The women's faces never changed during the speech, as if it were about someone else. They had stopped whipping the man. They just stood there watching him bleed.
"I found them dying in the temple from what had been done to them. I offered them life. I offered them vengeance. I made them gods, and then we hunted down the strangers that had raped them, the ones that left them for dead. We took each of them, made them one of us, so their punishment would last forever. But my teyolloquanies were too strong for most of them. There were twelve of them once. Now only two remain."
Itzpapalotl looked at me, and there was a challenge in her face, a look that demanded an answer. "Do you still feel pity for him?"
I nodded. "Yes, but I understand hate, and revenge is one of my best things."
"Then you see the justice here."
I opened my mouth, Edward's hand tightened on my arm, until it was painful. He forced me to think before I answered. I'd have been careful, but he didn't know that.
"He did a terrible, unforgivable thing. They should have their revenge." In my head I added, though five hundred years of torment seemed a bit much. I killed people when they deserved it, anything beyond that was up to God. I just didn't think I was up to making decisions that would last five hundred years.
Edward eased up on my arm and started to let go of me, when she said, "So you agree with our punishment?" His hand locked back onto my arm, if anything tighter than before.
I glared up at him, hissing under my breath, "You're bruising me."
He let me go, slowly, reluctantly, but the look in his eyes was warning enough. Don't get us killed. I'd try not to. "I would never presume to question the decision of a god." Which was true. If I ever met a god, I wouldn't question their decision. The fact that I didn't believe in any god with a little "g" was beside the point. It wasn't a lie, and it sounded perfect for the situation. When you're prefabricating as fast as you can, it doesn't get better than that.
She smiled, and she was suddenly young and beautiful like a sudden glimpse of the young woman she must have been once. It was almost more of a shock than the rest. I'd expected a lot of things, but not Itzpapalotl to have retained even a shred of her humanity.
"I am very pleased," she said, and she looked it. I'd pleased the goddess, made her smile. Be still my heart.
She must have made some sign because the whipping continued. They beat him until the white of his spine showed through in places where the flesh had worn completely away. A human would have died long before they got that far, or even a shapeshifter, but the vampire was as alive as when they started. He had collapsed into a little ball, his forehead on the floor, arms trapped under his body, his weight resting on his legs. He was unconscious, but the body didn't fall over. It was propped up by its own weight.
Olaf was making a high-pitched hiss under his breath, fast and faster. If the circumstances had been different, I'd have said he was working up to an orgasm. If that was what he was doing, I so didn't want to know. I ignored him, or did my best to.
The werejaguar stood there through it all, nude, body going limp, the cut long healed as he watched the vampire's body torn apart. He watched it with a neutral face, but occasionally when a blow was particularly vicious, or when the first hint of bone showed through, he winced, gaze sliding away, as if he didn't want to watch but was afraid to actually turn his head away.
"Enough." That one word, and the whips stopped, drooping like wilted flowers. The silver balls had all turned crimson, and blood dripped from the end of the whips in slow spatters. The women's faces had never changed, as if the faces were just masks, and what lay underneath was inhuman and held all the emotions that the masks could not show. As if the monstrousness inside was more human than the human shells they wore.
The four women walked in a line to a small stone basin in the far comer. They dipped each whip into the water in turn, then ran their hands over each lash almost lovingly.
Olaf tried twice to speak, had to clear his throat, and finally said, "Do you use saddle soap and mink oil on the leather?"
The four women turned as one toward him. Then they all looked at Itzpapalotl. She answered for them. "You sound knowledgeable about such things."
"Not as knowledgeable as they are," he said, and he sounded impressed, like a Cellist seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform for the first time.
"They have had centuries to perfect their craft."
"Do they use their craft just on the bodies of the men who hurt them?" he asked.
"Not always," she said,
"Can they speak?" he asked. He was watching them as if they were something precious and lovely.
"They have taken a vow of silence until the last of their tormentors is dead."
I had to ask. "Are they executing them periodically?"
"No," she said.
I frowned, and the question must have shown on my face.
"We do not execute them. We merely harm them, and if they die of their injuries, then so be it. If they survive, then they live to see another night."
"So you're not going to give Diego any medical attention?" I asked.
Edward's hand had never let go of me during the torture as if he truly didn't trust me not to do something heroic and suicidal. His hand dug into me again, and I'd had my fill. "Let me the fuck go, now, or we are going to have a disagreement ... Ted." I wasn't feeling good about watching Diego bleed. I was feeling worse because it hadn't bothered me as much as I thought it should have. I'd have helped him if I could have, as long as it wasn't suicide He was a stranger and a vampire. I wasn't risking our lives for him, and that was that. Had there been a time when I would have risked us all, even for a strange vampire? I just didn't know anymore.
"Diego has survived far worse than this. He is the strongest of all of them. We broke all the others before they died. They did everything we asked them in the end. Except Diego, and still he fights us." She shook her head, as a dismissing it all. "But we must show you how it is to be done properly. Chualtalocal, show them how the sacrifice is to be embraced."
The vamp that stood at her right hand stepped forward. He walked around the fallen Diego as if he were a pile of trash to be avoided, and left for someone else to clean up. He faced the werejaguar as Diego had faced him, but things had changed. Seth had been all pumped up from having his ears sucked when he first stripped, hard and eager to please. Now he was just naked, and his eyes kept going to the bloody mess that Diego had become as if he was wondering when his turn was coming.
"Make your offering, my cat," she said.
Seth was looking from Diego's body to the vampire in front of me. "My holy mistress, I am willing, you know I am, but I ... I seem to be," he swallowed hard enough that I heard it even over the still faint ringing in my ears "I seem to be ... "
"Make your sacrifice, Seth, or suffer my wrath."
The four sisters weird had hung their cat o' nine tails on small hooks in the wall, all in a row like a sadomasochistic version of the seven dwarves with their identical possessions. They glided back towards us all, like sharks scenting blood in the water.
Seth seemed to know they were there. He actually grabbed himself and started trying to get some attention going, but his eyes were flicking wildly through the room as if looking for an escape. He was making the effort, but nothing was happening.
Edward wasn't holding onto my arm anymore, maybe that was it, or maybe I'd just had enough for one night. "You've scared him shitless. It's hard to get it up when you're scared."
She and Chualtalocal looked at me, and their black eyes held nearly identical expressions, not that I chanced looking into the eyes long, but it was still there, disdain. How dare I interfere?
Edward made as if to grab me again. I held up a hand to him. "Don't touch me."
He let his hand fall back, but his eyes were not happy with me. Fine, I wasn't happy with anyone right now.
"And are you offering to help him overcome his fear?" Itzpapalotl asked. The look on her face sa
id plainly that she didn't expect me to offer.
"Sure," I said.
I don't know who looked the most surprised, but I think it was Edward, though Bernardo was a close second from the doorway. Olaf just watched me like a fox watching a rabbit through the fence, who's just spotted a hole big enough to crawl through. I ignored him. It was probably best to always ignore Olaf, if possible. Ignore him or kill him. That was my vote.
I held my hand out to the werejaguar. He hesitated, glancing from the vamp in front of him, to me, to the goddess behind him. I wiggled my fingers at him. "Come on, Seth. We don't have all night."
"Go with her, do as she says, as long as you offer fitting sacrifice."
He took my hand, tentatively, and though he was a six foot plus, naked, man, there was something very little boyish on his face. Maybe it was the near panic in his baby blues. He was scared, scared that he was going to end up on the floor, meat for the four sisters weird. I didn't blame him for worrying. I think if I hadn't stepped in, that was exactly what was about to happen. But I'd had all the torture I could handle for one night. It wasn't moral outrage. It was just plain outrage. I wanted to ask my questions and get the hell out of here. Vampires can live a very long time, theoretically forever, which means their idea of getting down to business can be damn leisurely. The vamps might have had eternity. I didn't.
I led Seth the werejaguar off to the other side of the room. The easiest thing would have been to work him by hand, but I was like so not doing that. The option I was voting for wasn't that simple, but it was something I was willing to do. I was going to call that part of me that was Richard's mark. Not the connection to him -- that was safely walled away. I'd packed it so tight, I wasn't even sure I could open to the mark even on purpose. But I held a part of it inside me. The same part that had recognized Cesar, the same part that let me deal with the wereleopards back home. That electric rush of energy was a turn on to wereanimals. I'd discovered it accidentally. Now I was going to try and do it on purpose.
But it wasn't like a switch. Maybe someday it would be, but right now it took some preparation to get it going. It was maddening that something that came out at odd moments when I didn't want it, would refuse to come out when I did, but psychic shit is like that, unpredictable. It's one of the reasons it's so hard to study in laboratory conditions. X does not always equal Y.
I put my hands on my hips and looked at him, from head to foot, and didn't know where to start. My life would be both easier and harder if I was into casual sex, but for better or worse, it wasn't my cup of tea.
"Can you undo your hair?"
"Why?" He sounded suspicious, and I didn't blame him.
"Look, I could have let her turn you over to her pet torturers, but I didn't. So work with me here."
His hands went to the knot at the back of his head. He pulled long pins out of his hair, and finally a comb that was made of bone. The hair uncurled slowly as if it were stretching from some long sleep, sliding down his back in a heavy mass. I walked behind him and he started to turn and watch me. I touched his shoulder, made him face front. "I'm not going to hurt you, Seth. I'm probably the only person in this room that won't."
He kept his face front, but there was a tension to his shoulder, his back that said he didn't like it. I didn't care. We needed to do this fast. Call it hunch but the goddess didn't strike me as patient.
I unrolled his hair, helping it slide down his back. The colors were extraordinary, bright yellow, rich gold, a pale almost white, all of it streaked together, each color blending into the next the way sea water blends one color into the next, distinct but making a whole. I ran my hands through the thick warmth of his hair until it lay spread across his back, an inch past his waist. I grabbed two handfuls of hair and pressed it to my cheek. There was the close smell of sweat and the scent of the fur he'd worn. He had a cologne, faint on his skin, something so sweet, it smelled like candy. I spread the hair apart until I could see the skin of his back, and laid my face against the warmth of him. He smelled warm, as if you could sink your teeth into him like something fresh from the oven. I walked around him, hands trailing lightly over his skin, touching mostly the fall of that sun-streaked hair.
I came to stand in front of him, looked up into those wide, still half-afraid eyes, but a glance down his body showed that I'd made some progress, not enough, but some.
I didn't look at the vampires, or Edward, or anybody. I concentrated just on the man in front of me. To look elsewhere was to lose ground. I took his hand, and that pale golden tan looked darker against the paleness of my skin, I lowered my face over his hand as if I'd kiss it, but I brushed my lips barely against his skin, moving up his arm, breathing in the scent of his skin. I opened my mouth, laying my breath like a warm touch just above the skin of his arm. It raised the pale hairs on his arm in a march of goosebumps.
He flexed the hand I was holding, rolling me into his body with my back resting against the front of him. His other arm wrapped around from the other side, enfolding me in the warmth of his body. He laid his face on the top of my head, and a spill of his hair fell across me like a warm sweet scented curtain. The firelight danced through the gold of his hair, turning it into an amber cage, carved of light. He kissed the top of my head, then laid a gentle kiss against my temple, the top of my cheekbone, my cheek. He was so tall that in bending over he enveloped me in his body, covering me in the feel of him. The candy smell of his cologne breathed along his skin, and my body constricted with it. The smell was the key. The power spilled upward in a warm liquid rush that brought me to tiptoe, made me luxuriate against his body like a cat with catnip, wanting to roll my body in the scent. My body writhed against his as the power rode in almost painful waves, so warm, it was almost hot, rising off my body like invisible steam.
One hand stayed around my waist, the other touched my chin, turning my face back to meet his mouth. He kissed me, and for a second I stiffened, but I'd learned that if you called the power, you didn't fight it. You embraced it. If you fought it, then you had less control. I kissed him back. I expected the power to push out my mouth into his like it had with Cesar, but it didn't. The kiss was nice, but it was just the feel of his lips on mine. His warmth pushed against mine, his power like a trembling shadow spilling along mine. We stood wrapped in a curtain of his hair, a circle of arms, and a vibrating blanket of that skin-dancing power that was all shapeshifter.
He shuddered against me, arms hugging me close. I could tell he was ready for sacrifice without looking, but I had to glance down anyway. He was ready. I pulled free of him, gently. "You're ready to go back to the vamps, Seth. I think you're ready to make a sacrifice." I made myself look him in the eyes.
He bent and kissed my forehead, gently. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
We walked back to the vamps hand in hand. But it wasn't the vampires that made me uncomfortable as we crossed the room. It was the humans, Bernardo looked like he was reconsidering my status as untouchable Madonna. Olaf had an almost hungry look on his face. It was closer to the way werewolves looked at you on the night of full moon than the way a man looks at a woman. Edward had a slight frown between his eyes, which for him meant he was bothered by something. The vampires looked about like I'd expected. Itzpapalotl looked serious, as if she hadn't known I could call the power up on purpose. It's why they'd apologized for dragging me up on stage earlier.
I gave Seth over to Chualtalocal like a father handing the bride to the groom. Then I moved back to stand by Edward. He looked at me, as if he was the one trying to read me for a change, and failing. It was almost worth it, if I could confuse Edward.
"Did you enjoy yourself, my cat?" the goddess asked.
"Yes, holy mistress, I did."
"Are you ready to make sacrifice?"
"Yes, holy mistress."
"Then do so." She looked past him to me, as if she didn't like what she saw. Something about what I'd done with Seth had disturbed her. Had she expected me to take him off
in the corner and just do him by hand like a fluffer in a porno movie? Had the fact that I'd used power as well as mild sex disturbed her? Or had she seen something I hadn't, or understood something I did not? No way of knowing short of asking, and admitting that kind of ignorance to master vamps is a good way to get killed. So no questions about magic, just eventually, hopefully about the case.
Seth picked up the small silver blade again. He cradled his flesh in his hand and set the tip of the blade against himself. I caught Bernardo turning back towards the door. The blade tip bit into flesh, and I looked away. I think we all did, except for Olaf. It might have startled him the first time, but he was over the shock. Blood was being spilled, flesh being cut. Olaf couldn't miss that.
He watched the cutting, but then I caught him turning away out of the corner of my eye, and I had to look. I had to see what was bad enough for Olaf not to be able to stomach it.
The vampire had gone to his knees. I guess maybe I'd expected him to just lick the blood off, but he wasn't. He was sucking at it the way that Diego had sucked at Seth's ears, except this wasn't an ear. The vampire had covered almost every inch of Seth with its mouth. Seth's eyes were closed, and there was a look of concentration on his face.
I looked away again and found myself meeting the dead eyes of the four fallen nuns. Those empty, angry faces were almost harder to stare at than a vampire going down on someone. I literally turned my back on all of them and found that Olaf had done the same thing. He was hugging himself and staring at nothing. His discomfort rose off of him in almost visible waves. Even with his back turned, the sounds carried. I wished for the ringing in my cars to get worse.
Soft, sucking sounds, wet sounds, the sound of flesh in flesh, and the sharp intake of breath that was probably Seth. His breath came in three fast pants, and he spoke, "Please, holy mistress, I am not sure of my control tonight."
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