Cassandra Palmer 1(8)

Most vamps spend their immortal lives as little more than slaves, serving whoever made them without the ability to break away or to refuse an assignment. But some, usually those who were the strongest willed in life, over time gain power. When they reach master level, they can make other vampires to serve them, and are usually given some autonomy by their makers. Seventh level is the lowest master rank, and most never progress past it, but for those who do, each additional step up the ladder gains them new abilities and more freedom. I'd been around master vamps all my life, up to third-level ones like Tony, and I'd seen plenty of them lose their tempers. But it had never before felt like their power might actually burn holes in my skin. It seemed impossible that Tony had talked a senior vamp, second or first level, into taking on a sordid little assassination—offing me wasn't exactly a challenge—but there wasn't any other explanation.



I yelled for Tomas to run, even knowing it wouldn't do any good, and my vamp decided I must not be in enough pain if I could make all that noise. He lowered the hand holding the back of my head to my neck and squeezed. I remember thinking that, if I was lucky, he'd choke me to death before he remembered to bring me over. It didn't make for a great night for me, but it was better than looking at Tony's ugly face for eternity.

A second later, when I was beginning to see dots swirling around my vision and to hear a roaring in my ears, the vamp gave a high-pitched scream and the pressure suddenly let up. I gasped and fell to my knees, struggling to get a deep breath past my burning throat, while he flopped around in front of me, screeching as if he was literally being torn apart. It took me a few seconds to figure out what was wrong with him, since it wasn't an everyday occurrence. A big hint was the warm, almost liquid feeling tracing a lopsided pentagram on my back, as if someone had drizzled heated oil over my skin. Another clue was that the vamp's arm and part of his chest were covered in lines that glowed gold as they sizzled and popped, cooking the flesh between them and the bone. As I watched, one molten welt obscured the small indentation over his breast where my bullet had gone in and kept going. I stared at him in paralyzed shock. From the shape of the marks, it was pretty obvious that my ward had flared to life.

That was ironic, considering that Tony must have been the one to have it worked into my skin in the first place. I'd always thought he'd been gypped: its original pentagram shape had stretched as I grew older, and all I'd ended up with was an ugly tattoo that covered half my back and part of my left shoulder. But although it wasn't a very good-looking design anymore, it seemed to work pretty well. However, the vamp who attacked me wasn't a master—that surge of energy had come from somewhere behind us—and how my ward would fair against one of the big boys was an open question. I was pretty impressed that it had done this much; the only time it had flared up before, it hadn't put on nearly as much of a show. It had only burnt the would-be mugger's arm, singeing him enough that I was able to get away. Of course, then it had been a human trying to rip my head off. Maybe it became stronger depending on the strength of the one it was fighting? I had a bad feeling I was going to find out.




I know something about wards, since Tony always kept two wardsmiths on staff to maintain the fortress of magical protections around his home and businesses. I'd learned from them that there are three main categories: perimeter wards, energy wards and protection wards. Perimeter wards are what Tony uses as camouflage when he's up to something illegal—in other words, constantly. Energy wards are more complex: at their best, they are better than Prozac at relieving stress and helping people work through emotional problems. At their worst, which is the way Tony usually used them, they could allow him to influence important business negotiations. Everyone within the perimeter of the wards would start to feel very mellow and would suddenly decide that cutthroat tactics were too much trouble when they could simply do whatever Tony wanted. There are two types of protection wards: personal shields and guards. Eugenie instructed me in the first type when I was a kid. Without them, I could even sense the ghosts of ghosts—the thin energy trails stretching back in time like glowing lines on a map, telling me that once, maybe hundreds of years ago, a spirit had passed by. The older I got, the more distracted I became by the impressions, maybe because Tony's old mansion was sandwiched between an Indian burial ground and a colonial cemetery. Eugenie had finally tired of my mind wandering during lessons and gave me the tools to shield against them. She taught me to sense my energy field, what some people call an aura, then use my power to build a hedge around it for protection. Eventually, my shields became automatic, filtering out anything except active spirits in the here and now.