Page 116 of The Deer and the Dragon
I hated that they’d opened a window to banish the smoke and moss from the room, leaving only the garden-fresh smells of the idyllic town beyond. I hated changing into the only other pair of clean clothes I’d purchased at the boutique, and I hated the bitter taste of coffee from the lobby. I hated wasting my day on the hotel’s business computer googling ancient Canaanite civilizations, Phoenician gods and goddesses, religious practices, and pagan fertility rites. I did kind of enjoy the scowl I gave a nosy, middle-aged onlooker with bobbed blond hair when she peered over my shoulder.
“I’m just looking up sacrificing rituals,” I said to the woman.
She glared at me as if I’d just flashed her my tits and told her to take a picture.
“Human sacrifice,” I clarified. “It’s a favorite topic of mine.”
The woman disappeared with a loud huff and a look on her face that told me that the hotel manager would be hearing from her.
My thumb slipped a time or two and I found myself searching for pictures of the Dead Sea, but memories did not return.
I promptly returned to hating things.
I hated choking down an overpriced cuban from the hotel’s restaurant and pushing the fallen bits of ham and spare chips around the plate until I eventually signed my name to the room. I hated flipping through the television with nothing to watch, staring at the clock as the hours crept on. I hated that time moved slowly when I didn’t have my phone to scroll or my laptop for work.
I hated walking down the street to a coffee shop and seeing the chocolate pastries, wishing Fauna were here with me. I opened my purse to pay and frowned. I was down an item.My broach and poppet clanged together in the loose bottom of the bag as I reached for the credit card, but Azrames and Caliban must have taken the knife back from me while I was in the shower.
I wouldn’t have been any good with the weapon, but it was hard to swallow that I’d be going in truly defenseless after all.
And once the clock hit half past four, suddenly it felt as if there’d been no time at all. I could never have prepared myself for the emotional turmoil of the drive to the clinic, or the way my heart thundered so hard in my ears that I thought perhaps I’d crashed the BMW into the car in front of me when I’d eased into a parking spot. I shouldered my purse and walked on unsteady feet toward the lobby, but Jessabelle was there to receive me before I reached the glass door. Her smile was one of appreciation and something that almost looked like…veneration.
“Merit,” she cooed. “We’ve been counting the seconds all day.”
“Me too,” I said honestly.
Abandoning all sense of decorum, she looped her arm through mine as she escorted me forward. Instead of taking me to the stairs, she turned to a row of elevators and hit the downward arrow. Given the height of the building, I hadn’t expected so many subterranean floors, but from the tiny dashes indicating the negatives before each number, it appeared that it extended into the earth nearly as deep as it was tall.
And as the elevator began to pull us down, down, down, I couldn’t help but wish we really were going into the pits of Hell. At least Hell had good booze.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Despite being swallowed by the earth, the elevator opened into a room so bright it could have been filled with natural light. I stepped out of the elevator, and my lips parted in surprise. I didn’t try to hide my confusion from Jessabelle.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
It was.
I felt like I’d stepped into a luxury Mediterranean spa. A shallow pool ran the length of the room, elaborate mosaic tiles reflecting along its bottom in the blossoming patterns that reminded me of art from ancient Mesopotamia. White columns lined the pool and the wall. Each porcelain pillar had a lantern mounted to its center, all emitting the gentle glow of a tiny star. Lanterns dropped down from the ceiling above the center of the pool, continuing the evenly spaced pattern of starlight. Juliet roses, greenery, and aquamarine lounging settees, perfectly matching the blue of the pool, dotted the space between the columns.
“We’ll have you relax here after the procedure,” she said lightly.
I suppressed a gag, faking a smile through the repulsive thought of relaxing on a chair by the pool with a stranger’s semen dripping down my leg. My hand flew to my mouth to conceal the nausea. She didn’t seem to notice as she led theway. Moments later she helped me hang my things in what I wanted to call a locker room, but between the burning incense, the heated floors, the low lighting, and the luxurious wood, calling it a locker room felt like an insult.
She procured a fluffy white robe. “Please rinse off in preparation for the procedure. Do not redress, save for the robe. I’ll wait for you outside. Take all the time you need.”
A tremble overcame me the moment she left.
It was a perversion of my former profession. This was a day that belonged to Astarte. Our bodies were not ours.
I stood under the hot water for far too long. I wondered if Jessabelle would come and check on me if I didn’t hurry up, but I couldn’t force myself from the water. I had no plan. I was simply to move forward with theprocedure,as she’d insisted on calling it. I wouldn’t be lying on the crinkly paper of a hospital bed while fluorescent lights burned my retinas and cold speculums were inserted. This was gentle, plucking harps of spa music, hazy smoke, and the thrum of ancient magic.
I stepped from the shower and toweled off, trembling as if I stood in the Arctic rather than the balmy temperature fit for a cedar sauna. I stepped into the soft, fluffy robe and looked at myself in the mirror.
It had pockets.
I ran my fingers along the material and heard Jessabelle’s voice from the far side of the door. “Are you almost ready, Merit?”
“Yes.” I choked a quiet response. “Just one moment.”
