Fury's Kiss (65 page)

“Not if you can’t—”

“Put her in one of the labs. The girl got off a call for help, right at the end. I have to wait here for a few minutes, in case anyone comes, and then bail out that fool of a necromancer. Then I’ll deal with her.”

“And if she wakes up before then?”

“She won’t. And even if she does, she’ll be weak from blood loss and mentally confused. I did enough when I knocked her out for that. She won’t be going anywhere until we release her.”

“But she’s supposed to be found here,” the man argued. “Bleeding out. If we take her away, how are we supposed to explain—”

“Leave that to me! Do as you’re told; I’ll handle the rest. This is a minor setback.”

“And it would have been,” Lawrence said, shivering into existence beside me. “Except for you and your father. And my old master, who changed the damned passwords anyway, for no reason!”

“He has gut feelings sometimes,” I said, cursing myself.

I don’t read minds, much less those of powerful mentalists. I should have known I wasn’t picking somebody else’s brain on my own. Should have realized that Lawrence was showing me the scene on the pier, the scene he’d withheld for so long, for a reason.

So he’d have time to find me.

“I’ll gut him,” Lawrence said cruelly. “Just as soon as I finish with—”

Me, I assumed, judging by his expression. At least, the one he’d had a second ago. Before the gun I’d thought into existence blew it away.

He’d forgotten that I’d learned that much, at least, from our former encounters. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed, since I hadn’t been able to use it very effectively. And it didn’t look like that had changed, because he was healing before he hit the ground, make-believe bullets apparently not carrying quite the punch of the real thing. Or maybe he knew some kind of trick to minimize his damage in here.

Too bad I didn’t.

And he didn’t give me time to come up with anything. In a liquid movement that blurred my vision, he surged to his feet and caught my wrist. And then broke it so viciously that I thought for a second he’d ripped my hand off.

He hadn’t, but the pain was so excruciating that the whole wharf wavered as I emptied the clip into him anyway, as I stumbled back, as I stared around for somewhere to run—and came up empty. I didn’t know how to access Louis-Cesare’s memories, and besides, that hadn’t worked so great last time. And there was nothing else in sight except the scene on the wharf, frozen in place, and the skyline with its missing chunks of sky and—

And the rift.

The breech in the wall between Dorina’s
consciousness and mine was still there, and still frightening. But I didn’t hesitate, because things couldn’t get any worse. I threw the gun at him and ran, straight into the enveloping clouds around the entrance. Straight past the gaping pink maw, a fluttering tentacle brushing softly over my face. Straight through the flickering scenes of a life I had lived but didn’t know. Straight into—

Darkness.

It wasn’t wholly dark.

The pinkish light from before had faded, but other, brighter sources had taken its place. Pieces of memory flickered against the gloom, but not like last time. Before, they had been vague, washed out, wavering oddly. Like a hundred projectors turned onto someone’s laundry. Now it was more like walking down a dark street in Chinatown, assaulted by glowing neon signs on all sides. Or maybe holograms would be a better analogy, because they floated in the air as well as clinging to the rift, like flattened portals to other places, other times.

And there were more of them—a lot more. I glanced behind me, trying to spot Lawrence, and saw bits and pieces I recognized, as well as a lot I didn’t. It looked like the memories were colonizing this new ground, washing in from both sides to jumble up in the middle, creating an obstacle course of ever-changing light and shadow.

A little too much light, all things considered, with the brighter scenes shedding a haze of illumination for several feet around them. But it was still better than outside. I darted behind the darkest one I could find, slammed back against the skin-slick wall of the rift, and watched a younger me crawling through a trench, knee-deep in muck.

The visual was stark, almost like a film shot in black and white, although it wasn’t. That’s just how the place had looked: dark coils of barbed wire pushing up into a
washed-out sky. A dead tree. And an unburied bone, possibly animal, possibly human, poking out of the mud.

Flanders, First World War.

And no, no way was I hiding in that one.

Or in any of the rest of them. What had Radu said? Something about people getting lost in their own minds, wandering around aimlessly from memory to memory, trapped forever in their past?

I swallowed, feeling an involuntary shiver ripple over me.

My past hadn’t been that great, frankly.

“Nice try.” Lawrence’s voice filtered to me in strange echoes. “But bullets don’t have quite the same effect on me as on most of my kind.”

No, I didn’t guess so. Like it wasn’t a problem to fake death when you came apart anyway. Son of a
bitch.

But there’d been more than just the one reason to suspect him. Mircea had told me that Lawrence had three master’s abilities, but I’d seen him use only two: the Hound senses and the dissolving trick. I had never thought to wonder about the third, despite Marlowe’s saying that mental abilities had gotten Lawrence out of trouble before.

And me into it.

“You may as well come out.” Lawrence’s voice came again, sounding so close that it had me whipping my head around violently. Only to see nothing there. “You can stall all you like, but you forget that we’re
in the mind
. Outside time is meaningless. Weeks could pass for you here before anyone even realizes you’re in danger.”

I didn’t answer. He could be telling the truth, for all I knew. But he could just as easily be lying. I didn’t know how this mental stuff worked. I just knew I needed to stay near the pier, or as close as I could manage, where Mircea might eventually come looking for me. If I went too far in—

“And then there’s the small fact that you don’t have a choice,” Lawrence informed me. “Neither of us does. I am your only way out, just as you are mine.”

Okay, that got my attention. But he didn’t elaborate.
Even when I waited he didn’t. He was going to make me ask, going to try to use conversation as a way to zero in on my location.

I didn’t give much for his chances. The walls seemed to trap some sounds and magnify others. His voice was simultaneously nearby and distant, with some words so far off I could barely make them out, while others sounded like they were coming from only a few feet away. It was spooky as hell—but it might also be useful.

“Meaning what?” I demanded harshly, and heard my own voice coming back at me in receding echoes.

“That neither of us has a guide; neither of us has a way to resurface. Unless one of us dies.”

“And then the survivor wakes up.”

“Yes. As would have happened last time, if your father hadn’t cheated and come after you,” he said, sounding annoyed.

And for a second, all I could see was Mircea’s bloody face, stony and white and resolute as he let this bastard carve him up to give me time to get out. All I could see was Louis-Cesare lying on the floor, unconscious and worse, because he might be Europe’s champion but he didn’t know how to fight this way.

Neither did I, but I wanted to. I felt my fangs drop, and for the first time, it didn’t bother me. It felt good, like his flesh would feel under my teeth, the way his blood would taste on my lips, the way his screams would—

I swallowed and looked away.

“But it didn’t matter. He had to be removed in any case,” Lawrence added, and stopped again.

Baiting me.

I told myself to
shut up
. To concentrate on finding a way out of this. Only I didn’t see one.

Even if Lawrence was lying, and a competent mentalist could have brought me out, where was I supposed to find one? The only one I knew about was Ming-de, and I had no way to contact her. Or reason to believe that she would help if I did.

And say he was making that stuff up about time being perceived differently in the brain. I could still lie there in
the rubble a long time before anybody noticed me. And even then, if my rescuer wasn’t one of the handful of people who knew me, he’d just assume I was one of the human guests and put me wherever they were keeping the others. It might be hours before anybody realized I hadn’t just been knocked out cold.

And I didn’t think I had hours.

“Was that your job? To betray the Senate?” I asked, taking the bait. And starting to search the shadows for the one searching for me.

“Betray?” Lawrence’s voice was mocking. “Was it betrayal for those fools to gut each other nightly on the arena floor? Fools fight; winners think.”

“So you planned to get on the Senate this way?” I asked in disbelief.

“No, I planned to rule the Senate this way,” Lawrence said. Because he was obviously crazier than I was.

“If you’re so strong, you could do that anyway,” I said, watching a shadow slink along a wall. “Challenge the consul. As far as I know, she isn’t a mentalist.”

“No, but your father is.”

“Ahh.” Things started to make sense. The consul could fight her own battles, but she could also call for a champion when challenged. And obviously, Lawrence didn’t think he could take Mircea.

So he’d just decided to murder him instead.

“Is that what the fey promised you?” I rasped. “The consulship?”

“No, that is what they promised Geminus. He’d discovered that a Senate seat is merely another form of slavery. The only way out of bondage in our world is to
rule
.”

“And that’s what you think you’re going to do?” I demanded. “Rule? Because I got the impression that’s what the fey want. And their godly buddies.”

“The fey care about Faerie, not Earth. And what gods?”

“The gods the fey plan to bring back! Or didn’t they share that tidbit?”

He laughed. “Oh yes. I think it was mentioned a time
or two. But you forget—the gods are not here. And will not be here until the Circle falls.”

“And isn’t that the idea? Take out the Senate, then destroy the Circle?”

“That’s
their
idea,” he said condescendingly. “Mine is to remove the consuls and to consolidate rule of the six senates in my hands. Once I have it…Well, both sides will need my favor then, won’t they? And with the odds in the war nearly even, the vampires will be poised to make the difference.”

“And you’ll throw your weight behind the Circle,” I said slowly.

“Who will then owe me their victory, further cementing my position.”

“So this is just another vampire power play.” It shouldn’t have surprised me. Mircea had guessed as much, and it was certainly nothing new. Where vamps were concerned, it was the oldest story in the book and I’d seen a thousand examples. But for some reason, this one seemed particularly—

I belatedly realized that memory-me had started climbing out of the trench she’d been slogging through. And that the trench had been in shadow and outside was a whole lot brighter. And suddenly, so was I, as light from the scene spilled over into the surrounding area.

“
The
power play,” Lawrence said, materializing out of nothing right in front of me. “And even for a novice, that was pathetic.”

Behind him, memory-me made an “oh shit” face and launched herself back into the trench.

“Really? How’s this?” I asked, and kicked him viciously backward.

Because I might not be strong enough to kill Lawrence myself, but I had plenty of lethal memories that might.

As he was discovering.

I saw him fall into the scene, saw him land in a splash of mud and blood and half-rotten donkey parts. But I didn’t see him get up. Maybe because a barrage of
artillery fire ripped across the scene a second later, whiting out everything.

Or maybe because I was running like hell.

Not back for the entrance, but farther, further in. Dodging around, looking for other memories, worse ones, because the son of a bitch wasn’t dead yet. No, not yet, or I’d be out of here. I ran past strafing gunfire and a stampede of horses and a crashing surf and—

And straight into the fist that came out of nowhere.

It looked a little different than it had a moment ago, blackened and bleeding, with bare knuckle bones protruding from ruined flesh. It matched the face above it, which was almost unrecognizable. Demon red eyes looked out of a mask of charred skin that had partially flaked off, including the part that had once covered the now hairless skull. One cheek was split open, the guard uniform he was wearing was smoking, and half of the breastplate had melted to the burnt torso.

It looked like Lawrence hadn’t come apart fast enough this time. But he hadn’t died, either. A fact he demonstrated by sending me staggering back against the floor. He tried to shove a boot through my skull next, but I grabbed it—
hot, melting rubber, shit
—and
twisted
. I heard his knee pop before I felt it, before he screamed and grabbed my hair, jerking me up and throwing me face-first into the wall.

Right before I whirled and kicked out with everything I had left, sending him flying back into another memory. Of an earthquake-fueled rock fall that had very nearly caved in my head once, a few hundred years ago. And then I turned and scrambled away, trying to look ahead and behind at the same time, my eyes watching half a mountain slough away into billowing dust, while my feet—

Splashed down in a puddle.

The puddle was on wet cement. The cement was in a warehouse. And the warehouse looked to be on the edge of what passed for civilization.

Shit.
I immediately spun back around, looking for the
way out, because I must have accidentally fallen through one of the flickering memories that formed the obstacle course outside. But there was no door, no square of boiling darkness, no furious pursuer.