Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (34 page)

She turned and looked at me quizzically. “What would you need with a priest?”

“I seek to gain an audience with the angel Azrael.”

Morina laughed. “And what makes you think I can help you with that?”

“If your father was a priest, surely you would know how to accomplish such a task.”

“Perhaps I do,” she said, “but what do I gain in turn for helping you, vampire?”

“Forgiveness. You have done me wrong, lady. Many times now. Yours are the hands that have set this wheel in motion.”

“I do not care about your forgiveness, vampire, or anyone else’s.”

“I will try to help you find a way to see Andrella one last time,” I said, mostly in desperation. I didn’t know if I could do it, and I was careful not to promise her that I could, only that I would try.

Morina watched me long and hard.

“And what makes you think you can accomplish that?”

“I’m not promising that I can. I can only promise to try and make it so.”

“That is an easy promise to renege on,” she said.

“There are those around me that might be able to help, if you aid us with this thing. You cannot promise that your aid will fulfill my request, just as I cannot promise mine will fulfill yours. All we can do is try to help each other. I will give you my oath that I will try to help you to the best of my abilities if you will try to help me, Morina.”

“How do you think Azrael will help you find your queen, vampire? That is why you wish to summon him, is it not?”

“It is, but how I believe he can help me, I’d rather not say.”

“Because you are afraid I will expose you? You trust me so little?”

“In all honesty, you’ve given me little reason to give you my trust to begin with.”

She blinked. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Aye.”

Morina came close to me until there was only an arm’s length of space between us. I gazed up at her much taller form and tried not to feel small. Truly, the Dracule were imposing in their height, even in the more human of their forms.

“There is a way, Epiphany.” She looked both serious and thoughtful as she gazed down at me. I couldn’t remember her ever speaking my name, and it surprised me. “The way is dangerous and you may not survive to keep your word to me.”

“I will speak with the others and find someone to uphold my end of the bargain for me if I am incapable of doing it. What is the way, Morina?”

“The way is through his door, Epiphany.”

I thought for a moment. “I have to die again.”

“You must stand on the brink of life and death.”

“Am I not doing that now as a vampire?” I asked.

Morina smiled slyly. “You stand with Azrael’s gift filling you. You must relinquish that gift to him. Stand on the brink and call out his name.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Simple?” Morina asked. “What in the seven hells would make you begin to think it’s simple? He may not answer you, vampire. He has not answered the Dracule for a very long time.”

“How do I stand on the brink, Morina?”

“The priests of Azrael once practiced the art of bloodletting to commune with him. You must make of yourself an empty vessel, then you will find the brink, and there, you must call his name with your last breath.”

It was impossible to tell if she was leading me astray. Though I sensed her words were true, for they made sense.

Of course, thinking they made sense didn’t mean it wasn’t a lie. Yet, if she was lying, she was a good liar.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I would not thank me just yet, and you can thank me when you live to uphold your oath to me.”

“I will do my best, Morina. You have my word.”

“Fabulous,” she said. “I pray you keep it, for if you survive and do not…”

She did not need to say the words to make the implied threat clear.

I nodded. “I will, Morina. I will do what I can to help you and I will inform those close to me if I fail and ask them to aid you in my place.”

“Good,” she said. “Now go.”

I hesitated at the door. “If I fail and do not survive, will you live?”

“If I can shield from you, yes. But it no longer really matters.”

I left and felt her gaze on my back until the door clicked shut behind me.

“Well, how’d it go this time?” Cuinn asked.

“I have my answer,” I said, knowing my response was vague. I crossed the short hallway and opened the door to my room where Iliaria and Vasco waited.

When Cuinn joined us, I told them what I had to do. As I figured, neither was happy with the results. Yet, strangely, they did not try to dissuade me.

I told Vasco about my promise to Morina and he agreed to help me fulfill it or to see it followed through if I didn’t survive.

“There is one condition, colombina,” Vasco said. “I want Emilio with you when you do this thing.”

“Agreed,” I said and then looked at Iliaria. “Morina said that if I do not survive this, and she cannot shield, it will affect her. Will it affect you?”

“It might,” Iliaria said.

“I almost dragged you down with me once, Iliaria. I don’t want to do it again.”

“That was my own foolishness, Epiphany. Not yours.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“We are Dracule,” Iliaria said, “if I must shield from you, I will. Does that make you feel better?”

“Yes, a little. Are you sure you can, though?”

“Yes,” she said.

“When she tried to save you, sorella, she threw every guard she had down to try to keep you alive.” Vasco knew what I was asking, and he wasn’t going to let Iliaria side step the truth.

“I don’t want you to do that, Iliaria. Promise me you won’t.”

“When will you do this thing?” she asked.

“Tonight,” I said. “I will do it tonight.”

*

Iliaria sat crossed-legged in front of the fireplace with one of her crescent blades in her lap. I remained true to my word to Vasco, and so his son Emilio was with us while Vasco took Emilio’s shift outside Morina’s door.

Iliaria brought my attention to her. “Once we begin, Epiphany, there is no turning back.” She held the blade’s pommel loosely. “Your body will not heal a cut from this blade. Do you understand?”

Wordlessly, I nodded. I understood.

“What about Cuinn?”

Cuinn jumped off the bed and tilted his head in thought as he approached. “I’ll block ye from me, but understand, Piph, I won’t let ye slip away entirely.”

“I just need to find the brink, Cuinn.”

“Aye,” he said sadly. He didn’t protest what I endeavored to do. He didn’t need to for me to know that he, like the others, wasn’t fond of my decision.

It was touching, how much they cared about me, even more so that they were willing to set their own feelings aside to allow me to do what needed to be done if we were to save Renata.

Strangely, I was calmer than I had anticipated, much more at peace with myself than I should have been given the circumstances. I tried to focus on letting go of all of my thoughts. Morina had said that I had to make myself an empty vessel and whether that was in reference to the bloodletting or my state of mind, I wasn’t sure, but I thought it best to be cautious.

Iliaria carefully took my hand between her slender fingers. She raised my wrist upward and pressed the tip of the curled blade over Morina’s name buried in the startling vines of her mark.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

She drew the blade lightly down my wrist, applying more pressure toward the middle of the cut. The claw-like tip parted my skin in a stinging song of pain. It sent a blaze of heat burning and twitching up the entire length of my arm, and I hissed at the rush of it, but when I tried to pull away out of reflex, Iliaria held tightly and raised my wrist to her mouth. It took me a moment to realize what she was doing.

“Why?”

She bent her head, her glossy hair tucked behind her small ear, revealing the perfect line of her neck and the pulse beating there. “I’ll not have you bleeding all over the place. The others will smell it.” She sealed her lips over the cut and drank my blood, her throat working as she swallowed. Her lips against my skin sent a line pulsing to my groin, and I tried to ignore the pull of her body. But it was hard to ignore her mouth on me, hard to ignore the way my blood seemed to flow more quickly as her tongue caressed the wound.

Her mouth continued to work at the wound, and I shut my eyes. The sound of my heartbeat pounded in my ears like roaring waters in my head. After some time, the beat slowed. Longer intervals passed between the beats, signifying how much of my blood she was taking.

Though I tried not to think, I couldn’t help it. I remembered when Renata had given me the kiss of death. I hadn’t been frightened at the sharp prick of her fangs or by her draining the life from me. I wasn’t frightened now. My body felt heavy and my mind began to feel weightless as my lashes fluttered and my vision went out of focus. I had surrendered then, to Renata’s kiss, as I now surrendered to Iliaria’s.

I began to feel even more light-headed and then dizzy, and knew I was close. I forced myself to open my heavy lids, forced myself to watch Iliaria, to make her my anchor before the darkness came rushing in.

The edges of my vision were speckled with black stars. When I felt myself slip, losing my grip on the reality around me, I reached out with my thoughts. I thought of the angel’s name, thought it until it was emblazoned like a beacon in my mind.

Azrael!

I felt his name on the tip of my tongue, threatening to break free of my lips, clenched just behind my teeth. The darkness at the corners of my vision exploded, and the last thing I felt of the world around me was my body falling into weightlessness and Azrael’s embrace.

*

I didn’t know where I was. I felt strange. My head ached beyond belief, sending a cutting pain through the side of my skull. The room around me was dark, and I pulled the blankets up as if in a fog. I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t remember. I knew there was something I was supposed to remember. It seemed as though there was, but I looked inside myself and couldn’t find it.

“Piph?” I recognized the voice, or at least a part of me seemed to know I should have recognized it, but why couldn’t I recall the name that went along with it?

An orange glow bled to life in the darkness. It was bright and I shielded my eyes with a hand.

“It’s me, Piph,” the orange figure said while it came closer and closer to me. “Cuinn.”

“Cuinn?” As soon as I spoke his name, my recollections kicked in. Memories of him came flooding back, and with them, Iliaria, Vasco, Emilio…

They came so hard and fast I bolted out of the bed, hitting the nightstand and sending an unlit lamp on top of it wobbling.

A door opened, spilling even more brightness into the room. Someone gripped me by the shoulders and began guiding me back toward the bed. My body didn’t seem to want to work. As soon as my feet touched the floor, I lost my balance.

“Back,” Iliaria said. “Cuinn, get back! You are hovering and crowding her. Come, Epiphany, lie back down…or sit…or something. There’s something you need to hear and it’s best if you not hear it on your feet.”

I let her steer me with her hands and sat down on the bed. The blankets felt lumpy and uncomfortable beneath me as I laid back. Why couldn’t I get comfortable?

I tried to sit up again and the room spun as if I’d had entirely too much to drink.

“What’sss wrong?” I tried to speak clearly and the words came out slurred and uncertain, my tongue as uncooperative as the rest of my body. Iliaria guided me to rest back against the pillows and still, I was uncomfortable. Something was digging into my back.

“Colombina,” Vasco’s voice flowed smooth and tranquil as he projected a sense of calm to me.

At first, I fought the touch of his magic. He laid his hand against my arm and I could barely feel it through the weight of my clothes. I was hot, hotter than I should have been. I started to panic and Vasco pushed out with his power again.

“Calm down, colombina, and we will explain. Take a deep breath,” he said.

I did.

“Now let it out.”

I shut my eyes tightly and exhaled.

“Focus on the beat of your heart, sorella, and only that.”

My heart was beating rapidly. I forced myself to take the breaths that he had told me to, making them longer and deeper. My heart rate began to slow as I controlled my breathing.

“What do you remember of the night you sought Azrael?”

“Iliaria,” I said. “Her mouth.”

“And?”

“Iliaria drank me,” I said slowly, as it still seemed more difficult than it should have to speak aloud. “I remember Emilio and Cuinn.”

“And?”

“I don’t know…I can’t think.”

“Vasco, just tell her,” Iliaria said with a thread of impatience.

“Am I dead?” I asked.