Masks

Chapter Forty-Six

Mircea managed to get the sword up in time. But a vampire’s bite is the strongest part of their body, almost impossible to break, and the result was . . . not as he’d intended. Venom slid along the blade, like elongated golden teardrops, milked from fangs that had bitten the metal so delicately they hardly seemed to be touching it.

And yet had stopped it cold.

Mircea looked up into cold, dark, expressionless eyes. They had about as much life in them as the featureless voids in the larve mask Sanuito had worn. The ghost mask he’d chosen on the night he knew he was to die.

Mircea had never killed a woman before. Had always forbidden it to his men, thinking it barbarous, unthinkable, cruel. That had held true even on the rare occasions when they had been combatants.

He found that he had no trouble at all with the idea of killing this one.

The problem was not of will, but of strength, as Mircea soon realized. Marte’s hands slid to either end of the sword, closing over his own. Keeping the blade motionless as she pulled back, licking the blood from the only wound he’d managed to inflict—a tiny cut on her lips.

And freeing her fangs for other things.

But biting him required getting to him. He saw her puzzle it out, leaning forward, trying to reach first his neck, and then either hand. She only needed the tiniest bit of exposed skin—anything would do. But nothing was close enough to reach without either letting go of her hold or loosening it by contorting her body awkwardly.

And as soon as she did, she was dead.

Or at least decapitated. It wouldn’t kill one as old as her, at least according to everything Mircea had ever heard. But that was all right.

He thought it might be a little difficult to bite the senator with her head on the other side of the room.

So Mircea was pushing upward with everything he had, but all he was doing was managing to keep the status quo. She couldn’t come closer, couldn’t release the blade, but he couldn’t seem to move it, either. Not even the short distance needed to cut her throat.

And so they stayed, locked in combat, equal in strength and determination. But with one big difference. Marte was unharmed, unbloodied, save for the small cut that had already healed. Whereas Mircea had given everything he had to the fight, to the point that he couldn’t even close the wounds the officer had inflicted.

He could feel them leaking on the stones underneath him, a sluggish, steady flow, and the last of his strength was draining away with them.

All Marte had to do was wait.

He, on the other hand, had to come up with yet another idea, with a mind fogging over and the edges of his vision starting to pulse and his hands already beginning to shake.

And, of course, she noticed, and a slight smile curved the crimson lips.

“You should have left,” she told him, bearing down. “Such a waste.”

“Like your life?” Mircea asked, panting in the effort of holding her off.

“My life is just beginning. Once she’s dead—”

“You will be, too. Do you really think they’ll let you live? The assassin of a senator?”

“I think . . . it may not be an issue,” she said, tilting her head.

A moment later, a voice rang out, unnaturally loud and echoing. There was no one there, no one in the cavernous space but the two of them. But Mircea could hear it as clearly as if someone had been standing over them.

“Great Antony is dead. Great Antony is dead. The contest resumes with the remaining contenders.”

“It seems I may have overestimated her,” Marte said, pleased. She looked back down at Mircea. “But even if she does survive, it won’t matter. I’ll be waiting. A weak servant, little more than a human, no one to worry about. Just a charming child, running to assist her exhausted mistress—”

“Running how?” Mircea snarled. “The moment you move, I’ll take your head. You can bite me, but you can’t prevent that.”

“Can’t I? You haven’t seen my bite.”

“But you have seen my swordsmanship. I only need an instant—”

“You won’t get it. Why do you think I put so much effort into that damned antidote? Without it, you not only wouldn’t have gotten to her, you wouldn’t have gotten out the door! You won’t have the time—or the strength—to do any—”

She cut off as a commotion started up somewhere nearby.

“You puling pustule on a donkey’s arse,” a man’s voice roared. “Let me go!”

From the corner of his eye, Mircea saw a terrible, misshapen creature appear at the end of the hall leading from the arena. It was backlit by swirling sand, too tall to be a human, with unnaturally elongated arms and an odd, shambling gate. Which he finally realized was caused by one person being carried across the shoulders of another.

One exasperated other who dropped his burden unceremoniously in a heap just inside the hall.

“Enough!” a man said, and Mircea recognized the bald head of the official who had been presiding over the contest earlier. “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Great Antony is dead!”

“I’m not dead, you maggoty piece of scrofulous pig flesh—”

“For the purposes of the contest you are. Once you can no longer move on your own, the rules clearly state—”

“I can move, you stupid son of a whore! I can crawl, if I have to. Where’s my sword? Somebody give me a sword—”

“If you can crawl, then crawl out of here,” the official said nastily. It was obvious who he favored in the contest. “And your sword was thrown clear of the arena.”

“Then go get it, you bastard!”

“Get it yourself. There’s nothing in the rules requiring me to—”

“There’s nothing preventing it, either!”

“Your legs are crushed,” the man hissed. “Your right arm lies useless. You are dead, my lord. And soon your lady will be, too. I have taken my last command from you!”

The official left, disappearing back into the arena. But only because he’d passed into an area not visible from the doorway. The blowing veils of sand were too thin now to hide anything.

Marte noticed, too. “To think, I went to all this trouble, and he may kill her for me. But either way . . . it’s over, Mircea. My venom is deadly enough that it only takes a scratch. And I don’t think you can hold out much longer.”

Mircea didn’t think so, either.

But through the gathering fog in his mind, he did think something else.

“The venom . . . is on the blade. Perhaps . . . I’ll knick you first.”

She laughed. “Idiot. I already told you. I’m immune to my own poison!”

“Yes,” Mircea rasped, staring for the last time into those dark, dark eyes. “But you hadn’t told him. Antony!”

The brunet at the end of the hall had been looking this way, squinting into the darkness. And then a hand shot up, to catch the sword Mircea was struggling to throw him. But Marte had more strength than he’d had expected, or he was weaker than he’d thought, because she hung on. And then she wrenched the sword away, knocking him back brutally when he lunged for it and swinging it up—

Only to pause, mid-movement, with a strange look on her face. And then to glance down, where something protruded from the front of her gown. Something red-tipped and wood-hard, tearing the fabric of her dress right over the heart.

And drenching it red.

“Go!” someone yelled, from the shadows behind Marte.

It looked like Auria’s auburn head, but he couldn’t be sure, and it didn’t matter. Only one thing did. He scrambled back to his knees, grabbing the sword as Marte struggled with the assailant behind her. Who went staggering back a moment later, from a blow hard enough to have killed a human.

But the movement had cost Marte purchase on the weapon. And with the last of his strength, Mircea wrenched it away and threw it, in a tumbling arc. Light flashed along the blade, and it was a beautiful thing, gilt edged and running with reflected fire.

“No!” Marte screamed, at the same moment that Antony’s fist closed around the pommel. And then sent it flying again almost immediately, into the huge tail that whipped by, throwing up an arc of sand.

But not so thickly that Mircea couldn’t see the sword pierce the heavy hide, like one great fang sinking deep.

Mircea felt smaller ones slide into his throat at almost the same instant, felt his veins start to burn, felt consciousness slipping away.

But not before he saw the huge creature in the arena begin to flail. And fall. And writhe in apparently agony as a slim figure in white approached.

She never lifted a hand. Never did anything that Mircea could see. But the sand-filled wind gathered around the great body, in swirling, lashing exuberance. In seconds, it was black no more, but red, the skin scoured off by the relentless assault. And then there was too much sand to see, wrapping the colossal form in a swirling mass of gold, like a great cocoon.

Or perhaps a mummy’s wrappings would be more accurate. For, when the winds howled their last, and the dust faded, and their work was revealed . . . There was nothing left but an elongated skeleton, still rearing into the sky.

And then falling to earth, the bones rattling apart to rain down on the sand at the senator’s feet.

No, not the senator, Mircea thought, as she looked up and then around at the screaming, hysterical crowd, her beautiful face as impassive as ever.

The consul.