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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.”
