one of us?" he asked incredulously.
Augusta shrugged. "I'll dispose of him when I'm finished, or you may, if you like, for all the trouble he gave you. But you will have to wait." She casually stroked the side of Jack's face, an almost tender gesture, and he gave a desperate, broken cry. I realized with sickened disgust that she'd thrust one of those long fingernails through his right eyeball. "I like this one. He screams so nicely.”
Mircea shook off Jack's hand, which had grasped his trouser cuff in a silent plea, and Augusta dragged her captive back to the center of the space. Better to show him off, I supposed. Mircea glanced at me as I struggled to show no emotion. "How did you know who he is? Augusta only unveiled him tonight.”
"I heard a rumor," I managed, after swallowing hard. "How did you find him?”
"He found us. We were looking for someone else." Jack screamed as the brunette ground her heel into his groin, and I flinched before I could stop myself. "She'll grow tired of him quickly enough, once he breaks," Mircea said. I didn't comment. They would find out soon enough that it's hard to break an already fractured mind.
My attention was diverted from Jack by the sight of two ghostly figures. They had moved from among the assembled spectators into the circle itself, unseen by the crowd. One was the intriguing creature from earlier, still a featureless blob; the other was Myra.
I froze. On the edge of the circle stood the chief pain in my butt in all her spiritual glory. It was easy to recognize her since the only other time we'd met she'd also been in spirit form. I could hardly believe my eyes, especially since she looked healthier than before I'd stabbed her. Her fair hair, which had hung in lank, unwashed strings the only other time we'd met, was combed and shining. Her face was pale but she looked like she'd gained a few much-needed pounds. How the hell had she recovered so fast? "What are you doing here?" I demanded. Mircea thought I was talking to him. "You wished to see Augusta. There she is, safe and sound.”
"To right a wrong, of course." Myra 's voice was high and sweet, like a child's. It didn't go well with her expression. If looks could kill, I'd already be out of her way. "Isn't that what we were trained to do?" She was staying near the brunette, not coming any closer. I wasn't sure whether that was because Augusta was there, too, or because the brunette's body offered her a shield from my knives. I freed my hand from Mircea's cloak, just in case, but he caught my wrist.
"That is a pretty trinket you're wearing, but I would not advise sending anything deadly at Augusta. You can see what she does to those foolish enough to attack her." I ignored him. "What wrong?”
"Oh, but I forgot," Myra added sweetly; "you weren't trained, were you? How dreadful.”
That singsong voice was really starting to get on my nerves. "This isn't a game, Myra.”
"No," she agreed. "It's a contest, for very high stakes. The highest, you might say."
"Meaning what?”
Mircea followed the line of my gaze but of course saw nothing. "To whom are you speaking?”
"Meaning you aren't fit to be Pythia." She regarded me out of eyes that were such a pale blue, they were almost white. I assumed they weren't that light when she was in her body, but at the moment it was creepy. "Agnes was old and dangerously unstable when she appointed you. If her decision had gone through the usual review process, she'd have been laughed out of the hall. But she skipped all that, didn't she? She went behind everyone's backs and fucked up a system that's been in place for thousands of years. I'm here to fix that.”
"By killing me?”
"Nothing so crude. Let me give you a little lesson, your first and last, all in one," she said pleasantly. "Any being that travels in linear time is defined by its past. Take that past away, or change it, and you redefine that being." She smiled, but there was acid in it. "Or do away with it completely.”
"I know that." What I didn't understand was why she was here, in this time. If Augusta had just turned Jack, then it looked like I was back in the 1880s. If Myra wanted to change my past, she was a little early. "Do