He pressed his hand into her lower back and urged her forward. As if the others knew without needing to be told, Amma and Damien took their turn, slipping smoothly between the others to the crystalline structure. Closer, with the light glittering off of its many clefts, the outline within was clearer, human. But it wasn’t entirely human, Amma knew.
Beside her, Damien pulled out his dagger. Like she had seen him do many times, he pierced into his flesh with the blade, cupping the blood in his palm and unfurling fingers over the quartz basin, now filled with the offering of many vampires. Dripping down to mingle with the rest, his blood was a shade darker as it swirled atop the others. He turned to Amma, extending his hand, the wound already closing.
Her heart was racing, blood rushing past her ears. She wouldn’t heal like any of the others, and she reckoned it was going to hurt her quite a bit more too, but it was the least she could do, to endure a little pain for the aid they were all coming together to give her, and so she placed her hand into his.
Damien studied her palm, the dagger hovering over it. She was reminded of the frantic moment she’d absorbed the talisman, the mad rush he had been in to try and cut it out, how he had pressed the same blade to her skin then, and how he had ultimately hesitated.
This time, he didn’t grip down and force her hand open, but very carefully slid upward to take only her forefinger in his own. He gently squeezed its tip, though in the frigid depths she barely felt it. Damien pressed the dagger’s point to her mounded flesh, eyes intent, throat bobbing as he swallowed. When he didn’t advance and break her skin, as if he were afraid, she took a deep breath and instead pressed upward, piercing herself on the blade.
Brilliant red blossomed on her fingertip when he removed the dagger. He continued to squeeze, teasing the blood to the surface, and then guided her hand to the crystal basin. A single droplet fell to disappear in with the others, no different in the sea of red inside.
There, it was done, and Amma’s skin prickled as if alive with a magic all its own. Full of a nervous vigor, her heart pounded to be free from her chest, urging her to flee—she had just spilled her very human blood in an inescapable cavern filled with vampires, after all—but the silent solemnity of the chamber kept her from bolting, and Damien hadn’t yet released her. He whispered a sibilant phrase she recognized as Chthonic, more of those words that would have made her cold if she weren’t already freezing, and guided her hand up to his mouth.
She watched him, her apprehension vanishing as he pressed the tip of her finger to his tongue. Arcana wrapped around her, gliding into her wound and rushing along her veins. This time the magic was warm,sowarm, filling her whole being with the heat she’d been craving since entering the karsts, and she felt the slight wound mend itself.
There was nothing to be afraid of, she realized, not here and not anywhere. Not when they were together.
CHAPTER 15
TALIS-WHATSITS AND DOOHICKEYS
The cavern in the heart of the karsts filled with a growing hum as the vampires completed the ritual. The basin of blood set into the rose quartz crystal had been filled, the liquid inside falling still after the last drop had been contributed. And then there was a resounding crack as the darkness in the bowl drained away.
Damien’s warmth at Amma’s side grounded her in the frigid space surrounded by vampires, and she shuffled closer to him as the cavern began to shake. The blood drained from the basin and filtered through the pink crystal, seeping along its crevices as if running it through with veins, brilliantly red and full of life. Amma watched, her own blood mingling with the rest, feeding whatever might emerge, and she waited with mounting eagerness.
The crimson rivulets pulsed and sank in, and the cavern’s hum fell silent. No one moved, the vampires as still as statues, waiting. And then there was another sound, hollower, lighter. Rapture’s head tilted, and another vampire lifted their chin in response. The sound repeated, twice this time, and it was much clearer that it was a knock.
“Hey, ladies,” a muffled voice called from the crystal, “a little help?”
The elders rushed forward. There was a flurry of less-than-graceful movement as they grasped at the quartz, hands sliding off its slick surface until they finally wedged claws into what was a front lid and hefted the thing to swing open. There was a foggy cloud of steam that escaped, and spindly fingers rose out of the hollow to grip the crystal’s edges. Knobby and sinewy at first, the corpse-like appearance of the hands shifted as they grasped tighter, filling in to form long, slender fingers with pointed nails.
A face, sculpted so that every edge was sharp, emerged from the mist with eyes like a cat’s, sleek and brilliantly golden, lips deeply red and thick, and hair as black as night. She took a husky breath, chest heaving forward, and then she spoke, “I know I say this every time, butsomebody’sgotta oil these hinges at least once a decade!” The woman who could only be Lycoris snorted then, sucking in a breath and bleating out a high, nasal laugh so loud that it disturbed a flock of bats from the highest spot of the cavern. “Oh. My. Blood!” she squealed. “Look at all of you, still so young and fresh! Come ‘ere, it’s been too long!”
Throwing her arms out, she stepped from the crystalline casket, waiting to be embraced, and it was only then that Amma realized just how truly big the woman was. She had at least an inch on even Damien, and with her sleek, black hair piled up high on her head, she towered above everyone. With wide shoulders and generous hips but a tiny waist, she was draped in a black fabric that moved like satin, skintight with a neckline that plunged all the way to her navel. Whatever arcana kept her generous breasts from popping out was impressive, but they seemed to have a life all their own, bouncing as she wrapped arms around each vampire in turn, pulling them in to deliver wet kisses on cheeks and greeting everyone by name.
Lycoris was older than anyone would say—a definitive number wasn’t allowed to be spoken—and so her accent was impossible to place, lost to time. She kept the corners of her lips tight and her tongue high, so she spoke almost exclusively through her nose, adding sounds where they were unneeded and taking them away from where they were, and her pitch flew up and down like a bird battering up against a rainstorm. Unlike the other vampires, she actually spoke, and her movements were big and loud, eyes rarely blinking, excitement palpable.
“Oh, what do we have here?” she said, pulling Amma to her fluidly. “You didn’t come for dinner, did you?” Amma’s heart stopped beating as if in protection as Lycoris took a huge sniff of her neck, and then her eyes lit up in a different way as she brought a sharp nail to tap Amma on the nose. “Oh, no, I already got a little taste of you, didn’t I?”
Amma was released, and she stumbled back against Damien, holding very still and hoping if she didn’t move, the woman might not bother with her again.
“Hmm, but Iamstarving—I could eat a whole priesthood!” She shrieked out another line of that intense laughter, and then the grin fell right off her face. “Seriously, though, what’s a dame gotta do to get a snack around here?”
From the crowd, the body of one of the servants was thrust forward, a brawny looking man too dazed to react as Lycoris dropped her claws onto his shoulders. “Oh, you’ll do just fine, honey.”
He was dead in seconds, and Lycoris was drenched from her chin to her navel, though her dress remained unstained. She tapped gently at the corners of her mouth, doing nothing to the mess she’d made on her skin. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
The assembled vampires broke into motion, and the crates that had been dragged down the tunnel were thrown open. Stringed instruments and bottles of thick drink were pulled from inside and passed around, and music was struck up. The vampires were renewed with liveliness, actually speaking aloud, laughing and dancing, and a few of the servants were pulled into the darker corners of the cavern for reasons Amma did not want to think about.
Ivory brought Lycoris a full, wide-mouthed goblet and backed away quickly to stand just behind Amma. “Looks like you get to live. Congratulations,” she whispered before flitting off with a snicker.
Amma didn’t realize the alternative was possible, but before she could think long on it, Lycoris eyed Damien.
“You,” she said, pointing a dangerously long nail at him and twirling it about as she thought. “You’re not one of mine either. You’re that taste of noxscura I got, aren’t ya?”
Rapture appeared at her side, and the two made eyes at one another. There was an anxiousness to Rapture’s posture, straighter than before, as she communicated silently with the woman.
“No! Really? Zag’s boy? Hecan’tbe!” All arms and breasts and nasally shrieking, Lycoris handed off her drink and slapped either side of Damien’s face, pulling him right to her by the cheeks. “But you’resobig! By all the night beasties, last I saw, you were just this teeny, tiny, little blob of a thing, and now you’re almost as beautiful as your mother!”
