Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,236

at me.

And, suddenly, I understood how mother had fought all those demons. The coil of power around my left arm fed me, while leaving my right free to throw spell after spell, draining Jo of her power even while attacking her. I also understood why mother had enjoyed it.

Euphoria spilled through me from the rush of more power than I’d ever felt in my life. The pretty facade of a nearby house crumbled into a pile of ancient bricks as a huge patch of road churned and broke and cracked down the middle, as a hundred leaping bodies disintegrated into a cloud of powder and a rattle of falling bones. And I laughed and laughed and laughed, understanding at last how all those dark mages got addicted. This was the best feeling ever!

And, unlike the mages, I wouldn’t pay a price for it, because Pritkin was made to absorb multiple forms of energy. Incubi were the universal solvent! I could do this all night!

But the world couldn’t, I realized, as reality shivered around us. And while I could fight Jo now, I couldn’t beat her. I didn’t have any place to store all that power. I could use it, letting it flow through me, expending it on spell after spell as soon as I got it. But I couldn’t drain her, not in time.

And it wouldn’t do any good to duel until time itself fell apart!

She didn’t have to overcome me to win, I realized. She just had to stall me. And she was doing a damned good job, because, as I kept telling everybody, I wasn’t my mother.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to be.

I threw a final spell, deflected the response, then stumbled, letting Jo think she had an advantage. She dove; I held position, letting her get as close as I could, to the point that all I could see was a glittering wall of white. Then I shifted—to Rhea.

I grabbed my courageous, idiotic, suicidal acolyte and shifted again, this time to the rooftop where the other acolytes had congregated, I guess to maintain their slow time spell.

It looked like it was wearing on them—good.

“Drop it,” I gasped.

“What?” Hilde stared at me, apparently having trouble keeping up.

“Drop it, drop the spell, do it, do it now!”

They dropped the spell, finally releasing Jo’s huge ghost army.

Who promptly rang the dinner bell, one last time.

Epilogue

“Now, this is what I call a party!” Billy Joe yelled.

He’d somehow talked Hilde and poor, gullible Emilio into using Chimera to conjure him up a temporary body—I strongly suspected by playing up his part in saving the world. As a result, he was currently a curly-haired vamp clone, who’d been belting back margaritas for the past hour. He was, he had informed me gleefully, intending to get very, very drunk.

I wondered how long it would take him to figure out that vamps are basically immune to alcohol.

But at least he was enjoying himself. I just wished I could say the same. But the kitchen was so crowded that I could barely move, and so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think. There were eight blenders all going full blast, and the sound of crushing ice drowned out pretty much everything else.

I tried to ask Tami a question, but found a tray of glasses shoved into my chest before I could.

She looked a little crazed, maybe because this was the first party we’d had in the new digs. It was supposed to be a simple housewarming/glad-we’re-all-still-alive kind of thing, but the guest list had gotten a little out of hand. Which was why she was in the kitchen, supervising the guys, who had sleeves rolled up and aprons on and were valiantly trying to make enough drinks and hors d’oeuvres to go around.

“Go!” she yelled, pushing me at the door. “Circulate!”

I went.

I didn’t think the guy I was looking for was in there anyway.

The rest of the suite was just as crowded. I made my way over to where Mircea, Marlowe, and the consul were standing, off to one side of the huge living room. The consul was one of the chief reasons we were so jam-packed, since +1 wasn’t a concept she understood. It was more like +200, but at least she’d opted for a killer LBD instead of the usual slithering sheath.

Baby steps.

“Refill?” I bellowed, because the older initiates had taken over the stereo and appeared to be techno fans.

The sound abruptly cut out, probably because Marlowe had just thrown a little device on