Embrace the Night

I didn't need to turn around to know who was standing there. The Consul's expression, one of mild surprise, was enough. For her, that was practically a goggle.

I shifted my eyes, while moving Jesse and me back a few feet, toward the shattered window. "What do I get, a gold star?"

The ten-foot golden god in the too short tunic laughed, and it echoed off the walls. "Give me the Codex and you may have anything you like. It's our world now, Herophile!"

Behind him, I could see a whole row of dark-coated figures, and the rotting fruit smell that accompanied them told me what they were. Dark mages. I guess they were there for bad little Pythias who didn't do what they were told.

"Because I already have a gold circle," I continued. "The Codex was hidden behind one. I should have thought of you when I saw it."

"Gold is the alchemical sign for the sun, yes," he said, still approving.

"I did wonder. Because the Circle's symbol is silver."

"Like the moon. Artemis' emblem, that damn traitor," he said casually.

The Consul's beautiful face found an expression, and it wasn't one I liked. "You're working with our enemies," she hissed, and Tami gave a sudden cry as her arm was squeezed tight.

"She gave her priests the spell, didn't she?" I continued, ignoring it. The Consul hadn't gotten to be two thousand years old by being stupid. If I gave her enough, she'd figure it out for herself.

"She was always ridiculously sentimental," he agreed. "She thought we were being too hard on mankind, that your people were in danger of disappearing altogether."

"Were we?

"Don't be ridiculous," he said carelessly. "You breed like rabbits."

"Lucky us." My tired brain was having trouble piecing things together. Since he was in a good mood, I decided to let him help. "So the ouroboros is the spell to block your kind from our world."

He laughed. He was happy, even jocular. Of course he was. I hadn't told him no, yet. "It was the symbol for Solomon's protection spell, the one that trapped me here, the one I undid when I defeated that bitch at Delphi. The Pythoness, they called her—the last of a line of powerful witches who maintained the spell he had cast. I killed one of them and made her home my chief temple and her daughters my servants: Phemonoe and Herophile. I even kept the name: ‘pythia' means python, you know."

No, I hadn't. But I was learning all kinds of things lately. "With her death, the original spell lapsed, because there was no one to maintain it," I reasoned. "And the paths between worlds were opened again. Until Artemis decided to give the spell back to mankind." He nodded. "But her priests are dead. Who maintained it after the destruction of her temple?"

"The Silver Circle, of course." He looked surprised that I hadn't known that. "But they forgot. I had given the Pythias part of my power. And when my people were barred—"

"The power remained."

"And allowed me to communicate, albeit with great difficulty, with my priestesses," he acknowledged. "But the damn Circle corrupted them, turned them against me, blocked the only link I still had with this world. I couldn't get anywhere with any of them!"

"Until I came along." I was suddenly feeling really queasy.

"Yes. I thought I had a good candidate in Myra, but she fizzled out." He dismissed the former heir with a wave. "She was more interested consolidating her own position than in following my lead. I was quite pleased when you disposed of her."

"I didn't."

He shrugged. "You helped. Thus wi

"That would explain why some of the Fey are so eager to get their hands on the Codex," I said.

He beamed approval. "They understand that the old ways were best, for your people as well as for us. Think of all we have to teach you."

"Yeah, you keep promising to tell me what's going on."

"As I have done. Give me the Codex, Herophile, and take your rightful place as the chief of my servants."

"You keep calling me that, when I've already told you." I took a deep breath and moved a little closer to the Consul. "My name is Cassandra."

Apollo's face immediately changed. "Yes," he hissed, "the name your mother gave you. Do you know why, little seer?"

"No."

"Because she had a vision. Saw that her daughter would be the one to free me. Saw that, if you became Pythia, the spell would be unraveled and I and my kind would return. She knew your destiny, but she couldn't bring herself to kill you—her only real chance. Instead, she ran, and named you after another rebellious servant of mine, in an act of defiance. It was a decision that cost her her life." He held out a hand. "Don't make the same mistake. Give me what is mine!"

I glanced at the Consul. She didn't nod or blink or anything so obvious, but something shifted behind her eyes. I really hoped I was reading her right, because if not, I was toast.

I pulled the Codex out of my bodice, and Apollo's eyes immediately focused on it. One last gamble; one last chance. Because I didn't need it, after all; I knew the author. And he really, really owed me one. "Jesse," I said briefly, "do your thing."

"What?" His eyes had hardly left his mother the whole time. I didn't know how much he had understood, but I didn't need him to understand. I just needed him to do what he did best.

"Fry it," I said.

"You ca

"I'm not." I tossed the Codex into the air. Time seemed to slow down as it flipped once, twice—then a plume of fire thicker than my leg caught it before it even approached the top of its arc. When the flames cleared, there wasn't enough left to make ashes. "And my name is Cassandra."

"You might have done well to remember your namesake's fate, Cassandra," he spit, as two dark mages started toward me.

And the vampires just stood there. I desperately tried to shift out with Jesse, but I was too tired, and nothing happened. At least, nothing normal.

A bubble formed out of nothing and bobbed around just out of reach, heavy and strangely thick, distorting the room in its reflective surface. And then there was another one, smaller than the first, and for a moment the two were bouncing around like helium balloons, colliding and rising and drifting with no particular direction. Until the larger one drifted against the taller mage.

Instead of bouncing off, it clung to his outstretched arm, flowing over the leather of his coat like molasses. And despite my panic, I couldn't seem to look away. Because the sleeve under the bubble was changing.

The leather grew dark and hard and started to crack, and the mage began to scream as the sleeve dusted away like the cover on one of Pritkin's old books. It flaked and crumbled until I could see the arm underneath. Only it wasn't an arm anymore, I realized, as the mage tore away from me. He left behind the tattered remains of the sleeve and the hand clutching my wrist, which was now nothing more than a collection of bones under brown, papery skin.

I flinched and the bones collapsed, hitting the ground with a dry rattle. I looked up to see the mage staring at me, a look of horror on his face as it aged decades in a few short seconds. I gasped, realization slamming into me even before a clear, almost transparent substance peeled away from him. It reformed itself into a bubble that floated off a few feet before popping out of existence. What was left of his body collapsed like a deflated balloon.