"I didn't steal—"
He cut me off with a savage gesture. "But I have seen something similar before, a creature who takes others' lives and uses them for its own." He tried to push past Tomas but didn't get anywhere. That seemed to piss him off, and he shouted at me over Tomas' shoulder. "It is the darkest of magic, only available to the vilest of demons! The Circle was right to send me to you. They knew I would realize what you really are. How many lives have you stolen, sibyl?! How many murders has it taken to sustain your miserable existence?"
I stood up, and Louis-César didn't try to stop me. "My name is Cassie Palmer! I have a birth certificate to prove it. I don't go around stealing bodies. I am not a freaking demon!" I looked at Mircea, who was watching the whole scene like most people would a particularly entertaining movie. "Why do I have to keep saying that?"
He shrugged. "I have been saying it for years, dulceaţă, and no one believes me."
Pritkin took advantage of my momentary distraction to have a fit. Out of nowhere, his bevy of magical knives came streaming right at me. I wasn't expecting the attack and stood there like an idiot, with my mouth hanging open. Tomas moved like lightning but caught only two of the weapons. Two more dodged around his flailing arms to zero in on me. I didn't have time to think, much less do anything to protect myself. I felt my ward flare but didn't know if it could deal with enchanted weapons. A second later, I still didn't, because the knives were sticking out of the golem's torso, vibrating with the impact. I stared at it in incomprehension, until it dawned on me that Pritkin must have forgotten to withdraw his order for it to protect me. He bellowed for it to move out of the way, but by then Tomas had grabbed him.
I don't know if Tomas hadn't dealt with war mages before, but he underestimated this one. One of Pritkin's tiny vials flew at Tomas' head, splashing him with a red substance that looked like blood but burned like acid. Tomas didn't release him, but the stuff had gotten into his eyes and he was momentarily blind. Pritkin made an odd gesture, like jerking on an invisible rope, and the two knives sticking out of the golem came flying back to him. One hit Tomas in the leg and the other almost severed his left wrist. He went to one knee and Pritkin managed to break away. He dodged a knife thrown by Louis-César, leapt out of the way of Tomas' thrashing limbs, and pointed both his guns at me.
I didn't think; I reacted, which is probably what saved me. My hand jerked up and two gaseous knives flew at Pritkin, knocking the guns out of his hands as he fired. He got several bullets off anyway, but they disappeared harmlessly into the golem's clay. I glanced at it in surprise. It looked so awkward; it was hard to believe how fast it could move. At a word from its enraged master it was suddenly gone, and a second later was across the room battling with Louis-César. The Frenchman plunged his rapier into it again and again, but it had no vital organs to hit. He dodged its blows, despite the fact that they were so fast I could barely see them, but it was slowly driving him back towards the. far wall and away from the fight.
Pritkin yelled something and threw himself at me, a grenade in his palm. Tomas, who launched himself at him like he'd been fired from a cannon, froze in midair and crashed to the ground where he lay, unmoving. A split second later I understood why, when what felt like a giant, invisible hand grabbed me, holding me and my bracelet motionless. It was similar to the trick the dark mage had used, only there was no one to counter it this time. Pritkin vaulted over Tomas and dodged around Rafe, who had also been caught in the spell. The whole room was a frozen tableau, and I saw a grim smile flash across the mage's face. His eyes met mine, and I knew the crazy man was actually going to kill me, even if he died for it.
But Pritkin and I had both forgotten Mircea. He came out of nowhere, a dark blur across my vision, grabbed the mage, broke his wrist, and threw the grenade out the window. While I was still blinking in surprise, Mircea grabbed Pritkin around the throat and lifted him off the ground. Louis-César vaulted over the sofa a second later, the golem in pieces behind him, but I saw the realization cross his face that he would have been too late.
I still couldn't move, but Raphael had managed to throw off the spell and was batting at a couple of little vials that had homed in on him, using Mircea's discarded coat so that he didn't have to touch them. Then the grenade's explosion rocked the room, sending plaster raining down from the ceiling and shards of glass flying past the heavy curtain to scatter across the floor. The invisible hand finally released me and I coughed, falling back into the chair, choking on plaster dust and almost deaf from the loud ringing in my ears.
I shot a wild glance at Pritkin, but he was well and truly immobilized. His arsenal was another thing, but Louis-César had started chanting something under his breath that made the flying pieces sluggish. Rafe grabbed two vials that were hovering in front of his face and stuffed them in the fireplace basket after dumping a dried flower arrangement all over the tiles. He shut the wicker lid and then gathered up the other bits and pieces of the flying arsenal and added them to his collection. I could see the lid bump slightly up and down as his captives struggled to get free. One of the ones he missed tried to sneak up on me, moving slowly across the floor unnoticed by everyone else. I stared at it, wondering what defense wouldn't shatter the glass and end up dousing me with the contents after all, but my bracelet knew how to fight better than I did. It pulled my arm up and sent a knife to shatter against the vial. The tiny container evaporated with a pop, leaving only an odd, musty smell behind.
Mircea's voice was calm but utterly convincing. "Call them off, mage, or I will happily demonstrate an old-style feeding for you."
I believed him, but Pritkin was more stubborn, or more stupid. The shotgun rose off the ground on its own, pointing at me. "Go ahead, but I will take your demon whore with me!"
Louis-César leapt for the gun and jerked it up just as it went off. It blew a hole in the fireplace behind me. An inch to the left, and I would have been in more pieces than the golem. A hail of brick and mortar joined the dust cloud, and several flying bits nicked my skin. I cried out, and the next second it was like a hurricane had blown into the room. Through the storm of dust and debris that whirled around us, I could see that Mircea's jovial mask had peeled away and something feral looked out of his face. I'd seen other vampires without the human gloss, but they hadn't looked like this. He was terrible and beautiful at the same time, with glowing, alabaster skin, inch-long fangs and eyes of flaming, molten lava.
The wind blew Pritkin against the wall, and the force beating against him caused his face to distort wildly. His vision was unimpeded, though, and the expression in his eyes made it clear that he hadn't guessed what lay under the perfect facade. What had he thought, that the Senate members earned their spots through charity work? I was amazed the man had lasted this long.
"Cassandra is mine," Mircea told him in a voice that could have melted glass. "Touch her again and, Circle or no, I will bring you over and ensure that you spend the rest of eternity begging for death."
"Mircea!" Louis-César did not attempt to touch him, but his voice cut through the storm like boiling water through a snow drift. "Please; you know the situation. There are other ways to deal with him."
The wind slowly subsided and I found myself shaking from an excess of adrenaline. I got my trembling legs under me and walked to where Pritkin was still held against the wall by Mircea's power, although he no longer looked in danger of being forced through it. Several trickles of blood ran down my face into the collar of the robe, but I ignored them. Compared to Tomas, I had gotten off amazingly lightly. A very battered version of my former roommate was searching Pritkin for weapons. Tomas' wrist had already started to knit back together, tendons and ligaments reforming before my eyes, but his face was a mass of scalded flesh and only one eye appeared to be working. I shuddered at his expression, which clearly said that the only reason the mage wasn't already dead was because Tomas hadn't figured out which execution method would hurt the most.