“We could go to the Master of the City. Leo Pellissier is big on vampire law and order. He would make her stop. Punish her.”
“I can’t.” She tried to take a breath, and it sounded like silk tearing, wet and painful along her throat. “I tried to get away. Three times. And this last time . . . ” Her voice broke, mewling like a kitten crushed in a fist. Tears filled her eyes, and she rolled her lips in, as if sealing in a memory and its pain. Her breath was tortured, and she pressed her pale hand to her even paler throat. “This last time . . . she took my brother. He’s seven.” The girl turned her face away, hiding behind a spill of black hair. “She made me watch as she fed on him.”
A first feeding always had sexual overtones. What the girl described was Cdes">
“No. If she dies, Jason is dead. She hid him with her scions,” the girl said, “which she calls the long-chained. I don’t know where. And if she doesn’t come back, they’ll all die. If she lives, and if I don’t do what she wants, she’ll make me watch him die.”
“We can find him in time,” he snarled.
“I can’t take that chance. But thank you for the anger. No one has been angry for us in . . . in forever.”
Rick shoved down his rage. It wouldn’t help. Neither would the fight-or-flight instincts that battled through his blood. Forcibly he silenced his fury, tamping it down, sealing it off. “What does she want?” he asked when he could, his voice low and even.
Her movements economical and fiercely determined, the girl positioned the lanterns around him, uncapped a marker, and placed it against his skin at his shoulder. “She wants you bound to her,” she whispered. “And if she can’t do it with her vampire gift, she’ll do it with magic.” She began drawing on his skin with the marker, drawing and wiping away most of the ink, leaving only a faint outline.
“You’re going to tattoo me?” he asked, incredulous, relief flooding his system. “That’s all?”
“A tattoo of binding. Using her blood and animal blood in the final part of the spell. The blood will bind you to her. You’ll be a blood-servant. Of sorts.” The girl looked at him through her bangs, her eyes smoky brown. “It’s an old spell. I think she stole it from my grandmother. And I’m sorry to use it on you.” Her voice dropped lower. “So very sorry.”
Hot sweat broke out along his skin, and his sphincters pulled in so tight that his belly ached. He swore violently as his hope evaporated. The girl’s a witch. Rick raised his head and looked at the black marble beneath him. Considered the metal ring. An impressive witches’ circle, one used for a long time by powerful witches. Probably the girl’s grandmother and her coven. He dropped his head back. “Can your grandmother break it once it’s done?”
“She could. But Isleen killed her. Broke her neck and threw her in the bayou.” Her voice shook, and there was something dark and terrible in her tone. Rick knew Isleen had made the girl watch.
The cute little vampire, Isleen, needed a stake and a beheading. As soon as he got free. Assuming he could get free before his will was sapped and he was magically bound to the crazy bitch vamp. But if one witch knew how to break the spell, then others would too. Assuming he could find them. Assuming . . . assuming a hell of a lot for a guy stretched out naked in a witches’ circle. He concentrated on regulating his breathing, feeling the pen against his skin. Pen, then cool, damp cloth. Pen, then cloth. He had to keep his head if he was going to get out of this. He marshaled the negotiation techniques taught in class. “What’s your name?”
“Loriann Cn">owerful .” She lifted his head and shoved a pillow under his neck so that he could see without strain. She turned her back a moment, and Rick quickly scanned the barn. Nothing. Nothing there to help him at all. Not even an old hoe to fight with.
“Put out a finger. Cut the cards.”
When Rick looked at her, she was holding cards, bigger than playing cards. Tarot. “I’m Catholic. I don’t read tarot.” Which was utterly stupid considering his current position, but refusal was instinct, pounded into him by a lifetime of nuns.
“I don’t care. Put out a finger or”—Loriann pulled in a breath and firmed her face, steeled her voice “—or I’ll make you wish you had.”
Shock spilled through him, an icy chill. “You’re not a black witch,” he managed.