Dance of the Gods
Page 11

Cages, stacked three deep, four high, jammed into a cave washed in a sickly green light. But their minds saw through the gloom of it, to the blood pooled on the floor, to the faces of the terrified and the mad. Even as they watched, a vampire unlocked one of the cages, dragged the woman inside it out. The sound she made was a kind of keening, and her eyes seemed already dead.
“Lora’s bored,” it said as it pulled her across the filthy floor by the hair. “She wants something to play with.”
In one of the cages, a man began to beat the bars and scream. “You bastards! You bastards!”
The tear that spilled down Glenna’s cheek was cold.
“Hoyt.”
“We’ll try. Him, the one who’s shouting. He’s strong, and it may help. See him. See nothing else.”
Because she needed the words as well as the sight, Glenna began to chant. Moira’s voice joined her.
And the ground trembled.
L arkin was singing. Something about a black-haired maid from Dara. Blair didn’t mind listening; he had a clear, easy voice. The sort, she thought, of a man used to raising it in a pub, or while he walked the fields. And it was calming to have the tune, the steady roar of the sea, and the warm beam of the sun.
Added to it, the simple companionship was a change for her. Usually when she waited, she waited alone.
“You wouldn’t have the little thing? The little thing with the music in it with you?”
“No. Sorry. Next time I get a chance, I’m buying myself a pair of those Oakley Thumps, got the MP3 player built in. Sunglasses.” She mimed the shape of them over her face—and it occurred to her Larkin would look damn hot wearing a pair himself. “With the little thing with the music inside them.”
“You can wear the music?” His whole face lit up. “What a world of miracles this is.”
“I don’t know about miracles, but it’s jammed with technology. Wish I’d thought to bring the player along.” Music would be easier than all this conversation. She was used to waiting alone, damn it. Not hanging around with a companion, exchanging small talk and life stories.
It was making her itchy.
“Well, that’s all right. Be nice if I had my pipe.”
“Pipe.” She turned her head. Couldn’t quite fit the idea of a pipe with that gilded Irish god face. “You smoke a pipe?”
“Smoke? No, no.” He laughed, shifted his weight as he lifted his hands in front of his mouth, wiggled his fingers. “Play. The pipe. Now and again.”
“Oh, okay.” His eyes were the color of good, dark honey. Might look hot in a pair of Oakleys, she mused, but it would be a shame to put lenses over those eyes. “That works.”
“Do you play anything? Musically?”
“Me? No. Never had time to learn. Unless you count beating out a tattoo on vampires.” She mimed again—it seemed they did a lot of charades between them—punching her fists in the air.
“Well now, your sword sings, that’s for certain.” He gave her a friendly little shoulder bump. “Don’t know as I’ve heard the like of it. And this would be a fine place for a battle, I’m thinking.” He tapped fingers rhythmically on the hilt of his sword. “The sea, the rocks, the bright sun. Aye, a fine spot.”
“Sure, if you like not having an escape route, or losing your footing on slick rocks. Drowning.”
He gave her a pitying look and a sigh. “You’re not considering the atmosphere, the dramatic tone of it all. Can vampires drown?” he wondered.
“Not so much. They…Did you feel that?” She pushed off the rock as the ground under her vibrated.
“I did. Maybe the spell’s breaking down.” He drew his sword, scanned the cliff wall. “Maybe the caves behind it will appear now.”
“If they do, you’re not going in. You gave your word.”
“I keep my word.” Irritation flickered over his face. This was the soldier now, she noted, and not the pipe-playing farmer. “But if one of them sticks its head out, just a bit…Do you see anything? I’m not seeing anything different than it was.”
“No, nothing. Maybe it’s the magic trio on the cliffs. Seems like they’ve had enough time to do something.” She kept her hand on the stake in her belt as she worked her way as far toward the crashing surf as she dared. “Can’t see from here. Can you, like, be a bird? Like a hawk or something? Take a look up there?”
“I can, of course. I don’t like to leave you alone down here.”
Irritation rippled down her spine. Here she was explaining herself again. “I’m in the sun, vamps can’t come out. Besides, I’ve worked alone for a long time. Let’s get a status report on magic time. I don’t like not knowing where we stand.”
He could do it quickly, he thought. He could be up and back in a matter of minutes. And from the sky, he could see her, and anything that came at her, as well as the group on the cliffs.
So he passed Blair his sword and thought of the hawk. Of its shape, of its vision, and of its heart. The light shimmered into him, over him. In that change, as arms became wings, as lips formed a beak, as talons sprang and curled, there was a sudden and breathless pain.
Then freedom.
He soared up, a gold hawk that took the air, and circled once over Blair with a cry like triumph.
“Wow.” She stared up, watching his flight, the sheer power and majesty of it. She’d seen him change before, had ridden on his back when he’d taken the shape of a horse into battle. And still, she was dumbstruck.
“That is so sexy.”
While the ground continued to shake, she gripped Larkin’s sword, drew her own. And with the sea roaring at her back, faced the blank wall of the cliff.
Overhead, the hawk swept through the air over the cliffs. He could see keenly enough to pick out individual blades of grass, the petals of the rugged wildflowers that forced their way through fissures in rock to seek the sun. He saw the long ribbon of the road, the wide plate of the sea, and all the way to where the land met it again.
The hawk yearned to fly, and to hunt. The man inside it pitted his will against that yearning even as he skimmed the sky.
He could see them below, his cousin, the witch and the sorcerer, hands linked as they stood on the quaking ground. There was light, wild and white, in them, around them, a spinning circle that rose up in a tower to shake the air even as the ground.