Vintage Soul Part 2

Donovan ignored it and took another step forward. He didn't speak, but he silently mouthed a shield charm. He didn't know how much of the fire was illusion, and how much was the real fire with an illusion impressed upon it. If he leaped forward and the face vanished, he faced the very real danger of setting himself on fire. If, on the other hand, the fire had been put out to protect whoever stood within the illusion, then Donovan might be able to leap onto the grate and drag them out into the open.

He hesitated, and all decisions became moot. The flames crackled and flared. The heat from the fire might have been an illusion, but if so that illusion was very real. Donovan stumbled back with a curse. Fire engulfed the eyes in the flame and soared up the inside of the chimney with a roar. The defense held. Donovan knew that his unwanted visitor was battering against the spell containing it within the fireplace. So far he had not proven strong enough, but if he continued as he was, he might cause the entire structure to explode from the contained energy.

There was a snap, like a rubber band drawn too tight and parting. A hideous scent of sulfur permeated the air in the room, and the fire, no longer bottled up, spurted from a fissure in the center of the fireplace grate, shooting from mid-air. Donovan cursed and drew a symbol with his free hand. Where his finger pa.s.sed the air glowed silver, and when he finished with a flurry, the glow formed a fine mesh of luminescence and shot across the room, directly into the path of the escaping jet of flame.

When the mesh he'd created settled over the fiery leak, Donovan cried out. Light, feathery threads of illumination shot back to his fingers from the net he'd formed, and they glowed brighter where the two forces collided. Donovan closed his eyes and concentrated. He knew he needed to close off the breach in his defense, and that he had to do it quickly. The flames had already leaked out and dripped along the fine lines of power toward his hand. If they reached him before he was able to patch the spell, he would lose control of it entirely.

Distracted, he missed the first flash of shadow against the light of the fire. Two glittering eyes launched from the fireplace and soared over his head. Donovan staggered, straightened, and concentrated. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the shadow had wings, and was soaring about the room, narrowly avoiding walls and curtains. Each swoop took the creature lower, until finally, with a great cry, it alighted on the third shelf from the top along the wall behind Donovan and began picking frantically at the spines of the books there with its beak.

Donovan curse and spun, grabbing for the bird, but he could not reach it, and in the second his concentration shifted, the flames roared. He whirled to face them, saw with shock that in that second of dropped attention the fire had dripped down the threads toward his outstretched fingers like molten wax. He muttered a single word and stepped forward. The droplets cascading toward him quivered, hovered in place, and then slowly retreated toward the glowing mesh.

Donovan pressed his advantage, and within seconds he had moved a step closer to the fire, and then another, pressing the fire relentlessly back. There was no hint of the glowing eyes, or the ethereal face in that fire. All of the intruder's strength had been diverted into that single breach in Donovan's defenses.

Cleo leaped to the first shelf and launched herself upward. A long swipe sent the bird fluttering upward, but as the cat pa.s.sed, already spinning for a second lunge, the bird cawed in triumph and reached out with both taloned feet. Gripping the spine of a thin, leather tome, the raven launched back and up, narrowly missing a collision with the back of Donovan's head.

Cleo bounded off the shelves, planted her rear feet on Donovan's shoulder and launched herself after the fleeing bird. Donovan saw what was about to happen and let out a hoa.r.s.e, choked cry. He sprang forward and concentrated every bit of will power and strength he had to the tips of the fingers of his left hand. The threads swelled, became strings and then sticky, ropes of energy. He dove at the fire, ignored the danger, and pressed his seal over the escaping flames.

Before he reached the hearth, a black flash shot past. The bird, seeming not to struggle at all with the heavy book, dove into the fire like a black arrow. Cleo flashed past Donovan in pursuit, and he drove his legs into the floor, launching after her in a headlong dive of his own. As if aware of its pursuers, the bird gave another great cry and slashed the air with its wings, narrowing itself and diving straight at the heart of the fire. It disappeared into the rift just as Donovan's hand pressed the ropy tendrils of his charm to the invisible wall of the ward spell. There was a bright shimmer, another crackle of energy, and as Cleo bounced off the now solid ward, Donovan leaned into it, seeming to rest against solid air, and sagged weakly, sliding down to sit on the floor.

He growled in frustration and pounded his hand on the hearth. There was no sign of the bird, the book, or the flaming face behind it all. Donovan sat for a moment, regaining his strength. Cleo shook her head, meowed plaintively, and then crawled into his lap. Donovan cradled her there, turned, and glanced up at the bookshelves behind him, already certain what he would find a or not find a when he did.

Two books had slid out and hung precariously over the edge of the shelf. The s.p.a.ce between them, where the journal of Jean-Claude Le Duc had been tucked safely away, was empty. Donovan rose and deposited Cleo on his armchair, then walked to the bookshelf. There were scratches in the wood where the bird had scrabbled for purchase, and there were peck marks on the spines of the two volumes on either side. Donovan frowned.

Under normal circ.u.mstances, even an extremely talented bird would not have been able to slide a book off the shelf and carry it away. It was too heavy, for one thing. It had to have been enchanted, or more than a bird to begin with. He glanced around.

On the floor at his feet two black feathers rested. One had been trampled when he launched himself forward at the fireplace, but the other was clean. Cleo must have come closer to the mark than he'd realized with her first leap. He gave her an appreciative grin, but the cat was busy washing her left foot and paid no attention to him at all. She looked up when he lifted the feather from the floor and let out a soft yowl of disapproval.

"I know, Cleo," Donovan said, carrying the feather back to his desk and returning to his seat. "I don't like it either, but what can we do?"

Donovan stared at the feather for a moment, and then sat up straighter. He placed it in the center of his desk, where the letter from Johndrow had rested only a few moments before, and set to work. Within moments he'd set the wards and placed his spell. It was a long shot, but some essence of the bird, and its master, should still be lingering either in the room, or the fireplace.

The feather rose, spun lazily in the air, and then pointed at the fireplace. Donovan rose, stepped around the desk, and gazed in the direction the feather pointed. He saw nothing, but stepped forward to the grate and glanced back over his shoulder. The feather jerked once, and then twisted a few degrees to Donovan's right. It pointed at the upper right corner of the fireplace grate. Donovan saw nothing on the metal grate itself, nor had anything dropped to the floor as the bird pa.s.sed. He frowned.

He placed his hand on the brick wall beside the fireplace and whispered the incantation that released the security spell. The warmth from the dancing fire increased, and Donovan stepped closer. He didn't see Cleo, who had leaped up onto the desk chair and sat, paws on the surface of the desk, watching the feather twitch in lazily in the air. Cleo's tail whipped back and forth in time, and her muscles quivered.

Donovan leaned down. There was something tucked in behind the grate that held the logs in the fireplace. It was dark and flat, like a piece of cloth, or paper. There was just enough room on the side of the fire for him to reach one arm around behind, but he had to be very careful not to get too close to the flames. He knew his hair could catch in an instant, and he wasn't used to dealing with the open flame.

Just as his groping fingers neared the object behind the fire, Cleo leaped. There was a surprised yowl as the protections Donovan had set on the circle repelled her, sending her crashing to the side, knocking Johndrow's letter, the pendulum on its stand, and two of the small braziers askew as she scrabbled for purchase on the desktop.

Donovan spun, narrowly missed whipping his hair into the fire, and gasped. When the braziers tipped, the circle fragmented. Released from the circle, but not from the enchantment, the feather shot across the room at dizzying speed. Donovan rolled aside as it pa.s.sed, narrowly missing his cheek. The feather pa.s.sed through the fire, burst into flame, and drove into the object behind the grate with such force that it shattered in a flash. Donovan made a grab for the object, but he was too late. It was nothing but a small heap of ash by the time his fingers reached it. He brushed this out without much hope and collected it on a sc.r.a.p of paper, but it was difficult to tell if the ashes came from burned paper, leather, cloth, or flesh, and he knew at least part of what he'd gathered was the remnant of the feather itself.

"d.a.m.n it, Cleo," he complained, clambering back to his feet. "That might have been important."

Cleo glared at him from the corner of his desk. She was seated in the exact spot where the small pendulum usually dangled on its stand. She looked indignant, and Donovan, despite his irritation, laughed. He bent down, picked up the pendulum, and examined it carefully. Nothing seemed broken, and once he'd straightened the metal stand a bit, it was as good as new. He shooed Cleo off the desk and returned the instrument to its proper place.

He leaned down to retrieve Johndrow's letter, remembering what he'd been doing when things had gone south, and before he could stand straight again, he stopped, still as stone. He thought of the missing vampire, Vanessa, and then of the contents of the stolen book. He'd read it only once, and it had been many years in the past, but the minute the pieces fell into place in his mind, he knew he was correct.

"Oh my G.o.d," he said softly. "The Perpetuum Vitae Serum; he's after Le Duc's formula."

He scooped up the letter, scanned its contents again, and then dropped it on his desk. Next he strode back over to the bookshelves and slid a large, leather bound tome from a shelf at shoulder height. He carried it back to his desk, opened it, and began to skim the index quickly.

It didn't take long to find what he was looking for. It was a reference to Jean-Claude Le Duc's life. In fact, it was the very reference that had sent Donovan off in search of the journal that had just been stolen. It was short, but there was enough detail to confirm his fears.

"Jean-Claude Le Duc," it read, "spent his entire life in search of a single spell. Rumor has it that he succeeded in developing a potion that would grant the recipient eternal life, but that he died trying to acquire all the proper ingredients. Among the things he gathered were certain crystal formations, ashes from the grave of a particular type of priest, and several more standard items. The final ingredient proved his undoing, as it apparently involves draining the blood of a vampire of a certain age. Le Duc was killed by vampires in 1832, and was not brought back as one of the undead, as far as any record can be found. His journal contains his studies, but to date no one has attempted this particular magic to our knowledge."

There was more, but Donovan had read enough. Cleo leaped up to the desk again, more delicately this time, and sat, regarding him.

"This is a bad one, girl," he said. "It may be the worst yet. I'd better get started, eh?"

As Cleo batted at the cord, Donovan took up the phone and dialed Johndrow's number. It was shaping up to be a very long night.

FIVE.

Donovan reached Johndrow's a.s.sistant on the third ring, and was patched straight through. His call was obviously expected, and though Johndrow kept his voice calm, tension crackled at the edges of his words. It was the first such breach in the other's icy persona that Donovan had ever detected, and he knew from this that things had not improved since the note had been penned. He almost wished he didn't have to deliver worse news of his own.

"You'll look into it then?" Johndrow said immediately. "I knew you would, but I was worried you'd be tied up with something else, or ..."

"I would look into it even if you hadn't asked me," Donovan replied, measuring his words carefully. "I've had a visitor of my own. I think there's more to this than a simple kidnapping."

"What do you mean?" Johndrow asked. "I had a hard enough time convincing certain of the elders that Vanessa didn't take off on her own. How could you already know something?"

"Because," Donovan said, "whoever took her was here, as well."

There was a momentary silence, and then Johndrow asked. "You were robbed while you were away?"

"No," Donovan replied. "I was here, right in the room, when it happened. All that was taken was a single book. I didn't get a good shot at the intruder, though Cleo tore a few tail feathers out of his familiar. It was a crow, a very large one, maybe a raven. I've never seen it before."

There was silence on the line again, and Donovan knew that Johndrow was considering the wisdom of putting his faith into someone who'd already come face to face with the one he sought a and had not come out on top. It was a natural reaction, but still irritating.

"It took all he had to get a breach large enough for his bird to enter," Donovan said. "If I'd been ready for him, we'd have caught the thing and put an end to it. As it is, he made it in through the fireplace, and he escaped with an old journal."

"A journal?" Johndrow said. "What does a journal have to do with Vanessa? How do you know it's the same person at all?"

"It wasn't just any journal," Donovan answered. "It belonged to a French alchemist named Jean Claude Le Duc. He was a very single minded man a the volume is not a thick one. It is concentrated on the formula for a single spell, and Le Duc never lived to see that spell put into use."

"What spell?" Johndrow asked. "That name is familiar, but I can't quite place it."

"It should be familiar," Donovan said. "The formula is for the Perpetuum Vitae potion, and the ingredient that caused Le Duc's death?"

There was a hiss on Johndrow's end of the line. "The blood drained from a vampire," he whispered. "From a very old vampire."

"Vanessa fits that description," Donovan said, softening his tone. "She's in more danger than you realized."

"But surely," Johndrow said, "There are other difficult items on that list. Could he have gathered them all without drawing attention to himself?"

"It might have been a problem to find that out," Donovan replied, "if technology hadn't become so advanced. I scan all of the books I acquire into my computer before putting them on the shelves. It allows me to preserve very old and fragile texts, and to protect against an emergency. I have a copy of the formula, and I don't believe he's quite got everything he needs. We have some time, though not a great deal of it. The blood must be extracted immediately preceding the mixing process, so we can expect he is keeping Vanessa a alive -- until he's ready."

"What does he need?" Johndrow asked. "If I knew..."

"Let me handle that," Donovan cut in. There was silence on Johndrow's end.

"This is what you are hiring me to do," Donovan continued. "I will have a better chance of tracing this without others blundering around muddying the waters, and despite what just happened here, I have the better chance of saving her once I've found her. Even if you managed to track him, what would you do? I have your letter a I know what happened with Kline."

"What happened with Kline is the reason I don't feel comfortable trusting this to only one man," Johndrow replied. "Kline's people have resources, and I can call in my own people..."

"Kline's people are not trained to work in the field," Donovan replied calmly, "and your own people aren't trained for this type of work at all. Let's be honest, Preston, it's been a long time since any of your kind has needed to march into real battle. Even the elders, yourself included, are decades from the last serious conflict. This is what I do, let me handle it."

"I will give you two days," Johndrow replied. "I won't lose her through foolish trust."

"I understand," Donovan replied. "I don't want this guy succeeding any more than you do, though admittedly for selfish reasons."

"Keep me informed, Mr. DeChance," Johndrow said softly. "Don't leave me sitting at home and wondering. Idle hands, you know..."

"I'll be in touch," Donovan replied. He hung up the phone and stared at the wall.

He slid the computer's keyboard and mouse back into place and tapped the keyboard. When prompted, he logged in and watched as the machine loaded. He smiled as mechanical drives whirred, lights flashed, and complex patterns of logical numbers whirled through machine. Men could say what they wanted about magic not existing, but they understood the concepts of ritual and reaction quite well. Their methods were slow and relatively crude, but the outcome was solid and workable. The Personal Computer was one of the finest magical achievements of the age.

Once the logon sequence ended he opened the encryption software he used to scramble the more esoteric texts he'd scanned. The computer had more than standard firewall protections, and a number of enhancements that had nothing to do with microchips or wires. A series of symbols rotated into place on the screen, and in the center a large gold colored disk spun lazily. At each point corresponding with the correct pattern, Donovan tapped the b.u.t.ton on his mouse, and the disk slowed, stopped, and then spun the opposite direction. After seven flip-flops, there was a sound like a key sliding into a lock, and the disk spun inward, disappearing from the screen. What appeared was a single folder, and Donovan opened this quickly.

He flipped through the directories until he found one t.i.tled "Journals" and opened this, then chose Le Duc's ma.n.u.script. The pages had been scanned in at very high resolution, and the program he viewed them in had singularly amazing magnification properties, as well as a translation algorithm Donovan had designed himself. Alchemy in the twenty-first century, he liked to call it. An electronic philosopher's stone.

The ma.n.u.script was not difficult to read. The French was archaic, but the script was clear and clean, and Le Duc had taken great pains to separate the lines evenly and to make no mistakes. Mistakes in such a text could be disastrous, at the one end causing a spell to fail with no result, and at the other sending forces crashing out of control. Le Duc had been meticulous to the end.

The formula itself had been developed over a long period of trial and error, gathered piece by piece from a wide variety of sources. Donovan recognized several of the sources cited, and had to admit that for a fanatic, Le Duc had been very clever. It was unfortunate when such genius coupled itself with a sociopathic disregard for life or the fragile lines of balance that held the world together.

There were six ingredients in all. Two of them were simple powders that anyone could have located. Donovan knew he could a.s.sume that these had already been collected. That left three ingredients to go. One of those, Vanessa, had already been scratched off the list. The remaining three might pose more of a problem.

A certain crystal was required for the wand that had to be manufactured for this spell. It was one of the rarest of stones, and Donovan knew the location of the only store of it that was known. It was, coincidentally or not, held in San Valencez a very likely this unknown magician knew this well enough, and had planned his a.s.saults to confine them to the smallest area possible. Either that or it was pure luck. In any case, Donovan did not worry immediately about the theft of the crystal. He turned his concentration on the final ingredient.

Next was an extremely rare item. The spell required a pair of perfectly matched Timeline Crystals. These were used in the creation of certain higher level portals, and were cherished for their rarity, and for the complexity of preserving their potential. There was a pair in San Valencez, but it was not accessible. Not without an army, anyway, and certainly not after Donovan warned their owner of trouble to come.

That left the final ingredient. He frowned. "The dust formed of the marrow of the spinal cord of a priest who has performed both last rites and exorcism."

This was a truly problematic ingredient. It would only be stockpiled by a necromancer, and there were less than a handful of these unsavory wizards in existence. It was possible to retrieve the powder without the aid of necromancy, but grave digging posed problems of its own, and the circ.u.mstances of the priest's life and death needed to be rather singular. Of the existing necromancers, Donovan could think of neither an easy mark for extortion, nor one likely to give this sort of a.s.sistance to any other. Necromancers were more comfortable with their once-dead companions.

That left the more direct approach. If he could locate a priest that fit the description in the formula, the thief could extract the powder himself. It wouldn't' be easy. The Last Rites were not rare, but there had been few sanctioned exorcists over the past century, and a crackpot wouldn't do. There was also the fact that relics recovered from such graves were rare, powerful and valuable. That meant that every collector in existence would cherish them and the older graves from days when exorcism was more common, would have been sought out and violated long ago.

In modern times, the ritual was still practiced, though rarely. If he moved quickly enough, Donovan knew he'd be able to localize possible gravesites for a source of the powder. Maybe, with his connections and the additional electronic resources he commanded, he could find such a grave more quickly than their unknown thief could manage it. It was hard to believe that others would band together with anyone proposing to cast such a spell as the Perpetuum Vitae, because it benefited only he or she who cast it. It wasn't the kind of magic one shared, and if he was forced to work on his own, or with secretive mercenary a.s.sistance, then Donovan's new enemy was at a disadvantage. No one who heard what was going on would want the spell to succeed.

There was no time to lose. Donovan rose, gathered a few objects from the shelves that he tucked into his pocket, and double-checked the security wards. Before he left, he picked Cleo up unceremoniously and plopped her into the center of the symbol on his desk. The cat meowed at him, possibly in complaint, possibly just in irritation, but he paid no attention.

"I need your help, Cleo," he said softly. "You need to find Amethyst. Tell her I missed her, and then warn her about what happened here. Tell her I'll be in contact soon."

Cleo returned his gaze unblinkingly. Donovan closed his eyes and raised one hand. In an intricate and graceful scrawl, he drew symbols in the air. These gathered substance, like silver mist, or smoke, and when he drew his finger down with a final slash and spoke aloud, reciting in ancient Egyptian, the mist whirled in a circular motion around Cleo, who sat very still, never breaking eye contact. The mist spun faster, thickened into a milky white wall, and then, with a sudden release of energy that sounded like the popping of a huge bubble, it was gone.

No trace of Cleo remained on the desktop. Donovan turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the night. The sun was just dipping beneath the horizon, and he knew Club Chaos would soon be opening their doors.

SIX.

Vanessa swam lazily up through darkness toward consciousness. Her thoughts were a cloudy fog of half-memories and unlikely images. She remembered the party. She remembered the beat of the music, flowing through the walls and the floor and shimmering through the air. She remembered Preston's speech before he shared the bottle he'd been so proud of, the wine with Byron's blood. Had it been too strong? Had she taken her share, admittedly larger than the others had received, walked blithely away, and pa.s.sed out?

No. There was more, she knew there was more, but she couldn't bring it to the surface of her mind. She opened her eyes and the room before her spun. She blinked, tried again, and managed to focus weakly. The walls were dark and gray; cold polished stone where there should have been deep, rich paneling. The air was dank, and she was hungry a hungry like she hadn't been in years. She was also alone.

Vanessa drew on the strength of centuries and focused her mind. When she moved, there was a clink of metal. She glanced down and found that her wrists, and her ankles, were manacled. The chains that were attached to these bonds disappeared into small recesses in the stone wall to the left of the cot she lay upon. She sat up, sending the chains rippling over the side of the hard, thin mattress pool on the floor.

The room was empty. Other than the cot a long, empty table, and a ma.s.sive wooden door on the far wall, nothing broke the stark emptiness of the cell. That was what it was. For all its size a the walls stretched what must have been twenty feet to an arched ceiling. Was she in a tower? It seemed so, but she hadn't seen such a tower since castles had been in vogue.

As she sat, taking in her surroundings, the last of the cobwebs cleared from her mind. Whatever had happened, it wasn't because of the effect of a mixture of blood and wine. She vaguely remembered having stepped into the kitchen. There had been a younger guest, perhaps a century, though for some reason it had been difficult to be certain. He had asked to see more of the house, and though she knew he was only flirting, and that she would have to extricate herself fairly quickly, the urge to tease him had been impossible to ignore. She'd stepped through the kitchen and into the hall. Kline was there, standing beside the elevator, and she'd been about to speak to him when something hit her from behind.

The blow wasn't a physical one. Her mind had simply blanked. She had no idea what had happened to Kline. She vaguely recalled the face of the young one she'd been with, but she couldn't remember who he was, or why he'd been invited. She knew that she'd never seen this tower before.

The chains clinked again, and Vanessa stared down at them contemptuously. Whoever had put her in this room was a fool. She rose, gripped the chain where it snapped onto a ring on one manacle, and yanked at it with incredible strength. The metal, rather than snapping, gave slightly under the pressure. Vanessa frowned. She tried again, twisting this time to break the link closest to her wrist, but again the chain proved flexible. It spun with her twist, and when it snapped back into place the jolt threw her across the cot and into the stone wall.

Real fear stole through her for the first time. She tore frantically at the chains, pressed her feet into the wall and dragged at them, but they did nothing more than flex slightly. They were enchanted, and whatever effort she made to remove or snap them reversed painfully, until she was crying out with rage and pain.

The door opened and a man stepped into the room. He stayed carefully out of reach near the door, and smiled at her. Vanessa stopped struggling, slid off the cot in a single fluid motion and stood. She returned his gaze evenly. She was frightened, but she wasn't going to give her captor the satisfaction of seeing it in her expression.

She still wore the evening gown she'd turned heads with at Preston's party, and the seemingly impossibly high heels were still strapped around her slender ankles. She stood very still and gauged the distance between them against the length of her chains.

He was not undead. She knew this the second he entered the room. His blood pumped hot and inviting through veins very much alive. It was rich blood, and old. She scented power and tasted strength.

Vanessa took advantage of the silence to study him. He was at least six feet tall, had long, silver blonde hair and gray eyes. He was slender and moved with casual grace. She thought he was used to giving orders and being obeyed. She'd seen the same haughty arrogance in others. Most of them were dead. She saw just the hint of the guise he'd worn when he tricked her into the hallway. Whoever he was, he'd slipped past Kline's defenses and spirited her right out of Johndrow's supposedly secure penthouse.

"So," he said at last, stepping a bit closer, "you are awake at last. It's a pity we have to meet under such circ.u.mstances. I've heard stories for years of your beauty, but never had the opportunity to verify it for myself. The rumors did you little justice."

"You brought me here to admire me?" she asked, turning toward him, but making no move to approach. "Surely it would have been easier to contact my husband and arrange to meet. He is a very social creature."

"And not," the man countered, "overly bright. He should check his guest lists more carefully."

"You weren't on that list," she replied with certainty.

"No," he admitted with a slow smile, "I was not. However, appearances can be deceiving. Your lover's security was quite good a the best in the business, I'm told, but they were not looking for your guests, were they? They were looking for something, or someone, unexpected."

Vanessa remained silent.

"No guesses? Well, I'll tell you then. That old friend of yours, Margot, is that her name? She took a new lover recently. But of course, you knew that a the two of them were invited to the party. He wasn't long 'in the blood,' but he was certainly good for her ego. I believe that's how she put it, anyway. It was a shame to end his existence so soon a so early in his second life. Less than a hundred years since his death, and now he's gone. Margot never knew the difference.