Embrace the Night

"And consider this," Rafe said urgently, "when you think on deception. Mage Pritkin has no reason to save Mircea. If he dies, the spell is broken. All he has to do is stall long enough for that to happen, and you are free."

An automatic denial rose to my lips, but died before I could utter it. The Codex contained some mysterious spell that Pritkin didn't want found. We'd agreed that once the book was located, I'd let him remove it before I searched it for the counterspell to the geis. But what if he didn't trust me? I didn't know enough about the magical community to know whom to ask for information. So all the experts we'd spoken with had been Pritkin's. Had all that "you go, I'll stay" stuff in Paris been about my welfare or an attempt to make sure I didn't find anything? What if the real reason we kept striking out was because that was what he wanted?

"I almost forgot. I have something for you." Rafe fumbled under the cloak for a moment, then brought out a small package wrapped in a piece of black felt. "The Fey returned them to Mircea. As your master, they assumed he could get them to you."

I parted the felt and into my hands dropped a ratty old pack of tarot cards. They were dirty and creased, and more than a few were missing the corners. I was a little surprised to see them, since I'd lost them while on a disastrous trip to Faerie in search of Myra. I'd been happy to get out of there alive, and hadn't worried too much about what I left behind.

A card suddenly poked up from the deck with no help from me. "The Magician Reversed," a resonant voice began, before I shoved it back inside and slipped the pack into the pocket of my shorts. It did not add to my peace of mind.

My old governess had had the deck spelled to report on the overall spiritual climate of a situation. It was supposed to be a joke, but over the years I'd noticed that its predictions were depressingly accurate. That was a problem because, no matter how I tried to twist it, the Magician Ill-Dignified was never a good thing.

You know the guys with the three beans under the shells at carnivals? The ones with the stuffed animals that are going all moldy because they never actually give any away? The Magician Ill-Dignified is a lot like that: a salesman or con man who can make you believe almost anything. You can avoid him, but you have to be on your toes, because he will not seem like a deceiver.

The card was safely tucked away, but an image of the tiny magician's face still seemed to hover in front of me. And my imagination was giving him Pritkin's bright green eyes. I didn't know how far he was willing to go to ensure that the mystery spell stayed lost. And if Mircea died, my biggest reason for finding the Codex died with him. Maybe Pritkin didn't view a single death as too high a price to pay to keep the secret.

Especially if that life was a vampire's.

Chapter 4

Rafe watched me in silence for a moment, then cleared his throat. "There may be an alternative."

I waited, but he just sat there, his jaw working but no sound coming out. "I'm listening."

"I can't tell you," he finally said, sounding defeated. Apparently Mircea's command hadn't been so flawed after all.

I glanced at Billy, who sighed and shrugged. He doesn't like possessions, but they do allow him to tiptoe through someone's thoughts, gathering stray information here and there. And I doubted Mircea had prohibited Rafe from even thinking about whatever it was he didn't want known.

"Drop your shields," I told him, "and hold that thought."

Rafe looked a little nervous, but since Billy slipped inside his skin a few seconds later, he must have done as I asked. I glanced around, wondering what the tourists would say if they knew that a ghost was currently possessing a vampire a few feet away. It made Dante's staged shows look a little tepid by comparison. Then Billy stepped out of Rafe's other side, looking freaked. "Oh, hell, no."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. Not a damn thing."

"You're lying." I couldn't believe it. Billy has a lot of flaws, but he doesn't lie. Not to me.

His jaw set and his hazel eyes looked as implacable as I'd ever seen them. "If I am, it's for your own good!"

There are, so tradition says, four main reasons for a ghost to appear to mortals: to reproach, to warn, to recall and to advise. I could add a few more: to a

"And your judgment's been so great so far?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Every time you get involved with the vamps, it's a bad thing." Billy held up three translucent fingers. "Tomas. ‘Oh, Billy, he's just a sweet street kid who needs a home. A sweet street kid who happened to be a master vampire in disguise, who betrayed you and almost got you killed!" A finger went down. "Mircea. ‘Oh, Billy, I've known him forever, he's nothing to worry about. Until he placed that damn geis on you and maneuvered you into the Pythia thing, that is." Another finger folded under, leaving me staring at a rude gesture. "See why I'm a little worried here?"

"I'm involved anyway!" I reminded him tightly.

"You won't like it."

"I already don't like it. Just tell me!" The bartender was looking at me a little fu

"Your buddy has been doing some investigating," Billy said, with obvious reluctance, "and heard a rumor. But it's probably no more than that. People have been speculating about the Codex for centuries—"

Rafe shook his head, then grabbed his throat again. The bartender began slowly edging away. I sent him a smile, but the expression in his eyes said clearly that he thought we were nuts. It would have bothered me less if I didn't halfway agree with him.

"Billy!"

He sighed. "The word is that the Codex was never lost, that the mages have had it all along but circulated the rumor because they didn't want anyone looking for it."

"Wonderful," I said morosely. "All I need is another run-in with the Circle."

"Cass," Billy said, almost gently, "there's more than one."

It took me a moment to understand what he meant; then my eyes automatically slid over to Rafe. "The Black has it?" I whispered in a savage undertone.

The Black Circle was a group of dark magic users, people with no scruples about how they obtained power or what they did with it. They had recently allied with some rogue vampires against the Silver Circle and the Vampire Senate, in a war that threatened to engulf the entire supernatural world. So far, I'd mostly managed to stay out of it. I really wanted to keep it that way.

At least Rafe had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I'm trying to avoid making any more enemies," I said tightly.

"And if Mircea wants to raid a dark stronghold, he has the people to do it," Billy pointed out. "He sure as hell doesn't need us."

I nodded emphatically. For once, Billy was making a lot of sense. Rafe looked lost, unable to hear Billy when he wasn't in residence, so to speak. "Mircea has a capable stable—" I began, only to have Rafe cut me off with an agitated gesture.

"None of them will do anything," he croaked, sounding half-choked. I went around the bar to get him some water.

"Why? Do they want him to die?"

"No!" He looked around agitatedly, but his almost yell had been lost in the thrum of music and the hum of conversation. He leaned over the bar and dropped his voice to a whisper anyway, so much so that I practically had to lip-read. "There might be a few who resent their positions, who think they could do better elsewhere, but most are wise enough to see…" He trailed off.

"See what?"

Rafe took the glass I handed him, but didn't drink. He put it down and started rubbing both hands across the bar top in an unconscious, distressed motion. "That with Tony gone and Mircea dead, there will be no one to protect us. The family will be ripped apart, each of us taken by other masters to add to their power base. And they won't know us, Cassie; they won't care. We'll be commodities to them, nothing more. Things to be used and discarded when we fail to please."