Broken Heart 06 Come Hell or High Water (15 page)

"Yes!" said Astria clapping. "Only they were given to my great-great-... Um, I think there's another great?" She paused. Then she shrugged. ". . . -Grandmother to raise for me."

"It was foretold we would be the guardians for Astria," explained Anise.

"And Gabriel?"

"He was meant for the queen," said Astria.

"The challenges we face as we fulfill our destinies create within us the resilience we need to do what must be done."

What?

"Looks like your wife is gonna keel over," said Larsa.

I wanted to say, "I'm not his wife," and, "I'm not either gonna keel over," but neither statement was true. I did feel faint, but it was an emotional thing, not a physical one. I was also married to Connor, like it or not.

The four newcomers joined us. Astria sat next to Connor, Ren took up his station behind him, and Anise settled into the chair nearest Astria. Larsa scooted into the chair occupied by Jennifer, tossing the little girl into her lap.

"You're very pretty," said Astria, leaning over Connor to stare at me.

"Thank you," I said. "So are you."

"Oh, I know." She settled back and stared off into space. No one else thought this was odd, and I chalked it up to her youth or the idea that this was the way prophets behaved.

"Finish the part about Amahte," said Larsa. She had a worldly tone, an accent I couldn't place, as though she'd gathered languages like berries and tossed them into a blender to create a verbal smoothie.

Amahte was the only Ancient I hadn't met. Actually, no one had met him, because he'd gone to ground for the last three millennia. His son, Khenti, had taken his place on the Ancients' Council - although the Ancients had since handed over their ruling power to Patsy. Granted, one Ancient had died and two others had been banned to the World Between Worlds. Only three Ancients were around to offer advice and help these days. Ruadan didn't really come around much anymore, but Velthur and Zela lived in town.

No one elaborated on the role Amahte played with either the talisman or Lilith. Connor arched a brow and looked at Larsa.

She rolled her eyes. "His mate died. Sorta."

"How did she sorta die?" I asked.

"Lilith killed her," said Larsa, ignoring my question. "The Ancients learned a harsh lesson the day Shamhat died. All of her line died when she did. Because of the bonding magic, all of their mates died, too."

I held up my hand. Information swirled in my mind like colliding whirlwinds. "We were told that no one knew what would happen if an Ancient died. Everyone was all about not killing them because they
might
end the line, not because they knew - "

If I had the ability to lose my breath, it would've whooshed out at that very moment. Jennifer considered me with solemn blue eyes. I realized she hadn't changed forms in a while and wondered vaguely if that whole morph thing was just an entertaining diversion.

"Seven," I managed to whisper. "
Seven
sacred sects. Seven Families." I stared at Larsa. "You said Shamhat's line died with her."

"The Family Shamhat," she acknowledged. "The eighth vampire line."

"Vampires with earth magic," said Larsa, as though she hadn't just dropped the mother of all information bombs. "They're very sensual creatures, in tune with creation. With life."

Connor snorted, and Larsa sent him a dirty look.

"
Life
," she insisted. "Ironic, in a way, since we're undead. But you know how it was. Ruadan sought out others who had supernatural abilities. It's no coincidence that all the Ancients have specific gifts."

"Why?" I asked. My mind was reeling. Eight vampire Families had existed once.
Eight.
And Lilith had effectively wiped out one-eighth of the vampire population by killing its founder.

Holy bejesus.

"Ruadan always had the goal of bettering the world. Even then, magic was dying out, giving way to science and cynics. He wanted to preserve as much as possible, to pass it along to the world when it was needed."

"If Patsy hadn't absorbed all the Family gifts, the Family Hua Mu Lan would've died?" A couple years back, my friend Libby had absorbed half of a dragon soul. The founder of the Family Hua Mu Lan, aka Lia the Bitch, had been one of the Ancients who'd turned against us. Libby accidentally fried her with dragonfire.

Near as we could figure, Patsy had saved the vampire lines because she was the queen of all. And not only of us, but of the wolfies, too. The full-bloods had their own problems. They were dying as a species - females rarely got pregnant, and nearly half of all children who were born didn't make it past their first year.

The thought had been that Patsy's miraculous birth of
loup de sang
triplets would be the saving grace of all werewolves. But so far, the full-bloods were still dying, the Roma were still small in numbers, and... well, I had no idea what the future held for them. Hell, I didn't know what my own future held.

"If Patsy dies, do we all die?" I asked.

"Probably," said Larsa.

I thought about the nature of magic. It seemed as volatile as human temperament. Or maybe, because it was crafted and invoked by humans, it held within it the flaws of our characters. Our greed and insecurity and envy.

I mulled over the idea that vampires and demons had been warring for such a long time. I hadn't bothered to find out much about the last four thousand years of our history. Honestly, I hadn't cared. And yet, here I was, dealing with the aftermath of long-ago decisions that had nothing to do with me or with the Broken Heart Turn-bloods.

"So, forever ago, Lilith started a war with vampires and killed a previously unknown Ancient. And they created this talisman and bound her into hell. Except she can create portals to visit earth, so the magic is what? Fading?"

"In a sense, yes," said Connor. Somehow his arm had fallen across my shoulder, his fingers massaging my arm. "Once we reunite the talisman" - and he gave me an odd look that I couldn't interpret - "we'll have to revive its power."

The thought flickered: Did Patsy and the Broken Heart Council know about Shamhat? The founders of the Consortium had certainly been around during that first thousand years of vampire history. Yet nothing had ever been said. Not even Lorcan, who was the official scribe of vampire lore, had ever mentioned it in his texts.

Unease slid through me. Why would that information be kept secret? I mean, how hard was it to say, "Oh, yeah, we had another Family, but they died out." And no one had ever mentioned Lilith before, either. I mean, maybe the other Turn-bloods didn't need to know, but what about me? I was the freaking demon hunter. Had they known she'd return again to wreak havoc?

Who all knew about Astria's prophecy? At this point, I just didn't want to know it. I thought about Danny, about how everything had changed, not just because Connor mated with me (and lied, let's not forget), but also because there seemed to be a larger destiny for me. I had a role to play in a cosmic drama. I was not thrilled about this, not a bit, but I couldn't walk away from it.

"I missed the connection with Amahte," I said.

"And the sorta-dead thing for Shamhat."

"Dude was powerful," said Larsa. "Even before he was Turned. He could leave his body and travel into the Underworld. That ability, and being an Ancient, gave him the power to retrieve Shamhat's soul. But her body needed some serious healage."

"So everyone believed she'd died. And he went to ground with her. To protect her. Isn't three thousand years long enough to heal grievous injuries?"

"Yep," said Larsa.

Larsa's green gaze kept assessing me, and finding me wanting. I got the strange feeling she kept hoping I would measure up and was disappointed that I did not. I couldn't stand it, so I looked at the little girl, aka demon, curled in her lap. Jennifer kept her prim hands folded. In her pink dress, she looked like strawberry frosting dropped onto a white cake. Larsa, however, didn't look sweet or soft.

"Khenti opened a casino resort in Las Vegas designed to look like an Egyptian temple," said Larsa, who apparently was the boss of everything.

(Me? Bitter? Why do you ask?)

"I know," I said impatiently. "Everyone knows. Tourists go there because of the attached museum. It's the biggest display of ancient artifacts in the world. Amahte's sarcophagus is on display there."

"But he's not. Neither is Shamhat."

Like tumblers clicking together in a complex lock, my thoughts snapped together and unlocked information that stunned me all over again.

When the Consortium first rolled into town, there had been talk about an archeological dig in the Sudan. At the time, we'd been told the Consortium was looking for the source of the Taint. The disease had flared up every now and then throughout undead history, but the modern-day version had taken them by surprise.

"They were looking for Amahte," I said weakly. "In the Sudan."

"Nobody knows who moved them, or where they are. And the Consortium isn't the only one looking."

I remembered that, too, because some vampires had died on the dig, staked out in the desert to await the sunrise. I shivered.

Then I considered Connor's words and realized we had a big issue. "Won't all eight vampire lines have to reinstate the magic?"

"Yep," said Larsa.

"The queen has only seven of the powers. How do you propose we get the eighth one? Go find the amazing almost-dead couple that's been missing for three millennia?"

"I'm from the Family Shamhat," said Larsa.

Shocked, I stared at her, my mouth open.

She frowned. "That's rather unattractive."

I snapped my mouth shut. "Are there more of you?"

"No," she said, and she lost her lazy grin. "I was the last. Lilith hacked off my mother's head and nearly severed mine." She fingered the scar on her neck, one that had never completely healed because she shouldn't have survived it. I wasn't sure how I felt about Larsa, hadn't decided whether or not I liked her, but she had my respect. "When Amahte pulled back her soul and returned her life, however feeble, it revived me. But none of the others. At least, none that I've ever been able to find." She shrugged. "It took a long time to heal. By the time I was recovered enough to dig out from my grave, more than a hundred years had passed. Everyone believed me dead, and I let them think so."

And the info bombs kept dropping. Shamhat had been Larsa's mother. All of the Ancients, as in the original founding vampires of all the lines, had turned at least one of their biological children.

"Yes," said Larsa. "I am the last of my Family line. We have that in common, Phoebe."

"What?"

Surprise flared in her gaze and she looked at Connor. I didn't like his expression. "Connor?"

"We must go," said Astria, her pleasant voice sounding strange - as if she were shouting into a canyon and having the echo returned tenfold.

I glanced at her and reared back. Her eyes were white, her hands in the air, fingers plucking at strings of light. It was as if she were making a pattern, determining information from a yarn experiment gone wrong.

"Lilith's followers have stolen a charmed one. Ella Freeman is important to this world, and she must live."