I’d asked to be able to shift, but that hadn’t been possible in my body. I’d also wanted to take Pritkin with me. Daikoku had granted both requests, but not by giving me some extra energy as I’d hoped. He’d switched our bodies. That had allowed me out of the body that was almost drained and into one that had enough fight left to get us gone. It had also ensured that I had no choice but to take Pritkin along.
Because I was stuck inside his skin.
“What happened?” Pritkin demanded, his clipped British tones sounding really odd coming out of my mouth. It occured to me that, with my eyesight, he probably couldn’t yet see the truth for himself.
My mind groped wildly for something to say. “I can fix this,” I finally got out, my voice unfamiliar in my ears. “I think.”
“Fix what?” The question was spoken in a low, controlled voice, which wasn’t good. Pritkin loud is in his normal state. It’s when he gets quiet that you have to worry.
I would have answered, or tried to, but the realization hit me that this body was in a lot of pain. I looked down at my chest, more than a little freaked to see a half-burnt shirt, singed body hair and an irregular red patch underneath it all. Caleb’s spell, I recalled. Pritkin’s amazing healing abilities had already given it the slick, shiny texture of a half-healed burn. Except it didn’t feel half-healed. It hurt like a bitch.
“You destroyed my fence.” The accusation came from the man with the black-framed glasses and the floaty Einstein hair who was standing at the top of the hill, looking down disapprovingly.
I realized that the hard thing I was sitting on was a fence post half-buried in mud. I pulled it out from under my borrowed behind and looked up at the farmer. “Uh, sorry?”
“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” the man said rather charitably, I thought. “Come up here and I’ll make us something hot.”
“Answer me,” Pritkin ordered, and we were close enough that I could see past the naked horror in his eyes and spot the homicidal urge rising. I was trying to come up with a way of breaking it to him gently, but then the farmer pointed a flashlight at us, and I didn’t need to explain. Because Pritkin was staring not at me but down at his chest. Which was currently a lot rounder than usual.
“What have you done?” His appalled whisper grated on my already ragged nerves.
“Got us out of there alive,” I snapped. Okay, it wasn’t an ideal situation, but neither was getting shot, strangled or spelled to death by the Circle. “And at least you’re inside me. I’ve had to possess a vampire before,” I reminded him.
Pritkin seemed at a loss for words—pretty much a first—but his steadily reddening face flushed even darker. He was going to give me a heart attack if he didn’t cut it out.
“You need to calm down,” I said more gently. I distinctly recalled my first out-of-body-and-into-someone-else’s experience, and it had been a little . . . traumatic.
“I am calm.”
Sure. Which was why he looked like he was updating his hit list.
“Yeah, only that’s my body you’re using and I’m trying to make it to thirty before my first heart attack.”
“Are you planning to sit there all night?” the farmer asked. “Get up here before you catch your death!”
“How?” Pritkin asked me, grasping my arms. It didn’t feel anything like his usual iron grip. I swallowed.
“There’s a path to the left. Less muddy than the way you came down,” the farmer answered helpfully.
“It’s a long story,” I told Pritkin nervously.
“Give me the short version.”
“A Japanese god with a lousy sense of humor?”
Pritkin just stared at me. Dark circles crowded his eyes and my hair was falling into his face. It looked like my body hadn’t recovered from the fight yet. It had started to rain harder, and cold drops were running in rivulets down his cheeks and dripping off the end of his chin. He was obviously suffering and, to tell the truth, I wasn’t thrilled about getting back a body that had a raging fever. We needed to get out of here.
“Let’s get back to Dante’s and I’ll explain,” I told him, gripping his shoulder. It felt strange, like the bones were too fragile under my new, larger hand, but I ignored it. I gathered my power around us and shifted—all of about four feet. We ended up sitting farther back in the mud puddle, almost up to our waists in smelly water. Pritkin sneezed.
“What happened?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I was listening to the sounds of steps getting closer. The farmer had apparently given up trying to talk to the crazy people hanging out in his field and disappeared from view. But I could hear him as he traversed what I assumed was the path down.
“You’re telling me you can’t shift?” Pritkin demanded, apparently unaware that we were about to have company.
I tried again, just to make sure, and the same thing happened. Only this time, Pritkin lurched into me on landing and I slipped, taking an unexpected mud bath. I sat up, filthy and steaming, and spat out a mouthful of truly disgusting water. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“But you got us here!”