Capitol Magic (10 page)

“Clarice, listen to me. Those books belong in the Old Library. They're part of the courthouse collection. Richardson borrowed some of them legitimately, but he took far more than he admitted to us. He stole them.”

She looked up from the hasp. I could see the break in the silver where the saw had cut; I thought I might be able to snap it apart with my own weak, mortal wrists. “You're only saying that because he's not here to defend himself. You're the reason he's locked up.”

“He's locked up because he tried to kill me!”

In response, Clarice shifted her jaws, snapping her fangs back into place. She might as well have shouted her disdain—for me, for Judge DuBois's courtroom, for the entire Eastern Empire.

Vampires were allowed to kill humans, she was saying. Death was in their supernatural nature.

But Clarice's toothy statement was empty defiance. I was no mere human. I was a sphinx, bound to vampires since the ancient days of Egypt. My people had served as priests to the founder of the entire blood-drinking race, to the goddess Sekhmet, the incarnation of war.

Clarice could not drink from me without suffering consequences.

To remind her of my status, I raised my wrist, showing her the hematite bracelet James had given me eight months before. Hematite, to represent the magnetism between my people and the vampires. And I repeated, “He's locked up because he tried to kill me. And you have nearly committed the same offense tonight. Retract your fangs, Clarice. Return to your sanctum. I'll take the books to the Old Library, and this entire matter will be forgotten.”

For a moment, I thought I had gotten through to her. I thought she understood, that she recognized how we were both beholden to higher powers.

But then, her gaze shifted to the strewn ash on the floor outside the cage. Her face smoothed to alabaster. “They cannot be forgotten.”

“They hunted prey. The prey won.”

There were rules for this. Tradition. Vampires could not perpetuate grudges against humans who got the better of friends, of relatives. If that sort of vengeance were permitted, no amount of night courts, of secret proceedings, of cinnamon water and Enfolding could ever be enough to keep supernatural creatures hidden from the human world.

Clarice accused, “That witch worked magic!”

I nodded. “She did. And you were wise enough to see the working before it was complete. You escaped. Your men did not.”

I was setting facts before her. I was being dispassionate. I was stating an argument with legalistic simplicity. I was speaking calmly and logically with a woman who was known for her calm and logic, for her icy concentration, for her knife-sharp adherence to rules and regulations and requirements.

Strike that.

I was baiting a predator.

In a single motion, Clarice broke the lock and swept the door open. She launched at me, and her growl was so deep that I felt it more than heard it. Her teeth slashed toward my throat; she clearly had every intention of flying by, slicing out my jugular, completing the pass with scarcely a jolt of contact.

My months of training with James, though, prepared me for the move. I dropped to one knee and disrupted the vampire's trajectory.

I scrambled back to my feet before she had completed her spin to face me. I knew I was a better fighter on the ground—that was how James and I had completed most of my training. But I would be at a disadvantage if I went down before she did.

If I expected Clarice to burst into fury at my evasion, to fight awkwardly or haphazardly, I was sadly disappointed. Instead, she seemed to grow even colder, to harden like a chunk of coal collapsing into a shimmering, dangerous diamond. She stripped off her bulky gloves and stiffened her fingers into claws. She measured out three steps, steady, even.

I saw that she intended to grip my arms, to force me close to her chest. She would crush me to her, rip out my throat while I was unable to get leverage for any form of defense. Her spotless suit might suffer a gout of blood, but she would end this fight before it had truly begun.

But James had taught me about such an attack. In our long nights on the gymnasium mats, he had coached me on how to handle an opponent—one larger, stronger, infinitely more determined than I.

I knew how to slam my left hand into the joint of Clarice's left elbow. I knew how to pump my right arm back, breaking her grip completely. I knew how to slam into her, wedging her weight beneath my armpit, so that I could fling my right hand over her shoulder, clutch at her clothes for better leverage.

The rapid back-and-forth caught her by surprise. She flailed for a purchase, to escape from the too-intimate space beneath my arm. Before she could find the proper balance, though, I twisted sideways and thrust my right knee into her belly.

All of my weight was on my left leg. I did not let her exploit that stance, though. Instead, I let myself drop to the ground, slicing my left knee between both of hers. At the same time, I tightened my grip on the back of her jacket, forcing her up and over my head.

We ended on the stone floor. Her torso was trapped beneath me; my arm was pressing against her throat. Her knees were bent, and she arched her back, straining to throw me free.

I was panting, desperate to fill my lungs. At the same time, though, I was filled with a sense of pride. All of my training had paid off. All those months with James, all the bruises to my body and my ego. I had been able to apply them here, against an unknown opponent, against a woman who clearly bettered me in speed and native strength.

And in wardrobe. Clarice's foot shot out, raking down the inside of my calf. Impossibly, she still wore her pumps, and the razor sharp leather of one heel sliced into the muscle of my leg.

Pain. White, hot, lightning pain.

It felt as if my blood was pouring out, as if all my veins and arteries were racing to pump themselves dry. I thought that muscle had been sheared from bone, that I had been butchered as neatly as a calf led to slaughter. My belly twisted, and acid painted the back of my throat as I fought desperately to keep from vomiting.

James's training was not enough. His vampire tricks would not save me.

But I had worked with other mentors. Not as much as I wanted. But maybe, just maybe, as much as I needed.

I closed my eyes and tried to feel the hematite bracelet around my wrist. I pictured its silvery glow, its placid, unwavering sheen. “
Menesai
,” I gasped, between gritted teeth.

Menesai
. An ancient command, passed down in the desert, from sphinx to sphinx. A word that sprang from Ancient Greek, three syllables that called out to every fiber of my being.
Menesai
. Remember.

As a sphinx, I found the path to order. As a sphinx, I moved within the spaces. As a sphinx, I found the interstices—the time that expanded between my heartbeats, the centuries that stretched between my breaths.

Clarice started to buck for a superior position, fighting to toss me off her torso. Her nostrils twitched at the scent of my blood, and her lips peeled back. Her fangs extended.

And I had all the time in the history of the world to drive my knee between her thighs. I had time to tangle my fingers within her hair. I had time to torque her neck to the right.

I began to use the ancient fighting patterns James had taught me. Now, though, I was faster than my own enhanced eyes could follow, faster than my mind could trace.

And when it was over, Clarice was pressed against the silver bars of the cage. Her body was rigid with agony. My hands were clamped over hers, forcing her fingers to wrap around the overheating metal. My chest was hard against her back, forcing her face—her beautiful, ice-sculpted face—against the bars.

She felt like a corpse beneath me. Despite the smoke that sifted between my fingers, the flesh of her neck was cold. Not a muscle twitched. Of course she didn't breathe. She had not breathed for years.

I gasped to fill my own lungs, and the stench of burning flesh overwhelmed me. I pushed back from her, turned my head to the side, and retched.

Clarice's body slumped to the floor, her charred hands finally slipping off the bars. I could not see her face.

I had not killed her. It would take exposure to direct sunlight to do that. Sunlight, or a stake, a direct blow to the heart with a weapon made of oak.

No, the vampire lived. But she would take nights to heal. Weeks, even. Maybe months, unless she got a human to give her fresh blood.

Blood.

I looked down at my calf and nearly vomited again. The heel of Clarice's shoe had sliced like a scalpel, flensing skin and muscle until I could see raw bone. Blood was pooling on the floor beneath me, soaking into the mortar of the flagstones.

And then I heard it, above me, in the kitchen. The same creaking floor that had signaled Clarice's return. The vampire had had plenty of time there, while I ordered Jane and the others to safety. What had she done in the privacy of the kitchen? How many reinforcements had she summoned?

Panicked, I tried to drag myself toward the door of the cage.

The steps were louder now, pounding across the kitchen floor.

I turned my head toward the stairs. I raised my chin in defiance. I wrapped the fingers of my left hand around my hematite bracelet, struggling to reach back to my sphinx nature, to the power that would let me fight off these newest invaders.

“Sarah!”

James. And Chris. Both of them, plummeting down the steps, hurtling across the flagstones.

Chris threw himself to his knees beside me. He spared only the quickest of glances toward Clarice, enough to confirm that the vampire was not an immediate threat. I felt his arms around me, gathering me close, cradling me against his chest.

“I did it,” I said. I meant for the words to be loud, a boastful proclamation. For some reason, though, they barely came out as a whisper. “I found the missing books. And I kept the others safe, the humans.”

A black mist sifted across my vision. I pushed at it, trying to force it away so that I could see the pride on Chris's face. He must have misunderstood me, though. Must not have realized all I had done. He was shaking his head. He was saying something, my name, and then other words, but his lips moved too slowly for me to make out the sounds.

I realized that I was freezing, that the chill of the stone floor had chewed into my bones. My teeth started to chatter, and my entire body began to shake.

Something was pressed against my lips, something soft. I moved my mouth, shifting just enough to feel the velvet slide against my teeth.

No. Not velvet. Something liquid. Something hot. I swallowed, and I was immediately filled with a longing, with a desperate need to drink more. Heat spread down my throat, across my chest. I swallowed again, and a flame kindled deep inside my belly. Again, and I began to feel my arms, my legs.

My leg. My ravaged calf. I felt the muscle knitting, the skin closing over the wound.

One more swallow. One more wave of heat, of strength, of sudden understanding.

I was sprawled on the floor of Richardson's basement, cradled in Chris's arms. James knelt beside us, his forearm slashed with a surgical precision that mirrored my own nearly-healed wound.

Both men were staring at me, with near-identical expressions. Worry. Relief. And a growing flush of rage.

James found his voice first. “What the hell were you doing here?”

He sat back on his heels. I fought the urge to reach out to him, to clutch at the arm that had given me healing vampire blood. “I—” I started, but I quailed under the heat of his cobalt eyes.

Instead, I twisted to look at Chris. “You have to understand,” I said. “The Old Library.”

“They're
books
, Sarah.” I heard frustration in his voice, mixed with anger.

“I'm responsible for them.” I fought to push myself into a sitting position, but I did not yet have the strength to pull away from him.

“Sarah, you almost died here.” His voice nearly broke.

“I wanted to show you that I could manage the collection. That I could put everything in order.” The force of James's blood was building in my body. I was able to pump honest indignation into my protest.

“Put everything in order —” Chris trailed off.

“I was just trying to be a proper sphinx!” His exasperated reaction gave me the energy I needed to lurch away. I balanced on my knees for a moment, and I likely would have fallen if James had not reached out to steady me. “Stop it!” I said, jerking my arm free.

I forced myself to swallow hard, to calm the fury pulsing through my veins, chasing after James's blood. I drew a deep breath. I pulled my feet under me, and I stood, taking care not to put too much weight on my re-knit leg.

Reluctantly, cautiously, Chris and James rose beside me.

“I'm trying to be a proper sphinx,” I repeated, speaking directly to Chris. I tilted my head toward James. “At least
he
taught me how to fight. You haven't done anything. You say I need to move slowly, we need to take our time. You've dropped a few hints. I've sneaked a few books. But everything is out of order, everything is in the wrong place. My mind is a mess, and I need to fix it all, but I don't know how. I'm all alone!”

James reached out to steady me, placing one hand at the small of my back. I felt the pressure, steady, uncompromising. But I did not let it pull my attention away from Chris.

My fellow sphinx twitched his shirt cuffs into place. He shuffled one foot forward, and I saw that he was aligning his shoe with a crack in the floor. He ran a hand through his curly hair, as if that would make each strand fall in place.

He took a deep breath and exhaled more slowly than I thought possible. And then he said, “You're right.”

I merely stared at him.

“You're right,” he repeated. “Our past isn't easy. Our future isn't simple. I haven't wanted to force things on you. To make your life any more difficult than it already is.”