Touch The Dark Page 0,31

my room and fill me in. Pritkin didn't like it, but he wasn't prepared to challenge the Consul's decision. Considering that it would have meant facing her in a duel, I was relieved to hear it. I'd had about all the fighting I could stand for one night; besides, I didn't know what would happen if a war mage of the Silver Circle went up against a two-thousand-year-old vampire, but it wasn't a show I wanted to see.

I was thankful that two out of three of my companions were friends or at least friendly neutrals, but it made me anxious, too. The Senate was acting suspiciously nice, defending me against would-be assassins, not handing me over to Tony or the Circle, clucking over my health and making sure that my companions were ones I would like. It made me wonder what they wanted, and how much I wasn't going to enjoy giving it to them.

Barely a minute later, I wasn't so sure giving up my bodyguard had been a good idea after all. We were about halfway up a second flight of stairs when we met a werewolf on the way down. He was a huge gray and black specimen with the characteristic long muzzle and mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Chartreuse eyes locked with mine for a second, and I froze, one foot halfway to the next step. I'd seen only one werewolf before, and never this close, but I knew instinctively what he was. It was more than his size; there was intelligence in those eyes that no animal would have had. What I couldn't figure out was what he was doing there.

To say that vamps and weres don't get along is a laughable understatement. Maybe it has something to do with them both being predators, or maybe Tony was right when he insisted that weres envy the vamps their immortality. Whatever the cause, they're like oil and water. Or more often, blood and fur, both of which go flying when they meet up. I expected a reaction, probably a severe one, from one or more of my escorts, but the only thing I noticed was Rafe's hand tightening slightly on my wrist. Louis-César nodded a greeting at the were as if he regularly met giant wolves in the stairway. "Sebastian, good to see you." The were didn't respond, of course, since he was in animal form, but he slipped by us without offering challenge. It was a seriously surreal experience. It also told me I wasn't in Kansas anymore, or Atlanta, either, for that matter.

As we emerged from the stairs to the aboveground areas, I finally got a glimpse out a window and confirmed that, wherever I was, it wasn't north Georgia. The view also explained why the Consul was worried about time. I must have lost more hours than I'd thought after Tomas bespelled me, enough for me to be moved, and not merely across the state. The colors outside the window were a different palette than you could see anywhere in Georgia: the dappled greens and grays of the deep South had been replaced by midnight blue skies and indigo clouds. A black, star-studded canopy stretched overhead, but the line of deep violet along the horizon showed that the desert was beginning to remember the day.

"It will be dawn soon."

Louis-César followed my gaze as he threw open a door. "Not for some time yet," he replied easily. I narrowed my eyes at the offhand tone. Even Rafe, old as he was, became uptight as dawn approached, with a tendency to talk too much and to drop things. The younger the vamp, the earlier it started. It was sort of a built-in security net to make sure no one ended up getting fried, and I had never seen anyone left completely unaffected. Yet the Frenchman seemed perfectly at ease. He was either a lot more powerful than the vamps I knew or a great actor; either way, it didn't make me feel better.

I walked past him and found myself standing in the living area of a suite decorated to match what I imagined the daytime view out the windows would be. Pale turquoise walls were clothed in Native American blankets in burnt umber, turquoise and Navajo red, a matching rug had been flung over the rough wood floor and terracotta tile outlined the fireplace. The leather sofa, chair and ottoman were a complimentary shade of deep red, with enough wear on them to look comfortable. It