by A. J. Aalto
Who knows how long he'd been tormented? If I got any closer and he woke up slavering and insane, I'd be within reach. It would be pretty stupid to look for help from a starving revenant you've never met, and end up with your face chewed off. What would Harry say? He'd have “Served her right” carved on my tombstone so generations could see a dumbass mistake cost me my life.
Before I got any closer, I had to know whether or not Gregori Nazaire remembered who he was, if his faculties were intact, if we would be able to help one another, if there was a chance I was only trading death-by-torture for death-by-draining.
“Monsieur Nazaire?” I tried with my clumsy French accent. “Master Nazaire?”
Nothing. I took a deep breath and struggled to my knees to lean up closer, as much as the ropes allowed, prepared to thrust myself back into the safety of my bonds if he lunged at me.
Danika Sherlock's blood had splattered the bridge of his nose but hadn't awoken him like it had the other revenant. Patrick watched everything and nothing with glowing green eyes that showed no sign of sanity whatsoever. Gone deep into lich-form, his tongue worked madly, scenting in the air like a snake on crack cocaine.
Probably better to take my chances with ole G'Naz, here. And I shouldn't try street nicknames for him, either. I'm not cool enough to pull it off, and he probably wouldn't like it. What if I quoted some of his stolen poetry? What was that line I'd read this morning?
“Taken down and worked dry,
the fairest maiden left fairer
still by aching heart and straining yard…”
My throat closed over the words, nausea rolling in my belly. Nope, no revenant erotica, no romance for the dying or the dead. Ick, blerg and blech. I tried a more formal route, cleared my throat and whispered solemnly:
“Death Rejoices, glorious Elder.”
The revenant's eyelids fluttered, but did not open.
I said it again, my voice soft with respect. “Death Rejoices, cherished master of the grave, keeper of the gift of immortality.”
Nazaire's neck seemed not strong enough to bring his head up, but his eyes did open and they slinked sideways in my direction. The irises were pure airy platinum, shining with calculating intelligence, yet guarded. Wary.
His bloodless, parched lips parted.
“Hail, honored DaySitter. Centuries untold celebrate your gift of submission,” he said formally in return.
His voice, though dry and weak, hinted at rich sumptuousness. I thought at full power it might be sonorous, a voice for singing opera, or belting your point across a courtroom. Not a voice for a skeletal dead guy in jeans. A voice for a three-piece power suit guy. I smiled up at him, reassured by the steadiness in his voice. He knew who he was, and what I was. This was a good start, a promising start.
“Death Rejoices, Master Nazaire,” I responded one last time. “Do you know who I am?”
His nearly transparent eyelids fell closed again, lashes casting shadows on pale flesh. Maybe it was an effort to keep the lids up.
“My name is Marnie Baranuik. I worked with Ruby at Gold-Drake & Cross before she retired.”
“Fired,” he said.
“She was fired?” I felt my eyebrows soar. “Because there were younger psychics coming in to take her place.”
Nazaire's head shook. “Kidnapping.”
My brain scrambled. “They fired her because they found out she was kidnapping other psychics’ revenants?” He nodded. “Like who? Patrick Laurier?” Another exhausted nod. “To what end?”
“Power… must make sure her dhaugir is dead. I hear…” His chin came up again, but he was too worn down and dried out to manage it for long. “Many hearts. Many hearts beating…the dhaugir…”
My brain scrambled for a definition, but the drugs interfered. The word dhaugir was very familiar, and I knew he meant Danika: dhaugir, a DaySitter's human mystic whipping boy, taking her pain, doing her dirty work.
“Ruby was feeding captive revenants to forcibly inherit their different psychic powers?” A nod. “And where she couldn't, she had vamp hunters go in and stake them?” He nodded again. “Like George Cuthbert? Danika refused to give him to her mother. So Ruby had George killed.” Nodding. I was right: Ruby was never going to give Harry to Danika. “She used her daughter to do the dirty work, as her bondservant. Her dhaugir, the one who takes pain.”
Nazaire's lips twitched into a sorrowful quarter-smile. “My pain will not affect Ruby as long as the dhaugir is alive.”
She can't be alive, I thought. A dagger in the throat? She's gotta be dead. Still, part of me wondered, with all the black magic in this room, and that small secret terrified part forced me to crane over at the body. “If I get out and find Danika still alive, I have to call an ambulance,” I thought aloud. “I can't finish the murder. I will not kill a human being. Not Danika, not even Ruby. It would taint my soul forever, do you understand that?”
Nazaire didn't answer, but I thought he looked disgusted with me.
“How long has she been betraying you with other revenants, Master Nazaire?”
His eyes squeezed shut with agony and words would not come. I was sorry I asked. I couldn't imagine how it would hurt Harry to watch me parade before him an endless line of revenants. To try and Bond them to me by force, psychically raping their kind before the watchful gaze of the one immortal I had sworn to obey, and to discard them in trash bags like common stove ash when I failed.
“None of that matters, now,” I said. “I'm here. I'm going to get you out of here. We're going to help each other.”
A tear escaped his left eye, clear and very human. It trailed down the monstrosity of his face, the weathered caverns of his cheeks. I'd never seen a revenant cry before, hadn't in all honesty thought it was possible. I took it as another good sign, though. Encouraged, I scraped forward another two inches until I was kneeling directly beneath him. At this angle I could have serviced him with a fine blow job. Horrified that my mind had even gone there, I diverted my eyes directly up to his face.
“Honored elder,” I said with soft respect. “If I feed you, will you be strong enough to escape your bonds?”
His eyes flew open with undisguised hope, and he rasped, “Yes.”
I clarified, “And you'll get me outta here when you're free, right?”
“I vow to do all I can for you, DaySitter, for all time.”
The words hit me in the gut like a fist hitting a drum; I had a feeling that was a bad thing, but pushed worry aside in favor of the fierce hope in his face, stirring my own into action. He licked his lips quickly, and between them I could see the elongated, yellowing fangs of a creature who had been around far too long for Crest White Strips to do him any good. They weren't nasty like stained human teeth can get; they gave the impression of ivory tusks, or the curved natural canines of the big cats, having taken on the dull tone of decades of hunting and feeding. If ever in my life I'd considered a safari in Kenya, the sight of Gregori Nazaire's fangs nixed that plan. I was gonna get the shakes next time I went to the damn zoo.
I considered my newest problem: in his high chains, Nazaire had some leeway but couldn't bend down far enough to reach my neck, and I couldn't stand, nor get closer or higher. The best he could do was lick Danika Sherlock's blood spatter off my face, which he eagerly did with stale breath and trembling tongue while I cringed. (“Taken down and worked dry, the fairest maiden left fairer still by aching heart and straining yard…”) I set my jaw hard so as not to scream. It wasn't going to be nearly enough, like giving Bill Cosby the stir spoon from the pudding but keeping the pot at arm's length, only a lot less funny.
His mouth moved over my cheekbones, seeking, on the hunt with a terrible thirst, his frantic hunger an animalistic huffing in the back of his throat, and again I was struck by the image of a lion in the wild, King of the Jungle. Mammoth fangs, three times bigger than Harry's, brushed my skin but did not pierce without express permission. They sent needle-prickling along raised goose bumps wherever they trac
ed, like the cold wash of fever chills.
“Don't worry, Master Nazaire, I'm going to feed you just as soon as I can figure how.” This is as dumb as trying to call Asmodeus but here goes…I bit my tongue hard. Hard enough to draw blood. I tilted my face up to him, mouth open, and prayed. “I'm trusting you.”
Gregori Nazaire took my offered mouth swiftly, hard and furious, sucking with his dry lips until my hesitant mouth was vacuum-sealed to his. Massive fangs sank in, expertly questing into the soft flesh, first finding purchase in my gums. While those shallow marks bled profusely, dousing his thirsting mouth, he finally pinned me in place by claiming more satisfying, meaty property in the back of my tongue.
I tried to hold still so he wouldn't rip the damn thing out of my head, and rolled my eyes far away, focused on the jet-dark corner of the room. I didn't want to watch the way the fresh infusion of life would change him from shrunken monster to vibrant being, what was swelling and where, and how his eyes flamed with orgasmic victory so close to my own darting orbs. With the exception of sex partners and the eye doctor, no one should get this close to your face. Ever.
In a thudding, tumbling suddenness, there were sounds above us: cracking, breaking, shattering, loud voices and scrambling boots, banging doors. I could no more move than I could say anything other than urk! Nazaire, tucked deep into his own personal feast, was oblivious, desperately suckling my tongue. The moment I started getting dizzy, I felt something even more alarming: Nazaire's own tongue playing sensually along my bottom lip, sliding into my mouth. Despite my horror, my body responded with a helpless zing of arousal; he felt it with a myriad of revenant instincts and, encouraged, he moaned into my mouth.
I heard the basement door forced open and a rush of louder noise and thought: saved by the bang. Any longer, and the revenant sucking my willing tongue might get the wrong idea about us. I would have tapped his shoulder if I could get a hand free, or belly-nudge his toes if I could reach. But roped like a prized calf I could only squirm, helpless as he moved from tongue to bottom lip, hoping he couldn't drain me completely from my face. I felt his fangs break through my lip to the other side and cried out an objection into his mouth, though it strangely didn't hurt.
“Hold your fire!” Batten ordered behind me. “Hold your fire! Marnie?”
Nazaire's fang-clinch broke; with a disturbed, impatient growl, he let me up for air.
“I'm OK!” I gasped, craning my head. Now my bottom lip gash hurt, as Nazaire's soft, possibly unintentional mind control waned. “Don't shoot!” My tongue felt like a slab of liver, flapping and wounded in my mouth. “Danika's dead. Both revenants need help, get them out of here! Where's Ruby? Find Ruby!”
That was when Harry snaked down between Batten and Hood and two cops I didn't recognize. Harry diagnosed the blood on mine and on Gregori's lips, the older revenant's extended fangs and flushed cheeks. Harry's face mottled with fury, his eyes glittering with betrayal.
Harry boomed, “What transpires here?” still coming, fists clenched and shaking.
Uh oh.
Nazaire answered the challenge with a testing, swooping roar of his own. Human shoulders all around hunched in unison like synchronized swimmers dunking, their heads sinking as if being dive-bombed by a hungry dragon.
Chains popped open with a clang-clatter as a newly-fed Nazaire flexed, flinging shattered silvered-iron bits across the cement floor. Filled with power for the first time in who knows how long, he released it around him, inundating the room with radiant supremacy. At fourteen hundred-years-old, he was the greater power. Fed and flushed, his potency thrummed through the air as a nearly visible wave, crackled just under the skin and vibrating in the bones like a cranked subwoofer. Something new inside me answered his call, ripped up my body in reply. For a split second, Harry looked like the villain. I crammed my eyes shut and yanked my brain back under control.
Nazaire bellowed, “The bleeder is mine!”
Wonka-wha? My head whipped around. “Since when?”
Nazaire towered above me, where I fell back on my heels and wrestled with the ropes in futility. He aimed his ice-shard glare full-blast at the competition, ignoring the humans as inconsequential. Taking one lumbering step in Harry's direction he threw back his shoulders, taking up lots of space. There was no question who the dominant creature was, but Harry, undaunted, drew himself up to full height, bristling in response.
“She calls me master and offers the chalice of her blood to my lips,” Nazaire declared. “She lays the collar of her Bond at my feet. And I accept.”
I yelped, tugging madly at my wrists, cursing whatever schmuck invented rope. “There was no chalice! There was no collar!”
I smelled sulfur and above in the store there was a human scream followed by the pop of three gunshots in rapid succession.
Harry's lips pulled back from full fangs and he launched through the air, snarling. Nazaire's jaw dislocated like a snake and dropped open wide, revealing a second set of fangs below the first. I had to do a double-take, thrust my head forward and blinked to make sure I was seeing right. Holy hell! That unearthly monster face was at my mouth? His inhuman roar caused a second bout of quicksilver human flinching and the cocking of useless guns.
Batten hesitated only a second before using the commotion as cover. His big tactical folding knife sawed through the knots binding me to the iron ring, then slashed free my arms. I tried to stand and toppled forward. He caught me easily, propped me up with one of my arms over his shoulder.
“Get out,” he ordered the cops behind him. “Out now. Go, go.”
There was a flurry of activity behind me on the stairs as cops, most of whom had never seen a revenant, never mind a pair at one another's throat, retreated at Batten's command. With any luck, I'd last more than a few minutes fighting at Harry's side, allowing the humans to evacuate.
Nazaire's head jerked around. He slammed Harry into a wall as though he could sink him into the very stone, then turned on us, hissing.
I clutched at Batten and shrieked, “Stake!”
Batten dropped me, whipping his hand into his ankle sheath. Nazaire was too fast, slamming into Batten and slamming him to the ground. Batten had his knee up, using it as leverage to haul the revenant up and over his body, but Nazaire pulled him along, and during the roll, neatly maneuvered Batten back under him. Nazaire reared to strike, and with cobra-like swiftness, lashed out. There was a shocked cry that I assumed came from Batten, until Nazaire's face came away with a shriek, smoke rising from his lips. Batten's holy water cologne, applied liberally, had done its job.
I whipped around and plunged my hand into Hood's jacket pocket to grab his wooden stake, turned and chucked it at Batten as he vaulted up from the floor. Nazaire recovered and flew at him, arms spreading open in the air. Time decelerated, and I saw with clarity the stake slide into Mark's hand then plunge precisely up between Gregori's ribs and into his heart. A perfect shot. A masterful shot. Kill-Notch's hundred and sixth mark made. I waited for the poof.
The force of the revenant's impact knocked Batten to the floor, but Mark rolled easily backward to his feet in one practiced move. There shouldn't have been an impact. Nazaire should have exploded instantly in a cloud of dust. The elder revenant pounded cement and instantly rebounded to his feet again, puppet-like, wrenched up by otherworldly strings. His eyes flashed victoriously.
“It is not sorb apple, presumptuous human,” he hissed. “You reach too far, hunter. It shall profit you nothing, save it be a speedy demise. Now, remove thyself from my prize!”
Sorb apple. Rowan. “Mark, evacuate now! Harry? Harry, wake up!” I shouted, and swung around to face-off with Nazaire, making fists. Harry was shaking his head to clear it, struggling to his feet. He needed a minute, and I had to give it to him.
“That's it, tough guy. I'm done with your crap. For one, don't hit my Harry. He's prettier than you are, and I don't want his nose out of joint. And another thing, ‘aching heart and straining yard’. Really? That's your
idea of romantic poetry? Fuckin’ gross.”
“Marnie!” Batten barked, incredulous.
I ignored him. “See this? This fist might be small, but I can do bad things with it. Bend over, I'll show you.”
Nazaire's chin jerked back like I'd slapped him. Maybe it was my impudence that lit within his eyes the need to dominate. I recognized this look. Harry's surprise at my casual cheek. And where it usually caused in Harry a brand of doting exasperation, in Nazaire it illuminated a dread need to squash me.
“Arrogant wretch!” Nazaire spat.
“Bring it, Batface,” I encouraged, eyeballing Harry's progress over his shoulder. “Let's see you shake that thang.”
I braced for it, starting a slow deep haul on Harry's power, funneling tendrils of it, pulling it in.
Harry came at him again from behind, his fist hammering the back of Nazaire's elbow. It snapped unnaturally forward with an appalling crack, the bone shard tearing through his shirt. The older revenant swung, spinning mid-air in a motion that defied gravity.
When Nazaire made his move at me, pushing forward through the air in an audible rush, I was ready for him. I launched into him, throwing my shoulder low.
It was like getting hit by a Mack truck. Something slam-crunched and I hoped it was just a cookie breaking in my pocket, not a rib. The revenant shed me like I weighed nothing, tossing me into the crevice where floor met wall. When he lifted his face to snarl at the humans, the last cop to remain on the stairs panicked and unloaded a clip at his center of mass. Nazaire blinked down at the painful but harmless blossoms standing pale blue like ink where his heart was limply struggling to push my blood through his awakening veins. A burbling fountain of revenant nectar leaked there, harmlessly.
Harry pointed furiously hard at Batten with an unspoken command. The FBI agent gave an accepting nod, grabbed me out of my sprawling mess of limbs on the floor by the seat of my pants, hauling me to my feet at a run. I stumbled with Batten attached at my hip up the stairs. My feet felt like big sloppy seal flippers, and I nearly fell twice.