Shiloh studied the pic, and a slow smile curled her mouth, vicious, and full of wrath. “Feeding frenzy to give a demon-possessed bloodsucker power?” she said slyly. “Something a vampire might…drink?” She chuckled but it didn’t sound amused. “Something like the elixir you discovered? In the war, humans who drank the elixir and were possessed, died very badly. Vampires who drank the elixir fared better. Some were able to control the demon inside and allow it to be re-collected.Dispossessed, if you will. But the EEB still needed to feed.”
EJ studied the still in his hand. “More victims here, but similar to the slaughter at Londyn’s. A demon-possessed vampire could have done all the killing.” The one he had stopped with awyrdworking? The one in the closet? He said, “You didn’t think I needed—we needed—to know that?”
“Classified. And unproven that such knowledge was pertinent to this crisis.”
EJ had to swallow that. He hadn’t told Shiloh his secrets either. He said, “The EEBs feed on human flesh and blood, human life force?” He held out his unicom to share the entire vid. “This is Peg’s video of the remains of a feeding frenzy. Maybe we can declassify what you know?”
Shiloh watched, laughed softly, a throaty sound that didn’t fit with the face of a fifteen-year-old girl. She licked her index finger and slowly drew a vertical line in the air, as if he had made a good point. “Not that I know anything. The elixir whispered about was horribly flawed. Vamps with a few drops of the elixir, wearing null collars, and leashed by silver chains could control demons. Sometimes. Maybe. But with terrible consequences. Or so it was said.”
Not sure if he should ask or not, he gathered himself and asked anyway. “What did you do in the war?”
“Mmmm. Walter’s been giving hints, has he?” She rolled off the table, lithe as a hunting cat. “I did what I do best. I killed.” She stretched upward slowly, a yoga move he recognized from his sister, one where she reached for the sky, then ended up with her hands on the floor. Bending down, Shiloh held that pose. When she stood and relaxed, her eyes were human again. “Oleg’s last little princeling eluded me. I won’t miss Konstantin this time. It will take magic and weaponry. And these.” She held out a handful of castanets. Palillos, marked for the military. “A lot of these.”
He wanted them but he knew the game. If he reached, she’d snatch them away. EJ said, “Konstantin needs five members for his demon circle.”
“So it is said,” she repeated. “And it’s possible that they will use Nyoka, Walter’s little lover. I agree with the assessment that she was never a voluntary part of this little uprising. Everything for the last hundred years points to her wanting Walter safe, even if she doesn’t want him back. Her original working wasn’t intended to make him suitable for a demon, it was intended to make him forget the torture of the night he was branded, to forget his pain, his scar. The later layers were intended to give him protection from ever falling under the control of another Mithran.”
At EJ’s reaction, her lips quirked up. “What, little cousin? Did you forget that I’m an Everhart witch? And the queen’s puppet?”
“No. I didn’t forget.”How can I?he thought.
“Nyoka wants her enemies destroyed,” Shiloh said, “but now she’s possessed. If they have her captive, they will have control over her. As to what they want, the collection chambers Pegfilmed are wartime, full of demons. They have been using demons, clearly, and so they may have empty chambers as well. They will need at least five possessed and branded vampires, one of them the witch vampire Konstantin, to open a circle to the demon realm, and fill the empties.” She chuckled darkly at his expression. “Didn’t consider that they might want to open another realm, using the Chattanooga ley line?”
He had known but not been able to say…
Shiloh shrugged languidly. “If they succeed, all is lost. We need to kill them. Dead-dead. True-dead. Before.”
“Some of the Rus witches useddeathmagics,” EJ said.
Shiloh shrugged again, something dangerous in the gesture, and gave him a cunning grin. “Deathmagics do strange things to the undead. Konstantin should be an exhilarating duel.”
“You have magical defenses againstdeathmagics?”
“Little Cousin,” she admonished as if he were being deliberately obtuse. “We all do. Your mama’s ever-living tree.” At the look on his face, she laughed. “You thought it was just an enhancement and never tested it for anything else? Foolish, foolish little cousin.” Shiloh gathered up her gear and strolled out. Silently. No clanking.
Mind blank, EJ walked toward the stairs. In his apartment, he stared at the potted sprigs of rosemary near the window-doors leading to his covered balcony. When was the last time he had watered them? He lifted a pot and carried the rosemary bush to the kitchen table, where his testing gear was still scattered. He pulled off two of the needle-shaped leaves, placed them in the bottom of a silver bowl, and centered it above the stove’s smallest burner. He turned up the heat. In minutes the leaves were blackening, filling the apartment with the scent of roasting rosemary, a clean crisp scent. No bells, no notes, silence. As a zero-magic test, the tree was totally normal.
With a padded glove, he removed the bowl, emptied it, and turned off the fire. With his free hand he slid a second small silver bowl to himself, and put two new leaves in. With his free hand he pulled a flute and blew a directedbruciarenote at the leaves.
They should have flamed up in an instant.
The bowl began to grow warm. Heat radiated out. The rosemary didn’t react to the working, and didn’t start to sear until the natural heat transfer from the bowl affected it.
He had never magically tested his mother’s ever-living rosemary, the plant she had brought back from adeathworking. All he knew about it was that the rosemary increased the power level of some Everhart’s workings. Was it also impervious toattackmagic? Was it impervious todeathworkings? He hadn’t watered them. Was neglect a type ofdeathworking? Did Angie know? Or guess? He thought of all the rosemary plants in his sister’s apartment and on the balcony.
“Son of a witch,” he muttered. Was his sister keeping secrets?
EJ ripped two more leaves off the sprig and blew another note. Another. Only slowly did the leaves change color or smolder.Attackworkings weren’t completely ineffective against it, but they were certainly slowed down. He took an amulet meant to clot blood and speed the healing process. He pricked his finger and held it to the amulet. The blood flow stopped with a faint sizzle, like a styptic pencil applied to the wound.
Using ahealingamulet made by Angie and a sprig of the rosemary, EJ repeated the process. This time, the amulet not only stopped the bleeding, it sealed the wound with a thin layer of dried fluid, like a small scab. It wasn’t a huge change, but it was an improvement.
He sat back, staring at his finger. He had never added thefamily plant to his workings. It had seemed…beneath him? If he’d experimented with the rosemary in the war, would Donati still be alive?
Holy hells.
He wondered what would happen if he added his mother’s rosemary to his own workings.
And to the elixir.
