Crimson Veil

Chapter 17

When I came to, Roman and I were snuggled up at the base of the tree. Exhausted, I closed my eyes as he wrapped his arm around me. I was shirtless, but my jeans were buttoned and the softness of his jacket against my skin felt welcoming. He kissed the top of my head.

“Better now?”

I nodded. “I needed that.” Pausing, I took stock. I felt refreshed. Tired but like a whole fuckton of stress had gone bye-bye. The sex had been fantastic, but it was more than that. “I feel renewed.”

“That’s because of where we were.” He leaned forward, brushing a spider off his leg.

“Were we in… the Veil?” I’d been in the Crimson Veil only once, when his mother, Blood Wyne—Queen of the Vampire Nation—had sent me there. And within the Veil I’d learned more about my true nature, about the nature of vampires, than I had ever known even existed. The Crimson Veil was the core of the hunger—of the bloodlust. It was the source of vampirism, created by Mother Kesana, who had melded her soul with a demon to become the first vampire to walk the earth.

“Yes, I took you to the Veil. You were exhausted and weary. You’ve had some great shocks lately. The Veil is a place of renewal and regeneration. And you so dearly needed both.” He stood then, pulling me to my feet. “I have business to attend to before the rest of the night is spent. But Menolly… thank you. Thank you for letting me help you. And remember what I said about Nerissa. You need to give her more of yourself. You can’t just take on a title of wife and expect that wearing it will be enough. You have to live the part.”

And with that, he grabbed my hand and we raced through the forest at a blinding speed. He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, kissed me once more, and then vanished into the night.

As I headed up the stairs, I realized that for the first time in a long while, I felt rested and ready to face whatever might be coming. Inside, I glanced at the clock. It was going on four. Mourning my Jag, but feeling oddly content, for the rest of the night, I watched old movies, curled up in the living room.

The next evening—or rather late afternoon, considering how early the sun was setting—I woke up to a relatively calm house. Hanna was washing dishes, and it looked like dinner was over. Maggie was playing in her playpen, Delilah and Camille were poring over the documents Carter had given us about the Farantino Building. The guys were busy outside cleaning up after the storm. Though I hadn’t noticed it the night before while in the throes of wild hot monkey sex with Roman, the wind had been blowing up a gale, and now branches littered the yard.

As I picked up Maggie out of her playpen and snuggled her for a moment, Kitten gave me a resigned smile. But at least, it was a smile. Maggie yanked on my hair—which hurt like the devil—as I cuddled the little gargoyle.

“Camille, can you braid my hair? I’ve decided that, while it’s pretty down, I don’t want to keep it loose in case of a fight. Too much chance to have it used against me.” With how curly and tangled my hair was, much safer to leave it braided up. I tucked Maggie back in her playpen and crossed to the table.

“Sure.” She stood, arching her back. “Where are the beads?”

I handed her the box I’d picked up off my dresser. They contained a bunch of new beads that Nerissa had bought for me and I had pretty much ignored till now. “Here, why don’t you try some of these?”

They were pretty—greens and blues and gold. I’d been hesitant to change them because… well… now I wasn’t sure what my reasons were, but this seemed like the first step to letting my wife know how much she meant to me. She’d mentioned once or twice how I wouldn’t even consider some of her suggestions when it came to hair and clothes.

Camille smiled softly as she picked up the box. “I helped her pick these out, you know. She asked me what you might like.”

Now I did feel like a heel, but I chose to ride over it. “I have to buy a new car. I don’t want to buy a new one, but there’s no help for it. Mine’s trashed. So what say we go down to the dealer and see what we can find? Roman will front me the money, so no worries on that count.”

“We can get one hell of a good deal. We did before.” Camille snickered as she began brushing through my hair and parting it into sections. She used a mister to moisten the curls and smooth them down as she braided them.

“What kind of car are you thinking of getting?” Delilah pushed aside the files she’d been looking at. “Another Jag?”

I frowned. “No… too many associations now with being almost pulverized twice. I’m thinking I might get a Mustang. I thought about it before the Jaguar and now… well…”

“Why don’t we build it online and then order it?” Delilah brought up the website, and within seconds, we were building my new car. I wanted the royal blue color—or that’s what I called it—and as we added up the options, I grimaced at the price tag. But Roman had said to get what I wanted and I could take as long as I wanted to pay him back. Of course, he’d also said I didn’t have to pay him back but that wasn’t going to happen.

Delilah hit the final update button and then a search. “Looks like you can have it in three days at the Belles-Faire dealership. Forty-one thousand and some change.”

I grimaced but texted Roman. Within minutes I had a return text to forward the information and the check would be delivered to the dealership, so that I could pick up the car without worries when it came in. And that was that. No muss. No fuss. No hours spent listening to the dealer trying to sell me something I didn’t want.

“Is Nerissa home yet?” I wanted to talk to her. Wanted to start mending the fences before they fully broke.

“Not yet, but she should be soon. Now hold still while I finish your hair.” She made quick work of the rest—by now she’d had plenty of practice—and I had shiny new beads in my cornrows.

I suddenly wondered why I’d been so hesitant to change them before. The new beads were pretty, and they didn’t do anything but spruce up my hair. Why had I been so resistant? Pondering the question, I barely noticed when Camille’s phone rang and she answered. But the next moment, I sure as hell noticed her conversation.

“Holy fuck. Right! We’ll get right over there. Thanks, Carter.” As she punched the End Talk button, Delilah and I looked at her, waiting.

“You don’t want to know. But we have to go out tonight and we’d better get our butts in gear. Carter wants to see us now. And he said come prepared and with a full crew, which I’m translating to ‘be ready for a fight.’”

We scrambled. I scribbled off a note for Nerissa, while Delilah hurried outside to alert the men. Camille raced upstairs to change clothes. Within ten minutes, we were armed and ready to go. Because Aeval’s men were guarding the house, we decided that Roz and Trillian should stay behind, while Morio, Smoky, Shade, and Vanzir would go with us.

“Morio, Smoky, Menolly—you come with me. Shade and Vanzir, ride with Delilah.” Camille barked out orders as we crowded out of the doorway. As we split off to the two cars, a streak of lightning split the sky and rain thundered down. It was definitely the night for a fight, all right.

Carter was waiting for us. He hurried us in, out of the rain. Tea was waiting, and cookies—you could always count on Carter to provide refreshments and hospitality, even if the situation was dire. And by the look on his face, the shit was about to hit the fan.

We filed into his living room and gathered around the coffee table, where he had what looked like some architectural plans scattered around. He took his seat, and without chitchat or even his usual niceties, he dove right in.

“I think Lowestar will try to wake Suvika tonight.”

Crap. None of us had expected to hear that. We stared at him, silence thick as pea soup.

“What the hell did you do to spur him on like this? It had to be you—only a major disruption in his plans would force him to move this fast. He’s slow and steady; otherwise he wouldn’t have flown under the radar all these years.” Carter bit into one of his cookies and cocked his head, a quizzical look on his face.

I glanced at the others. “We may have freed all his potential sex slaves.”

“You may have? Or you did?”

“Well… did. Or at least all of them we could find. We have them in hiding—if Lowestar finds them, chances are he’ll either kill them or worse. He’s not the type to take this sort of behavior lying down.” I scuffed my foot against the carpet. “By the way, do you know of a Fae woman named Eisha te Kana?”

Carter did a double take. “You’re friends with a paid assassin? Of course I know who she is.”

It was our turn to spit-take. “You mean you actually know her name without checking up on any files? Then she didn’t give me a false name?”

He slapped his palm to his forehead. “If you’ve run afoul of her, consider yourself lucky to still be alive. Eisha’s well paid, but not because she’s terribly discreet. No, she’s willing to take risks—put her own life on the line to go after her target. What the hell happened?”

I shrugged. “I think Lowestar hired her to kill me after I refused to sell my bar. That didn’t work, so she planted a tracer bug on me and another goon—maybe her, too—came after me.”

Carter shook his head. “Probably right on that. She’s never out to get anybody on a personal level, but the woman will do anything for money. Chances are she was paid well to make a hit. And now that she’s failed to kill you twice? She’ll probably be long gone before whoever took out the contract can catch up with her and take her down for failure. I doubt you’ll ever see her again.”

I leaned back. That was reassuring, yet not. She was still out there. Gun for hire. Or in this case, SUV for hire.

“Meanwhile, back to Lowestar and Suvika. Word has filtered through the grapevine that he’s performing the ritual tonight. So I did a little more research—I paid dearly for this information so I hope you appreciate it. The ritual to waken the demigod must take place during the first three days after the dark of the moon, in the autumn-tide. So it’s perfect timing.”

Carter tossed a dossier on the table. “Here’s what I could gather. I think there must be a temple complex beneath the Farantino Building. And I think that’s where they will be performing the rite. To do so takes blood. Human blood. The fresh, warm, sticky blood of a virgin girl and a strong young man.”

He sat back, taking another cookie.

I picked up the file and opened it. Then as Carter motioned to the blueprints, Delilah scooped them up.

The file was a treatise on how the ritual to Suvika went. It was written in a foreign tongue, but had been translated to English. I skimmed through the rites and charms to get an idea of what we were facing, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Okay, we have ritual bloodletting as part of the offering. The defloration of virgins. Throat cutting of young virile men. The offering of gold and silver. A little torture, a little tickle… the whole ball of wax. Suvika must be friends with Jakaris.” Jakaris was the Svartan god of vice and torture, and I had the feeling that they’d have a fuckton of fun together.

Delilah held up the prints. “It seems the Farantino Building is definitely hiding more than we thought. In the basement, there is a passage that leads to a stairwell going down.”

“Not back into Underground Seattle.” Camille groaned.

“No, but into the depths of a temple. From what I can tell, there’s a way to get into the temple through an old sewer line that runs there.”

“Great. What you want to bet he’s filled it with alligators?” Camille put her cookie down, looking vaguely nauseated. “The last thing I want to do is tramp through a sewer.”

“It could be worse. Maybe they’ve figured out a way to hook up electric lines through the sewage. One good turn of the switch and bingo. Crispy critters via electrocution. Crispy critters that smell.” I hadn’t meant to sound flippant, but it came out that way. “Oh, don’t give me those looks. You all know what I mean. And if that’s actually the case, better we plan on it in advance and be happily surprised if it doesn’t happen.”

“You make a good point.” Vanzir frowned. “So what—we go in there tonight and invade their temple room? Very Conan the Barbarian.”

“Very Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” Delilah countered.

“Very likely to get us killed but who the fuck cares?” Camille let out a short burst of laughter. “We’ve faced worse before. Gulakah was a full-fledged god, not just some sleeping demigod. And Lowestar is a daemon. We’ve fought demon generals. But what do we know about his body guards other than he seems to have a penchant for hellhounds and Tregart-like thugs? Does he have any secondary priests—because I assume he is a priest of this god?”

“He is, indeed. I managed to scrounge up a few details about the ritual. Not many, but enough to give us a rough guideline. First, it requires that the rite be performed at four hours before midnight. Meaning eight P.M. It’s almost six now. Second, they need a virgin to sacrifice. Old school, but apparently Suvika gets into the kinky stuff. And third, they must have a virile and muscular young man—I wasn’t able to translate the reasons for that except it involves throat cutting. Lastly, the priest attempting to wake Suvika and become his favorite must offer a basket of gold and a basket of silver up to the demigod.”

“Virgin. Jock. Gold and silver. Got it.” I shook my head. This was starting to sound like a bad B-grade horror flick. Satan’s Schlong for Girls or some such movie. “So what goes down during this horror show?”

Carter repressed a snicker. “Well, they kill the virgin, which means you have to save the girl first. Then I’m not sure what they do with the jock, but the money is poured into a fire hot enough to melt it. After that it gets muddy and hard to translate, but the best I can read it, Suvika wakes up, the priest gets rewarded, and then… whatever happens, I have no clue. But it can’t be good.”

“No, it can’t be good.” You just didn’t wake up a creaky old perverted demigod and expect fruity joy to follow.

“So we go in. We stop Lowestar. I assume that means killing him because you know that if we do anything else, he’ll be back, worse than ever.” Smoky slid his hands into his jeans’ pockets and leaned back in his chair. “Our actions yesterday precipitated this, but there was nothing else we could do. We couldn’t leave the prisoners there. And they’re in danger until Lowestar is put out to pasture.”

“I have a question.” Morio leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What the fuck do we do if he does manage to summon up Suvika? How do you fight this demigod?”

I wanted to say “perish the thought,” but the truth was, we did need to think about the possibility. “Carter, what do you know about Suvika’s vulnerabilities? The information I found earlier stated that if he’s summoned incorrectly, all hell will break loose and he’ll be totally free. Which indicates that he might be under some form of control if Lowestar manages to perform the rites correctly.”

“Suvika is one of what we call the ancient gods. They predate the Greeks and Romans. My father, Hyperion the Titan, is from that time-before-time. While some of the world had written records—Egypt, Sumer, Babylonia—there were great civilizations that you know nothing about because all record of them was lost to time. Atlantis is one of these. Predating Egypt, it was an island nation that did, indeed, sink beneath the waves when the massive volcano that was at the center of the island erupted, causing a huge quake and tsunami. There’s very little in the way of proof that it ever existed, but it was there.”

“I found evidence that he is thought to be either an ancient Mongolian or Finnish deity—at least from that area.” I frowned. “But there’s not much to go on.”

“That’s because those cultures were passed down through oral tradition. So much has been lost over the years, especially when you go back that far. But if he is from that area, then we need to find his weakness, and find the proper name of his enemy—be it iron or whatever.”

“That sounds like something Tanne was talking about. He mentioned knowing the name of… oh… some metal.” Camille quickly told him about Tanne’s part in rescuing Violet and the others.

“Black Forest Fae? Then he may be useful in helping you with this. Call him and see if he’ll go with you. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find anything at all on Suvika’s weaknesses while you start looking over these plans.”

As he took to his computer, we studied the blueprints, figuring out what was where. Camille put in a call to Tanne, who agreed to meet us outside the Farantino Building at around six thirty.

Carter returned as we were trying to trace a route into the building. It appeared there was access via the city sewers.

“I found very little, other than Suvika loves metals. Therefore, I doubt if any one metal in particular will harm him. However, from what I could tell, he didn’t like the outdoors very much and spent most of his waking time in temples, where yew was banned. Perhaps yew can harm him?”

“My staff is yew.” Camille frowned. “But I forgot to bring it.”

“Great. We’re all armed up and he likes metal.” Delilah pulled her dagger out of her boot and began toying with it.

Carter reached out. “May I see that?”

She paused, then handed him Lysanthra. As he touched it, he laughed, and the dagger let out a melodic chime that echoed through the room and began to glow with a pale yellow light. We’d all seen the energy around the sentient dagger before, but never like this. It began to hum and vibrate, and then with a flash, the silver took on a softly burnished glow.

Delilah gasped as he handed the dagger back to her. “What—what… oh, great gods. What did you do? I can feel her so much more—she’s…” With a soft awe in her voice, she whispered, “She’s beautiful. I’ve never heard her sing before.”

Carter cocked his head to one side. “I didn’t realize you had one of the daggers of Luciél.”

“Luciél? And… this is one of a matched set of three that our father gave us.” Delilah glanced over at Camille, who pulled out her own dagger and presented it to Carter.

Carter stroked the metal and smiled softly. “Your dagger is still sleeping. I cannot waken it, just make it more aware once it has chosen to rise and shine. The third, I assume, would be Menolly’s?”

I nodded. “I can’t touch it, though. Obviously.”

“The daggers of Luciél belonged to three Fae sisters—they were full Fae, make no mistake about that. And they ruled one of the barrow mounds Earthside before the Great Divide. They were warrior women and great lovers. Not much is known about them, save for bits and pieces in song and legend. They stood together, bound by blood and honor, and I believe… they died together during a great battle.” He stared at Delilah and Camille’s daggers, a somber look on his face. “You bear the weapons of warrior women. Do not disgrace your legacy.”

“I wonder if Father knew what these were. I don’t know where he got them, but one day he brought them home and said they were for us. Many years back when we were just starting out with the YIA.” Camille hung her head. “I doubt we’ll ever know now… how much he understood of their nature.”

I cleared my throat, not wanting to let the mood fall into a melancholy state. “We have work to do. We can reminisce later.”

And so, fueled by cookies and pot after pot of tea, we spent the next hour planning out our strategy. It felt odd, having an actual plan of action, and part of me wondered how much our luck relied on our haphazard and chaotic nature. Well, we were going to find out. That much was for sure.

By the time we headed out for the Farantino Building, it was six twenty. We were cutting it close. We had an hour and forty minutes until Lowestar decided to play Keymaster-Gatekeeper; only this was real and not Ghostbusters.

The plans had shown that the way in was via a secret passage located in a broom closet. It could also be reached from a passage in Lowestar’s office. The broom closet was our likelier target, given that the daemon probably kept his office highly warded. I had visions of bombs destroying the building if we barged in without an expert.

I’d suggested bringing Daniel in on this, but Camille and Delilah nixed the idea immediately as too dangerous for him. He was, after all, FBH. And they also refused to call Chase to tell him about our plans.

“He’s risking enough with his regular job, now that he has Astrid. With Sharah gone, he’s the only guardian that baby has and we’re not about to put him in any form of danger if we can help it.”

For someone who didn’t want kids, Camille sure had a protective nature toward them. But then again, she’d been our protector when Delilah and I were little, and she’d never grown out of it. I had the feeling she never would.

“Okay, but I have to tell Nerissa where we’re going. And Hanna and Trillian and Roz need to know, too.”

They agreed with that, so while we were on the way over, I called home. I got hold of Roz and asked him to get Nerissa for me. When she came on the phone, my heart leapt at her voice.

“We’re on our way in to try to stop Lowestar, love.” I told her what had gone down at Carter’s. “We don’t have a choice. It’s move tonight or risk him succeeding. We have no idea whether he can actually manage this, but we don’t dare take a chance that he can.”

Her voice was shaky. “I understand and I’ll tell Trillian and Roz. Promise me you’ll be careful? Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”

I didn’t want her to cry. I didn’t want to scare her. I was about to tell her to man up, but then, I realized that maybe she was scared because she loved me. Maybe she needed to feel what she was feeling and not repress her fear.

I sought for something that would tell her I loved her. Words alone just weren’t enough at times. And then I knew. “Honey?”

I could imagine her perfect pink lips mouthing the word yes as she spoke softly into the phone.

“I’m wearing the beads. I had Camille braid them into my hair. I love them—they’re perfect. And so are you.” And then before I could stop myself, I choked on my words, and dashed away the threat of a tear, stoically ignoring the looks Smoky and Morio were giving me. Camille didn’t glance over her shoulder, though I knew she was listening.

Nerissa started to cry then and I felt both helpless and a little gratified. “I am not perfect, and neither are you. You don’t listen to me, and you try to protect me when I don’t need protecting. You turn yourself off—you shut down when I cry or get upset. But I still love you, damn it. Even though you put me on a pedestal, which you know I hate, I love you!”

I bit my lip, my fangs descending as I tried to find the right words to defuse the situation. But then I realized I was doing it again. I was shutting down, falling back on logic, sidestepping her emotion.

“I know. I’m sorry. I do that. I really do. I’ll try to do better—but you have to understand how hard this is for me. I spent years cultivating my self-control, and I’m afraid that if I lose that, if so much as a crack appears, I won’t be able to control my predator!” Again I glared at Morio. And Smoky, who was looking over his shoulder at me.

Nerissa paused… I could hear her heart through the phone, it was beating so loud. She cleared her throat. “I never knew that you were afraid of that. I didn’t know… I thought you just were uncomfortable expressing emotion.”

“Only because I’m afraid that if I let myself go, I’ll… really let myself go and then I’ll hurt somebody. And if I hurt you, I’d never, ever forgive myself. Listen, love, I have to go. We’re almost at the Farantino Building. Tell Trillian and Roz what we’re up to, and we’ll talk when I get home.”

She laughed, just a little, but it was enough. “Be careful, you beautiful, sexy vamp you. You’re my wife. And you’re the only woman in the world for me.”

I could hear the relief in her voice. “And you… you’re my heart’s desire. I’ll see you later. Don’t wait up.”

“Right. That’s a good one.” And then she hung up and I leaned back. At least I had cleared the air. Now we could start to work on strengthening our relationship.

But first… first we had to take a walk through Lowestar’s nightmare ritual. And we had to stop a demigod from regaining consciousness. Oh yeah. No pressure. No pressure at all.