César. Not to mention racking up yet another death on my conscience.

"I see you received my message." A voice floated across the room, as silvery clear as chiming bells.

I looked up to see a slender, short girl with long, dark hair rippling down her back almost to her knees. She was weaving past the hovering ghosts, some of which had frozen, jaws wide, busily gulping down other phantoms. No one moved, no one breathed. It was like I'd wandered into a photograph, except that two of us continued to be active.

"What?" I eased back from the sybil and her knife, which also allowed me to back away from whoever the newcomer was.

"The one on your computer," the woman continued. "At your office. That was clever, don't you think?" She peered at Louis-César but made no move towards him. Her big blue eyes came back to me and her sweet little face took on a somewhat peevish air. "Well? Don't I at least rate a thank-you for saving your life? The obituary was real, you know. If you hadn't left your office when you did, Rasputin's men would have found you. You'd have managed to get away from them, but a couple of streets over you would have encountered the vampires sent by that Antonio person and been shot. I brought the obit forward to warn you. Clever, wasn't it?"

"Who are you?" I realized the truth the same time I asked the question, but I wanted to hear her say it.

She smiled, and her dimples were almost as big as Louis-César's. "My name is Agnes, although no one uses it anymore. Sometimes, I don't think they even remember."

"You're the Pythia."

"Right in one."

"But… but you look younger than me. They told me you were on your death bed, that you're really old."

She gave a small shrug. It caused me to notice what she was wearing—a long, high-necked gown much like those Eugenie used to have made for me. It looked like something out of a tea party circa 1880. "Right again, I'm afraid. In fact, it is quite possible that this little trip will do me in. My power has been fading for a while, and four hundred years is a lot to manage." She didn't sound very upset about her impending demise. "Anyway, you'll learn how to manipulate your spirit to look any way you want after a while. I prefer to remember myself as I was. In fact, in recent years, I've spent more time out of that wrinkled old hulk than in it." She flexed her fingers. "Arthritis, you know."

I stared at her. I'd somehow expected the Pythia to be more, well, regal. "What are you doing here?"

Agnes laughed. "Solving a problem, what else?" She bent over to look in the distorted face of the woman about to plunge a dagger into me. I'd moved, but the sybil hadn't; the face was still set in a scowl and the knife was caught halfway through its arc. "I spent twenty years training this one. You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you? Twenty years and look what I have to show for it." She shook her head. "I'm here because this mess is partly my fault. I chose your mother as my apprentice. I trained her for almost a decade. I loved her like a daughter. And when she took up with your father, I forbade it, telling myself that I was doing her a favor. He was a member of the vampire mafia, for God's sake! Hardly a fit match for my beautiful creation."

"I don't understand."

"I could have found her!" Crystalline tears glistened in Agnes' big blue eyes. "I told myself, if she didn't care anything about her calling, if she could throw it all away so easily, I didn't need her. I could start afresh, could choose another apprentice, make another shining star… only, of course, I couldn't. I was too proud to admit that it hadn't been my tutelage that made Lizzy what she was, but her own i

I just stood there. Did she actually expect me to sympathize? I didn't feel like kicking her when she was down, especially not if she really was on her deathbed, but I also didn't feel very comforting. I settled on simply crossing my arms and waiting it out.

"You aren't the compassionate type, are you?" she asked after a minute, looking at me through her fingers. She lowered her hands and regarded me curiously. I shrugged; considering where I'd grown up, what the hell did she expect? She sighed and gave up the act. "Okay, I was wrong. My bad. But now we have to fix things. I can't train you properly because I don't have time, but quite obviously the power can't be allowed to go to Myra. She's either in this voluntarily, or she was coerced. If the former, she's evil; if the latter, she's weak. Either way, she's out of the ru

I looked at the long, sharp knife in the sybil's hand and at the expression in her eyes. I was betting on voluntary. She looked a little angry to be under some sort of mind control. I was begi

"Okay, fine. She's a bad sybil. You want to take her back with you and read her the riot act? Be my guest."

"That isn't the program."

I was in no mood to play twenty questions. "Do you have a point? Because I'm kind of busy here."

She threw up her hands. "Of course; please do forgive me for nattering on. But this is an occasion, you know. I'm merely trying to give it a hint of ceremony."

I had a bad feeling suddenly. "What occasion?"

She turned a look on me that had none of the previous playfulness. "The power has selected you. You're it; you're Pythia." She grimaced. "Congrats and all that."

I decided the woman had a few screws loose. "You can't just dump it on me like that! What if I don't want it?"