Page 105 of Blood from the Marrow
People appeared in the courtyard. Some only half-dressed like they’d just been roused to consciousness. But only the group around Cordelia seemed to know what was happening. The other low-country vamps looked just as confused as Zuri felt.
“How did you lie to me under compulsion?” Elena sounded so tired as if all she wanted to do was drag herself into a shower and then collapse in bed for a week.
Cordelia smiled because Zuri had been transported to the Twilight Zone. “I didn’t,” she replied like she couldn’t wait to spill. “I answered everything you asked me, Elena. And I answered truthfully. I don’t mean you any harm, and I certainlydid not share common cause with Sayah,” she added like her name was covered in barbs. “That girl just wasn’t right.”
“What the hell are you after, lady?” Zuri couldn’t take another pirouette around the fucking bush.
The way Cordelia’s eyes landed on Marisol made Zuri’s skin crawl. It was all she could do not to go at her eyes, talons out and hissing.
“Getting to know you,” Cordelia said with another sigh. “It sure made things complicated. I almost called this off. Watching everyone work together.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “It was so moving.” Cordelia dropped her hand. “And then I saw what makes you so dangerous.” Her attention darted to Elena. “The rest of us live within the laws of nature, darlin’ and there’s a reason for that.”
“You’re with the people hunting us?” Marisol finally managed, voice thin and heavy with spider cracks.
Cordelia tipped her head to the side like she wanted to say,bless your heart. “Honey, Iamthe people.”
Zuri nearly staggered backward. There was no way. She couldn’t have been sharing space with this creature for so long and missed something like this. It was impossible. They were shellshocked, and her brain wasn’t understanding her ears.
“We killed your minions in Venice,” Sofia said with bright delight.
“It was a sloppy move and not my call.” Cordelia shrugged. “Sometimes a stab in the dark lands and sometimes it doesn’t. And it wasn’t a loss. I’d always suspected Sabina had some secrets in her tower. I’ll be going back for those after we’re done here.”
“Get inside,” Zuri muttered, putting Marisol directly behind her. Marisol didn’t move.
“I know what you must think of me, but if your hearts weren’t clouding your vision, you’d see what I see.” She gestured to hersides. “What we all see. The power they have is dangerous. You all saw it for yourselves,” she said loud enough for her voice to echo across the stunned courtyard. “You don’t think they’d turn it on us the first chance they got?” Cordelia tsked.
The fog of fatigue cleared from Zuri’s mind as her anger spiked. “Are you seriously trying to spin an act of aggression against people who haven’t done shit to you as a defensive move?” She curled her hands into fists and thunder sounded in the distance. After having given everything she had to stopping Sayah, her power was slow to respond, but it wouldn’t abandon her. “That’s some 4D chess level gaslighting. I bet you almost believe your own bullshit.”
“Listen, I understand. I don’t take pleasure in it, I assure you.” Cordelia furrowed her brow as if she were being so sincere when she said, “When I was a girl, I found the cutest little fox pup. It had been abandoned all alone near the road where I walked to school.” She smiled as if she weren’t unhinged. “I loved this little guy so much. I about ran all the way back home to show my momma. Deacon, I’d named him. And I’d already imagined a thousand adventures we’d go on. I was going to ask my daddy to make him a little bed so he could sleep in my room, and…” She sighed, completely content. “Well, I just loved him so very much.” Her expression darkened, her eyes going from blue to black to signal her fangs. “And when my mother killed it, I cried for hours. But she taught me a valuable lesson that day. That little pup was going to turn into a fox, and its nature was to kill our chickens. I wouldn’t be taking very good care ofthemif I loosed a predator in their midst, would I?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zuri snapped.
“Stand aside and let us do what must be done.” Cordelia shed her saccharine tone.
“The fuck I will.” Thunder rolled again, long and rumbling.
“I think you miscalculated your position here,” Bernice said when she came out of nowhere. Even with her shirt and pants torn, she looked effortlessly cool and in control. How the hell was that possible? “We outnumber you by quite a few.”
Cordelia smiled. “This isn’t your fight, darlin’, and if you’re going to side with anyone, it should be your own kind.”
Bernice shook her head. “That’s the funny thing, isn’t it?” She paused, looking at Cordelia as if she were absolutely pathetic. “Whomy kindis comes down to definitions, doesn’t it?” Bernice looked at where all the Aglion had huddled together and watched what they feared most come to pass. The three black wings left Sayah’s defectors unguarded to stand in front of their own. To protect them with their tired, broken bodies. “These people risked their lives for me.” She gave a fanged sneer. “That’s about as in with me as it gets, princess.”
“I know it’s tempting to let them go,” Cordelia replied like she might convince others to turn on the Aglion that had just fought side-by-side with them. Whom they’d spent weeks getting to know. Getting to trust. “Right now it’s just a few of them. I can see why they seem harmless. But trust me, the second they’re allowed to breed, they will kill you in your beds. They will seek to crush you under their heel?—”
“Feelings aren’t facts, you fucking maniac.” Zuri had enough. She was ready to kill the bobble-headed bitch on her own. “Look at these people. They don’t mean you any harm. If you stop hunting them?—”
“You’ll thank me when I save your hen from the fox in your coop,” Cordelia said with a fleeting glance toward Elena.
Without warning, without a word, Elena sprang out from behind Zuri like she’d been shot out of a cannon. And then Hel was running toward them at unbelievable speed. She crashed through Cordelia’s forces like a hot knife through butter while Elena and Bernice went for Cordelia.
All Zuri had was instinct when the fighting started. She muscled Marisol back toward where the other Aglion had been mourning the loss of Clara. Where they were now being protected by a random array of vampires and all the Veil witches holding the last few glass bottles of blue liquid. Candela limped out of the house by using Avani like a crutch. Zuri couldn’t feel the profound relief at seeing Candela conscious before Marisol was slipping out of her grasp.
“No, I won’t cower here while other people fight my battle,” Marisol decided.
“Babe, what you?—”
“My mother died protecting me today,” she said to the assembled Aglion, not to Zuri. “And I will give everything I have to protect you,” she vowed to the demoralized bunch looking back at her with hollow expressions.
Zuri’s chest ached with pride.Goddamn it.
