Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,141

mean, that little show you put on in there? That was life magic. I can’t feed from it, like the family does, but I’ve learned to recognize it when I see it.”

“So?”

“So, didn’t you hear them in there, droning on and on about magical types? I thought I was going to stab myself in the eye. But there is a difference. Wild magic is like electricity; you can do things with it, but you can’t feed from it, or trust me, the vamps would be sucking on a ley line’s teat twenty-four-seven.”

I blinked but didn’t reply, trying to get that image out of my head.

“But what you have, that’s the good stuff. The rare stuff. The kind only found in bodies.”

“Like the ones everyone has?”

“But everyone else doesn’t have magical life energy, the wild magic of the world processed through the body of a mage. Regular old mages don’t have enough for Jonathan anymore, and the adulterated piss the Black Circle regularly rips off does almost as much harm as good. But you . . . my God, you’re the mother lode!”

I pulled away, and this time, she let me go. I stood by the side of the bed, Augustine’s dress feeling ridiculously silky and inadequate, especially without the armor-like breastplate. Somebody had taken that off, and I didn’t see where they’d put it, not that it mattered. It wouldn’t have provided much heat anyway.

I crossed my arms and scowled at her. “What are you saying?”

“What does it sound like? He’s going to come after you, sooner or later—and probably sooner.”

“Why sooner?”

“Because he’s getting desperate.”

She scooted over to the side of the bed, causing me to step back a pace. She noticed, and for the first time, she dropped the insouciant smile. “Sorry, by the way.”

“About what?”

“The whole trying-to-kill-you thing? If it helps, it wasn’t me.”

“I’m . . . pretty sure it was you.”

The grin was back, just a flash this time. “The other me. There’s two of us in here. It gets crowded sometimes.”

“Uh-huh.” Mircea had said something of the kind, although I hadn’t understood it any better then. It sounded like she had a split personality, with the split being between a mad dog killer and a raging psychopath.

“What exactly do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Hold him for me. He’ll come for you, and likely soon. He’s getting desperate. He used to pop up every two or three decades, but lately, it’s like he’s everywhere. He was in New York a month ago, masterminding an attack on the senate’s HQ, then in Paris a couple weeks after that, then in Hong Kong just a few days ago. He’s probably working on another plan right now, desperate to get the gods back and gain the immortality or whatever the fuck they’ve offered him. But he’s also running out of gas.”

“And I’m the gas station.”

She nodded. “Now you’re getting it. He thought he hit the lottery when he took Louis-Caesar, but the power of a god is even better. The Pythian power would sustain him for, well, maybe ever. With it to draw from, he might not even need the gods.”

“Then why hasn’t he been after it before?” I demanded, before remembering—he had been. Before I became Pythia in full, when I was just in the running, Jonathan had found me in that parking lot.

Thankfully, so had a lot of other people. A lot of very scary people. He’d been forced to flee, and I hadn’t seen him since, maybe because, once I became Pythia, I was a much less easy target. But in the street that night . . .

What had been the plan? I wondered. Kidnap me like Louis-Cesare? Wait to see if the power came to me, then drain me every day, almost to death, sucking down as much of it as possible until my body couldn’t channel any more?

A shudder went through me, and Dorina saw it.

“I get it,” she said, and her voice this time was softer, sweeter. And the face was just a face—lovely still, but with none of the uncanniness of a minute ago. I couldn’t even see her fangs. Just dark eyes full of sympathy for another human being.

I wasn’t the only one with good camouflage.

“What do you get?” I asked harshly.

“Jonathan legitimately scares even me, and I don’t scare easy.”

“Then why do you want him? Is the kill so important to you?”

“It’s not about me. I’d gut him and be done with it, or watch you dust him to