Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 33 страниц)
Chapter Sixty
‘Okay, question time’s over.’ I tapped the knife against my thigh, mind processing everything. ‘So you want me to take two souls out of that body, separate them, put one back in, and bind the other to yours.’ I jutted my chin at the empty stone circle. ‘If you want to make yourself comfortable, we can get on with it.’
The Emperor lifted his finger. ‘Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova. Your task is not successful unless you bind Bastien’s soul back into his body, before binding Malik al-Khan’s soul to mine. Do not think to confuse the issue by being less than specific, else I will consider your task a failure.’
I grimaced. It was worth a try. Not that I thought he’d fall for it twice. ‘Fine. Bastien’s soul bound back to his body, and Malik’s soul bound to yours. Once that’s done, my task and our bargain are complete, yes?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded, and two of the silent centurions rushed in through the tent entrance and started undressing him. As they finished and were dismissed, and I sincerely didn’t want to see him naked any more than I had to, I turned away and knelt down next to Bastien, wondering exactly how Janan the soul-bonding knife was supposed to work. After all, the only time I could see souls was when they were disembodied, like Viviane and Gold Cat.
Turned out soul-bonding is instinctive and easy.
You grip the hilt in your right hand, blade pointing down, lean over and stab it straight into the heart. It goes in like the proverbial hot knife through butter; little things like cutting flesh, cracking ribs and spurting blood don’t seem to happen at all. Which was a total tragedy when it came to stabbing Bastien.
I narrowed my eyes at Janan, hilt deep in Bastien’s chest, waiting for the blow back, since magic is never that easy without a price, but all that happened was the knife’s handle warmed and the dragon’s tear on the end glowed with a soft amber light. Then silvery smoke, scented with cloves, spiralled up into a humanoid shape and a recognisable translucent figure formed within it, as if I’d uncorked a bottle and released a djinn. Bastien. He looked down at me, doe-brown eyes calm as if having his soul removed was an everyday occurrence. But then he’d been expecting this. Expecting me to ‘save’ him.
I cut him a flat look. He was so dead if I had my way.
He blinked, startled, his expression rapidly changing to an almost comical one of anger as he started patting himself as if to check he was actually there, his mouth spitting words I couldn’t hear. Evidently, unlike Gold Cat and Viviane, his soul couldn’t mind-talk to me. A minor upside to go with my impatience for Malik’s soul to put in an appearance.
A few seconds later the heat from the handle began travelling up my arm. As the heat reached my elbow, burning pain flared over my hand and wrist, red blisters bubbling on my skin as if I’d stuck my hand in flame, the dragon’s tear turning bright amber, flashing like a warning light. Crap. I knew the knife went in too easy. There had to be some sort of time limit on using it. But there was still no sign of Malik’s soul—
I shot a look up at Bastien, suddenly realising what his patting and silent words meant. He was wrapped in shimmering silvery smoke, like an aura. Had to be Malik’s soul. Only the dragon’s tear was a fiery ember and the knife’s handle was scorching hot. Holding it wasn’t going to be an option much longer. My gut told me I wouldn’t get another chance at this. Fuck. I didn’t know how to separate them. But I couldn’t fail. Not with everyone’s lives and Malik’s soul on the line. Heart pounding with panic, I did the one thing I knew I could. I focusedon the cool silver aura, and absorbedit. It peeled away from Bastien like a banana skin, burning briefly as it sank through my skin and pooled inside me like a ball of moonlight. Bastien sagged, swaying as if blown by a strong wind, horror flashing in his eyes. I reached out and grabbed him, forcing him down through the knife and back into his body. As the last wisp of him disappeared, I yanked the knife out and let it fall.
My palm was seared down to bone, the skin black and cauterised like I’d gripped a red-hot poker; my stomach heaved at the roast flesh smell.
I hugged my arm close, jaw clenched to block the pain, and picked the knife up with my other hand.
I swivelled on my knees, turning to face the Emperor now lying on the second stone circle, his skinny body nude apart from the golden laurel wreath still crowning his head.
He smiled at me. A wide, fang-filled, eager beam. I froze. It was the most human thing he’d done, and it scared me more than any of his flat alien stares. He was a vamp. He was going to be the Autarch. Head Fang over all of Britain’s suckers. Malik was going to give him his Oath. And I was acknowledged as Malik’s blood-property. He would own Malik, and through him me, and none of those I loved would be safe.
And he would be unkillable.
I had to put Malik’s soul in him. That was my task. I’d made a bargain. I couldn’t not do it. But no way could I leave it in him. Bastien was a psycho, I still wanted him dead, but at least through whatever dysfunctional relationship they had, Malik could control him. I looked over at Malik trapped by magic on the third stone circle. Did his plan include a way to kill the Emperor once Bastien was dead? But then how could Malik kill the Emperor, if he still bore Malik’s soul? And hell, even if he didn’t, Malik had a ton of power, but the Emperor still had a good thousand years on him. Not to mention the Emperor had made Malik a vamp.
Fuck. I had to stop this, but I couldn’t see how . . .
I frowned back at the Emperor and the stone circle he lay on.
I couldn’t seeany magic.
Of course—
‘Ready or not,’ I muttered grimly, then leaned over and plunged the knife into the Emperor’s chest. His eyes widened fractionally but he didn’t flinch. The dragon’s tear flashed to life and the handle heated. Smoke spiralled, bringing the Emperor’s soul with it. I gritted my teeth, calledMalik’s soul from inside me and slapped it around the Emperor’s. He did flinch at that, face contorting with pain. Good. I grabbed both souls and forced them down the knife and into the Emperor’s body, then yanked the knife out, dropping it safely between my knees, shaking my hand to dispel the scalding pain.
Nothing happened. The Emperor’s body was still and lifeless. Shit, had I done it too fast? Panic choked my throat—
His eyes flickered open and he touched a tentative hand to his chest.
Relief washed the panic away. Now for the next bit . . .‘I’ve done all you directed,’ I said, surprised my voice came out calm. ‘So my task is complete. Agreed?’
He squinted at me, deep lines bracketing his mouth, almost as if he were in agony.
I leaned over, got right in his face. ‘Romulus Augustus, I have bonded Malik al-Khan’s soul to yours. Are we agreed that I have completed the task to your satisfaction?’
My heart stuttered desperately as his frown deepened. C’mon, say it!
‘Agreed.’ His voice was faint and there was a thread of question in the word . . .
A chime sounded.
. . . but not enough to stop the magic.
Bargain executed.
I collapsed back on my arse, head bowed, hardly believing it had worked—
It had fucking worked.
Yes! Katie, Freya and the rest were almost safe. One more thing . . .
Pulse pounding in my ears, I snatched the spells from the glyphs on Malik’s stone circle and slammed them into the glyphs carved around the outside of the stone where the Emperor lay. Hoisting him with his own magical petard.
Grabbing up the knife I stabbed it back into his chest again– C’mon, c’mon. . .
His soul appeared, face contorted with rage, mouth flapping silently like a landed fish.
‘Do not think to confuse the issue by being less than specific about exactly what you want me to do,’ I muttered, then smiled grimly, ripped Malik’s soul from around the Emperor’s, bundled it tight back inside me, then shoved the Emperor’s soul back, jerking the hot knife out with a pain-filled grunt, cradling my hand as I gagged on the reek of my own scorched flesh.
I shot a glance at Bastien still trapped on his circle. Kill him before or after giving Malik his soul back?‘Hell, you’re not going anywhere,’ I muttered, then trembling from adrenalin and expectant exhilaration, I half scrambled, half ran the few feet round to where Malik lay, and dropped to my knees next to him.
Even without the magic holding him, he still showed no signs of reviving from whatever the bastards had done to him. But he was immortal. They could hurt him, but they couldn’t kill him. Not ever. Right?
‘I have your soul safe here,’ I murmured, taking his icy hand and pressing it to my chest. His soul moved inside me, enfolding my heart within its cool embrace, and a curious peace settled in me. I gently laid his hand down, touched my fingers to my lips then placed them over his own heart. ‘Now I give you back your soul, Malik al-Khan.’
I gripped Janan, sent a prayer to any gods listening and sucked in a calming breath – need to do this right– then carefully leaned over and positioned the knife above Malik’s unbeating heart—
A hand seized my wrist, jerking me up.
A steel-hard arm pinioned me against a hard body.
And a familiar voice said, ‘You really do not want to do that, my lovely sidhe princess.’
Chapter Sixty-One
I froze as my old panic and fear flashed through me. Then fury scoured it away. I was done being scared of him, done letting my teenage memories of him rule my life, done letting him play with me like I was some sort of sidhe doll to prod and poke and push around whenever he felt like it. The sadistic psycho was a vamp and without Malik’s soul he was mortal.
He could die.
Of course, the psycho would be easier to kill if he wasn’t hugging me like a slobbering bear.
I released the knife as he wanted, then grabbed his arms where they banded beneath my breasts to stop him getting me in a choke-hold. Flexing my knees I dropped my body weight, shifting our joint centre of gravity forwards. Jerking my left leg up, I stomped hard on the bridge of his foot, hammering the heel of my boot down like a pile-driver, hearing his foot break with a happy crunching sound. The human foot has twenty-six bones – a quarter of all the bones in the body – thirty-three joints and more than a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. And even if the foot is no longer human but vamp, all those bones, joints and other things are still just as easily damaged. Stomping on anyone’s foot hurts.
A surprised yell blasted my ear and his hold loosened.
In one smooth move, I tightened my left hand on his arm, stepped into a spread-leg sumo-style stance, and double-hammered my elbow back into his groin, grim delight sparking as he let out a high-pitched squeal and started to double over. Sweeping my right leg behind him, I shoved it into the back of his thigh, further unbalancing him as I hooked my right hand under his leg, heaved him up, and threw him around my hips and down on to his back. He landed with a gratifyingly heavy thud, a startled pain-filled scream whooshing out of his mouth. I backed away, sucking in deep breaths to calm the adrenalin-shakes, working out my options.
Bastien was huddled on the ground in front of the Emperor’s slab, hands cupping his Mr Very Unhappy and moaning for England. Vulnerable, if not totally defenceless. The Empress must’ve released him from his stone. Nice for the Big Girl’s Blouse to have his mother watching over him. At least the Emperor was still lying on his stone circle, trapped by his own magic. Totally defenceless. Two vamps with one sword came to mind.
Time for Ascalon.
The ball of green dragonfire engulfed my hand, and grunting through the searing pain from Janan’s burns on my palm, I gripped the blessed sword.
I started towards them both.
Mr Moany Bastien stopped his over-the-top whimpering and rose to his feet as if a puppet master had pulled his strings. Creepy.
‘Well, well, princess,’ he said, backing around the stone slab. ‘I see you have your sword again. I take it you intend to dispatch Romulus Augustus with it before he calls any of his minions to the scene. He is a much more dangerous threat than I, is he not?’
I shot Supercilious Smiling Bastien a narrowed look. Killing the Emperor first was playing right into the pyscho’s hands. But, much as it irritated me, it was the way to go. ‘You’re right,’ I said coolly. ‘The Emperor needs dispatching. First.’
Smiley Bastien inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘I am glad we agree, princess. On that, at least.’
Mentally I flipped him the bird and moved to the Emperor, positioning myself at the top of the stone circle. I looked into his flat alien eyes, then raised Ascalon two-handed over my head and brought the sword down. The blessed blade sliced through the Emperor’s neck with absolutely no resistance until it hit the sandstone. But unlike Janan, the sword cleaved cleanly through flesh, muscle, ligaments, tendons, blood vessels and bone, separating the Emperor’s laurel-wreathed head from his nude body. His eyes blinked, then his head slowly rolled to the side, stopping to glower at my feet as his crown lodged on the stone. Viscous claret-coloured blood seeped out of his severed neck and pooled beneath his head. I poked the head with the sword, moving it out of reach of the blood – better safe than sorry – then quickly changed my grip on the sword so the blade pointed downwards.
‘The heart, my bride,’ Eager Bastien urged. ‘Do not forget the heart.’
‘I know,’ I snapped back, thinking you’re next, buddy. I moved sideways, lining myself up with the Emperor’s chest, then stabbed down into his heart; again the blessed steel cut cleanly, resisting only as it bit into the stone beneath. The Emperor’s body stiffened, limbs going rigid, then it sunk in on itself like a pricked balloon until all that was left was withered, wrinkled skin over jutting bone.
I poked at the Emperor’s remains with the sword. I’d sort of expected something more to happen when ending a millennium-and-a-half-year-old vamp. Not that I’d wanted him to put up a fight, or even thought he could, trapped as he was. Nor was I particularly bothered about killing him while he was defenceless. He was a baddie. And I was pragmatic, not stupid. I’d never have won in a fair fight. If any fight I had with a vamp could ever be called fair.
Of course, his remains would still have to burn, and his ashes scattered to be sure he really wasn’t going to pop back up at some point in the future. But still, deflating like that was a pretty anti-climactic end.
Bastien clapped, flashing fang. ‘Felicitations, princess. I applaud your swordsmanship.’
I bared my own teeth at him in a smile. ‘If you liked that wait till you see what I’ve got for an Encore.’
‘Encores are all well and good, my lovely sidhe, but I do believe we have only seen the Prelude.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘Behold! Act One!’ He threw something at the Emperor– Gold flashed through the air: one of the Emperor’s coins.
The Emperor’s body twitched and lit itself on fire, the flames burning the cool blue of an ice-dragon’s breath. I stumbled back in shock as the blaze licked the tent roof, then spread out and rained down the tent sides, trapping me – and trapping Malik in the roaring inferno. A panicked scream twisted inside me. Even if he was immortal, no way did I want to see him crispy-crittered and endure the pain of healing. If I could get to his stone I could protect us both. All it needed was my blood in the circle’s outer groove, and hey presto, one Blood Ward. Only, a curtain of flames burned furiously between us. I’d have to jump and roll to smother—
Bastien lunged forwards and snatched something from the Emperor’s stone. The fire snuffed out as if it had never been. All that remained on the slab was a body-shaped pile of ashes. I sagged in relief then scowled at Bastien.
Somehow he’d managed to dress himself in the Emperor’s purple toga. He stood with his arms held out like he was offering benediction. In one hand he held the Emperor’s gold laurel-wreath crown, and dangling from the other by its dark hair was a small shrunken head the size of a crab apple.
‘Here we have Act Two, my sweet sidhe.’ He brought the shrunken head to his lips, kissed it, then popped it into his mouth and munched down.
‘Nice illusion,’ I said drily, trying not to heave.
‘Ah, but is it?’ He held his finger up much like the Emperor had done. I shuddered, the sight weirding me out. ‘Act Three comes, my princess.’
The hair on my nape rose as a low keening wind rushed through the tent’s entrance and the Emperor’s ashes spiralled up in a small tornado. An unseen hand briefly cupped my cheek with a gentle feeling of gratitude, startling me. Then the wind-gathered ashes exploded outwards and dissipated into the ether, leaving the candles still burning.
Bastien held the golden laurel wreath out before him. ‘Now for the Grande Finale.’ He placed the gold crown on his head and intoned. ‘The Emperor is dead. Long live the Emperor.’
I narrowed my eyes at him as the final piece clicked into place.
Bastien wanted the Emperor dead so he could steal his power. But the real kicker in all of this wasn’t that the psycho had set me up to do his dirty work, but that now his (or Malik’s?) plotting had made Bastien the Emperor, there was no way I could kill the sadistic sack of shit.
At least, not until he’d told me how to save the fae’s trapped fertility.
I gripped Ascalon, battened my frustration down and said flatly, ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant and restore it back to them as it was before it was taken. And the price you want me to pay.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
‘Ah! And now we come to the Encore.’ He raised a mocking brow. ‘To have something you want, my sweet sidhe, fills me with such glorious anticipation.’
I glowered at him. Sadistic prick was obviously going to spin this out, whereas I wanted it done so I could kill him. ‘What’s the deal, Bastien?’
‘Patience, my princess.’ Slyness glinted in Bastien’s brown eyes as he moved to squat by Malik. He brushed a hand over Malik’s shorn scalp, smudging the glyphs painted there. ‘Does my loyal commander, my shadow, my kingmaker not deserve some care first?’ He bit into his own arm and held his wrist over Malik’s mouth so drops of dark crimson blood splashed on to Malik’s parted lips. ‘Were it not for his perfect plan none of this would have been possible.’ He smiled gleefully.
Fuck. Malik hadplanned it all. He’d used me, put those I’d cared about in danger and all to help Bastien gain power. It felt like his soul turned to ice around my heart and shattered into sharp icicles. Leaving me bleeding. How the hell could I have been so stupid to think that Malik cared for me? That we could have something together? We couldn’t. Not if he was prepared to put innocents like Katie and Freya in danger to get what he wanted. Furious and heart-sore, I wanted to shout at Malik, tell him there’d been no need to involve them. Hadn’t the Machiavellian vamp understood that if he’d told me his plan, I’d have gone along with it willingly? After all, he’d known I needed to see the Emperor, and I’d told him I’d help. And even if I’d ended up hurt or dead as I had in the past with a couple of his plots, it wasn’t as if I’d held it against him—
Malik wasn’t the type to put innocents in danger for his own ends.
But Bastien was. Bastien was also the sort to slither like a poisonous snake into my head and sic his mind-mojo on me. Sadistic prick was playing me. And, as an amber glint near Malik’s slab caught my eye – the dragon’s tear in Janan’s handle – I realised Bastien’s gameplaying wasn’t only for his own amusement. He wanted me angry with Malik because he wanted something from me. Malik’s soul.
‘You want me to give you his soul back, is that it?’ I snapped.
‘Actually, my bride’ – he lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug – ‘I do not. It is liberating to be without its depressing weight.’
Depressing? I blinked ‘What about its immortality?’
‘Ah. It appears that while my loyal shadow and his soul are truly immortal, that immortality is not bestowed on the bearer.’
I frowned. ‘But then why—’
‘Greed, envy and the lust for power are eternal motivators, my princess. In that the Emperor and my beloved mother, the beautiful Shpresa, were very much alike.’ As he spoke a centurion marched into the tent like an automaton. He carried a woman’s lifeless body. He laid her down on the stone circle recently vacated by the original Emperor, then saluted Bastien and left.
The Empress.
Bastien looked at her like she was something he’d scraped off his shoe. ‘She was the favoured Ikbalof Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, powerful, rich, vaunted, her children destined for greatness. But it was not enough. She lusted after eternal youth and beauty and so absconded with Romulus Augustus willingly. He did not, as some imagined at the time’ – he sneered down at Malik – ‘force, or persuade her in any way.’ He squeezed his arm to reopen his bite wound, so more drops of blood splashed on to Malik’s mouth as if he were performing some sort of vamp Chinese water torture. ‘Shpresa, as the blood-bound consort to a vampire, gained the immortality the sidhe denied her as a changeling. The Emperor lusted after a sidhe to bond to his blood. It was a match made in mutual delusion and betrayal. He discovered too late she was not the solid gold he sought, but only polished brass. Shepaid for her duplicity with her freedom and the enslavement of her children. But in spite of his Empress’ predilection for perfidy’ – Bastien squeezed the wound on his arm with a slight grimace – ‘the Emperor did not heed the lesson history should have taught him. Once again he let his lust for something he wanted override his good sense, and found the sting in the tail. As we are all wont to do at times, my lovely princess.’
I rolled my eyes, so not appreciating his spouting off about how clever he thought he was. ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘You and Mommie Dearest pulled a fast one on the Emperor. Bully for you. What I was asking, before you so rudely interrupted, was, if Malik’s soul doesn’t bestow immortality, why the hell did you have it?’
He gave me a smug smile that told me I wasn’t going to get an answer.
‘Fine. Don’t tell me,’ I snapped, irritated, ‘I’ll ask Malik myself when he wakes up. So how about you forget your final curtain speech and let’s cut to the deal.’ Then I can kill you.
He flashed fang at me. ‘I would not think you were so eager for my loyal shadow to wake, my bride. Not when your . . . situation will dishearten him so.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
He gave me a sideways look. ‘My loyal commander might not be recovered for some time, even with my blood’ – he lifted his chin and sniffed – ‘so it may be that the stink of the satyr will have faded somewhat by then. Your secretis safe with me.’
Fucking vamp supersenses.
I cast a concerned look at Malik, wondering if he could hear. It didn’t matter that I thought Malik would understand how it had happened; it would still hurt. If it had been the other way round . . . damn it, I’d be hurt too, devastated, even. In fact, I wasdevastated about Finn, Gold Cat and the whole mating thing: it was a heartrending muddle of epic proportions. But it wasn’t something I’d planned keeping secret from anyone, let alone Malik. It would turn what happened from a muddle that could be sorted into a nasty festering sore that would come back and bite me and everyone else. But I had hoped to pick my moment, not have Malik hear it from Bastien, especially not with the spiteful spin the sadistic prick was bound to add.
‘That.’ I jabbed Ascalon at Bastien. ‘Is none of your business.’
‘I quite agree, my lovely sidhe.’ He stood, keeping his gaze on me as he licked the wound on his arm with obvious enjoyment. I frowned at Malik. He looked as pale and lifeless as before; Bastien’s meagre donation didn’t seem to done anything. Still Bastien wasn’t the only one with blood. If Malik didn’t wake up after I gave him his soul back, I’d feed him myself. And if Bastien was finished—
‘Look,’ I said, forcing a conciliatory tone. ‘You want something from me. I want my question answered. So let’s get things sorted.’
‘I will be delighted to, my bride.’ He lifted a creepy finger. ‘When the time is right.’
‘Which is when?’
‘When the last tarot card appears, of course. Or have you forgotten that part of the proceedings?’ I hadn’t, but since he and Viv were in league with each other, I doubted the last card was going to tell me anything Bastien didn’t already know. ‘Now I must leave you and greet my new subjects. Until anon.’ He turned on his heel, marching away, toga flapping around his knees. The previous Emperor had been about a foot shorter, and, I noted bitchily, Bastien had the legs of a scrawny chicken.
‘You told me you didn’t know,’ I shouted after him. ‘And the Emperor told me the same.’
He swung back, anger twisting his face. Accusing a vamp as old as he was of lying, even if only by suggestion, was a huge insult. Not that I cared if it got me the answer I needed.
‘Knowledge is one side of the equation, bean sidhe, application is the other. Two plus two do not become four until one understands how they should be tallied. A tally, in this instance, that will not be complete until the last tarot card has been read.’
He turned and left, leaving me scowling after him.
In other words, Bastien had known part of the answer but not the whole of it until he’d munched on the Emperor, and now he had to confer with his scheming spirit sidekick. Crap. I wanted to run after him, lop his scrawny legs off at the knees, skewer Ascalon through his sadistic heart and turn him into a magical bonfire. Reluctantly, I let Ascalon slide back into the ring, wondering how long the sadistic psycho was going to make me sweat. And what price he wanted.
‘As if I can’t guess,’ I muttered, glowering at the dead Empress. After all, I couldn’t count the number of times he’d called me ‘my princess’, ‘my bride’, or ‘my sidhe’. Still, he wouldn’t be the first vamp to get my blood-bond and, like the last one, I’d be happy to make sure the psycho’s ashes ended up feeding the fish in the River Thames.
Frustrated and angry, I sighed and took stock. I needed to go and ‘claim’ Katie, Freya and the rest of my bartered auction lots and get them to safety. But first, Malik needed his soul back.
Gingerly, I scooped Janan up, glad my hands had started healing—
A shimmering, transparent figure padded into the tent carrying something in her mouth.
Gold Cat.
