I was huffing for breath as I walked toward her, making sure my boots crunched on the grass and the shells of the walkway. Making sure she heard me coming. She didn't turn to me, giving no indication that she heard me at all. She was immobile, still as the marble statues atop the crypts in the graveyard. A statue dressed in white cloth.
When I was twenty feet away I stopped, steadying the body. LeShawn's hands bumped my back and buttock. I had no idea what to call her. It didn't feel polite to call her Sabina. I said, "Bruiser--George Dumas--said he'd call the priestess."
She didn't turn to me and the angle made it hard to see her lips move as she said, "He did. You are Jane Yellowrock, the creature who is helping my people."
Creature. Okaaay. That brought me down a bit. Helped me to focus. The children. And little Bliss. That was all that mattered. "This vamp just rose, his first rising, a couple hundred yards into the woods. He knew his name, was talking and coherent, walking with balance, able to take direction. Able to hold off bloodlust for a while. We were walking here to meet George and one of Leo's scions and blood-servants to get his first blood meal. But he lost control, attacked me, and I had to stake him. I mistakenly used silver and pierced his heart."
Slowly, she turned her head to me. Her shoulders stayed perfectly still, her head moving on the stem of her neck. The motion was almost robotic. Not human. I was glad I'd stopped so far away. Her mouth opened in her expressionless face, and she spoke with the certainty of experience, history, and Truth. A pronouncement. "A young vampire has no control. No speech. No memory. A young vampire is a ravening beast."
Beast was silent at the insult. "That's what I thought, until now," I managed, LeShawn's weight pressing me into the ground. "I think it has something to do with his rising in a charmed witch circle and pentagram, crosses nailed to the trees at head height, and the smell of decayed blood in the ground. Blood magic."
"No," she whispered, the note fading in the night.
I needed her to believe me. "It's true," I said. "It's happened before, hasn't it? I've heard the Sons of Darkness rose without devoveo. Someone has been able to replicate that." As I was speaking, it occurred to me that maybe I was stupid to mention the Sons again, after Leo's reaction, but I'd thought he was just being nutso. Apparently not.
At the words "Sons of Darkness," she started, and her eyes went half-vampy. Beast roared to the surface, and I tensed as Sabina stared at me, her gaze the most predatory I'd ever seen from her. But then the priestess seemed to win some internal battle, and her eyes eased to near human. Beast snarled and settled back.
"Listen, lady, this guy's heavy," I said. "And his body fluids are dripping all over me. Mind if I put him down before we continue this conversation?" So much for my people skills. I am so stupid.
But the priestess didn't look as though her nose was out of joint at my tone. She pointed at her feet. I adjusted LeShawn's weight with a little shoulder twitch and knee bounce and crossed to the porch. I eased him down, but his head clunked on the cement floor anyway. Good thing he was already dead or he'd wake up with a headache. I took a deep breath and blew out the strain. LeShawn hadn't been a linebacker, but he'd been a meaty, muscular guy.
The priestess was suddenly gone. Just not there, the porch empty, leaving only a localized breeze where she had been. I blinked in surprise, looked around to make sure she hadn't come toward me; I had started to call out when she returned just as fast, appearing on the porch holding a short stubby candle in a little glass bowl, a white plastic box, and a chair. I managed not to flinch or make any move that might be construed as prey movements. Sabina didn't smell of fresh blood, and I had no idea how long since she had really fed, deeply enough to be satisfied. I had no desire to be her next meal.
Moving at more human speeds, she placed the chair near LeShawn and held out the candle and the box to me. I took them both and hitched a hip onto the porch, catching my breath and placing the candle so its light shone near the dead vamp's face. The box had a baby on the top and turned out to be baby wipes, which seemed seriously weird, but I was out of my league and I had no real idea of what was normal or not. I cleaned the blood and the grave-goo away as Sabina studied the new corpse.