Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,83

be away on Circle business, or helping those vampires, or tracking some miscreant through time. And I am going to be here, alone—”

I started to interrupt, but she just raised her voice.

“—except for those guards of yours, who are good for many things, but who can’t handle some of the challenges we face. And what do you think is going to happen then, hm?”

I started to respond, and then I saw that . . . thing . . . that had been at the consul’s again. I’d had plenty of help there, and it almost hadn’t been enough. What if something similar was sent against my court? Against my girls?

The very idea made my stomach clench painfully. No! That couldn’t happen!

But it could. That thing had walked right into the middle of a vampire army, right through every checkpoint and security measure put in place to keep something like that from happening. And it had just started slaughtering people. It had killed over a hundred in its assault on the consul’s home: a quarter in the initial attack and three times that many in the battle in the hallway.

Maybe more, since they’d still been trying to pick up the pieces when I left.

Literally, I thought, remembering a servant hurrying by with a basket of squirming body parts.

I sat down on my bed, my legs like jelly.

It could happen here, and I couldn’t stop it. I’d barely stopped it there, and only because I’d had some of the most powerful creatures on earth battling alongside me. My guys were good, and against any normal danger, they’d be deadly. But today?

They would have been shredded right alongside everyone else.

But what was the alternative?

“I still see Jo sometimes,” I told Hilde. “Her eyes, the way she looked at the battle, the way she enjoyed it. We don’t even know if she’s really gone, and—”

“All the more reason to be prepared.”

Hilde was relentless; like a river running over stone, wearing it down. She’d been after me for two weeks to bring in some of the retired acolytes, and I’d been refusing, because I hadn’t wanted to bring a potential viper into the nest. But a viper had saved my life today, had saved all our lives. I didn’t like the consul, but when push came to shove, she’d put her life on the line and bled alongside the rest of us. That’s what a leader did.

And if I’d been wrong about her, was I wrong again now?

“I don’t blame you for being cautious,” Hilde said. “But there’s such a thing as being too careful. We have a war to fight, and we need soldiers.” A veined and age-spotted hand covered mine. “And you’ve fought alone long enough. Time to accept some help.”

I thought about Jo again, that lovely, hateful face. And then I thought about the other acolytes I’d seen with Gertie, like a flock of delicate, white-clad birds. What would it be like to have my own team behind me, strong, capable, loyal? What would it have been like today, had there been others who could wield the Pythian power, besides just me?

The tarot card had screamed “strength” at me for a good five minutes—was this what it had meant? Because strength was usually found in numbers. . . . Goddamn it.

“They’d need to interview with you, of course,” Hilde said. “And any you didn’t like, well, that would be that.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. How had we gotten from the question of whether to consider the old acolytes at all to discussing interviews? And why couldn’t I do shit like that? Talk about magic.

“Have them come by,” I said sourly. “But not here. I’ll talk to them downstairs.”

“They voluntarily gave up the Pythian power when they left the court,” Hilde pointed out. “The only ones allowed to retain it were the fail-safes. Even if they had another Jo among their number, they’d be no threat to us.”

“Even so—”

“And there’s not a downstairs so much anymore. Are you going to interview them in a construction zone?”

“Fine! I’ll talk to them here!” I got up. “Now, if there’s nothing else?”

“Other than you having a chat with Rhea? No, I believe that covers it.”

I hung my head. Why did people want to be Pythia again? I honestly didn’t know.

I sighed. “Where is she?”

Chapter Nineteen

I found Rhea in the kitchen, helping Tami and a bunch of the guys and gals clean up. Of course, that was a relative term, considering that there was more