'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.'
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—
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,
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.
'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
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.
