I extended my hand towards the vials, but she withdrew her hand from reach. “Before I hand these over, I expect the rest of my payment.
I dropped my arm. “What else do you want?”
“A lock of your hair and a draught of your blood.”
“What use are they to you?” I asked, even as I stood and bared a wrist to Hestia.
“What is that phrase you Americans have?” She set the vials down on the counter next to her. “Ah, yes: ‘A magician never reveals her secrets.’ I will not share mine. Suffice it to say that they have their purpose.”
She lowered my arm before retrieving a knife from a nearby shelf. When she came back, she grabbed a clump of my hair. Muttering an incantation, she sawed off the lock and shoved it into an empty glass jar sitting amongst the clutter on the table next to us.
Murmuring something in a language that definitely wasn’t English, her papery hand skimmed over the odds and ends stacked on the table until they landed on a goblet. “Hold your arm out,” she commanded, “and keep this under your wrist.” She thrust the goblet at me.
I took it, nestling the cup beneath the pale skin of my forearm and ignoring the way my hand shook. It was fatigue, not fright that caused the jitter, though I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t also scared out of my mind at what might’ve happened to me yesterday. And at what was happening to my body all on its own.
Hestia still clasped the knife she’d used earlier, and now, grabbing my wrist, she sliced down hard through the skin. My arm jerked against the pain.
“Steady,” she said, like I was a skiddish mare. “The more you cooperate, the swifter this will go.” Easy for her to say; she wasn’t the one getting cut into.
“Do you know what happened to me last night?” I asked, my blood trickling down my wrist and into the chalice.
For a long time Hestia didn’t speak, simply watched as my blood dripped out. She seesawed the knife to prevent the wound from closing.
“The devil tasted you,” she finally said.
That took several seconds to sink in, mostly because my mind refused to wrap itself around the idea. Once it did, the nausea I’d felt earlier came roaring back.
“What do you mean by ‘tasted me’?” Please let that not be sex. Please not sex.
Hestia seemed to know where my thoughts had taken me because she shook her head and cackled. “Who would’ve ever thought a siren was afraid of knocking boots? No, he will not consummate your union on this realm.”
Ew. Gag. Even the mention of consummation had my innards folding up on themselves. At least that meant that we hadn’t done the nasty yet. But it didn’t matter, did it? All evidence suggested that if we hadn’t already, at some point we would. I drew in a shaky breath. I wouldn’t think about that.
“Then what exactly did he taste?” I asked.
Once the cup had been filled nearly to the rim with my blood, Hestia removed the knife from my skin. “Your soul,” she said, taking the goblet from me and placing it on the counter. “He tasted your soul.”
I rubbed my wrist as the skin slowly sealed over and thought back to my first weeks on the Isle of Man. “He’s done it before.”
Hestia retrieved the rose I’d brought her and plucked three petals from it. “He thinks you are his, and he’s keen to collect your soul. A little overeager in my opinion,” she said.
“Is my soul … okay?” I couldn’t help but think that getting tasted by the devil would somehow sully it.
“You are a vampire. Your soul is damned. It’s no more corrupted today than it was yesterday.”
Gee, that was reassuring.
She dropped the three rose petals she held into the chalice. As soon as they came into contact with my blood, they bubbled and sizzled until nothing of them remained.
“Hmm, interesting,” Hestia murmured.
My eyes flicked between her and the goblet. “What’s interesting?”
She grabbed the four vials of seer’s shroud and took my hand. “You asked if your soul was okay. His smell lingers on you. That is all.”
She made light of it when she shouldn’t have. To the supernatural world, carrying someone’s scent on you was as good as being claimed by them.
Hestia pressed the four tiny bottles into my hand. “One for you, your lover, and one for each of your companions.”
I furrowed my brow, her words raising several questions.
“Yes,” she said before I had a chance to speak, “I threw in some additional vials, and yes, those two friends of yours are going to need them.
“Now, each of you are to drink a vial. It will shield you from seers for an entire lunar cycle.”
“That’s it?” So little time?
She leveled her gaze on me. “If things go the way they appear to, that’s more time than you’ll need.”
Chills ran down my arms. “What do you mean?”
Her intimidating stare ratcheted up a notch. “You know exactly what I mean. My parting advice to you is this: Best you get in a victory lap or two with that man up there before time’s up.”
Chapter 13
I wandered down the long hallway I appeared in fifteen minutes ago and out a door that led to the back of the church. As soon as I left the building, the cord that connected me to Andre flared up. Distantly I realized that until now, magic must’ve suppressed it, perhaps since as long ago as last night.
A small cemetery sat next to the church, and my feet took me here. It had begun to snow outside, and small tendrils caught in my hair as I passed by the somber stone angels and weathered crosses.
I knelt before one of the tombstones and bowed my head. A tear slipped out, then another. Once they started, I couldn’t stop them. Rivulets snaked down my face and crimson drops dripped off my cheeks. It seemed fitting that when I wept, I bled.
I wasn’t long for this world. I already knew that. So why did I feel like I was choking on this despair?
Because there is truly no hope.