Claimed by Shadow Page 0,116
I won't endanger you further," Tomas said flatly. I would have argued, but the set of his jaw told me it would be a waste of time. Besides, Françoise was looking apoplectic.
"You're worried about a vampire… now, of all times?" She shook her head. "Cassie, he was a means to an end, that's all. He served his purpose; let him look after himself. They're pretty good at that, you know.”
Okay, that clinched it. There was more going on here than Françoise having a fit. "You want to tell me who you are right now? Because I never told Françoise my name. Not to mention that she only used to speak French.”
"We don't have time for this!”
I sat on the bunk and looked at her mulishly. "I'm not going anywhere until I know who you are and what is going on." I'd had about enough of flying by the seat of my pants. The past week had taught me the hard way that I sucked at it.
She threw up her hands in an oddly familiar gesture. Somewhere, I'd seen someone use that movement in the same way, but it eluded me. "I told you once you'd be either the best of us all or the very worst. Want to bet which way I'm leaning?”
It took a few seconds to sink in, and even when it did, I didn't believe it. "Agnes? What… what the hell are you doing in there?”
"Existing," she said bitterly. "Some afterlife.”
"But… but… I didn't know you could even do possessions! The mages said-”
"Right. Like we tell them everything!" She put her hands back on her hips in another eerily familiar gesture. "The less the Circle knows about our abilities, the better! Did you really believe you could do it and I couldn't?”
"But you don't have Billy Joe," I protested. It was something that had been bothering me, both with her and with Myra. "How can you shift in time without a spirit to babysit your body while you're gone?”
Agnes just stared at me; then she shook her head. "Well, that's an original approach, I'll grant you," she muttered. "We go back to our bodies at almost the same moment we left them, Cassie. Our bodies don't die, because as far as they're concerned, we never left.”
"But… your body…" I stared at her, wondering how to phrase things. There didn't seem to be a lot of options. "Agnes, I'm sorry, but… it is dead.”
She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Of course it is! What do you think I'm doing here?”
"I have no idea," I told her honestly.
"Well, it certainly wasn't my first choice!" She looked pissed. "This is supposed to be my bonus life, my time to enjoy myself for a change. I left you intending to return to my body, to gather strength to migrate into a nice German girl. She was supposed to die in a rockfall-a hiking accident- and I was all set to take her over-”
"Take her over?" I don't know what my face looked like, but Agnes let out a laugh.
"She was going to die, Cassie! On the whole, I think she'd have preferred sharing a life with me to that!”
I felt dizzy. "I don't get it.”
Tomas spoke up suddenly, startling me. "One to serve, one to live," he murmured.
Agnes shot him a less-fhan-kind look. "I don't know where you heard mat, but just forget it.”
"Then it's true," he said, apparently stunned. "There have been rumors, but no one believes-”
"Which is how it's going to stay." Agnes said emphatically.
It was my turn to look back and forth between the two of them. "Will somebody please tell me what is going on?”
"There is an old rumor," Tomas said, ignoring Agnes' frown, "that the Pythia is rewarded at the end of her service with another life-a type of compensation for the one she gave up to her calling.”
I closed my mouth, which kept trying to hang open in shock. For a moment, I just stared at Agnes. "Is that true?" I finally managed to ask.
"Do you want to get out of here or not?" she demanded.
"Just tell me!”
She sighed and threw up her hands again. I didn't know if that was a regular habit, or if it just happened a lot around me. "Okay, long story short-yes, it's true. We find someone slated to die young, and cut a deal with them. We possess them and feed off their energy, and in return we help them to avoid whatever catastrophe was