the crisis for a change-I was through.
It became obvious that abdication wasn't an option when half the roof was abruptly ripped off. For a second, only a patch of blue sky and a couple of yellow butterflies showed through, giving the impression that the tiny insects were responsible for the damage. Then a head the size of a small car poked in. It was green and covered in shiny, iridescent scales, with a snout big enough to eat a person without needing a second bite. No smoke came out of its nostrils, but I didn't need that to know what it was. Its orange eyes had narrow red pupils that dilated on sight of me like a cat that had just encountered a new form of mouse.
It poured through the hole in the roof, its head suspended on an impossibly long neck and its huge jaws cracking to show off jagged, dark yellow teeth. I froze with its warm, acrid breath in my face, so close that it made my eyes start to water. Then the golem really lost it, running naked and screeching directly across the dragon's line of sight, causing the orange eyes to focus on him instead. He plunged through the curtain and the dragon followed, its neck flowing past me in a river of scales, its talons trying to rip a large enough hole in the roof for its huge body.
I scrambled out from under the table and tackled Billy Joe, who had torn his shirt off and was clawing at his bare chest, leaving red welts behind. 'Billy!' I grabbed for his wrist, intending to drag him under the table with me, but he was too fast. He ran to the back of the room, to the small door beside the cot that I had never seen opened. I didn't see it now. I had the feeling that it was solely ornamental, but Billy didn't get that. He beat on it and tore at the doorknob, which he finally managed to rip completely off.
I stared at him in confusion. I'd never seen him like this and wasn't sure there was anything I could say that would calm him down. Then there was the fact that, in human form, Billy stood almost six feet tall. No way could I subdue him without a weapon, and the only ones I had-my gun and bracelet-would likely kill him in his new form.
There was a lot of keening, swearing and some explosions from the front of the shop, then there was a rushing wind and a sound like a hundred helicopters starting up. I looked up to see the dragon lift itself into the air on black leathery wings, screeching and clawing at its face. Half its snout was missing, lost in a smoking hole, and there were gashes in the great wings that beat the air with the force of a small hurricane. A second later the creature was gone, soaring high over peaceful green fields toward distant, tree-covered hills.
Billy slumped against the door, his hands on the scarred wood, his fingers a bloody mess. He was sobbing in great, wracking heaves, but at least he was no longer manic. I was about to try to talk some sense into him, when Pritkin ran through the curtain, followed by Mac and Marlowe. The vamp wasn't, I noticed with rising anger, under any kind of restraint. And the first thing he did was head for Tomas.
'Pritkin! Stop him!' I crossed the room at a run, while the mage merely stood there, looking in disbelief at Billy's solid form. I dove under the table from the far side and grabbed Marlowe's wrist before he could drag Tomas into the light. 'Get away from him!”
He looked surprised, as well he might. Why any human would think she could stop a master vampire from doing anything he wanted by holding his hand was laughable. I threw myself backwards, raising my wrist with the bracelet on it and hoping it would be enough to do the trick. I never found out, since nothing happened. I shook my arm and glared at the inert silver. What was wrong with it now?
'Our magic won't work here,' Marlowe told me gently. 'I'm not going to hurt Tomas, Cassie. Believe it or not, I want to help.”
Sure, which was why he'd sat by and watched him be butchered. Marlowe had a reputation that had started in Elizabethan England, when he'd been one of the queen's spies, and it had increased in infamy ever since. If even a fraction of the stories whispered about him were true, I didn't want him anywhere near Tomas. 'Get away,' I repeated, wondering what I would do if he said no. But instead of arguing, he slid gracefully out from under the table. I checked on Tomas' wounds, but they didn't seem to be any worse. His eyes were open a fraction and he even managed to raise his head.
'I can't hear him,' he said obscurely, an expression of pure bliss passing over his face. Then his eyes closed and his head fell back, connecting sharply with the tile floor.
My heart almost stopped and I frantically felt for a pulse, which of course I didn't find. The fact that I'd even tried said something about my mental state. It looked like he'd fainted or was in a trance, but I couldn't be sure. Tony had once been involved in a clandestine and highly illegal feud with another master. One of our vamps lost an arm and was halfway gutted in the miniwar. When he was brought back to us I'd assumed he was dead, but Eugenie said he was in a healing trance. He'd stayed unmoving and immobile for several weeks, until one night he suddenly sat up, asking whether we'd won. I hoped Tomas was only in a trance, but there was little I could do for him either way. Vamps healed themselves or they didn't-there weren't a lot of medical or magical remedies that worked on their systems. The problem was to keep him safe long enough for him to have a chance to recover.
I glanced at Pritkin. 'Why isn't Marlowe tied up or something?”
'Because we may need him,' was the grim reply.
'Do you know who he is?' I demanded.
'Better than you.' He tore his eyes away from Billy, who was now rocking back and forth, staring sightlessly at the wall, and turned the full force of his stare on me. He wasn't angry-that, at least, I'd almost come to expect, and it wouldn't have worried me. But this was different. He was pared down somehow, his eyes so intense that they looked like two lasers. It was the face of a predator when its own life is threatened-deadly, serious and completely focused.
'Let me explain the situation,' he said, and even his words were faster and more clipped than before, as if every second counted. 'We have arrived in Faerie, but not in the unobtrusive way I had planned. Most of our magic will not work, and we have a finite amount of nonmagical weapons. One of our company is gravely ill and two others are mentally suspect. To make matters worse, that dragon was the guardian of the portal, and having failed to defeat us itself, it has gone after reinforcements. If the Fey do not already know we're here, they soon will. And we cannot go back though the portal for obvious reasons.”
'Will the Senate come after us?' I asked, uncertain that I wanted an answer.
Pritkin gave a short bark of a laugh. It didn't sound amused. 'Oh, no, at least not until they can appeal for passes. To cross into Faerie without them is to risk a death sentence. As we have done.”
'He means that we're all in this together,' Marlowe added. 'I, too, am without a pass, and the Fey are famous for not listening to excuses. If I'm caught, I could be killed.' He smiled at me. 'So I won't be caught, and shall endeavor to see you are not, either.”
Mac snorted. 'The fact is, we're all safer together. Nobody would last a day in Faerie alone right now.”
Marlowe shrugged. 'That, too. And, as my first comradely gesture, may I suggest that we leave this area as soon as may be? We have very little time to lose.”
Pritkin had pulled Billy up by the wrists and now he slapped him, hard. 'He's right. If the Fey find us, they will either kill us on sight or ransom us back to the Circle or Senate.' After the second slap, Billy tried to hit him back, but Pritkin blocked his arm, then twisted it cruelly behind his back before pushing him at me. 'Gain control of your servant,' he said briefly. 'I will deal with mine. Then we move.”
I spent the next few minutes getting my ward checked out by Mac while I tried to reassure a very freaked-out Billy Joe. 'Why are you so upset?' I asked, when he had calmed down enough to listen. 'You have a body,' I pinched him lightly on the arm and he flinched, the big baby. 'Isn't that what you always wanted?' He certainly seemed to have a good time whenever he was borrowing mine.
Billy still looked stunned, although some color had started to return to his cheeks. Without warning, he leaned over and kissed me hard on the lips. I jerked away and slapped him, and shock made it harder than I'd intended, but he just laughed. His hazel eyes were bright with unshed tears as he gingerly felt his stinging cheek, but his expression was euphoric. 'It's true; it's really true,' he said in awe; then his eyes grew wide and he abruptly started rooting through Mac's backpack. He came out with one of the beers, clutching it like he'd found a treasure made of pure gold. It was unopened, and he scrabbled at it, trying to get the bottle cap off with his bare hands.
'You don't get it, Cass,' he said, his eyes almost feverish. 'Sure, I babysit your body from time to time, but nothing's really real, you know? Like there's a film over everything, and I only ever touch that, taste that.' He gave a yell of frustration and tried to smash the bottle on the table, but it was padded and the glass bounced off.
Obviously, he was not going to be coherent until he'd had a drink. 'Give that to me,' I said impatiently, and he
