Page 7 of Blood from the Marrow
An insane double-height foyer and chandelier the size of an iceberg looked down on the glossiest hardwood floors Zuri had ever seen. To the right, an archway opened to an honest-to-fuck parlor like Gertrude Stein was about to host a salon in there. To her left, a dining room big enough for a football team seemed like a waste for a vampire.
“What is with this religious revival?” Elena muttered to herself, attention on the floor inlaid with a huge eight-pointed star crafted from lighter shades of wood.
“What’s it mean?” Marisol asked, so Zuri didn’t have to admit she was curious about the sigil.
“It represents Ishtar. Mesopotamian goddess of sex and war,” Elena replied with another eye roll. When Marisol silently asked her to go on, Elena obliged like she had a knife to her carotid. “The daughter of Lilith who allegedly convinced three of her sisters, Hera, Hecate, and Circe, to launch some ancient war against all other sentient beings for supremacy.” Her tone dispelled the possibility that she believed any vampire legends.
“And what happened?” Marisol asked, crossing the foyer and entering the great room.
Heaving with antiques and thirty simultaneous conversations, the room was the size of a single-family house. Waiters passed with trays of what Zuri chose to believe were glasses of red wine.
“What usually happens to people who lead rebellions driven by hubris and overblown notions of grandeur.” Elena’s boredom bled through her tone while she scanned the room of vampires she presumably knew. “They always underestimate their opponents’ resilience and cunning.” She shrugged, kohl smudged eyes fixed on her surroundings. “Plus, it’s a cautionary tale to remind us that arrogance can lead to the end of entire bloodlines.”
“Did they die? What do you mean… bloodlines?”
Bambi’s focused interest made Zuri think of her sitting at the front of the class in nursing school, hand perpetually raised. The image soothed the tension in her neck and triggered a sappy warmth to spread in her chest.
“Some people think each of Lilith’s seven daughters had their own lines. Related but distinct.” Elena snaked her arm around Marisol’s waist and pulled her close. The nonverbal signal that she was done with the conversation. “They’re just stories we made up to understand our existence. No different from witches or humans.”
Marisol’s hazel eyes darted from Elena to Zuri and back to Elena. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw what we saw,” she whispered, triggering a flash of Lilith’s agonized request for help.
“Obviously we came from somewhere, but I don’t believe anyone who says they can explain the unknowable. That they can distill actual fucking creation into something as crude as sounds we grunt out like animals.”
Zuri laughed and slipped her arm around Elena’s shoulders. “You’re so sexy when you’re nihilistic.”
A woman’s warm, rich voice slithered between them. “Elena.”
They turned to the vampire Zuri immediately knew had to be Sayah. Jet black hair and dark blue eyes were mesmerizingagainst her dark olive skin. In a cream-colored dress, she was tall and objectively stunning.
But it wasn’t her beauty that gave her away. She moved with the same confidence Elena did. Power gave her movements weight. Her body had a gravity that pulled all the attention in the room toward her.
“I told my useless staff to see you up to your rooms when you arrived,” she continued, greeting Elena with a kiss on each cheek. “You must want to get freshened up after your trip.” She stepped back as if noticing Zuri and Marisol for the first time. “I’d heard about your two witches.” Her full lips pulled into a smirk. “You’re brave.”
“And lucky,” Elena agreed, her hold unwavering while she introduced them to the head of the Georgia cartel.
“Come on,” Sayah said instead of making small talk. “If you want something done—” She winked at Elena. “We have to do everything ourselves, don’t we? Can never trust the work of our underlings. They never quite stick the landing, do they?”
Zuri and Marisol exchanged a look. Without speaking a word, they agreed Sayah was probably an asshole. They followed her anyway.
Back to the foyer and up the dramatic stairs that split the mansion into two wings, they walked down endless wood paneled corridors covered in art.
At the end, Sayah pointed to doors on either side of her. “Your daughters have these rooms,” she said before opening the door at the very end of the hall. “I expect you will be comfortable here.”
Their room was more lavish than any hotel suite Zuri had ever seen, and Elena stayed at places so ridiculous they came with butlers. The luxury of the high ceilings with intricate plasterwork was as impressive as the pale blue wallpaper and heavy emperor yellow curtains covering all the visible windows.Two seating areas, a massive fireplace, access to the veranda, and a powder room were nothing compared to the main bedroom on the other side of the suite from a smaller bedroom.
At the center of the primary bedroom, an enormous four-poster bed was dressed in gorgeous silk sheets. It was like gold had been poured over the bed, so smooth and elegant. Next to her, Marisol whispered the same wow echoing in Zuri’s mind.
Sayah continued into the bedroom, pointing out the bathroom before muttering something about uselessness and walking into the closet. “Well, they listened to one thing,” she said when she returned to the bedroom. “I took the liberty of having your things unpacked.”
“All of it?” Zuri’s question was more an expression of disbelief. They hadn’t been downstairs all that long. How had a team descended on the room and all their shit so fast?
“My apologies that there was no time to steam your garments,” Sayah said in what Zuri was sure was sarcasm. “Just pick up the phone in the living room and any pieces requiring attention will be collected.”
And then she floated out of the room without another word. Fucking vampires.
Opening an ornate bedside table the size of a treasure chest, Elena laughed.
“Jesus. What?” Zuri rested a hand against one poster at the foot of the bed.
