But, of course, the same was true of the fey when they came here. They had what they
had when they arrived, and that was all they had, magically speaking. And that didn’t last long, because it was harder to cast your spells on an alien world. It was like it was trying to reject them or something.
It was why there’d never been a war between the two realms and probably never would be. What were people going to fight it with? Clubs?
But that didn’t mean the demons couldn’t be useful on earth, which was their own backyard. “They could help us with Black Circle,” I pointed out, talking about the corrupt mages that were a perpetual pain in the ass to Jonas’ organization. “And free up some of our own mages for the war.”
But Mircea was shaking his head. “The Black Circle is a nuisance, nothing more. Like the smugglers we’re taking out at the moment. Destroying them is helpful, and we will do it where and when the opportunity arises, but we will not win the war that way. Kit was right; our enemies are in faerie, not here. And they are not likely to come here.”
I would have twisted around to look at him, but I was too tired. And it would have meant pulling myself off him, and I didn’t want to do that yet. Didn’t want to let him go. “You’re planning to invade.”
It wasn’t a question because it wasn’t really news; the idea had been batted about for a while. Not to start a war, but as a commando raid. Go in, grab Tony and his bunch of assholes, who were the ringleaders in the campaign to bring back the gods, and then make a run for the border. The trick was, how?
“We cannot win a war by remaining forever on the defensive,” Mircea agreed.
“So you take the offensive through what? Your fey allies?”
He made a sound partway between humor and disgust. “The fey have nothing but contempt for humans—or for us that used to be so. Our ‘allies,’ if they deserve the name, tell us little and act as if we’re fit for servants and nothing else.”
I took a moment to absorb that. It was kind of hard. Vampires had always been the elite in my world, godlike, immortal creatures—well, until they pissed off a stronger vamp, anyway—who had abilities and knowledge and centuries’ worth of experience I lacked. It was a bit of a mental adjustment to imagine someone else viewing them as inferior. But it did explain a few things.
“That’s why you still don’t know where Tony is.”
Mircea nodded. I could feel it against my back, as he started combing his fingers through my wet hair. “He and the leaders of the coalition against us are in hiding in faerie, meaning they must have allies among the fey. But fey politics are . . . To call them Byzantine is to miss the mark considerably. There are only three main factions of light fey, but hundreds of family, clan, and alliance groups among them, none of which see any reason to discuss their affairs with humans. Nor to assist us with an invasion of their world. They are deliberately keeping us in the dark to ensure that we have no choice but to leave it in their hands.”
“And yet they’re not doing anything.”
“Not that they have bothered to communicate to us. And this cannot continue.”
“But what’s the alternative? If you can’t invade—”
“I did not say that, dulceat¸a?.”
I leaned my head back at that, so I could see his face, but he looked serious. Which didn’t make a lot of sense. “How? The Circle—”
“Is useless. Their magic is weak in faerie; they wouldn’t make it five miles from whatever portal they used to enter. And it wouldn’t matter if they did; the fey would wipe the floor with them in any battle. The same would be true for your demons.”
“So how do you invade?”
Mircea smiled down at me, dark eyes glinting. “Well. Since you asked.”
Chapter Thirty
Mircea took my hand and we threaded our way back through the rugs. But this time, we went through another door, set into the opposite wall from the one where we’d come in, and then down a tiny corridor. It had rooms branching off on both sides, including a small bedroom near the end.
Where a tousled-headed guy named Jules was sitting on a bed with his legs drawn up and a bunch of magazines spread out around him, none of which he was looking at. In fact, he didn’t appear to be looking at anything. He didn’t even raise his head when we came in, which was unprecedented in the presence of his master.
Only . . . Mircea wasn’t Jules’ master anymore, was he?
That was such a weird thought that I didn’t know quite what to do with it. Vampires didn’t simply stop being vampires. They just didn’t.
Except for Jules.
He had been one of my bodyguards until he’d blundered into a terrible spell, a war spell, by mistake. It had still been in the experimental stages but was nonetheless powerful enough to turn him into little more than a human ball of flesh. Rendering him unable to talk, or move, or even see, once his own skin finished stretching over him like a shroud.
It would have been deadly to a human, but Jules wasn’t one. And vampires are a hardy breed. But no one—including the spell’s inventor—had known how to reverse it, so I’d decided to try something a little crazy.
I’d tried to de-age him, to take him back in time to before the spell was laid, hoping that would deactivate it. It had seemed like a long shot, but nobody else had known what to do, and Jules had been . . . God. He’d begged me to help him or kill him, since I was the only one he could talk to. The spell had screwed him up so badly that even the usual vampire mental communication hadn’t worked anymore.