Courts and Cabals 2 G.S. D'Moore (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📖

We followed Lilith deeper into the spa. I assumed it was an employee’s only section because it transitioned from comfortable luxury to more industrial barebones. We passed through a kitchen of stainless steel built to feed an army of hungry socialites, and I noticed there were no windows. In a place full of vamps, it made sense to avoid their sun allergy. Eventually, we went down a set of stairs and into what looked like a black-market medical clinic.

The floor was bare concrete with plastic crates and wooden pallets pushed up against the walls. Metal rods had been bolted to the ceiling and heavy plastic tarps fell to the floor to create the impression of a room. More people than I expected were gathered at the edges of the tarps. In the center of the improvised room was a comfortable-looking hospital bed and a plethora of machines. I didn’t know what half of them did, but I knew the man sitting in the bed. It was the old guy who’d been getting his world rocked by Caroline. He was strapped down on the bed with wires and IVs attached to every major limb and muscle group.

Caroline sat on a stool next to him, her hand in his, as the vampire elder checked the machines. The red-head I’d seen earlier had her eyes on the ground and was walking around the bed muttering something under her breath. I followed her eyes and found a silver circle inlaid into the concrete. The bed sat in the center, and as the red-head spoke, I saw flashes of light; while geometric shapes and symbols sprang to life around the exterior edge.

“What are you looking at?” Dani asked.

“Don’t you see that?” I pointed at the dull glow as symbols worked their way around the circle. It sort of looked like the ring of power when you heated it up in Lord of the Rings, but these symbols and glyphs were much harsher than the smooth elvish script Tolkien created.

“See what?” Dani frowned.

“Magic,” Lilith smiled and watched me closely. “Marcella is completing the casting circle to contain and focus the energy for the turning. That’s what increases the chances of success from thirty percent to eighty percent.”

I didn’t know much about circle magic. It was used in Theurgy to perform ceremonies, but I didn’t know if elder vamps and human mages performed the same types of magic. If I had a guess, I expected each supernatural species had their own twist on the mystical energy of the universe. From what I saw from Marcella, she was speaking in a language and dialect I’d never heard of.

One of the few things I was good at before my life was turned upside down was languages. I had an ear for them. I could speak many fluently, and could converse conversationally in dozens. Using all the knowledge at my disposal, I had no idea what the fire-haired vamp was saying. It was guttural and had some Slavic inflection to it, but other than that, it might as well be gibberish to me.

“It’s a magical language known only to the elders,” Lilith listened carefully, like she knew what I was thinking. “I don’t even know what they’re saying. Despite my mother’s insistence that they teach me, the elders continue to refuse.”

“So, Marcella is an elder?” I nodded to the red-head.

“Evelyn is the elder in charge of the coven and the spa. Marcella has been here a few years and is learning quickly. She’s a rarity. She’s young, and is proving to be quite the magical virtuoso,” Lilith explained. Her tone was still too stiff and formal for everything they’d been through together.

“Sorry for being an ass,” I apologized because it felt like the right thing to do.

“No need,” she replied, still a little stiff, but I saw her shoulders relax a smidge. “Shh, it’s starting.”

Marcella had completed her circuit of the bed, and Evelyn – the old vamp – looked over the work with a nod of approval. She then placed a hand on Caroline’s shoulder. The younger vamp stood up and looked out over everyone present. There were about two dozen of us.

“Thank you all for coming,” she smiled at everyone, but gave me a little frown I didn’t blame her for. “I met Jack back during the war. I was a nurse, and he was a soldier fighting his way across Europe. This was a long time before the Revelation, but he still knew what I was.”

By the war, I inferred she meant WW2 and the Allies march across Europe. Caroline looked in her mid-twenties, not nearly a hundred. “Damn, Jack looks good for pushing triple digits,” I gave a mental whistle. She had to have been doing something to keep him looking twenty years younger than he really was.

“He still loved me,” she choked up a little as she continued, “despite all the criticism we faced.” Her eyes hardened as she stared defiantly at the room. “First, others of our kind frowned on me for marrying a mortal.”

“She’s his wife!” that was a surprise.

“Those who value our pure blood called me dirty because I chose the man I loved. Then, after the Revelation, and we came out as an inter-species couple, Jack was targeted by humans.”

I felt the level of anger rise in the room. The gathered vamps might look like ordinary people – long-lived people with preternatural strength, speed, and intelligence – but they were predators of the night who’d hunted humans for thousands of years. To have the tables turned on someone they loved was a deep blow to their psyche.

“They tried to kill him. He got fired from a job he’d worked at for thirty years, and for all those years I was his wife. It’s not easy when the one you love grows old without you. Before the Revelation, we