Claimed by Shadow Page 0,53

my problematic protection. He and Pritkin needed me alive until they reeled in Myra, so he had a vested interest in fixing it if he could. I was a little worried about the geis acting up, but apparently I wasn't Mac's type. I didn't get so much as a twinge from the hellish thing, even when I removed my tank top. I wasn't wearing a bra, but I held the shirt in front of me and Mac's hands were as impersonal as a doctor's.

"Can I ask you a question?" He was poking at my back with something that resembled an extremely fuzzy pipe cleaner. It didn't hurt, but it made my aura itch.

I repressed the urge to wiggle. "Sure.”

"Why are you doing this? You seem… that is, you don't strike me as particularly vindictive.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "What am I supposed to be vindictive about?”

He shrugged. "John said you plan to kill this vampire, Antonio. I'm assuming he deserves it, but…”

"I don't strike you as a homicidal nut?”

He laughed. "Something like that. If you don't mind my asking, what did he do to you?”

I thought about it while he changed instruments. The easy answer was "everything," but I didn't want to get into a long conversation on a topic that, even on a good day, managed to depress me. But avoiding it entirely might not be smart either. I didn't need Pritkin to get any hints that Myra interested me a lot more than Tony at the moment. I decided on a partial truth. It wasn't like I didn't have plenty of. legitimate grievances against the fat man.

"Revenge isn't my main goal. I guess you could say that I want to retrieve some personal property." I jumped as a spark suddenly arced over my skin. Mac's new instrument made my aura crackle, like it was filled with static. I sat very still to avoid shocking myself again.

"He stole something from you?”

I repressed a sigh. Apparently, Mac wasn't going to be satisfied with the short version. "Twenty years ago, Tony decided he wanted a competent seer at his court, someone he could trust. But accurate seers are few and far between, and honest ones aren't likely to work for a member of the vampire mafia. He finally decided that what he needed was to find one he could bring up from childhood to be loyal. And, as luck would have it, one of his human employees had a young daughter who seemed perfect for the role. But even though my father had been on Tony's payroll for years, he ignored the order to bring me to court.”

"Your father was a rogue?" Mac asked. He seemed surprised.

"I don't know what he was. I was told he could communicate with ghosts, so I guess he had some clairvoyant ability. Whether he was a mage or not-" I shrugged. One of these days, I hoped to ask him-about that and a lot of other things. "All I know is that he was one of Tony's favorite humans. Until he told him no, that is.”

"Surely he must have known what the vampire's reaction was likely to be.”

"I assume he planned to flee with my mother and me, since refusing Tony isn't considered healthy, but he never got the chance. And Tony felt that the betrayal, as he viewed it, deserved more than a mere assassination. So he paid a mage to construct a magical snare, which he used to trap my father's ghost after he rigged my parents' car to explode. He's been using it as a paperweight ever since.”

Mac's hands had gone very still on my back. I glanced behind me to see him staring at me blankly. "You aren't serious… are you?”

I turned back around. "Yeah. From what I understand, it's only about the size of a golf ball, so it could be anywhere. Tony has three houses and more than a dozen businesses, and those are just the ones I know about. I don't feel like searching through them all so I thought I'd let him tell me where it is." I actually assumed he had it with him. It would be Tony's style to carry his trophies along even when fleeing for his life.

Mac was just standing there, his hands on my shoulders. He looked stunned for some reason. "Haven't you ever been tempted?" he finally asked.

"Tempted to do what?”

"You're Pythia. You could go back, change what happened." He moved so he could see my eyes. "You could