As Mircea had said earlier, my guys weren’t really my guys. He’d loaned them to me, back when the Circle had been gunning for my head, in the pre-Jonas days. I’d needed bodyguards, and Mircea had needed to off-load some of the less diplomatic members of his house. It had seemed an obvious solution for both of us.
And, of course, it had helped him to keep tabs on me—or so I assumed. Because, sure, many of the boys were actually centuries-old masters themselves, and long since emancipated, so they could basically do what they chose, but . . . Well, I’d just assumed they kept him up to speed.
Didn’t they?
I tested a theory, and made my thoughts as opaque as possible. “He’s been in London, debriefing with Jonas—”
“But Jonas was
here today, wasn’t he?” Mircea lit up one of his little cigarettes. “I should have thought Mage Pritkin would be with him.”
“He’s . . . they’re probably done by now.”
“Probably? Then he hasn’t called?”
I narrowed my eyes, because that had been feigned surprise if I’d ever heard it. What was this? Some kind of test? Because I really wasn’t in the mood.
“We’re not doing this,” I told him.
“Doing what?” The innocent look was fake as shit, too. “I am merely expressing surprise that a man whom you chased across time, at considerable risk to yourself, can’t take a moment to pick up a phone. That is all.”
I had to bite my lip on about a hundred comments, any one of which would just prolong this. I was already tired. And I didn’t stand a chance against Mircea in a contest of wits even when I was rested.
But then one slipped out anyway.
“Forgive me, but weren’t we talking about retrieving your wife?”
“Rescuing. And ex-wife.”
“She isn’t your ex-wife if she doesn’t die, Mircea!”
“But I did,” he pointed out. “And like those transformed mages, I started a new life as someone very different. I honestly do not know if she’ll even recognize me.”
I rolled my eyes hard enough that I think I saw my brain. “She’ll recognize you,” I said sourly, and went to get that refill.
“I’m leaving when I finish this,” I told him. “So say what you want to say.”
“What I want to say would take all night.”
I took a deep breath, because arguing with Mircea never worked. He could steer a conversation with the adroit ease of a pilot navigating a harbor he’d sailed all his life. He could run you ashore or turn you around until you didn’t know where you were, until you ended up agreeing with him without even being sure what the hell had been said!
He’d done it to me a hundred times, but not tonight. I took a big drink of whiskey—too much. “Almost done now,” I said, and tried not to wheeze.
“Another time,” he promised, although it sounded more like a threat. “In any case, the successful assassination of Roberto may have been the catalyst for the development of Lover’s Knot. Or perhaps it was an accident—half of what the mages come up with falls into that category, although they’ll never admit it.”
“A spell to let vampires use magic?” I didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of my voice.
“A spell to let them share it,” Mircea corrected. “The Roberto incident showed that it was technically possible for vampires to manipulate magic, but they had simply lost the ability. But what if they could borrow that ability from someone who still had it? That is what Lover’s Knot does—it permits two people, as long as they are in a romantic relationship, to share magical gifts. The witches I told you about were headed for the war, but not to fight. They were to be mentally manipulated into believing themselves in love with vampires belonging to the consul’s enemies, after which the spell would be cast, allowing their lovers to borrow the witches’ magic in battle.”
I thought about that. “Why lovers? Why couldn’t the spell just bind anybody?”
“It’s based on incubus magic,” Mircea said, his lip lifting a little in what could have been a smile or a snarl. “There had to be a conduit between the two people involved in the spell, to allow the vampires to access the women’s power. Which happens to be exactly what incubi do when they feed: they use emotion to create a channel through which they can connect to their partner’s energy. The spell merely coopted the same dynamic for a new purpose.
“The only downside was that the lovers also shared their fates. In other words, if a spelled vampire fell in battle, the witch died as well. Eventually, the witches began to be targeted as a way of taking down powerful masters. The spell was outlawed for that reason, as well as the fact that kidnapping magic workers was threatening to engulf the entire supernatural community in war. We thought all vestiges of it had been destroyed, until Claude found a single reference and brought it back to life. And Jonathan somehow stumbled across it.”
“To do what?” I asked, because I couldn’t image what a powerful dark mage wanted with a spell that gave vampires magic. But then, I’ve never been half as devious as the people I deal with all the time. It scares the hell out of me.
“He kidnapped Anthony,” Mircea said, his eyes strangely intense. “Jonathan intended to place the spell on him and then kill him, thereby taking out his lover, the consul, as well. Fortunately, we found out in time, rescued Anthony, and confiscated all elements of the spell in Claude’s possession. We wiped the memory of it from his mind, ensuring that he cannot reproduce it in the future, although he will also be watched, of course.”