Page 99 of Blood from the Marrow
Rage knocked the fog from Zuri’s mind and sharpened her vision. Sayah had taken so much from so many, and she wasn’t going to have another victory.
“When we get through this, will you join my coven?” Zuri asked before she could overthink it.
Harriet’s eyes widened. “Is that even possible? We are not of your line.”
Zuri held the basket tighter. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Have you?”
“If you’ll have us, and if it’s even possible to join two threads together.” Harriet nodded once. “I’d be honored.”
“I’ll make sure there is a way, Harriet.” Zuri had to stomp down the useless urge to let her eyes water. “We’re not abandoning you.”
“Can you keep some of these to defend yourselves?” Marisol asked, worry shining in her big eyes.
Harriet shook her head. “They would be wasted.”
“If you are defenseless, we have to get your clan out of here,” Elena said, eyes squinting as she scanned the beach like Sayah and her vampires had figured out a way to walk in the sun on an overcast day. “Should we lose, you’ll be?—”
“We’re not going to lose,” Zuri said with all the confidence she’d ever mustered.
“Even still. You may not be safe here if you cannot wield magic,” Elena said more softly. “I’ll send Margot to you while you gather your things. She showed Lib a bootlegger’s tunnel Narine kept that will take you a mile from here to a safe house. Librada will give you money. As soon as Sayah’s forces breach our perimeter, you run. You run far and fast.”
“They shouldn’t wait,” Marisol objected. “They should leave now, before?—”
“If Sayah or her crew get the scent of them on their way here, they’re as good as dead,” Elena explained. “It’s safer if they run while we have them occupied.”
“It doesn’t feel right to leave like this.” Harriet shifted her gaze between the three of them and then looked at the basket. “My debt for our lives doesn’t feel repaid.”
Marisol put her hand on the woman’s shoulder again. “There is no debt,” she said quietly, and Zuri couldn’t even disagree. After weeks together, she couldn’t see Harriet and her coven as a faceless evil. They’d made a choice under coercion in an effort to save the ones they loved. Zuri couldn’t say she’d have done any differently.
As soon as Harriet was off, the alarm rippled through the compound like it had a life of its own. Elena had preferred to let the vampires rest until the afternoon, especially because they didn’t know whether breaking the relic really meant Sayah was coming, but there was no stopping the news. What better time for a vampire attack than the longest night of the year?
It was nearly sunset when the hundreds of people who had been living together on the compound for weeks gathered in the main house. Even the Salem witches had packed themselves into the ballroom, their faces grim. Wedged together in the space, they were such an impressive number. Zuri was sure it was enough to kick Sayah’s ass until Sofia stood at the front of the gathering.
Sofia was still wearing her outdoor gear when she walked in from having collected her scouts. When she pulled off her hood, Zuri held her breath. Vampires rarely wore their expressions on their faces. Sofia’s youthful appearance in particular was always hard to read. But now, Zuri registered her worry in the pit of her stomach.
“Sayah is ten miles out,” Sofia announced, each syllable a punch to the gut.
A tense silence fell over the room, thick and suffocating. This was it. No more waiting. No more preparing. No more living in hope. They were going to find out whether they were going to survive. Zuri’s palms flooded with sweat and her vision blurred.
Sofia took a breath. “And we’re outnumbered four-to-one.”
Chapter Forty-One
After having imaginedthe moment so many times, after having run through every variation of the confrontation with Sayah in her mind. After having planned and prepared and practiced, Sayah’s impending arrival didn’t feel like Elena thought it would. More precisely, Elena didn’t feel the way she expected. She’d imagined being full of vengeful rage, running out to the street to meet Sayah before allowing her to step into the courtyard like they planned. To sprint for her, fangs out, and teach every onlooker what happened to anyone who challenged her.
But as evening fell, as dusk crept toward them like a choking fog, Elena was calm. Her mind was at ease and her hands were still. Sayah was approaching by the front rather than by sea. Probably because she guessed that Elena would have expected her to breach their land from the weakest point. But they’d accounted for Sayah not caring how a swarm of vampires looked to any humans who noticed the congregation. No one had said it aloud, but Sayah would not stop if she destroyed the cartel system. If Sayah emerged victorious, who would stop her from outing their kind to humans? From resurrecting the dead notion that vampires were superior and humans nothing but a subservient food source.
“The witches are in the tunnel,” Librada reported when she joined Elena on the second-floor balcony facing the courtyard below and the street beyond. “I told them to run as soon as they heard the fighting begin. They understood that we could not spare a vampire guard.”
Elena nodded, eyes on what would soon be a battlefield. The stillness in her didn’t stop her from regretting that the soft green grass was going to be drenched in blood. That the rows of rose bushes the Aglion kept packed with blooms would be splattered with death. If Elena had any reason to believe that Sayah would spare the souls assembled in Narine’s fortress in exchange for her surrender, she’d do it. But she had no reason to believe Sayah would keep her word. She was the kind of person who lured in a guest to attack them unawares. She had no honor.
“Sofia?” Elena asked.
“Stationed at Hera,” Lib replied.
Elena’s attention traveled to the furthest domed structure from the house. Of the two long breezeways connected to the house and creating a smaller quad within the courtyard, Sofia was positioned atop the northernmost dome. There were seven domes along the exterior corridors, each one bearing a mosaic tribute to one of Lilith’s Daughters. Hera, the first, offered Sofia the clearest view of Sayah’s approach. However she’d concealed herself, Elena couldn’t see her from the balcony.
“The witches?” Elena asked.
