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“Let me spell it out for you,” I told Pritkin, shrugging out of his grasp. “I didn’t bring us here. I don’t even know where here is. All I know is that I can’t shift us out, either because the power has decided it doesn’t like me anymore, or because it wants me to do something before I leave.” I was betting on the latter, since I didn’t think landing at Mircea’s feet had been an accident.
Pritkin didn’t look like he believed me, but I didn’t care. I turned away from him, intending to find out whether Mircea had any bright ideas, but Pritkin’s hand clasped around my wrist in a viselike grip. “You aren’t going anywhere, ” he said grimly.
“I have to find out what the problem is and deal with it, or neither of us will be going anywhere,” I snapped. “So, unless you can tell me where we are and why we’re here, I don’t see much choice but to go exploring, do you?”
“We’re in London, in late 1888 or early 1889.”
I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t seen any clues to help narrow things down, other than the woman’s clothes—Mircea’s were standard formal wear that could have come from any period in a wide span of time. It was a little disconcerting to learn that Pritkin was a connoisseur of women’s fashion. I said as much and he actually growled at me before thrusting a piece of paper into my hands.
“Here! Someone dropped this.” I looked away from his perpetual glower to peruse the yellow and black flyer he’d given me. It showed a man staring up a hill at three old crones. They sort of reminded me of the Graeae, only they had better hair. It informed me that it was a souvenir of the Lyceum Theatre’s performance of Macbeth, beginning December 29, 1888.
“Okay, great. We know the date. It’s a start, but I don’t see it getting us too far.” I tried to pull away again, but he stopped me, this time with words.
“The more you feed the geis, the stronger it will become. Not to mention that prostitutes in this era wear more clothes than you currently have on. You can’t go anywhere without causing a riot.”
“How did you know?” It was disconcerting to find out that I’d been wearing the equivalent of a sign on my back for years. Could everybody see it but me?
Pritkin gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I knew the first time I saw you together.”
I considered the situation and figured it was worth a shot. “I don’t suppose you could do something about it? We are in this together, after all, and I could probably think more clearly if—”
“Only Mircea can remove it,” Pritkin said, dashing what little hope I’d had. “Even the mage who cast it for him couldn’t do it without his assent. The best you can do at present is to stay away from him.”
I frowned. It was pretty much the same thing Casanova had said, but I wasn’t buying it. “I don’t know much about magic, but even I know there’s no such thing as a spell that can’t be broken. There has to be a way!” Pritkin’s expression didn’t change, but a momentary flash in his eyes told me I was right. “You know something,” I said accusingly.
He looked evasive but finally answered. I suppose he decided it would be faster to humor me. “All geasa are different, but most have one thing in common. Each has built into it a . . . a safety net, if you like. Mircea would not want to be hoisted by his own petard, so he would have designed the geis with a way out of the spell, should something go wrong.”
“And that would be?”
“Only Mircea and the mage who cast it know that.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out whether he was lying. His words rang true, so why did I get the feeling he wasn’t telling me everything? Maybe because no one ever did. “If this is 1888, Mircea hasn’t done anything yet. There is no geis. Or there shouldn’t be,” I added, since obviously something was happening.
“You have a habit of getting into unprecedented situations, ” Pritkin said with a scowl. “I’ve never heard of this particular scenario. I don’t know what will occur if the two of you spend time together in this era, but I doubt you would like the consequences.” He adjusted his long coat to minimize the ominous bulges underneath. “Stay here. I will look about and see if anything strikes me as unusual. I lived through this period and am more likely to notice anything out of place than you. I’ll return shortly and we will discuss our options.”
He left before I could react, leaving me staring witlessly after him. Magic users live longer than norms, true, but not enough to look about thirty-five at a century more than that. I’d known since soon after meeting him that there was more to Pritkin than met the eye, but this was getting really weird.
I sat down on one of the steps and hugged my knees, staring at a patch of threadbare carpet. The minimal outfit was cold and the horns were adding to my headache. I took them off and stared at them instead. The gold glitter was starting to flake off in pieces, showing the hard white foam beneath. I felt a little bad about that. Assuming we ever got back to our time, the girl whose locker I’d burgled was going to have to pay for a new one. Of course, if I didn’t get back at all, she’d need a whole new outfit.
I noticed that the stairway was getting colder but didn’t worry about it until a woman suddenly appeared in front of me. She was dressed in a long blue gown and seemed as solid as any regular person, but I immediately knew she was a ghost. That was due less to my keen sense of the paranormal than to the fact that she had a severed head tucked under her arm. The head, which had a Vandyke beard that matched its dark brown hair, focused pale blue eyes on me.
“A dashed improvement over Faust!” it said, rolling its eyes up to its bearer.
The woman stared at me with no expression, but when she spoke her voice did not sound pleased. “Why do you disturb us?”
I sighed as deeply as I could manage with the damn corset cutting me in two. Exactly what I needed, a ticked-off ghost. I was just thankful I hadn’t shifted as a spirit myself, or I’d have a lot more reason to be worried. I have time traveled before without my body, appearing in another era as a spirit or in possession of someone. But both states create bigger problems than putting up with an uncomfortable costume for a while.
Leaving my body behind means risking death unless I find another spirit to babysit it while I’m gone. Since the only one usually available is Billy Joe, this is something I try to avoid. Especially in Vegas, where all his favorite vices are so near at hand. The other downside is that traveling in spirit form saps my energy too quickly to allow me to do much unless I possess someone and draw energy from him or her. But I don’t even like drinking from the same cup as someone else, much less using their body.
After becoming the Pythia’s heir, I acquired the ability to take my own form along for the ride, although that has a downside, too. One possession resulted in an injury to the woman I was inhabiting—in the form of an almost-severed toe—but I’d been able to leave the wound behind when I shifted back to my own body. But if anything happened to me now, I was stuck with it. The upside of my current condition was that ghosts don’t have a lot of power over the living. They can cannibalize other spirits under certain conditions, but attacking a living body usually drains them of more power than they gain. Still, there was no reason to provoke her.
“I’ll be leaving soon,” I said, hoping it was true. “I have an errand to run and then I’m out of here.”
“You aren’t in the show, then?” the head asked, looking disappointed.
“Only visiting,” I said quickly, since the woman’s eyes had started to glow. That’s not a good sign in a ghost—it means they’re calling up their power, normally just prior to letting you have it. “Really, I want to leave, but I can’t yet. Hopefully, this won’t take long.”
“The other said the same,” she intoned, her dark hair starting to blow gently about her face as her power rose. “But after poisoning the wine, she did not go. Now you are here. This must stop.”
