“Well, the thing is, we can only work with local materials and—oh, I see you’re teasing me. Get in that tub before we levitate you in.”
Delaney sank into the fragrant water. Oh, heaven. She hadn’t been anywhere near warm water in two years. It was always the little things you missed—coffee, American book stores, central heat.
“Do you like the fragrance?” the petal-conjurer asked her with obvious pride in craftsmanship. “It’s one of your jungle flowers, out of season now, but I was still able to—”
“Hush, Marguerite,” Gillian said. “We’re doing magics here, not a trade show. See if you can find a little music. Something soothing but not too…Peruvian.”
Delaney had a thousand questions. She fought to keep her eyes open, but it just seemed like such an unnecessary effort. Someone lifted her hair and pinned it on top of her head. Such good women. If they wanted mortality, she was glad to be of service to them. How strange it was to be fussed over in the same way the sacrificial maidens must have been fussed over.
A worry persisted no matter how many times she told herself it was pointless to think such things. There were forces at work that even Jaden couldn’t control. All this preparation and ceremony—was she being lulled into a false sense of security before the spirits of the Inca dead devoured her?
* * *
In the doorway, Jaden lingered to watch Delaney sleep. Despite the persistent possessiveness, his heart felt full enough to burst. She lay on her side, knees tucked up, her long hair draped over one shoulder and the swell of her hip. The room itself was fragrant with her scent, which reminded him of good wine. A Beaujolais, perhaps, or dark cherries.
There was work to do.
He jogged down the stairs, intent on checking the line of defense outside. If he knew his mother, a third attack was inevitable. You didn’t make it to six-hundred-and-seventy without pitching a few battles.
Jaden went down the narrow hallway toward the portal. Five women sat at the entrance, holding hands. They were incanting a spell of protection for the temple.
He whispered to the vampire sitting closest to him, the woman named Marguerite. He didn’t know her well, but as the youngest, she was also the least guarded in her speech. “Will the barrier hold?”
“We are sure of nothing. There are dark magics at work that we have never encountered before. Ancient magics. Adepts at our level…”
“What about Gillian?” Jaden asked. “Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s preparing for the fight ahead. We are merely laying the groundwork for her.”
He nodded, drawing comfort from the fact that Gillian’s powers were formidable. Legend had it she had gone up against a wrathful sea witch from the Lanakhan Order. Gillian had turned herself into a swordfish and run the witch through.
“How long before daybreak?” he asked.
“An hour, more or less.”
“Val must sleep, like all the rest of us, but I worry that whatever magics she sets in motion will act on her behalf even if she isn’t there to direct them.”
“We will do everything we can to make the barrier strong,” Marguerite said. “But what we fear the most is what will happen if this heat continues. No magics can withstand a raging torrent of water. And if it gets too hot…”
“In twelve hours, the ritual will begin,” he said grimly. “We’re just going to have to chance it.”
* * *
Jaden found Gillian muttering a protection spell at the doorway to Delaney’s room. He waited until she finished, admiring her dulcet voice, her lovely silver-blonde hair. There were memories between them. Less than a hundred years ago, she had been his first lover.
“This way,” she whispered. He followed her down the hall to an antechamber where the women slept. The room was lit by candles, empty of people at the moment, but a whirlwind of sandals, tunics and—
“Is that my ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ cover?” he exclaimed in horror.
“I didn’t bring it, I swear. But I’m certainly not going to tell you who did.”
“My music, sure, but that thing?”
“You have fans,” Gillian said. She went over to a table crowded with earthenware jars, a comb that looked as though it were made of a fish spine, and a pair of earrings fretted with Peruvian beads. “I may not be your only fan, but I am the one who has known you the longest.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A fan, you say? I seem to recall a few sharp words from you, once upon a time.”
“You were so young then, barely one hundred and fifty. Now look at you.”
“The spell you cast for Delaney. She—”
“Will be fine. The poor thing needs sleep. This way, she’ll rise when we rise, and you won’t have to worry.”
Relieved, he started to thank her, but Gillian held up an admonishing hand to show she wasn’t finished.
“You’ve exhausted her, of course. Lucky for us, she seems to have the sexual capacity of a sultan’s harem. Ravishing, isn’t she? You are quite in love with her.”
Jaden felt himself caught off guard by the statement. “I watched her grow up. She’s the kindest person I know.”
Gillian lifted the lid of a carved wooden box, took a pinch of dried herbs, and added it to the leather pouch at her waist. “There was a time you said the same about me.”
“I remember. And for the record, my opinion on that hasn’t changed.”
“You were the human equivalent of maybe sixteen then. So beautiful. Like a Renaissance prince.”
“And you were a friend of my mother’s.”
Gillian clicked the lid shut. “Valeria was a different woman then. I don’t recognize her now.”
Jaden moved closer. Tenderly, he brushed her cheek. “Thank you. For all of it. It is your great heart that makes our Reckoning possible. Without your help…”
Gillian placed her hand over his and then kissed it. “No, darling. Without your strange predilection for mortal females, the Reckoning wouldn’t be possible. Not like this, at least. It hurts me to see you suffer, though. About Delaney.”
“You’re going to tell me that is a different sort of Reckoning.”
“She loves you. I don’t need my powers to see that.”
“Can you keep Val from interrupting the ceremony?
“Nothing is for certain, my darling. But I’m going to try.”
* * *
Delaney awoke and found Jaden sleeping beside her. Faint stubble darkened his chin and followed the line of his jawbone. His lashes were black and thick, a startling contrast to the pale, almost translucent lids. She longed to touch him, but didn’t dare disturb the man who had worked so tirelessly to protect her.
Then the realization struck: tonight was the night. Nervousness swept over her in waves. She, whose maternal ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, would be used as a temple prostitute. She would be naked, venerated, penetrated, adored.
Tossing the covers aside, she slid noiselessly out of bed but then staggered.
There was a buzzing in her ears. Her head swam. It frightened her, until she remembered that this was what occurred to mortals inside the temple at twilight. She’d slept the entire day through? How was that possible?
“Come sit, my darling,” she heard Jaden say. “It will pass.”
She lay beside him and his strong arms cradled her. After a minute or two, he asked, “Better now?”
“It’s time, isn’t it?”
“Gillian gave you a little extra sleeping mojo, my love. Yes, it’s time.”
Delaney slid from his arms, determined to meet her challenge head-on. “I’ve got to get ready.”
“The women will attend to you.”
She searched his face. “I can do this,” she said firmly. “The spirits of the Inca dead will finally rest. I know you can’t link with me when I’m with other men. B
ut if you could, you’ll see that my love for you has nothing to do with whatever my body’s experiencing. You told me that once, and it’s true.”
“Ah, the love birds are already up and twittering,” came a voice from the doorway. Rue bustled into the room, followed by the others. “If there was a paging system, Jaden, we would have called you to the front desk.”
“Why? Is anything wrong?”
Rue averted her eyes too quickly to be convincing. “No, but you might go downstairs and check, just to be sure. Meanwhile, we have work to do up here. Girl stuff. Best to save yourself while you can.”
* * *
In Los Angeles, when he felt conflicting emotions, Jaden would sit down with his guitar and write music. It helped him process. There was a balcony just outside his bedroom that overlooked the Pacific. In the foreground, the water appeared to be blue-green, like an agate. Farther out, it turned navy blue, and then finally purple. At dawn and at sunset, a sea lion he named Timothy swam out to a small island of rocks to sun himself. Jaden envied him the freedom to bask in the warmth, the sea wind, the vastness of uninterrupted space. Rock stars didn’t often enjoy those simple pleasures unless they chartered yachts and sailed out to the middle of nowhere.
But now, fury with his mother combined with his love for her, waged war inside his chest. A part of him railed at her attempts to stop the ritual. Another part of him understood it. Val felt marginalized by his devotion to Delaney, and by his determination to abandon the way of his people. To her, he was a deserter. Delaney, wittingly or not, was the sole cause of his defection.
With Gillian seated cross-legged at the entrance to the temple, Marguerite broke her meditation long enough to answer Jaden’s questions. “Our magic held,” she whispered to him. “But now stronger forces are mounting. Gillian worries—I can feel it. Look outside, past the barrier.”
Jaden peered through the swirling miasma. He saw tiny black shapes hurtling in all directions. “What are those?”
“Locusts. Imagine if any of those got in here. Good-bye, sacred rites.”
Lowering his voice, he said, “Can she keep them at bay for another four hours?”
Marguerite’s lovely face clouded. “Honestly? I don’t know. We’re not just up against dark magics, but also the forces of nature fueled by them. All they have to do is punch a hole through our barrier. And to tell you the truth, our barrier is weakening.”
Chapter Ten
Delaney gazed at herself in the dressing mirror, startled by the transformation and wondering if there wasn’t some magic to it. Behind her, one woman brushed her hair with long sensuous strokes while another sectioned off a part of it to make thin braids. She wove small flowers in the braids that Delaney did know were magic, since this time of year, the only flowers available in these parts came from bodegas in Cusco.
Her fingernails had been shaped and buffed until they gleamed. Her toenails were painted gold, and her toes adorned with tiny jewels.
Playfully, she shook her head to watch the pendulum earrings swing. They looked like real Inca gold, hammered into thin crescents that bore the marks of the tool used to craft them. What exquisite things they were, heavy and gleaming. They must be artifacts, Delaney thought. In sudden alarm, she asked, “Where did these earrings come from? They weren’t pillaged from a grave, were they?”
“They were left for you,” Rue said. The other women nodded in agreement. “On the sacred altar, we discovered everything the Inca maidens wished for you to wear, even the flowers.”
Delaney touched the earrings with deep reverence. The magic of the Inca maidens was formidable. For the first time, she truly understood not just the mystical importance of her duty, but the emotional trust they placed in her. Some of these spirits had been waiting for a human vessel for hundreds of years. What terror they must have felt on the day of their sacrifice. Even for the ones who considered it an honor, who didn’t fear death. Then Delaney realized something else.
Amaru. Her people and her people’s people before that—the only thing they had ever known was this mountain. Its very isolation meant that change came with glacial slowness, if it came at all. The acceptance, indeed, the celebration of death, was not just a part of her culture, it was in her blood. She considered Delaney, with her antibiotics and her instruments of modern medicine, not just a presumptuous upstart, but a disruption of the natural order. Where Delaney saw tragedy in the senseless loss of a young mother, Amaru understood it as divine will.
“Are you not pleased, my goddess?” Rue asked.
“What? Oh yes. I’m greatly honored.”
“You have found favor with the spirits,” the woman who braided her hair told her. “We were hoping you could speak to us about the maidens who were sacrificed here. We know so little.”
Delaney searched her memory, surprised by how much she could recall. “The girls who were chosen had to be physically perfect. ‘Beautiful beyond exaggeration’ was how one Spanish conquistador described them. Ceremonies and festivals were held in their honor, and then they were plied with alcohol and coca leaves before the sacrifice, to lessen their fear of dying.”
A hush fell over the room.
“All pleasures of human life were denied to them,” Rue said. “Love, sex, children. Even the dignity of dying a natural death.”
Delaney turned to look at her. “Which, I just realized, is the very reason you, Jaden and everyone else are here.” She let that realization seep in for a minute. “You and the others yearn for the very thing that the Inca maidens did. You came here to be unburdened of immortality, to live a natural life and die a natural death.”
Somberly, Rue said, “Those poor girls were far from immortal.”
“In a sense, they were,” Delaney replied. “Their status was that of goddesses. In death, they became oracles for their villages, a mystical liaison between the mountain gods and the people. They were made immortal by their sacrifice.”
“I knew the vampiric legend and how it tied in with the Inca,” Rue said. “But until now, I never knew the depth of their suffering, their forgiveness or their generosity. The race of vampires has done great harm. That we would be given a chance to redeem ourselves…”
A horn sounded from below, like a call to arms. Delaney stood to survey herself in the mirror one last time—not out of nervousness or vanity, but because she was determined to do honor to the spirits of the Inca dead. Her skin glowed as though it had been burnished. The floor-length, handwoven skirt, bright with geometrical patterns, hung low on her hips. Her breasts were bare. The girl named Lanna stood behind her to attach the clasp of a heavy necklace studded with rubies. She arranged a ceremonial cloak around Delaney’s shoulders. The cloak, like the flowers, showed no signs of age. It was the most beautiful cloth Delaney had ever seen, painstakingly loomed in scarlet and gold. Small jewels had been sewn into the fabric. She wore it somberly, conscious of the importance it bestowed. I am your vessel, she thought, hoping the Inca spirits could feel her earnest desire to let her body, her flesh, her sex be used as their emissary to this world.
Softly, Rue said, “I’m willing to bet that even Jaden has never seen you look this ravishing.”
Delaney turned to smile at all the lovely faces gazing at her. These were the souls she would soon liberate. They would lead normal lives as normal people, lives that would be all the sweeter for having once been in the thrall of a terrible bloodlust. She would be saving Jaden.
Delaney squared her shoulders and made the descent to the ceremonial chamber, burning with an excitement that was not hers alone. She could feel the urgency of her spiritual sisters thrumming beneath her skin.
The room was ablaze with a thousand candles, like a vampire’s version of church. Their incandescence was reflected over and over again in the polished metal mirrors that had been hung around the ceremonial bed, mirrors in which she could watch and be aroused by the acts of depravity
and hedonism the vampires would visit upon her flesh.
Four men, the high priests of her carnal sacrifice, her sacred lovers, turned to face her. Their muscles gleamed with oil and they were already magnificently erect, but never had Delaney seen such beautiful, sculpted bodies apart from Jaden’s. In the nimbus cast by candles, they looked like a pantheon of gods. Every type of handsome was represented on those faces, which lighted when they saw her: boyish, rugged, roguish, classic. They beheld her with expressions of raw desire. Lucan, Wolf, and Roark openly stared. Cade was new to her. He had the broad shoulders and slim waist of a decathlete. His manner was shy, but appealing. And he had eyes the same color as fire when it burned blue above the embers.
They approached her, and then they knelt. The scent of candle wax, of incense, of male arousal, swirled around her. She saw Jaden standing on the altar beside the bed. His eyes glowed vampire silver, but his face was his human one. He too was erect. It was thrilling to see such tribute paid to her, these organs of engorgement that satisfied a woman in the most intimate ways. Their sole purpose now was to give her pleasure beyond reason, to render her flesh into ether.
If it was possessive anger that Jaden had felt, it seemed to be gone now, swept aside by an obvious impatience to have her. She ripened beneath his stare. Her essential femaleness rose to meet his most elemental maleness. She felt herself needing and needed, desiring and desired, a vessel at once sacred and profane.
She also felt them. She felt the timid excitement of the Inca maidens, their surprise and curiosity and awe. It was as though she were a teenager again, experiencing sex for the first time, but also a woman in full possession of her powers.
Lucan chanted in Latin. She didn’t need to speak it in order to understand. These men were pledging themselves to her, to serve her and hold her sexual pleasure as their highest good. There was music, although she couldn’t discover its source, something primitive and exotic with a sinuous driving beat. She felt intoxicated by it, and when the men moved to lift her above their heads and carry her to the altar, Delaney spread her arms wide and closed her eyes.
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