by Faith Hunter
She set the lantern on the black marble stone and held out her arms. “Better now? Do you like it?” She twirled slowly as if modeling the dress.
“Pretty,” he said.
“And me?” she said, sounding just a bit put out. Her lower lip was protruding in a pout.
“Pretty,” he said. And his voice croaked with thirst on the word. “Ohhhh. You’re thirsty.” He heard a little snick. The sound of fangs clicking down into place. “So am I.” Her voice dropped lower, suggestive, a sensual caress. Isleen was close enough now that he could see her eyes in the lantern light. Pupils blown, black as the devil’s heart, resting in the bloody sclera of her eyes. And something in the way she tilted her head, her blond hair falling in a long slow wave, looked . . . not quite right. The little vampire wasn’t just thirsty—she was hungry.
But instead of biting him, she brought the glass of water over and—sinking onto the dusty stone at his side—brought the red straw to his lips. He drank, a desperate sucking sound that she seemed to like. Her face softened into desire and she licked her lips, a flick of tongue between inch-and-a-half-long fangs. The straw had a bend, and she set it on the stone so that he could reach it by lifting his head and craning to the side. Curling his lips around the top, he again sucked deeply, and finished the water with a loud sputter of air through the straw, leaving only a dribble in the bottom.
He focused on Isleen. She was bent over his left wrist, her mouth open, breathing in the scent of his blood with a soft scree of sound, one with a muted moan of desire in it. Her tongue darted out and licked across the seeping wound, along the sides of his wrist and down the center of his palm. Almost instantly, the pain abated in his wrist. Pleasure trailed up his arm. His heart boomed hard, a bass drum in his chest, in his ears. He dropped his head back to the stone, breathing out a faint gasp of desire. And Isleen filled his field of vision, imprisoning him with her eyes, one hand splayed on his chest. “I like the way you tassste,” she hissed. “And you are mine now. Miiiine.” Isleen placed a slow kiss to the soft part of his belly where his rib cage ended and his belly began. He could feel his pulse pound there, in the huge artery just beneath her lips. Rick was quite certain that she was mad.
He fought his rising fear, knowing that she could smell it and could hear his heart pound, knowing his reactions would incite her predatory instincts. She laughed, the low, sensual sound vibrating deep through her lips into his belly.
Looking over her shoulder, Rick saw the barn door open. Only a crack, but the silence let him hope—for long, hopeless moments—that he might yet be saved. And then a small voice said, “I am here, mistress.”
Isleen rose and whirled so quickly it was dizzying, as if time stuttered and stumbled and he missed some vital second where she moved. She crouched and hissed. Stopped for a second and slowly stood upright. “You are late.”
“Yes, mistress. There was traffic.” When Isleen didn’t respond, the newcomer said, “I have my equipment.”
“You may begin. But first I will eat. To your knees, girl.”
Rick heard a soft thud as knees hit the earth of the old barn. The voice whispered even more softly, “I am yours, mistress. But I thought you wanted him bound to you by the end of the new moon.”
Isleen paused again, that otherworldly stillness that was another aspect of the Mithrans, the vampire race. It was a stillness that mimicked death, as inhuman as the speed with which they could move and as strange as the need for human blood. “And my drinking from you will impede this?”
“Even if you allowed me to drink from you, I am weak. You have fed deeply, and my body has not yet recovered. I would not be able to finish in time.”
Rick understood. Isleen had taken too much for too many days. The girl—Isleen’s blood-servant—was dangerously anemic.
“I shall hunt, then. I will return before dawn.” Isleen looked back at him over her shoulder, her head cocking, birdlike, the angle not possible for a human, her hair falling like silk. “And I will have my vengeance on Regina Katarina Fonteneau for taking what was mine.”
Regina Katarina Fonteneau . . . had to be Katie of Katie’s Ladies. But how would killing him hurt Katie?
Another one of those broken seconds later, Isleen was gone. Night air whooshed in softly to fill the place where she had stood. Rick smelled honeysuckle and wild jasmine from the vines on the barn’s walls. In Isleen’s place was the new arrival. His new tormentor. She was pale skinned, standing somewhere around five feet, and her hair was dyed Goth black. Dark circles rimmed beneath her eyes, and the flesh of her throat was bruised, with blue veins tracing beneath the surface. Her neck, throat, and upper chest were crusted over with scarring. Some of the wounds were fresh, puckered, and oozing. Vampire bites weren’t supposed to do that. Vampire saliva and blood were supposed to have healing properties. Unless something was wrong with Isleen. There had been rumors of vampires with illnesses, notably the long-chained scions he was supposed to find.
The girl lit more lanterns, light flooded the room, and Rick raised his head, looking at where Isleen had licked his left wrist. His wrist, hand, and arm were pain free, but the skin was still inflamed. A pustule was forming on the outer part of his wrist, and red streaks were running up his forearm. He wasn’t being healed. He was being made sick. His heart sped up again, and Rick turned his head to the girl.
She was a fragile thing, her clothes dirty, blood dried on the neckline. She lifted a case, one that looked a lot like a gun box but bigger, and set it beside him. When she opened it, he could see needles in sterile packets, and chemicals, and his heart painfully skipped a beat. She was going to torture him. With needles. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. She’s going to use needles. Son of a bitch. He hated needles. He struggled again, pulling at the bonds. The sound was muted but for his cursing, which seemed to echo through the deserted barn. His energy was quickly depleted, and he fell back, banging his head on the black stone, gasping, sobbing. He was so dehydrated that his eyes stayed dry. He couldn’t break free. He had to use other talents.
Humanize yourself. Talk to the captor. Right . . . “What’s your name?” he croaked. Ignoring him, the girl lifted out vials and bottles of chemicals, and set them on a small tray, one she could carry and maneuver easily. When she was satisfied, she stepped back and uncoiled an electrical extension cord. Which meant there was a generator—which he couldn’t hear—or a building nearby. Someplace to escape to. Maybe find a phone. “What’s your name?” he said again, and when she didn’t answer, he said, “My name’s Rick.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered. She took out a small clock and opened out little legs on the back, making a stand, placing it so that she could see its face. The time read nine twenty-seven. “I don’t care what you do or why she brought you here. I don’t care if you rescue puppies and heal the sick with a touch of your hand. I’m going to do what she wants. So shut up.” She placed the glass, newly filled with water, at his lips.
He drank, and when he spoke, his voice was stronger. “Why? Why are you going to do what she wants?”
The girl’s hands stilled. She was so thin that light from the closest lantern spilled through her flesh, turning her bones dark and red, ghostlike and ephemeral. “She tried to force me as her blood-servant”—she glanced away, and when she swallowed, it looked painful—“but she couldn’t bind me. I don’t know why. But when she failed, she lost control. She nearly drained me.”
“Forcing a blood bond is illegal according to Mithran law. So is draining humans.”
“I know.”
“We could go to the Master of the City. Leo Pellissier is big on vampire law and order. He would make her stop. Punish her.”
“I can’t.” She tried to take a breath, and it sounded like silk tearing, wet and painful along her throat. “I tried to get away. Three times. And this last time . . .” Her voice broke, mewling like a kitten crushed in a fist. Tears filled her eyes
, and she rolled her lips in, as if sealing in a memory and its pain. Her breath was tortured, and she pressed her pale hand to her even paler throat. “This last time . . . she took my brother. He’s seven.” The girl turned her face away, hiding behind a spill of black hair. “She made me watch as she fed on him.”
A first feeding always had sexual overtones. What the girl described was molestation and torture all at once. Rick yanked against his bonds, a growl coming from him, part pain, mostly anger. “Let me loose. We can take her down if we work together.”
“No. If she dies, Jason is dead. She hid him with her scions,” the girl said, “which she calls the long-chained. I don’t know where. And if she doesn’t come back, they’ll all die. If she lives, and if I don’t do what she wants, she’ll make me watch him die.”
“We can find him in time,” he snarled.
“I can’t take that chance. But thank you for the anger. No one has been angry for us in . . . in forever.”
Rick shoved down his rage. It wouldn’t help. Neither would the fight-or-flight instincts that battled through his blood. Forcibly he silenced his fury, tamping it down, sealing it off. “What does she want?” he asked when he could, his voice low and even.
Her movements economical and fiercely determined, the girl positioned the lanterns around him, uncapped a marker, and placed it against his skin at his shoulder. “She wants you bound to her,” she whispered. “And if she can’t do it with her vampire gift, she’ll do it with magic.” She began drawing on his skin with the marker, drawing and wiping away most of the ink, leaving only a faint outline.
“You’re going to tattoo me?” he asked, incredulous, relief flooding his system. “That’s all?”
“A tattoo of binding. Using her blood and animal blood in the final part of the spell. The blood will bind you to her. You’ll be a blood-servant. Of sorts.” The girl looked at him through her bangs, her eyes smoky brown. “It’s an old spell. I think she stole it from my grandmother. And I’m sorry to use it on you.” Her voice dropped lower. “So very sorry.”
Hot sweat broke out along his skin, and his sphincters pulled in so tight that his belly ached. He swore violently as his hope evaporated. The girl’s a witch. Rick raised his head and looked at the black marble beneath him. Considered the metal ring. An impressive witches’ circle, one used for a long time by powerful witches. Probably the girl’s grandmother and her coven. He dropped his head back. “Can your grandmother break it once it’s done?”
“She could. But Isleen killed her. Broke her neck and threw her in the bayou.” Her voice shook, and there was something dark and terrible in her tone. Rick knew Isleen had made the girl watch.
• • •
The cute little vampire, Isleen, needed a stake and a beheading. As soon as he got free. Assuming he could get free before his will was sapped and he was magically bound to the crazy bitch vamp. But if one witch knew how to break the spell, then others would too. Assuming he could find them. Assuming . . . assuming a hell of a lot for a guy stretched out naked in a witches’ circle. He concentrated on regulating his breathing, feeling the pen against his skin. Pen, then cool, damp cloth. Pen, then cloth. He had to keep his head if he was going to get out of this. He marshaled the negotiation techniques taught in class. “What’s your name?”
“Loriann.” She lifted his head and shoved a pillow under his neck so that he could see without strain. She turned her back a moment, and Rick quickly scanned the barn. Nothing. Nothing there to help him at all. Not even an old hoe to fight with.
“Put out a finger. Cut the cards.”
When Rick looked at her, she was holding cards, bigger than playing cards. Tarot. “I’m Catholic. I don’t read tarot.” Which was utterly stupid considering his current position, but refusal was instinct, pounded into him by a lifetime of nuns.
“I don’t care. Put out a finger or”—Loriann pulled in a breath and firmed her face, steeled her voice—“or I’ll make you wish you had.”
Shock spilled through him, an icy chill. “You’re not a black witch,” he managed.
Loriann closed her eyes. Her skin paled even more, looking almost translucent in the lantern light. “It doesn’t matter what I am anymore,” she whispered. “White, black, blood, light, or dark.” She laughed, the sound broken. “I’ve lost myself. I’ve lost my choice. So put out your finger and cut this deck, or I’ll hurt you.”
Straining to move the blood-deprived digit, Rick put out a finger. Placed his nail into the deck about midway through, parting the cards. Loriann separated the deck and shuffled until the oversized cards were well mixed. Then she laid one out. It was a skeleton riding a horse, and the legend beneath the picture read DEATH. “Great,” he said. “This is why I don’t do tarot.”
Loriann said, “Death isn’t usually real death. It means change. Now shut up.” After that she ignored him and laid out twelve cards in a circular pattern around Death, mumbling to herself. The last card, at the twelve-o’clock position, was the Hanged Man. Whatever she saw didn’t make her happy, and she gathered up the cards and reshuffled them, mumbling, “I never liked Aunt Morella’s time reading anyway.” Louder, she said, “Stick out a finger.”
Again he cut the deck with his fingernail, and Loriann laid out a card. The title at the bottom read KNIGHT OF WANDS; the knight was wearing plate armor and riding a red horse, and carried a stick with leaves growing out of it. “This is you,” she said. Over that card, at an angle, she laid out another card. It was Death. Again. “This is the problem.”
“No shit.” He laughed, and it sounded hopeless even to his own ears. Over that she laid another. The card depicted a woman sitting on a throne between two pillars: one white, one black. She wore a white crown like a nun’s wimple and a white dress, with a cross on her chest. The card read HIGH PRIESTESS. “Hmmm. This is the solution or best course of action.” Quickly Loriann laid out four cards: the first at the bottom, the next to the left, then the top card, placing the last card to the right, in a cross pattern. She laid down four more cards in a line to the far right. The last card she set down showed two naked people. The Lovers. She studied the cards silently. Then gathered them all up again.
“What?” he asked.
She shuffled and held out the deck. “Again.” Rick complied. He figured anything that kept her from sticking a needle into him was a good thing. This time she laid out three rows of seven cards. The far left column came up as three knights, the knights of Swords, Wands, and Cups. “Interesting,” she said, surprised. She looked at him quickly, something new in her eyes, and then glanced away. Down the middle column were Death, the Queen of Swords, and the Lovers. Loriann studied the cards up and down, left to right, as the night flowed on. It was now ten twenty-five. Closing in on the witching hour.
Loriann arranged the cards, putting them into an order that must have made sense to her, and shoved them into a box, then into a small tin at her side. It was brightly painted in little dots of color, like a print of stained glass in miniature. On the top, the Virgin Mary stood in a pointed, arched window.
The witch took out another box from the tin, this one larger, the box older. On the front was a painted picture of a shadowy woman standing in front of a cauldron, a cat with a bobbed tail at her feet and cave walls at her back. Stalactites dripped from overhead. A witch. “My grandmother’s cards,” Loriann said softly. Her cheeks took on a hint of color and she leaned forward, as if hiding behind the fall of her ink black hair. She went through the deck, rearranging the placement of the cards. “No one has used them in . . . in a long time.” Loriann separated the cards into three stacks of differing depths.
Two stacks were composed of cards that had titles on them and one stack contained cards with only numbers. She shuffled each stack until each was well mixed, and lifted a small stack toward him. She said, “Major Arcana. Cut.”
Rick forced out a nail and directed it into the p
artial deck. He had lost feeling in his hand. He figured that wasn’t a good thing.
“Personages of the Minor Arcana,” she said, lifting the second partial deck. “The Court Cards. Cut.” He cut the second partial deck and the third, which was larger, containing what looked like nearly half of the total number of cards. Loriann shuffled each stack, made him cut the decks again, then laid the cards out in the same three-row pattern as before. This time some cards were taken from the top of one pile, some from another. “Gramma liked gypsy readings, but she did them the way her mother taught her, with the three rows of seven, each column from a specific stack, and to the side, a cross of the Major Arcana. Her cards were specially painted just for her,” Loriann said, “and her deck is different. It has different . . .” Her voice trailed away, as if she had just realized she was speaking aloud. She pressed her lips together and bent her head, her hair sliding forward so that he couldn’t see her face.
When Loriann finished laying out the cards, at the four corners and down the center column were the Court Cards. To the left top was the Queen of Pentacles, upside down, a wolf asleep at her feet. At the top right was the King of Swords, an African lion at his feet and his sword made of gold. The left bottom corner was the Page of Pentacles. He was a vampire with a scroll under his arm. The right bottom corner was the King of Wands, and he was a witch with red hair, and with fire exploding from his wand, which was clearly a weapon. A huge owl flew overhead. “No cup cards,” she murmured. But she didn’t explain.
The center column was also composed of Loriann’s Court of the Minor Arcana. The top card was the Queen of Swords—a woman in black, a wildcat with a bobbed tail and yellow eyes on her lap, claws drawing blood on her right thigh. The queen held a sword with a silver blade dripping with blood. The Knight of Wands was the center card: He sat on a rearing black horse, holding a bloodied stake and silver sword, with vampire heads beneath the horse’s hooves. A wolf howled in the background, head angled up toward a full moon. The Knight of Swords was at the bottom but was upside down, the first time a knight had appeared that way. His bloodied sword was silver and black, and a huge cat—a black leopard with yellow-gold eyes—sat on the horse’s rump.