Dance of the Gods (8 page)

“I'm all I've got,” she said to the empty room. Then she set the ring on the dresser, lowered to the floor and wept.

Men are vile creatures, really. Using women up, casting them aside. Leaving them alone and broken. Better to leave them first, isn't it? Better yet to pay them back, and leave them bleeding.

Sick and tired of being the one left behind, aren't you? And all the fighting, all the death. I can help you with that. I'd so like to help you.

Why don't we talk about it, you and me? Just us girls. Let's have a few drinks and trash men, why don't we?

Aren't you going to ask me in?

Blair stood at the window, and the face behind the dark glass smiled at her. Her hands went to the window, started to lift it.

Hurry now. Open up. Ask me in, Blair. That's all you have to do.

She opened her mouth, the words already in her mind.

Then something flew at her from behind, sent her sprawling across the room.

T
here was a scream of rage from what floated outside
the window. The glass seemed to vibrate from it, almost to bow in from the pressure.

Then it was gone, a blur of motion. Blair felt the room spin.

“Oh no, you don't. There'll be none of that.” Larkin took a firm grip on Blair's shoulders, pulled her up to her knees. “What the bloody hell were you doing?”

His face shimmied in and out of focus. “I'm going out. Sorry.”

The next thing she knew she was coming to on her own bed, with Larkin tapping her cheeks. “Ah, there you are. Stay with us this time, will you,
muirnin
? I'm going to fetch Glenna.”

“No, wait. Give me a minute. I just feel a little sick.” She swallowed hard, pressed a hand to her shaky stomach. “Like I've had entirely too many margaritas. I must've been dreaming. I thought I…Was I dreaming?”

“You were standing at the window, about to open it. She
was outside, somehow standing out there. The French one.”

“Lora. I was going to ask her in.” She turned horrified eyes to Larkin. “Oh my God, I was going to ask her in. How can that be?”

“You looked…wrong. I'd have said you were asleep, but your eyes were open.”

“Sleepwalking. A trance. They got into my head, and they did something. The others!”

He pressed her back down when she started to jump off the bed. “Downstairs, the lot of them. In the kitchen where Glenna's put a meal together, God bless her. She asked if I'd fetch you. I knocked, but you didn't answer.” He looked toward the window now, and his face went grim. “I nearly went away again, thinking you were sleeping and could probably use that as much as food. But I thought I heard…I heard her talking to you.”

“If I'd let her in…I've never heard of them being able to do mind control if you haven't been bitten. Something new. We'd better get down, tell the others.”

He brushed lightly at her hair. “You're shaky yet. I could carry you.”

“Bet you could.” It made her smile. “Maybe next time.” She sat up, leaned toward him, touched her lips to his. “Thanks for the save.”

“You're very welcome.” He took her hand to help her off the bed, then wrapped his arms around her when she swayed.

“Whoa. Head rush. They worked something on me, Larkin. They used memories and emotions. Private stuff. That seriously pisses me off.”

“You'd be more so if she'd managed the invitation.”

“Good point. Okay, let's go down and…” She wobbled again, cursed.

“My way then after all.” He scooped her off her feet.

“Just need another minute. Need to find my balance.”

“You feel balanced enough to me.” He looked down, smiled slowly. “You've a lovely shape to you. I like that the
clothes you wear don't hide it away. And just now you've got a pretty scent to go with it. A bit like green apples.”

“Are you distracting me from the fact I nearly invited a vampire in for dinner?”

“Is it working for you?”

“A little.”

“Let's try for a little more then.” He stopped, lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

A quick jolt. Not so playful as it had been before, and she realized there was a great deal of anger and fear in him for her. She didn't know the last time anyone had been afraid for her. She responded to it before she could stop herself, turning into him, tangling her fingers in his hair. Filling up with him that aching loneliness that had followed her out of the dream.

“Fairly effective,” she murmured when he lifted his head again.

“Well, sure it put some of the color back in your cheeks, so that's fine for now.”

“You'd better put me down. If you carry me in there, it'll scare them. They'll be scared enough when we tell them what happened.”

He shifted her so her feet touched the ground, but kept his arms around her. “Steady enough?”

“Yeah, better, really.”

Still he kept a hand on her arm as they walked the rest of the way to the kitchen.

 

“I
f this can be done, why is it they haven't done it
before?” Hoyt sat at the head of the table in the dining room, the fire crackling at his back. He looked down the length of it to Cian.

“I've never heard of it being done before.” With a shrug, Cian sampled the fish Glenna had prepared. “With a personal connection between the vampire and the human, yes, an invitation can be seduced or cajoled. But that's most often
due to the human's instinctive denial of what it sees. This is a different matter, and from what both you and Larkin said, you were sleeping.”

“First time for everything.” With no appetite, Blair ate because she needed fuel. “We've got magical types on our team. So, obviously, does she. Some sort of spell.”

“I fell asleep in the library, and…” Moira sipped water to wet her throat. “There was something. Not what happened to you, Blair, not exactly. But it was as if she was there with me. Lilith. More, that I was with her and it wasn't in the library, at all. We weren't in the library. She was with me in my bedchamber, at home. In Geall.”

“What happened?” Blair asked her. “Do you remember?”

“I…” Moira's gaze stayed on her plate as her color came up. “I'd been asleep, you see, and it seemed she was just there, as real as you are. She climbed into the bed with me. She…touched me. My body. I felt her hands on me.”

“That's not unusual.” Blair toyed with her fish. “The dream, the clarity of it, maybe, but the content. Vampires are sexual creatures, and very often bisexual. It sounds like she was testing things out with you, playing at it.”

“I had an experience right after we came here,” Glenna said. “Afterwards, I took precautions, protected myself in sleep. It was stupid,
stupid
of me not to think to protect everyone else.”

“Well, that's going on your permanent record.” Blair wagged her fork in Glenna's direction. “Glenna doesn't think of everything.”

“I appreciate the save by levity, but I should have thought of this.”

“We'll figure it out now, because there's no way they're going to put the whammy on one of us and waltz in this house.”

“They have someone of power. Not a vampire.” Moira glanced toward Cian for confirmation, and got a slight nod. “I've read that there are some vampires who can
cause a trance, but they must be there, physically there, with their victim. Or have bitten them before. This bite causes a connection, a bond, between them so that person, the human may be put under the vampire's control.”

“Clear of bites here,” Blair pointed out.

“Aye. And you were sleeping, as I was—as Glenna was before. You couldn't be caught in their eyes while you slept.”

“It takes a lot of juice for a vamp to whammy a human. A lot of energy,” Blair explained. “And practice.”

“True enough,” Cian confirmed.

“So they've turned a witch or sorcerer,” Hoyt said.

“No.” Moira bit her lip. “I think not. If what I've read is the truth. The vampire can gain power by drinking blood of power, but it becomes diluted. And if this person of power is turned, he would lose most, if not all, of his magic. It's the price for the immortality. The demon he becomes loses the gift, or retains only the dregs of it.”

“So it's more likely she has witches or whatever on her payroll, so to speak.” Blair considered it as she ate. “Someone who'd already turned to the dark side, we'll say. Or someone she has in thrall. A half-vamp. A potent one.”

“I don't know if that has to be.” Unlike the others, Larkin had already cleared his plate and was going for more. “I've been listening to all of this.”

“How can your ears work when your mouth is so busy?” Blair wondered.

He only smiled as he scooped up more fish, more rice. “It's good food,” he said to Glenna. “If I don't eat it, how would you know I appreciated it?”

“I'd like to know where you put all that appreciation. But you were saying,” Blair added, gesturing.

“These things happened in sleep, so it would seem to me the spell doesn't work on the conscious mind. Wouldn't it take more power to…” He fell back on Blair's term. “To whammy someone when they were awake and aware?”

“It would.” Hoyt nodded. “Of course, it would.”

“And not just sleeping, not this day. Moira was all but ill with exhaustion from what she was part of today. Blair was worn through as well. I don't know what it was like when it happened to you Glenna, but—”

“I was beat—worn out, upset. It was one of the reasons I didn't think to take any precautions before I fell into bed.”

“There you have it then, I'm thinking. Not just sleep, but sleep when the body is weak and the mind at its most vulnerable. So it seems to me that whatever, whoever, she might be using isn't as strong as what we have right here at this table.”

“You have been listening.” Blair considered him. “Dragon-boy here makes a good point. She hit us when our defenses were down, and she came damn close to getting lucky. What do we do about it?”

“Hoyt and I will work on protection. I've been using the most basic shield to this point.” Glenna looked at Hoyt. “We'll pump it up.”

“Be good if we could do something for the house, too,” Blair pointed out. “Some sort of general woo-woo so they can't get inside, even with an invite.”

“You can't block an invitation.” Cian sat back with his wine. “You can withdraw it, with the right spell, but it can't be blocked.”

“Okay, maybe not. Maybe something that extends the perimeters, creates a safe area around the house itself.”

“We've tried.” Hoyt laid his hand over Glenna's. “We haven't been able to find the way.”

“Something to work on. It would be another layer. The more layers they have to get through the better. Think vamp-free zone.”

“Perhaps I should move into a nice B and B,” Cian suggested, and had Blair frowning at him until she understood.

“Oh. Oh, right. Sorry. Forgot. Can't have a vamp-free zone with a vamp in residence.”

“We haven't been able to find a way to exclude him from it,” Glenna explained. “We have a few ideas. More
like concepts than actual ideas,” she admitted. “And Hoyt's been working for some time on conjuring a kind of shield for you, Cian, so that you could go outside during the day. In the sun.”

“Others have tried and failed on that. It can't be done.”

“People used to believe the world was flat,” Blair pointed out.

“True enough.” Cian shrugged. “But I'd think if it could be done it would have been in the thousands of years since our existence. And experimenting with it at this point isn't the best use of time.”

“It's my time,” Hoyt said quietly.

“We could have used you today.” Glenna spoke after a long beat of silence. “In Kerry, at the cliffs. It's worth the time. We think we'd have more success if we had some of your blood.”

“Oh?” Cian said dryly. “Is that all?”

“Think about it. Still, our first priority will be protection. Hoyt and I will put that together.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Why don't we get started?”

“Meanwhile, nobody sleeps until we have protection. I've got some extra crosses, some holy water, in my gear.” Blair got to her feet. “Cian, unless you're planning to go out, I'd like to set up basic precautions at doors and windows.”

“Have at it. But those kind of trinkets won't supercede an invitation.”

“Layers,” Blair said again.

“I'll help you.” Larkin pushed his plate aside. “There's a lot of doors and windows.”

“All right, so it looks like we split into teams. Hoyt and Glenna, magic time. Larkin and I will do what we can to block entrances. That leaves Cian and Moira on KP.”

 

I
t wasn't that she didn't trust Hoyt and Glenna—she
did as much as she'd ever trusted anyone. It wasn't that she wasn't open to magic. She had to be.

But even with the charm under her pillow, the candle lit, and the second charm hanging with the cross at her window, Blair slept fitfully that night.

And the night after.

The training helped, the sheer physical exertion of it, and the purpose. She pushed, and pushed hard. No one, including herself, ended any day without bruises and sore muscles. But no one, including herself, ended any day without being just a little stronger, just a little faster.

She watched Moira blossom—or thought of it that way. What Moira didn't have in strength she made up for in speed and flexibility. And sheer determination.

There was no one who could compete with her when she had a bow in her hands.

Glenna polished the skills she already had—the canniness, the solid instincts. And she was coming along with a blade and an ax.

Hoyt brought an intensity to everything. Whether he fought with a blade, with a bow or with his own hands, he had an almost unwavering focus. She thought of him as the most reliable of soldiers.

And Cian as the most elegant, and vicious. He had the superior strength of his kind, and the animal's cunning, but he added style to it all. He would kill, Blair thought, with violent grace.

She thought of Larkin as the utility player. In hand-to-hand, he was a scrapper, and simply didn't give up. He lacked Hoyt's intensity and Cian's elegance with a sword, but he fought tirelessly until he downed his opponents, or they simply dropped from exhaustion. He had a good eye with the bow—not Moira's, but who did?

And you never knew when he'd pull out one of his little tricks, so you'd end up battling with a man who had the head of a wolf, or the claws of a bear, the tail of dragon.