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The little party within a party was situated in the open courtyard at the heart of the house, although it was half covered tonight by a series of awnings to keep out the wet. They seemed to be working, at least enough to protect the lamps burning here and there along the walls. But in the center—
Mircea jumped back, along with the crowd around him, as something huge came sailing at them out of the firelit darkness. It hit down on the wet flagstones where he had just been standing, then snarled and righted itself, ignoring the blood turning the puddles beneath it a darker color. It took Mircea a moment, despite the fact that he was almost on top of the thing, to realize what he was seeing.
He pulled away as it resumed its feet, a huge brown bear shaking wet fur onto the squealing partygoers, and taking off—
For the house.
“No, no, my cowardly creature. Not that way.”
The booming voice was coming from someone standing in the center of the garden, where the awnings didn’t reach. A man was laughing in the deluge, a bloody sword dripping onto the stones around him, a hand raised. Or no, Mircea thought, as a series of doors slammed shut behind him without human aid, not a man.
A mage.
As if to underscore Mircea’s thought, a whip spiraled out of the mage’s hand, formed from some kind of blue-white light. It snapped through the air as the injured animal reared back, its one avenue of escape cut off, and a cascade of sparks rained down on the pavement. They hissed in the water, and the vampires around Mircea pulled back, their instinctive fear of fire overcoming their enjoyment of the entertainment.
The animal, on the other hand, had nowhere to go.
It turned, fur wet with both blood and rain, dragging a back foot that leaked a crimson line across the wet stones. It was injured and vulnerable, surrounded by fire and gleeful faces laughing at its distress, and cheering for the death that was inevitable now. It roared in pain and confusion, and scuttled away from the strange light it didn’t understand.
“No,” someone said, a soft cry of distress.
Mircea glanced around, because that had sounded like a child’s voice, and he couldn’t imagine what one would be doing here. But he saw nothing. Except for the faces of the crowd, splashed with fire and now with spell light, enjoying the mage’s version of a bear baiting. Which was even less fair than the ones in the Campo Sant’Angelo, where the bears were chained to a stake before the dogs were turned loose on them.
“He cheats?”
The same childish voice came again, sounding outraged. Mircea looked around once more, and once more saw nothing. But that was less surprising this time, with the people around him crowding closer, their momentary fear forgotten, as animal and man circled each other, looking for an advantage.
The bear wouldn’t find one, because the mage wasn’t using magic just to fight it. He was also using it to slow the creature down. Mircea didn’t know how, but he had seen enough bear baitings to know that an injured animal becomes more enraged, more deadly, as it feels the end approaching.
It doesn’t look around vaguely, as if half-asleep, and stumble drunkenly even on the legs that hadn’t yet been injured.
The mage was taking no chances, it seemed. Which put this out of the range of sport, if such it had ever been, and into that of slaughter. And lost whatever mild interest Mircea might have had.
But that wasn’t true of someone else.
“He can’t do that! He’ll kill it!”
Mircea’s head whipped around, his heart suddenly pounding. Because this time, he had recognized the voice. And yes, it had been a child’s—his child’s.
“Dorina!” he whispered, staring about, and wondering if he was going mad. There was no possible way she could have followed him here. Not when she was well, and certainly not when he had left her in such a state!
“It’s only bad when we’re both awake at the same time,” she told him, matter-of-factly. And then the crowd roared again, as that strange lash connected, sending the animal limping back in pain and the mage bowing and twirling and showing off. “Daddy, make it stop!”
“Make what stop? Dorina! Where are you?”
“That man hurting the bear. Make him
stop!”
Mircea was turning around in circles now, scanning faces, tubs of ornamental bushes, awnings sagging low under the weight of water, putti on plinths. And not seeing his daughter anywhere. He probably looked mad, and would have been receiving more attention, except that the fight had just escalated.
“Make it stop! Make it stop!” Dorina sounded frantic, as the bear acquired another jagged wound.
“I can’t make it stop,” Mircea said, feeling more than a little frantic himself. “The creature doesn’t belong to me.”
“Then I’ll do it.” And the next second, Mircea had the very disturbing feeling of something peeling off his skin, almost like he was shedding it.
But instead he was shedding something else. Something that flitted across the open space like a ripple of air, and sank into the wounded body of the bear. Which shuddered all over, as if in the throes of its final moments, causing a roar to go around the garden and the mage to bow some more, encouraging the applause.
