Curse the Dawn

I slowly emerged. "Where did I shoot you?" she demanded.

"In the butt." Her lips quirked. "It's not fu

"If you say so." She looked me over. My outfit was more appropriate than hers for crawling around a damp cellar, except for not including a coat. I was wearing jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that said "I Took the Road Less Traveled. Now Where the Heck Am I?" Yet for some reason, she looked perfect while I'd ripped the knee out of my jeans and had black stuff all over my arms. I held my wrist up to my nose and smelled it.

She hadn't been kidding.

"You're playing hide-and-seek in a cellar full of gunpowder?" I demanded incredulously, desperately brushing at myself.

"A cellar full of gunpowder that an idiot is trying to blow up," she corrected. "So I'm a little tense right now. Who are you and why are you here?"

Now that the moment had arrived, I didn't quite know where to start. "It's complicated," I finally said.

"It always is." She headed for the door where the mage had disappeared, gun in hand. "You aren't Guild."

"I don't even know what that is," I said, jogging to keep up. "Is that who we're hunting?"

"That's who I'm hunting. I don't know who—or what—you are." She snagged the abandoned lantern and shoved it at me.

I took it gingerly, worried about powder residue near an open flame. It was a weird little thing, shaped like a large beer stein, with a black metal body and a door that could be opened or closed to control the light. I opened it all the way, but it didn't help much. "I'm Cassie. And, uh. . I'm sort of Pythia."

That stopped her. Her sharp blue gaze swept over me again. "Don't think so," she said curtly.

The Pythia was the supernatural community's chief Seer and, as a bonus, also the person charged with maintaining the integrity of the time line. It would have been a crappy job even if I'd had the faintest idea what I was doing. Since I didn't, it was also really dangerous.

My assailant was named Agnes, AKA Lady Phemonoe, the former Pythia. She was the one who had stuck me with this mess and then died before she could give me any training. As a result, I'd spent the first half of my first month in office trying to get out of the deal and the rest of it ru

I hadn't intended for it to be quite this far in the past, but she was always surrounded by people in her own time. And most of them were the types who might recognize and resent another time traveler. Getting her alone had been tough.

Probably not as tough as talking her into this though.

"Then how did I get here?" I demanded.

"My best guess is that you're some Pythia's newly appointed heir on a joyride, testing out the power," she said, stopping beside the black hole of the doorway. "Ooh, look. I can travel through time. Isn't that cool?" she mimicked.

"I'm not joyriding! And I don't find being shot at and almost blown up cool!"

"I did the same thing myself a few times when young and stupid," she said, ignoring me. "And almost got killed. Take some advice: go home."

"Not until we talk," I said flatly. "And we can't do that here. The explosion was loud enough to wake the dead. Someone is probably on their way to investigate right now!"

"I wouldn't worry too much about that," she said, slipping off little champagne-colored heels. "These cellars date back to the eleventh century. And when they built something back then, they intended it to last. The walls are seven feet thick."

I felt the muscles along my spine start to relax just as a barrel came bouncing at us out of the dark. Agnes slammed the door and scrambled back while I ducked behind another support column. I'd barely made it when a second explosion deafened me and a hail of former door parts exploded through the room, impaling everything in sight.

A jagged piece of iron from one of the hinges hit the floor beside me, burying itself into the stone an inch from my right foot. I jerked back and stared at it wide-eyed. "Why is it that everywhere I go, someone is shooting at me?" I demanded hysterically.

"Your wi

"I'm not going anywhere!"

Agnes didn't respond. I looked around the column to see her cautiously approaching what had been the door. Burning shards framed the opening in fire, and streamers of noxious fumes were swirling slowly outward. It looked like a portal to hell, but she nonetheless squatted to one side, peering into the darkness within.

"Who is the Guild?" I whispered, joining her despite my better judgment.

"An order of mages who play around with very dangerous spells. Unfortunately for us, once in a while they don't manage to blow themselves up."

"And that's a problem because. .?"

"Because they're time travelers."

She started forward, and I grabbed her arm. "Wait. You're going in there?"

"That's the job."

"The job sucks!"

"You're telling me." She threw off my hand and slipped echo across the threshold, her stocking-clad feet silent on the old stones.

"Agnes!" I hissed it after her, but there was no response. I stared into the dark for half a second, cursing softly, and then followed.

I'd closed the lantern's little door, but it must have gotten dented in the fall, and the sides didn't meet all the way. Thin beams of sepia light leaked out, gilding the stones around us and turning our shadows into hulking monsters. I stared into the darkness crowding the rest of the room and tried not to think about sharpshooters and easy targets.

When the attack came, the only warning was a flicker of red in the gloom. Agnes aimed for it, but before she could pull the trigger, a bloody snake of lightning flashed across the room and struck her shoulder. She spun around and collapsed against me with a choked cry.

I dropped the lantern and grabbed her and my gun. But I only managed to get a couple of shots off before her fingers closed over my wrist. "Not in here."

I didn't argue since I didn't have anything to use as a target anyway. I dragged her out of the puddle of light into the shadow of a nearby support column. She peered around the side, but unless her eyesight was a hell of a lot better than mine, she didn't see anything. I listened, but there was no sound except her ragged breathing.

"Maybe I hit him," I whispered.

"I'm not that lucky."

Her voice sounded strained, and something gleamed wetly on the shoulder of her dress. "You're hurt."

"My own damn fault." She peeled violet-printed chiffon away from a nasty-looking burn. "I loaned my ward to my heir for a training exercise right before she eloped with some loser. Naturally, she didn't bother to give it back first."

I bit my lip and didn't reply. The ward in question was a pentagram-shaped tattoo the size of a saucer that currently sat between my shoulder blades. It didn't guard against human weapons, but was pretty amazing when fending off magical assaults. My mother, who had been Agnes' heir before wisely ru

"Do you usually wear high heels to chase armed men around?" I asked instead.

She wiggled the toes of her now bare foot, making the ladder in one silk stocking creep up a little higher. "I was called away in the middle of a di

"You could have brought a bodyguard with you."

"Yes, that's all this fiasco needs! Another mage. Probably go off half cocked and blow up the whole complex, saving the Guild the trouble!"

"And maybe saving your life!"