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“I don’t know.” Between the spells and the duel and the whole thing with Pritkin, half a dozen could have been activated at once and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
“We will have to risk it,” Mircea said. “Hold on.”
“You know, I am really starting to hate that—”
And then we were falling, careening for the side of the line through a maelstrom of light and sound. For a moment I thought something had gone terribly wrong. But with a sudden absence of color and a resounding boom, like a
peal of thunder, we were once more standing on solid ground.
“The Latin Quarter,” I heard Mircea say, while my eyes fought to adjust. The shifting, brilliant colors of the line left pulsing shadows on my vision, like fireworks against the deep black of the sky. “This area is a warren of small streets even in our time. This will not be as simple as I’d hoped.”
I finally managed to focus on the only remaining source of light, the orb in his hands. It was glowing softly, although if it was still putting a shield around us, I couldn’t see it. Of course, I couldn’t see much of anything else, either. Beyond the small puddle of light, all I could make out were buildings rearing darkly on every side, reaching for the great span of the galaxy overhead.
“How can you tell where we are?” Even with vampiric sight, this was dark.
“That particular line runs through central Paris and the Ile de la Cité. And I can smell the Seine.”
Good for him. I could smell mostly layers of garbage that lay rotting in the gutters despite the cold weather. My shoe squelched in something slimy that stuck to my sole and sent up the vinegar reek of decaying fruit. Horse manure and the sharp scent of human urine were everywhere, as if the streets had been drenched with them. Somehow, the swashbuckling movies never mention that sort of thing.
“This way.” Mircea took my arm, which was a good thing because the cobblestones were uneven and what parts weren’t covered by a thin layer of ice were slimy.
The dark, winding street was too quiet, and so narrow that I constantly felt like someone was about to lean out from the shadows and grab me. Considering Pritkin’s preference for offense over defense, there was at least a chance that someone would. But we came to the end with no problems, and discovered a slightly brighter scene lit by a sliver of moon: the Seine, with the soaring towers of Notre Dame beyond it. The light snow of earlier in the evening had melted on the cobblestones, turning them into an icy mirror that reflected the huge cathedral perfectly. Unfortunately, they did not also reflect Pritkin.
Mircea’s head lifted, as if scenting the air. All I could smell was rotting fish and evidence that maybe clean-water laws hadn’t come into effect yet, but Mircea must have been able to filter those out. He started for the gaping mouth of another street, but before we could get there, a nearby hay-filled cart burst into flames. It sat beside the road, burning merrily for a moment, then hurtled straight at us.
Mircea pushed me out of the way, but lost valuable seconds in the process and ended up not quite clearing all of the flying bits of hay. I’d seen him handle fire before with aplomb, but there must have been something different about this one—maybe some potion residue still clinging to it—because it didn’t go out. Instead, it caught on the heavy fabric of his shirt and started to spread.
He tore off the shirt and flung it into the river, where it hissed and went out, but by then the fire had spread to his hair. Before I could reach him to try batting it out with my hands, he was suddenly gone, and I heard a splash. I whirled around to see ripples spreading over the water.
A moment later, his head broke the surface. The fire was out, but I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief before a knife slid against my throat. I froze.
“I do believe I mentioned that it would be unwise to follow me,” Pritkin said.
“It would be equally unwise to injure her,” Mircea said. I didn’t see him move, but Pritkin tensed.
“Stay where you are, vampire!” I felt the knife blade dent my skin, and a tiny trickle of warmth ran down my neck. Mircea halted, dripping, only a couple of yards away.
“You wish a very painful death, mage,” he said, and despite being covered in river slime that was slowly oozing down his chest, he made it sound believable. The orb had fallen from his hand when he went in the water, rolled against a too-tall cobblestone and stopped. As far as I could see by its low light, other than a few nasty-looking burns on his chest, he appeared to be okay. That did not make me any less furious with Pritkin.
I struggled, too mad to care that this wasn’t the same man who had held a knife to my throat once before. That Pritkin had had no reason to hurt me; this one, on the other hand, rightfully assumed that I wanted to steal from him. “Are you crazy? You could have killed him!”
“And may yet. I have given you fair warning; if you refuse to heed, I must and will have recourse to other means.”
“Like killing two people over a stupid spell? For God’s sake—”
“And which deity would you be invoking?” Pritkin asked, as the knife blade bit a little deeper. I was starting to feel blood pooling in the hollow of my throat. Even more worrying were Mircea’s eyes, which had flooded amber and were currently brighter than our substitute for a lantern. He was pissed. And that was so not good.
Mircea rarely lost his temper, but when he did, it was scary. I’d already seen it twice and really didn’t want another demonstration. Especially since Pritkin couldn’t die tonight. Neither of these men knew it, but one day, they would work together to make some pretty impressive history. Some of which would be mine. I needed the Codex, but my life depended on having them both alive when the dust cleared.
“Listen to me,” I said, my voice low and urgent. “We’ll leave you alone. You can have the damn book. All we need is one spell. Give it to us and we’ll go.”
“One spell,” Pritkin mused, while starting to move us backwards. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing; with Mircea’s speed, a few extra yards were meaningless. “And I wonder which that would be?”
I would have told him, but he’d increased the pressure enough that I was afraid the next thing I said would be the last thing. “Release her, mage, and I will consider allowing you to survive your punishment,” Mircea said, very softly.
“And if you refrain from dogging my heels, I will consider letting her go, once my work is done,” Pritkin replied. He sounded calm, but the heartbeat in the chest behind me was a little too loud for that. Mircea started to say something else, but Pritkin didn’t give him the chance. He reached up with his hand as if grabbing something in the air, and the night ripped open like a wound, all pulsing red against the dark. Mircea jumped, but too late; the ley line snatched us off our feet and we were gone.
The tumbling torrent spewed us out on what felt like a dirt road a moment later, but before I could even start to focus on the surroundings, we’d caught another line, this one blue, and vanished again. I lost track of how many we crisscrossed after that, the colors all running together—blue, white, purple, back to blue, and then red again. It was a much more turbulent ride than with the empress’s shield, and most of the time I barely had a chance to take a few stumbling steps before we were off again.
