The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 (39 page)

They resolved themselves into one madwoman a moment later, about the time he heard the approach of far too many mages on the stairs. Of course, in his condition, one might be enough to finish him. Kit staggered to his feet and started towards the door, only to have the witch flap a hand at him. “I warded the room!”

“It won’t hold them for long.”

“It won’t have to.” She’d hooked the barrel – Kit could see it bobbing outside the window – and was in the process of loading it with the contents of a large trunk. “Well, don’t just stand there!” she said frantically. “Help me!”

“Help you do what?”

For an answer she shoved a double handful of wands, charms and bottles of odd, sludgy substances into his hands. He didn’t know what half the things were, but although some of them buzzed, chimed and rang like a struck tuning fork against his skin, nothing appeared to be attacking him. For a change.

“Put them in,” she said impatiently.

“Put them in the barrel?” he asked slowly, wondering if he was following this at all.

“Yes! By the Goddess, are you always this slow?”

Kit thought that was a trifle unfair, all things considered. But then the door shuddered and he decided to worry about it later. He threw the weapons into the cask, turned and almost bumped into the witch, who was right behind him with another load.

He sidestepped and dragged the heavy trunk over to the window, earning him a brief glance of approval. “I don’t see what good this is going to do,” he pointed out, as they finished cramming the barrel full of the trunk’s contents. “The fight is halfway across the courtyard—”

“As this is about to be.” The witch started to climb out of the window, on to the overstuffed cask, when a spell came sizzling through the air. Kit jerked her back and it exploded against the stone, leaving a blackened scar on the tower’s side.

“God’s Bones, woman!” he cursed, fighting an urge to shake her.

“It wasn’t meant to happen this way,” she said, staring blankly at the window. “I planned to have the weapons out before anyone noticed.”

“They appear to have noticed,” Kit said grimly, looking for other options. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any. The room was small and wedge-shaped, with but one door and window, both of which the Circle was now guarding.

She rounded on him. “You should have stayed out of it! If you hadn’t jumped on board they might not have spotted me!”

“If I had stayed out of it, madam, you would be dead,” he snapped. “And I was not the one sending us careening about like a drunken hummingbird.”

“Neither was I!” Grey eyes flashed like lightning. “Winnie thought you were attacking me. She was trying to shake you off.”

“Winnie would be the demented dwarf?”

“She isn’t either,” the witch said heatedly. “And say that sometime in her hearing!”

“I will, should I live so long,” he replied, as the door shuddered again.

The witch stared at it, and then back at the barrel. And then she snatched a wand from the chest and aimed it at the fully-loaded cask.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, grabbing for her arm. But the stun had made him clumsy and before he could knock it aside, their only way out of this death trap went flying off like a bullet.

“Giving us a fighting chance.”

“That was our chance!”

The witch shook her head violently. “None of us has a prayer if they don’t get that gate open!”

“And now what?”

“Now this.” She rotated her wrist and far away the barrel followed the motion, spewing its contents across the smoke-blackened scene.

“That wasn’t what I meant!” Kit said, giving into temptation and shaking her. “How do you plan to get out of here?”

She licked her lips. “We fight.”

“With what? You’ve just sent our only weapons to the other side of the castle!”

“Not all of them,” she protested, glancing at the pieces that lay scattered across a nearby table. “As long as it’s only guards, we should be—”

The sound of a heavy fist, pounding on the door, cut her off. “Open in the name of the queen!”

“She isn’t my queen!” the witch yelled.

There was a pause, and then another voice spoke. “Then open in the name of the Circle.”

Chapter Six

Gillian stared at the vampire, who looked blankly back. She didn’t have to ask if he had any ideas. His face was as pale and tight as hers felt.

Outside, someone’s spell smashed the barrel into a thousand pieces, but too late. There was a huge shout from the crowd as the witches realized what had just rained down on them like manna from Heaven. And then the fighting resumed, far more viciously than before.

It was what she’d wanted, what she’d worked for. There was no way of getting Elinor out of here if the gate stayed closed, and no chance to break through without weapons. But the plan had been to ride the barrel back down before sending it off into the fray. Not to get trapped five storeys off the ground with the Circle on either exit.

“Master Marlowe,” the mage’s voice came again. “We know you are in there with the witch. Send her out and you may leave peacefully.”

“Peacefully?” The vampire snorted. “Your men attacked me!”

“Because you were protecting the woman. Cease to do so and we will have no quarrel with you. We promised your lady safe passage and we will honour that agreement.”

Gillian braced herself, sure he would take them up on the offer. She had friends who would have abandoned her in such a situation, and she wouldn’t have blamed them. And this man owed her nothing.

But he surprised her. “I have need of the witch,” he said, gripping her arm possessively.

“Then you can petition the council.”

“Would that be the same council that sentenced her to death?” he asked cynically.

“Send her out, or we shall come in and take her.”

The menace in the man’s voice made Gillian shiver, but the vampire just looked puzzled. “Why?” he demanded. “Why risk anything for a common cutpurse? She is of no value to you, while my lady would reward you handsomely—”

The mage laughed. “I am sure she would! Do not think to deceive us. A common cutpurse she may have been, but the guards saw what the old woman did. We know what she is!”

The vampire looked at her, a frown creasing his forehead. “What are you?” he asked softly.

Gillian shook her head, equally bewildered. “Nobody. I . . . nobody.”

“They appear to feel otherwise,” he said dryly. Sharp dark eyes moved to the table. “I don’t suppose any of those weapons—”

“Magical weapons are like any other kind,” Gillian told him, swallowing. “Someone has to use them.”

“And I’m not a mage.”

“It wouldn’t matter. Two of us against how many of them? No weapon would be enough to even the odds, much less—”

A heavy fist hit the door. Gillian jumped and the vampire’s hand tightened reflexively on her arm. It shouldn’t have been painful, but his fingers closed right over the burn the Eldest had given her. She cried out and he abruptly let go, as the mage spoke once more.

“Master Marlowe! I will not ask again!”

“Promises, promises,” the vampire muttered.

Gillian didn’t say anything. She’d pushed up her sleeve to get the fabric off the burn, but no raw, red flesh met her gaze. Instead, she found herself staring in confusion at an ancient, graceful design etched on to her inner wrist.

Her fingers traced the pattern slowly, reverently. It wasn’t finished, with only two of the three spirals showing dark blue against her skin. But there was no doubt what it was. “The triskelion,” she whispered.

“The what?” the vampire asked.

She looked in the direction of his voice, and found him sprawled on the floor, his curly head pressed against the dusty boards. Her own head was spinning too much to even wonder why.

His eyes narrowed. “A moment ago, you claimed to be of no importance, and now you tell me you’re a coven leader?”

“But that’s just it, I’m not! At least . . .” Gillian had a sudden flash of memory, of the Great Mother’s hand gripping her arm, of how she had refused to let go even in death – and of the ease with which the elements had come to her aid thereafter. She had put it down to the staff magnifying her magic. But no amount of power should have allowed her to call an element that was not hers.

“At least what?” he asked, getting up with a frustrated look on his face.

“I think there’s a chance that the Great Mother . . . that she may have—” she stopped, because it sounded absurd to say it out loud – to even think it. But what other explanation was there? “I think she may have passed her position on to me.”

She expected shock, awe, disbelief, all the things she was feeling. But the vampire’s expression didn’t change, except to look slightly confused. And then his head tilted at the sound of some muttering outside. It was too low for her ears to make out, but he didn’t appear to have that problem.

“They’ve sent for a wardsmith,” he said grimly. “Before he arrives and they rush the room and kill us both, would you kindly explain what that means?”

“They offered you safe passage,” Gillian reminded him.

“And I know exactly how much faith to put in that,” he said mockingly, hopping up on to the table. “Now
tell me.”

She took a deep breath. “Every coven has a leader, called the Great Mother or the Eldest. In time of peace, she judges disputes, allocates resources and participates in the assembly of elders at yearly meetings. In time of war, she leads the coven in battle.”

He’d been trying to press an ear against the ceiling, but at that he looked down. “And you agreed?” he asked incredulously.

“She asked if I was willing to fight for my own,” Gillian said defensively. “I thought she meant Elinor, to get her out of this . . .”

“So of course you said yes!”

“I didn’t know she was putting me in charge!”

“That is why the mages marked us,” he said, as if something had finally made sense. “I wondered why they were focused on you when there were dozens of prisoners closer to the gates.”

Gillian shook her head. “They don’t want me, they want this.” She held out the arm with the ward.

“For what purpose?”

“The triskelion gives the Great Mother the ability, in times of danger, to . . . to borrow . . . part of the magic of everyone under her control,” she said, struggling for words he would understand. “It’s meant to unite the coven in a time of crisis, allowing its leader to wield an awesome amount of power, all directed toward a single purpose. It’s why the Circle fears them so much, why they’ve hunted them so—”

She broke off as her voice suddenly gave out. The vampire frowned and pulled a flask from under his doublet, bending down to hand it to her. She eyed it warily, thinking of Winnie and her brew, but it turned out to be ale. It was body-warm and completely flat, and easily the best thing she’d ever tasted.

He balanced on the edge of the table in a perilous-looking crouch, regarding her narrowly. “If the ward is that powerful, why did the jailers not take it off the witch once they had her in their grasp?”

“They didn’t know who she was,” Gillian gasped, forcing herself to slow down before she spilled any of the precious liquid. “I didn’t even know. She was dressed in rags, her hair was dirty, her face was haggard – she must have been in disguise and was picked up in a raid.”

“But do not magical objects give off a residue your people can feel?”

“Yes, but the ward isn’t like a charm – it holds no magic itself when not active. And non-magical items can occasionally be missed in searches.”

“But if it’s so powerful, why didn’t the witch use it herself?”

“She was gagged,” Gillian said, thinking of the disgusting scrap of cloth she’d pulled from the Eldest’s mouth. “And by the time I freed her, she was too weak to fight. Goddess knows how long she was in there.”

“So in return for your help, she saddles you with the very thing most likely to get you killed,” he said in disgust.

“She wanted to save her people, and she needed someone strong enough to use the ward!”

“Then I suggest you do so. There are four guards in the chamber below and at least five in the corridor outside – and that is assuming no one is hiding under a silence shield. Above us is the roof of the keep, guarded by four more men who can be called down if needed. And then there’s the two below the window, who are doubtless hoping we’ll poke our heads out again and get them blown off!”

“Fifteen men
?” Gillian repeated, appalled. That was three times as many as she’d expected, especially with an escape in progress. What were they all doing here?

“Fifteen war mages.” He smiled grimly. “There is a price to be paid for breaking into the most secure part of the prison.”

“But . . . but how do we get past so many?”

“We don’t. I can take three, possibly four with your help. No more. We need a diversion to draw the rest away to have any chance at all.”

Gillian licked her lips, staring at the blank space on her arm where the third spiral of the triskelion should have been. The ward looked oddly lopsided without it, the pattern disjointed and incomplete. Like the connection it was meant to make.