Thief Of Light Part 3

Prue's brows drew down, her heart fluttering in her chest. That was . . . downright peculiar.

From behind, Rose's distinctive throaty laugh rang out. "Ask her yourself," she said. Prue stiffened. She knew that tone. What mischief was her partner up to now?

A moment later, two big warm hands enveloped hers, and a wine cup was pressed into her palms. "Here," said a deep, calm voice. "You look like you need it."

Prue looked straight into a chest a mile wide, clad in fine linen. Not for the first time, she wished the G.o.ds had seen fit to grace her with a tall, statuesque frame like Rose. She had to lift her gaze to meet his guileless eyes.

"Talking with wizards is a chancy business," said Erik the Golden. "Requires alcoholic support." Those sea blue eyes were dancing, though his mouth was grave. How did he do that?

"Thank you," Prue said politely, and sipped.

Inwardly, she sighed, cursing Rose. Best get it over with, she thought. G.o.dsdammit.

"What did you want to ask me?"

Erik smiled. "I'd like to visit with you, Mistress Prue, spend some time." The smile became a trifle feral, his teeth very white. "As soon as possible. Tonight."

Prue set her jaw. Rose and her devious sense of humor! Killing was too good for her.

"Make another choice," she said, flapping a vague hand at Rose and the courtesans practicing their small talk. "There's no lack of variety. Or beauty."

"I've made my choice."

"Unmake it."

"No."

They stared at each other. Prue's fingers tightened on the wine cup. His lips were beautifully shaped, a generous mouth, rich with promise. The mouth of a man who understood pleasure, the giving and receiving of it. A woman could lose her soul to a man with a mouth like that.

"Rose has a strange sense of humor. She misled you, Master Th.o.r.ensen. I am not a courtesan. Therefore, I am not available for, ah, visiting."

The singer didn't miss a beat. "Doesn't matter." He favored her with a slow, sweet smile. "And call me Erik."

"Master Th.o.r.ensen-"

"Erik."

"All right then. Erik." Prue breathed hard through her nose. "I'm a busy woman, I don't have time to argue with-"

"Good." He set his hands around her waist and boosted her up to sit on the coping of the wis.h.i.+ng well, his body screening her from the thinning crowd. The wine in her cup barely sloshed. The movement put them eye to eye.

Prue gasped. His fingers tightened on her waist, holding her steady, burning through the fabric of her gown.

"You enjoyed the song, Mistress Prue. I saw your face."

"Well, of course I did," she said crossly. "You're very good, and what's more, you know it. Take your hands off me."

Unperturbed, he said, "I know my worth, like any craftsman worthy of the hire. But you changed your mind about me, Mistress. I saw you do it." He released her, only to take the cup from her slack fingers and set it aside. "That doesn't happen to me . . . often."

"You're crowding me." Prue had the sensation of sinking, as if that blue gaze were a bottomless lake, the water closing over her head, so that she drowned by inches in slow, dreamy eddies.

Desperately, she tried to picture a scuttleroach with a blond mop and the bluest of blue eyes, but she couldn't quite manage it.

"My apologies." He moved back the merest fraction. "You've taken me in dislike, sweet Prue." One corner of that sinful mouth tucked up. "I'm desolated."

"For the Sister's sake, I don't have time for games. I have a business to run, a life to live."

"No fun? No light and shadow? No one to love?"

"I am perfectly happy. Thank you for your concern."

"You're a challenge, Mistress Prue." A fingertip brushed her cheek, feather light, and the sensation made the side of her face tingle, her lips quiver. "You have a dimple. Right . . . here. Just the one." His eyes blazed into hers like the blue at a fire's core. An infinitesimal pause and his chest expanded under the linen of his s.h.i.+rt. "Let me kiss it." The timbre of his voice thrummed in the air between them.

G.o.ds, the sheer command in that voice, the richness of it, the rightness rightness!

Automatically, Prue tilted her head to one side, offering her cheek. Then she blinked. What the-? She stared, dumbfounded. "Are you mad? No."

Under her astonished gaze, the blood drained from Erik's face. "f.u.c.k," he whispered. One hand crept up to touch some small object he wore on a chain under his s.h.i.+rt. He shook his head, like a man emerging from deep water. "I didn't mean it, Prue. Forget I said it."

"Yes, you did mean it, but forgetting's not a problem. Happy to oblige." Prue hopped off the wis.h.i.+ng well, but in her haste, she stumbled, her flailing hand clutching at Erik's sleeve.

Immediately, he had her secure, held tight against his magnificent chest, his arms banded around her, his nose buried in her hair. She had to be imagining the trembles that rippled through his big frame. Or perhaps she was the one shaking deep inside.

Pulling back, he grinned at her, and the strange moment pa.s.sed as if it had never been. But Erik the Golden had spent his life onstage. Now his face expressed no more than pleasant amus.e.m.e.nt spiced with a wary masculine interest, though he was still very pale.

"You smell wonderful," he murmured. "What's the perfume?"

"Soap." Prue's voice cracked a little. "Let me go."

"Of course." Erik steadied her and stepped back. He bowed, surprisingly graceful for such a big man. "Good evening, Mistress Prue. We'll meet again."

Turning, he sauntered away into the crowd, leaving her to stare at the powerful muscles of his b.u.t.tocks flexing under the cream breeches, the long legs encased in supple black leather all the way to midthigh.

G.o.dsdammit!

Prue s.n.a.t.c.hed up the wine cup and drained it in a single reckless draught. Then she slammed it down so hard the wis.h.i.+ng well rang with the impact. Ignoring it, she set her jaw and went in search of Rose.It took an age to move through his guests and admirers, nodding and smiling, accepting compliments with grace, signing programs. Reaching the sanctuary of his dressing room, Erik ripped the door open, marched straight up to the far wall and slapped both palms against it with stinging force.

What the f.u.c.k was wrong with him? What had happened to his so-called ironclad discipline? What had happened to his so-called ironclad discipline?

f.u.c.king unbelievable. Years of grim control gone in a single instant. A softly rounded woman with hard, aquamarine eyes and a sweet, vulnerable mouth, and he'd crumbled, the Voice spilling him out of him on a tide of sheer want want. A man who could command command anything of anyone. anything of anyone.

Erik the Golden sank into the chair in front of the mirror and regarded his reflection with horror. Pale and rigid, his eyes blue and gla.s.sy, but only those who knew him well would know he'd looked into h.e.l.l and seen himself looking back. With a curse, he used his sleeve to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.

Unbidden and unwelcome, Inga's pale face swam out of memory before he could prevent it, her wheat gold hair stained dark with water, tangled with the bright slime of aquatic weeds . . .

Dropping his head into his hands, Erik tried to get his scattered thoughts in order. What, in the G.o.ds' names, had he just done?

He couldn't believe it. He'd blurted out the command as if he were still the thoughtless, arrogant lad he'd been so long ago. He'd used the Voice to compel Mistress Prue McGuire.

Let me kiss it.

s.h.i.+t. The only saving grace was that it hadn't worked.

Erik's thoughts shuddered to a halt.

It hadn't worked.

5.

The Necromancer turned his key in the well-oiled lock and slipped into the vaulted, shadowed s.p.a.ce of his own entrance hall. The sweetish smell of furniture polish a.s.saulted his nose. Of his efficient, un.o.btrusive staff, only Nasake lived in, a man so deep in the Necromancer's thrall he no longer had a will of his own. It was simpler that way.

Alone in the dark, he bent to ma.s.sage his aching knee, cursing as the movement put an unwelcome strain on his lower back. The chairs in the Cabal Chamber weren't made for a man his size and shape. Not surprisingly, the exercise of death Magick wasn't particularly conducive to glowing good health. The body he'd been born with was wearing out.

Another problem to be solved, another opportunity to be seized. He'd have to give it some thought.

The palazzo was so quiet, he could have been the only other living soul within it, but he knew for a fact that wasn't true-on two counts.

Firstly, he didn't have a soul, not within the strict definition of the term. In fact, it could even be said he was no longer alive-within the strict definition of the term.

Beneath his feet, in the special chambers he'd had constructed for her in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the Technomage Primus of Sybaris was still awake and working. He could sense the glowing ember of her life, the warmth of it like a match struck and held aloft in the inky darkness. He could choose to cup it in his palms to feel the heat-or he might snuff it out entirely.

The Necromancer sighed, knowing he should go down but conscious of a certain, irritating reluctance. The woman was useful and he couldn't doubt her brains and drive, but, by Shaitan, she tried his patience! How could someone so intelligent be so obtuse? In her first few days at the palazzo, he'd had to discipline her numerous times. He enjoyed the process for its own sake, as he always did. Every creature's pain was unique, but there was a special flavor to human hurt, somehow bright and metallic and sparkling. But still . . .

For the first month, he'd maintained a vast, spectral presence, dark and eyeless beneath a hooded cloak, the way he'd first manifested before her. She'd been so proud then, so armored in her power as the Technomage Primus of Sybaris. At her core, she'd always despise the Magick she wished to master. She thought if she could measure it, dismantle it and put it back together, it would be hers to wield as a weapon. Foolish woman.

His mouth twisted with satisfaction. He'd taught her a little since then, though she was remarkably stubborn, the habits of command deeply ingrained. Now she knew if she patronized him, in even the most oblique way, unimaginable pain arrived right on the heels of her indiscretion. But though the Primus had grown wary of his temper, she was still utterly convinced of her own superiority.

Deep in thought, he walked across his study and pushed aside a set of bookcases. It wasn't like him to entertain doubts, but he wondered if he should recalculate. Perhaps he'd been careless, allowing her to see the body he wore, but manifesting as a dark G.o.d grew tiring after a time, and he'd slipped, grown lazy. Not that it mattered, of course, because the Primus was as good as dead. He pa.s.sed a hand over the small door he'd revealed and the runes on its surface twisted into being, glowing a vicious shade of acid green, spiced with the clotted reek of old blood.

It was a powerful spell, its intricate coils a trap for a hungry demon. Creating the Doorkeeper had cost the Necromancer the lives of a small, dusky-skinned child and a blue, aquatic creature called a seelie, and he himself had been drained, weak and pale for a day after. The child was no matter-slum dwellers bred fast. Sacrificing the seelie had been the true price.

They were so rare, the seelies of Caracole, their deaths inexpressibly sweet to his palate. His loins clenched as he thought of it, the sensation like the s.e.xual fervor he dimly remembered, but-oh G.o.ds!-infinitely better.

"Silly as a seelie." That's what the city folk said of the stupid or the slow, the little creatures long faded to the status of legend, the stuff of old, half-forgotten stories.

But they weren't myth; they were oh-so-delightfully real.

The Necromancer nodded pleasantly at the Doorkeeper's horned face, even as it snarled and bared its fangs. "A good evening to you too," he murmured, starting down the long stairs.

The Technomage was seated at her console, but her head jerked around as the door opened and her stylus clattered to the desk. The Necromancer smiled. "Good evening, my dear," he said, because he knew it galled her to be so addressed.

"I got another one," she said curtly, rising to pull the cover off a large tank at the far end of the long room. "Finally."

Saliva pooled in his mouth and it was a moment before he could speak. It had been so long. "You mean Nasake got it."

"No." Something sparked in her rather prominent blue gray eyes. "I was bored, so I made a number of modifications to your trap. All Nasake did was pull it up from the ca.n.a.l. He's as dumb as a beast, that man. I don't know why you keep him on."

"Blind loyalty is useful," said the Necromancer absently, trailing a finger over the gla.s.s of the tank.

The seelie within recoiled, its whiskers vibrating with terror, and bubbles clung to its long blue fur as it twisted away. You couldn't say seelies were pretty, not by any stretch of the imagination, but they had their own bug-eyed, whiskery charm. With their long tubelike snouts and webbed fingers and toes, they were perfectly adapted for life underwater. The Necromancer had a seelie-fur rug next to his bed. He relished the luxury of it under his bare soles first thing in the morning. There was something . . . visceral visceral . . . about his connection with the half a dozen creatures who'd died to make it. . . . about his connection with the half a dozen creatures who'd died to make it.

G.o.ds, he really must take care to savor this one, not gulp it down like a raw apprentice with his first blood. He pulled his gaze away to study the diagram revolving slowly on the gray screen, and his brows rose. "Ingenious."

The Scientist's breast expanded under her white coat. The garment was beginning to look more than a little gray and limp, but the numeral one embroidered on the collar was still crisp and dark. "Not difficult," she said, "given your trap wasn't a very sophisticated apparatus to begin with."

After a split second, she realized what had come out of her foolish mouth and froze, waiting for her punishment. Really, she was doing very well. Progress.

"No offense taken," said the Necromancer, waving a hand. "In fact, I think a reward is in order. You deserve a name."

Her lips thinned. "I already have one."

"A number is not a name."

"It's all Science gives us. Perfectly sufficient."

"In a Technomage Tower perhaps, but not in the real world. Let me think . . ." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the seelie cast back and forth, back and forth, while he pretended to consider. No escape, little one. You're mine No escape, little one. You're mine.

"I knew a wh.o.r.e once," he said at last. "She was called Dotty, and she was a good wh.o.r.e." Actually, she had been. She'd been kind to a hungry little boy, long ago, in a different life.

"Well, Dotty, what else have you been doing?"

He thought he heard the Technomage's teeth click together. Certainly, her jaw bunched.

"I've done some calculations. I need to tell you . . ." The pause was so fractional, he barely caught it. His interest sharpened. ". . . something."

The Necromancer smiled. "You're worried I won't like it. Your concern does you credit." Spreading his robes, he seated himself on the Technomage's chair. "Go ahead, Dotty. Don't keep me in suspense."

The low heels of her sensible shoes clattering on the flagged floor, she strode back to her console and tapped a key. Columns of figures scrolled across the screen. His eyes aching, the Necromancer averted his gaze. His vision wasn't as sharp as it used to be.

The Technomage opened and closed her mouth. Then she said, "You have to stop killing seelies.""You," said Erik, snagging Florien's collar as the last of the dancers trotted toward the water stairs in a drift of perfume and tired chatter. "With me."

Florien looked from the fragile-seeming skiff rocking in the inky waters of the ca.n.a.l to Erik's face and back again. He scowled. "Kin we walk?"

"No. This is quicker." Erik glanced up at the big red moon called the Brother, high in the night sky. "It's late and I have things to do tomorrow."

A puzzle to solve and a woman to pursue. Were They toying with him, the G.o.ds? It wouldn't surprise him, not after last night. He'd been so perilously close to the edge, he'd very nearly dared Them to get it f.u.c.king over with and kill him. A life for a life.

The Sister, nearly full and silver blue, hung just above the rooftops, her pale glow softening the harsh martial light of the Brother. The Sibling Moons, Palimpsestians called them. The other main source of light was the single Technomage Tower near the s.p.a.ceport, glowing like a blunt needle on the mainland, miles away. The tiny shape of a flitter buzzed across it like a mechanical insect as he watched. Interesting. Queen Sikara must be a canny politician to hold the Scientists to the one Tower. On Sybaris, where Florien came from, the Technomages were all powerful.

The combined moonslight gave shadows a strange blurred double edge and did extraordinary things to the already exotic architecture of the Royal Theater. Erik tilted his head back to stare up at it. G.o.ds, it was an edifice, a monument to elegant excess, story after story climbing up to bulk against the star-spangled sky. For all the world like a towering layer cake.

Erik liked it. He liked the extravagance of Caracole, and he rather suspected Caracole approved wholeheartedly of the Unearthly Opera. He'd have to see about extending the run.