Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

I don’t like this,” Rhea said, as the wind tossed her still unbound hair around.

Join the club, I didn’t say, because I was Pythia. I was supposed to be fearless, calm and resolute. A daunting leader for the ages.

Or to fake it ‘til I made it, only making it was taking a while.

We were standing on the banks of the Thames, on a blustery fall morning that should have warmed up by now, but the sun was barely a pale smear behind some gloomy looking clouds. I was reminded that Britain was on the same latitude as Newfoundland in Canada, but felt warmer because of the Gulf Stream. But you couldn’t tell it today.

I half expected a moose to trot by.

“Shall we begin?” Gertie asked, as a frigid wind off the water made our scarves flap, and even Agnes shiver under her smart, red and green tartan cloak. Or maybe that was something else. Maybe she didn’t like being bait any more than I did.

Of course, Agnes wasn’t actually the bait. She was one of the fishermen here to save the bait once the fish spied it. I was the little worm writhing on the end of a hook, wondering how I’d gotten talked into this. Which wasn’t going to work anyway.

“Even if some part of Zeus remains on Earth, he wouldn’t be looking for me here,” I pointed out. “He’s not a time traveler—”

“And yet you were attacked whilst returning from the seventeenth century,” Gertie said mildly.

I frowned. “That wasn’t an attack. And it happened after I got back—”

“No, it happened on the way back. You never entirely arrived.”

“—so the reasonable thing would be to go home and see if—”

“Can you?” Gertie asked, adjusting her own cloak, a plush, black sable lined number that matched her smart, fur edged hat. It was perfectly still in spite of the breeze, like maybe even the wind was intimidated.

“Can I what?” I asked, confused.

“Go home. What if you’re attacked on the way?”

“I wasn’t attacked—”

“And this time, I might not be able to catch you. I strongly suspect that Hilde aimed you at me when she was unable to hold onto you herself. Otherwise, the odds of you flying right by me are . . . well, frankly impossible. But what if she isn’t there this time? Or what if you don’t make it all the way back to court before you’re attacked again?”

“I’ll make it back—”

“Not if it is Zeus attacking you—”

“Stop saying that!”

“Saying what?”

“I haven’t been attacked by the king of the gods!” I wasn’t even sure that I’d spoken with him. The more I thought about it, the stranger the whole thing seemed. Probably some trick by the other side in the war, to freak me out.

Which, thanks to her, it was damned well doing!

Gertie popped an eyebrow. “Then what would you call it?”

I didn’t give her an answer, because I didn’t have one, but Rhea came to my aid.

She’d been fiddling nervously with her own coat, which was a lighter shade of blue than the navy number I’d borrowed from an acolyte. It had a matching woolen ruffle around the high collar, which added to the overall joy of wearing these awful dresses, and little bows on the pockets that made her look even younger than she was. But there’d been no help for it.

Unisex clothing wasn’t a thing a century ago.

But nervous or not, Rhea was fearless when it came to defending those she cared about. “She was shifting four people over a gap of more than three hundred years,” she told Gertie staunchly. “Most Pythias couldn’t even complete a jump like that.”

“And neither did she,” Gertie pointed out, but she looked pleased. She liked to see an heir defending her Pythia. I was a sorry sort, but Rhea had garnered more than one approving glance over the recent months, which was probably responsible for the animosity Agnes kept displaying.

She didn’t like competition, even from visitors.

Which may have been why she decided to get nasty now.

“She shouldn’t have attempted a jump she couldn’t complete,” she said, her blue eyes scornful. As if I wasn’t standing right there.

“I didn’t,” I said shortly.

But Agnes wasn’t satisfied. “No one makes a jump like that unassisted. I couldn’t do it; I doubt even Lady Herophile could,” she added, using Gertie’s reign title. “And you said you didn’t have any acolytes with you to boost your strength. Are you still taking drugs or—”

“I’m not taking anything!”

“Like anyone believes that.” The scorn was palpable now.

“I don’t give a damn what you believe. It’s the truth.”

And it was—unfortunately. The Tears of Apollo, a potion designed to boost a Pythia’s power, was what Hilde had asked Rhea to get from her room. It was kept there specifically so I couldn’t get my hands on it, which was why it hadn’t arrived in time to do any good. It was a sore spot between Hilde and I, because I wasn’t using, damn it!

Although, in fairness to her, that was a new occurrence. I’d been mainlining the stuff for a while, since it made an impossible job seem—for a short time—almost easy. But wonderful though it felt in the moment, it had some very bad side effects, forcing me to go cold turkey. It was also more than a little addictive, something I’d only found out about after said turkey grew to five hundred pounds and sat on my chest.

I’d often wondered if my strange hunger recently wasn’t for food so much as power—power I could no longer access. I felt like a druggie who had broken the physical dependency, but was still mentally enslaved. It made me snappish, especially on days like today, when one of those small, triangular bottles would have felt really good in my gloved hand.

I could almost feel the weight of it, strangely heavy in spite of its small size. Could almost see its golden light, filtered through the old amber glass with its striations of bubbles. Could almost taste the thin green liquid inside, bitter and herbal-y on the tongue, but like fire in the belly. Delicious, glorious fire that turned into power, so much and so bright, that I could—

Agnes’s smug look increased, and I scowled at her.

“I’m not taking anything,” I repeated. I’d fought off the cravings after a hell of a battle, but everyone still thought I was an inch away from relapsing. It was maddening!

Although not as much as when Agnes’ eyes suddenly widened, and her lip curled enough that I could see an incisor. “No, you’re not, are you?” she said. “You don’t need it. Not when you’re borrowing power from that vampire.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gertie said. “She fixed that problem.”

I didn’t say anything some more.

The gimlet-eyed gaze hardened. “Didn’t you?”

“It’s . . . being handled.”

“Handled?” Agnes echoed. “You should have killed him by now!”

“I can’t kill him—”

“Then bring him here and I’ll do it for you, if you’re so squeamish. But either way, he dies—”

“You don’t give me orders,” I snapped, because Agnes could get under the skin of a saint, which I’d never claimed to be.

But then another artic blast hit us, causing me to forget to be mad, and to shudder and sink even further into my coat. It didn’t help much. Damn it, English wool could stand up to a blizzard, yet I felt chilled to the bone.

I wanted to get out of here!

“How is it handled if you are still bound to him by that nefarious spell?” Gertie demanded, as if she hadn’t even felt it. “How is it handled if he can borrow your power whenever he likes?”

“He isn’t doing that anymore—”

“He doesn’t need to if you are carrying him wherever he wants to go!” Agnes said, with more perception than I liked. “That’s it, isn’t it? He was one of those you took back in time!”

And now I had two accusing stares pinning me down.

“It’s not—that isn’t—you don’t understand—”

“I understand perfectly. You’re in love with him,” Agnes sneered. “That’s why you won’t do your duty—”

“I’m dating a war mage!”

“Dating?” That was Gertie. “What do you mean dating?”

“It’s another word for courting—”

“I know what it means!”

“You shouldn’t be “dating” anyone,” Agnes snapped. “You’re Pythia—”

“You should talk,” Rhea muttered.

“—although how you are, I have no idea! You’re the sorriest, most slapdash, most irresponsible—”

“She’s more Pythia than you’ll ever be!” Rhea said hotly, causing Agnes to round on her.

But she didn’t get a chance to deliver whatever scathing retort she’d come up with, because Gertie intervened.

“You could be more right than you know,” she said slowly, in an odd tone.

“Meaning what?” I asked.

And immediately regretted it.

“If you are involved with this war mage, and the enchantment that binds you is a love spell . . .”

Shit.

“. . . is he in it, too? Are you bound to both of them?”

I managed not to squirm. “Not . . . like you make it sound.”

“I would hope not—”

“That’s disgusting,” Agnes said, looking at me with revulsion.

“I’m not dating both at the same time!” I said hotly.

“But you are borrowing power from them both,” Gertie pointed out. “And that could be very bad.”

“I know. I’m working on it—”

“I don’t think you do know.” She regarded me soberly. “The Pythian power originally came from the gods. The gods were cannibals, leeching energy off each other, off demon lords, off anyone they could, to increase their strength. But sometimes, it did more than that. The power they consumed wasn’t mindless, and mixing it with their own changed them—”

“Changed them . . . how?”

“It depended on the source of the power. Zeus is said to have absorbed Phanes, a primordial god of reproduction, to give him the strength to sire the other Olympian gods. He also consumed his first wife Metis, who had prophesized that they would have a child together who would be stronger than Zeus himself. He had barely escaped being eaten by his own father, Chronos, for much the same reason, and later overthrew him. He therefore devoured her to prevent something similar from happening to him, and to steal her power.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Rhea said softly.

“What a surprise,” Agnes scoffed.

Gertie ignored them. “What you have done is to open a door to potentially changing yourself, or even worse, the Pythian power,” she told me. “Perhaps in small ways, perhaps in large ones. You cannot know what the end result will be, and thus you must close that door again—immediately.”

Sounded like a plan, I thought, shivering slightly. I wasn’t sure if that was the breeze off the water, or something else. Like the thought of my own power turning against me?

I shivered harder that time and shoved the thought away. That was stupid. The Pythian power had been from a god, yes, but it had developed its own personality over time, and didn’t seem to like them any more than I did. It had even helped me to defeat Apollo, the god who had originally given it. Not to mention, if I was drawing on new sources of strength, they came from Mircea and Pritkin, two men I cared for deeply, two men I trusted.

Well, most of the time, in Mircea’s case.

But his recent actions, like forcing that trip yesterday, weren’t entirely his fault. He was battling a mental affliction that hit older vamps, focusing their mind on a powerful obsession, in this case with his wife. That’s what that whole charade in Romania had been about. To find a fey creature who knew the truth about Mircea’s long-lost wife, who he’d thought was dead, but who had instead been kidnapped and taken into Faerie.

He wanted to get her back, if she still lived, or at least to find out what had happened to her. Once he did, the obsession should lift, and I’d have the old Mircea back. At least, I really hoped so!

“I will,” I told Gertie firmly. “As soon as I go home. This trip was the final thing he wanted.”

“Who cares what he wants?” Agnes said furiously. “Just kill him and be done with it!”

“I can’t kill him! He’s the senate’s general and we’re in the middle of a war—”

“A war you’re losing!”

“We are not losing, we—” I cut off, because I didn’t owe her an explanation. And because I didn’t want to be here all damned day.

And I guessed that Gertie didn’t, either.

“Back to the original point,” she said heavily. “You have shifted hundreds of times. It is easily your best skill. You have a natural affinity for it such as I have never seen—”

Agnes snorted.

“—and yet, you suddenly have a life-threatening problem with a shift, and before you can pull yourself out of it, you’re distracted by a message from a god?”

“She wasn’t distracted! She was attacked—” Rhea said, before realizing that she had just agreed with Gertie.

She shot me an apologetic glance from under a matching, pale blue hat, its lone feather flapping furiously in the wind. I smiled back with more reassurance than I felt. I was freezing, Gertie was determined to use me as a lure to find out if part of Zeus was hiding somewhere on Earth, and I was wondering what the hell we were supposed to do if we found him.

Only we wouldn’t, because he couldn’t time shift, damn it!

“Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?” Agnes asked, because I’d probably spoken that last part aloud. Although how she’d heard me with the wind picking up, I didn’t know. I was sick of being cold, I was sick of this war, and I was sick of her.

“Let’s just get this over with,” I said.

“We’ll go slowly to start,” Gertie assured me. And before she’d finished speaking—

We went nowhere. My feet never moved, and I never shifted. But the scene around us started to change.

I stood still while the sun moved backward across the sky, while stars bloomed overhead, while clouds raced about like they were on speed, and while the water sloshed over my shoes again and again, as the tide surged and receded. I tried to move away but it didn’t work, with my feet feeling like they were welded to the stony sand. So, I just stood there, with my stockings getting soggier and my toes starting to freeze as the days flew by in reverse.

“This is what happens when you shift,” Gertie explained. “But you do it so quickly that you never notice. You can slow it down, however—”

“Why?” I managed to ask, through numb lips.

“This is why,” she said, and took my hand.

And, suddenly, I could move again, and walk beside her along the sand as people flashed into and out of existence around us. A fisherman and his boat flickered into our path, and then was gone, as if washed away on the tide. A couple of kids, scavenging for saleable junk along the shore, did likewise, but not before one found a coin and took off with it, the other in hot pursuit. An old woman sat by the embankment, her dirty skirts piled around her knees, and raised a bottle to her lips. But the next second, she was gone, too, just like a man who walked casually through the middle of me.

“Be still,” Gertie told me, as I jerked. “You’re not really here.”

“Then where am I?”

“In the space in between.”

This was starting to be too existential for me, but I took the bait anyway. “In between what?”

“Seconds, moments, years, eons.” She fluttered a gloved hand. “When you’re shifting, you’re not really anywhere. You are in the process; you are a potential, not a reality. Not until you arrive. But what if you postpone that arrival for a while?”

I blinked at her, feeling about as stupid as I usually did during one of these lessons. I heard Agnes snort behind me, and bristled even before she spoke. “You’re wasting your time. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand anything.”

“Don’t you?” Gertie looked at me keenly. “Can you think of no reason why you might want to be nowhere?”

“I’ve been nowhere,” I reminded her. “I’ve been outside time—”

“This isn’t outside it. This is the process of traveling through it, which is a very different thing.”

“Is it?”

Gertie didn’t answer, but the days started passing faster now, until the strobing effect of the sun and stars alternating overhead made me dizzy. On the opposite bank, buildings popped up and down, as newer ones were torn away by the builders that scurried across them like ants, and older ones rose in their place. Or disappeared entirely, like the trees that shrank back into the earth, or rose magically from the blade of a woodsman’s ax.

It was a different way of viewing time than I was used to, and yes, it wasn’t anything like stepping outside it. That left Earth behind entirely, in favor of a different realm—a very scary one. But this . . . was more like what I was used to, only slowed down enough that I could watch the years scroll by.

I could see details that I’d never noticed before, and watch events unfold at whatever speed I liked. Yet all the while, I was a ghost, a phantom, an unseen eye that no one noticed because I wasn’t really here. I wasn’t really anywhere.

“You could use it to spy on people,” I said. “To watch them unseen without having to risk stepping outside of time.”

“Good,” Gertie said. “Anything else?”

I thought about it, and then frowned. “You could see what’s behind a door without having to shift inside a room. You could walk in with nobody the wiser, because you’re not really there yet, and find out what kind of mess you’re about to pop into before you actually do.”

“Very true.”

“That would have been really helpful to know about—more than once!”

“Well, now you do.”

“Damn it, Gertie!”

“It’s also used in dueling,” Agnes spoke up, her voice amused. “To avoid an opponent’s next move whilst planning your own.”

“Is that how you always get ahead of me?” Rhea demanded. “How you seem to know what I’ll do before I do?”

Agnes smirked.

“That’s cheating!”

“Not my fault that you weren’t properly trained.”

“It’s entirely your fault!”

“Rhea—” I began.

“I’m just your dueling partner,” Agnes said. “Trying my best to get you up to some kind of standard. Fortunately, your court has a low bar—”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Our court is properly run,” Agnes told her proudly. “Unlike some I c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c—”

Shit, I thought.

“—could name.”

Time snapped back into focus, after briefly going hazy, and everybody looked around in surprise. Everybody except me. I was too busy staring in disbelief at what was approaching over Agnes’ shoulder, boiling across the water like a demon.

Or a god.

“What was that?” Agnes demanded. “What just happened?”

“I think we found him,” I said, right before all hell broke loose.