Sil started unbuttoning her blouse.
He looked up. “What are you—” the guard began.
“Shhhh.” She opened the shirt, revealing her bare breasts. Slipping out of the sleeves, she dropped the garment to the floor and eased forward, lifting her flowing skirts as she advanced. With a sexy smile and a few lithe movements, she was straddling him in his chair. When she kissed him the phone fell from his grip—but Sil caught it before it landed. She gave it back to him and her hands worked at the buttons of his shirt. He did not resist.
But he did close his eyes when he kissed Sil back.
Ailo and Talto slipped into the room. They slinked up behind him and when Sil broke the passionate lip-lock, the sisters clasped hands and each put one palm on the guard’s temples. “Don’t see us,” they whispered, pouring magic into his mind. When they were certain the energy they sent had gotten where it needed to go, they added, “Play your game.”
The guard lifted the phone and began to play.
The sisters released him. “Put your shirt on, Silhouette,” Ailo said. “Now it is Risque’s turn.” She pointed up the steps. “Tell her Ivanka is in the business office and wanted to ask her something. You will stay with the girl until she returns.”
Sil nodded. The sisters returned to the stage area and hurried to the far side, hand in hand. There they waited, hidden at the edge of the scrim curtains.
Risque crossed the stage to the walkway that would lead her up and out, then stopped. She stood in place for a moment, cocked her head, and turned toward the spot where the sisters waited in the dark.
Promptly, she stalked over to them and threw the curtain back. “What are you two doing here?”
“Skulking,” Talto snapped. “What are you doing?”
Risque snorted and whipped the curtain back over them. She crossed the stage, took the ramp down into the house, and ascended the steps on the far side. Ailo released Talto’s hand and snuck behind the curtain to the doorway. Talto hurried behind her and at the last caught her arm. “I will watch for her. I’ll let you know when she is returning.” Ailo nodded.
Ailo crossed in front of the guard, who did not respond. She climbed the stairs to the upper suite with silent steps and knocked softly. Silhouette opened the door.
• • •
Goliath stood facing Menessos. They were in the private bedchambers of the Haven Master’s suite. All was dark except for the faint light cast by the black candles on the altar table they had relocated into this room. Between the candles sat a black-handled dagger with a stubby blade. He watched as Menessos grasped the dagger and examined it. He stuck one flat side of the blade in the candle flame, holding it there until that side had blackened. Then, after checking it, he flipped it and did the same to the other flat side using the second candle.
When the blade was fully darkened, Menessos sat it once more in position. “This is no small undertaking.”
“I am aware of this.”
The breaking of the bonds between a Maker and his vampiric offspring was not so dissimilar from the actual Making of a vampire. Instead of severing ties to mortal life, they would be severing their ties to each other. Goliath had seen firsthand that—like the old adage that a woman giving birth comes very close to death herself—no vampire was Made without his Maker risking his own existence. Not all vampires could even Make another. For all that he had seen in service to the Quarterlord, he had never witnessed
It was rare that a vampire’s Maker would deign to release him, even when the younger gained substantial rank. But Menessos had agreed. That made this a monumental moment in Goliath’s preternatural existence.
So he was nervous.
The fact that Goliath had borne some doubts concerning his master’s actions of late added to Goliath’s anxiety. “I regret only that harsh words brought us to this moment, Father.”
Menessos put his hand on the other vampire’s shoulder. “I am proud of you, Goliath. You will be a great Master, and you will keep your haven strong.”
Goliath had not liked the sentimental note in his own voice, much less the one mirroring it in Menessos’s tone. It was something like the sound of doubt. His expression hardened. His Maker had already been taxed this night. Whatever he had done—and whatever it had been had taken great strength—had saved Beverley. “Should this wait until another night?”
Menessos considered it. “No. I can do this. You have earned it.” He breathed in a purposeful pattern.
From the altar Menessos took a handful of sea salt and circled Goliath, murmuring in Akkadian and letting the granules cascade from his hand and create a barrier around them.
When the circle set, Goliath’s ears felt a slight
“Are you ready?” Menessos asked.
Goliath nodded once.
Menessos put one hand over Goliath’s mouth. The nails of the other grew into claws and he gripped the flesh of Goliath’s abdomen.
“What hunger I awoke in you, I partook from as your Master. I now grant you the full of that hunger and the sating of it.”
Where Menessos touched him, his skin prickled. The electric charge was building.
“It is yours to own,” Menessos said. “Yours to keep. Yours to feed. I no longer derive any sustenance from it.”
Goliath felt the energy flow like a static libation flooding down his throat. Resonance gripped his gut. Cold and heat passed through him in waves, raising gooseflesh then searing him like desert winds. He jerked with each shift, the sharp difference jolting him harder, longer . . . then tapering until he felt only one even temperature.
Menessos released him, panting hard. His hand reverted to normal.
Goliath said, “I accept that hunger.”
When his breathing had normalized, Menessos put Goliath’s hands together as if in prayer. Squeezing the clasped hands in his right and placing his left to cover Goliath’s brow, Menessos said, “What power I awoke in you, I held tethered to me as your Master. I now give you the full of that power and draw on you no more.”
Again his skin prickled as the words were said.
“It is yours to own. Yours to keep. Yours to tend. I no longer hold any authority over you.”
Energy sliced into Goliath like searing hot scalpels stabbing deep into his mind and melting there, liquefying into something mystical and molten. It burned into his bones and became one with every molecule of his being.
Menessos released him again, but this time he staggered a step backward.
“I accept that power.”
• • •
The child slept on a bed in the darkened back half of the room. She was small, petite but pretty. Dark-haired. Ailo stroked the silky strands, and jerked a few free. She jabbed her fang into the flesh of her own hand, where her middle finger joined with the palm. As the blood rose, she wrapped the hairs around the wound like a brunette bandage. Holding the hair there with her teeth, she put her free hand on Beverley’s forehead, fingers scratching along the girl’s scalp.
“Tell me your secrets,” Ailo said through clenched teeth, holding her tongue against the mingling of her blood and the child’s hair.
Information trickled into her mind slowly, forming indistinct shapes and muddy colors. She could feel the knowledge was close by, but something was holding it back like an oiled cloth, letting it through only in drips.
Ailo reached up, reached out to that barrier and found one of the leaks . . . and widened it. A flash of birthday
