Claimed by Shadow Page 0,67
you have a point?”
"What is happening?" Mircea demanded, looking back and forth between the vampires and me as if he realized he was missing something.
"Do I have a point?" Myra mimicked. "God, you're thick. I know first-year initiates who catch on faster!”
She glanced at Mircea, and I tensed. I really didn't like her expression. "If you want to kill me, why attack him?”
"You still don't get cause and effect, do you?" Her voice held genuine astonishment. "Let me spell it out for you. Mircea protected you most of your life. Why do you think Antonio never lost his temper and killed you? Why did he open his arms and welcome you back after you ran away? If Mircea is removed, his protection is removed. And that means you die, long before you become a problem for me.”
The ghostly creature behind Myra jerked slightly, as if it didn't like this information any better than I did. It moved those huge eyes back and forth between the two of us, its color shading from a silvery hue to dark purple. Odd flutterings starting around the edge of its diaphanous shape and, with no further warning, it changed. The pale, almost featureless face grew a mouthful of deadly-looking fangs, and the eyes flooded with dark red, like old blood. I stared at it in shock, but Myra didn't seem to notice. Or maybe she thought I was grimacing at her.
"And did Agnes become a problem for you?" I demanded. I was assuming that Myra had been the woman at the theatre who had poisoned Mircea's wine. How she'd recovered so fast I didn't know, but if she was here, then she could have been there. And it wasn't as if there were a lot of other contenders. I couldn't know whether the poison she'd used was the same kind that had killed Agnes, but the similarity in method was interesting. "Is that why you killed her?”
Myra laughed as if I'd said something genuinely funny. "That's against the rules, or didn't you know?" she asked. Then she stepped into the brunette's body and disappeared.
Mircea gripped my upper arms. "Are you mad?”
"The brunette," I gasped. I didn't say any more, because the vamp Myra had possessed suddenly hurtled herself at Mircea. He grabbed her around the throat before I had a chance to blink, holding her away from him. She twisted and fought, but her reach wasn't quite long enough. Not that it would have made any difference if it had been. Apparently, to Myra a vamp was a vamp. She didn't understand that the brunette was a child compared to Mircea, and that he could break her as easily. But she was a fast learner. In less than a minute, Myra flew out of the woman, disappearing into the crowd.
The brunette collapsed, sobbing, clutching Mircea's feet and begging for forgiveness almost incoherently. "She was possessed-she didn't know what she was doing," I told him.
He lifted the hysterical vamp to her feet and looked at me over her head, his face darkening with anger. "Vampires cannot be possessed!”
I thought of Casanova but decided not to debate the point. "Not by most things," I agreed, my eyes on the crowd, which had grown with the advent of violence.
I'd invaded a vamp before, a first-level master. The difference was that I'd done it by accident, not knowing about that facet of my power, and almost scared myself to death. It hadn't done him much good either. But Myra could obviously manage it at will, and there was a whole roomful of vampires for her to choose from.
"What is out there?" Mircea pushed the sobbing vamp towards Augusta -her master, I assumed-and started to examine the crowd himself, those quick dark eyes taking it in, no doubt memorizing the faces. Too bad that sort of thing wouldn't help.
I didn't have to answer, because a woman who might have walked straight out of Versailles, in cream-colored panniers and a two-foot-tall headdress, lurched out of the crowd. She didn't make a beeline for Mircea as I'd expected, but staggered drunkenly about the circle, careening into Jack, who was huddled off to the side, trying to disappear into the shadows. They went down in a tumbled mass, naked, dirty legs entwined with embroidered satin, until Augusta snatched up his leash and yanked him away.
The vamp didn't get up, but stayed in the middle of the floor, limbs thrashing, head rolling, eyes showing white. It looked like she was fighting the possession,