Tempting Danger (26 page)

Desperation can be a real mother, though. His had given birth to patience bordering on obsession. And he’d know about obsessions, wouldn’t he?

They’d kept him alive at first for the novelty factor. A werewolf sorcerer? It wasn’t supposed to be possible. He’d performed for her holiness three times now—the first time while in a great deal of pain.

The pain wasn’t so bad now, but her staff kept her safe, damn it and her, while he did his tricks. It held more raw power than he’d ever seen, more than enough to control him. But she wasn’t herself a sorcerer. She had power, vast power—and little more idea of how to use it than a child playing in the cockpit of a 747.

They needed him. They didn’t trust him but wanted badly to use him. He’d had little trouble convincing them of his essential venality. “Ask anyone who knows me,” he’d told her. “I’m a selfish sod. I can be bought—but money isn’t my price.”

There were disadvantages to having lived a thoroughly selfish life, though. No one would look for him. Max would grumble when he didn’t show up to dance, but he wouldn’t be alarmed. Rule—

The creak of the door had him sitting up. “She’ll talk to you now.”

That was the guard he’d dubbed the Hulk. He was big and stupid, and he had a temper . . . which, unfortunately, Cullen sometimes couldn’t resist tweaking. It was so damnably boring here.

“But of course. I’d be delighted.” He rose fluidly—that hadn’t been taken from him, at least. His body and mind remained his own, much to his captors’ frustration. “Am I presentable?” he asked. “I do so hate to look unkempt when I’m to spend time with a lady.”

The blow to the side of his head from a wooden staff staggered him. “No talking. Put these on.”

The handcuffs landed with a clink on the floor. He went still. The rage was getting harder to master, but he managed. It helped to picture her lithe body writhing in agony as fire consumed her.

He was good with fire.

The only outward sign he gave of his reaction was a single, shuddering breath. Then he bent, picked up the handcuffs, and slid his hands through the bracelets, locking them in place. “And my lovely necklace?”

He got another blow, of course, for speaking. “Come here.”

He wanted to refuse, dearly wanted that. But the only way out of this cage—for now—lay in obeying. He stepped forward.

This was the part he hated most. Hard hands slid the silver choke chain over his head, snugging it around his neck.

Someone tugged on the other end of his leash. “Heel.” Someone else laughed.

Such a simple sense of humor his guards possessed. The same joke over and over, and it never failed to amuse them. Putting a leash and collar on the wolf-man was only part of the fun, though. The rest of the joke lay in teasing a blind man. Tripping him was always good for a laugh.

Cullen took a single step. He knew the contours of his glass cage very well, and his guards never entered it, so he was safe from their humor until he left it. He felt with his foot for the steel doorsill. . . .

A sharp tug on the collar almost overbalanced him. “I said heel, boy. Hurry up.”

This time the rage won. He launched himself into space toward the one holding his chain.

The guards were only human. They couldn’t react in time. He slammed into a big, hard body and managed to loop his cuffed hands over the man’s head as they crashed to the floor. He landed on top and pushed up on one knee, using his forearms as a vise on the man’s head. One good twist—

The pain hit, crippling him body and mind, making his arms spasm. Along with the rest of him. It was brief, though. An instant’s overwhelming agony, then someone’s foot rolled him off his tormentor and temporary victim.

Who was moaning, Cullen noted as he lay on his back, twitching like a dreaming dog, each little spasm sending shards of pain through his muscles. Apparently she’d zapped the Hulk, too. And that smell . . . the Hulk had pissed himself.

Cullen’s mouth contorted painfully as the impulse to grin got tangled up by his scrambled nerves.

“Did you think I wasn’t here?” A thin ghost of amusement brought a rare touch of life to that high, hated voice. She stood near his feet. “You must learn to master your impulses, Cullen. I can’t allow you to damage my servants. Second . . .” The slight shift in sound told Cullen she’d turned. “I asked you to tell the men not to tease Cullen. It causes problems.”

“I told them, Madonna.”

“Then John disobeyed.” That high, cool voice sounded so like a child’s . . . and not childish at all.

“Madonna, please . . .” That was the Hulk. He was panting. “Please, make it stop.”

“I have stopped, John. You’re only feeling the echoes now. I advise you to stop trying to move; that makes it so much worse. But I do require an answer. You forced me to use power to keep him from killing you. Did I waste that power? Are you going to continue to disobey?”

“No, Madonna.” He was sobbing now. “No, I obey you in everything.”

“Try to remember that. Second, have him removed. He smells bad.”

Cullen lay there recovering while they hauled John the Hulk away, whimpering. It was one of the best moments he’d had since a horde of ninja wanna-bes came crashing into his shack.

“I suspect you can stand up now,” computer-girl said to him. “You’re more durable than John, and it was such a brief punishment.”

Was there any advantage in pretending weakness? Not enough, he decided. She was unpredictable. He inched his head around, able to “see” her by the power bound up in her staff, which wasn’t a staff at all to his sorcerous vision, but a rent in reality outlined by pulsing red and purple energies. The reek of it made him want to snarl.

He smiled instead. His muscles were obeying him again, though it hurt like hell. “Shall I stand, then? You see how tractable I am, asking permission.”

“Not tractable at all. But you are clever and supremely self-interested. You’ll behave for now. Yes, stand. Second, take his leash and bring him to my quarters.”

The slight swish of cloth told him she’d walked away.

Moving was a bitch. Cullen managed it without wetting himself or whimpering, a small triumph that helped him endure the walk to her quarters, directed by tugs on his collar and an occasional word.

His world wasn’t completely dark. He was blind to the material world, yes, but he had other senses. He knew they were well belowground, for example; he even knew the approximate area from reading the ley lines that radiated from the node. Once they left the large main room that held his cage—he knew the room was big by the way sound behaved there—the air smelled of damp stone. It was some sort of tunnel, the walls and floor hacked out of the rock.

Sorcéri danced here, shifting auroras shed by the node that was so close and so unavailable. But sorcéri weren’t much help when it came to avoiding walls or crossing an uneven rock floor.

They’d put out his eyes while he was still unconscious. To keep him from escaping, he’d been told. He didn’t buy it.

True, that was a time-honored means of discouraging sorcerers. During the Purge the authorities had blinded and maimed those they hadn’t killed outright, cutting off their hands and removing their tongues. Couldn’t cast a spell then, poor bastards. Couldn’t wipe their own asses, either, so Cullen was glad he’d kept his hands. But he thought spite, not practicality, was the real reason for his blinding. Her holiness turned pettish when thwarted.

The sorcéri grew thicker as they neared the Madonna’s rooms, which were very close to the node. There were tales of adepts in the old days who’d been able to use the dancing lines of energy with their minds alone, with no spoken or physical components to the spells. Cullen sighed. He was far from being an adept.

But so was she. She couldn’t see the sorcéri and wouldn’t miss what he harvested. He wasn’t sure she knew they existed. Sorcéri weren’t like ley lines; they were more of an energy leakage. Low in power compared to a node, but they
were
power.

Cullen couldn’t call them to him by mind alone like an adept, but if he brushed against one, it was his. He stumbled for the fourth or fifth time—and collected a green line.

The chain tightened around his neck. “Two feet and turn left,” the one she called Second told him. Cullen had noticed that names were low status for these people. Once they reached a certain level, they were always called by their titles.

Or maybe they still believed you gained power over a person through his name. Which was theoretically possible, but the spells for that had been lost long ago with the vanished Codex Arcanum
—
the Book of All Magic.

He made the two steps, turned, and didn’t walk into a wall, which was a relief. The stink from her staff told him he’d arrived. The jerk on his collar confirmed it. He turned toward the staff and gave a little bow.

“He’s a bit of a mess,” a man’s voice said, amused. “Can’t you get him to wash?”

“You are so tidy, Patrick.” That was
her
. The staff was, as usual, right beside her. “He might be able to make use of water if I allowed him enough to wash with. I’m not sure of the extent of his skill with magic. And having him washed by others could result in some of my servants being damaged. Cullen, this is the Most Reverend Patrick Harlowe. You will address him as Most Reverend.”

“My pleasure, Most Reverend.” Cullen offered another little bow in the general direction of the man’s scent—easy to find, since he was wearing one of those musky men’s colognes. “I apologize for my disheveled state.”

“Quite understandable.” The amusement deepened. It was a rich, mellow voice, the kind people consider charismatic.
A touch of a Gift there,
Cullen thought. “Won’t you be seated? Ah—there’s a chair to your left.”

“Thank you.” Cullen slid his foot to the side until he’d located the chair, identified which way it faced, and seated himself.

“You’ll find a cup of tea on the table to your left,” her frigid holiness said. “I believe it’s still hot.”

“Tea. How lovely.” He found the cup—an awkward business with his hands cuffed in front of him, but he managed to pick it up and take a sip.

Nasty stuff. They could have offered him whiskey.

“How long will it take to grow your eyes back?” the Most Reverend person asked. “They don’t seem to have done much healing yet.”

“The lids have to regrow first.” A lie, but worth trying. “Can’t have bare eyeballs, can I? That should take about a week. It would go quicker if you let me have a blindfold. Given some protection, the eyeballs could get started. But faster may not be better, from my point of view. I’m wondering if I’ll be allowed to keep them this time.”

“You would be allowed much,” said that light, dead voice, “if you were more reasonable.”

“Ah, well. We have differing ideas of what’s reasonable, don’t we?” He set the cup back on its saucer, pleased that he managed it without fumbling. “I don’t consider it reasonable to allow you to meddle with my mind.”

“I’m not requiring you to remove your shields entirely. Just long enough for me to confirm what you say.”

“And yet—forgive my distrustful nature—once I lower my shields, you could do pretty much whatever you wanted, couldn’t you?” No sorcerer, this woman, which was why she was talking with him instead of killing him. They needed him. But she was a telepath, quite a strong one. And she had that thrice-cursed staff. She could stir his mind into a puddle of goo in short order. Or plant a compulsion to obey her, which was more likely.

“Where did you get these shields of yours?” Patrick asked. There was a clink of china, as if he were sharing in the little tea party. “Helen tells me she’s never encountered any quite so complete.”

Helen. The bitch’s name was Helen. He closed his mind around the name greedily. “I traded for the spell that created them shortly before her holiness paid me that little visit.”

“Oh, yes.” Leather creaked as the man leaned forward. “The other sorcerer, the one we’d hoped to find. You said his name was Michael?”

“That’s the name he used. I doubt it’s his real name.”

“And you have no idea where he went.”

“None whatsoever.” Though he’d give his eyes all over again to find out. The man owed him. “Nor any reason to lie to you about it. I don’t care what happens to him.”

“Yet if we found him, would we need you?” That was her again.

“Madonna, I couldn’t say. You’ve told me so little about your plans.” Though he knew a good deal more than they’d told him, having overheard things while in his cage. Maybe they thought glass stopped sound as well as magic. “But you have me, and you don’t have him.”

“
Do
we have you?” That was His Reverendness. “Your body, yes. But you won’t let us into your mind, and you aren’t committed to our cause. You don’t worship Her.”

Cullen shrugged. “I worship knowledge, and I’m very fond of power. The Madonna can give me both. I see no reason we can’t deal.”

She spoke. “You proposed some ways to test your sincerity the last time we spoke.”

She seemed to be musing aloud, as if turning things over in her mind, but it rang false to Cullen. Her Bitchiness—Helen—never spoke without thinking first.

She’d decided how to use him. His heatbeat picked up, and it was all he could do to keep his face and posture easy. He had a chance.

“Most of your little tests involved killing you if you failed us.” There was a rare touch of feeling in her voice—faint, but discernable. Killing him held some appeal for her. “But none of them involved killing others. Will you kill for me, Cullen?”

“Yes.” It was like being back in school. Feed the teacher the answers she was looking for, win an A+.

“Just yes? You have no questions about who or how or why?”

“My questions involve payment. If I pass your test, what do I get?”

“Madonna.” Patrick shifted in his chair, perhaps turning toward her. “He’s entirely amoral. Is this the type of person we want working for us?”

“
With
us,” she corrected gently. “We can’t afford to have him work for us. He’s too dangerous, too capable of turning on us. We must enlist him entirely.”