Mircea dropped to one knee, a hand to his side, and I knew it was bad. Mircea's blade was metal—meaning that Dmitri might eventually heal. But the stake Mircea pulled out of his side was wood. When I saw it, my world went gray. I tried telling myself that even if it had hit his heart, that alone wouldn't kill a first-level master. But that wasn't much comfort with Augusta around to finish the job.

She had stopped her attack, surprise on her features when Mircea went down. But she recovered almost instantly, running forward to rip the bloody blade out of Dmitri's chest. She looked at me and laughed. "You aren't even going to make this a challenge, are you?”

She turned back to Mircea and I didn't even hesitate. Killing Augusta would dramatically alter time, but so would letting Mircea die. I'd never been as scared as I was watching the blood pour from Mircea's side and having no power to stop it. I would not watch his head taken, too.

My knives leapt out of the bracelet and flew at Augusta. With vampire agility, she was able to get the candlestick up in time to shield herself, but in the process she knocked a candle free. It landed on her shoulder before bouncing to the floor, and a spark caught on the bodice of her dress. It burst into a tiny flame, smaller than that of a match. A human would have snuffed it out between her fingers with no concern, but Augusta started screaming and thrashing around like a drowning victim going down for the last time.

Apparently, the terror of fire was enough to override Myra's control, because Augusta promptly forgot all about the attack. Mircea tried to get her to hold still so he could smother the flames with his handkerchief, but she wouldn't listen. She slipped on a patch of Jack's blood and ended up on her elegant backside, and I had to jump out of the way to keep from having her roll right into me.

"Augusta! Stay still!" Mircea bellowed, but Augusta wasn't listening. Instead of putting out the flame, all her rolling around had caused more oxygen to get to it, and a finger of fire leapt to one of the long curls that framed her face. Her screams became more like shrieks, and she whipped off the fashionable curls, sending them flying. That explained why her head hadn't gone up like a gasoline fire— half of the golden coiffure was fake and probably made of human hair.

Myra rose out of her, abandoning ship now that she could no longer control it. I waved my arms and screamed frantically at my knives, which had zeroed in on the terrified Augusta. "No—not her! Get Myra!" They either didn't hear me or were having too much fun to obey.

The spirit creature was more single-minded. It dove through Myra, as insubstantial as a breath of wind, but she staggered backwards, clawing at her chest and screaming. After a stunned second, I realized that she'd been given the spiritual equivalent of a mugging. The spirit emerged from her back, so flush with stolen power that it was blinding silver, looking at it like staring into a searchlight.

I blinked, and when I looked again, it had faded out. Myra dropped to her knees, almost transparent, the energy that should have allowed her to remain here for hours gone. She turned a furious blue glare on me. "Doesn't matter. You can't guard him all the time.”

She shifted out just as Augusta scrambled to her feet and careened into Mircea, screaming and clawing like she blamed him for the danger. I tossed him the cloak, and he wrapped it around her to smother the flames, just as I felt the tug of my power.

"Tell me, little witch," he gasped, holding the struggling vampire with obvious difficulty. "What happens when you are trying to cause trouble?”

A wave of dizziness and nausea swept over me, and I felt myself falling. I crashed headfirst into Mac's cot, where Billy Joe had been playing a game of solitaire, scattering his cards everywhere. "I fold," I said weakly, and passed out.

Chapter 8

I hugged porcelain in the bathroom for the next half hour. Once the power receded, I was wiped out and had a headache so severe I was nauseous. With my usual luck, Mac decided to check on me right after I returned and found me green and shaking. He left to round up a snack, apparently on the assumption that my problem was low blood sugar. If only.

Billy moved over so I could stretch out on the cot without having to lie through part of his body. "Did you see Casanova?" I croaked. I had commandeered one of Mac's beers to help my dry throat, and almost succeeded in making myself sick again when the alcohol hit my stomach. I hastily put it down.

"Yeah, but Chavez is AWOL. Maybe he's lying low until the mages vacate Dante's, I don't know. But Casanova said he'd lock up the stuff whenever he gets there." I nodded. It was as good as I could have hoped for. If Chavez had been smart enough to dodge the invasion of his workplace, the items he was carrying should be safe.

"Are you gonna do it?" Billy asked, shuffling the deck of cards. He never lifts things unless forced or showing off, but I was too sick to be impressed.

"Do what?" I lay back on the cot, trying to convince my stomach that there was nothing left to throw up. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I'd shifted in time before and never felt like this when I returned.

"Fix the ward.”

I blinked wearily at him. I'd almost forgotten about that. My pentagram would have come in really handy with Dmitri, and it had proved capable of traveling through time with me before. Unfortunately, I couldn't risk fixing it. "Yeah, and I'd owe the power a favor, too.”

"Seems like it owes you a couple, if you ask me. You've been running its errands. It's not like you wanted to go anywhere.”

"But I don't know if it looks at things like that.”

Billy blew smoke from an insubstantial cigarette, making a ring that floated up almost to the ceiling before disappearing. I asked him once why he could smoke ghostly cigarettes but couldn't drink ghostly booze, which would save me some embarrassing incidents and a lot of his whining. He'd said that whatever was with you, as in touching your body or within a few feet of it, when you died could materialize with you. It was all part of your energy, of course—so Billy was essentially smoking himself—but it was apparently satisfying on some level. Too bad he hadn't had a whiskey flask tucked away when he took his burlap swimming lesson.

"Why are we talking about this power like it's a person?" he asked thoughtfully. "You sound like it has a tally sheet and is marking down every favor so it can demand that you pay up one of these days. What if that's not true? Maybe it's a force of nature, like gravity. Only instead of keeping everything glued down, it responds to problems with the timeline by sending a repair person to fix it.”

I shook my head. His theory was surprisingly logical, but some part of me knew that whatever I was dealing with was conscious, not a mindless force. It knew I didn't like being on its repair crew. It just didn't care. "I don't think so.”

"Okay, let me make sure I understand this." Billy dealt out a hand of cards consisting of two black aces, a pair of black eights and the king of spades. It's called the Dead Man's Hand in poker because, according to legend, that's what Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back. Hickok died in 1876, almost two decades after my dealer, but Billy knew his poker lore—and how to be obnoxious with it. "You're going to refuse to fix the ward even though you've got more people after you than I can count and you're going into Faerie, where trespassers are usually killed on sight? Just so you don't maybe owe a possibly nonsentient power a favor, which it might not even bother to collect?”

I was too tired to glare at him. "I don't know.”

"Oh, well, I'm glad you've at least thought it out.”

"Why are you nagging me about this?”

"Because, turtledove, in case you've forgotten, we made a deal. I've kept my end and I expect you to keep yours— which you can't do if you're dead. Okay, yeah, you don't like being bossed around. Who does? But, newsflash, being dead is a lot worse. Have Mac reattach the damn ward. If you don't need it, great, you don't owe anybody anything. But if you do, it'll be there, and when the smoke clears, so will you.”

"Uh-huh," I said testily, giving up on the idea of getting any sleep with Billy around. "And what if it flares when it isn't a lífe-and-death situation? I don't have control over what the power perceives as a threat. If it's fueling the ward, it'll be in charge, and it's already tried to trick me..." I trailed off because Billy hadn't been there when I'd assaulted Pritkin, and I didn't want to be teased about it. Luckily, either he didn't notice or he let it go.

"Okay, you're taking a risk, wagering a few chips that this thing won't be able to trick you. But that's a lot better than gambling your life on not needing the ward and then finding out you were wrong. Take it from someone who knows, Cass—never bet when you can't afford to lose.”

We were interrupted by Mac returning laden with the four fast-food groups—salt, grease, sugar and caffeine—in the form of fries, burgers and extra large, sweetened coffees. I forced myself to eat, as it was the fastest way to regain some energy, despite feeling queasy. Halfway through the meal I told Mac that I'd decided to have the ward reactivated. Billy gave me a thumbs-up and I grimaced at him. The only thing more annoying than Billy when he's wrong is Billy when he gets something right. I'd hear about this one for a long time.

When Pritkin returned, I'd just finished dressing after Mac's adjustment. The ward remained lopsided because fixing aesthetics could wait. Mac said he thought that the power transfer had gone well, but I was skeptical. I couldn't feel anything—not a single spark or twinge. Of course, I usually didn't unless there was a threat, but I would have liked some sign that it was back at work. It didn't look like I was going to get one, though. I guessed I'd have to wait until someone tried to kill me to find out whether Mac was as skilled as he claimed. The way my life was going lately, that shouldn't be long.

"We need to go," Pritkin said without preamble. He tossed something over my head and it caught on my ear. I pulled it off and saw that I was holding some kind of charm—actually several charms—on a sturdy red cord. The little cloth pouch contained either verbena or a really ripe gym sock—they smell about the same—but I wasn't sure about the significance of the others.