Dance of the Gods (11 page)

“I was finishing up a bout with Lucius, then I ran into Davey. He's having such a good time.”

“He's been pining for a game.” Lilith held out a hand. Lora walked over, slipped hers into it. Together, nearly cheek-to-cheek, they looked at the man who stood in the center of the room.

He wore black robes edged in red. His hair was a thick mane of silver around a face that boasted eyes dark as onyx, a long, hooked nose, a thin, unsmiling mouth.

There was a fire behind him that burned without hearth or log or turf. Suspended above it was a cauldron that spilled out pale green smoke, the same color as the light that glowed sickly through the caves. Two long tables held vials and jars. Whatever swam in them looked viscous, and alive.

“Midir.” Lilith gestured toward the man with a wide sweep of her arm. “I wanted Lora with us when we had this discussion. She keeps me calm. As you know I've needed time to compose myself after that disaster a few days ago.”

She wandered over, picked up a carafe, poured the red liquid from it into a glass. Sniffed. “Fresh?” she asked him.

“Yes, my lady. Tapped and prepared for you.”

She sipped, offered the glass to Lora. “I should ask if you're fully recovered from your injuries.”

“I am well, my lady.”

“I'd apologize for losing my temper, but you disappointed me, Midir. Extremely. Your punishment would have been more severe if Lora hadn't cooled that temper. They snatched those
cows
out from under my nose. They left an insulting message on my very doorstep. It was for you to protect my home from such matters, and you failed, miserably.”

“I am prostrate, my lady.” He knelt, bowed his head. “I
was not prepared for the attempt, nor for the force of the power they held. It will never happen again.”

“It certainly won't if I give you to Lora. Do you know how long she can keep a man alive?” She glanced over at her companion with a soft and knowing smile.

“There was the one in Budapest,” Lora recalled. “I kept him six months. I could have gone longer, but I got bored with him. I don't think Midir would bore me for years. But…”

Lora ran her hand up and down Lilith's back. “He's of use,
chérie
. He has great power, and he's bound to you,
n'est-ce pas?
”

“He made me promises, a great many promises. Don't speak,” she snapped when Midir lifted his head again. “Because of those promises, he's yet to feel my bite. But you're my dog, Midir, and never forget it.”

Slowly now, he raised his head. “I serve you, Majesty, and only you. I sought you out, my lady, to give you the portal, so you may walk between worlds, and rule them all.”

“And so you can walk between them, wizard, plucking power like daisies with my army at your back. And still this power broke when struck by what the mortals wielded.”

“They should never have gotten by him, it's true.” Again, Lora soothed. “He allowed them to humiliate you, and that is unforgivable. Still, we are more with him than without him. With him, we'll have all by Samhain.”

“See? She keeps me calm.” Lilith took the goblet back from Lora as they stood, arms circling each other's waists. “You're alive because of what she said—as I agree with her. And because you at least had the good sense to bring on the dark once we understood we had been breached. Oh, stand up, stand up.”

He rose. “My lady, may I speak?”

“I left the tongue in your mouth.”

“I have pledged my power and my life to you, and have dedicated that life and power for more than two hundred years to you. I have made this place for you, as you
commanded, under the ground, and cloaked it from the human eye. It is I who carved the portal so that you and your army may travel between worlds, so that you, my queen, may go to Geall and ravage, and reign.”

She angled her head and a pretty smile curved her mouth. “Yes. But what have you done for me lately?”

“Even my power has limits, my lady, and it takes a great deal to hold the cloak. The magic these others hold is strong, and still, in the end, I felled them.”

“True, true. But after they picked my pockets.”

“They are formidable, my lady.” He folded his hands so they disappeared within the wide sleeves of his robes. “Less would hardly be worthy of you. And your triumph will be only greater when you destroy them.”

“Sweet talker.”

“He did nearly get me into the house,” Lora said. “So close, I could almost taste her. It was a good spell, a strong one to bend the hunter's will. We could try it again.”

“We could,” Midir agreed. “But it is only two weeks until we reopen the portal. I will need my strength for that, Majesty. And another sacrifice.”

“Another?” Lilith rolled her eyes. “How tedious. And a virgin again, I assume.”

“If you would, my lady. In the meanwhile, I have a gift which I hope pleases you.”

“More diamonds?” She tapped a hand in front of her mouth in a delicate yawn. “I grow weary.”

“No, my lady, not diamonds. More precious, I think.” He picked a small hand mirror by its bone handle, offered it.

“Do you toy with me? Such a trinket only…” She let out a gasp as she twirled it by the handle. “Is this my face!” Stunned, she touched a hand to her own cheek, stared into the glass.

It was as if she looked through a thin mist, but she could see the shape of her face, her eyes, her mouth. The joy of it brought tears to her eyes.

“Oh. Oh, I can see who I am. I'm beautiful. See, my eyes are blue. Such a pretty blue.”

“Let me—” Lora squeezed close, her eyes widening as she saw herself in the little glass with Lilith. “Oh!
C'est magnifique! Je suis belle.
”

“Look at us, Lora. Oh, oh, see how wonderful we are!”

“So much better than a photograph or a drawing. See, we move! Look how our cheeks press together.”

“I am here,” Lilith murmured. “So long ago, before I was given the gift, I saw my face in polished glass, in the clear water of a lake. The shape of it, and how my hair tumbled down to frame that shape.”

She touched her hair now, watching her fingers move through it. “The way my lips, my cheeks would move with a smile, the way my eyebrows will lift and fall. And last, the last time I saw this face, it was in the eyes of the one who sired me. Two thousand years have passed since I've looked into my own eyes.” A tear trickled down her cheek, and its reflection enchanted her. “I'm here,” she said quietly, a voice thick with emotion. “I'm here.”

“You're pleased, Your Majesty?” Midir lowered his folded hands to his waist. “I thought it your fondest wish.”

“I have never had such a gift. Look! How my mouth moves when I speak. I want a great one, Midir, a big one so I can see the whole of me at once.”

“I believe it can be done, but it would take time and power. The portal…”

“Of course, of course.” Lilith angled the mirror from overhead to try to see more of herself. “I'm as greedy as Davey, demanding more even as I hold a treasure in my hands. Midir, you've pleased me beyond measure. I'll have what you need brought to you.”

When he bowed she walked to him, touched his cheek. “Beyond measure,” she repeated. “I won't forget that you troubled to touch my heart.”

Larkin scurried out after them. Since they spoke of nothing now but the mirror and their own beauty, he veered
off to look for their arsenal, to get a clearer idea of their numbers.

He streaked down darkened tunnels, squeezed under doors. In one chamber he found three vampires feasting on a man. When the man moaned, Larkin's shock made him careless. One of them spotted him, and lifted its bloody face in a smile.

“Wouldn't mind a little rat for dessert.”

As he pounced, Larkin shot under the doorway again, and across to the next, streaking between the feet of the guard and under.

Into the arsenal.

Weapons for a thousand, he realized. For a thousand and more. Sword and lance, bow and ax, all stored with a military precision that told him this was indeed an army, and not just a pack of animals.

And this they would take to Geall to destroy it.

Well, he'd give them some trouble first.

Turning into a man, he took the single torch from the wall to set the tables, the chests, the cabinets to light.

Distraction and destruction, he thought, tossing the torch aside before turning back into the rat again.

As fast as he could, he went back to the area where the prisoners were kept. He saw the man the boy had chosen was no longer in his cage. So he was too late to save him or the woman. But there were others, more than twenty others, and he would give them a chance at least.

There was only one guard now, leaning up against the wall and despite the moans and pleas, he seemed to be half dozing.

It would take speed and it would take luck, Larkin thought. He was counting on having both. He changed into a man, grabbed the sword at the vampire's side, swung it hard.

As the dust exploded, the screams from the cages were deafening.

“You have to run.” He grabbed the keys from the hook
on the wall and began to unlock cages. He shoved the sword into the hands of a man who looked at it blankly.

“You can hurt them with that,” Larkin said quickly. “Kill them if you cut off the head. Kill them with fire. There are torches in the tunnels. Use them. Here.” He shoved the keys into another pair of hands. “Unlock the rest. Then run. Some of you may get out. I'm going to do what I can to keep the way clear.”

Though he knew he risked draining his energy, he changed once more as the chaos whirled around him. Into a wolf that sprang out of the doorway.

He veered left, hoping to buy time and charged the first vampire he saw. He took it by surprise, ripped out its throat. Muzzle dripping, he ran.

He'd hoped the fire he'd set in the arsenal would keep many of them busy. But he heard no alarm as yet.

He saw two carrying bodies to a stack of more dead. Tossed, he thought, like offal. As he ran, he changed, and as he changed he reached for a sword.

He took them both with one blow.

There was shouting now, not the human screaming, but sounds of alarm and fury. Once more he changed into the wolf to use its speed. He could do no more than he had done.

He swung down a tunnel, and he saw the boy.

He was crouched on the ground, feasting on the man who'd been in the cage. The child's shiny hair was streaked with blood, and it dripped from his fingers, from his lips.

The low growl that rumbled out of Larkin's throat had the boy looking up. “Doggie!” Davey grinned, horribly. “None for you until I'm finished. I'm done with that one, so you can have it if you want.”

He gestured toward the woman who lay facedown a few feet away.

“She wasn't as much fun as this one, so I finished quick.”

Beyond rage, Larkin bunched to spring.

“Davey, there you are!” The one who'd sparred with Lora clipped quickly down the tunnel. “Your mother wants you in your chambers. Some of the humans are loose, and they've managed to set a fire.”

“But I haven't finished yet.”

“You'll have to finish later. Are these both your kills?” He crouched down to give Davey a congratulatory pat on the back. “Good for you. But if you eat any more, you'll just get sick. I'll send someone down, have these taken to the heap, but for now, you need to come with me.”

He glanced over as he spoke, eyeing Larkin. “One of your mother's wolves? I thought she'd sent them all—”

Larkin saw the change on its face, the sudden bracing of its body. He leaped, but missed the throat as the vampire blocked the charge. The force of the blow hurled Larkin against the wall, but he was up quickly, charging again before the thing could clear its sword.

There was screaming, horrible screaming and his own snarls and snaps. The part of him that was wolf lusted for blood as much as the man inside it lusted for vengeance.

He sank his claws into the thing's shoulder, its chest.

Then there was pain, unspeakable pain as the child leaped on his back and used his fangs.

With a howl, Larkin reared back, managed to shake the boy off. But he was up quickly, and the one on the ground was reaching for its sword.

The wolf was done, and Larkin prayed he had enough left in him to get out, and away.

His light sparked, shimmered weakly. There was more pain, and with it now a dragging weakness. But he became the mouse, small and quick, slipping into shadows and hunting the sound of the sea.

The fire in the back of his neck burned to the bone. The caves echoed with screams, running feet. He was nearly trod on as his strength and his speed wavered, but continued to head toward the thin wash of moonlight, the roar of the sea.

There were people running, clawing their way up the cliff wall. Some carried the weak, the wounded. Larkin knew if he attempted a change again, he'd need to be carried himself.

He could do nothing more. With what he had left, he dragged his small body to a rock, wedged himself behind it.

The last thing he saw was the flicker of stars going out as dawn crept closer.

“H
e should have been back by now.” From the
window in the parlor, Blair watched dawn break through the long night. “On his way back anyway. Maybe you should start again.” She turned around to Hoyt and Glenna. “Just start again.”

“Blair.” Glenna crossed over, ran a hand up and down Blair's arm. “I promise you, as soon as he can be seen, we'll see.”

“It was a stupid idea. Reckless and stupid. What was I thinking? I sent him in there.”

“No.” Now Glenna gripped both of her arms. “He went in, and we all agreed. We're all equal in this. None of us bears all the burden.”

“He went in there without a weapon, without a shield.” She closed her hand over her crosses.

“He could hardly fly or crawl or slither around a nest of vampires with a cross around his neck,” Cian pointed out. “A beacon like that? He wouldn't have lasted five minutes.”

“So what? He lasts ten going in naked.”

“He's not dead.” Moira spoke quietly, and continued to sit on the floor, staring at the fire. “I'd know. I think we'd all know. The circle would be broken.” She looked over her shoulder at Hoyt. “Isn't that so?”

“I believe it is, yes. It may be as simple as he needed to rest. Maintaining other shapes must take considerable energy and concentration.”

“It does. That's why he eats like a plow horse.” Scooting to face the room, Moira managed a weak smile. “And he's never, that I know, held a shape above two or three hours.”

Another nightmare, Blair thought. To imagine him skulking around the caves as the rat they'd agreed on, then, whoops, he's a human without so much as a Popsicle stick to defend himself.

Alive, she could hold on to that. It made sense that they'd feel it if he'd been killed. But he could be in a cage, hurt, being tortured.

“I'm going to go make some food.” Glenna gave Blair's shoulder a comforting pat.

“I'll do it. I should practice more with the cooking,” Moira said as she got to her feet. “And I need something to do besides sit and worry.”

“I'll give you a hand.” Glenna draped an arm over Moira's shoulders. “I'll bring out some coffee in a few minutes.”

“I'm going out.” Hoyt pushed himself out of the chair. “It may be I can draw something, sense something, outside the confines of the house.”

“I'll go with you.”

But he shook his head at Blair. “I'd do better alone.”

What was she supposed to
do
? She wasn't used to standing and waiting. She was the one who went out, did the job, risked her skin. She wasn't supposed to stand and wring her hands while someone else was on the line.

“Would you mind closing those other drapes? Light's coming in from that side.”

Baffled, she looked back. Cian was sprawled lazily in a
chair—and the slant of light coming in the east windows was barely a foot from the tips of his boots.

She imagined most of his kind would have been scampering back in a fast hurry from that spread of light. Not Cian. She doubted they'd get a scamper out of him if they gave him a boot in front of a sunny window.

“Sure.” She moved over, drew them, and plunged the room into gloom. She didn't bother with a lamp. Just then the dark was a comfort.

“What will they do to him? Don't lie, don't soften it. If they have him, what will they do to him?”

You know, Cian thought. You know already. “She'll have him tortured. For the entertainment value and for the practical purpose of getting information.”

“He won't tell her—”

“Of course he will.” Impatience whipped into Cian's voice. It was infuriating that he was attached enough to Larkin to worry about the boy.

“She can do things to a man no human being can withstand—and keep him just this side of alive while she's at it. He'll tell her anything. So would you, so would any of us. And does it matter?”

“Maybe not.” She came over, gave in to her weak legs and sat on the table in front of his chair. He was giving her the truth, naked and without sentiment. It was what she needed. “She'll change him, won't she? That's the big coup, siring one of us.”

“That would be two of us.”

“Right. Right.” She dropped her head in her hands because it felt sick. As sick as her gut, as sick as her belly. “Cian. If…we'll have to…”

“Yes, we will.”

“I don't think I can stand it. I don't think I could go on with this. If he's just dead, I can, because otherwise it would be like we wasted his life. But if she sends him back here changed, and we have to…” She lifted her head now, rubbed her hands over her damp cheeks. “How did you get
through it? After King? Glenna told me you and King were tight, and you had to end him. How did you get through it?”

“I got piss-faced for a couple of days.”

“Did it help?”

“Not particularly. I grieved and I drank, then I let the anger in. It's because of what was done to King, more than any other reason, that I'll see this through to the end.” He angled his head, studying her. “You've fallen for him.”

“What? It's not—I care about him, of course. All of us. We're a unit.”

“Humans are so strange, their reactions to what they feel. The expressions of emotions. For you it seems to be embarrassment. Why is that? You're both young, healthy, and caught in a situation filled with passion and jeopardy. Why shouldn't you form an attachment?”

“It's not that simple.”

“Not for you, apparently.” He glanced over as Hoyt strode back in, and Blair sprang to her feet.

“There's a van on the lane there. The wheels are all ripped. There are some weapons in it.”

Blair didn't bother with a jacket, but went out, jogged down the lane. The driver's door was open, she noted, with the key dangling from the ignition, as if someone had tried to start it, then abandoned it in a hurry.

There were a couple of swords and a cooler holding several packets of blood in the cargo area.

“Well, it's theirs,” she said to Hoyt. “No question of that. And the chances of all four tires going flat come in at zero.” She hunkered down, stuck her finger in the wide hole in the rubber. “Larkin did this, somehow.”

“They must have abandoned it, taken to the woods, I'd think, to hide from the sun.”

“Yeah.” Her smile showed grim purpose. “At last I have something to do. I'll go get armed.”

“I'll go with you.”

She went into the forest with crossbow and stake, seeking out the shadows, moving like one. At the fork of a path,
she and Hoyt separated, each moving deeper into light that was dappled and dim.

She found one cowering, curled on mossy ground in deep shade. A boy, she noted, no more than eighteen when he died. From his clothes—holey jeans and a faded sweatshirt, she imagined he'd probably been a student doing the backpacking thing.

“Sorry about this,” she told him.

He hissed at her, crawled over to hide behind the trunk of a tree.

“Oh come on, like I can't still see you? Don't make me come up there.”

She didn't hear the one coming behind her, but sensed it. Blair did a half pivot, lowered her right shoulder, so when it leaped at her back, she flipped it over.

This one was about the same age, a girl, and looked a lot more frisky.

“You two a couple? That's cute, and really bad luck.”

The female charged, and Blair lowered the crossbow. She didn't just want a kill, she realized, she wanted a fight.

She dodged the kick, taking the brunt of it on the side of the hip, and the second in the small of the back. There was enough force to pitch her forward. She landed on her hands, sprang over, and planted the heel of her boot in the vampire's face.

“Kickboxing classes, huh?” She saw something in the eyes when it came back at her, when they traded blows. It hadn't fed, she realized, remembering the cooler in the van. It was desperate.

And prolonging the kill was only torturing it. This time when it charged, Blair pulled her stake and put it through the heart.

“Bitch. Stupid bitch.” The one behind the tree shouted it out, and the heavy dose of New Jersey in the voice nearly amused her.

“Which one of us?”

When he leaped up, she rolled to her toes. But he began
to run away. “Oh, for God's sake.” She snatched up the crossbow, and put an arrow in him. “Coward.”

She whirled at the sound behind her, then relaxed when she saw Hoyt coming along the path. “Only one,” he told her.

“Two here. There may be more, but they'll have gone deeper. We should get back, see if there's any word on Larkin.”

“I couldn't sense anything, but neither could I sense his death. He's a clever man, Blair, resourceful, as you can see by what he did with the wheels on the van.”

“Yeah. He's nobody's jackass, even if he can change into one.”

“I know what it is to care about someone, and to worry for their life.” As they walked, Hoyt's eyes tracked through the trees, alert and watchful. “We can defend each other in this, but we can't protect each other. Glenna taught me the difference.”

“I never had to worry about anyone before. I don't think I'm very good at it.”

“I can tell you that the skill of it comes entirely too easily.”

When they stepped out of the woods Moira was running out of the house as if it had burst into flame. The light of absolute joy on her face had all the fear inside Blair dropping away.

“He's coming back!” she shouted. “Larkin, he's coming home.”

“There now.” Hoyt put at an arm around Blair's shoulders as relief shook them. “So you needn't use that worry skill any more today.”

 

I
t took everything he had to stay the hawk, to stay in
the air. Pain and fatigue warred inside him, each threatening to break through and shatter the strength he had left. He'd lost blood, he knew that, but how much he couldn't say. He only knew the bite at the back of his neck was a constant searing fire.

There had been no one—human or vampire—in sight when he'd come to, after dawn, in his own shape. There'd been blood on the shale, not all his own. Not enough, he comforted himself, not enough of it to mean all he'd freed had been slaughtered.

Surely some had made it. Even one…

He felt himself falter, felt his wing try to tremble itself into an arm. He bore down, calling the hawk to hold him.

There the river, he thought. There the Shannon. He was well toward home now.

He brought Blair's face into his mind, that two-pointed smile, the strong blue of her eyes, the quick music of her voice. He would make it, he would make these last miles.

He could feel his heart—the hawk's—racing, too fast. Even breathing was a vicious strain, and his vision was no longer sharp. There was something else inside him, something the demon in a child's form had put in him. Inside him, pumping into his own blood, poisoning it.

A weakness, the dark of it, whispered slyly that he should just let go.

Then he heard something else, stronger.

You're almost home, bird-boy. Keep going, you're almost back. We're waiting for you. Going to make you the breakfast of champions—all-you-can-eat buffet. Come on, Larkin, come home.

Blair. He held on to the sound of her voice, and flew.

There were the woods, and the pretty stream, and the stone house and stables. And beyond them, the graveyard where he was damn well determined not to end up now that he was so close.

There! There was Blair, outside the house with her face tipped up to the sky so he could see it. Her eyes. And there was Moira, his sweetheart, and the others save Cian. He gave one heartfelt prayer of thanks to all the gods.

Then his strength simply dissolved. He fell the last ten feet to the ground as a man.

“Oh God, oh God!” Blair sprinted to him, reaching him
a full stride before the others. “Wait, be careful. We have to see if he broke anything.”

She began to run her hands over him even as Glenna did the same. Then she felt the raw skin at the back of his neck, and slowly brushed his hair aside.

She stared up into Moira's brimming eyes. “He's been bitten.”

“Oh God, sweet God. But he's not changed.” Moira lifted one of his limp hands to her lips. “He couldn't be out in the sun if he'd been changed.”

“No, not changed. And not broken. Banged up pretty good. His pulse is really thready, Glenna.”

“Let's get him inside.”

“He needs food.” Moira hurried ahead as Hoyt and Blair lifted Larkin. “It would be like one of us going without food for days. Food and liquids. I'll get something.”

“The sofa in the parlor,” Glenna ordered. “I'll go get what I need.”

Once they'd laid him on the sofa, Blair crouched by his head. He was white as death, and bruises were already gathering. “It's okay, you're home now. That's what counts. You're home.”

“Cian—Cian said to start with this.” Moira rushed in with a large glass of orange juice. “To get the fluids and the sugar into him.”

“Yeah, good. Gotta bring him around. Come on, flyboy.”

“Here, let me try this.” Glenna knelt at the side of the sofa. She dipped her thumb into a jar of balm, smeared it first on the center of his forehead. “On the chakras,” she explained as she worked. “A little chi balancing. Moira, take his other hand, push some of your strength out. You know how. Blair, talk to him again, the way I told you to when he was flying. It'll reach him. Hoyt?”

“Yes.” Hoyt laid his hands on either side of Blair's head. “Tell him to come back.”

“Come on, Larkin, you've got to wake up. Can't just lie
around all day. Besides, breakfast is ready. Please wake up now. I've been waiting for you.” She pressed his hand to her cheek. “Watching for you. His fingers moved! All the way out, Larkin, that's enough damn drama for the day.”