Once Bitten, Twice Shy (31 page)

The goons scurried to obey as, I imagined, did Liliana and Derek.

"That goes for you too," Aidyn told me, his entire demeanor a Kodak moment in badly disguised wariness.

"Sure." I gave him a Lucille Robinson shrug, knowing that Jaz must be bottled right along with her rage if we were going to pull this off. Knowing also that when the lid came off, payback would be a bitch.

The scene in the monster pit had changed somewhat during my brief absence. I had a better view for one thing. Aidyn and Assan made sure of that. They escorted me straight to the front row while the faithful, with the addition of Bozcowski, Vayl's ex and Derek "Doomsday" Steele, chanted words in a language I didn't understand, but which my ears heard as, "Over llama catcha fur." The Tor-al-Degan swayed to the rhythm of the chant, her eyes half-closed as if in a trance. I should've cared more, but my proximity to Derek had doubled me over, and I was close to adding my own mound of puke to the nasty puddles of glop on the floor.

While I leaned against a column, trying to regroup, Bozcowski turned to face his audience, holding up his hands for silence. "Today, victory is ours!" he said, baring his shiny fangs as they applauded. "No longer must we watch our goddess hover between worlds, frustrated and impotent. We have found our willing sacrifice!" He presented me to the clapping crowd, a farmer proudly displaying his prize heifer.

I panicked briefly as they surged toward me, but they stopped short, staying at arm's length, well beyond reach of the Tor-al-Degan's grasp. The noise they made swept over me though, their whoops of joy pounding through my head like an ethanol-powered knitting needle. The monster behind me squealed, her high-pitched response making my eyes water.

Assan strode to the back of the pit, taking three large acolytes with him, while Bozcowski continued with the pep rally. I watched Assan's group return carrying the buffet table. They deposited it in front of the Tor and then knelt respectfully.

"No."

Bozcowski interrupted his speech to look at me, his scowl creasing his face like an origami sculpture. "What did you say?"

"No," I repeated, "as in no altar, no pagan sacrifice, no me laying down for it."

"But… you agreed."

"Yes, I agreed to die tonight. But I didn't agree how."
Why did I agree to anything? I am, without a doubt, the stupidest woman on earth
!

Assan and his cohorts had risen from their soggy knees to hear our conversation. Now Assan's bottom lip jutted out and his glassy black eyes narrowed to slits. "You have to use the altar. I brought the sacred sword and everything." As if I could've forgotten about the weapon that had cracked against my calves all the way down the back stairs and then nearly threw me head-first through the trap-door of the wine cellar when it had gotten tangled up between my ankles.

"Is that the same sword you used to leave little carvings in your brother-in-law's chest?" I asked it in a whisper. My churning gut wouldn't allow anything louder.

"Yes. But we won't need the runes for you. Just a clean, quick execution."

"Oh?" Weren't we being so polite? I could hardly stand it.

"We have no need to hold your soul in stasis because the Tor-al-Degan is already here, prepared to eat it. At least, most of her is here. The rest will arrive soon."

"I'm confused. She looks like she's all here. You can't see through her or anything."

"Looks can be deceiving." I thought about my recent trip outside Physicality and decided not to argue the point. But Vayl had told me to stall, so I reached over the nausea, past the dawning migraine, and plucked out a subject they wouldn't be able to resist.

"I understand what happened to Amanda's brother. But what about the torso? It had the same markings."

Assan pursed his lips and refused to speak. Aidyn was the one who answered me.

"After the debacle with Assan's brother-in-law, we discovered our goddess needed a willing sacrifice. So we petitioned a member of our sect to provide it. He gladly stepped into her jaws, but his soul did not free her. That was when we learned of the second twist, that the sacrifice must be willing, but not a worshiper of the Tor-al-Degan."

Wow
. Whoever had trapped the Tor had gone to great lengths to ensure she remained trapped. Leave it to a bunch of vampire/terrorist punks to foul a perfectly good binding spell.

Liliana had been quiet up to now, sizing me up like a tigress waiting in the weeds. To look at her you'd never guess she'd taken a dive off a roof recently. Unless you made the mistake of meeting her eyes. The memory stood there, poisonous and pissed. Suddenly she pounced. "Where is your
sverhamin
now, you mortal cow?" she asked, sidling up to me as if we were about to share a juicy secret.

Though Derek's scent made me want to curl up in a ball and pretend this was all a bad dream, I straightened and held her off with a raised hand, as if I were a running back in a slow motion replay. "Back off, Liliana."

She grabbed Derek's forearm and pulled him, stumbling slightly, to stand beside her. He looked much worse than the last time I'd seen him. His jaw was slack, his eyes unfocused, his skin bright red with fever. He kept reaching out with his hands, making pinching motions with his fingers like a kid at a 3-D movie.

I raised my hand higher, leaning my back against a column.

"I have found your kryptonite, haven't I Wonder Woman?" she asked, giving Derek a rag-doll shake.

"I believe you're mixing metaphors there, Lil." I stood up, realizing if she'd found my weakness, I'd discovered a new strength. It came from a combination of the ring on my finger and Vayl's voice in my head, whispering words I didn't recognize. Cirilai did though, responding with a warmth that spread up my arm and through my body, pushing Derek's stench off to a bearable distance.

"Give me the ring," Liliana hissed, doing such a good imitation of Tolkein's Gollum that I laughed.

Screaming with frustration she grabbed my neck with both hands.

"Liliana stop! Are you insane?" It was Aidyn's voice coming from somewhere beyond the shadows that had dropped over my vision as Liliana squeezed away my blood supply. I thought dimly how strange it was that she didn't just scratch me. She'd have had me so much easier. But she'd flipped out all the way, and logic didn't fit into the place she'd gone.

I grabbed her wrists and squeezed back. She cried out in pain. I yanked her hands off my neck, held them wide away from my body and head-butted her so hard my vision rimmed everything in gold for the next ten seconds. It was worth it.

She grunted in pain. I stomped her foot and followed up with a kick to the knee that made her scream as the entire leg gave. She swiped at me as she went down, collapsing like the Wicked Witch of the West, only there was no melting this iceberg.

"Please don't kill her." Unbelievable, not one, but two pleas for mercy kept me from dusting Liliana right then and there. Aidyn said it to my face. Vayl whispered it in my ear.

"I would kill you if I could," I told her, "I don't care who begs for your life. You're an evil creature and you deserve no pity, not one drop."

Though the Tor-al-Degan hadn't even cleared her throat, everyone suddenly attended her.

"I like this woman's soul."
Holy crap what a freaky voice
. It crawled across the skin like a colony of spiders, making you want to shiver and scream. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from begging for mercy. Led by Bozcowski, her little congregation fell to its knees like a fanatical group of synchronized swimmers. The Tor-al-Degan was looking at me like I generally regard a big plate of cheesecake. "She will taste of spice and vigor," said the Tor. "Let us begin."

I braced myself to fight whoever tried to manhandle me onto the buffet table. But I wasn't the one Assan's assistants grabbed.

Derek had collapsed beside Liliana, watching through bleary eyes as she squirmed with pain. Now four Deganites lifted her out of the muck and carried her to the table. She sat on it, her legs dangling over the side, the one I'd kicked still slanted strangely. Derek crawled toward her and the Deganites helped him to his feet.

"Say it!" urged Bozcowski from his perch in the muck, "say the words!" Aidyn had moved to stand by the table, but the senator wasn't talking to him, nor Liliana and Derek. His orders were for Assan, who had retrieved a gym bag from wherever he'd left it. Now he brought from it a bubble-wrapped object about the size of a standard flashlight. When he unwrapped it and sat it on the ground between the Tor-al-Degan's feet, I saw that its base was made from a human skull—a small one, maybe a child's? Three primitive stone daggers protruded from the top of the skull, and on their points sat a shallow stone bowl.

At Bozcowski's urging, Assan had begun chanting. Every time he paused, the congregation echoed him. It reminded me, ridiculously, of Girl Scout camp and the song I still knew by heart—
The other day (The other day) I met a bear (I met a bear) Out in the woods (Out in the woods) Away out there (Away out there)
.

I realized my mind was beginning to play tricks on me, trying to remove my consciousness from this scene and send it back to better days. That way it could protect my frail sanity from moments like this that could well snap it. What a great idea. Too bad I couldn't allow it. I made myself watch carefully. Somewhere among this devilry,
please, oh please
, was the key to their downfall.

Assan had unwrapped and placed three of his grisly statues in a tight triangle around the Tor. But Liliana had gone on without him. She held Derek between her legs, the fall of her hair hiding his neck as she prepared to drink from him.

For Vayl's sake I said, "Liliana, if you take his blood, you'll die. You did hear Aidyn say that, right?"

She threw me a smirk. "You think he developed an antidote for humans only? What an imbecile." As she leaned to drink from him my gaze tracked to Aidyn. And what I saw in his face looked a helluva lot like Liliana's death sentence.

"It is time." I shivered as the Tor-al-Degan's throaty growl scratched at my senses. "Bring her!" Assan had stepped back beside Bozcowski, and though the chanting continued I could see the change it had brought. The Tor looked more vibrant, more lethal, as if the ceremony had filled her with venom.

"Vayl," I whispered, "where are you?" No answer.
Damn Bergman's prototypes
!

"Your mewling little eunuch cannot save you now," snarled Aidyn. He grabbed my arm and jerked me forward, past Derek, who had fallen to his knees, and Liliana, who lounged atop the table as if it were a gigantic, vibrating mattress.

"Not
her
you imbecile," snapped the Tor, making Aidyn flinch, "the vampire!"

I nearly laughed to see Aidyn's insults thrown back in his face. He didn't take it well either. His expression would've sat comfortably on a preacher who's just discovered his theology's full of holes.

He let me go, left me standing just feet from the Tor while he fetched Liliana. Her complexion pink from gorging, she rose languorously from the table and followed him to the first skull, not even limping from our last encounter. With a casual flick of the fingernail, she opened a vein in her wrist and let Derek's blood, now transformed by her vampirism, drain into the bowl. When she'd filled it she moved to the next, bending over to show off her cleavage to Aidyn's fascinated eyes.

The chanting rose in volume and urgency. The Deganites, including Bozcowski and Assan, swayed to their own rhythm, their faces a collective mask of fanatical bliss. Derek, still on his knees, drenched in his own blood, had joined in.

The second bowl was full, and it looked like my cavalry was still stuck in traffic. Assan reached into the duffel, pulled out a bubble-wrapped object that he would soon discover was not the key. Then all hell would break loose. Maybe literally. With no key to control her actions, wouldn't the Tor run rampant?

Not without a willing soul.

I could run, but I wouldn't make it far. And that would still leave the Tor poised to wreak havoc. As the first drops of Liliana's blood hit the third bowl, I did one more quick study of the Tor-al-Degan.

Her inability to maintain a solid front made her seem vulnerable despite the energy that came off her in waves.

One clean shot, Jaz, that's all you're getting and then you're done for
. I took one, heartbreaking look at the life I could've had, and let it go.

I began to cave myself inward, as if my soul was a collapsible laundry cart. Turn and fold, turn and fold, until the only portion left of me could've been punted, like a paper football, over goalposts formed by four fingers of a sixth grader's hands. It was the only fortress I knew how to build, and my sanity huddled at its center where, if I survived, maybe the blood and the horror of what I was planning could only leave a faint stain.

"Aaahh! Aaaahh!
AAAAAAHHHl
!!" It was Assan, too freaked to scream with words, holding a wooden statue of a closed fist with the middle finger raised. I couldn't connect that F-you statue to Amanda's frilly room, which was how I knew it must've been her brother's, maybe from his med school days when he still felt confident enough to flip off the world. It looked as if Assan had gotten the message.

Strings of box tape and bubble wrap streamed from his fingers like thick cobwebs, jigging to the rhythm of his shaking hands. His eyes had gone buggy, and he kept glancing from the Tor to Bozcowski to Aidyn, as if at any moment one of them would tear him limb from limb. And maybe they would if the angry mob the Deganites were becoming didn't lynch him first. They converged on him, pushing, shoving, yelling spit-laced curses. Aidyn, still mesmerized by the slow trickle of Liliana's blood looked around, confused. So did Vayl's ex.

I rushed to the nearest torch and tore it off the wall, breaking the tip off its wooden handle so that its jagged end threw splinters onto the murky floor. A small sliver of wood floating in an oily puddle gave me an idea. I touched the torch to it and it flamed nearly waist high, grabbing gases from the air that burned green and stank worse than a rotting skunk in the middle of the swamp.