Tempt the Stars (28 page)

“Cows!”Casanova said, waving his glass. “Ever’body’s jus’ somebody’s cow.”

I frowned at him, not least because he’d just splattered hell juice all over my arm. But Pritkin nodded. “It’s not a bad analogy.”

“That we’re
cows
?” I demanded, vainly looking around for something to mop up with.

But everything in here was already dirtier than I was.

“No, we’re grass,” Pritkin said. “The demons are the cows.” He saw my expression. “Think of it this way, Cassie. Humans can eat grass, correct?”

“Yeah, I guess. Technically.”

“But nobody does. Why is that?”

“I don’t know . . . because it’s
grass
.”

“It’s lacking in nutrition, in calories, in all the things we need for life, yes?”

I nodded.

“A human would starve on a diet of grass. But a cow . . . a cow does quite well on it. Gets fat, even. And then, if a human eats the cow—”

“Okay, wait,” I said, my head spinning. “You’re telling me . . . that the gods came to earth, found a bunch of fat demons chewing up all the human grass, and decided to have a barbecue?”

He nodded. “Something like that. Remember, demons live much longer lives than humans, and have the capacity to store up a great deal more energy. In some cases, from thousands of feedings over hundreds of years. And not merely from earth. But from all their home worlds, as well.”

“But their home worlds don’t yield as much,” I said, recalling something Rian had said.

“No. Which is why earth was so prized when my father’s people, and others, stumbled across it long before the gods ever did. And then started coming in droves, to feed off the humans who couldn’t detect them and had virtually no defenses against them.”

“But someone’s always higher on the food chain,” Caleb said, with a certain grim satisfaction.

Pritkin nodded. “And when the gods discovered the demons, they felt toward them the way the demons had felt toward the human population. Here was a huge source of energy, ripe for the plucking, who had almost no defenses against them. Yes, they could buck and kick a little, but does that stop a lion from taking down a gazelle? And only the greatest of them could even manage that much of a response.”

“Then why didn’t the demons just stop coming?” I demanded. “Once they knew the gods were here—”

“Do gazelles stop coming to the watering hole?” he shot back. “Even though they know the lions come there, too?”

“Yeah, but that’s water. That’s a necessity.”

“As is energy in a world where power rules. Why do you think Rian betrayed Casanova? She’s known him for centuries. They have a bond—”

Casanova huffed out a bitter laugh.

“It’s true,” Pritkin insisted. “You gave her a great gift. The greatest you can give a demon. You gave her power, more than any other host she could possibly have found. And power can give her . . . everything else.”

“So she sold me out for power,” Casanova said bitterly. “I suppose she thought a vampire would understand that.”

“She sold you out for life,”Pritkin said sharply. “Which she might otherwise have lost in one of the power struggles that are epidemic at court—at
every
court. Rian was young and weak when she came to earth. Now, after gorging for centuries on as much energy as she could absorb, she goes home, not as a pawn to be used and possibly sacrificed to someone else’s ambition, but as a power broker in her own right.”

Casanova blinked at him, looking as thoughtful as a guy with that much hell juice in him could. But I just stared at the tabletop, where the flickering light turned the dust that had gathered in the sticky bits into a topographical map. A map of a universe that was suddenly far larger than I’d ever imagined.

“And at the time we’re discussing, power was even more important than it is now,” Pritkin added. “The ancient wars were ongoing, with the few demon races who stumbled across earth losing badly before its discovery. The power they gained from it helped renew their resources, gave them a fighting chance in battles on a scale humans can’t imagine, battles that lasted hundreds of years and spread across countless worlds, battles that, if they had been lost, might have resulted in the destruction of their entire species. So yes, they came, no matter the risk. And the gods knew that they would.”

There was silence at the table for a moment, as everyone struggled to grasp that. I didn’t know how the rest of them felt, but I wasn’t doing so hot. Pritkin was right; I couldn’t imagine war on that scale. I couldn’t imagine something else, either.

“I still don’t see what this has to do with my mother, or with you,” I said, after a moment.

“Artemis the Huntress,” Caleb murmured, his eyes suddenly widening. As if maybe he did.

“Yes,” Pritkin confirmed. “She was the most feared of the gods by demonkind. The most respected, and the most hated.”

“Why? You said all the gods hunted demons!” I said hotly.

“Yes, but she didn’t merely wait at the watering hole for them to come to her,” Pritkin said quietly. “She could open the gates between worlds, a talent that allowed her to take the offensive far more easily than the rest of her kind.”

“She hunted them here,” Caleb said, as if he didn’t quite believe it. “She hunted them in their own worlds.”

“No,” I said, but Pritkin was nodding.

“Every source I’ve managed to find says the same thing. She tore a bloody swath through a hundred worlds. Cassie—” He held up a hand, when I started to protest again. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. You must have seen the souk in Zarr Alim?”

“Zarr Alim?”

“My father’s capital city.”

I nodded, confused and angry.

“Well, if you’d had time to look around, you might have come across small amulets being sold by old women in the marketplace, amulets with a familiar face on them. They are still used as wards against bad fortune by the local inhabitants, even though no one really remembers why anymore. Just that once, long ago, their ancestors wanted protection from the face on those coins.”

“And what a pretty face it was, too,” someone said as a hand stroked down the side of my hair before abruptly clenching in it.

A very familiar hand.

And
fuck
.

“Release her!” Caleb jumped to his feet and threw out a hand—and a spell. Which ricocheted off the demon lord at my side and exploded against the ceiling, leaving a big black mark among the dirt and smoke stains. None of the bar’s regulars so much as flinched, except for the bartender, who hurried over with a bow and another glass.

Pritkin didn’t react, except to pour another drink, so I didn’t, either. We both knew Rosier couldn’t hurt me. He’d sworn a vow, which apparently would kill him if he broke it, not to take my life.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t said anything about not plaguing my existence.

“Sit, sit,” Rosier told Caleb genially, who was looking in confusion from Pritkin to his father, maybe because he’d finally noticed that my assailant and his friend could have been twins.

I guess he’d kind of been too busy before.

Well, except that one twin had never had a chance to clean up after his joyride out of hell. As a result, Pritkin’s bare chest was streaked with dirt, his hair shed little puffs of dust if he moved too fast, and he hadn’t lost his shoes only because he hadn’t had any on to begin with. He had found some jeans somewhere to replace the ridiculous silky pants, but that was about the only improvement.

Rosier, in contrast, was wearing a plain dark gray suit, but the cut would have made Armani weep with envy. His shoes were polished to a high shine. His casual silk shirt was forest green, his son’s favorite color.

Or maybe it was his, too, although probably not for the same reason.

At a guess, Pritkin liked it because it had reminded him of home while he was stuck in the middle of the desert. Rosier probably chose it deliberately, to bring out the vivid color of his eyes. The ones that were so much like his son’s. The ones that were smiling at me as he took a seat.

I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t try anything fun—like clawing them out.

“Don’t stop there,” Rosier said, glancing at Pritkin. “Tell her the rest.”

Pritkin ignored him. Caleb remained standing, body tense and ready. The only one who moved was Casanova, slowly sliding under the table.

“Very well. I shall, then, yes?” Rosier glanced around at us, white teeth bared. “Let us see. I believe Emrys covered the part about—”

“His name is Pritkin,” I said harshly, cutting the bastard off.

“That’s even worse than the terrible ‘John,’” Rosier reproached. “In any case, Emrys is a human name.”

“But he doesn’t
like
it.”

More big white teeth. “In life, my dear, there is much we do not like but have to accept. It is part of growing up. Something
Emrys
is long overdue to learn.”

I glared at him. He grinned back. The kind of reckless, insouciant grin I would have thought Pritkin incapable of, before I saw him windsurfing a rug through hell. “You really don’t favor your mother, do you?” Rosier asked, searching my face. “Pity.” He leaned back and a lit cigarette appeared in his hand. “Now, there was a beautiful

woman.”

“Too bad she thought of you as cattle,” I snapped.

Rosier didn’t look perturbed. “Yes, no doubt. And that is part of your problem, isn’t it?”

I debated not answering, but I needed to know what he meant. I needed to know why Pritkin was just sitting there drinking, instead of yelling or conniving or . . . or doing
something
to try to get out of this mess. I needed to know why he looked like we’d already failed.

“What is?” I finally asked.

“You haven’t put it together yet?” Rosier sighed out some smoke. “But then, you always were a little slow, weren’t you?”

“Then make it simple,” I grated out, wishing I had something, anything, that would work on this son of a bitch. But it’s a little hard to age someone out of existence when that existence is measured in millennia.

“Very well,” he said, suddenly brisk. “The so-called gods might have fed off us, but it seems they weren’t much kinder to their human bait. Except for your mother, who decided that they were destroying the creatures to which she’d foolishly allowed herself to become attached. Or so she said.” He let out a sigh and looked at me through the haze of smoke. “I’ve always found that excuse to be rather . . . paltry . . . for someone decidedly not steeped in sentiment.”

I glared at him. “So? What does any of this have to do with—”

“Think about it, girl, assuming you have the capacity! She wants to protect her beloved humans, she determines that her fellow gods must go, and her gift—which was rather stronger than your little version, by the way—would allow her to banish them and slam the gates shut behind them. The trick, of course, was ensuring that they did not return.”

“She used a spell,” I said, wondering why my stomach had just dropped.

“Yes, a spell. Which she had to cast herself, and then maintain until her little Silver Band or what have you could grow strong enough to do it themselves. And there was sure to be opposition, sure to be a mass of forces battering the other side. By denying her fellow gods the free run of earth, she was also denying them their only way into the hells. No more fat . . . cows, was it? No more free meals. Without earth, they were restricted to the heavens, and if that wasn’t enough, she cut them off from Faerie, as well! I suppose she had to; better to block the whole bridge than half, and she had so many faithful worshippers among the fey. . . ”

Rosier paused, but I didn’t say anything this time. Because he was right—sometimes I didn’t pick up on things as fast as Pritkin or Caleb. Sometimes this crazy new world I’d somehow stumbled into made my head hurt trying to comprehend it. Sometimes I’d bitched about wishing I had an instruction book, something to lay it all out, to make it simple.

Right now I was kind of glad I didn’t.

Because right now my brain was coming up with answers I didn’t like.

“Starting to make sense?” Rosier asked evilly. “A huge spell, a god-denying spell, and not just around one world, but encircling two. And then to hold it, against all comers? To reinforce it as needed, until the weak, pathetic humans could take over? Where did she get that kind of power, hmm? She was strong, yes, but not that strong! Not anything close.
So where do you think it came from?
”

I looked at Pritkin, but his eyes were on his father. He hadn’t said anything, but one hand was flexing slightly. I didn’t like that. I liked Pritkin loud and bitching, in other words, his normal state. I didn’t like it when he got quiet.

Nobody else usually did, either.

“Where?” Rosier asked, and his hand hit the table, hard enough to make me flinch. “You can’t be that dim-witted!”

“She hunted demons for it,” I said, because he was right; it was obvious.

“Yes” came out as a hiss. “But not just any demons. She’d always gone after big prey in any case, preferring a challenge. Why should this be any different? And, really, small fry wouldn’t help her. She needed so much power, only the biggest, juiciest prey would do. She hunted, oh yes—Artemis the huntress, Hel with her fiery hunting dogs, Diana with her bow! She hunted in whatever name they call her, whatever confused, tortured, muddled memory they have, the people in my world, in yours, across hundreds more, they may have forgotten much, but they remember that yes, she
hunted
.”

There was no pretense of amiability now, no calm demeanor, no mask. Rosier was on his feet, backing me into the wall, the face that was usually so like his son’s suddenly alien as it twisted in pain, in fury.

“Through thousands of years, across hundreds of generations, even your people could not forget the vague but persistent memory of the greatest hunt of them all! It’s in your statues, on your vases, in virtually every depiction of her ever made. The memory of the methodical, the tactical, the relentless butchering—”

“No!”

“Yes! The
butchering
of the greatest among us. The Great Reaping of the demon lords.” My back hit the wall, but he didn’t stop coming. “Just where, my dear, do you suppose my father went? Why am I Lord of the Incubi, and not him? Did you never wonder what became of him? Never crossed your mind? No?”

I shook my head. This couldn’t be true. Couldn’t be. The demons . . . they could be terrifying, but they weren’t . . . they couldn’t have deserved . . . it wasn’t true.

“She killed him on a whim. Happened across him one day when she was raiding elsewhere and followed him home. Might not have bothered to venture into our world otherwise, as her daughter would so recklessly and thoughtlessly do, for we incubi, we’re not worth the effort. But when he fled for his life, in mortal peril, the instinct of the hunter—”

“I don’t believe you! Why should I believe you?”

“You don’t need to take my word for it. You wish to have your day in court? Please. Feel free. Go plead your case in front of the survivors of your mother’s massacre, and see how far you get! But this one,” Rosier said, grabbing the shoulder of the son who still hadn’t moved. “The one you took from me, as your mother took my sire—no. No, little child of Artemis, no. Him you do not take!”

And suddenly, something came over me at the sight of Rosier’s hand clenching on Pritkin, of his fingers digging into his flesh. Something wild and strange and unexpected. Something I didn’t understand except as a trickle of that dark emotion I’d felt on seeing Pritkin again, trapped and coddled at his father’s court, dressed in finery he had no use for, surrounded by sleek, sterile perfection instead of his usual cheerful mess, with none of the things he loved in sight, no potions, no books, no crazy weapons for fighting the creatures that were his jailers now.

Just a man lost and bitter and alone, in a world he hated. A man surrounded by the jealousies of a court who would happily see him dead. A man who was suffering for one reason, and one reason only.

Because he had dared to help me.

And suddenly, the trickle became a flood.

“I will
take him
,” I said, knocking Rosier’s hand away, “anywhere I damned well please,
demon
!”

“Ah, there it is,” he hissed. “
There it is!
The arrogance of the goddess. Unfortunately, you are not your mother, girl. You do not have the power to back it up. You don’t have the power to do
anything
. Why you’re not dead yet, I will never understand, but I have the strong suspicion that it has a great deal to do with bewitching my son.

Somehow.” He looked utterly baffled. “Somehow you managed to tie him to you, to drag him into your fights, to endanger his life again and again. But no more!”

“That’s for the council to decide.”

“It’s not their concern!” Rosier snapped, and pulled on his son’s arm. “Any more than it is yours. Come, Emrys.”

Pritkin didn’t move.

His father made a disgusted sound. “You know how this will end!”

“He doesn’t know!” I said. “None of us do, until the council rules. And my mother said—”

“Your mother hasn’t seen the council in thousands of years! She doesn’t know anything about it! She was lying to you, girl, probably to get you to stop plaguing her life!”

I flinched, because I’d had a similar thought myself. But I didn’t really believe it. And even if it was true, it wouldn’t change anything.

What other choice did we have?

“I don’t know what will happen if we go in front of the council,” I told Pritkin honestly. “But I know what will happen if you go back there, back to that life. And so do you.”

He didn’t look at me—it was almost like he didn’t even hear me—and Rosier smiled.

“Yes, he knows. He’ll be the prince of a great house. You would have him a pauper. He’ll rule a large court, and have influence in countless others. You would have him a servant, running your errands, cleaning up your endless debacles! I will give him a vast kingdom—what would you give him?”

I looked up, so angry I could hardly see. “His freedom!”

Rosier snorted out a laugh. “That hoary platitude. Sometimes I forget what a child you are.”

“It isn’t childish to want to choose your own life!”

“No, it’s criminally naive. The only free person is the beggar in the gutter. And he’s only free to be cuffed about by his betters. Everyone of any substance has obligations. It is time for Emrys to live up to his.”

He pulled on his son’s arm again, and this time, it worked. Pritkin got up. And I grabbed his other arm in both of mine, because this wasn’t happening.

“Pritkin,
please
. Mother wouldn’t have sent me here if she didn’t think there was a chance!”

Nothing.

“Why won’t you play for that chance?” I said, my voice rising in panic because I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand any of this!

“You’re better off if I don’t,” he told me, lifting his head.

“What?” I asked incredulously. Because he looked like he meant it.

“Finally, he comes to his senses,” Rosier said, pulling his son away, only to have Caleb step in front of him. “Have a care, war mage! I have taken no oath to spare you!”

“Right back at you,” Caleb said, eyes steady and feet planted.

“You’re as foolhardy as she is,” Rosier snapped. And then kept on talking, which he liked to do as much as his son didn’t. But I wasn’t listening.

“How can you say that?” I asked Pritkin. “How can you just give up?”

“I’m not giving up. I’m accepting reality.”

“What reality? You
don’t
want to go back there! And I need you—”

“You don’t, as you’ve made clear these past few days. If you can break into my father’s court, fight off the council’s own guards, force a meeting . . ” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’ll be all right, Cassie.”

“No! I won’t be! I need you—”

“Why? What can I give you that others can’t?”

“What?”

Green eyes suddenly burned into mine. “It’s a simple question. You said you need me. Why?”

“I—I told you. This job—”

“Which you’re handling admirably.”

“I am not! I couldn’t even get to my parents without help!”

“There are other demon experts—Jonas for one.”

“But I need you!”

And all of a sudden, Pritkin was backing me around the table. Not like his father had done, in a rush of anger, but slowly, relentlessly. To the point that I kept tripping over chairs.