There was silence between us until we neared the ring of white shells. I would have known we were close even without the direction sense and the sense of smell that was stronger and finer than any human's, known by the glowing of the crosses nailed to the trees. They reacted to Sabina's presence from forty feet away, glowing brighter until Sabina had to stop, shielding her eyes from the brilliance.
Her voice breathy with pain, she said, "I smell the sire; most certainly Rousseau." Her eyes covered, she backed away several steps. "This place reeks of the past, of evil once battled and conquered. It stinks of witch magic, burned and strong. I smell the blood of sacrifice. Of witch blood that was spilled here. The blood of our sin.
"I have failed," she moaned, "and now our sin has multiplied." Her voice rose to a wail. "Our sin has multiplied."
She presented me with her back, bent and hunched in pain. When her wail and its echo had dissipated, a silence settled on the woods. Sharp and acute, as if the forest itself listened for more. Long moments later she whispered, "I will give you answers at the chapel. Return there." In a heartbeat, with a rustling through the trees and a frail movement of wind, Sabina was gone. The crosses brightened for an instant and dimmed.
I now knew without doubt what was happening in the circles. A Rousseau was killing witch children, their blood and fear powering a working of dark magic to increase the number of days a vamp spent in the grave, in order to raise a vampire who was sane. It was the only thing that made sense.
My heart filled with rising desperation as I tramped back through the woods to the chapel.
I stopped at the edge of the vamp cemetery, surprised. I hadn't really expected Sabina to be waiting, but she sat in the chair, moonlight bright on the white of her clothes, her face in shadow. I moved slowly to her and saw that LeShawn had been moved in my absence. And beheaded. His body had been rolled to the bottom of the stairs at the front of the building. His head sat to the side on the stump of his neck, positioned to stare at Sabina. Which was disturbing on so many levels.
Again, I deliberately made noise when I approached from the side and rear and eased my butt onto the porch, one booted foot on the ground, sweating in my leathers. Neither of us spoke for a long time as the night air moved sluggishly across the cemetery. Night birds called. A bat fluttered close by and away. Sabina sat statue-still, breathless, pulseless, dead. When she took a breath for speech, it startled me and I jumped, but Sabina was staring at LeShawn's eyes, his appearing focused, as if he watched us--a trick of the moonlight.
"You talked of the Sons of Darkness. They are not oft spoken of by my kind. Their shame is all our shame."
I didn't reply and Sabina took another of the weird-sounding breaths. "There is a scrap of parchment remaining, from the first history of our kind and the first prophecy of our savior. The original parchment is oft copied, oft translated. As priestess, I retain a scrap of the original scroll as well as an early copy. It tells of the Sons of Darkness and their great sin. It tells of how they made us. The Sons shared with us their blood curse, creating a race of beings with many gifts, yet bearing great agony, great pain, the sin of the world in our blood." She paused, and I heard a barred owl call from far away, hooting in the species' four-and five-beat melody. It always sounded like "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" It was answered from even farther away, the notes plaintive. Owls liked it here. The silence between us had stretched and I didn't think Sabina was going to continue. When she spoke again I jumped.
"And though they sinned the darkest sin, the Sons prophesied the salvation of our kind." She cocked her head, still watching LeShawn. His blood had leaked onto the white shells and into the ground. "If it is discovered that you are the savior, the one who will bring us to peace, then I will tell you all. Only the savior of the Mithrans may yet hear the entirety of the old tale." Her eyes were suddenly on me, their weight like a lead-lined blanket, heavy and immobilizing. I was careful not to meet her gaze. She studied me. "But I think you are no savior of my kind. My wait is not yet concluded. I may not yet seek my ending." She blew out a breath that smelled of old blood. Very old. Again, I wondered when she last ate.
Sabina licked her lips and I felt as if an electric shock passed through me. I tended to forget that she had once been human, and might still be capable of human gestures. Sabina held her eyes on me. "I scented three Mithrans at the place of rising, all familiar to me but from long ago. I thought it impossible for a vampire with a lair in this city to remain unknown to me. I thought it equally impossible for a small family or even a solitary vampire to survive in Pellissier's hunting territory; they would have been dispatched long ago. But the past has returned and brought its evils with it."