Obsidian Butterfly ab-9

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The vamps stopped about eight feet from us. The dead vampire lay on the floor between us. The body had already stopped bleeding. When you take a head off of a vamp, they bleed just like a human, quarts and quarts of the red stuff. It is a freaking mess when you decapitate someone. But this vampire had bled only a small odd-shaped space on the stone floor, barely a foot across, and a second even smaller pool under the chest. Not nearly enough blood for what we'd done to him.

  The silence seemed thicker than it should have, and Olaf filled it. "You can check his pulse if you want."

  "Olaf, don't," Edward said.

  Olaf shifted, either uncomfortable, or fighting down the urge to do something worse than mouthing off. "You're the boss," he said, but not like he meant it.

  "I doubt this one had a pulse," I said, and I was looking at the vampires while I said it. "It takes energy to make a vamp's heart beat and he didn't have any."

  "You feel pity for him," Itzpapalotl said.

  "Yeah, I guess I do."

  "Your friend does not."

  I glanced at Edward. His face showed nothing. It was nice to know there were still some differences between us. I felt pity. He didn't. "Probably he doesn't."

  "But there is no regret in either of you, no guilt."

  "Why should we feel guilty? We just killed him. We didn't turn him into a crawling, starved thing."

  Even under the masking cloak, I could feel her grow still with that awful stillness that only the old ones have. Her voice came warm with the first thread of anger. "You presume to judge me."

  "No, just stating facts. If he hadn't been starved worse than any vamp I've ever seen outside of a coffin prison, he would never have attacked me." I also thought that they could have tried harder to get him off of me, but didn't say it out loud. I really didn't want to piss her off with eighty or so vamps waiting upstairs between us and the door. That wasn't even taking into account the werejaguars.

  "And if I told my starved ones that they could feed off of you, all of them, what would they do?" she asked.

  The starved vamp on the leash looked up at that. His eyes never stayed on anyone too long, flitting from face to face to face, but he'd heard her.

  My stomach jerked tight in a knot hard enough to hurt. I had to blow out a breath to be able to talk around the sudden flutter of my pulse. There'd been at least ten, fifteen of the starved ones. "They'd attack us," I said.

  "They would fall upon you like ravening dogs," she said.

  I nodded, hand settling more securely on the butt of my gun. "Yeah." If she gave the order, my first bullet was going between her eyes. If I died, I wanted to take her with me. Vindictive, but true.

  "The thought frightens you," she said.

  I tried to see her face in that hood, but some trick of shadow left only her small bowed mouth visible. "If you can feel all these emotions, then you can tell alie from a truth."

  She lifted her face, a sudden defiant movement. A look passed over her face, the barest flicker across that calmness. She really couldn't tell lie from truth. Yet she sensed regret, pity, fear. Truth and lie should have come in there somewhere.

  "My starved ones are useful from time to time."

  "So you starve them deliberately."

  "No," she said. "The great creator god sees they are weak and does not sustain them as he sustains us."

  "I don't understand."

  "They are allowed to feed as gods feed, not as animals."

  I frowned. "Sorry, I still don't get it."

  "We will show you how a god feeds, Anita." She said my name like it was meant to be said, making it a rolling three syllable word, making of the ordinary name something exotic.

  "Shapeshifter coming down," Bernardo said. He had his gun up and pointed.

  "I have called a priest to feed the gods."

  "Let him come down," I said. I looked at that delicate face and tried to read what was there, but there was nothing home that I could talk to, nothing I could understand. "I don't mean to be insulting, my apologies if I am being insulting, but we came here to talk about the murders. I would like to ask you some questions."

  "Your vast knowledge of things arcane and things Aztec has brought us to you," Edward said.

  I fought not to raise eyebrows at him, just nodding. "Yeah, what he said."

  She actually smiled. "You still believe I and my people are merely vampires. You do not truly believe that we are gods."

  She had me there, but she couldn't smell a lie. "I'm Christian. You saw that when the cross glowed. That means I'm a monotheist, so if you guys are gods, then it's something of a problem for me." That was so diplomatic, even I was impressed.

  "We will prove it to you, then we will offer you hospitality as our guests, then we will talk business."

  I've learned over the years that if someone says they're a god, you don't argue with them unless you're better armed. So I didn't try and get the business moved up. She was nuts and had enough muscle backing her in this building to make her brand of craziness contagious, or even fatal. So we'd do arcane vampire shit, then when the self-proclaimed goddess was satisfied I'd get to ask my questions. How bad could it be, watching them prove they were gods? Don't answer that.

  The werejaguar that came through the door was the blue-eyed blond with his golden tan that had first passed so near our table that I'd touched his fur. He came through the door with a neutral face, empty-eyed as if he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be here.

  His gaze took in the room, and hesitated over the dead vamp in the middle. But he fell to one knee in front of Itzpapalotl, his back to us and our guns, fur-covered head bowed. "What would you have of me, holy mistress?"

  I fought to keep my face blank. Holy mistress? Good grief.

  "I want to show our visitors how a god is fed."

  He looked up then, looking into her face. "Who am I to worship, holy mistress?"

  "Diego," she said.

  The brown-haired vampire startled at the name, and though his face was blank, empty, I knew he wasn't happy. "Yes, my dark goddess, what would you have of me?"

  "Seth will offer sacrifice to you." She caressed a delicate hand across the fur of the man's hood.

  "As you like, my dark goddess," Diego said. His voice was as empty as his face tried to be.

  The werejaguar, Seth, crawled on all fours, mimicking the animal whose skin he wore. He pressed his forehead to his hands, lying nearly prostrate at Diego's feet.

  "Rise, priest of our dark goddess, and make sacrifice to us."

  The werejaguar stood, and he was nearly half a foot taller than the vampire. He did something on the front of the jaguar skin, and it opened, enough for him to lift the headpiece over his head, so that the animal's sightless glass eyes stared back at us over the man's shoulders. The head flopped bonelessly like a broken-necked thing. His hair was a rich honey blond, sun-streaked, held back in a long club, woven back and forth so that it looked like a lot of hair, but held close to his head so the jaguar skin would slip on easily. It was just like the hairdo on the one who had gotten cut up by the priest back stage.

  "Turn so our visitors can see all," Itzpapalotl said.

  The men turned so we had a side view. The werejaguar's earlobes were covered in thick white scars. He drew a small silver knife from his belt, the hilt was carved jade. He placed the sliver blade against his earlobe, steadying it with his other hand and sliced it open. Blood spilled in scarlet lines on his fingers, down the blade, to drip on the shoulders of the jaguar skin.

  Diego went to the taller man, putting a hand behind his neck, and another at the small of his back. It looked oddly like a kiss, as he drew the werejaguar's head downward. The vampire's mouth sealed around the earlobe, drawing it and some of the ear into his mouth. His throat worked as he swallowed, sucking on the wound, drawing it down. The pale blue of his eyes had spread to a sparkling fire like palest sapphires sparkling in the sun. His skin began to glow as if there was white fire inside. The brown of his hair darke
ned, or maybe that was illusion because of how glowing white his skin had become.

  The werejaguar had closed his eyes, head thrown back, breath catching in his throat, as if it felt good. One of his hands lay on the vampire's bare shoulder, and you could see the pressure of his fingers in that pale, glowing flesh.

  Diego drew back, flashing fangs. "The wound closes."

  "Another offering, my cat," she said.

  The vampire moved back just enough for the other man to use the silver blade on the other ear. Then he fell on him, like a lover long refused. He drew back, eyes sparkling with blue light. He looked blind and heavy-lidded as he drew back from him. "The wound closes."

  It was actually interesting that the wound closed as fast as it did. Vamps had an anticoagulant in their saliva that should have kept it flowing, and silver should have forced the shapeshifter to heal human normal, but the wound was closing pretty fast, not fast enough to make me comfortable, but a lot faster than it should have. The only thing I could figure was that Itzpapalotl had somehow given her shapeshifters even more healing ability than a normal shapeshifter. Maybe normal silver bullets wouldn't work on them, not to kill them anyway. It was something to think about, just in case.

  "I want them to see what it is to be a god, Diego. Show them, my cat."

  The werejaguar opened a seam on the fur that looked almost like it was Velcroed shut. He slit open the front of the fur, having to stop and undo the belt that held knives and a small pouch. The belt dropped to the floor, and he slipped the fur down his body. The golden tan was an all over tan, complete with ... um, you know. Nude sun bathing, how unhealthy.

  The jaguar slipped out of the skin until he stood completely nude. He still had the silver knife in his hand. I didn't have a clue what he was about to use it on, but having to strip couldn't be a good sign. He cupped his own penis, and it had come out of the fur smooth and hard, excited. He put the point of the blade against that delicate skin and drew it in a thin crimson line. His breath ran out in a ragged gasp.

  It was echoed by me and Olaf. Bernardo said, "Shit!" Eeeyah. I don't think I had as much sympathy as the guys, but that had to hurt. Edward was the only one of us who hadn't made a sound. Either he knew what was coming, or nothing surprised him.

  "Diego," Itzpapalotl said, "show them what it means to be a god." There was a thread of warning in her voice, as if she were warning him to do his job. I wasn't sure why because Diego had seemed to thoroughly enjoy the ear sucking. Why wouldn't he do this?

  Diego dropped to his knees, and his face was very close to the offered blood, all he had to do was reach out and take it. But he stayed kneeling, staring at the cut flesh with eyes that still blazed pale blue fire. He stayed kneeling until the cut began to heal, and finally vanish as if the flesh had absorbed it. I'd never seen a shapeshifter heal silver that well. Never.

  Seth looked over his shoulder, one hand still around his naked penis, though it was beginning to wilt a little. "Holy mistress, what do you wish me to do?"

  "Sacrifice," she said, and there was enough heat in that one word to make me shiver.

  Seth put the blade point to his flesh again. It seemed harder to get a clean cut when he wasn't fully erect, but he managed. Blood spread in fine rivulets over his skin, staining his fingers with tiny hits of red.

  Diego stayed kneeling, but made no move to feed. The fire faded from his eyes, the glow leeched out of the skin, leaving him still lovely, a contrast of pale skin, dark hair, and blue eyes, but he looked defeated somehow, hands limp in his lap.

  The four women moved around behind Itzpapalotl, gliding as a unit until they stood in a half-circle behind the kneeling vampire. "You have disappointed me again, Diego," the goddess said.

  He shook his head and bowed it, eyes closing. "I am sorry for that, my dark goddess. I would not disappoint you for the sun and the moon itself." But his voice was tired when he said it, like it was a memorized line but his heart wasn't in it.

  The four vamps surrounding him pulled black leather bound rods from their belts, and lifted leather bags off the ends. Dozens of thin leather cords spread out from each bag like obscene flowers. Silver balls were braided in the cords so that they sparkled in the torchlight. It was a cat o' nine tails, except it had a lot more tails.

  "Why do you insist on refusing this honor, Diego? Why do you make us punish you?"

  "I am not a lover of men, my dark goddess, and I will not do this. I am sorry that my refusal pains you, but this one thing I will not do." Again, his voice was tired, as if he'd said all of it before, many times before.

  He was about five hundred years old, like the four women that surrounded him. Had he been turning the "honor" down for five centuries?

  The four women watched their goddess, not glancing even at the vampire at their feet. Itzpapalotl gave a small nod. Four arms went back, flaring the cat o' nine tails in a fan of silver and leather. They whirled it through the air like they knew what they were doing. They hit him in sequence, right to left, each whip landing a blow, then the next, the next, the next. The blows fell so close together it was like the sound of hard rain, except that this rain was smacking into flesh, and you could hear it thudding home. They whipped him until they drew blood, then they stood motionless around him, waiting.

  "Do you still refuse?"

  "Yes, my dark goddess, I still refuse."

  "When you raped these women long ago, did you dream of the price you would pay?"

  "No, my dark goddess, I did not."

  "You didn't believe in our gods, did you?"

  "No, my dark goddess, I did not."

  "You thought your white Christ could save you, didn't you?"

  "Yes, my dark goddess, I did."

  "You were wrong."

  His head hunched between his shoulders as if he were trying to draw into himself like a turtle. The metaphor was funny. The gesture was not. "Yes, my dark goddess, I was wrong."

  She gave another nod, and the women began to whip him in a blur that made the whips gleam silver like lightning in their hands. Blood ran in streamers down his back, but he never cried out, never asked for mercy.

  I must have made some movement, because Edward stepped close to me, not grabbing my arm, but touching it. I met his eyes, and he gave the barest shake of his head. I wouldn't really risk our lives for a vampire I didn't know, really I wouldn't, but I didn't like it.

  Olaf made a small sound. He was watching it with glowing eyes like a child at Christmas who comes down to find that he'd gotten exactly what he wanted. He'd put up the gun, his big hands clasped in front of him, clasped so hard they were mottled, and a fine tremor ran up his arms. I might not like it, but Olaf did.

  I glanced at Edward, sort of nodding to the big man. Edward gave the barest of nods. He saw it, too, but he was ignoring it. I tried. I caught Bernardo's eyes. He was staring at the big man, a look very close to fear on his face. He turned and concentrated on the stairs, turning his back on everything in the room. I'd have liked to join him, but I couldn't turn away. It wasn't just macho crap, you know. If Edward could stand to watch it, then so could I. Though there was a little of that. Mostly it was if Diego could endure it, I could watch it. If I wasn't going to stop it then I had to at least watch. To do nothing to help him and to turn away would have been too much cowardice for me to swallow. I'd have choked on it. The best I could do was try to watch other things around him. The way the women's arms went up and down like machines, as if they would never tire.

  The five guards stood impassive, but the vamp that walked at Itzpapalotl's right side watched it with half-parted lips, eyes intent as if afraid to miss even the smallest movement. He was almost as old as the goddess herself, seven, eight hundred years, and for five hundred of those years he'd been watching this particular show, and he still enjoyed it. I knew in that moment that I never wanted to make an enemy of the creatures in this room. I never wanted to be at their mercy. Because they had none.

  The other two Spanish survivors had mov
ed back to stand against the far wall, as far from the show as they could get. The one with salt and pepper hair stared at the ground as if there was something of great interest there. The starved one on his leash had curled into a fetal position, as if he were trying to disappear altogether.

  The women turned Diego's back into bloody ribbons. A red pool formed at his feet. He curled his upper body over his legs until he was like a little hull of pain. Blood began to drip down his shoulders to form a second puddle in front of him. He was weaving, even that low to the ground, as if he might pass out. I hoped he passed out soon.

  I finally did take a step forward, and Edward grabbed my arm. "No," he said.

  "You feel pity for him," Itzpapalotl said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Diego was one of the strangers that came into our lands. He thought we were barbarians. We were things to be conquered, robbed, raped, slaughtered. Diego never saw us as people, did you, Diego?"

  There was no answer this time. He wasn't exactly unconscious but close enough that he was beyond words. "You didn't think we were people, did you, Cristobal?"

  I didn't know who Cristobal was, but there was a high keening sound. It was the vampire on the leash. He unrolled from his tight fetal ball. The keening ended in that same awful laughter that I'd heard earlier. The laughter rose up and up until the vampire holding the leash jerked it tight, pulling him like you'd discipline a dog. I realized that the leash was a choke collar. Shit.

  "Answer me, Cristobal."

  The vampire let up on the leash enough for the starved one to get a ragged breath. His voice, when it came, was strangely cultured, smooth and sum "No, we did not think you were people, my dark goddess." Then the ragged laughter came from those thin lips, and he huddled around himself again.

  "They broke into our temple and raped our priestesses, our virgin priestesses, our nuns. Twelve of them raped these four priestesses. They did unspeakable, vile things to them, forced them with pain and threats of death to do whatever the men wanted them to do."