Shadow Rites

Foul, brackish water, muddy and greenish with algae, filled the pit up to about a foot from the doors. Mold and slime coated the edges of the contained pool and climbed up the warped wood and crumbling concrete walls of the pit. Raindrops spattered down, making concentric circles on the surface.

Bruiser tilted the gallon bottle and drizzled some of the blood into the water. It spread like crimson ink, dropping quickly from sight. Nothing happened. Seconds ticked by and he dripped some more blood in. Something sallow rose, a yellowed-brown bowl, the color of smoked bone. A fringe of blackness floated up around the bowl. Hair. That was hair. And the bone bowl was the top of a skull. The head tilted back and a ravaged face lifted from the water, eyelids thin as paper, bluish as they opened over black eyes in grayish, yellowed sclera. A vamp. Eyes vamped out. But without the blood to make the transition to blood-drinking predator work.

The mouth appeared, lips blackened, the teeth looking human, but the augmented jaw opened too wide to be human, more snakelike, unhinged to spread wide. The cheeks were hollows with tendons clearly delineated and the skin over the facial bones was so desiccated it was mummified.

Someone near me whispered, “Is it your twin, Ming?” The man’s voice continued to speak as if he had been answered, an Asian language, cursing by the tone, the syllables harsh with pain. I knew that voice but glanced back to be certain. It was the primo and Enforcer to Ming Zhane of Clan Glass, called Cai, no last name or maybe no first name. The primo of Ming Zhane was slender, dark-haired, and deadly in the kung fu, Bruce Lee kinda way. The moment I had met him I had known that he could break me into tiny little pieces while yawning. Beside Cai, a woman hissed in a breath and began to weep and whisper in the same language, Mandarin, which established that Ming Zhane was in the room, watching her sister’s rescue.

The scent of horror, vampire dread, and panic began to seep into the room, a stale scent of rotting flowers and old blood. I felt Leo’s power flow into the room, cold as the tundra in some frozen Arctic land. Saw him take a breath. His action repeated as every vamp in the room breathed in and out together. The tingle of vamp magic rose, itchy and unpleasant, Leo, holding it together, holding his people together. The stale scent of panic began to fade.

On the screen, the creature’s jaw opened even wider and fangs nearly three inches long slowly swiveled out with a grinding sound, as if long unused.

Bruiser tilted the gallon milk bottle over the opened maw. Blood fell down and trickled into the mouth. The throat swallowed. And swallowed. And drank and drank, growing more effortless with each swallow. She drank the whole bottle of blood. Bruiser moved the plastic container away and Brandon, or maybe Brian—with the mud it was impossible to tell the twins apart—knelt beside him, a blade at his wrist. With a clean upward slice he gashed open the artery and positioned it above the blackened lips, his strong blood pulsing down. The mummified vampire drank, straining upward, taking in enough blood to feed a Naturaleza vamp—the kind who drink down and kill humans for funzies—for days. Onorios have powerful blood and they can lose a lot more than a human can before suffering the consequences, but even with that, it looked like a lot of blood to lose. The other twin bled himself next. And then Bruiser, but he lay on the ground and cradled the skeletal head in one hand, allowing the vampire to bite into his wrist. Which the fanghead did with surprising gentleness, her fangs just grazing into the artery, not sinking deeply, not tearing flesh and tendons, not breaking bone. Ming of Mearkanis, once a Blood Master of a Mithran clan, drank.

I had seen Leo after he was drained. It hadn’t been pretty and he hadn’t been sane for a long time after. This vamp was peaceful. Passive. It had to be the foil-wrapped brooch keeping her sluggish and relaxed. Which meant that witches, somewhere, somewhere close by, had a way to tame a vampire. Control a vampire. Use a vampire for something that I couldn’t even imagine.

Suddenly the Witch Conclave, where the vamps and witches would sign peace accords for the first time in forever, so far as I knew, was in serious danger. This was bad and getting badder. I licked my fingers and slid a hand down to make sure the vamp-killer could be easily accessed.

Beside Bruiser, long, thick black tubes snaked into the water. The sounds of pumps came on, adding to the clamor on the screen. The water level in the pit began to go down. Inside the pit, more of the captive became visible. Bony neck that was nothing more than tendons and spiny processes and working esophagus. Shoulders and collarbone and upper ribs. Rotting clothing. Pinned to the remains of the shirt or blouse, and through her flesh as well, was a twin of the brooch on the ground beside Bruiser, this one filmed with scum, but recognizable. Through several inches of water, the gems glowed with greenish energies that pixelated as soon as the water dropped below them, leaving a series of rectangular irregularities in the footage.

As the water went down, the wood and concrete wall was revealed, the wood blackened, the shell-based concrete crumbling. Iron rings had been set into the concrete, rusty but still strong. Blackened silver chains were looped around and around them, and wound across the vampire. Where they touched her, blackened skin showed and one Robere brother set to work with huge metal snips, the kind used by rescue workers to free bodies trapped in car accidents, powered by yet more generators. The chains fell away and the vamp slid deeper into the water, reaching up with her freed arms to grab Bruiser, pulling him into the water with her, a splash we could all see but not hear over the pumps and generators and the occasional shrill calls of human voices.