Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(88)

I could have told them that they were wasting their time. The house wards weren’t run off a talisman that could be exhausted if enough force was applied. They were powered by a ley-line sink, which had unlimited energy. Cheung’s boys could batter themselves bloody, but they’d never get through that way.

“Idiots,” I said with feeling. “It would serve them right if they did get in. I’d like to see how they’d deal with—”

I stopped, staring at all the power expending itself uselessly against the wards.

When it could be in here helping us.

I watched the mud-splattered attackers for a moment and wondered if I was going crazy. No way could the two of us handle a couple dozen senior-level masters. But then, weaker ones wouldn’t be any use againstsubrand’s thugs. And when Cheung’s boys stormed the house, there was a good chance the fey were going to assume they were coming to our aid, and vice versa. If they tore into one another, it might buy me time to find Claire and the boys.

Of course, if they didn’t, I was screwed. But I was screwed anyway, and between the devil and the deep blue sea, the devil starts to look pretty good. At least he can be bargained with. The sea will just kill you.

I felt a hand suddenly tighten around my bicep. I looked up, and saw the same idea dawning in Louis-Cesare’s eyes.

“Can you do it?” he whispered.

“Yes. But Cheung will run as soon as he sees the fey.” If he had any sense.

“He won’t run,” Louis-Cesare said, with a slight smile.

I followed his line of sight out into the yard, where I saw Cheung’s head jerk up. He stared at the house, a scowl spreading over his features. “What did you do?” I demanded.

“I suggested to him that he might have his servant, if he was not too much of a coward to come in and take him.”

“You called a first-level master a coward?”

“Among other things.”

“And they say I’m crazy.”

I mentally felt around for the bright web of power flowing about the house. There should have been a corresponding interior web as well, but it was conspicuously absent. Someone had taken down the internal wards, cutting the link between them and their power source, the ley-line sink. But they’d left the external ones intact, either because they’d wanted to fool me into thinking everything was fine or—more likely—because they just hadn’t cared.

It took only a second to wrap the filaments of the external wards around my mental hand and give a hard tug. Within seconds, the long skeins of energy had unraveled to nothing, leaving the old house bare and defenseless. “I hope this works,” I said with feeling. “Or we just went from bad to—”

I didn’t get a chance to finish, because I was suddenly slung over a shoulder, carted to the pantry and shoved headfirst down the portal. It happened so fast that for a second, I didn’t understand what was going on. Until it spit me out the other side.

Right atsubrand’s feet.

“—tragic,” I finished blankly.





Chapter Twenty-five


I thinksubrand was almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him, but he recovered fast. His boot came down in the middle of compost and wet leaves, right where I’d been lying. I wasn’t there anymore, because I’d flung myself backward into the now two-way portal.

I crashed to the hard floor of the pantry and rolled into Louis-Cesare’s legs. And then the lunatic picked me up and started trying to stuff me back inside. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Attempting to get you to safety.”

“That’s a damn strange way of doing it!” I panted, bracing my hands and feet on the shelves on either side of the gaping maw, like a cat trying to avoid a bath.

“I will get the others out. You have my word,” he said, trying to prize me off. But every time he removed one limb, I curled the others through the metal supports of the shelves, holding on for dear life.

I was sucking in breath to explain, when he jerked me back, ripping the whole shelving unit off the wall. It came away, concrete screws and all, but I held on like my fingers were welded to the metal. He cursed in exasperation. “Why will you not let go?”

“Becausesubrand’s out there, you complete lunatic!” And then it wasn’t true, because he was suddenly in the house and crashing into me.

I don’t think he’d expected to find someone physically blocking the portal, because he hadn’t come through with a drawn weapon. But that was the only good thing. The portal flung him into me, I lost my grip on the shelves and we tumbled to the ground. And then he was suddenly gone. It took me a moment to realize that Louis-Cesare had picked him up and flung him back through.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” I said, half-appalled, half-impressed, as he turned toward the door. I pushed the shelving off me and grabbed him. “Stay here. Hold offsubrand.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get my duffel.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now! Ray’s in there! If Cheung gets him before we do, he’ll have no reason to stick around.”

“I will go,” Louis-Cesare said as the sound of crossed swords and gunfire came from the hall.

He left before I got the chance to tell him that I’d really prefer to face Cheung and his men than the ice-cold prince of the fey. But then the portal started to activate again. I panicked just slightly at the thought of facingsubrand with nothing but a short sword for a weapon. So I started throwing everything I could reach down the portal’s wide gullet.