Page 61 of Envious Of Fire
“You’re being disrespectful. Did I not quitclaim my interest in your human when you confronted me? Did I not respect you in your lair? I expected that courtesy returned.” Lazarus’s eyes darken—and it does something quite terrifying to his already off-putting face, causing Kyle to step back. “Unless you wish to rescind your own claim on that human you had tied down.”
Kyle swallows hard, reassessing everything in the space of seconds. The young man still hangs limply, head lulled to the side, arms dangling, cock flopped onto his thigh, hair messy.
If Kyle attempts to defy Lazarus, it could spell disaster for everyone Kyle knows and cares for. He needs to keep Elias and the people of Nowhere in mind at all times—especially seeing as Lazarus has proven he can slip undetected through Wendy’s allegedly impenetrable radar.
“Of … Of course not,” says Kyle at last. “He’s yours.”
“No, he’s Salazo’s. Like I said.” Lazarus peers down at the man in his arms with a mixture of weariness and disgust. “They do this often. Salazo pretends to set his pet free, then captures him again, over and over … It’s a game they play. He insists itmakes his pet’s blood taste sweeter, all that adrenaline, all that excitement …” He lifts his cold gaze to Kyle. “Do you wish to see our lair? The mouth armed with fangs I described … I shall take you there. You’ll meet all of us … and see what you are.”
Kyle stares again at the defenseless young man, wonders if he ever truly wanted to know what he is, or if this isn’t just one more self-destructive quest he should never have embarked on.
14.
Dark Blood.
—·—
Tristan sits on the counter in the vacant operating room, one knee hugged to his chest, his other leg dangling. The air is as crisp and biting as the winter, and a putrid odor cuts through it all, despite the nurses’ efforts to suppress it with ventilation and incense. For the last hour, Tristan has sat in here alone, the others sent away, as he stares distantly at the iced corpse in the middle of the room. Brock Hastings, as dead as can be, in a bin of ice, only his face, chest, and the tips of his toes sticking out.
His dick, too.
It’s the night of the full moon. Mance gave his signal, and Tristan returned it with his own, and now he waits in this room for a ritual—or magical medical procedure?—to begin, a ritual Tristan holds no hope in his heart of actually working.
“He’sstillnot here?” comes Raya, appearing at the door.
Tristan yawns for an answer.
Raya enters the room, then reconsiders her decision after picking up the putrid odor, shielding her nose. “Of course he’d be late,” she mutters behind her hand. “Rude prick.”
Next to the bin of ice that contains the beloved corpse is a long metal table, upon which is arranged every last item Mance allegedly requires like scalpels for surgery: tall, neatly-stacked towers of forty-four books—four stacks of eleven each, to be precise—that each are forty-four years old and contain a “B” in the title, two large severed bat wings from the precise variety of bat Mance specified, and a box of hair the same color asBrock’s gathered off the cold, sterile floor of a morgue. A gallon of goat blood in a steel bucket. Upon a tray, pieces of bark from an oak tree struck by lightning less than seven days prior to being collected and that has not been urinated on by a dog—how George confirmed that, Tristan can only be amused to guess. A jar containing black salt. A heavy chunk of obsidian roughly the size of a human head. Leaning against the table on the floor is the final “ingredient” and allegedly the last one found: a mirror taken off one of the walls in Brock’s father’s suite at the Scarlet Sands Hotel & Casino.
And somewhere between all those ingredients lies Tristan’s sanity. And somewhere else, his thinning patience.
“You look awful,” says Raya.
Yes, I know, it’s why I’m here, Tristan returns sleepily.I am scheduled for a facelift.I hear the doctor is a real miracle-working hunk who can take twenty years off my age…
“Take twenty and you’ll be sperm in your father’s testicles again.” Raya sits on the counter next to him, crosses her legs. “It’s that stupid bracelet. It’s kept you awake for days.”
Not for much longer. He lifts his wrist.A single bead remains.
“You have circles under your eyes,” she goes on, sounding not unlike a scolding sister, “dark circles, been unbalanced and not yourself lately. I even caught you staring at a wall just last night muttering nonsense to yourself. I don’t know whether it’s from sleep deprivation or whatever evil magic you’re ingesting. Mance will probably infiltrate your dreams or eat your soul from inside.”
Then it’s a fortunate fact that I have none.
“Dreams? Or a soul?” She turns her head, studies him, then lowers her voice. “He passed the test, you know.”
Tristan leans his head back, letting it rest on the cabinet door over his dizzy head. Everything feels slow, achy, unreal.
“I know you were worried. You thought I got him killed … blurting his number when I didn’t realize Ashara was listening. He could have died,” she considers, her voice trailing off. “But now he has survived a few days already. I visited him. More than once. No one can stop me from doing so now.”
No one would dream of it, returns Tristan, rubs his eyes, then leans over and lays his head on Raya’s lap.Please wake me when our guest of honor shows up, will you? You’d be astounded to discover how much rest one can get in a five-minute powernap…
“The audacity of this asshole.” Raya slides off the counter with a huff, causing Tristan’s head to fall, rousing him with a start. “It’ll be morning soon. We’ll have to return home through filthy tunnels instead of the lovely streets. I rather enjoyed the idea of a peaceful walk under the full moon. Can he even still do the ritual if the moon’s not out? Wasthata bunch of bullshit?”
I’m worried as well, admits Tristan, rubbing his eyes. When he notices Raya looking his way, he clarifies:If the doctor doesn’t come, I’ll look a hundred forever.Really, I need this facelift.
Raya’s eyes cloud over. “You pretend to be so indifferent, so calm, making light out of everything, but I know you’re just as scared about what’s to come in this room … all the ways this could go so terribly wrong. And after all we’ve done to prepare for this night—going behind Lord Markadian’s back, deceiving George into gathering these … theseridiculousthings …” she spits out with a careless gesture at the long metal table and its odd contents. “Tristan, I swear, if this was all for nothing …”
