Fury's Kiss (Dorina Basarab 3)

Which made no sense. Master vampires didn’t pass out. Master vampires kept coming until you chopped them into little pieces, and sometimes even then. But people didn’t go running around in other people’s memories, either, so tonight was obviously about new experiences.

I looked up again.

There were people circling the bonfire. I could see their bodies if I squinted, silhouetted against the light. Could hear their laughter when the wind was just right, feel the reverberations of their feet if I concentrated. They were pounding out a rhythm to the accompaniment of drums, a flute and what might have been a lyre. It was almost hypnotic: dark figures whirling around a tower of flame, sparks flying high into the sky, a riot of color and light and movement on an otherwise dark hillside.

It didn’t look like something that should be in Louis-Cesare’s memories. Or even in the consul’s. It looked like a pagan kaleidoscope, something that predated history: violent, primitive, dangerous, raw.

It didn’t make me want to go up and say hi.

And I didn’t know what they could do for him if I did. Vampires healed themselves, for the most part. There were potions that could counteract the effects of curses, and low-level necromancers that could speed up healing in the case of particularly nasty wounds. But neither of those was likely to be available here, and anyway, they didn’t apply. Louis-Cesare hadn’t been cursed or wounded. Louis-Cesare was just out cold.

Which left me in a mess.

I couldn’t transition us out of here, because I didn’t know how. And with my guide unconscious, I had no way to contact Mircea and find out. Besides, I’d been a good girl and avoided snooping, so I didn’t know Louis-Cesare’s memories any better than my other half did. Even assuming I figured things out on my own, the only place I could take us was back into my memories.

Where she’d be onto us in about a second.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and just breathed.

I’d had a plan, at the beginning of this crazy ride. It wasn’t much of one, admittedly, but it was the best I’d been able to come up with under the circumstances. And it still was.

Get him out. All the rest of the hundred or so things clamoring for attention could wait. Just get him out.

Get him out before she found him.

Get him out before she killed him.

Just fucking Get. Him. Out.

I opened my eyes.

We needed to get moving, to put some space between us and where we’d come in. It didn’t matter where—just so the bitch would have to look for us, instead of stumbling over us. Somewhere I might get a few seconds’ warning when she showed up. And somewhere under cover, so I could stash Louis-Cesare out of sight.

I knew where he was; if she came, I’d leave him here and run, because it was me she wanted. If I got away, I could tell Mircea where to go to retrieve him. And if I didn’t…

Well, I’d have a really good incentive to make sure that I did, wouldn’t I? Or to hope that Mircea could find him anyway. Or that he’d wake up on his own and figure a way out.

None of which was going to happen if she found him first.

I got my hands under his arms and started dragging him backward, toward the shack.

It wasn’t far off, and it was downhill, thank God, over a path made of trampled grass that was slick enough to minimize the friction. It should have been a pretty easy trip, despite the six feet four inches of pure muscle I was dragging. But it wasn’t.

Either this mental stuff was exhausting or the week I’d had was finally catching up with me, but I was panting like a steam train and sweating like a pig. And that was before we’d made it halfway there. I stopped for a rest, crouching in the dirt, wishing to God I had something to use as a—

I stopped, cursing myself for being an idiot. The damned place looked so real, it was easy to forget that it was in my head. I could dream up a stretcher—hell, I could dream up a freaking wheelchair, if I wanted—and save my back and legs and thighs, all of which had started seriously to protest.

Only I couldn’t.

I tried again, and again got nothing. I couldn’t remember what I’d done before, but staring at the ground and hoping really hard obviously wasn’t it. Of course not, I snarled, and grabbed Louis-Cesare again, preparing to continue with my old buddy the Hard Way.

So much for dreaming up a bazooka if anybody threatened us.

Like the monster in the tall grass, for instance.

I froze, hoping it was a trick of the light. Because I was pretty close to crazed right now, and didn’t need yet another problem. Especially not one with two huge, narrowed eyes peering at me from the side of the path. But there they were anyway—evil, dark and soulless—reflecting the bonfire light like the flames of hell.

And then slowly crossing.