Touch The Dark Page 0,136

blond hair. "Don't worry," I told her, although it sounded pretty strange under the circumstances. "I won't let him harm you. We need to get—"

I never finished the sentence because, suddenly, everything froze. I looked around fearfully, wondering what new threat I had to deal with, and noticed that the knife was still in the sybil's hand. It was also all of about a millimeter away from my chest. I stared at it in disbelief. The bitch had been about to stab me! And, judging by the angle, it would have been a heart blow. Admittedly, it wasn't my body, but I thought it would be polite to return it without any big holes in it. Besides, I didn't know what would happen to me if the woman died. Even Billy hadn't known. Maybe I'd survive, maybe not, but I sure as hell wouldn't be much help to Radu or Louis-César. Not to mention racking up yet another death on my conscience.

"I see you received my message." A voice floated across the room, as silvery clear as chiming bells.

I looked up to see a slender, short girl with long, dark hair rippling down her back almost to her knees. She was weaving past the hovering ghosts, some of which had frozen, jaws wide, busily gulping down other phantoms. No one moved, no one breathed. It was like I'd wandered into a photograph, except that two of us continued to be active.

"What?" I eased back from the sybil and her knife, which also allowed me to back away from whoever the newcomer was.

"The one on your computer," the woman continued. "At your office. That was clever, don't you think?" She peered at Louis-César but made no move towards him. Her big blue eyes came back to me and her sweet little face took on a somewhat peevish air. "Well? Don't I at least rate a thank-you for saving your life? The obituary was real, you know. If you hadn't left your office when you did, Rasputin's men would have found you. You'd have managed to get away from them, but a couple of streets over you would have encountered the vampires sent by that Antonio person and been shot. I brought the obit forward to warn you. Clever, wasn't it?"

"Who are you?" I realized the truth the same time I asked the question, but I wanted to hear her say it.

She smiled, and her dimples were almost as big as Louis-César's. "My name is Agnes, although no one uses it anymore. Sometimes, I don't think they even remember."

"You're the Pythia."

"Right in one."

"But… but you look younger than me. They told me you were on your death bed, that you're really old."

She gave a small shrug. It caused me to notice what she was wearing—a long, high-necked gown much like those Eugenie used to have made for me. It looked like something out of a tea party circa 1880. "Right again, I'm afraid. In fact, it is quite possible that this little trip will do me in. My power has been fading for a while, and four hundred years is a lot to manage." She didn't sound very upset about her impending demise. "Anyway, you'll learn how to manipulate your spirit to look any way you want after a while. I prefer to remember myself as I was. In fact, in recent years, I've spent more time out of that wrinkled old hulk than in it." She flexed her fingers. "Arthritis, you know."

I stared at her. I'd somehow expected the Pythia to be more, well, regal. "What are you doing here?"

Agnes laughed. "Solving a problem, what else?" She bent over to look in the distorted face of the woman about to plunge a dagger into me. I'd moved, but the sybil hadn't; the face was still set in a scowl and the knife was caught halfway through its arc. "I spent twenty years training this one. You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you? Twenty years and look what I have to show for it." She shook her head. "I'm here because this mess is partly my fault. I chose your mother as my apprentice. I trained her for almost a decade. I loved her like a daughter. And when she took up with your father, I forbade it, telling myself that I was doing her a favor. He was a member of the vampire mafia, for God's sake! Hardly a fit match for my beautiful creation."

"I don't understand."

"I could