Karen Chance - [Cassandra Palmer 04] Read online

  Curse the Dawn

  Karen Chance

  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Karen Chance will enthrall you with her world of vampires, mages, and a fair maiden tough enough to kick their butts.”

  — USA Today bestselling author Rebecca York

  Praise for the Cassie Palmer Novels

  Embrace the Night

  “Cassie is a well-rounded character, and the intensity and complexity of the plot puts her through her paces physically, emotionally, and psychically.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “If you thought Touch the Dark and Claimed by Shadow were action-packed, well, buckle your seat belt. . . . Lara Croft would have a hard time keeping up. . . . Once again, Chance has written an action-packed story with very few places to put the book down for a night’s sleep.”

  —SF Revu

  “Quick pacing and imaginative use of some old mythologies blend into a captivating read that will leave readers clamoring for more.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Ms. Chance continues to expand her well-built world with time travel, fantastical beings, steamy romance, and the nonstop action her wonderful series provides. This is a fast-moving read that’s hard to set down, and it will no doubt leave readers eager for future installments in the Cassandra Palmer series.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Cassie is a great character. . . . As far as supernatural and paranormal series go, this is one of the best.”

  —The Romance Reader (five-star review)

  “Entertaining. . . . Subgenre fans who have not read Cassie’s saga should take a chance as these are well-written horror-fantasy tales.”

  —Alternative Worlds

  “A wonderfully refreshing step away from the cookie-cutter regime of the usual vampire novels . . . this novel has it all. Believable characters, descriptive settings, and thrills and chills kept this reader on the edge of her seat.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “Fast-paced and filled with faeries, kids, vampires, mages, ghosts, incubi, gargoyles, magic spells, evil plots, backstabbing, and surprises—this one follows the lead of the first two and adds in a bit more of each to ‘kick it up a notch,’ so to speak.”

  —Fantasy Book Spot

  “If you love vampires and you’re looking for something a little different, then you definitely need to check out this series. Karen Chance is easily becoming one of my top authors.”

  —Literary Escapism

  “Thrilling . . . each revelation adds intriguing twists to the already knotty plot. Highly entertaining.”

  —Romantic Times

  Claimed by Shadow

  “A nonstop thrill ride from beginning to end, a wildly entertaining romp with a strong, likable heroine. The story is fast-paced and barely lets up from the word ‘go,’ lightened with plenty of wry humor and more than a dash of romance.”

  —Rambles

  “Ms. Chance is a master . . . a series well worth getting hooked on.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A great writer of supernatural fantasy that is on a par with the works of Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, and Kelley Armstong.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Magic aplenty populates this fast-moving, rather dark tale of power, corruption, double-dealings, and painful attractions as Cassie comes to grip with her new role in this follow-up to Touch the Dark. It is nice to see a strong, capable heroine taking charge with a kick butt attitude while attempting to balance right and wrong in the face of impossible odds.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  Touch the Dark

  “Exciting and inventive.”

  —Booklist

  “Fast and heavy on the action, Touch the Dark packs a huge story. . . . A blend of fantasy and romance, it will satisfy readers of both genres.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “A very promising start to a new series, and an exceptionally entertaining first novel.”

  —Locus

  “A grab-you-by-the-throat-and-suck-you-in sort of book with ... sexy-scary vampires. I loved it—and I’m waiting anxiously for a sequel.”

  —Patricia Briggs, New York Times bestselling author of Bone Crossed

  “A wonderfully entertaining romp with an engaging heroine. Here’s hoping there’s a sequel in the works!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong

  “Karen Chance takes her place along with Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, and J. D. Robb to give us a strong woman who doesn’t wait to be rescued. . . . The action never stops . . . engrossing.”

  —SFRevu

  “[A] plucky heroine with special powers dealing with the supernatural . . . exciting and fun.”

  —Philadelphia Weekly Press

  “A fast-paced, entertaining adventure in the best tradition of contemporary supernatural fiction. . . . I look forward to seeing what Karen Chance does next.”

  —Emerald City

  “A fast-paced action novel that never lets up. . . . Karen Chance is one of the most original voices in paranormal fiction. . . . A ‘do not miss’ novel for fans of vampires or fans of great story-telling . . . compelling, heart-racing, [and] erotic.”

  —Pink Heart Reviews

  “Sexy vampires and interesting magical powers set up a thrilling and suspenseful environment in Touch the Dark . . . combines humor, action, and the paranormal into a scintillating story that will leave readers begging for more.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  ALSO BY KAREN CHANCE

  CASSIE PALMER NOVELS

  Touch the Dark

  Claimed by Shadow

  Embrace the Night

  Midnight’s Daughter

  To MBB

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Laurence P. Lehman for a fun conversation on voivodes.

  Chapter One

  Stalking a time traveler is hard work, even if you are one. Especially when said traveler totally has you made. “Can we talk?” I screamed as I dodged behind a column to avoid a spray of bullets.

  The woman hunting me through the cellar slung her flashlight beam in my direction. “Sure,” she said amiably. “Hold still for a second.”

  Yeah, right.

  My name is Cassie Palmer and a lot of people think I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box. My strawberry blond hair, which usually resembles Shirley Temple’s in a windstorm, is part of the reason. My blue eyes, slightly pudgy cheeks and tip-tilted nose might be another, except that most men’s gazes never make it up that far. But dumb blonde or not, even I wasn’t buying that one.

  My own weapon—a ne
w 9 mm Beretta—was crowding the waistband of my jeans and poking me insistently in the hipbone. I ignored it. Years from now, the woman with the gun would leave a little message that would save my life. I kind of wanted her to be around to write it. Not to mention that shooting people is a good way to ensure that they don’t want to talk to you, and we really needed to have a chat.

  “When did the Guild start employing women?” she demanded, getting warmer.

  I stayed utterly still, pressed against the back of one of the wooden columns holding up the roof. As hiding places go, it pretty much sucked, but there weren’t a lot of alternatives. The cellar’s walls were stone, except for areas that had been patched with brick. The ceiling was wood and flat, I guess because it served as the floor of the building above. And that was it, except for a few old barrels, some mildew and a lot of dark.

  Even empty, the place was big enough that she’d have trouble finding me if I stayed silent. On the other hand, it was going to be tough for us to have a conversation if I never said anything. “Look, you’ve obviously mistaken me for—” I began, only to have the wall behind me peppered with bullets.

  Stinging particles of brick and old mortar exploded out at me, and a few must have grazed my cheek because I felt a trickle of blood start to slide down my neck. The stillness after the gunfire made my ears ring and my nerves jump, and my hand instinctively closed over my gun. I dragged it back. I wasn’t here to shoot her, I reminded myself sternly.

  Although the idea was growing on me.

  “I thought you guys were a bunch of misogynistic assholes with delusions of grandeur,” she taunted.

  I stayed stubbornly silent, which seemed to piss her off. A couple bullets thwacked into the wood at my back, shaking the column. I bit my lip to stay quiet until I felt something like a firm pinch on my left butt cheek. A second later, the pinch blossomed into white-hot pain.

  My searching hand came back damp and sticky with streaks that looked black in the almost nonexistent light. I stared at it incredulously. I hadn’t been here ten minutes yet, and I’d already been shot in the ass.

  “You shot me!”

  “Come out and I’ll make the pain stop.”

  Yeah—permanently.

  She paused to reload and I scurried behind a nearby barrel. As cover went, it wasn’t much of an improvement, forcing me to hunker down against the cold, filthy floor to stay out of sight. But at least vulnerable bits of my anatomy weren’t poking out past the sides.

  I explored the gash in the back of my jeans. The bullet had only grazed me—what Pritkin, my war mage partner, would call a flesh wound. He’d probably slap a Band-Aid on it and tell me to stop whinging—whatever that meant—after he finished shouting at me for getting shot in the first place. But it hurt.

  Of course, it would hurt a lot more if she shot me again. I peered over the top of the barrel, hoping to talk some sense into her while she was temporarily unable to kill me. Instead, my attention was caught by movement near the stairs. The dim glow of her flashlight gleamed off the barrel of a semiautomatic that had reached out of the dark. That was a problem since we were currently in 1605 and that type of gun hadn’t been invented yet.

  Even worse, it was aimed at her head.

  “Behind you!”

  She didn’t hesitate. The flashlight went skittering across the stones, distracting the shooter, who blasted the hell out of it while she disappeared into shadow. One of the bullets went astray and hit a small wooden cask. It looked harmless, but it must have contained the equivalent of a few sticks of TNT. Because a deafening explosion was followed by a ball of orange flame smashing against the ceiling.

  Fire rained down everywhere, including onto the shooter’s hand and arm. The gun hit the floor and a man danced out of the stairwell, beating at the flames with his bare hands and shrieking. He also dropped a lantern that spun across the stones in lazy parabolas, lighting him up intermittently, like a strobe.

  He was a tall, lanky blond, with horsey features half hidden by a floppy hat. He wore a long dark vest, knee pants and a puffy shirt that was quickly going up in smoke. He managed to get the flames out by flinging off the vest and ripping open the shirt, revealing a pale torso and some singed chest hair. He bent to retrieve his fallen gun, and a bullet sheared off more hair, this time from the top of his head.

  He tore off his hat and stared at the hole in the crown as if wondering how it got there. The woman demonstrated by firing again, but he must have been a mage, because he’d managed to get his shields up. Her bullets hit them and hung there, a few feet away from his body, starfishing out from the impact points. He stared at one that would have taken him straight between the eyes and gave a little shriek.

  It didn’t look like he was all that accustomed to gunfights, because his concentration wobbled. His shields went with it, and the suspended bullets dropped to the floor, rattling against the stones like beads. He snatched up his gun with adrenaline-clumsy fingers and got off a few random shots in our direction before stumbling through a doorway near the stairs. He never stopped screaming.

  The woman kicked a few burning scraps of wood aside and emerged into the dim puddle of light given off by the lantern. She retrieved her flashlight and clicked it a few times, but nothing happened so she sighed and stuffed it into a pocket of the coat she wore. It was camel-colored wool and looked warm, I noticed enviously. Underneath she was wearing a lavender silk dress with a wrapped top and calf-length flared skirt. She looked like June Cleaver out for a night on the town, if June had accessorized with firearms.

  This was the first time I’d seen her clearly, and I took a second to adjust my mental image. Our last meeting had also been on a time shift, but she’d been traveling in spirit instead of in body and had chosen to appear as a young woman. She didn’t look that different in the flesh. Her brown hair was streaked with silver now and there were fine lines around her eyes and mouth. But her body was as slim as ever and her current expression—exasperated amusement—was eerily familiar.

  “Come out. I won’t hurt you,” she promised.

  “You mean again?” I asked nervously.

  “You’re hiding behind a barrel filled with gunpowder. If I wanted you dead, I’d just shoot it,” she told me with a deep under-note of duh.

  She was tapping her foot impatiently and had lowered the weapon. That might not mean anything, but the fact was, I hadn’t come here to cower in the dark. No matter how good that sounded. Besides, I didn’t think she was kidding about the gunpowder.

  I slowly emerged. “Where did I shoot you?” she demanded.

  “In the butt.” Her lips quirked. “It’s not funny!”

  “If you say so.” She looked me over. My outfit was more appropriate than hers for crawling around a damp cellar, except for not including a coat. I was wearing jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt that said “I Took the Road Less Traveled. Now Where the Heck Am I?” Yet for some reason, she looked perfect while I’d ripped the knee out of my jeans and had black stuff all over my arms. I held my wrist up to my nose and smelled it.

  She hadn’t been kidding.

  “You’re playing hide-and-seek in a cellar full of gunpowder?” I demanded incredulously, desperately brushing at myself.

  “A cellar full of gunpowder that an idiot is trying to blow up,” she corrected. “So I’m a little tense right now. Who are you and why are you here?”

  Now that the moment had arrived, I didn’t quite know where to start. “It’s complicated,” I finally said.

  “It always is.” She headed for the door where the mage had disappeared, gun in hand. “You aren’t Guild.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” I said, jogging to keep up. “Is that who we’re hunting?”

  “That’s who I’m hunting. I don’t know who—or what—you are.” She snagged the abandoned lantern and shoved it at me.

  I took it gingerly, worried about powder residue near an open flame. It was a weird little thing, shaped like a large beer stein, with a
black metal body and a door that could be opened or closed to control the light. I opened it all the way, but it didn’t help much. “I’m Cassie. And, uh . . . I’m sort of Pythia.”

  That stopped her. Her sharp blue gaze swept over me again. “Don’t think so,” she said curtly.

  The Pythia was the supernatural community’s chief Seer and, as a bonus, also the person charged with maintaining the integrity of the time line. It would have been a crappy job even if I’d had the faintest idea what I was doing. Since I didn’t, it was also really dangerous.

  My assailant was named Agnes, AKA Lady Phemonoe, the former Pythia. She was the one who had stuck me with this mess and then died before she could give me any training. As a result, I’d spent the first half of my first month in office trying to get out of the deal and the rest of it running for my life. So it had taken me a while to realize the obvious: I was a time traveler now, whether I liked it or not. Agnes’ death didn’t necessarily mean she couldn’t train me. She just had to do it in the past.

  I hadn’t intended for it to be quite this far in the past, but she was always surrounded by people in her own time. And most of them were the types who might recognize and resent another time traveler. Getting her alone had been tough.