“—or it would have already done it instead of hanging around the foyer, waiting for Mr. Mage to show up.”

“Mr. Mage,” one of the vamps said. “I like that. I’m gonna start calling all of ’em that.”

“I can think of a few things to call them,” another one muttered.

“And if you think it can possess a vamp, this makes even less sense,” I pointed out. “You just left me alone in my room with one for hours!”

“You’re right,” he told me.

“I am?”

“Yeah. We obviously need two.”

“Marco!”

He held up placating hands. “Just kidding.”

“This isn’t funny. It’s like being a freaking prisoner!”

He started to answer, but the phone rang. It wasn’t the main line, but a black cell phone sitting on the card table. Marco picked it up, glanced at the readout, scowled and hung up. He looked at me. “Better than being a freaking corpse.”

“Didn’t you hear me? This isn’t going to help!”

“It will if that thing goes after you. It already possessed you once—”

“And won’t again.” I pulled out Pritkin’s little amulet. He’d left me another one before he took the mage off to the Corps’ version of a hospital. It might be stinky, but I liked it a lot better than the alternative.

“That only works on Fey,” Marco pointed out, wrinkling his nose.

“Which this thing is.”

“Which this thing may be. That ain’t been decided yet.”

“It spoke in a Fey dialect—”

“And demons don’t know that shit? If it’s trying to throw us off, of course it’s gonna pretend to be something else.”

“Or maybe it really was trying to communicate.”

“For what? To apologize?” Marco’s tone said clearly what he thought about that. He dealt another round. “Anyway, until we get some solid proof of what we’re dealing with here, the master don’t want to take chances.”

“That isn’t his call. It’s my life!”

“Yeah, well. You’re gonna have to take that up with him.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Fine, I will. Get him on the phone.”

“Can’t.”

“And why not?”

“He’s in a high-level meeting—”

“How convenient.”

“—and told me not to disturb him until morning.”

“Then get a note to him.”

“That would be disturbing.”

“Damn it, Marco!”

The phone rang. He glanced at it, sighed and put it back down again. “Look, it’s only for a little while—”

“Oh, please!” I couldn’t believe he was trying that. “Sell it to someone else. I know how these things work!”

He took his smelly cigar out of his mouth and rested it on the ashtray. “And how do they work?”

“I go along with this now, and I’ll have Mutt and Jeff here dogging my every step for the rest of my damn life!”

The taller vamp looked at the shorter one. “Guess that makes you Jeff.”

“I ain’t no Jeff. He was a crazy little bugger.”

“Well, Mutt was an idiot.”

“They were both idiots, and shut up,” Marco told them. He looked at me. “You know I don’t have any say over this. But you’re already up now, so it don’t matter anyway. And you can talk to the master in the morning.”

I just stood there for a moment, debating options. Because giving in, even for a few hours, wasn’t smart. Give a vamp an inch and he wouldn’t take a mile; he’d take the whole damn continent.

My stomach growled.

“Kung pao chicken,” Marco wheedled.

The bastard.

Mircea and I clearly needed to have a conversation, but I also needed to eat. And only one was currently available. And I was starving.

“Sweet-and-sour pork—”

“Oh, shut up,” I told him.

He grinned.

I sighed. “You order egg rolls?”

Marco spread his hands. “Please.”

I decided that I’d bargain better on a full stomach, and swiped a beer. He dealt me in, and I grabbed a chair before looking at my cards hopefully. Nothing—not even a pair of twos.

Typical.

The phone rang.

“Can’t you turn that off?” one of the guards groused. He was an attractive blond I didn’t recognize. Probably one of the new guys.

“It’s my private line. Could be important,” Marco told him tersely.

“Your private line? How the hell—”

“I don’t know, but I’m getting it changed tomorrow. Just play your cards.”

“I would if I ever got any worth a damn,” the guy muttered.

They anted up. I folded. The phone rang.

“Damn it, Marco! I can’t play with that thing going off every five seconds!”

“Then don’t play,” Marco told him.

“Just tell the mage to go fuck himself—”

“What mage?” I asked, and everyone froze.

“Thank you,” Marco told the guy viciously.

The phone rang. Marco had left it on the table, and it had jittered its way over to me. So I picked it up. “Don’t,” he said.

I flipped it open and checked the readout. PRITKIN. I shot Marco a look and put the phone to my ear. “Hel—”

“Goddamnit, Marco, you’re supposed to be—” He cut off abruptly. “Cassie?”

“What is it?” I asked, feeling my heart rate speed up.

“There’s no emergency—not right now,” he said, apparently hearing the alarm in my voice. “But I need to see you. I’m coming up.”

“The hell you are,” Marco said, grabbing back the phone. “I already told you—”

“I want to see him,” I said, crossing my arms.

Marco looked at me, clearly frustrated. “You need to rest!”

“I’m playing cards and drinking beer. How is that not resting?”

“You were gonna go back to bed soon.”

“I slept all day!”

The doorbell rang.

Marco got to his feet, looking conflicted.

“What are you going to do—bar the door?” I asked, also standing up.

“I got orders,” he said defensively.

“Mircea told you to lock Pritkin out?”

“Just for tonight. He don’t want the mage here while you’re vulnerable.”

“He’s my bodyguard! When I’m vulnerable is when I need him!”

“Look, you really gotta—”

“Take that up with Mircea,” I finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“Fine. I will.” I pressed the menu button on Marco’s phone.

“Cassie—”

And there it was. I hit the button. The phone rang.

“Yes?” The familiar voice was smooth, with no sign of irritation. Not yet.

“You said you weren’t going to do this.”

There was a pause. “Cassandra.”

“Wow, we just leapt right to it there, didn’t we?” I asked, furious.

“You are supposed to be asleep.”

“I was. And then I got up to discover that I’m a prisoner.”

“You are not a prisoner.”

“Then I can leave?”

Another pause. “In the morning, when you can shift.”

“So I’m only a prisoner for the night, is that it?”

“It is for your protection.”

“And how does that work, exactly? I’ve been assaulted twice. And where have they both been again?”

“You were vulnerable the first time due to our ignorance of the threat. You were vulnerable the second because a mage provided a conduit for the creature—”

“And that explains why I can’t see Pritkin?”

A third pause. That had to be some kind of record. Mircea usually had the defense prepared.

“No. Considering the probable nature of the entity that has been attacking you, I consider the warlock to be a threat in his own right.”

“The what?”

“He had a demon servant at one time, did he not? Encased in that battle golem he devised?”

I frowned. “I guess.”

“Then he is a warlock, not merely a mage. Only warlocks can summon demons to their aid.”

“Is there a point?”

“Merely that warlocks are a notoriously unstable class. They are prone to strange behavior, increasingly so as they age, with some going mad over time. It is one reason that many mages avoid the specialization, despite the added power it gives them.”

“But Jonas had a golem once,” I protested. “He told me so.”

“Forgive me, Cassie, but Jonas Marsden is hardly an example of well-adjusted behavior!”

Point.

“And we are discussing the warlock Pritkin.”

Actually, we weren’t. Because Pritkin wasn’t a warlock. His ability with demons came not through some arcane magic, but because he was half demon himself. His father was Rosier, Lord of the Incubi, which made Pritkin sort of a demon prince. Or something. I really didn’t know what it made him, since he hated that part of his lineage and almost never talked about it. But I didn’t think mentioning that I was being guarded by the son of a prince of hell was likely to go well.

Of course, neither was this.

“He’s a friend.”

“Those creatures are not friends, Cassie! They are selfserving, power-hungry—”

“They say the same thing about vamps.”

“—and unpredictable. Not to mention that this one may well be part demon himself.”

“What?”

“That is the rumor Kit has been hearing. And it would explain why he heals so quickly, how he has lived—”