Claimed By Shadow (15 page)

“What do the other runes do?” I asked. “Is there a book or something?”

He glanced at Pritkin. “Would Nick have anything? I don’t know the individual powers, just the basic legend.”

Pritkin ignored him. “How many do you have?” he asked me. The question was quiet, but a pulse was throbbing at his temple.

I hesitated, but if I wanted to find out what these things did, I’d have to give up some information. “Three.”

“Good God.” Mac dropped his etching tool. A small tornado carved on his right bicep started whirling even more enthusiastically.

“Describe them.” Pritkin was looking pretty intense, but he wasn’t gob smacked like his friend.

“I already did.”

“The symbols!” he said impatiently. “Which runes are they?”

Mac broke in. “If you draw them I can—”

I cut him off with a frown. They might think I was a dumb blonde, but come on. I was a clairvoyant—did they really think I didn’t know my runes? “Hagalaz, Jera and Dagaz.”

“I’m on it.” Mac jumped up and went into the next room and I heard him pick up the phone. It crossed my mind that he could be calling for backup, but I doubted it. They didn’t know where the weapons were yet, and nobody would think that I’d drag stuff like that around in my bag. Come to think of it, I wasn’t so thrilled with the idea now, either.

“Where did you get them?” Pritkin demanded.

I couldn’t think of a reason not to tell him. “Same place I got the Graeae. The Senate.”

“They didn’t simply hand them over.”

“Not exactly.” I decided to change the subject. “Um, you wouldn’t happen to know how I get the ladies back in their box, would you?” I had been wondering how to figure out the spell needed to trap Myra in their place. It would be very convenient if Pritkin would simply give it to me.

“Tell me about the runes.” Damn, but he was single-minded.

“Tell me about the Graeae and I’ll think about it.”

“They are required to work for you for a year and a day after their release, or until they have saved your life. Then they will be free to terrorize mankind again.”

I glared at him. “That’s not what I asked. And I didn’t let them out on purpose, you know!”

“You shouldn’t have been able to do it at all! That is a very complex spell. How did you learn it?”

I decided not to mention that all I’d done was pick up the orb. Pritkin thought me enough of a danger already; no need to add to the impression. And maybe it didn’t mean anything. The box could have been defective—there was no telling how long they’d been in there. Of course, if it wasn’t working right, I couldn’t use it on Myra. I wondered whether there was a way to test it.

“Well?” He was obviously not the patient type.

“Do you know the spell to put them back or not?”

“Yes.” That was it, that’s all I got.

“So maybe we can work out a trade. You give it to me, and perhaps I’ll tell you where the weapons are.”

“You’ll tell me anyway,” he countered. “You won’t get near your vampire without me, so you’ll never get a chance to use them. And even my assistance may not be enough. We need every advantage.”

Mac returned before I could think up a good comeback. “Nick is very curious why I want to know, but I think I put him off.” He consulted a scribbled note in his hand. “He says that two were purchased at auction from Donovan’s back in 1872. The Circle was outbid by an anonymous bidder who paid a king’s ransom for them. No one’s heard from them since.” He looked at me. “I’d really like to know where you found them.”

“She didn’t find them; she stole them. From the Senate,” Pritkin said.

Mac whistled. “I want to hear that story.”

“Maybe later,” I said, hoping he’d get on with it.

“All right, but I’m going to hold you to that.” He consulted his notes again. “This is composed mainly of hearsay, but Nick knows his rune lore, so it’s likely as good as we’ll get. Hagalaz cast upright causes a massive hailstorm that attacks everything in the vicinity except the caster and whomever he chooses to protect—I assume that means whoever is within his shields, although Nick wasn’t sure. Cast inverted, it calms even the fiercest of storms.”

I brightened. That could prove useful. Mac read a few lines silently and cleared his throat. He glanced at me. “Er, Jera is . . . well, it’s said to be, that is to say—”

“It’s a fertility stone,” I said, hoping to move him along. “Stands for a time of plenty and a good harvest.”

“Yes, quite. It is believed to cause . . . er, to aid in, rather, some believe that—”

Pritkin snatched the paper from him and read over the paragraph that seemed to be giving Mac so much trouble. “It was advertised as an aid to virility, something like a magical version of Viagra,” he summarized, shooting Mac a withering glance. “Is that it? No other properties?”

Mac looked sheepish. “Nick didn’t know. All he had to go on was the auctioneer’s description, and those are known for being phrased to elicit the best possible bids. It may have other properties, but if so they weren’t listed. But it was enchanted at a time when thrones ran through family lines. Ensuring the succession would have been seen as equally, if not more, important than any weapon. And having the power to take fertility away from your opponents would be a great asset, throwing their lands into turmoil and civil war at the death of each king, and giving you a chance to invade in the chaos.”

Pritkin frowned. “Perhaps, but it is of little use to us. And the last? Dagaz?”

“A breakthrough,” I murmured. “A new beginning.” I could really use one of those.

Mac nodded. “Traditionally, yes, that’s the meaning. But how it is interpreted in the case of battle runes . . .” He shrugged. “Nick doesn’t know.”

“Then what is his best guess?” Pritkin asked it before I could.

“He doesn’t have one.” Mac threw up his hands at our expressions. “Don’t shoot the messenger! It wasn’t purchased with the others—in fact, no one has heard of it ever being up for sale. So there’s not a lot to go on.”

I felt frustrated. One rune that was no use to me was bad enough, I didn’t need two. “What about other sources?”

Mac shook his head. “Nick said he would double-check, but the man has a mind like a computer, love. I doubt he missed anything, not about his favorite hobby. The rune is mentioned in several old sources, but they’re mute about what it does.”

“There is one way to find out,” Pritkin said. I raised an eyebrow. “Cast it.”

“Did you sleep through the story about the rampaging ogre, or what?”

“I will cast it if you are afraid,” Pritkin said, assuming a sneer. “Where is it?”

I sighed and thought it over. I really needed to know what the thing did, and if Pritkin wanted to risk his neck to find out, who was I to stop him? Besides, he had a point: without his help, I might never get to Tony in the first place, and even if I did, what if the rune was another like Jera? I needed to know before I used it on the fat man and just ended up making him horny. I shuddered at the mental picture and Mac shot me a questioning look. “You said the runes have to recharge after every use,” I reminded him. “If we cast it, we won’t be able to use it again for a month.”

Pritkin answered before his friend could. “Perhaps. However, if it hasn’t been used in centuries, it may have a cumulative charge built up that could last through many castings.”

“I don’t know whether it’s been used lately or not.”

“Or the cumulative effect may simply make the casting an especially strong one,” Mac pointed out.

Pritkin looked annoyed with his friend, but I thought the guy had a point. “One thing is certain,” Pritkin said testily. “We cannot plan how to use it if we do not know what it does. As it stands, it is useless to us. Casting it would not make it more so.” I wanted to debate him but couldn’t. “Where is it?” he demanded.

I sighed. “Promise you’ll teach me the spell to trap the Graeae, and I’ll tell you.”

He didn’t even pause. “Done.”

I shrugged. “In that duffle over there.”

Chapter 6

I thought the two mages were going to rupture something trying to get to the bag. Mac beat his buddy, but only because he was closer and Pritkin’s unzipped pants tried to fall down on the way. I watched him zip up with some disappointment, then gave myself a mental slap. At the rate things were going, I was going to need therapy.

Mac started setting items on the top of the fridge, one by one. His actions were reverent, like someone handling nitroglycerine. The two null bombs gleamed softly silver under the overhead lights. Behind them was the insignificant-looking box that had housed the Graeae for who knew how many centuries. Finally, Mac fished out the velvet pouch and carefully, one at a time, set the rune stones in front of the rest of the items.

It took him several tries to find his voice. “Quite a collection, ” he said, breathlessly. The wolf totem tattooed on his back stopped in midhowl and peeked over his shoulder to see what all the fuss was about.

“Was this everything?” Pritkin asked. “Did you take all the Senate had?”

“Of course not! I know there’s a war on—I was there when it started, remember?”

“What else do they have?” Pritkin inquired, while Mac stood and drooled at the items on his fridge.

“None of your business.” I decided to let him think I’d been daring enough to carry out a highly dangerous raid on the Senate—it sounded better than the truth. In fact, I’d returned from a trip to the past with Mircea only to find the Consul waiting for us. She’d reached for me, I had instinctively jerked back and, thanks to my unpredictable new power, ended up three days in the past. I had shifted in time, but not in space, so I was still in the inner sanctum of the vamp portion of MAGIC. Since their cache of magical goodies was literally right in front of my face, I’d decided to help myself to a few items before making my getaway.

I’d been in a hurry because their wards had almost certainly informed them I was there. I paused only long enough to grab the stuff from one shelf and barely even noticed the rest. But since the unit housing the vamp’s treasure trove was taller than me, there was a good bet I hadn’t left them defenseless.

“We will need help in Faerie,” Pritkin pointed out, making an obvious attempt to hold on to his temper. “If you stole these things, you could get others.”

“I’m not going to take the rest of their weapons! They’re at war!” I might be pissed at Mircea, but leaving him at the mercy of Rasputin and his allies wasn’t in my plans. Not to mention that my old friend Rafe was with him. There were plenty of nasty vamps out there, but they weren’t all tarred with the same brush, no matter what Pritkin liked to think. “Anyway, I couldn’t get back in there without using my power, and I’m trying to avoid that.”

“Why?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “It is the best weapon you have.”

“It’s also the scariest. As you pointed out, I don’t know what I’m doing. And if I mess up, it could get a lot of people killed.”

“Is that why you wouldn’t shift us out of Dante’s?” he demanded. When I nodded, an expression crossed his face that managed to be both puzzled and angry at the same time. “That makes no sense. You took us to the nineteenth century earlier, trying to get away from me!”

“I did not!”

“I was there, if you recall,” he retorted angrily. “Your lover almost killed me.”

Unless you counted one out-of-body experience, Mircea and I weren’t lovers. And thanks to the
geis
, I couldn’t risk us ever being so. However, I didn’t intend to explain that to Pritkin. It wasn’t his business, and I was sick of feeling like I was constantly on trial with him as judge, jury and, possibly, executioner.

“I don’t care whether you believe this or not,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “But I didn’t have anything to do with us ending up at that play. The power just flared—I don’t know why. The only thing I did was to get us out of there as quickly as possible.”

“The Pythia controls the power, not the reverse,” Pritkin said, calling me a liar.

“Believe what you want,” I said, suddenly weary. Fighting with him got old fast because it never seemed to solve anything. “If what you said earlier about us needing every advantage is true, I have a job for Mac.”

Mac glanced up, still looking dazed. “What?”

“My ward,” I said, tugging down the back of my tank to show him the top of the pentagram. “Pritkin said the Circle deactivated it. Can you fix it?”

“I did not say ‘deactivate.’ That would be impossible,” Pritkin corrected as Mac moved to take a look. “From a distance, the Circle can only block it, which they almost certainly did for fear that you would use it against them. They would not have closed the connection otherwise—whenever it flared, it gave them an approximation of your location and they want to find you badly.” Pritkin suddenly moved forward until he invaded my personal space. “Your explanation of the power’s actions makes no sense,” he said, his voice harsh. “Not if you truly are Pythia.”

I suppose he was trying to be intimidating, but it didn’t work out quite that way. He had stopped about an inch from me with his bare chest right in my line of vision. It was lightly furred over muscles that were hard and sleekly defined, and the inadequate air-conditioning had caused rivulets of sweat to run in fascinating ways through all that hair. The only men I’d ever touched had been smooth, or almost so, and I had the insane desire to run my hands through those damp blond curls to see what patterns I could make with my fingers.

I didn’t know why the mage, whom I didn’t like in the least, was affecting me like this, but I felt like someone who’s been on a starvation diet for weeks and just caught sight of an ice cream sundae. My hands were sweaty and my breath was coming faster, to the point that I’d be panting in a minute. I tore my eyes away from his torso before I lost control, but that didn’t help since they only drifted lower, to what was concealed by that infuriating expanse of tight denim. I swallowed and struggled to get a grip before I gave in to the burning desire to rip the jeans off him.