“The last globules will take about half an hour. I have to chant the whole time. If you talk, if you move, if you cause me to lose my concentration, it will break the spell.”
“And the child will die.” Isleen flashed her fangs. “Never forget that. Begin. Now.”
Loriann closed her eyes and ducked her head as if to pray. Then she opened her eyes and placed the needle into the pot of blood. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one.” She pierced Rick’s flesh with the needle. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one.”
The needle pierced him again and again as Isleen stared into his eyes, hunger in hers. He knew that she was trying to roll him, to do what vampires did to get free blood-meals and to bind blood-slaves and blood-servants. He could feel her compulsion tickling at the edges of his mind. If needles and fine blades hadn’t been sticking into him, he might have succumbed. But the pain kept him alert. Ready. The minutes ticked by. His blood trickled around his bicep to pool on top of his dried blood on the black witch stone.
Loriann changed the chant when she started on the second globule. “Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Time and time and forever. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. These two are one. Time and time and forever. Blood to blood, flesh to flesh, soul to soul.These two are one. Time and time and forever.”
Rick regulated his breathing, keeping himself loose and relaxed. Letting Isleen believe that she was succeeding in rolling him. He slid his expression into a goofy smile. Let drunken love fill his face.
Loriann started on the last drop of blood on the last claw. Again her chant changed. “One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever.” The phrase was like a drum beating into his mind. His heart stuttered and found a new rhythm, meeting and following her words. “One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever. One blood, one flesh, one soul. Time and time and forever.”
And then she said the words Isleen had been waiting for. “For all time. For all time. For all time.” The tattoo was complete.
Isleen bit. The pain was instantaneous. An electric shock. Rick gripped the stake. And spun, pushing up and away. Fast. Faster than he had ever moved. He plunged the stake into Isleen’s back. The point slammed through skin and muscle and cartilage.
Isleen screamed and ripped her teeth from his wrist. Twisted her body in a snakelike move no human could have duplicated. The stake missed her heart. Claws slashed down his abdomen. Struck at his throat. He scuttled away, taking the blade in his right hand. But his left hand had been injured by her teeth cutting their way out. He couldn’t grip a stake. It rolled across the black stone.
Isleen attacked, moving so quickly that she was a blur. Her fangs slashed into his throat. Ripping. Tearing. Her claws pierced his chest. He threw back his head and screamed.
He missed what happened next. Missed it entirely. Loriann told him about it later, much later, in such vivid detail that it was almost as if he witnessed his rescue. His saviors.
Katie and Leo. The two master vampires blew the doors off the barn. And came inside. Katie staked Isleen. Leo cut off her head. Loriann cradled her brother. His uncle Tom lifted them both and carried them, curled up together, out of the barn. The last memory he had was a spray of his own blood. And the vamp-black eyes of the Master of the City, Leo Pellissier.
? ? ?
Rick woke up in his own bed, clean, sore, and sleepy, just after dawn. Sprawled in the chair at the foot of his bed was his mom, her eyes open, watching him. Tom sat in a kitchen chair beside her. When his uncle realized he had awakened, he said, “What do you want most? A rare steak or sex?”
Rick raised his head, surprised that there was no pain. No pain anywhere. He touched his throat, finding no scars, then smiled and stretched. “Neither. Breakfast would be good.” He looked at his mother. “Blueberry pancakes?”
She blew out a breath so hard and deep it sounded like a mini-explosion. Uncle Tom grinned widely, a big toothy grin. “He’s still himself. The binding didn’t take.”
“Pancakes it is,” his mother whispered, blinking back tears. “But your father is going to have kittens at the idea of you with a tattoo.”
Rick sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at the tattoos on his shoulders, studying the eyes of the mountain lion. They didn’t glow or sparkle like gold jewelry. They were just amber, the eyes of a mountain cat. “I can live with that,” he said. “I can live with most anything now.” He tilted his head to his uncle. “Thank you. I owe you. I owe you big-time.”
“Yeah, you do. We’ll talk.”