“Saraktanas? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, that was it, because I thought it sounded so odd.”
Vanzir let out a slow breath. “I know exactly what he’s talking about and it’s bad news, I’m afraid.”
We all turned to him. “What does it mean?”
“In the common demonic tongue, Saraktanas translates to ‘seal wearers.’ That verifies—with what I’ve learned in the Demon Underground—that they’ve taken her back to the Subterranean Realms.”
And with that news, I lost it.
*
Red as blood, a crimson haze, was all I could see around me. The freaks had Nerissa and they were going to die. Period. Die in a bath of blood and fire and frenzied mauling. I wanted to rip out their throats, drink them down to the ground, and then grind them under my feet once they were drained. The hunger to hurt them grew as I swung around, grabbing the nearest chair and sending it against the far wall, where it landed in a tangle with a metal cart that currently stood empty. The clatter was enough to raise the dead, but it did nothing to soothe my anger, and I was about to send my fist through the wall when Chase moaned as he tried to sit straight up.
But before he could manage it, Camille put all her force into her voice as her words reverberated through the room. “MENOLLY, STOP!”
I froze, unable to continue as the fury began to diffuse and I shook my head, my ears still ringing with her voice. As I glanced over at the bed, Chase groaned, his face clammy. Instantly chagrined, I reined in my anger and retracted my fangs.
There are very few ways to calm down a vampire who is in a frenzy, but Camille possessed what was known as the voice of control, a rare force able to yank a vampire out of bloodlust. Somehow, Chase had developed the ability after consuming the Nectar of Life, which seemed to have awakened his own gifts. Both of them had managed to stop me cold a couple of times in the past.
Camille walked over to me. “Let’s go outside the room for a minute.” She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and led me out of the room, leaving Mallen to attend to Chase, and the others silent and pensive.
She walked me to the waiting room. “Sit down. I’d say take a deep breath but that’s moot, so do whatever it is you do in place of it now.”
I closed my eyes, searching for that sparkling light deep in my memories that I used for an anchor. When I had been turned, the OIA—or rather, the YIA; we had moved over to the OIA later on but the latter was a child agency of the former—had spent a year rehabilitating me rather than face the scandal that my father threatened them with. They had sent me into severe danger without backup, and they knew the risks but didn’t fully disclose them to me. The only thing that saved them from being brought up on charges was that my father held a lot of public respect, and he demanded they do what they could to fix the damage in return for not pursuing the matter. The fact that I was half-human also helped them. The Court would have been lackluster on their charges, given my heritage. But scandals breed even more scandals, and the YIA wanted to avoid any more publicity than they already got from me being turned.
One of the tricks they had taught me was to hold on to an inner light—to use that as the touchstone and anchor for all that I once was, and all that I had now become. And the visualization worked. If I could find my way to that light and hold tight to it, I was able to keep my inner predator under control. It acted as a stronger anchor than just about anything I had ever tried.
As I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, Camille gracefully sat down beside me. She didn’t try to stroke my back, or take my hand, for which I was grateful. I wasn’t a touchy-feely person—even before I had become a vampire I had been a little bit put off by people reaching out before I invited them to. But she just sat there, waiting.
Finally, I was able to speak again. “They took her to the Sub-Realms, Camille. What the hell are we going to do? I know we can’t give them the spirit seals. I know that, but I want to kill them, drive them to dust. I want to hand over anything they want in order to set her free.”
Camille cleared her throat, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “Even if you gave them what they wanted, you know they wouldn’t keep their end of the bargain. And say . . . say they did keep their word. They’re demons, bent on taking over this world. Do you and Nerissa really want to be sitting at their side when they raze through in a mass of destruction? Because you know that if you give them the seals, you might as well just hand them the keys to the kingdom and say, Come on in, boys. The water’s fine.”