Succubus Takes Manhattan (32 page)

Marten had stopped chanting. He raised a small knife and suddenly there was deep silence as if even Meph was afraid to breathe.
Oh no,
I thought.
He wouldn’t.
But Marten would, that was what made him truly great. Truly a Master who could command. He was not a bully. In ritual he was the same as he was in the bedroom, a seducer, always promising (and giving) those things a girl/demon craves.

And yes, he gave like that in ritual, too. The thing above all things that the Hellspawn desire and adore, that we pursue and cherish among humankind, this he gave freely. He held the blade against the pumping blue veins of his wrist and then, in a single flashing movement, cut deeply. Not across, just a single deep nick. Dark blood welled up and he held his wrist over a second cup. This one was very small, a crystal cordial glass, simple and perfect. Drop by drop the crimson blood flowed into the glass.

chapter
TWENTY-SIX

Some magicians would have stopped with the traditional three drops. Others, more committed and adventurous, would have done three times three. Marten stood rock steady until the glass was full to the brim, no counting of drops, no careful blotting. No, Marten just poured out his own life stuff, still warm and shimmering with the vital energy of his own soul, and created one of the most generous, elegant, perfect offerings I had ever heard of from his kind in three thousand years.

Then he placed the tiny cordial glass on the flat blade of the sword and passed it to the smaller altar in the triangle. Only a blade could pass the bonds, and my breath caught in my throat as he manuevered the little glass onto the table without tipping it.

Once the sword was withdrawn, he sealed the penetration points with words and will. But there was still a weakness there. There was a patch, undetec