it was a trap it meant Lorcan’s cover was blown. Someone had seen through the aimless veneer he worked so hard to preserve. The Irish wanderer guise had slipped somewhere along the way. Lorcan shrugged. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long.
A movement on the hillside caught his attention and he turned his head. A car so battered it looked as if it was held together with string and candle wax screeched to a halt, throwing up clouds of red dust in its wake. The head that thrust through the open driver’s window wore a battered fez and a grin as wide as the Strait of Gibraltar itself.
“Taxi for Malone?”
“Ali!” Lorcan sprang up from the scrubby grass. “Tell me it’s not yourself who has kept me kicking up my heels in this sorry place. Because if it is you’re a dead man, my friend.”
“Get in and save your bluster for someone who cares.” Ali threw open the passenger door. Tossing his backpack in first, Lorcan slid into an interior that smelled of cheap tobacco and cheaper aftershave. Before he could even close the door, Ali screeched off again in the direction of the city. Lorcan had been in Tangier long enough to become acquainted with the rules of the road. There were no rules. There were no seat belts either. Not in this car, anyway.
“Out with it. What’s going on?” If Ali was involved, at least Lorcan could be reasonably confident this wasn’t a trap. Ali was a prominent member of the resistance movement and as fiercely anti-Moncoya as Lorcan himself.
Ali turned soulful brown eyes, made even darker by their sidhe ring of fire, toward him. Lorcan wished he’d keep them on the road, particularly as they were navigating a narrow cliff-top bend, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “There are friends of yours imprisoned in the catacombs beneath the Kasbah.”
Lorcan shook his head. “That’s not possible.” At Ali’s inquiring look, he elaborated. “I have no friends.”
“Be serious, necromancer. Unless you can get them out, these two men are finished come sunset tonight.”
“Why me? Why can’t the resistance here in Tangier do it?”
“You will see.” They had reached the center of the town now and Lorcan fell silent as all of his energy was required to regulate his breathing and cling to his seat. They tore across lanes of oncoming traffic, squealed around bends and finally slammed to a halt, narrowly missing oncoming cars, camels, pedestrians and several goats.
“Do your roads have lanes, traffic signals, anything that might give a clue about who has right-of-way?” Lorcan pried his fingers off the dashboard.
Ali grinned. “Scared, necromancer?”
“No. Bloody terrified.”
It seemed they were abandoning the car in the middle of the road. Unwinding his long frame from the tiny vehicle, Lorcan followed Ali into the crowded streets of the ancient Kasbah. His sidhe companion moved with confidence through a series of increasingly narrow alleyways while Lorcan shrugged off offers of food, watches, livestock and sexual favors. They passed stalls selling pungent spices and colorful woven carpets until Ali ducked through a mosaic-encrusted arch into a sandstone courtyard.
“This is the oldest part of the Kasbah.” Ali indicated the castellated fortress walls. “This building was a prison many thousands of years ago.”
“What is it now?” Lorcan’s voice echoed oddly in the confined space. Or perhaps it was just the effect of the silence after the bustle of the Kasbah.
Ali licked his lips and cast a glance over his shoulder. “A dark house.”
A dark house was a very specific portal, one that led directly to the darkest, seediest underbelly of Otherworld. There were other portals—harmless ones—all over the world. Some of them, like Stonehenge, made grand statements. Most were quieter. It was the dark houses that the resistance fought a relentless battle to close down. From the outside, this place didn’t have the feel of a dark house. Lorcan should know. He had been in more than his fair share over the years.
He glanced at the tiny square of blue sky that was still visible between the high sandstone walls. The sun was sinking from late afternoon into evening. Otherworld was closest at dawn and dusk. He should go, get out of here while he still could. Ali had said the two men had until sunset. Being a good guy never brought him easy choices.
He sighed. “Take me inside.”
The interior of the fortress was cool after the heat of a Moroccan summer day. Dust tickled Lorcan’s nostrils and caught in the back of his throat while something unpleasant crawled along his spine. And there it was. That dark house feeling. It was unmistakable. This one probably wasn’t used much anymore, which was why he hadn’t felt it instantly. They traversed empty corridors and passed ancient cells, their footsteps echoing in silence. The suffering of thousands of years hung heavy in the air.
“Down here.” Ali indicated stone steps hewn into the floor.
Lorcan gestured for the sidhe to go first. He might trust Ali, but he had done this sort of thing too many times. There was trust and there was gullibility. Lorcan knew which he preferred. They descended into total blackness. Lorcan extended a hand and light flickered around them.
Ali gave an appreciative whistle. “I like the way you necromancers do that.”
“We aim to please.”
They reached a circular dungeon and Ali stepped back, allowing Lorcan to move into the center of the room. On one wall two men, both naked from the waist up, were suspended by manacles around their wrists. One was so badly beaten Lorcan could barely make out his features. He hung unconscious between his restraints. The other man raised his head as Lorcan approached. His lips curved into something that was almost a smile.
“They promised you would come. It is too late for me, but there is still time to save my master.” His voice was heavily accented.
“My God, Dimitar, what the hell has happened here?” Lorcan hurried forward. He was brought up short as Dimitar turned his head, revealing the telltale marks on his neck. There was no mistaking the puncture marks made by repeated vampire bites, even in the gloom of the catacombs.
“Prince Tibor never forgave me for deserting him and choosing Jethro as my master instead. This is his revenge.” Until the recent battle, Dimitar had been the human slave of the all-powerful Prince of the Vampires.
“Has he also been bitten?” Lorcan jerked a thumb in the direction of the unconscious man. He could see now, from his height and muscular physique, that it was Jethro de Loix, his fellow sorcerer. The mercenary who gave necromancing a bad name by selling his skills to the highest bidder. When he told Ali he had no friends, he wasn’t being entirely honest. He had Cal, and these two men had saved his life in the heat of the battle to reclaim Otherworld from Moncoya’s bloodthirsty ambitions. Some things went even deeper than friendship.
“Only once. He is stronger than I. After the first time, he resisted and used his powers against the vampires. They chained him and brought their human servants to beat him each night. They promised me I would watch him die tonight.”
“I don’t understand. A mortal has to willingly invite the vampire’s first bite.”
“There was a woman...” Dimitar cast a sorrowful glance in Jethro’s direction.
Lorcan
