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Honor, in the style of omerta, from the days when humans ruled and mafia families held power, was a thing the vampires embraced as if they’d created the concept.
Perhaps they had. They’d been around since the dawn of creation. Or so she’d been told, though she’d never been allowed into the private libraries. Never read the histories where they were central figures.
“Recently you’ve spent a great deal of time at the occult shop,” The Master said. “Why?”
“Corinne has an interest in such things. I’ve accompanied her there.”
“And taken note of what she’s studied?”
“There’s been nothing in particular.”
“She has not been interested in charms or spells that might conceal her whereabouts?”
Sajia knew then, though she wouldn’t have thought there was a spell or charm powerful enough to hide a scion from being tracked by the vampire family she belonged to.
“Corinne is missing,” she said, daring to lift her head and meet The Master’s eyes because only by doing so could she convey that she was unafraid of what he would find if he seized her mind.
It was a boldness born of desperation. If he answered her challenge and discovered the periods where she blacked out, coming back to herself sometimes in locations she had no memory of going to, she’d die tonight, in this room.
The scorpion-shaped charm at Sajia’s neck felt warm against the cold of the moment and the icy precipice she stood on. Her shirt clung to her skin as her nightgown had earlier. And her heart beat furiously against her chest.
They would smell her fear, hear the thundering race of her pulse, but they would also expect it. Though she had nothing to do with Corinne’s disappearance, she wouldn’t escape punishment because of it. As bajaran she was responsible for Corinne’s well-being. It remained her duty to know Corinne well enough to anticipate her actions and keep her safe from the impulses and ill-conceived plans of youth.
Like prey transfixed by a serpent’s stare, Sajia continued to meet The Master’s gaze. A subtle shift, perception rather than true movement, told her the danger of having her mind invaded had passed. Taking a bajaran’s oath protected her from it unless there was reason to suspect betrayal. But he was The Master and no one would challenge his actions.
He steepled his hands and rested them on his chest, letting the tension build until it once again became evident that guilt or fear wouldn’t compel her to offer additional information. Finally he
acknowledged, “Corinne is missing. She was taken to Oakland, though all that remained in the memory of the fisherman who piloted the boat is Corinne’s face and a vague recollection of a charm he passed to her before she hid herself under his nets.”
At the flexing of The Master’s fingers, the wall of vampires near the doorway parted to reveal the naked form of a man. The skin on his face and hands was deeply tanned from spending his days on the water.
It took only a glance for Sajia to know he was dead, drained of blood. The bite marks on his flesh were ragged and unhealed.
He’d been questioned and killed elsewhere. His body washed to rid it of the urine and feces that had come at death, if not before, so as not to offend The Master when the corpse was brought into his presence.
Sajia allowed no pity to show, though she felt a glimmer of it. Only a man driven to desperation would come to San Francisco on business not sanctioned by the vampires. Or a greedy fool.
She looked away from the corpse. Understanding it for the message it was, that it could just as easily be her, or one of her family members.
“With your permission,” she said, “I’ll leave to begin searching for Corinne.”
ADDAI STOOD NAKED on a snowy ledge high in the Sierras. White wings spread out on either side of him as if to catch the howling, frigid wind and use it to lift upward in glorious flight. Long black hair streamed and whipped at his back like a satin cape.
He was impervious to the temperature, uncaring of air traveling fast enough to become a multitude of icy needles. What was cold to a being with origins in the dark of endless space and unfathomable universe? To a being who was the essence of light, born of the essence of power? A favored creation until the one humans named a god decided to breathe life into mud and lay claim to this planet.
And so it had begun.
The defeat of the Djinn who’d called this world theirs.
The birth of envy and betrayal. Of temptation, and lust grown into love.
Lucifer’s challenge and the casting out of his followers.
A second angelic fall.
The slaughter of mortal and Djinn wives, of angel-sired children.
Followed by the deluge, a flood to further cleanse the world, though such a cleansing proved an impossible feat.
