Blood Sacrifice (17 page)

“I did nothing wrong,” Adam said.

“You preyed on them.”

“I did no such thing. They offered themselves, willingly.”

The priest’s eyes flashed anger. “Willingly? That is what you name it?”

“It is what it is,” Adam said. “I preyed on no one. I came here for shelter and was given it.”

“You took my daughter away.”

“For those who wish to climb the mountain of spiritual awareness, the path is selfless work.”

—Bhagavad Gita

“A
ntonia was yours?” Adam strode over to the priest. “You lie.”

“I can no longer tell falsehoods. Lupe and I were lovers for nearly a decade,” he said. “Her husband was impotent.”

“Not impotent,” Adam said. “Infertile. We vampires cannot sire children. When she died, I placed Antonia in a school in Europe. She completed school and married well. She had a good life.”

I sat, flat on the dusty ground. Holy crap. This entire exchange now made sense. “You, Adam, Guadalupe was
your
wife?” The other shoe dropped;
de Caminante
—her last name translated to Walker. Some Spanish women added the husband’s name onto their own patronymic. Evidently, she’d been one of those.

“For a time,” he said. “She was a lovely woman. I was lonely in those days. I’d wandered to America, to find whether or not I liked it enough to remain. Found
the Rose Inn. Niko stayed behind to run my estate. I met Guadalupe at a dance. She liked me, I liked her. Though I knew that as a mortal human, we could only be lovers for a few years, she didn’t seem to care. She came up pregnant. I knew the child couldn’t be mine, but she wouldn’t confess as to her other lover, so I married her to keep her from being shunned by the community. Her daughter was born and she insisted on naming her Antonia, after the parish priest, whom she said had been a comfort.” He snorted a laugh. “I hadn’t quite realized what kind of comfort until now. I’d assumed her lover had been one of the local soldiers.”

Adam peered into the priest’s face. “Before she killed herself, she told me she was having an affair. I didn’t begrudge her it, how could I? When I told her that, she burst into tears and told me she was pregnant again. I’d have been willing to keep up the farce for as long as needed.”

“She was pregnant?” The priest’s voice was only a whisper.

“Two months along.”

“Then why?”

“You told us why,” Adam said, his voice hard. “She wanted you. She loved you. You could have left the church, gone somewhere else to start over. I do not blame myself for her death.”

“No, nor should you.” The man sighed. “This burden is my own. I carry it knowingly.”

Niko muttered something I couldn’t hear.

Okay, well, this had been a more than interesting night. I stood, brushed the dirt off my ass and approached both Adam and the priest. “Father…” I stumbled over the word, not used to formally addressing a priest.

“Call me Antonio, please.”

“Antonio, then.” How to phrase this? “So I get all this mea culpa of yours, but considering this woman died, when?”

“In the year of Our Lord, eighteen hundred and twenty-two. She was thirty. I was forty-two.”

“Don’t you think your penance has long been paid?” I asked. “Have you ever researched how to end the curse?”

He smiled, as if amused. “Countless times. Countless resources.”

“And?” I prompted.

“I have found no definite answer.” He shrugged as he motioned us both forward. “Only vague hints.”

“So you remain here,” Adam said.

“I remain. I tend the graves and the spirits.” Antonio made a vague motion, indicating the cemetery. “They are restless. All except her. I bind her with flowers.”

“Flowers?” I looked at the dried blooms, trying to identify them. I could feel no spells, nor had he admitted to having any magicks other than this curse of long life.

“Amaranth for immortal love, blue violet for faithfulness, lavender for devotion,” he chanted, ticking the names off on his fingers. “Circled with honeysuckle for bindings of love, wound with witch hazel, a magickal spell, sprinkled with fennel for strength.”

A remedy for a human. The language of flowers used to love and bind a restless spirit. It could work. The magick was in nature, not in the person. A homely solution but plausible.

“You speak of restless spirits,” Adam said. “Keira spoke of the darkness that invaded here earlier, of the spirits bound within this inn.”

“There is darkness here,” Antonio agreed. “It is rising. Something has stirred it, has coaxed it from sleep.”

“What has happened here?”

“Not just here. I feel it in the bones of the earth. A deep unrest.”

A shiver ran through me. “Adam, I want to get out of here,” I said. “He’s right. Something’s stirring and it’s not good.” I reached a hand out. “Antonio, come with us. The chapel seems to keep much of it out.”

He shook his head with a sorrowful look. “I cannot. I can no longer enter that which was mine.”

“The chapel?”

“Yes. When the old woman cursed me, she denied me the comfort of those places that are God’s. I cannot set foot on consecrated ground.”

“But you told me you say Mass.”

“I can still act
in persona Christi
—in the person of Christ. That other place is only a building I use, nothing more,” he said. “It was never consecrated by the Church nor is my small group of worshipers officially sanctioned by Rome.”

Niko’s choked voice interrupted. “But they believe you are still a priest—the sacraments…”

“I am still a priest. Yes, my position is… unique. I have never asked to be laicized; the Church has never dismissed me.” The old man stood straighter. “At ordination, a priest is told ‘You are a priest forever.’ The
bruja
’s curse may restrain me, but God made me a priest. And, even a lay person can give the sacraments if there is no one of the Church available,” Antonio chided. “The old women are happy to hear Mass, to take communion, to give confession. This does no harm. The Church tells us that the effect of a sacrament comes
ex opere operato
.”

I furrowed my brow as I attempted a translation. “By the work done?”

He nodded. “It is the principle of the sacrament itself, not the holiness or otherwise of the person giving it. If I am wrong, then the sin is on my head, not on theirs.”

“Antonio,” Adam’s voice was gentle. “Come with us. The chapel underground is no longer consecrated. We could not use it if it were so. Come, rest. The spirits will wait and you can do little to tend the ground now. Come sleep.”

With a reluctant sigh, Antonio took my proffered hand. I winced at his touch, my nerves raw with his emotion. Guilt, grief, sorrow all tangled in the sucking blackness of despair. I gritted my teeth and led him forward.

Once inside, I made up one of the cots for him. Within minutes, he was asleep, a peaceful look on his face. I cast a simple do-not-disturb spell around him, just enough to make sure he wasn’t bothered by our coming conversations.

“He can stay here as long as he likes,” Adam said. “It doesn’t matter that he knows what we are doing. There is little he can do to affect us.”

I watched the priest sleep. “I’m sorry,” I said, reaching over and placing a kiss on Adam’s forehead. “I’m sorry about all of that.”

He knew what I was talking about. “It was a long time ago. I regret not knowing the truth then, perhaps I could have helped.”

“Or not,” Niko said as he sat down next to us, a brimming mug of ice cold beer in one hand. He handed it to me and I gulped it down with pleasure.

“Thanks, where’d you get this?”

“The sisters had mugs in the freezer,” Tucker said. “I appropriated them for our drinks.”

“Excellent.”

Before I could settle in to enjoy the wonderfully cold libation, Adam handed me my phone. “Call.”

Damn it. I knew I had to. I wasn’t just avoiding this because I was lazy. There was history there that none of these men knew about. When I’d come home, tail tucked between my legs, frightened out of what little wits I had left, neither Adam nor Niko had been there. Tucker had only seen the aftermath.

I girded my mental loins, then dialed. One ring. Two. Three. I took a deep breath and mentally prepared a message for his voice mail.

“Keira, darling, what on earth possesses you to call me of all people?” Gideon’s smarmy smile came across in his tone as he answered. “Do you miss me?”

“Hardly,” I said. “Look, Gideon, I don’t care for this situation any more than you do, I’m sure, but some-thing’s come up.”

“I’m sure a lot of
things
come up around those lovely men of yours,” he drawled.

“Don’t be more of an asshat than you normally are. We read the Challenge. We know the score. Adam and I are willing to talk terms.”

“Terms?” Gideon dropped all pretense. His voice grew hard, angry. “What makes you think that there are any terms to discuss? You’ve interpreted the Challenge, well, bully for you. Kudos, too, since I didn’t expect you to do that so quickly. But there are no terms, Keira. None. The Challenge stands as is.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to avoid catching Adam’s
gaze. I didn’t want to get distracted. “What do you want, Gideon? To rule? To take the land from us? That doesn’t make sense to me. You could’ve ruled alongside Drystan, been part of the Unseelie Court, gotten your jollies there. What changed?”

“Drystan… my
father
… expected more than I was willing to give. I want it all, lover.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.

Tucker waved a hand to get my attention. “Gigi,” he mouthed. I nodded that I understood.

“Gideon, I don’t have any idea what Drystan offered you, but okay, fine, whatever. I’m sure Gigi would have set you up somewhere, like she did me and Adam.”

“Fat chance,” Gideon said. “She was as eager to kick me to the curb as my father was. Seems I’m
persona non grata
in both places.”

“So you sought out the Seelie? You do remember everything that happened to me, right? What makes you think they’d take you in under their wing?”

Gideon laughed. “They did, didn’t they? Put out the fatted calf and all that… at least, the pregnant cow.”

I nearly choked at his attitude. “You call your wife a cow? I’m sure that goes over well in the bedroom.”

“Oh, I’ve yet to bed the fair Aoife,” Gideon admitted. “Drystan was right, the child is not mine in the usual ways.”

“If that’s so, then why would the high queen name you the child’s father? As pseudo-heir?”

“I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

“That being?”

“Nothing I wish to share with you. Though do tell my brother that sharing you is simply delicious.”

Adam whirled and walked away, his lips tight against words I could nearly feel exploding from his mouth.

“Bully for you, then,” I snarled. “You got the cow without even having to pay for the milk.”

Gideon chuckled. “Oh, my, it’s good to cross verbal swords with you again, Keira. I missed that. These Sidhe are so very… boring.”

“Then why? And how?”

“Why? Because I wanted to. I can rule with their help. How? We bonded, Aoife and I, shared blood, as you did with my brother. Her child is now mine by virtue of our blood-bond. Blood and breath, dear cousin, she is mine by blood and breath.” With that, he closed the connection.

“Blood and breath. Oh my god.” I grabbed at Tucker’s hand. “Adam, back when I was dating Gideon, in London—those words. Tucker, you remember what I looked like when I came back home, right?”

Tucker nodded. “You were subdued, scared.”

“Yes, exactly. Gideon scared the ever-living shite from me. He’d crossed a line. That’s when I ran back to Texas fast as I could. Did I ever tell you what he did?”

“Exactly? No,” Tucker said. “Only that he’d gone too far.”

“He wanted more power, more knowledge,” I said. “He’d exhausted everything available to him, to us, as pre-Changelings. We could only use the more homely magicks—warming charms, small location spells, et cetera. That’s when he decided to go another route. When he began to invoke the Dark. I went along for a little while, figuring he’d not be able to go too far, after all, our abilities were limited. But then, he did.”

“Go too far?” Adam prompted as he came back to sit with me.

“Yes. Way too far. He’d somehow uncovered some old grimoire in Gigi’s library. In a part of the collection off-limits to us kids. This was part of her collection that was housed in the London house, had been there for centuries.”

“Wait, those books were locked up by pretty strong wards, if I recall,” Tucker said. “How’d he get past them?”

“Honestly, I don’t have a clue,” I said. “He could’ve charmed his way into someone’s bed, I suppose. There were plenty of adults staying there in those days.”

“That’s possible,” Tucker said. “Several people have access to the library wards. They’re mostly meant to keep out kids. What did he find?”

“Spells using blood magick,” I said. “A lot of them. Not a one of them neutral. That last spell he wanted to try. He’d actually started. Had gathered all the ingredients. It was more of a ritual calling.” I took a deep breath. “I just remembered. The spell he wanted to use involved blood and breath.”

“Literally?” Adam took my face in his hands as if to pull the memory from me, to see what I’d seen.

“Yes, as in a sacrifice.” Guess it was good to know that this particular leopard didn’t change his spots.

“Your actions will follow you full circle around.”

—Indigo Girls, “Center Stage”

“W
e have no more choices.” Adam let me go and stood. “Between what you’ve told me and the desecration at our cemetery, we must go there now. If Gideon is willing to invoke sacrificial magick of his own accord, I’ve no doubt he has every intention of breaking Truce—or has already done so. We’ve been sitting here like fools as he plays his games behind our backs.”

“But the terms?” I said. “If we go back onto the land…”