Shatter the Earth (Cassandra Palmer 10)

There’s a reason for that, I thought, but followed him down a skinny hallway under the stairs.

We went up another set of steps, down a couple of corridors, and then down a sloping pathway that had me hugging Pritkin’s ass the whole way. Which . . . could have been worse. And then I got lost, because the pub seemed to be built into the landscape like everything around here, with much more inside than you’d think.

I wasn’t too happy about that, as the little corridors we traversed were kind of close, with no windows and low ceilings, and the whole thing seemed to be chiseled out of stone. It reminded me uncomfortably of the Pythian library, which did not bring up good memories, or of an ancient tomb. I was about to ask if we could revisit the whole hobbit hole thing, when Pritkin unlocked a door at the end of a hall.

“Tobias is one of the proprietors who provides rooms for visiting dignitaries,” he said. “Since you can’t shift back to court just now, I arranged for you to have one for the night.”

And, okay, I thought, as he threw open the door. I was going to stop making assumptions. Because this was beautiful.

It was still Tudor, with dark wood paneling, matching floors worn smooth by countless feet over the years, and a ceiling of white plaster and open beams. But this was upscale Tudor, like Queen Elizabeth was coming and you’d better have all your ducks in a row. Or at the very least, carefully stitched onto your hand embroidered bed hangings, along with rabbits, deer, a whole garden full of flowers, and a couple of peasant girls, scandalously showing off their shins as they waded through a creek.

There were also oil paintings on the walls, fresh flowers stuck in vases, a stack of wood in a gorgeous old fireplace, and some modern upgrades in the form of a decent bathroom and some French doors in the living room.

I pushed open the latter and then stood there, transfixed.

“Oh! Pritkin, look!”

The doors let out onto a balcony overlooking the square, with a cluster of very un-Tudor wrought iron furniture taking up most of the space, but I didn’t care. Barely noticed it, in fact, because I was too busy staring at the crowd three stories below us. Who were currently getting snowed on.

I looked up, and sure enough, a blizzard of tiny flakes was spiraling out of the darkened sky despite the fact that I was pretty sure it didn’t snow in October around here. And even if it did, that was rock up there, regardless of what it looked like.

“Somebody is going to get his butt kicked,” I said, laughing. And craning my neck, trying to see where it was all coming from.

“Maybe not,” Pritkin said, coming up beside me. “And who knows? Perhaps it will cool a few tempers.”

It took me a second. “Wait. This was you?”

“I admit nothing.”

And then I was laughing harder, because son of a bitch!

But no one seemed to mind too much. Even the overworked guards were just standing around, staring upward in surprise. While everybody else—

“They’re trying to make snowballs,” I said, grabbing Pritkin’s arm and pointing at a small group off to one side.

They were doing a pretty good job of it, too, since almost everyone in the crowd was a magic worker. They could summon the flakes out of the air without having to wait for them to collect somewhere. And then it was on, guys lobbing snowballs instead of spells, girls laughing and squealing and then throwing some themselves, because even big bad war mages had been kids once. The disgruntled and hungry diners, waiting outside a dozen establishments, were suddenly smiling, and holding out hands and, in a few cases, tongues, to catch the flakes.

The little town was turning into a winter wonderland.

“You haven’t seen the best part,” Pritkin told me, pulling me back into the living room. And then stopping abruptly, as something chimed in the air around us. He scowled, but flicked a wrist, as if throwing something at the fireplace. And a second later, the mirror over the top of it fritzed and shimmered and changed.

To an image of Jonas Marsden’s face.

I froze for a second, thinking that Pritkin was busted. But then I mentally rolled my eyes at

myself. I didn’t think Jonas was all that interested in pranks, even impressive ones.

Which was borne out by his first words.

“John. We’ve had a look at our new guest, and found something . . . unexpected. We’d like to have your opinion.”

Pritkin hesitated, but then nodded, not that Jonas had waited for it. He’d already done something that bisected the mirror. Half of it still showed his face, backed up by some generic office, and the other—

I sighed, and slumped against the back of the sofa, wondering what it took to get a night free of horrors.

Because it was Jonathan, of course. Buck naked and sitting on a chair in what looked like a holding cell, with the horrible face still visible on his stomach. And still moving slightly, because I guessed this was some kind of video feed.

He didn’t look any better naked than he had clothed, but was so grotesque that he drew the eye even as he repelled it. But with some distance, instead of standing right in front of him, I noticed a couple of things that I’d missed. A couple of horrible things.